The Institutional Approach in the Economic Thought of Carlo Cattaneo

This paper analyzes the contributions to political economy of Carlo Cattaneo as an ante litteram institutionalist scholar. Carlo Cattaneo has been an original thinker with a polyhedricity of cultural interests. From a point of view of political economy, we can say that Cattaneo was influenced by the concept of sociality. He studied the human action framed in his social and relational dimensions. Cattaneo was aware that the development of society needed to be seen as the result of complex interactive and often conflicting forces. Carlo Cattaneo has been interested in forces that generate change in social and economic structures. One of these forces is the human intelligence -to day we say knowledge- which is at basis of his value theory. Another important force is the action of the enterpreneurs, who are the engines of economic progress. Cattaneo devoted a particular attention to links between law and economic activities. In the paper the role of laws on economic trajectories is discussed, with a special attention to the effects of Israeli interdictions.