The article traces in the book of Genesis (1) theoretical and (2) methodic elements of an institutional economics: (la) the idea of capital contribution-distribution interactions as model of social exchange; (lb) the idea of incentive structures as model of an institutional regulative for social exchange; (1c) the practical-normative goal of pareto-superiority (mutuality of gains) as desired interaction outcome; (2a) the methodic concept of conflicting and common interests in contribution-distribution interactions (the idea of a dilemma structure, or “war of all”, as Hobbes called it); and (2b) the methodic concept of self-interested choice behaviour (the homo economicus, or “methodological individualism” as Hayek referred to it). On these grounds, Genesis is deciphered and reconstructed in institutional economic terms. The article develops and explores the hypotheses (i) that the stories of Genesis reflect an intense interest and attempt to come to terms with the institutional problem: of how to ensure cooperation in social interactions, and (ii) that the stories of Genesis address the institutional problem in economic terms, examining social conflict as capital contribution-distribution interactions, advising on the pareto-effectiveness of conflict resolution in relation to incentive structures, and methodically grounding analysis in the ideas of the dilemma structure and the homo economicus. An economic reconstruction of Genesis questions conventional theological suggestions on the role and extent to which the Bible invokes metaphysical concepts and metaphysical intervention for analyzing and solving social problems.
AndersonB.W. (1966). The Living World of the Old Testament, London: Longman.
3.
Ap-ThomasD.R. (1972). “The Context of the Old Testament”, in LaceO. J. (ed.), Understanding the Old Testament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11–100.
4.
BeckerG.S. (1993). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior”, Journal of Political Economy, 101, 385–409.
5.
BeckerG.S. (1976). The Economic Approach to Human Behavior, Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press.
6.
BeckerG.S. (1965). “A Theory of the Allocation of Time”, The Economic Journal, 75, September, 493–517.
7.
BennerA. (1997). “Religious Institutions and the Economics of Religion”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 153(1), 150–158.
8.
BerleA.A. Jr.MeansG.C. (1932). The Modern Corporation and Private Property, New York: Macmillan.
9.
BrennanH.G.WatermanA.M. (1994). “Introduction: Economics and Religion?”, in BrennanH. G.WatermanA. M. (eds). Economics and Religion: Are They Distinct?, Boston: Kluwer, 3–15.
10.
BramsS.J. (1980). Biblical Games: A Strategic Analysis of Stories of the Old Testament, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
11.
BuchananJ.M. (1995). “Individual Rights, Emergent Social States, and Behavioral Feasibility”, Rationality and Society, 7(2), 141–150.
12.
BuchananJ.M. (1987a) Economics: Between Predictive Science and Moral Philosophy, College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
13.
BuchananJ.M. (1987b). “The Constitution of Economic Policy”, American Economic Review, 77, 243–250.
14.
BuchananJ.M. (1975). The Limits of Liberty. Between Anarchy and Leviathan, Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.
15.
CassirerE. (1962). Leibniz’ System, Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms.
16.
CoaseR.H. (1984). “The New Institutional Economics”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 140(1), 229–231.
17.
CohnR.L. (1981). The Shape of Sacred Space: Four Biblical Studies, Chico, Cal.: American Academy of Religion (AAR)/Scholars Press.
18.
EnsmingerJ. (1997). “Transaction Costs and Islam: Explaining Conversion in Africa”, Journal of Theoretical and Institutional Economics, 153(1), 4–29.
19.
EtzioniA. (1988). The Moral Dimension. Towards a New Economics, New York: Free Press.
20.
FriedmanM. (1953). Essays in Positive Economics, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
21.
GordonB. (1994). “Theological Positions and Economic Perspectives in Ancient Literature”, in BrennanH. G.WatermanA. M. (eds) Economics and Religion: Are They Distinct?, Boston: Kluwer, 19–40.
22.
GordonB. (1989). The Economic Problem in Biblical and Patristic Thought, Leiden and New York: Brill.
23.
HardinG. (1968). “The Tragedy of the Commons”, Science162, 1243–48.
24.
HardinR. (1997). “The Economics of Religious Belief”, Journal of Theoretical and Institutional Economics, 153(1), 259–278.
25.
HayekF. (1976). Law, Legislation and Liberty: The Mirage of Social Justice, 2, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
26.
HayekF. (1960). The Constitution of Liberty, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
HodsonG. (1967). The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible, London: Theosophical Publishing House.
29.
HomannK. (1999). “Zur Grundlegung einer modernen Gesellschafts- and Sozialpolitik: Das Problem der Sozialen Ordnung”, in BlumU.EssweinW.GreiplE.HerethH.MullerS. (eds) Soziale Marktwirtschaft im nächsten Jahrtausend, Stuttgart, Germany: Schäffer-Poeschel, 119–148.
30.
HomannK. (1997). “Sinn und Grenze der ökonomischen Methode in der Wirtschaftsethik”, Volkswirtschaftliche Schriften478, 1–42.
31.
HomannK. (1994). “Homo oeconomicus und Dilemmastrukturen”, in SautterH. (ed.) Wirtschaftspolitik in offenen Volkswirtschaften, Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 387–411.
KnightF.H. (1948). Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, 3rd edition, Boston: Houghton.
35.
IannacconeL.R. (1998). “Introduction to the Economics of Religion”, Journal of Economic Literature, 36(3), 1465–1495.
36.
