Hodgson: An Institution Across Disciplinary Barriers

Hodgson is a scholar who has reflected a lifetime on the role, meaning and importance of institutions in and for the economy. In turn, he has also created ‘Institutions’. The time seems ripe to celebrate his work. In this review essay we will first attempt to summarize the chapters of "Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism. Essays in Honour of Geoffrey M. Hodgson", as well as to emphasize how the contributions to the book are situated in the vast horizon of Hodgson’s thinking and/or how contributors engage with it. We will then hazard a few conclusive reflections drawing inspiration from Hodgson’s remarks in the final chapter, where he links the problematic economic conceptions of man to rule-following behavior, as well as the problem of moral, legal and political obligation, and discusses the future of Institutional studies across disciplinary barriers.