First EPERN Seminar of 2021: Ed Lopez on Formalizing Informal Institutions

Our first seminar of 2021 will take place on Tuesday, January 19, 2:30 - 3:50 p.m. EST. This time we'll hear from Edward Lopez, BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism at West Carolina University. Ed will present his paper entitled "Formalizing Informal Institutions: Problems of Coalition, Change, and Alignment."

The concept of informal institutions has been used to make important contributions to numerous areas of political economy research. Yet varying and inconsistent usage of informal institutions has led to ambiguity in determining the overall contribution of the concept to the literature. This paper adapts John Searle’s institutional ontology to Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) to present a logical model of coalitions causing institutional formation, change, and alignment through time.

You might know Ed from his service as the executive director of the Public Choice Society. He is also the founding director of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at West Carolina University, where he teaches classes in macroeconomics, applied business economics, and the moral foundations of capitalism. To learn more about Ed and his work, check out his university page here and his bio sketch here. To learn how this paper fits into Ed's research program, click here.

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