Institutional Economics: Its Influence and Prospects

Abstract . The influence of institutional economics is determined more by the contributions of outstanding mainstream institutionalists such a Myrdal, Colm, and Galbraith than by the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) established to advance institutionalism. This association as a collective body has a clearcut theoretical image because its membership is largely made up of advocates of a vague evolutionary economics or of a proposed but not clearly defined new general theory of institutionalism regarded as a substitute for mainstream institutionalism regarded as a substitute for mainstream institutionalism. Mainstream institutionalists from Veblen to Myrdal have constructed a well-defined theory of the evolving industrial system, a technological interpretation of this evolving system, and a logic of industrialism that points in the direction of 'indicative’ national planning. Until AFEE builds upon this theoretical work of the mainstream institutionalists it will have neither a well-defined institutionalist image nor policy proposals appropriate to the coming post-industrial society.