THE NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

two related objectives. The first was to explain the evolution of economics. The second was to analyze the effects of institutions on resource allocation and the distribution of income. The method of explaining the evolution of institutions was historical. In explaining resource allocation, Commons used institutional considerations such as interest groups and bargaining power largely as an alternative to neoclassical economics. Common’s brand of institutional economics has been practically extinct in the evolution of economic methodology. The reason for this is that historical explanations tend to be arbitrary and fail to identify alternative causes of change. At the time, “institutional” explanations of economic events and patterns tend to be ad hoc and irrefutable A body of literature has now been developed from somewhat diverse sources, however, which may provide a new paradigm fo