Abstract
The path of institutionalism, as rich as it is diverse, is a case study that interrogates economic historians and confronts them with dilemmas, which are usually not easy to resolve in a reconstructible historical perspective. Using a perspective of scientific contexts, it has been sought the integration of external and internal influences on this stream of thought. This work identifies the environmental factors of the school and how each one influences its origin. We show that economic institutionalism in its early phase (1899-1939) became a movement with its own identity as well as was linked to the debates generated in the context of the “American Economic Association”. The article argues that the trajectory of the original institutionalism must be interpreted within the framework of an economic movement. The authors conclude that the latter showed characteristics of dissent from mainstream economics in this period of history.
Keywords:
Economic institutionalism, Theoretical contexts; United States of America; Progressivism; Veblen, 1857-1929