Institutional Ontology

References

(Searle, 2005) ⇒ John R. Searle. (2005). “What is An Institution.” In: Journal of Institutional Economics, 1(1).
- QUOTE: Economics as a subject matter, unlike physics or chemistry, is largely concerned with institutional facts. Facts about money and interest rates, exchange and employment, corporations and the balance of payments, form the very heart of the subject of economics. When Lionel Robbins, in a classic work, tells us that “Economics is a study of the disposal of scarce commodities,” he takes for granted a huge invisible institutional ontology. Two dogs fighting over a bone or two school boys fighting over a ball are also engaged in the “disposal of scarce commodities, ” but they are not central to the subject matter of economics. For economics, the mode of existence of the “commodities” and the mechanisms of “disposal” are institutional. Given the centrality of institutional phenomena, it is somewhat surprising that institutional economics has not always been at the center of mainstream economics.