O．E．威廉姆森学术思想发展的三个阶段

2009年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者O．E．威廉姆森的学术思想经历了三个发展阶段：早期侧重于企业行为与市场管制；巅峰时期研究交易成本和企业边界；晚年集中于公司治理和管理。威廉姆森的研究深受赫伯特．西蒙的影响，将经济学、管理学、法学、心理学、政治学等结合起来，从跨学科的视角研究真实世界里的企业，对经济发展和社会科学研究产生了广泛而深远的影响。     

Methodological interactionism: Theory and application to the firm and to the building of trust

Recent insights from the “embodied cognition” perspective in cognitive science, supported by neural research, provide a basis for a “methodological interactionism” that transcends both the methodological individualism of economics and the methodological collectivism of (some) sociology and is consistent with insights from social psychology. It connects with a Mengerian exchange perspective and Hayekian view of dispersed knowledge from Austrian economics. It provides a basis for a new, unified social science that integrates elements from economics, sociology, social psychology, and cognitive science. This paper discusses the roots of this perspective, in theory of cognition and meaning, and illustrates its application in a summary of a social–cognitive theory of the firm and an analysis of processes by which trust is built up and broken down.     

A.S.E. events

We are experiencing a situation of increasing criticism of the state in which economics is being represented nowadays. One of the remarks is that economics has become too formalized and too abstract and that the state of discipline has become increasingly unable to express many phenomena of “real life” with its concrete socioeconomic specifica. Criticism has found a way to get cumulated in different terms of economic pluralism. The claim for fostering interdisciplinary research which we also find nowadays reflects the diagnosis that our islands of shared knowledge have become too fragmented. When reflecting what is going on in recent times a view back to the end of the nineteenth century may help to contextualize recent debate. Looking at the debate between Carl Menger and Gustav Schmoller which was later classified as the first battles in social sciences helps to sort up arguments which are still on the agenda, inductive versus deductive methods or empirism versus abstract theorizing.     

Inside Institutions of Progressive-Era Social Sciences: The Interdisciplinarity of Economics and Sociology

In the Progressive Era, sociology and institutional economics shared some important methodological principles and theoretical constructs. This study explores some of these similarities, focusing on the ideas and theories of Albion Small and Franklin Giddings, who were the most important sociologists in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Since the literature on the history of the interdisciplinarity of economics and sociology is somewhat scarce, this study aims to contribute to this historiography by considering the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of early institutional economics — mainly from the standpoint of Veblenian institutional economics.     

What If There Are No Conventional Price Mechanisms?

Inspired by Frederic (“Fred”) S. Lee’s theoretical contribution to institutional-heterodox economics, I make the case that the neoclassical price mechanism is not only flawed, but also irrelevant for the study of actual coordination mechanisms, hence the price mechanism — as a theory as well as a way of thinking — should be discarded. While this position was addressed by early institutionalists, starting with Thorstein Veblen, later institutionalists have not completely rejected the price mechanism. The sympathy for the price mechanism has prevented institutionalists (and other heterodox economists) from fully developing an alternative theoretical framework concerning how actual economic activities are organized. I, therefore, provide an institutionalist-heterodox framework of the provisioning process focusing on business enterprise activities. This framework shows how institutional economics becomes more refined and useful when it is married to other traditions in heterodox economics, in particular, Marxian, social, and post-Keynesian economics. Such an integrative approach is what Fred Lee showed through his work toward producing a better theory and policy for the underlying population.     

Economics,Sociology, History: Notes on Their Loss of Unity,Their Need for Re-integration and the Current Relevance of the Controversy between Carl Menger and Gustav Schmoller

We are experiencing a situation of increasing criticism of the state in which economics is being represented nowadays. One of the remarks is that economics has become too formalized and too abstract and that the state of discipline has become increasingly unable to express many phenomena of “real life” with its concrete socioeconomic specifica. Criticism has found a way to get cumulated in different terms of economic pluralism. The claim for fostering interdisciplinary research which we also find nowadays reflects the diagnosis that our islands of shared knowledge have become too fragmented. When reflecting what is going on in recent times a view back to the end of the nineteenth century may help to contextualize recent debate. Looking at the debate between Carl Menger and Gustav Schmoller which was later classified as the first battles in social sciences helps to sort up arguments which are still on the agenda, inductive versus deductive methods or empirism versus abstract theorizing.     

