“The importance to economics of the study of institutions is no longer a controversial proposition, thanks in part to the scholarly literature generated by the new institutional economics movement. Institutions are more than organizations – property is an institution, but not an organization – but organizations are an important form of institution and will be the focus of my paper, as it is, to a considerable extent, of the new institutional economics.”

— Richard A. Posner

"From the new institutional economics to organization economics: with applications to corporate governance, government agencies, and legal institutions" (2010).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The importance to economics of the study of institutions is no longer a controversial proposition, thanks in part to th…" by Richard A. Posner?

Richard A. Posner photo

Richard A. Posner 11

United States federal judge 1939

Related quotes

“Social, political and economic institutions have become larger, considerably more complex and resourceful, and prima facie more important to collective life. Many of the major actors in modern economic and political systems are formal organizations, and the institutions of law and bureaucracy occupy a dominant role in contemporary life.”

James G. March (1928–2018) American sociologist

Source: Rediscovering institutions, 1989, p. 1-2

“Social, political and economic institutions have become larger, considerably more complex and resourceful, and prima facie more important to collective life. Many of the major actors in modern economic and political systems are formal organizations, and the institutions of law and bureaucracy occupy a dominant role in contemporary life.”

Johan Olsen (1939) Norwegian political scientist

James G. March and Johan Olsen, (1989) Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. p. 1-2

“Organizations compete not just for resources and customers, but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as well as economic fitness.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 150.

“Since institutional economics is behavioristic, and the behavior in question is none other than the behavior of individuals while participating in transactions, institutional economics must make an analysis of the economic behavior of individuals.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: "Institutional Economics," 1931, p. 654

“Your organization is not a praying institution. It's a fighting institution. It's an educational institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

“The use of the term institution has become widespread in the social sciences in recent years, reflecting the growth in institutional economics and the use of the institution concept in several other disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, politics, and geography. The term has a long history of usage in the social sciences, dating back at least to Giambattista Vico in his Scienza Nuova of 1725. However, even today, there is no unanimity in the definition of this concept. Furthermore, endless disputes over the definitions of key terms such as institution and organization have led some writers to give up matters of definition and to propose getting down somehow to practical matters instead. But it is not possible to carry out any empirical or theoretical analysis of how institutions or organizations work without having some adequate conception of what an institution or an organization is. This paper proposes that those that give up are acting in haste; potentially consensual definitions of these terms are possible, once we overcome a few obstacles and difficulties in the way. It is also important to avoid some biases in the study of institutions, where institutions and characteristics of a particular type are overgeneralized to the set”

Geoffrey Hodgson (1946) British economist

Source: Economics and institutions." 1988, p. 1; Abstract

“Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

The Three Sources and Three Constituent Parts of Marxism (March 1913)
1910s

“Most institutional theories see local actors – whether individuals, organizations, or national states – as affected by institutions built up in much wider environments. Individuals and organizations are affected by societal institutions, and national-states by a world society.”

John W. Meyer (1935) Sociologist and professor at Stanford University

Source: "Reflections on institutional theories of organization,." 2008, p. 790

“The difficulty in defining a field for the so-called institutional economics is the uncertainty of meaning of an institution. Sometimes an institution seems to mean a framework of laws or natural rights within which individuals act like inmates. Sometimes it seems to mean the behavior of the inmates themselves. Sometimes anything additional to or critical of the classical or hedonic economics is deemed to be institutional. Sometimes anything that is "economic behavior" is institutional. Sometimes anything that is "dynamic" instead of "static," or a "process" instead of commodities, or activity instead of feelings, or mass action instead of individual action, or management instead of equilibrium, or control instead of laissez faire, seems to be institutional economics.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: "Institutional Economics," 1931, p. 648

“What I have done is to show the importance for the working of the economic system of what may be termed the institutional structure of production.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

1990s and later, "The Institutional Structure of Production" (1992)

Related topics