Yes, I believe that's what my colleagues were referring to.  Now I need to find some example of a trend that shows an increasing interest in the influence of legal institutions on firms.  In other words, that institutional economics has reinvigorated the idea of something we business law people knew all along -- that law deeply influences the practice of business and can impact a firm's competitive advantage.
 
Robert
 
Robert C. Bird
Assistant Professor
University of Connecticut
email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
View my research on my SSRN Author page: 
http://ssrn.com/author=56987 <http://ssrn.com/author=56987>  

________________________________

From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Lee Reed
Sent: Fri 2/2/2007 12:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: popularity of researching "institutions"



Note that I think in the sense Robert is referring to "institution," it refers to any organizing practice or behavior of importance in the life of a community. A growing study of such things is contemporary "institutional economics." Christopher Clague and Stephen Knack are both big names in this field. Both of these scholars heavily focus on the role of law as an institution (especially property and contract)and its necessary impact in creating the wealth of nations. For instance, the modern private market as we understand it is founded on property and contract law (the latter being how owners exchange resources in a property-based  system). Without such institutional support, the modern market hardly functions meaningfully. Property and contract as institutional underpinnings to the private market should be asserted as fundamental to why we teach in the business school, on a standing equal to the understanding of economics.