TWO OR THREE PROBLEMS CONCERNING SOCIAL STABILITY AND OUR MEASURES OF WELFARE: WHAT CAN ECONOMISTS LEARN FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES?*

This paper takes up several problems that are related to psychology, political science and ethics—disciplines that we regard as neighbours on the boundaries of economics. I pay particular attention to such topics as mass psychology and social stability, democracy and economic performance and the notions of wellbeing and happiness. After laying out some of the history of academic discourse on these problems and notions, I reconsider the nature of discrepancy between microlevel motivations and macrolevel phenomena, trade‐offs between equality and liberty and the problem of measurement of social welfare and “happiness” from the perspective of “dissociation of intention and consequence”.     

“双一流”建设与经济学发展的中国贡献?

作为社会科学的“皇冠”,经济学的学科建设在中国“双一流”建设中,尤其在世界一流学科建设中具有重要意义,也将对中国全面深化改革以实现国家治理现代化提供重要的现实指导。文章首先分析了世界一流经济学科建设之于“双一流”战略导向的契合度,然后探讨了中国的世界一流经济学科建设所面临的难点及其突破点,进而阐述了中国可从哪些方面为经济学的发展和创新做出贡献。研究认为,打造中国的世界一流经济学科需要按照国际同行学术标准进行评价,所研究的问题(包括中国问题)应该是国际同行关注的问题,从而需要从完善学科分类评价体系、加强原创性研究和高层次人才集聚等方面加以突破。与此同时,针对经济学在中国的发展和创新,研究指出,对于中国传统经济思想的历史禀赋和现代价值的挖掘、具有原创性的理论研究和方法论研究创新以及基于中国经济改革发展实践的理论提炼升华,是中国经济学界可以且应该做出重要贡献的三个方向。     

The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920

Clarence Ayres wished to avoid moral relativism or agnosticism in the social sciences, yet he also rejected what he called the “transcendental” epistemology of classical philosophy, an epistemology grounded in the desire to know absolute or ultimate truths. He wanted to find a middle ground between absolutism and relativism by separating “technology” from “ceremony,” and by replacing the ends/means dichotomy with an ends/means continuum. This paper examines his articulation of the issues, and in this context also examines the work of two more recent theorists, Gary Becker and Richard Posner. We conclude that Ayres' epistemological middle ground remains elusive.     

Socioeconomics and the new “battle of the methods”: Towards a paradigm shift?

During the last ten or fifteen years the old separation between economics and other social sciences has increasingly been challenged by economists applying the neoclassical paradigm to problems that traditionally concern the other social sciences. The main thesis of this paper is that this so-called “economic imperialism” threatens to unleash a new paradigmatic struggle in the social sciences, which is likely to be just as destructive as the old Methodenstreit. It is in this situation that socioeconomics emerges as a viable alternative since it emphasizes the need for a systhesis of the findings of several social sciences when an economic problem is analyzed. The article stresses the original battle of the methods at the turn of the century that gave birth to a set of ideas, analogous to those of Etzioni on socioeconomics, namely what Max Weber called Sozialökonomik. The emergence of “economic imperialism” is described, and the essay ends with a plea for a socioeconomics in the sense of a broad, overarching approach to economic analysis. Economic imperialism, it is concluded, threatens to close the door to new developments in economics; socioeconomics, on the other hand, tries to keep it open.     

