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The New Institutional Economics incorporates a theory of institutions into economics. It builds upon the fundamental assumptions of scarcity and competition but abandons institutional rationality. Consequently, NIE assumes that individuals make choices based on incomplete information and limited mental capacity, forming institutions to reduce uncertainty in human exchange. These insights have implications for technological change, property rights, and public choice. "The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics" presents new essays written specifically for this volume. These essays provide an introduction to the nature and practice of the New Institutional Economics, with a special emphasis on economic history and political economy. Among the contributors are Nobel Prize winners Douglass North and Robert Fogel.

"This striking collection of essays by leading scholars ranges across continents and centuries in its rich and varied analysis of the connections between institutions and economic performance. It boldly expands the horizon of the new institutional economics to include not only the nature and durability of economic organization but its interaction with beliefs, culture, and human capacity for learning."
--JAMES ALT, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

"This is one of those rare collections that is accurately titled. Virtually every paper here explores, deeply and originally, fundamental issues in institutional economics. It is an intellectual feast for political scientists, sociologists, and historians as well as for economists and economic historians."
--JOHN FEREJOHN, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California

John N. Drobak

John N. Drobak is Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law. He also holds Business, as well as Professor of Business at the United appointments at Washington University as a Professor of Economics and a Professor of States Business School in Prague. He received his J.D. from Stanford University and writes about issues in economic regulation.

Professor  Drobak is an expert in antitrust, economic regulation, and law and economics. A pioneer in interdisciplinary education and scholarship, he is a past director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (now the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital); co-taught for many years a course with Nobel laureate in economics Douglass North; and has been involved in a number of joint programs at Washington University, including in business, economics, and political economy. A co-founder of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, Professor Drobak has written extensively on such diverse topics as the constitutional limits on utility rate-making, rent control and other types of price regulation, the Supreme Court’s role in the creation of a national commercial law in the 19th century, cognitive science perspective on legal incentives and judicial decision-making, and the new institutional economics. He has participated in and organized numerous symposia, workshops, and panels here and overseas, including Iceland, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain, on such topics as corporate governance, new institutional economics, and cognition and legal incentives. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Drobak is the recipient of the law school’s Teacher of the Year Award, four times, and Washington University’s Distinguished Faculty Award. He has served as a pro bono consultant for the Czech government concerning its voucher privatization of large government enterprises and for the Republic of Georgia regarding the drafting of a new constitution. He also was a 15-year member of the MBA faculty for the United States Business School in Prague. Before joining the faculty, he clerked for the Hon. Winslow Christian, California Court of Appeal, then practiced with Tyler, Cooper, Grant, Bowerman & Keefe in New Haven, Connecticut, for five years.

John V.C. Nye

John Nye holds the Frederic Bastiat Chair in Political Economy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is a specialist in European economic history and new institutional economics.

Dr. Nye was a founding member of the International Society for the New Institutional Economics and has been on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic History. He was co-editor of Frontiers in the New Institutional Economics. His articles have been published in a variety of journals. In 1997, he was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 2003, Professor Nye received the ArtSci Council Faculty Teaching Award. His current projects include research into the Anglo-French wine trade, the political economy of state intervention in trade, and detecting collusion in championship chess.

Recent publications include  "Did the Soviets Collude?: A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-78" with Charles Moul, in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2008. His current projects include research into the Anglo-French wine trade, the political economy of policy reform, and collusion in international sporting tournaments.  His book, War, Wine, and Taxes:  The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade 1689-1900 was published in 2007 from Princeton University Press.

Dr. Nye earned a BS from the California Institute of Technology and a MA and PhD from Northwestern University.