The Meaning of the Market: Comparing Austrian and Institutional Economics

Our contribution aims at revealing the terms of a confrontation between Austrian and Institutional schools concerning the nature and the role of markets. Such an approach is justified by, on the one hand, the characteristics shared by both theoretical traditions, and on the other by the existence of complementarity, which founds a representation of market mechanisms in terms of process. The point is that if the economic analysis of institutions constitutes an essential link in the Austrian project of building an alternative theory of markets, it is probably also the weakest one. The benefit of the confrontation is thus to draw up a theory of institutions compatible with an -Austrian- market process analysis. The analysis thus obtained, which grants a crucial place to the dynamics of institutions, builds a bridge between two traditions which have more to exchange than is usually thought, particularly in the perspective of the elaboration of an alternative theory of the market inside which time matters