Well, I'm in danger of going over my posting quota, but I guess I can't let this claim go by. It simply is not true that the Old Institutionalists were removed from the UT-Austin economics department, anymore than it is true that they were so removed from their fountainhead at the University of Wisconsin-Madison economics department. It is true that there are exactly zero today in either department, although there are some in other departments on the same campuses (LBJ School of Government at UT-Austin, Agricultural Economics at UW-Madison), but that is because they were replaced by non-Old Institutionalists as they retired or died out.
I know that there were still some active and in place in the UT-Austin department as late as the early 1980s and that their departure was by death or retirement. They did not go to the University of Kansas City, if there is such a place, or any other place of exile. BTW, most of those at UT-Austin were of the of the Clarence Ayres school of Old Institutionalism, not the Veblen or Commons schools. Barkley Rosser On Mon, 11 May 1998 13:45:55 -0700 (PDT) Richard Marens <parvus at u.washington.edu> wrote:
> Tom:
>
> that fits well with what I've heard and uncovered
>
> On Mon, 11 May 1998, Tom Condit wrote:
>
> > 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.].
> >
> >
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu