The Evolution of Institutions and Technology
Provisional Schedule of Lectures and Seminars
Geoff Hodgson Judge, Institute for Management Studies,
University of Cambridge
MPhil in Management Studies Lent Term, 1996
Wed 24 January 2.00pm: `Institutions, technology, knowledge, learning and evolution: An
overview'
Wed 31 January 2.00pm: `The necessity of habits, rules and institutions'
Wed 7 February 2.00pm: `The evolutionary metaphor: Ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution.
Levels and units of analysis: Optimisation and evolution'
Wed 14 February 2.00pm: Seminar on Murphy (1994).
Wed 21 February 2.00pm: `Path-dependency: Technological chreods and institutional lock-in'
Wed 28 February 2.00pm. `Evolutionary and competence-based theories of the firm'
Topics for Student Essays and Presentations Possible topics for a 20-minute presentation:
1. What are institutions?
2. Can game theory contribute to our understanding of the origin, nature, and functions
of institutions?
3. In what ways may institutions affect our decisions and actions? Are institutions
merely constraints on decision-making, or something more?
4. Contrast the approaches to analysis based on the concepts of
(a) equilibrium and (b) cumulative causation.
5. What is `lock-in'? Give institutional and technological examples.
6. Distinguish between different types of institutional and technological evolution.
7. Does competitive evolution favour the most efficient technologies and institutions?
8. Consider the concepts of `novelty' and `innovation'. How do they relate to an
evolutionary perspective?
9 Another topic by arrangement
Possible topics for a 4000-word assessment:
1. What are the main distinguishing features of the `old' and the `new' institutional
economics, and what are the limitations and value of each?
2. In what ways can institutional and evolutionary economics challenge models of
organisational or economic phenomena based on the assumption of rational, optimising
behaviour?
3. In what way can evolutionary thinking contribute to our understanding of
institutional and technological change?
4. Critically examine the proposition that national economic growth performances are
partially explicable in terms of institutional rigidities, sclerosis, or disruption.
5. Outline the `evolutionary' or `competence-based' theory of the firm and contrast it
with the contractarian perspective.
6. What is the evidence for long waves in technological and economic development?
7. Outline and critically examine the concept of `national systems of innovation'.
8. Another topic by arrangement.
Reading List
1. Basalla, G. (1989) The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press).
2. Choi, Y. B. (1994) Paradigms and Conventions: Uncertainty, Decision Making, and
Entrepreneurship (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
3. Clark, N. G. and Juma, C. (1987) Long-Run Economics: An Evolutionary Approach to
Economic Growth (London: Pinter).
4. Coombs, R. Saviotti, P. and Walsh, V. (1987) Economics and Technological Change
(Basingstoke: Macmillan).
5. Dosi, G. (1988) `The Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation',
Journal of Economic Literature, 26(3), September, pp. 1120-71. Reprinted in Freeman
(1990).
6. Dosi, Giovanni (1995) `Hierarchies, Markets and Power: Some Foundational Issues on
the Nature of Contemporary Economic Organizations', Industrial and Corporate Change,
4(1), pp. 1-19.
7. Dosi, G., Freeman, C., Nelson, R., Silverberg, G. and Soete, L. L. G. (eds.) (1988)
Technical Change and Economic Theory (London: Pinter).
8. Dosi, G., Freeman, C., Fabiani, S. (1994) `The Process of Economic Development:
Introducing Some Stylized Facts and Theories on Technologies, Firms and Institutions',
Industrial and Corporate Change, 3(1), pp. 1-45.
9. Elster, J. (1983) Explaining Technical Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
10. England, R. W. (ed.) (1994) Evolutionary Concepts in Contemporary Economics (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
11. Field, A. J. (1979) `On the Explanation of Rules Using Rational Choice Models', Journal
of Economic Issues, 13(1), March, pp.49-72. Reprinted in Hodgson (1994).
12. Field, A. J. (1984) `Microeconomics, Norms and Rationality',Economic Development
and Cultural Change, 32(4), July, pp.683-711. Reprinted in Hodgson (1994).
13. Fransman, M. (1994) `Information, Knowledge, Vision and Theories of the Firm',
Industrial and Corporate Change, 3(3), pp. 713-57.
14. Freeman, C. (ed.) (1983) Long Waves in the World Economy (London:Butterworth).
15. Freeman, C. (ed.) (1990) The Economics of Innovation (Aldershot:Edward Elgar).
16. Freeman, C. (1995) `The "National System of Innovation" in Historical Perspective',
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 19(1), February, pp. 5-24.
17. Freeman, C., Clark, J. and Soete, L. L. G. (1982) Unemployment and Technical
Innovation: A Study of Long Waves in Economic Development (London: Pinter).
18. Foss, Nicolai Juul (1993) `Theories of the Firm: Contractual and Competence
Perspectives', Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 3(2), May, pp. 127-44.
19. Grabher, G. (ed.) (1993) The Embedded Firm: On the Socioeconomics of Industrial
Networks (London: Routledge).
20. Hall, P. (1994) Innovation, Economics and Evolution (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester
Wheatsheaf).
21. Hamilton, Gary G. and Feenstra, Robert C. (1995) `Varieties of Hierarchies and Markets:
An Introduction', Industrial and Corporate Change, 4(1), pp. 51-87.
