Concept and Causation: Issues in the Modelling of Institutions

Alice Sindzingre

Forum for Social Economics, 2021, vol. 50, issue 2, 194-213

Abstract: The article analyses the conditions of the accurate modelling of ‘institutions’, including more realistic models such as computational ones. In particular, modelling is challenged by the composite nature of the concept of institution and the associated causations. Collective behaviour undoubtedly exhibits regularities, which are clarified by models. Yet, the concept of institution is not a unitary entity that has a stable reference across time and space and is a term in unambiguous causalities; therefore it may not be a cause or outcome that is computable from agents’ attributes and behavioural rules. Also, agents behave according to the rules that have been assigned to them by the modeller. Yet in the ‘real world’, individuals may depart from social norms without any ‘reason’ (‘rationality’): models under-address the cascade of cognitive processes that underlies the emergence of institutions and the context-dependence of their relevance for individuals.

Date: 2021
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Related works:
Working Paper: Concept and Causation: Issues in the Modelling of Institutions (2021)
Working Paper: Concept and Causation: Issues in the Modelling of Institutions (2017)
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DOI: 10.1080/07360932.2016.1263230

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