The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead

I OPEN MY DISCUSSION of the new in- stitutional economics with a confes-sion, an assertion, and a reco~nmenda-tion. The confession is that we are still very ignorant about institutions. The as-sertion is that the past quarter century has witnessed enormous progress in the study of institutions. The recommenda-tion is that, awaiting a unified theory, we should be accepting of pluralism. Chief among the causes of ignorance is that institutions are very complex. That neoclassical economics was dismis-sive of institutions and that much of or-ganization theory lacked scientific am-bitions have also been contributing factors. As to progress, that is what most of this paper is about. There being many instructive lenses for studying complex institutions, pluralism is what holds promise for overcoming our ignorance. Speaking for myself, I subscribe to Jon Elster's view that we work predomi-nantly on partial mechanisms rather than general theories at this stage of de-1 University of California, Berkeley. owilliam@ haas.berkeley.edu. This paper was first presented at the third annual meetine of the Internationa