Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization

Markets, Networks and Hierarchies

New Horizons in Institutional and Evolutionary Economics series

Edited by Olivier Favereau, Professor of Economics, University of Paris, Nanterre and Emmanuel Lazega, Department of Sociology, Sciences Po, CSO-CNRS, IUF, France

This book contributes to the current rapprochement between economics and sociology. It examines the fact that individuals use rules and interdependencies to forward their own interests, while living in social environments where everyone does the same. The authors argue that to construct durable organizations and viable markets, they need to be able to handle both. However, thus far, economists and sociologists have not been able to reconcile the relationship between these two types of constraints on economic activity.

“mos之一t exciting developments in recent European economic thought is the emergence of the approach known as "the economics of convention". No better introduction to this school of thought, with its interesting mixture of economics and sociology, could be had than this anthology, which is edited by economist Olivier Favereau and sociologist Emmanuel Lazega.’
– Richard Swedberg, Stockholm University, Sweden