The History of the Institutionalism Inception

Abstract

The author studied the institutionalism theoretical foundations, stated each founder’s contribution to the economic theory development and highlighted the institutionalism formation in stages characterizing each one. The main postulates are accented and an attempt to consider some distinctive features of each stage is made in the study. The article considers the evolution of the institutionalism formation as well as the features of institutional theory as an economic thought school. The author also highlighted distinctive characteristics and similar elements in economic thought theories at each evolutionary stage of the institutionalism development. According to leading Russian researchers, institutionalism at the current stage of economic development is one of the popular modern economic thought schools. Currently, not only economists but also sociologists as well as legal scholars and political scientists take a neo-institutional approach in their teachings