business schools

[Tom Condit]

At 10:47 PM 5/10/1998 -0700, Richard Marens wrote:
>...  As the old institutional economics was dying in
>econ departments (the "new" institutional economics is something else
>again and is arguably a response to the growth of b-schools), people with
>interests in subjects such as "theories of the firm" or the econometrics
>of "competitive advantage", so I am told, found a more convivial 
>atmosphere in the business schools. 
>
The old institutional economics didn't just "die out". In many cases, econ
departments in state institutions were purged at the urging of conservative
politicians who thought Thorstein Veblen was some sort of commie because he
didn't believe that unalloyed greed was the only purpose of human society.
At the University of Texas, for instance, every single institutionalist was
removed. Many of them then got jobs in the business school at [University of
Kansas City? I'm not sure of my memory here.].