ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the study of economic behavior and institutions by anthropologists. It discusses what sort of knowledge we hope to gain about economies, what the object of that study should be, and what constitutes convincing explanation. It reviews the history of theoretical debates in anthropology from Malinowski to the present and suggests ways in which the New Institutional Economics (NIE) can address some of the unresolved dilemmas confronting both economists and anthropologists. The chapter argues that the NIE provides a framework that complements anthropological approaches to the study of economies. The key to understanding economies came from distinguishing between the substantive and formal definitions of economic - 'the substantive meaning of economic derives from man's dependence for his living upon nature and his fellows'. Horace Miner saw the acceptance of cash payments to reduce production as an affront to the farmers' traditional emphasis on production.
