Archive for 5 March 2007
New Foss Hobby Blog
| Peter Klein |
Tyler Cowen has his ethnic dining guide, Teppo Felin has his photography page, and now my co-blogger too has a hobby site: Jazz & Archtops. If you don’t know what an archtop is you’re probably not in the target demographic.
So, if you’ve been wondering why Nicolai doesn’t have time to blog more often on O&M, now you know!
(Looks like I need to add another entry to this list.)
Aoki on Institutional Change
| Peter Klein |
The April 2007 issue of the Journal of Institutional Economics (3:1) features Masahiko Aoki’s paper “Endogenizing Institutions and Institutional Changes.” Abstract:
This paper proposes an analytical-cum-conceptual framework for understanding the nature of institutions as well as their changes. First, it proposes a new definition of institution based on the notion of common knowledge regarding self-sustaining features of social interactions with a hope to integrate various disciplinary approaches to institutions and their changes. Second, it specifies some generic mechanisms of institutional coherence and change — overlapping social embeddedness, Schumpeterian innovation in bundling games, and dynamic institutional complementarities — useful for understanding the dynamic interactions of economic, political, social, organizational, and cognitive factors.
Other papers from the same issue that look interesting include “Hayek and Popper on Ignorance and Intervention” by Celia Lessa Kerstenetzky, “Why Are Cooperatives Important in Agriculture? An Organizational Economics Perspective” by Vadislav Valentinov, and David Reisman’s review of Richard Swedberg’s New Developments in Economic Sociology.
ACAC 2007 — Submission Deadline Approaching
| Nicolai Foss |
I have attended only two truly excellent conferences. The first one was the 1997 inaugural conference for the International Society of New Institutional Economics. For me much of the excitement of that conference was seeing Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, Harold Demsetz, Mancur Olson, and other luminaries for the first time. To keep flight costs, my wife and I had to stay for 10 days in St. Louis, but it was worth it ;-)
The second truly excellent conference I have experienced was the 2005 ACAC which had an equally impressive line-up, only from strategic management, (e.g., Jay Barney, Kathleen Eisenhardt, Pankaj Ghemawat, etc.) as well as great papers and discussions. (more…)
The Stand-Up Economist
| Peter Klein |
A very funny translation of Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics by Yoram Bauman, billed as “the world’s first and only stand-up economist.” (Thanks to Eddie Garrett for the link.)
It’s good stuff, but not nearly as funny as a principles lecture by Bill Breit. I attended this session in honor of Breit at the 2001 Southern Economics Association annual meeting. You’ll notice in the transcript of Ken Elzinga’s remarks the note “Excerpts from the Spring 1969 Breit lectures played.” Omigosh (as my students would say) — Breit’s routine was as funny as anything I’ve ever seen on HBO or Comedy Central. The other people in the session were literally doubled over with laughter. And this was a lecture on Adam Smith! (I’ve since asked Elzinga if he would make the recording available but he didn’t feel comfortable doing so. Perhaps a groundswell of requests from the O&M readership would convince him to change his mind.)
Organizations and Markets 
Recent Comments