Michigan State University Staff Paper
Опубликовано на портале: 06-02-2003
James Shaffer
Michigan State University Staff Paper.
1995.
No. 95-52.
The relationships between and among institutions, participant's behavior and economic
performance are important in several academic disciplines, in the practical affairs
of governments, and in the decisions of firms, households and individuals. The most
basic generic paradigm in social science is that social and physical environments
shape or at least influence human behavior and the resulting behavior of individuals
interacting with the environment influences the performance of the unit of society
under consideration. This essay is concerned with the problems of developing and
using paradigms, theories, or simple beliefs about the relationships among institutions,
behavior and performance, recognizing that behavior is never determined by institutions
alone, but is always shaped and influenced by the environments of individual actors
as well as by their physical makeup.

