Sufficient reason

by Daniel W. Bromley

"In the standard analysis of economic institutions - which include social conventions, the working rules of an economy, and entitlement regimes (property relations) - economists invoke the same theories they use when analyzing individual behavior. In this book, Daniel Bromley challenges these theories, arguing instead for "volitional pragmatism" as a plausible way of thinking about the evolution of economic institutions. Economies are always in the process of becoming. Here is a theory of how they become." "Bromley argues that standard economic accounts see institutions as mere constraints on otherwise autonomous individual action. Some approaches to institutional economics - particularly the "new" institutional economics - suggest that economic institutions emerge spontaneously from the voluntary interaction of economic agents as they go about pursuing their best advantage. He suggests that this approach misses the central fact that economic institutions are the explicit and intended