This thoroughly revised, extended and updated edition of a critically acclaimed textbook provides an accessible and cohesive introduction to the burgeoning discipline of institutional economics. Requiring only a basic understanding of economics, this lucid and well-written text will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students wanting to understand the problems of the real world - such as entrepreneurship, innovation, the cost of the welfare state, international financial crises, and economic development. As institutional economics is now revolutionizing policymaking, the book can also serve as a guide to the pressing problems facing policymakers in mature and emergent countries alike. Key features include: - A short 'Primer' at the beginning of each chapter to highlight the main issues and their relevance. - Key Concepts such as 'institutions', 'economic order', 'coordination costs', 'competition' and 'public policy' are highlighted and clearly defined. - International coverage is ensured as the three authors, experienced academic teachers, work in the US, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

This volume confronts an important historical hypothesis with empirical evidence from selected periods of history. The hypothesis in question states that competition among political and legal organisations in developing rules has been a crucial condition for liberty, innovation and growth in the history of mankind. It is due to Immanuel Kant, Edward Gibbon and Max Weber and has been revived and further developed by Nobel-Laureate Douglass C. North who contributes the first chapter. The volume brings together political economists, historians and legal scholars to discuss the role of political competition in the rise and decline of nations - both in theory and in a large number of case studies.

This thoroughly revised, extended and updated edition of a critically acclaimed textbook provides an accessible and cohesive introduction to the burgeoning discipline of institutional economics. Requiring only a basic understanding of economics, this lucid and well-written text will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students wanting to understand the problems of the real world - such as entrepreneurship, innovation, the cost of the welfare state, international financial crises, and economic development. As institutional economics is now revolutionizing policymaking, the book can also serve as a guide to the pressing problems facing policymakers in mature and emergent countries alike. Key features include: - A short 'Primer' at the beginning of each chapter to highlight the main issues and their relevance. - Key Concepts such as 'institutions', 'economic order', 'coordination costs', 'competition' and 'public policy' are highlighted and clearly defined. - International coverage is ensured as the three authors, experienced academic teachers, work in the US, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

Institutions are rules that are supported by various enforcement mechanisms. Cognition refers to the process of how men perceive and process information, whereas rationality refers to how these processes are modelled. Within institutional economics there is a growing scepticism towards extending the conventional economic frame of analysis to institutions. In particular, the notion of perfect rationality is increasingly questioned. At the same time human cognition has become a major field of research in psychology. This book explores what institutional economics can learn from cognitive psychology regarding the proper modelling of rationality in order to explain institutional change.

Der AniaB zu dieser Festschrift fiir Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Herbert Giersch ist iiber den Wunsch hinaus, zu ehren, ein besonderer: Fiir Herbert Giersch beginnt mit seiner Emeritierung durch die Wirtschafts-und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultat der Universitat Kiel und seinem Ausscheiden aus der Leitung des Instituts fiir Weltwirtschaft ein neuer Le- bensabschnitt. DaB dies ihn nicht zum Ausruhen veranlassen wird, diirfte nicht nur sicher, sondern auch wiinschenswert sein. Herbert Gierschs bisherige wissenschaftliche Arbeit in Forschung und Lehre einzuordnen und zu bewerten, kann nicht die Aufgabe der Verfasser sein. DafUr standen und stehen sie ihm als Mitarbeiter oder gar als Schiiler zu nahe. Deshalb miissen an anderer Stelle dieses Buches einige biographische und bibliographische Anmerkungen geniigen. Der vorliegende Band enthalt Arbeiten zu einer Reihe von Sachgebieten der Wirtschafts- politik, denen auch Herbert Gierschs Interesse gilt. Es wurde zwar nicht versucht, ein sein breites wissenschaftliches Betatigungsfeld abdeckendes, in sich geschlossenes Buch zu- sammenzustellen. Doch haben, wenn auch in unterschiedlichem MaBe, aile Beitrage ein Problem mit zum Gegenstand, das zum Titel dieses Buches fUhrte und das Herbert Giersch immer wieder herausfordert: die nur zu haufige, wenn nicht charakteristische Diskrepanz zwischen dem wirtschaftspolitischen Handeln, welches Okonomen nach den erklarten Zielen und ordnungspolitischen Prinzipien aufgrund des okonomischen Kenntnisstandes als sachgerecht oder vernunftgemaB bezeichnen wiirden, und dem Handeln, welches der politische WillensbildungsprozeB tatsachlich hervorbringt.