Abstract
Hayek belongs to a long tradition of social scientists who saw themselves as contributing to the “invisible hand theorizing” of Adam Smith. In this, he was influenced by other Austrian economists, particularly Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises. Menger was the first economist to develop an evolutionary theory of institutional formation, which he used to make sense of the emergence of money. Mises extended Menger’s argument on money and elaborated the methodological foundations of the study of institutions. In turn, Hayek himself influenced the development of a new, genuine institutional economics during the emergence of the law and economics approach pioneered by Aaron Director, Ronald Coase, and Bruno Leoni in the second half of the twentieth century.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Great Enrichment refers here to increase in income per capita by a factor of 40 to 100 that began first in northwestern Europe around 1800. See McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues (2006), Bourgeois Dignity (2010), and Bourgeois Equality (2016).
- 2.
See Francis Bator (1957, 31), where he states that the theorems of welfare economics are “antiseptically independent of institutional context.” Furthermore, he argues that the optimality conditions are “technocratic” and that the theorist seeks to avoid any “institutional overtones,” Bator is in the intellectual line of economic thinking that developed from Lange -Lerner , to Samuelson-Bergson, and eventually to Arrow-Hahn -Debreu. The flip side to this evolution was the rebirth of classical political economy and the rise of neoclassical institutionalism between 1950 and 2000 that we are highlighting.
- 3.
Barry Weingast (2016) recently identified what he dubbed the “neoclassical fallacy.” First, the standard economists treats the institutional framework as given and fixed for analysis, and thus eventually forgets the central role in the analysis and assessment of alternative economic systems that institutions must play. Second, upon realizing this intellectual error, the standard economist will acknowledge the importance of institutions, but remain silent on the analysis of the working mechanisms of those institutions for their maintenance, stability, and/or fragility. In our narrative, exposing and correcting the “neoclassical fallacy” is one way to think about the Austrian-inspired law and economics revolution in the second half of the twentieth century.
- 4.
On the reform mentality of the Old Institutionalist thinkers, see Thomas Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers (2016).
Bibliography
Bator, Francis M. 1957. The Simple Analytics of Welfare Maximization. The American Economic Review 47 (1): 22–59.
Boettke, Peter J. 1998. Economic Calculation: The Austrian Contribution to Political Economy. Advances in Austrian Economics 5: 131–158.
Buchanan, James M. [1968] 1999. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods. In The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan Volume 5. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
———. 1977. Freedom in Constitutional Contract. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
———. 1986a. Cultural Evolution and Institutional Reform. In Liberty, Market and State: Political Economy in the 1980s, ed. James M. Buchanan. New York: New York University Press.
———. 1986b. Order Defined in the Process of Its Emergence. In Liberty, Market and State: Political Economy in the 1980s, ed. James M. Buchanan. New York: New York University Press.
———. [1996] 2001. Adam Smith as Inspiration. In The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Volume 19: Ideas, Persons, and Events. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock. 1962. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Caldwell, Bruce J. 2004. Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Coase, Ronald H. 1959. The Federal Communications Commission. Journal of Law and Economics 2: 1–40.
———. 1960. The Problem of Social Cost. Journal of Law and Economics 3: 1–44.
Dekker, Erwin. 2016. The Viennese Students of Civilization: The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gray, John. 1986. Hayek on Liberty. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Hayek, F.A. 1933. The Trend of Economic Thinking. Economica 40: 121–137.
———. [1937] 1948. Economics and Knowledge. In Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, chapter 2.
———. 1939. Freedom and Economic System. Public Policy Pamphlet (29): iv–38.
———. 1943. The Facts of the Social Sciences. Ethics 54 (1): 1–13.
———. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1945. The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review 35 (4): 519–530.
———. [1948] 1980. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. [1952] 1979. The Counter-Revolution of Science, 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
———. 1955. Degrees of Explanation. The British Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (23): 209–225.
———. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1973. Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Vol.1: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1976. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1978. New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and the History of Ideas. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
———. 1979. Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Vol. 3: The Political Order of a Free People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1983. Knowledge, Evolution and Society. London: Adam Smith Institute.
———. 1988. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek W. W. Bartley, III (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hume, David. [1739] 2000. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kirzner, Israel M. 1987. Spontaneous Order and the Case for the Free Market. In Ideas on Liberty: Essays in Honor of Paul L. Poirot, 45–50. Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education.
Knight, Frank. 1932. The Newer Economics and the Control of Economic Activity. Journal of Political Economy 40 (4): 433–476.
———. 1938. Lippmann’s The Good Society. Journal of Political Economy 46 (6): 864–872.
Leeson, Peter T. 2014. Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leonard, Thomas C. 2016. Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Leoni, Bruno. [1961] 1972. Freedom and the Law. Los Angeles: Nash Publishing Company.
Masala, Antonio. 2003. Il Liberalismo di Bruno Leoni. Milan: Rubbettino.
McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. 2006. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce. Chicago: University Press.
———. 2010. Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World. Chicago: University Chicago Press.
———. 2016. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions Enriched the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Menger, Carl. [1871] 1981. Principles of Economics. New York: New York University Press.
———. [1883] 1996. Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Mises, Ludwig von. [1920] 1935. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth. In Collectivist Economic Planning, ed. F.A. Hayek, trans. S. Alder, 87–130. London: Routledge.
———. [1922] 1951. Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. [1949] 1966. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, 3rd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. [1956] 2006. The Anti-Capitalist Mentality. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
———. 1978. On the Manipulation of Money and Credit: Three Treatises on Trade-Cycle Theory. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Rajan, Raghuram. 2004. Assume Anarchy? Why An Unorthodox Economic Model May Not Be the Best Guide For Policy. Finance and Development 41 (3): 56–57.
Smith, Adam. [1759] 1984. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
———. [1776] 2014. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: Edwin Cannan, ed. 1904. Available online from Library of Economics and Liberty.
———. [1795] 1982. Essays on Philosophical Subjects with Dugald Stewart’s Account of Adam Smith. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Steele, David Ramsay. 1987. Hayek’s Theory of Cultural Group Selection. Journal of Libertarian Studies 8 (2): 171–195.
Van Horn, Robert. 2013. Hayek’s Unacknowledged Discipline: An Exploration of the Political and Intellectual Relationship of F. A. Hayek and Aaron Director (1945–1950). Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35 (3): 271–290.
Vanberg, Viktor. 1986. Spontaneous Market Order and Social Rules: A Critical Examination of FA Hayek’s Theory of Cultural Evolution. Economics & Philosophy 2 (1): 75–100.
Weingast, Barry. 2016. Exposing the Neoclassical Fallacy: McCloskey on Ideas and the Great Enrichment. Scandinavian Economic History Review 64 (3): 189–201.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boettke, P.J. (2018). A Genuine Institutional Economics. In: F. A. Hayek. Great Thinkers in Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41160-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41160-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-41159-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41160-0
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)