Warren J. Samuels

The Elgar companion to institutional and evolutionary economics

This reference work is a comprehensive introduction to the expanding field of institutional and evolutionary economics. It includes work by a number of leading international authors who synthesize perspectives from Veblenian, Schumpeterian and new institutionalist theoretical traditions. Including biographical and subject enteries, this book brings together widely-dispersed but theoretically congruent ideas.

Interrelations between Legal and Economic Processes

THE purpose of this paper is to extend the analysis of the interrelations between legal and economic processes through an identification of certain basic legal-economic interrelationships hitherto given inadequate expression and attention. Such an identification should correct or preclude the attachment of simplistic nuances to the analysis of legal-economic processes, in part by establishing the greater complexity and intricacy of both the policies and policy-making processes involved. It should be made clear that the thrust of the paper does not depend on a broad definition of either the scope of economics or of welfare economics, however appropriate or inappropriate such a broader-than-conventional def-

A companion to the history of economic thought

ion of every human passion or motive; except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences. (Mill, 1967a,

A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures

These lectures, delivered at the London School of Economics between 1979 and 1981 and tape-recorded by Robbinss grandson, display his mastery of the intellectual history of economics and his enthusiasm for the subject. They cover a broad chronological range, beginning with Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, focusing extensively on Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and the classicals, and finishing with a discussion of moderns and marginalists from Marx to Alfred Marshall. Robbins takes a varied and inclusive approach to intellectural history and the lectures are united by his conviction that it is impossible to understand adequately contemporary institutions and social sciences without understanding the ideas behind their development.

The Legal-Economic Nexus

[I]t is, however, decisive for a realistic understanding of the phenomen [sic] of the state to recognize the importance of that group of persons in whom it assumes social form, and of those factors which gain domination over it. This explains the state’s real power and the way in which it is used and developed.1

The Coase Theorem and the Study of Law and Economics

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the Coasian analysis, primarily through an interpretation of the positive analytic meaning and significance of the so-called neutrality theorem, the probative value of its nonnative message and its place in the study of law and economics. Among other things, the chapter will show that the theorem is a very limited partial-equilibrium proposition which concentrates upon certain variables to the exclusion of others which dominate the actual operation of those included, thereby giving effect to certain variables even while seemingly abstracting from them. Thus, when all the important variables are considered, the thrust of the theorem is shown to be not only incomplete, imprecise and ambiguous, but also reversed.

Economics and language

Roger Backhouse, University of Birmingham Meriel Bloor, University of Warwick Tom Bloor, Aston University Charles Bazerman, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Vivienne Brown, Open University Tony Dudley-Evans, University of Birmingham Bill Gerrard, University of York Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, Uppsala University, Sweden Uskali Maki, United Nations University, Finland

Radical institutionalism : contemporary voices

Introduction Radical Institutionalism Radical Institutionalism and The Texas School of Economics Methodological Aspects of Radical Institutionalism Radicals and Institutionalists: Holes, Wholes and Future Directions Is Institutional Economics Existential Economics? Recent U.S. Marxist Economics in Veblenian Perspective A Research Agenda for Institutional Economics Radical Institutionalism: Conclusion Bibliographical Essay Index

Welfare Economics, Power, and Property

In an earlier paper,1 the author undertook to show that the interrelations between legal and economic (market) processes were considerably more intricate and subtle than recent literature has allowed. Overall it was suggested that voluntary market exchange is both a partial emanation or dependent variable and an independent or determining or conditioning variable so far as certain interrelations between legal and economic processes are concerned. The implicit thrust of the article was that certain concepts of welfare economics could be revised to reflect a broader and more viable analysis of choice. The objective of the present chapter is to begin that revision, to reconsider certain fundamental concepts of welfare economics in terms of a broader and more complex and yet more viable model of choice and power.

On Some Fundamental Issues in Political Economy: An Exchange of Correspondence

The letter printed below are published by the correspondents with the hope that they will stimulate discussion and creative rethinking about some fundamental and interesting issues that are often ignored in the conduct of economic analysis and research and the application of traditional tools and concepts. The issues, we are aware, are not novel. Our conflicts and apprehensions replicate, in varying degree, past methodological controversies. But we are convinced that the fundamental nature of the topics argued warrants continuing re-examination. Just as each generation of economists has the burden of interpreting for itself the history of the discipline, each generation also confronts, directly or indirectly, the problem of the methodological foundations of economic analysis. Moreover, as the discussions in the letters illustrate, methodological issues are closely related to normative or policy positions, although the relations are often ambiguous and equivocal.