ABSTRACT
The old or original institutional economics has had a very bad press. The statement by Ronald Coase (1984, p. 230) that institutionalism was ‘not theoretical but anti-theoretical’ has been repeated uncountably by others, especially by ‘new’ institutionalists who are keen to maintain their maximum distance from that older and unjustifiably cursed tradition. Richard Langlois (1986, p. 5) wrote that: ‘The problem with the Historical School and many of the early Institutionalists is that they wanted an economics with institutions but without theory’. Oliver Williamson (1996b, p. 1792) similarly chimed: ‘Where they differ is that older style institutional economics was content with description, whereas newer style institutional economics holds that institutions are susceptible to analysis.’ Repeated so often by so many, this manifestly false allegation that the old institutionalism was ‘against theory’ has regrettably stuck.1
