The connections between the Austrian tradition and some of the recent developments relating to the economic analysis of institutions.

This paper has two aims. First, it studies the way the Austrian theory of institutions evolved from the main works of Menger. Second, and most significantly, it tries to justify the idea that the economic analysis of institutions was inspired more or less explicitly by Menger’s thesis but more generally by the Austrian intuitions and thesis. These intuitions and theses are however amended in order to make them more formalized as well as testable.Menger; Austrian tradition; emergence of the institutions; economic analysis of institutions.

Knowledge: a Challenge for the Austrian Theory of the Firm.

In this paper I argue that the unequal distribution of knowledge implies that an Austrian theory of the firm must investigate two items. The first is the growth of knowledge within the firm (learning process), the second the way in the rights to decide over the distribution of knowledge are assigned and controlled. Finally, because those two elements are interdependent, we must define what their possible relations can be.

The Emergence and Evolution of Institutions: The Complementary Approaches of Carl Menger and Thorstein Veblen

This paper is an attempt to compare Carl Menger and Thorstein Veblen,’s conceptions of institutions. It is shown that although Menger stresses on the emergence of institutions, Veblen is much aware of analyzing their evolution. On this basis the idea of a dialogue between the two authors is propose and its characteristics are presented.Menger, Veblen, institutions, evolution, emergence

Houthakker and Ville's contributions to demand theory: a new look at the debate on integrability conditions.

Jean Ville gave, independently of Houthakker, and prior to him, a general one page proof of the integrability of demand functions in a revealed preference scheme. It happens that this essential contribution has been largely ignored in the literature. The comparison between Ville and Houthakker’s proofs makes room for discussing the assumptions necessary to encompass the discrete version of the acyclicity into a continuous version.

Rationality, behavior, institutional and economic change in Schumpeter

In 1940 Schumpeter wrote a paper entitled: "The Meaning of Rationality in the Social Sciences", which was intended to one of the meetings of a seminar including Talcott Parsons, Wassilly Léontief, Paul Sweezy and other Harvard scholars, that he took the initiative to start. In this paper Schumpeter develops thoroughly his own conception of rationality in economics. First, this paper is interesting in itself because it is based on a sophisticated methodological analysis. Schumpeter indeed interestingly anticipates some important debates concerning the problem of rationality and behavior in economics and presents arguments that make his ideas very topical. Second Schumpeter's conception of rationality is linked to his methodological background (both individualistic and holistic), which is rooted in his economic sociology and explains the relationships he stresses between individual behavior and collective entities. In this contribution we present the arguments developed by Schumpeter in his 1940 paper and analyze the reason why his notion of rationality can be seen as a key component of his conception of economic and institutional change.Schumpeter, rationality, economic sociology, economic change, institutional change

The economic analysis of social norms: A reappraisal of Hayek's legacy

This paper is organized as follows : First we show that the reference to the notion of group selection is coherent with the other parts of Hayek's thought. Second we develop the idea that recent works in terms of the emergence and evolution of social norms corroborate in part Hayek's theses in this domain. Finally we put to the fore some drawbacks in Hayek's approach and propose means to solve them.Hayek ; social norms ; emergence and evolution ; coherence ; relevance

Rationality, Behavior, Institutional and Economic Change in Schumpeter

In 1940 Schumpeter wrote a paper entitled: “The Meaning of Rationality in the Social Sciences”, which was intended to one of the meetings of a seminar including Talcott Parsons, Wassilly Léontief, Paul Sweezy and other Harvard scholars, that he took the initiative to start. In this paper Schumpeter develops thoroughly his own conception of rationality in economics. First, this paper is interesting in itself because it is based on a sophisticated methodological analysis. Schumpeter indeed interestingly anticipates some important debates concerning the problem of rationality and behavior in economics and presents arguments tha t make his ideas very topical. Second Schumpeter’s conception of rationality is linked to his methodological background (both individualistic and holistic), which is rooted in his economic sociology and explains the relationships he stresses between individual behavior and collective entities. In this contribution we present the arguments developed by Schumpeter in his 1940 paper and analyze the reason why his notion of rationality can be seen as a key component of his conception of economic and institutional change.

Market or Markets?

The purpose of this contribution is related to our own view of the Austrian market approach. We first point out how Menger, Wieser, Hayek (to a more limited extent) and Lachmann successively made various analytical achievements which contributed to the emergence of an Austrian view of markets as institutions. We then characterize the original features of this notion and show why and how it allows a better understanding of the specificities of empirical markets and their dynamics.markets, coordination, creation and evolution

Introduction

Accessible en ligne : http://gmu.edu/rae/archives/VOL16_2-3_2003/1_Intro.pdfInternational audienc

Complementarities between organizational changes, R&D activity and technological cooperation for the French manufacturing firms

This article analyzes the determinants of the French companies’ innovation activity while highlighting the importance and the complementarities of the organizational and technological practices’impact. Our results suggest on one hand, that the product or process innovation is determined by the internal and external attributes of the company (size, demand pull and technological class). On the other hand, the complementarities tests between the technological (R&D activity and technological partnership) and organizational practices showed that these strategies are interconnected and that they have complementary effects which call for their simultaneous adoption. Accordingly, to be able to benefit completely from the positive effect of the partnership and the R&D efforts on innovation, they must be accompanied by certain organizational practices related to a good skills management and the implementation of an organizational architecture facilitating the knowledge creation and sharing.innovation, complementarities, technological and organizational competencies