22. Hodgson, G. M. (1988) Economics and Institutions: A Manifesto for a Modern
Institutional Economics (Cambridge: Polity Press).
23. Hodgson, G. M. (1989) `Institutional Rigidities and Economic Growth', Cambridge
Journal of Economics, 13(1), March, pp. 79-101.
24. Hodgson, G. M. (1991) `Economic Evolution: Intervention Contra Pangloss', Journal of
Economic Issues, 25(2), June, pp. 519-33.
25. Hodgson, G. M. (1993) Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics
(Cambridge: Polity Press).
26. Hodgson, G. M. (ed.) (1994) The Economics of Institutions (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
27. Hodgson, G. M. (1994) `Optimisation and Evolution: Winter's Critique of Friedman
Revisited', Cambridge Journal of Economics, 18(4), August, pp. 413-30.
28. Hodgson, G. M. (ed.) (1995) Economics and Biology (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
29. Hodgson, G. M., Samuels, W. J. and Tool, M. R. (eds) (1994) The Elgar Companion to
Institutional and Evolutionary Economics (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
30. Hodgson, G. M. and Screpanti, E. (eds) (1991) Rethinking Economics: Markets,
Technology and Economic Evolution (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
31. Katz, M. L. and Shapiro, C. (1994) `Systems Competition and Network Effects', Journal
of Economic Perspectives, 8(2), Spring, pp. 93-115.
32. Langlois, R. N. and Robertson, P. L. (1995) Firms, Markets and Economic Change: A
Dynamic Theory of Business Institutions (London and New York: Routledge).
33. Liebowitz, S. J. and Margolis, Stephen E. (1994) `Network Externality: An Uncommon
Tragedy', Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(2), Spring, pp. 133-50.
34. Loasby, B. J. (1991) Equilibrium and Evolution: An Exploration of Connecting
Principles in Economics (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
35. Lundvall, B.-Å. (ed.) (1992) National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of
Innovation and Interactive Learning (London: Pinter).
36. Mansfield, E. and Mansfield, E. (eds) (1993) The Economics of Technical Change
(Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
37. Mirowski, P. (1986) `Institutions as a Solution Concept in a Game Theory Context', in
Mirowski, Philip (ed.) (1986) The Reconstruction of Economic Theory (Boston: KluwerNijhoff), pp. 241-63. Reprinted in Hodgson (1994).
38. Mirowski, P. (1986b) `Mathematical Formalism and Economic Explanation', in
Mirowski (1986a, pp. 179-240).
39. Mokyr, J. (1990) The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
40. Mowery, D. C. and Oxley, J. E. (1995) `Inward Technology Transfer and
Competitiveness: The Role of National Innovation Systems',Cambridge Journal of
Economics, 19(1), February, pp. 67-93.
41. Mueller, D. C. (ed.) (1983) The Political Economy of Growth (New Haven: Yale
University Press).
42. Murphy, J. B. (1994) `The Kinds of Order in Society', in Mirowski, Philip (ed.) (1994)
Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 536-82.
43. Nelson, R. R. (1981) `Research on Productivity Growth and Productivity Differences:
Dead Ends and New Departures', Journal of Economic Literature, 29, September, pp.
1029-64.
44. Nelson, R. R. (1987) Understanding Technical Change as an Evolutionary Process
(Amsterdam: North-Holland).
45. Nelson, R. R. (1991) `Why Do Firms Differ, and How Does it Matter?', Strategic
Management Journal, 12, Special Issue, Winter, pp. 61-74.
46. Nelson, R. R. (ed.) (1993) National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
47. Nelson, R. R. (1994) `The Co-evolution of Technology, Industrial Structure, and
Supporting Institutions', Industrial and Corporate Change, 3(1), pp. 47-63.
48. Nelson, R. R. and Winter, S. G. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).
49. Nooteboom, B. (1992) `Towards a Dynamic Theory of Transactions', Journal of
Evolutionary Economics, 2(4), December, pp. 281-99.
50. North, D. C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
51. Olson, M., Jr. (1982) The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale University
Press).
52. Penrose, E. T. (1959) The Theory of the Growth of the Firm (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
53. Plotkin, H. (1994) Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge: Concerning
Adaptations, Instinct and the Evolution of Intelligence (Harmondsworth: Penguin).
54. Rutherford, Malcolm C. (1994) Institutions in Economics: The Old and the New
Institutionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
55. Samuels, W. J. (ed.) (1988) Institutional Economics, 3 vols (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
56. Schotter, A. (1981) The Economic Theory of Social Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
57. Tylecote, A. (1992) Long Waves in the World Economy: The Present Crisis in Historical
Perspective (London: Routledge).
58. Williamson, O. E. and Winter, S. G. (eds) (1991) The Nature of the Firm: Origins,
Evolution, and Development (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
59. Witt, U. (ed.) Evolutionary Economics (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).
60. Veblen, T. B. (1919) The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation and Other Essays
(New York: Huebsch). Reprinted 1990 with a new introduction by W. J. Samuels (New
Brunswick:Transaction).
61. Zysman, John (1994) `How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of
Growth', Industrial and Corporate Change,3(1), pp. 243-83.