Geoffrey Hodgson’s Institutional Economics: Veblenian Origins and Beyond

Felipe Almeida

A chapter in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Religion, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the Rise of Liberalism, 2023, vol. 41A, pp 159-168 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This study is a comment on Geoffrey Hodgson’s “Discovering Institutionalism: One Person’s Journey.” In this self-description of the evolution of his thought, Hodgson distinctly acknowledges Thorstein Veblen’s influence on his own institutional perspective. This is the issue that I explore in this study. My argument is that Hodgson can be understood as a Veblenian, but he does not fit in the Veblenian notion that became popular in the mid-twentieth century. I argue that Hodgson’s notion of habits is the strongest Veblen’s influence on him, and his reconstitutive downward and upward causations are in line with Veblen’s institutionalism, albeit without the mid-twentieth century Veblenian writings. I also address the approach to the content of habits as a break between Hodgson’s and Veblen’s institutionalism. By offering an unprecedented Veblenianism, I argue that Hodgson’s institutional economics can be understood as a new institutionalist segmentation.

Keywords: Geoffrey Hodgson; institutional economics; Thorstein Veblen; institutional segmentation; evolution of economic thought; reconstructive causation; B52; B31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... 3-41542023000041A010
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rhetzz:s0743-41542023000041a010

DOI: 10.1108/S0743-41542023000041A010

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().