Social Economics and Evolutionary Institutionalism Today

This paper discusses theoretical and methodological elements that constitute social economics. It also considers those elements for evolutionary (Veblenian) institutional economics. It investigates how these “heterodoxies” may further converge. Such convergence would probably not trigger a complete unification, but lead to a broadly defined common research program and a strategy for joint “heterodox” survival, in face of the ranking game of the neoclassical “mainstream” and of the dominant powers supporting it as the discipline providing ideological legitimization. A common denominator of “heterodoxies” in terms of real-world orientation, direct interdependency and interaction of agents (social decision situations), appropriate complexity, and the treatment of values is drafted. Theoretical concepts discussed include complex and open systems, individual agency, institutions, embeddedness, networks, social reform, and process orientation. Formal methodological developments considered are complex modeling, game theory, or computer simulations. We arrive at a more formal common basis, which we term socio-economics. We also consider the relations of evolution and institutions, the institutional dichotomy, and the theory of institutional change. The monism of the “market” of the “mainstream” turns out to dissolve into the institutional diversity of real-world network forms, which helps explaining real-world forms of markets, hierarchies, or spatial clusters. Focuses of “heterodox” convergence will have to be the related “microfoundations” and “macrofoundations” projects, integrating an interdisciplinary “naturalistic” approach to genetic-cultural co-evolution of cooperation, and social reform. While modern socio-economics makes “heterodoxies” leading in economic research, their future still appears open between ideological cleansing and extinction through the mainstream, and proactive paradigmatic pluralism.     

An Institutional Explanation for Economists’ Theoretical and Methodological Choices

Scientific research in general and economics research in particular is a social act. More specifically, schools of economic thought as well as associations, research groups and conferences are expressions of social organizations within the realm of economics. Historically, studies investigating the methodologies used in economics have focused on the strengths of these social organizations. This study aims to analyze the key roles played by individuals within social organizations in building and reinforcing economics and, in turn, their influence on these individuals. To achieve this goal, we use an institutionalist approach in a broad sense. We show how economics as an academic environment can be presented as an institutional entanglement and how an institutionalist approach can enhance an understanding of why economists adopt a particular theoretical and methodological perspective. It is argued that habits, observations and cognitive abilities should be seriously considered to understand the logic and decision making of economic researchers. We discuss also the importance of forming groups in the process of institutionalizing elements relevant to an economic researcher’s logic and decision making and present an interpretation of mainstream economics in terms of the analytical approach of our study.     

Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics

ABSTRACT

Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdrop, a debate is emerging about how network analysis can help address questions that are pertinent to the history of economics. With this paper, we want to push this debate one step forward by offering and discussing five reasons why network analysis should have a future in the history of economics.     

Kapitalizm: Russia’s Struggle to Free Its Economy

Contrary to the situation prevailing in most of Europe and North America, Brazilian economics can be justly described as pluralist, an outcome frequently ascribed to the role played by the Brazilian economics association (ANPEC) as conflict mediator. A crucial episode took place in the early 1970s, when ANPEC chose to welcome the filiation of the heterodox program at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) against threats of withdrawal from one of its most prestigious members, the Getúlio Vargas Foundation. After characterizing the nature of pluralism in current Brazilian economics, the article uncovers the process that led ANPEC to adopt a “pluralist” attitude, and how this related to the Brazilian political context from the 1970s. The outcome was significantly influenced by the actions of other institutions involved in Brazilian economics at the time, notably the Ford Foundation and the team of Vanderbilt University economists working in Brazil under a USAID contract. Choices made within a delicate political context opened the door to the institutionalization of theoretical plurality as a stable feature of the scholarly community of Brazilian economists.     

Planning and Urban Growth: An Anglo-American Comparison

Understanding the complexity of institutional change is a necessary step in gaining deeper knowledge of economic performance over time, and it is one of the main challenges in the research agenda of institutionalism. Institutional change can be studied using a variety of theoretical approaches. We study some of the main approaches to institutional change in original economic institutionalism and new institutional economics. First, after comparing the approaches of Émile Durkheim and Thorstein Veblen, we focus on the contributions of the instrumental value theory and other original institutional traditions in the study of institutional change. Second, new institutional economics improved on the weak points of rational choice institutionalism regarding institutional change and incorporated the “institutions-as-rules” approach (Douglass North) and the “institutions-as-equilibria” approach (Avner Greif, Masahiko Aoki). We analyze both approaches to institutional change. Furthermore, we present an updated nonintegral overview of approaches to institutional change, show several interconnections between original and new institutionalisms, and conclude that the dialogue between the different theories of institutional change is relevant and beneficial.     

