Institutional school - Seido gakuha (English spelling) institutional school

A school of economics that was extremely influential in the United States from around the 1880s to the late 1920s, and was largely unique to the United States at the time. Since the mid-19th century, there has been a strong tendency in the United States to place importance on the institutional aspects of the economy, to study economic facts in detail while relating them to social institutions and structures, and to develop theories that are quite close to the facts and are not too abstract. This way of thinking became quite organized as a reaction against the British Classical School and the new abstract theory-centered economics that began to gain influence from the 1880s, and as a criticism of the monopoly and plutocracy economic system that was rapidly gaining strength in the United States at the time, and this group, which later came to be known as the Institutional School (from around the late 1910s), became quite organized.

The Institutional School was pioneered by R. T. Ely, one of the founders of the American Economic Association, and others, but it is T. B. Veblen who is usually considered to be its founder, and J. R. Commons and W. C. Mitchell are often cited as subsequent representatives. What they have in common is that they are dissatisfied with the abstraction and self-limiting nature of the narrow economic theory of the classical school and the schools of thought based on the marginal principle that came after the marginal revolution, and, influenced by socialist thought, the behaviorist philosophy and behaviorist psychology of C.S. Peirce, W. James, and J. Dewey, as well as C.R. Darwin's theory of evolution, and especially H. Spencer's evolutionary view of society, they view economic phenomena as a problem of "institutions" that have spread historically and are driven by human social behavior that is largely instinctive, and they attempt to explain economic phenomena as such historically, from a social reformist standpoint, actively drawing on not only narrow economic theory but also the results of adjacent fields such as psychology, sociology, law, statistics, and cultural anthropology. Veblen's greatest contribution was his sharp criticism of the economic theories and economic systems of his time, as can be seen in his representative works Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and Theory of Business Enterprise (1904). Mitchell is famous for his comprehensive studies of business cycles, which he began conducting in 1913, and Commons published many works in which he viewed economic issues from various angles as collective human activities.

Since around 1970, when the need for an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach to economic issues began to be emphasized, the institutional school has once again come under scrutiny, and today K. G. Myrdal and J. K. Galbraith, who discuss economic issues from this perspective, are often referred to as "new institutionalists."

[Tadashi Hayasaka]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

1880年代ごろから1920年代末葉ごろまでアメリカで非常な影響力をもっていた、当時においては多分にアメリカ独自の経済学上の一流派。アメリカでは19世紀なかば以来、経済の制度面を重要視し、社会の制度や構造と関係させながら経済事実を詳細に考察し、事実とかなり密着した、あまり抽象化されない理論を展開しようとする考え方が強かった。この考え方が、イギリス古典派および1880年代から有力化し始めた新たな抽象理論中心の経済学に対する反発と、アメリカで当時急速に強まっていた独占的・金権主義的経済体制に対する批判として、かなり組織化されたのが、のちに（1910年代の後半ごろから）制度学派とよばれるようになった、この集団である。

　制度学派は、アメリカ経済学会創始者の1人R・T・イリーらによって先鞭(せんべん)がつけられていたが、普通その創始者とされるのはT・B・ベブレンであり、彼に続く代表者としてはJ・R・コモンズやW・C・ミッチェルがあげられることが多い。彼らにほぼ共通してみられるのは、古典学派や限界革命以後の限界原理にたつ諸学派の狭義の経済理論の抽象性、自己限定性を飽き足らなく思い、社会主義的思想、C・S・パースやW・ジェームズ、J・デューイらの行動主義哲学や行動主義心理学と、C・R・ダーウィンの進化論、とくにH・スペンサーの進化論的社会観の影響のもとに、経済現象を、人間の多分に本能的な社会的行動によって歴史的に広く普及した「制度」institutionの問題としてとらえ、そのようなものとしての経済現象を、社会改良主義の立場にたちつつ、狭義の経済理論だけでなく、いわば隣接領域たる心理学、社会学、法学、統計学、文化人類学等々の成果をも積極的に援用しながら、歴史的に解明しようとする態度である。ベブレンは、代表作『有産階級の理論』Theory of the Leisure Class（1899）や『企業の理論』Theory of Business Enterprise（1904）にみられるように、当時の経済理論や経済体制を鋭く批判した点に最大の貢献があり、ミッチェルは1913年以来の相次ぐ包括的景気循環の研究で著名で、またコモンズは経済問題をさまざまな側面で人間の集団的活動としてとらえる多くの労作を刊行した。

　1970年ごろから経済問題に対する学際的interdisciplinaryないし超学的transdisciplinary接近の必要性が強調されだしてから、制度学派はふたたび大きく見直されるようになってきており、今日そのような角度から経済問題を論じているK・G・ミュルダールやJ・K・ガルブレイスらがしばしば「新制度学派」とよばれている。

［早坂　忠］

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