Microfoundations

The paper argues that the microfoundations programme can be understood as an implementation of an underlying methodological principle, methodological individualism, and that it therefore shares a fundamental ambiguity with that principle, viz, whether the macro must be derived from and therefore reducible to, or rather consistent with micro-level behaviours. The pluralist conclusion of the paper is not that research guided by the principle of microfoundations is necessarily wrong, but that the exclusion of approaches not guided by that principle is indeed necessarily wrong. The argument is made via an examination of the advantages claimed for dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, the relationship between parts and wholes in social science, and the concepts of reduction, substrate neutrality, the intentional stance, and hypostatisation

Microfoundations

This paper argues that the microfoundations programme can be understood as an implementation of an underlying methodological principle—methodological individualism—and that it therefore shares a fundamental ambiguity with that principle, viz, whether the macro must be derived from and therefore reducible to, or rather consistent with, micro-level behaviours. The pluralist conclusion of the paper is not that research guided by the principle of microfoundations is necessarily wrong, but that the exclusion of approaches not guided by that principle is indeed necessarily wrong. The argument is made via an examination of the advantages claimed for dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, the relationship between parts and wholes in social science, and the concepts of reduction, substrate neutrality, the intentional stance, and hypostatisation

A Chemistry of Organization: Combinatory Structural Analysis and Design

This paper is a response to the call for models of organization design as a science revealing the inner composition of organization and specifying the laws to be respected when crafting it. It maintains that the needed science is a chemistry of organization, addressing the combination of 'organizational elements' playing a role analogous to that of chemical elements in composing a variety of substances. Drawing both on classic organization design theory and on configurational and complementarity-based approaches, the paper specifies a set of basic organizational elements and a set of combinatory laws regulating their effective combinations. Testable propositions are derived on the necessary and sufficient conditions that the composition of organizations should have respect for achieving high levels of efficiency and innovation. These propositions are tested empirically on a sample of firms, using an innovative application of Boolean algebra

Was der Goldwahrung geschehen ist. Ein Bericht aus dem Jahre 1932 :ait zwei Erganzungen.

(Walter Sucken Institut. Yo:?trf. c i Aufsatze. 12)

El uso del conocimiento en la sociedad

Una copia en español de un artículo originalmente publicado en la American Economic Review [1945, 25, 4, sept, 519-530]. Un orden económico-racional es posible si, en primer lugar, toda la información relevante está disponible, en segundo lugar, si hay un sistema establecido para la prioritización , en tercer lugar, si el conocimiento absoluto sobre los medios disponibles está presente. La tarea de la sociedad es optimizar la utilización del conociemiento social, que está fragmentado, incompleto y contradictorio desde el punto de vista de un único individuo. Si el problema económico de la sociedad se adapta rapidamente a los cambios del tiempo y el espacio, entonces los individuos con el mayor conocimiento directo sobre cambios relevantes y con los mayores recursos disponibles, serán los más competentes. Los individuos necesitan ser coordinados, al utilizar señales para comunicar información. Sin embargo, la comunicación es a menudo imperfecta y conduce a imperfectos resultados