Technology and social rules and norms in neo-Schumpeterian economics and in original institutional economics

The foundation for both the neo-Schumpeterian and original institutional economics school of thought is the emphasis on evolutionary processes in economies. The relationship between technology and the social rules and norms that coordinate the behavior of people provides the focus for their respective conceptualizations of such processes. However, the seemingly familial relation of their analytical frameworks is tempered by how they conceptualize social rules and norms. We discuss the differences between neo-Schumpeterian and original institutional economics. These differences are a result of each approach's conceptualizations of social rules and norms, in particular when it comes to evolutionary processes and innovation dynamics.