ABSTRACT
The functioning of society depends upon information and its effective communication among society’s members. Information, and the means for its communication, have a fundamental and pervasive influence upon all institutions. Harold A. Innis was one of the few economists to attempt a full integration of evolutionary economics and information and communication into a social science based institutional analysis. The concept of information in institutional analysis is not discrete, standing alone or alongside the economic concepts. Determining the appropriate adaptations, both by the public and the private sectors, to the new information and communication environment is a crucial task to which institutional analysis can contribute significantly. Economists ignore the information dimension of fundamental concepts at their peril, as it may be crucial for the effective application of the more familiar economic concepts. The rapid rise of information markets is made possible by the interaction of advances in computer and telecommunication technologies.
