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RESUMO A proposta deste texto consiste em retomar a discussão sobre a metodologia organicista em Keynes e em autores pós-keynesianos, procurando estabelecer um link teórico com a relação entre instituições e indivíduos proposta no institucionalismo derivado de Veblen. Assumindo a possibilidade de convergência, o texto demonstra a contribuição das abordagens para o entendimento das decisões humanas, particularmente as associadas ao investimento produtivo. Da proposta de interpretar as ações humanas a partir de uma metodologia organicista e reconhecendo sua dependência institucional, evidencia-se uma agenda de pesquisa que permite melhor entendimento do comportamento econômico dos indivíduos e firmas. JEL: B15, B25, B31, B41. ABSTRACT The proposal of this text consists in resuming the discussion regarding the organicist methodology in Keynes and in post-Keynesian authors, proposing a theoretical link with the relation between institutions and individuals in the institutionalism derived from Veblen. Assuming the possibility of convergence, the text demonstrates the contribution of approaches to understanding human decisions, particularly associated with productive investment. From the proposal of interpreting human actions based on an organicist methodology and recognizing its institutional dependence, it is evident that the research agenda allows for the best understanding of the economic behaviour of individuals and firms. JEL: B15, B25, B31, B41. RESUMEN El propósito de este artículo es reanudar la discusión sobre metodología organicista en Keynes y autores poskeynesianos visando establecer un vínculo teórico con la relación entre instituciones e individuos propuesta en el institucionalismo derivado de Veblen. Asumiendo la posibilidad de convergencia, el texto demuestra la contribución de los enfoques a la comprensión de las decisiones humanas, en particular las asociadas con la inversión productiva. A partir de la propuesta de interpretar las acciones humanas basadas en una metodología organicista y reconocer su dependencia institucional, se muestra una agenda de investigación que permite una mejor comprensión del comportamiento económico de los individuos y de las empresas. JEL: B15, B25, B31, B41.

My PhD dissertation focuses on the theory of the corporate finance that emerged between 1880 and 1929, as well as the contribution of Veblen.First, we highlight Veblen’s analytical and macroeconomic contributions to the business enterprise. He highlights a trinity credit-equity-goodwill by which we assert that he is a "pre-modern" theorist of corporate finance. His vision of goodwill allows him to draw up a theory of investment that is rooted in the affiliation of the Q-Theory. It thus offers a pioneering look at the management of an enterprise, with its analysis of the behavior of the insider and the outsider.Secondly, through an archival work and an investigation into the first corporate finance manuals, we present a reading of the emergence of this academic discipline, resulting from the practice of large companies. A first vocabulary and the first theories emerge. In addition, there is a wider debate about education in the United States and the institutionalization of business education in higher education, in which Veblen takes part., Ma thèse s'intéresse à la théorie financière de l'entreprise qui émerge entre 1880 et 1929, ainsi qu’à l’apport de Veblen.Tout d'abord nous mettons en exergue les contributions analytique et macroéconomique que livre Veblen concernant la business enterprise. Il met en avant un triptyque crédit-actions-goodwill grâce auquel nous affirmons qu'il est un théoricien "pré-moderne" de la finance d'entreprise. Sa vision du goodwill lui permet de dresser une théorie de l'investissement qui s'ancre dans la filiation de la Q-Theory. Il propose ainsi un regard pionnier sur le management d'entreprise, avec son analyse du comportement de l'insider et de l'outsider. Dans un second temps, à travers un travail d'archives et une investigation dans les premiers manuels de finance d'entreprise, nous présentons une lecture de l'émergence de cette discipline académique, issue de la pratique des grandes entreprises. Un premier vocabulaire et les premières théories émergent. Par ailleurs, un débat plus large prend place concernant l'éducation aux Etats-Unis et l'institutionnalisation de l'enseignement des affaires dans la higher education, auquel Veblen prend part.

The British historian Edward P. Thompson ([1971, 1991] 1993) developed the concept of “moral economy” to analyze the food riot in eighteenthcentury England. I aim to elaborate on the concept of moral economy of the common people by combining Thompson’s insights with those developed by Veblenian institutional economists. I highlight the commonalities between Thompsonian history and Veblenian economics in terms of both questions addressed and methodological principles endorsed. Finally, I emphasize the complementarities between these two bodies of work, and suggest some ways to exploit them in order to better understand the evolution of the moral economy of the common people over time.

