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Decision-making processes and multilayered institutional order: Lionel Robbins’s legacy

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  • Fabio Masini

Abstract

Lionel Robbins is mainly known for An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, where he allegedly illustrated the neoclassical epistemology of economics, based on mechanistic maximizing behaviours of atomistic individuals whose aggregation results in the social order. Despite Robbins’s attempts to make it clear that this was not his concept of how the society works, this misrepresentation of his thought perpetuated in the methodological debates of the 1960s and is still dominant today. The aim of the paper is to challenge this caricature and illustrate the complex idea of social order held by Robbins, based on individual and collective processes of choices and a multilayer system of public institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Masini, 2018. "Decision-making processes and multilayered institutional order: Lionel Robbins’s legacy," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 42(5), pages 1459-1471.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:42:y:2018:i:5:p:1459-1471.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bex077
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    Keywords

    Lionel Robbins; Social order; Market process; Collective choices; Multilayer government; B31; B41; D71;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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