New Institutional Economics

Author: Rudolf Rychet
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-03-02
Features: One of the fundamental themes of this book is that transaction costs are an integral part of economic activity and play a significant role in determining institutional structures and specific economic choices made by individuals. Transaction costs, along with similar costs arising from the constraints of bounded rationality in human behavior, imply that the analytical framework in which economic forces operate must be revised. In other words, there must be a shift from the "frictionless" neoclassical environment to a "new institutional" setting. In the new institutional environment, individuals are considered to have limited capabilities in acquiring and processing information. The Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics may be the only economics journal that explicitly makes serious institutional research its primary goal. Over the past two decades, it has played a major role in advancing the development of new institutional economics. The New Institutional Economics, this collection of essays, can be seen as a microcosm of its achievements. Many of the issues it explores not only offer inspiration for institutional economics research in China but also provide insights for the establishment of China's market economy system and the design of related reform proposals. The main content of this book includes Preface to the Chinese Edition, Editor's Preface, Preface by the Translator, Part I: Methodology of New Institutional Economics, Part II: New Institutional Research on Economic History, Part III: On Political Institution Issues, and Part IV: Contemporaneous Analysis of Institutional Economics.