IannacconeL.R. (1995). “Voodoo Economics? Reviewing the Rational Choice Approach to Religion”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 34(1), 76–89.
37.
KuranT. (1994). “Religious Economics and the Economics of Religion”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 150(4), 769–775.
38.
LaceO.J. (1972). “The History of Religion in Israel”, in LaceO. J. (ed.), Understanding the Old Testament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 101–177.
39.
LakatosI. (1976). The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
40.
LuceR.D.RaiffaH. (1957). Games and Decisions. Introduction and Critical Survey, New York: J. Wiley.
41.
MacIntyreA. (1985). After Virtue, London: Duckworth.
42.
MargolisH. (1982). Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
43.
MillerG.P. (1994). “The Legal-Economic Approach to Biblical Interpretation”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 150(4), 755–762.
44.
MillerG.P. (1993a). “Contracts of Genesis”, Journal of Legal Studies, 21, 15–45.
45.
MillerG.P. (1993b). “Ritual and Regulation: A Legal-Economic Interpretation of Selected Biblical Texts”, Journal of Legal Studies, 21, 477–501.
46.
MullerJ.Z. (1993). Adam Smith in His Time and Ours, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
47.
Neumannvon, J.MorgensternO. (1947). Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
48.
NorthD. (1993a). “Institutions and Credible Commitment”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 149(1), 11–23.
49.
NorthD. (1993b). “Institutions and Economic Performance”, in U.MäkiB.GustafssonKnudsenC. (eds) Rationality, Institutions and Economic Methodology, London: Routledge, 242–261.
50.
OtzenB. (1980). “The Use of Myth in Genesis”, in OtzenB.GottliebH.JeppsenK. (eds) Myths in the Old Testament, London: SCM Press, 22–61.
51.
ParisD. (1998). “An Economic Look at the Old Testament”, in LowryS. T.GordonB. (eds) Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, New York: Brill, 39–103.
52.
Plato (1999). The Essential Plato, translated by JowettB., Uxbridge: Softback Preview.
53.
PopperK. (1978). Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
54.
RaskovichA. (1996). “You Shall Have no Other Gods Beside Me: A Legal-Economic Approach of the Rise of Yahweh”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 152(3), 449–471.
SenA.K. (1990). “Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behaviourial Foundations of Economic Theory”, in MansbridgeJ. J. (ed.), Beyond Self-interest, Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 25–43.
SmithAdam (1976). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2, Oxford: Clarendon.
59.
SmithI. (1999). “The Economics of the Apocalypse: Modelling the Biblical Book of Revelation”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 155(3), 443–457.
60.
SpriggsD.G. (1972). Two Old Testament Theologies: A Comparative Evaluation of the Contributions of Eichrodt and von Rad to Our Understanding of the Nature of Old Testament Theology, London: SCM Press.
61.
StolzF. (1974). Interpreting the Old Testament, London: SCM Press.
62.
SuchanekA. (1994). Ökonomischer Ansatz and theoretische Integration, Tübingen, Germany: Mohr-Siebeck.
63.
SuchanekA. (1993). “Der homo oeconomicus als Heuristik”, Working Paper No. 38, Department of Management and Economics, Catholic University of Eichstaett at Ingolstadt, Germany.
64.
StiglerG.J.BeckerG.S. (1977). “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum”, American Economic Review, 67(2), 76–90.
65.
TullockG. (1985). “Adam Smith and the Prisoners’ Dilemma”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 100, 1073–1081.
66.
TullockJ. (1981). The Old Testament Story, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
67.
Wagner-TsukamotoS.A. (forthcoming), Human Nature and Organization Theory, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; revised version of The Image of Man in Organization Theory. On the Institutional Problem and the Portrayal of Human Behaviour in the Social Sciences, Doctoral Dissertation, July2000, Department of Management and Economics, Catholic University of Eichstaett at Ingolstadt, Germany.
68.
Wagner-TsukamotoS.A. (2001). “The Failure of the Quaker Experiments (1900–1940) in Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications for an Economic Approach to Business Ethics”, Conference Paper, EBEN-Conference, 9–10April2001, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; publication forthcoming.
69.
Wagner-TsukamotoS.A. (2000a). “The Exodus of the Wealth of Nations: The Disequilibration of Interests Between Egypt and Israel and the Emergence of ‘Rational Foolishness’ in Social Interactions”, Revised Version of Discussion Paper No. 2000/05, Management Centre/Department of Economics, University of Leicester, UK, April2000; publication forthcoming.
70.
Wagner-TsukamotoS.A. (2000b). “An Institutional Economic Reconstruction of Scientific Management: On the Lost Theoretical Logic of Taylorism”, Discussion Paper No. 2000/14, Management Centre, University of Leicester, UK, December2000; publication forthcoming.
71.
WilliamsonO.E. (1998). “Human Actors and Economic Organization”, Conference Paper, 7th Biannual Meeting of the International Joseph Schumpeter Society, June1998, Vienna, Austria.
72.
WilliamsonO.E. (1996). “Economics and Organization: A Primer”, California Management Review, 38(2), 131–146.
73.
WilliamsonO.E. (1985). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, New York: Free Press.
74.
WilliamsonO.E. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. Analysis and Antitrust Implications, New York: Free Press.
75.
WilliamsonO.E. (1967). The Economics of Discretionary Behavior: Managerial Objectives in a Theory of the Firm, London: Kershaw.
