The New Institutional Economics (NIE) is an interdisciplinary enterprise combining economics, law, organization theory, political science, sociology and anthropology to understand the institutions of social, political and commercial life. It borrows liberally from various social-science disciplines, but ITS PRIMARY LANGUAGE is economics. Its goal is to explain what institutions are, how they arise, what purposes they serve, how they change and how - if at all – they should be reformed.

Suggested Reading:Mary Shirley-->Institutions and Development (Advances in New Institutional Analysis), 2008Handbook of New Institutional Economics, 2005 (hardcover) or 2008 (paperback)(ed. with Claude Ménard)