O artigo procura, de modo geral, realçar o papel de Thorstein Veblen na história do pensamento econômico, retomando um dos mais originais críticos do capitalismo norte-americano de fins do século XIX e princípios do XX. Para tanto, o debate que empreendemos concentrar-se-á na abordagem de três tópicos importantes do chamado institucionalismo vebleniano, mas pouco destacados nas discussões do tema: (1) o diálogo com o historicismo alemão e sua influência no universo disciplinar da economia, (2) a incerta defesa do indutivismo como tática investigativa e (3) a percepção do holismo metodológico como a postura mais singular dos textos veblenianos, em franca oposição à tradição neoclássica de época. This article, in general, enhances the role of Thorstein Veblen in the history of economic thought by taking up one of the original critics of American capitalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus, the debate that we have undertaken will focus on addressing three key topics of the so called Veblenian institutionalism, but little prominent in the theme discussions: (1) dialogue with the German historicism and its influence in the discipline universe of economics, (2) the uncertain defense of the inductivism as investigative tactics and (3) the perception of the methodological holism as the most natural posture of the Veblenian texts in overt opposition to the neoclassic tradition of the time.

Recent articles have explored from different perspectives the psychological foundations of American institutionalism from its beginning to the interwar years (Hodgson 1999; Lewin 1996; Rutherford 2000a, 2000b; Asso and Fiorito 2003). Other authors had previously dwelled upon the same topic in their writings on the originsand development of the social sciences in the United States (Curti 1980; Degler 1991; Ross 1991). All have a common starting point: the emergence during the second half of the nineteenth century of instinct-based theories of human agency. Although various thinkers had already acknowledged the role of impulses and proclivities, it was not until Darwin's introduction of biological explanations into behavioral analysis that instincts entered the rhetoric of the social sciences in a systematic way (Hodgson 1999; Degler 1991). William James, William McDougall, and C. Lloyd Morgan gave instinct theory its greatest refinement, soon stimulating its adoption by those economists who were looking for a viable alternative to hedonism. At the beginning of the century, early institutionalists like Thorstein Veblen, Robert F. Hoxie, Wesley C. Mitchell, and Carleton Parker employed instinct theory in their analysis of economic behavior. Their attention wasdrawn by the multiple layers of interaction between instinctive motivation and intentional economic behavior. Debates on the role of instinctsin economicswere not confined to the different souls of American Institutionalism, and many more “orthodox” figures, like Irving Fisher or Frank Taussig, actively participated.

Some elements of Veblen’s institutionalism can offer an interesting interpretation of Graziani’s scheme of the Monetary Theory of Production. On the analytical level, this approach which includes consumer behaviour and choices of firms is based on a methodology of ‘macro-foundation of microeconomics’. In the first case, individual consumer choices are deeply influenced by ‘instincts’, or habits, and especially emulation (i.e. leisure class) in opposition with the axiom of rational choice. In the second case, the company is considered as a place of conflicts. Conflicts are embodied in opposition between the will of the ‘technical’ and the goal of businessmen. The technical want to apply the knowledge gained by expanding output (motived by workmanship), while the businessmen want to contract the production to increase prices and profits (predatory instinct). The volume of production and the employment rate depends crucially on the outcome of bargaining within the enterprises. This setting allows us to resolve the ‘paradox of profits’ in two ways: i) considering the steady increase in consumption by rentier, financed by banks (and/or owners of the banks themselves); ii) assuming heterogeneity of firms allow the possibility that the failure of some firms can provide extra monetary profits for the other firms.

The term 'Institutional Economics' has been applied to some of capitalism's strongest critics as well as its most ardent apologists. This paradox in terms has bred contradictory literature in development economics, some declaring the death of this line of thought while others herald its resurgence. In examining the roots of Institutional economics, this paper attempts to disentangle the ambiguity surrounding this label. The Institutional Political Economy of Ha-Joon Chang will then be examined as a return to Institutionalism's radical roots in development economics. Concluding remarks suggest that this approach is capable of encompassing gender as an analytical category, an extension that would improve the ability of policy makers to assess the impacts of macroeconomic policy.

This work is a PhD dissertation, written at the Department of Economics, McGill University. The thesis offers a new framework for inflation as a process of restructuring. Contrary to existing theories of inflation, which tend to take structure and institutions as given for the purpose of analysis, we argue that inflation could be understood only in terms of ongoing structural and institutional change. In the modern context of large-scale business enterprise, inflationary restructuring arises as an integral part of capital accumulation. On the aggregate level, inflation appears as stagflation, with the expansion of pecuniary values in the 'business' sphere depending on the strategic limitation of productive activity in the 'industrial' realm. This stagflationary interaction between 'business' and 'industry' is, in turn, linked (on the disaggregate level) to the dynamic formation and reformation of 'distributional coalitions' and the process of aggregate concentration. An empirical analysis of the U.S. experience between the early 1950s and the late 1980s reveals two regimes of inflationary restructuring: the first, which lasted until 1970, involved rapid increases in aggregate concentration with relatively modest stagflation, whereas the second, post-1970 regime consisted of stable (or even declining) concentration amidst severe stagflation.