Institutional stream in modern economics: NeoIE versus NewIE

1. Institutional stream in modern economics: NeoIE versus NewIE

2. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differences 1. New Institutional Economics (NeoIE) • Generally, alike the classical institutionalism (T. Veblen, J. R. Commons, W.C. Mitchell, J. M. Clark) : rejection of basic methodological assumptions of NCE, and methodological indiwidualism in particular • Critique of the definition of economics as a science within the mainstreram economics, and, in particular ofv broadly understood neoclassical orneo-neoclassical economics • In general approach, NeoIE,, alike Veblenianinstitutionalism, is a critique of the manner in which the whole process of economic development, and of development of capitralist economy, is understood. (rejectiing, however, the sociaal pesimism of Veblen). According to NeoIE, the economic development is an evolutionary social process and not neoclassically interpretred process of equilibrium grfowth

3. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differencesNeoinstitutional Economics • Rejection of hedonism (as philosophical and methodological foundation for research on microeconomic behavior) and the UMH (hypothesis of micrtoeconomic rationality. Implicitly, rejection of the homo oeconomicus concept • Adoption of psychology of instincts (Veblen), and later (NeoIE: C.Ayres, J. M. Clark, Galbraith, Myrdal)) of philsophy of pragmatism (J. Dewey; pragmatic value theory of Ayres, concept of reasonable values of Mitchell) and behavioral psychologyas foundations for the epxlanation of microeconomic activities

4. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differencesNeoinstitutional Economics • Specific way of intrpretation of „economic system”, as evolutionary process whose main part is „culture” • Most important dychotomy of human being (Veblen): contradiction between the instinct of good work and the instinct of posession • Subsequent dychotomiccontradictions: • Between physical flow (flow of useful goods)and financial flow • Between „world (class) of industry” and „world of posession” (leisure class)) • Conflict between those two worlds means also conflict between cultural institutions which are useful or futile (useless) form the point of view of social and economic development

5. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differencesNeoinstitutional Economics • Rejection of economic determinism and adoption of the view that develoment is mostly determined by science and technology, with inert character of culture and institutional basis • Rejection of the concept of objective laws or regularities in socio-economic development; one can speak only of a certain logics of development (Galbraith, Myrdal). It consist in plausible, but not necessary, adjustments of culture and institutions to the imperatives brought about by permanently developing (changing) science and technology • Social pesimism of Veblen and its rejection by his followers - postveblenian economists, neoinstitutionalists

6. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differencesNeoinstitutional Economics • Rejection of neoclassical way of understanding the economic equlibrium; • Commons: equlibrium („reasonable economy”) as an optimal allocation of scarce resources which is attained not through market competition but as the outcome of „collective actions and control”; • Galbraith: equlibrium as process (and not the state) resulting from the action of countervailing powers: corporations,trade unions, the state as intermediary agent

7. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differences New Institutional Economics • Two manners od interpreting NIE • As an integral part of widely understood neoclassical economics, as neoclassical theory of institutions (the so called theoretical institutionalism, as opposed to postveblenian one) • As a new paradigm in contemporary economics • Genesis of NIE (decades of 70. and 80. of XX century) • „External” critique of „institutional deficit” of NCE • Increasing empirical knowledge on the significance of institutions – both informal and formal – in modern economic and technological development and subsequent necessity of theoretical reflection on them

8. NeoIE versus NewIE – origins and main methodological and cognitive differences New Institutional Economics • Origins and development of theoretical foundations: • Theory of transactions costs (R. Coase as the founder/precursorand O.E. Williamson as main follower) • Theory of property rights (main theoreticians: H. Demsetz and A.A. Alchian) TR and PRtheories are two principal methodological and theoretical foundations within the main stream economics for investigations on the role of institutions in modern economies

9. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Property rights (economic approach) • Entitlements (rights), shaped in the historical process by law (normative), customs and morality, which define and confine (with regard to other persons) the scope of appropriating and using economic resources and goods (in other words: laws of disposal) • Since most goods are not pure private goods, there occur many direct (technological) external effects in the economy and there appears the necessity of their internalization

10. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Property rights (economic approach) – cont. • Internalization requires changes in legal-institutional arrangements (in the so called informal institutions).Their analysis becomes subject to economic analysis • Fundamental function of PR is to create incentives for increasing the scope of internalization of external effects

11. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Transaction costs (KT) in narrow approach (COASE, WILLIAMSON) In broadest interpretation, TC are the costs of using the price (market) mechanism • Types of transaction costs (Coase): • TC related to seeking and processinginformation which is necessaryforshaping market prices of goods • TC related to negotiations of contracts (agreements) (producers – purchasers, purchasers - deliverers, etc.) • TC linked to the control of execution of contracts

12. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • TC inbroadapproach: • Coststof coordination of variousforms of economicactivity(coordination by stateversuscoordination by market) • Costswhicharenecessary for theemergence and development of markets

13. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • TC and PR - interdependence Inaccuratedefinition and/orattenuation of propertrights, and incapability of internalizing (apprioprating) benefitsrelated to theminparticular, must resultinincreasingtransactioncostsintheeconomy,weakening of the system of microeconomicincentives, andthiswayin general decline of thelevel of economicrationalityorefficiency.

14. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Reasons for high level and types of TC inthecountrieswithcommand-and-control system (thecountries of the so calledrealsocialism) • High TC linked to thecentral macroeconomicplanning • High TC related to a broadscope of non-market distribution of public goods • High TC of extensive system of socialtransfers • Attenuation of PR as thereason for broadoccurence of rent seekingbehaviorinthesphere of functionaldistribution of socialproduct • Rent seekingas standard (routine) behavior for menagerialstaff of state ownedenetrprises and theiremployees • High positional and bureaucraticrents (menagers of SOEs and politicalnomenclature)

15. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Nature of thetransformationprocessfromthe point of view of NIE: • General definition: transitionfromsocialistC&Ceconomytowards a market economy as politically and economicallydeterminedinstitutionalchange • Definitionbased on the TK/PR theories: transitionfromsocialistC&Ceconomytowards a market economy as a gradualtransformation of the system whichischaracterized by predomination of rent seekingmicroeconomicbehaviortowardsthe system withinwhichprevailtheefficiency-drivenactivities of humanbeings and socialgroups

16. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions Criterion of minimization of TC • General criterion of the growth of economicefficiency • Ittheoreticallyallows for answeringtwofundamentalquestions: • Whatisoptimalsize of theenterprise (equalizing of marginalcosts of transactionscarried out withintheenterprise – intra-enterprisetransactions - and marginalcosts of market transactions) • Whyexistenterprises and themarket as alternativeco-ordinativemechanisms

17. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • New EconomicHistory (NEH) and New PoliticalEconomy (NPE) – analysis of TC inthe long-run (secular) perspective • Criterion of minimization of TC as a general foundation for expaininghowvaroiuslegal-institutional and economic systems changein long time periods • Effectiveinstitutional order ischaracterized by theexistence of such property rightsregime and microeconomicincentives system, as well as co-ordinationmechanisms, whichpermittheowners of productionfactors to appriopriatebenefitsresultingfromtheuse of thosefactors (thusminimizingthescope of occurrence of externaleffects and free-riderbehavior)

18. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • NEH and i NPE – cont. • Economictheory of state – theconcept of J. Buchannan • Pre-state period (pre-constitutive order) Itsmainfeatureis a veryhigh level of uncertainty of economicactivity (transactions, contracts, etc.). Principal task of theemerging state istherefore to establishthe so calledpre-constitutive property rightsand formalinstitutionscorresponding/related to them. The state hasalso to ensurethatadequate „rules of game” (informalinstitutiuons)areobservedin order to diminishthelevel of general uncertaintyintheeconomy and to exclude(orradicallyconfine) thepossibility of attainingeconomicbenefitsthroughthe „robbery”Thisway, theprotective state(in Buchannan’sapproach) iscrreated

19. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Economictheory of state – theconcept of J. Buchannan • Post-constitutivepropertyrightsemerge as theoutcome of market exchange of goods. Ifthoseexchangecontractsare to be effective and complete, itisnecessary to: 1) liberalize (to freefrom state control) prices and trade, 2) graduallyintroduce (allow for) bothdomestic and foreign competition 3) establish capital (financial) markets All thisispossiblewhenthestatetcreatesfoundations of „soundmacroeconomicregime”, as well as whenthe state followstheregulationpolicywhichiscnsistentwith general principles of market economy. Thisway, the so calledregulativestateemerges

20. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Economictheory of state – theconcept of J. Buchannan • As inany market economy, alsoinemerging market economiesthe state hasalso to produceor to provide public goodsor,at least, to finance thecosts of theirproduction and distribution. This means, respectively, theemergence of productive state.

21. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • State fromthe NIE perspective (withspecialreference to New PoliticalEconomy) – a general approach • NIE, and TCT and PRT inparticular, providetheoreticalargumentswhichallow for answering a fundamentalquestion: whythereexistthestate and the market as alternativemechanismsof economicco-ordination and opimization (Coasecriterion)

22. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • NIE, and NPE inparticular, identifyeconomic and socialmechanismswhichunderlaytheprocess of working out and andacceptingspecificsolutionswithinthemacroeconomic and sectoralpolicies, as well as withinthe public regulation. Furthermore, NIE helps to explainthecontradictionsbetweenthosepolicies • NIE paysattention to thenecessity of ongoingactive role of the state inthesphere of shapinglegal-constitutionalfoundations of economic order

23. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • NEH and NPE – cont. • Economictheory of public regulationinthe market economy • Point of reference: interpretation of public regulation as specificcommodity and theneed to definethesupply of and demand on thiscommodity • Differentlyfromthe so callednormativeregulationtheory, theeconomictheory of public regulationassumesthattheregulationis (mostly) designed for attaininggoals of specificinterestgroups

24. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Economictheory of public regulationinthe market economy – cont. • Basic assertions of ET of PR • Mainresource of the state isthepower to coerce • Utilityfunction of politicians(policy makers): achieving and/ormaintainingthe (political) power • Regulationisusuallymoreadvantageous for producersthan for consumers

25. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Basic assertions of ET of PR – cont. • The game of group interests leads usually to optimal distribution of benefits from the regulation between entrepreneurs (deliverers of goods and commodities), politicians (as legislators) and regulatory institutions (regulators) • Examples of ET of PR : capture theory of regulation), theory of regulation based on the concept of agent and principal • Ecclectic theory of PR

26. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • General definition of NIE: Based on criteria of economic rationality, as well on the assumptions of methodological individualism: • analysis of formal and informal institutions of economic and political life. • Analysis – in terms of economic rationality – of different socio-political orders and interdependencies between those orders and the performance of the economic system

27. New Institutional Economics – basic categories and assertions • Basic components of broadlyunderstood NIE • Neoinstitutionaltheory of the firm: Coase, Williamson • Economictheory of politics (New PoliticalEconomyorTheory of Public Choice): Buchannan, Tullock • Analysis/theory of long-run (secular) dynamics (changeability) of socio-economic systems (New EconomicHistory): North, Thomas • New EconomicGegraphy (application of NIE to theanalysis of spatialaspects of economic performance and thechange of economicstructuresover time)