The citation field of evolutionary economics

Evolutionary economics has developed into an academic field of its own, institutionalized around, amongst others, the Journal of Evolutionary Economics (JEE). This paper analyzes the way and extent to which evolutionary economics has become an interdisciplinary journal, as its aim was: a journal that is indispensable in the exchange of expert knowledge on topics and using approaches that relate naturally with it. Analyzing citation data for the relevant academic field for the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, we use insights from scientometrics and social network analysis to find that, indeed, the JEE is a central player in this interdisciplinary field aiming mostly at understanding technological and regional dynamics. It does not, however, link firmly with the natural sciences (including biology) nor to management sciences, entrepreneurship, and organization studies. Another journal that could be perceived to have evolutionary acumen, the Journal of Economic Issues, does relate to heterodox economics journals and is relatively more involved in discussing issues of firm and industry organization. The JEE seems most keen to develop theoretical insights.     

Contemporary Capitalism as a New Monetary Economy of Production: The Logic of Conventions,M&A,and LBOs

Social interaction models, i.e. the changing sequence of actions between individuals who modify their behavior under the influence of their peers, have rarely enjoyed as high a profile in economic analysis as they do today. However, the literature growth has not been accompanied by a process of academic consolidation. The difficulties encountered in research are largely but not entirely the result of data constraints. The main argument of this article is that the source of problems may be traceable to the lack of a complementary approach between economics and other disciplines. The difficulties presented by the deficit in academic exchange among social scientists are compounded by the current analytical framework, which still concentrates on the fundamental, but mutually exclusive, traditions of thought: homo oeconomicus and homo sociologicus. In spotlighting these ideas, this article reviews the economic body of literature on social interactions and their effect on individual unemployment status. Two directions in current research are analyzed: the impact of social (work) norms on unemployment and the role of social networks in the job search process. The theoretical and methodological challenges encountered in research suggest that the future of social interactions models might be found at the crossroads of economics and other social sciences.     

The Economics of Social Interactions: An Interdisciplinary Ground for Social Scientists?

Social interaction models, i.e. the changing sequence of actions between individuals who modify their behavior under the influence of their peers, have rarely enjoyed as high a profile in economic analysis as they do today. However, the literature growth has not been accompanied by a process of academic consolidation. The difficulties encountered in research are largely but not entirely the result of data constraints. The main argument of this article is that the source of problems may be traceable to the lack of a complementary approach between economics and other disciplines. The difficulties presented by the deficit in academic exchange among social scientists are compounded by the current analytical framework, which still concentrates on the fundamental, but mutually exclusive, traditions of thought: homo oeconomicus and homo sociologicus. In spotlighting these ideas, this article reviews the economic body of literature on social interactions and their effect on individual unemployment status. Two directions in current research are analyzed: the impact of social (work) norms on unemployment and the role of social networks in the job search process. The theoretical and methodological challenges encountered in research suggest that the future of social interactions models might be found at the crossroads of economics and other social sciences.     

Killing for Money and the Economic Theory of Crime

There is a large literature on the economics of crime and punishment, yet surprisingly little attention is paid to the receipt of money for crime. “Contract killing” is surprisingly neglected not only by economists but also by social scientists in general. In this paper, I look at the case not of professional gangster “hitmen” but of individuals who have found themselves in a position where they wish to have a killing carried out. This discussion does not condone the practice any more than an economic analysis of suicide is an inducement to individuals to kill themselves. To the lay reader, the cases where an individual feels the need to pay for killing may seem to be such that rationality is not a likely form of behaviour. However, the economics of crime has adopted the use of the rationality postulate as a heuristic for all types of crime.