New Institutional Dimensions of Economics : Comparative Elaboration and Application

This book looks at the economic system as a system of co-ordinated activities and tries to encompass several dimensions: - a larger variety of co-ordinating devices (institutions) than in mainstream economics; - a greater attention to the interdependence between types of co-ordinating devices of different (micro and macro) system levels than in most books on institutional economics; - a more penetrating treatment of the cost and behavioural consequences of those devices (mainly neglected by mainstream economics); - a more comprehensive than partial analytic approach to these matters (as compared to the agency, the transaction cost, the public choice, and the property rights approach) on the basis of the rational choice framework. The last perspective is new and offers possibilities for further attention and development. Its application to different types of economic systems (the Soviet, the Western and the Hungarian type) is demonstrated at some length. But the book also contains applications to the organization of typical industries with special attention to the impact of the specific macro system in which the industry is embedded