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China Fever is now available at Amazon.com

 

 

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Institutional Economics Center is an independent research organization that uses methodologies in micro and institutional economics to study business, economic, social, political, legal, and cultural dynamics. Its goal is to understand how institutions and rules shape human behavior and to promote findings from research for peaceful social and cultural development.

Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of formal institutions and informal rules in shaping human behavior. The most fundamental beliefs are: "Institutional Economics is the Economics that is supposed to be" and "Only institution matters in shaping human behavior". The methodologies used in institutional analysis are from neoclassical and "post-neoclassical" economics. They include: bounded rationality, constrained maximization, broadly-conceived self-interest, cost-benefit-stake-risk analysis, marginal-substitution-opportunity-sunken-transaction cost analysis, externality-hidden information-frame effect-lock in effect analysis, and relational-subjective individualism.  
 

Although Thorstein Veblen, Wesley Mitchell, and John Commons are often recognized as institutionalists (may also include Karl Marx, Robert Frank, Warren Samuels, Mark Tool, John Galbraith, and Geoffrey Hodgson), true institutional economists are those who employ methodologies with micro-orientations. Research areas and academic leaders include:

Political: James Buchanan, Anthony Downs, Gorden Tullock, Mancur Olson
Legal: Richard Posner
Social: Gary Becker
Historical: Douglass North

Cultural: Robert Putnam
Economic: Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson , Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz
International: Robert Keohane
Developmental: Robert Bates, George Tsebelis, Barbara Geddes
Game-theoretic: John Nash, Reinhardt Selten, John Harsanyi, Robert J. Aumann, and Thomas C. Schelling
Philosophical: Carl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lacatos, Wieland Feierabend, Alibris Shapere, Larry Laudan

In "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead" (2000), Oliver Williamson divides the analysis within the institutional frameworks into several levels (also refer to Wikipedia). See Contributors for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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