Dual systems theories play an important role in the conceptual foundations of behavioural economics, such as distinguishing between ‘fast' and ‘slow' responses to stimuli. After considering how behavioural economists use these dualities to legitimize policy interventions, I critically...

Thirty years ago, the eminent sinologist James Watson published a paper on ‘common pot' dining in the New Territories of Hong Kong, a banquet ritual that differs fundamentally from established social norms in Chinese society. We explore the recent career of the ‘common pot' in neighbouring...

Performativity is grounded in a particular kind of social mechanisms that involve semiotic causation. I combine three different literatures, on performativity, on constitutive explanations in the social sciences, and on Peircian semiotics into a conceptual and methodological framework that can...

This chapter proposes a geocentric turn in economics that aims at radically transforming the performative functions of economics in contemporary capitalism: Inspired by an expression of John Stuart Mill, I outline the idea of the Earth as a ‘community of advantage’. The argument proceeds in...

Especially after the Asian crisis, the conviction gained stronger acceptance that convergence of economic performance would also require convergence of economic institutions to some "institutional best practice". This paper challenges this view by distinguishing different paradigms of analyzing...

The concept of path-dependence is applied on the Chinese transition to the market economy, bearing the questions in mind, firstly, whether in China a new model of "market socialism" is emerging, and secondly, whether China is a successful case of gradualism as opposed to "big bang" transition. I...

Adopting a critical stance towards North's recent theory of institutional change and economic performance, the paper proposes a concept of global efficiency which encompasses not only standard allocative efficiency, but also the efficiency of political institutions in competition among groups. A...

French regulation theory and German theory of order are nationally specific forms of institutional economics with independent research traditions and partly a particular conceptual framework. However, because of the different roots, especially with relation to Marxism, these theories coexist...

In many respects, the specifically Chinese way of transition from the planned to the market economy contradicts conventional wisdom of economics. This paper proposes an institutionalist explanation of the seeming paradox, which starts out from the structural diversity of the Chinese economy and...

Although power is an ubiquitous phenonomen in human societies, the analytical concept of power remains marginal in economics. In this paper I consider a possible radical reorientation of economics which starts out from the methodological premise that economics, the social sciences in general and...