I propose to treat the distinction between systems of rules and social orders made by Hayek in the context of cultural evolution as similar to the biological distinction between genotype and phenotype. This methodological choice allows one to answer two fundamental questions: the place of group...

The Hirschman-Williamson controversy deals with the voice's relevancy to economic analysis of organisation. Hirschman (1970) argues that voice is important to recover efficiency. Williamson (1974) downsizes this result, and emphasises importance of hierarchy. This paper shows that Williamson's...

Over the past two centuries, the process of emergence of the institutional approach in political economy has seen an opposition between two conceptions of the relation existing to between economy and institution. From its foundation until today, orthodox liberal economics has tried to reduce the...

In this paper, we put forward a neglected aspect of Schumpeter's political thought: the cognitive dimension. This one fOWlds both the criticism of the democratic ideal and the construction of an alternative theory of democracy. Insisting on a wider concept of rationality and on the importance of...

Are institutionalism and structuralism compatible or do they confront each other? This article suggests an answer to this question, starting from an analysis of the structuration of these two paradigmatic fields of social sciences. It observes the existence in economics of both structuralist...

Institutionalism uses the notion of institution according to large and static definitions of the modem authors. Until the semantic revolution of the eighteenth century, institution is, on the contrary, a rare word, used in restricly and dynamic meaning. In early modem societies, status and...

Commons sketches an institutionalist theory of property based on debt, that is a potential of expected income, and the vector of which is the monetary system. His monetary theory of the credit cycle inspires from Wicksell and Fisher’s debt-deflation theory, rather than from Fisher’s quantity...

This paper aims at considering money, not as a simple aspect, but as the logical starting point of the whole schumpeterian research project: grasping the complex phenomena underlying a capitalist economy. Schumpeter’s monetary theory is based on the concept of social accounting, providing us...

This contribution argues that Menger’s Grundsätze ground economic subjectivism in cognitive features. It elaborates on need-satisfaction in relation with the use value of goods. It details the various forms raised for utility in Menger’s texts and distinguishes between both Grundsätze...

In 1933, Knight launched a violent attack against the Austrian theory of capital. Beyond an apparent opposition on the average period of production, the conflict concerns more profoundly the capacity of the Austrian theory to ground a general theory of production and to build on a dynamic...