From its genesis in the seventh century onwards, Islam has been a major paradigm that has shaped the politico-economic life of a vast portion of the world population, nearly a quarter at present. In view of the underdeveloped or developing structures of Muslim-majority nations, it has mostly...

Institutional approaches have seen a remarkable revival in social science research within the last decades. In particular New Institutional Economics (NIE) has progressed rapidly over the last years and attracted a considerable deal of attention by social scientists in particular from the...

What role do community norms play in the diffusion and persistence of new organizational practices? We explore this question through an examination of the widespread practice of wage arrears, the late and non-payment of wages, in Russia during the 1990s. Existing research on wage arrears most...

The ongoing discussion of U.S.-Japanese trade relations suggests that national differences such as in the institutional environment may be relevant for assessing international trade policies. However, economic trade theory often assumes countries to be organized around common notions of complete...

The ongoing discussion of U.S.-Japanese trade relations suggests that national differences such as in the institutional environment may be relevant for assessing international trade policies. However, economic trade theory often assumes countries to be organized around common notions of complete...

The concept institution is a very important one, in economics as well as in sociology. The meaning of the concept, however, differs very much when we compare various schools of thought that dominate the debates in the two disciplines. The differences between the typical economic and the typical...

Economics and culture have usually been kept apart in academic discussion. The resulting division is damaging to economics, since important cultural questions such as the formation of preferences, the influence of ideology and the relation between the individual and society are systematically...

What do economists understand about the economy if they do not understand the profit phenomenon? Next to nothing. Therefore, the first task in theoretical economics is to clarify the difference between profit and wage income and their respective determinants. It was Ricardo who tackled the...