Political Economy, Markets, and Institutions: Preference Formation as a Point of Entry

Currently, fundamental axioms are being reimagined and reformulated, returning us to the sources of economic conduct and change (Acemoglu and Robinson 2019; Rodrik 2017). This can entail a move from macro to micro rather than the other way around. Existing institutions, cultures, and technologies do not merely constrain preferences; they can also create or embed economic action in their folds. The economic disruption from information technologies in our current era is an obvious example. Less obvious might be the power of stories or cultural narratives to change economic behavior (Shiller 2017)