Between Economic Planning and Market Competition: Institutional Law and Economics in the US

Abstract

The impact of institutional economists in shaping American regulatory tradition has largely been overlooked or dismissed as an incoherent attack on the neoclassical economic paradigm. This essay briefly reconstructs the interwar institutionalist movement, exploring the continuities among heterodox thinkers and the implications for public and private institution-building. It seeks to reorient the history of U.S. political economy towards a deeper understanding of the public-private regulatory tradition that developed in the 1920s through the influence of the institutionalists and other progressive liberals. It emphasizes institutionalists acting within both public administrative agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, as well as private research organizations that partnered with business groups and regulatory bodies.