Full Description
Institutions play a pivotal role in structuring economic and social transactions, and understanding the foundations of social norms, networks, and beliefs within institutions is crucial to explaining much of what occurs in modern economies. This volume integrates two increasingly visible streams of research—economic sociology and new institutional economics—to better understand how ties among individuals and groups facilitate economic activity alongside and against the formal rules that regulate economic processes via government and law.
Reviews
"This volume is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on institutional analysis. . . . Besides sociologists, we are afforded the pleasure of contributions from anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, and scholars located in schools of law and education. . . . One of the pleasures of the volume is the wide range of topics, times, and locales addressed by the authors. . . . In all these diverse situations, the application of institutional queries and approaches enhances our understanding and appreciation of the endlessly rich and diverse nature of social life."—Contemporary Society
"This admirable book makes a strong contribution to institutional theory, has many excellent chapters . . . and is a model for interdisciplinary exchange and cross-fertilization. . . . It is dense with interesting ideas and points for debate, and I heartily recommend it."—Sociological Research Online
Contents
Foreword Robert K. Kerton Introduction 1. Sources of the new institutionalism Victor Nee Part I. Institutions and Social Norms: 2. Embeddedness and beyond: institutions, exchange and social structure Victor Nee and Paul Ingram 3. Of coase and cattle: dispute resolution among neighbors in Shasta County Robert C. Ellickson 4. Cultural beliefs and the organization of society: a historical and theoretical reflection on collectivist and individualist societies Avner Greif 5. Conflict over changing social norms: bargaining, ideology, and enforcement Jack Knight and Jean Ensminger 6. Embeddedness and immigration: notes on the social determinants of economic action Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner Part II. Institutional Embeddedness in Capitalist Economies: 7. The organization of economies Gary G. Hamilton and Robert Feenstra 8. Institutional embeddedness in Japanese labor markets Mary C. Brinton and Takehiko Kariya 9. Winner-take-all markets and wage discrimination Robert H. Frank 10. Institutions and the labor market Bruce Western Part III. Institutional Change and Economic Performance: 11. Economic performance through time Douglass C. North 12. changing the rules interests, organizations, and institutional change in the US hospitality Paul Ingram 13. The importance of the local: rural institutions and economic change in preindustrial England Rosemary L. Hopcroft 14. Outline of an institutionalist theory of inequality: the case of socialist and postcommunist Eastern Europe Ivan Szelenyi and Eric Kostello Index.
