Subject Matter and Method of Interpretative Institutional Economics

Abstract

On the basis of contemporary results of the philosophy of science the author renews the debate on methods (Methodenstreit). The current dominant conception of "scientific" stems from classical natural science. New Institutional Economics has been trapped in the classical paradigm by imitating not even contemporary natural science but that existing one hundred years before which studied simple systems. Practically-oriented first institutionalists in Germany and in the USA who dealt with complex socio-economic systems properly found out the interpretative approach appropriate for this kind of systems. This approach has recently received an increased development. The author uses these results for renovating the vision of the subject matter and the method of institutional economics.