Is Game theory a part of economic institutionalism ?

Questioning about game theory as an institutionalism theory could seem unsound at first glance. In game theory, the very basic concept of players’ strategies is quite individualistic and really independent on any social constraint and other institutional consideration. On another hand, the rules of the games are given from outside, as well as payers’ preferences. We demonstrate that these arguments however are not quite convincing. The right question is not to wonder if the theory of games really takes into accounts the institutions in its formal approach of the social activities, but rather to understand how such a dimension is investigated in the game theoretical format and why it has been often neglected in the dominant corpus of the theory. The purpose of the inquiry is to propose an answer to those questions. In a first part, we capture the basic ingredients of this construction, through a re-visitation of Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s seminal contribution. A second part shows the difficulties and the weaknesses of Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s initial formulation for a fruitful treatment of the institutions. A third part suggests an alternative approach of the institutions. Thanks to a new interpretation of the rules of the games derived from the players’ beliefs and their mental perception of the other players, social codes emerge to be considered as foundations for the institutions.