Breaking the mould: an institutionalist political economy alternative to the neo-liberal theory of the market and the state

The paper criticises the currently dominant neo-liberal discourseon the role of the state and proposes an alternative approachthat will allow us to overcome its shortcomings, especiallyits inadequate analyses of the role of institutions and politics.It argues that the central problem with the neo-liberal frameworklies not in its excessively anti-interventionist policy conclusions,as some of its critics believe, but in the very ways it envisagesthe modus operandi of the market, the state, institutions andtheir interrelationships. The paper then discusses how we mayconstruct the alternative approach of ‘institutionalistpolitical economy’.     

Index Volume VIII – 1974

This article, written in the first days of the Bush Administration, is part of what will no doubt be a flood of “end of term” assessments of the Reagan era. Much of this work, naturally enough, will be concerned with evaluating the economic record of that administration and discussing the economic legacy inherited by George Bush. This article, however, is a rather different endeavor; it is an attempt by two observers from across the Atlantic to explain the triumph in the United States of supply-side ideas.     

Human resource management and performance: lessons from the Netherlands

The relationship between HRM and firm performance has been a hotly debated topic over the last decade, with the great bulk of the primary scientific research coming from the USA and, to a lesser extent, the UK. We start with an overview of this research to give a frame of reference to compare the findings from the Netherlands. By comparing the results of research in the Netherlands with those in the USA and the UK we hope to reveal the secret of achieving 'competitive advantage through people' (Pfeffer, 1994) in the Netherlands. The comparison may further allow us to supplement resource-based approaches with a more institutional perspective.     

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.     

An Institutionalist Vision of a Good Economy

The current crisis in global capitalism and the wide-ranging problems that have been caused by the promulgation of a regime of deregulation of goods, services, and labor markets across the globe, but especially in the United States over the past thirty years, may indeed prove to be the end of the neoliberal era. Thus it is an opportune time to reconsider how the global economy could be restructured along more equitable and progressive lines. This paper will present the institutionalist vision of just such a good economy, building on the ideas of Veblen, Ayres, Commons, and Galbraith. The institutionalist vision of a good economy is productive but also non-invidious, democratic but also pragmatic, egalitarian but also efficient. The good economy must therefore be embedded in key social institutions, and be regulated appropriately to preserve the most beneficial social and cultural institutions. The good economy must, furthermore, be a full-employment economy, with jobs available to all who are capable of making productive contributions to their society and to enable those who labor to work in decent conditions. Finally, the good economy must provision all its members with the necessary means of subsistence for them to achieve their human aims.     

A Nightmare in Introductory Economics

In a pair of 1925 lectures, John Maynard Keynes described world economic history with reference to a classification of stages developed by John R. Commons. This article examines Keynes’s two 1925 lectures in the context of Commons’s writings. It spotlights lesser-known aspects of Commons’s scholarship and helps clarify ambiguities in Keynes’s two addresses. It also identifies a key document, written by Commons, upon which Keynes relied when developing his presentations. In addition, the article explains how the work of Commons and Keynes in the 1920s has relevance for the contemporary development of evolutionary Keynesianism (which can also be called Post-Keynesian Institutionalism).