Organisation of the course

The foundational lectures by Geoffrey Hodgson for the course will consist of 3 hour sessions for 5 days. Each of these 3 hour sessions will consist of 2 hour lecture (with a short break in the middle), and 1 hour session for question, answers, and discussion. The other 15 hours will be taught in small groups (5-6 people per group) by one or more of the Assistant Professors (Internet). Those who wish to acquire the full certificate will be required to write 2 essays of 2,000 words on pre-assigned topic, accompanied by a reading list. These essays will be assessed by the Assistant Professors and given feedback. Geoffrey Hodgson will be available for contact through e-mail for questions for Content of the Course

Content of the Course
1. The old and the new institutional economics: how are they different?
2. The hidden persuaders: reconstitutive downward causation.
3. Exchange, markets and firms.
4. The legal nature of the firm and the myth of the firm-market hybrid.
5. Learning and transactions in the theory of the firm.

My suggested reading is as follows:

Aoki, Masahiko (2001) Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bowles, Samuel (1998) ‘Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions’, Journal of Economic Literature, 36: 75-111.

Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (1988) Economics and Institutions: A Manifesto for a Modern Institutional Economics. Cambridge and Philadelphia: Polity Press and University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (1998) “The Approach of Institutional Economics”, Journal of Economic Literature, 36: 166-92.

Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (2002) ‘The Evolution of Institutions: An Agenda for Future Theoretical Research’, Constitutional Political Economy, 13, pp. 111-27.

Loasby, Brian J. (2000) ‘Market Institutions and Economic Evolution’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 10: 297-309.

North, Douglass C. (1991) “Institutions”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5: 97-112.
North, Douglass C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Schotter, Andrew R. (1981) The Economic Theory of Social Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sened, Itai (1997) The Political Institution of Private Property. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sugden, Robert (1986) The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Veblen, Thorstein B. (1899) The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. New York: Macmillan.

Veblen, Thorstein B. (1919) The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation and Other Essays. New York: Huebsch.

Williamson, Oliver E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Anti-Trust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization. New York: Free Press.

Williamson, Oliver E. (1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. London: Macmillan.