ABSTRACT
In the theories of general equilibrium and of games, social institutions are treated as exogenously given and neglected. The Marshallian methodology of comparative statics, used, above all, in the analysis of partial equilibrium is a bit more complex. In comparative statics, social institutions are often treated as exogenously fixed, for the purposes of short-run analysis. But it is assumed that they are the result of an earlier process of constrained maximisation, which means that they may be turned into endogenous variables in a model of longrun equilibrium. According to Lawrence A. Boland (see pp. 228-30), this is not just an assumption, but a goal, if distant, on the ‘hidden agenda’ of neoclassical economics. The ambition of neoclassical economics is to turn all social institutions into endogenous variables, leaving only psychic states and natural givens as exogenous variables in economic analysis. This methodological individualism, I believe, is clearly manifested in some of the contributions to the new institutional economics.
