Shifting Boundaries in Economics: the Institutional Cognitive Strand

The paper proposes a critical interpretation of the development of new institutional economics and of its relationship with other economic fields. Consistently with the oil-spot dynamics model, new institutionalism can be described as an enlargement of the mainstream that, in time, seems to further expand towards heterodoxy by branching and specializing. Institutional cognitive economics positions itself at the borders between these two areas. With its focus on the cognitive processes underlying institutional genesis and evolution, it is the result of the integration process between the ideas of new (D.C. North’s in particular) and old institutionalism (T. Veblen’s in particular) plus the injection of F. Hayek’s theories on the link between mind and institutions. Institutional cognitive economics also represents an example of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization that is taking place at the border of social sciences and that might represent the future of our discipline.