The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918–1947 Science and Social Control

This book provides a detailed picture of the institutionalist movement in American economics concentrating on the period between the two World Wars. The discussion brings a new emphasis on the leading role of Walton Hamilton in the formation of institutionalism, on the special importance of the ideals of 'science' and 'social control' embodied within the movement, on the large and close network of individuals involved, on the educational programs and research organizations created by institutionalists and on the significant place of the movement within the mainstream of interwar American economics. In these ways the book focuses on the group most closely involved in the active promotion of the movement, on how they themselves constructed it, on its original intellectual appeal and promise and on its institutional supports and sources of funding.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Institutionalism in the history of economics; 2. Understanding institutional economics; Part II. Institutionalist Careers: 3. Walton Hamilton: institutionalism and the public control of business; 4. Morris Copeland: institutionalism and statistics; Part III. Centers of Institutional Economics: 5. Institutionalism at Chicago and beyond; 6. Amherst and the Brookings Graduate School; 7. Wisconsin institutionalism; 8. Institutionalism at Columbia University; 9. The NBER and the foundations; Part IV. Challenges and Changes: 10. The institutionalist reaction to Keynesian economics; 11. Neoclassical challenges and institutionalist responses; Part V. Conclusion: 12. Institutionalism in retrospect.

Malcolm Rutherford is Professor of Economics at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and the leading authority on the history of American institutional economics. He has published widely on this topic in History of Political Economy, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and Labor History. He is the author of Institutions in Economics: The Old and the New Institutionalism, published by Cambridge University Press (1994). Professor Rutherford has served as President of the History of Economics Society and the Association for Evolutionary Economics.