Markets

Abstract

Economists have long been concerned with market prices and quantities. However, despite this ongoing preoccupation, they have until recently paid relatively little attention to the institutional structure of markets and the details of market rules and mechanisms. It is odd that for a period of time more discussion of such structures was carried on by those describing themselves as sociologists. Markets dominate the modern world economy, yet economists have had little to say about market institutions. Why? In part this is explained by a reluctance of may post-1945 economists to adopt historically specific definitions (Hodgson, 2001), especially with a concept so central as the market. Yet an adequate recognition of markets as institutions must also acknowledge that they are historically specific phenomena.