The Rhetoric of Institutional Economics

Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press; St. Petersburg: the Center for Economic Culture, 2023. – 392 p. – (Series "New Economic Thinking").

ISBN 978-5-93255-648-1

Economics and knowledge of it – economic theory – cannot exist outside the context of rhetoric or belief. Economists enter into conversation and convince their own rightness with the help of ethos, common places, authority, metaphors and other paths. Not so much facts and logic as stories and narratives, expressed using both verbal constructions and mathematical models or empirics constitute the most important component of this conversation. The book sets itself the task of comprehensively represent the rhetoric of institutional economic theory. The overall approach continues the line outlined by McClosky and Clamer. The focus contains rhetorical strategies of both old and new institutionalism. The book shows how, with the help of the Irony trail, Veblen explains the evolution of the economy with institutions, and the new institutionalists activate the legal (Coase), managerial (Williamson) and synthetic (North) approaches to build the economic theory of institutions.
The book is addressed to economists, historians of economic ideas and economists-methodologists, as well as everyone who is interested in humanitarian research in the economy.