Institutional Economics and Political Economy

Module Leaders: : Konrad Hagedorn, Andreas Thiel, Sergio Villamayor Tomas

The module builds on the basic understanding that coordination is an essential part of most human activities, indeed, making them social. It is an essential part of every-day life, economic exchange, policy making and state activities. In order to coordinate in the different spheres of life, people rely on sets of rules, which we want to call insti-tutions, once they have been regularized (regularly and intersubjectively applied). In fact, many rules by which we live or pursue our economic activities are agreed upon in the political sphere, illustrating the interrelation between different domains of rule-making. Different processes of negotiation and agreement lead to the emergence of institutions.