‘Institution’ by Walton H. Hamilton

Extract

After Thorstein Veblen, Wesley Mitchell, and John R. Commons, Walton H. Hamilton (1881–1958) was one of the leading figures in American institutional economics in the interwar period (Rutherford, 2000, 2001, 2003). Indeed, Hamilton (1916: 863 n.) originally coined the very term ‘institutional economics’. He announced its existence and defined its essential outlook at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in December 1918 (Hamilton, 1919). Institutional economics then emerged in America as a broad movement, attracting support from a large number of leading economists. Significantly, ‘Hamilton should be credited with having played the role of chief promoter’ (Dorfman, 1974: 28).