This article explores Douglass North’s intellectual development as a political economist and an interdisciplinary researcher. Although he was an important figure during the cliometrics revolution, he later grew dissatisfied with the approach and went on to study institutions, helping to...

Douglass North gehört zu den führenden Sozialwissenschaftlern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Er wurde für seine bahnbrechenden Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der ökonomischen Geschichtstheorie mit dem Nobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Dieser Aufsatz rekonstruiert (a) seine kliometrische Diagnose der Moderne, (b)...

Is economics a science or a theology? Nelson sensibly argues that economists are a priestly class; they issue authoritative (scientific) blessings upon the marketplace. The bishops of this class are the mathematicians, who convert ideology into science. This essay, in contrast, argues that...

Is economics a science or a theology? Nelson sensibly argues that economists are a priestly class; they issue authoritative (scientific) blessings upon the marketplace. The bishops of this class are the mathematicians, who convert ideology into science. This essay, in contrast, argues that...

I argue that economists have reasons internal to the way that evidence works in the sciences to re-discover the importance of the history of their own discipline. For it is a constitutive element of science - here conceived as an ongoing research practice (as opposed to as an explanatory...

This article reviews an English translation of "First Principles of Islamic Economics" (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 2011) by Maulana Sayyid Abu'l A‘la Maududi (1903-1979), a foundational document of the field, that was published in Urdu in 1969. After a brief Introduction the selections in...

This chapter first considers resistance to the use of theoretical models, examining tensions between the goals and methodologies of historians and economists who investigate differences in law over time (legal history) or between jurisdictions (comparative law). It then proceeds to define the...

We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. This renders the degree of tax...

We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. This renders the degree of tax...