The rhetoric in Douglass North Institutional Economics

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2003)

Apr-Jun / 2003
Published April 1, 2003
PDF-Portuguese (Português (Brasil))
PDF-Portuguese (Português (Brasil))

How to Cite

Gala, Paulo. 2003. “The Rhetoric in Douglass North Institutional Economics”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 23 (2):311-23. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-31572004-0678.

The rhetoric in Douglass North Institutional Economics

Paulo Gala
Doutorando em economia pela Fundação Getúlio Vargas de São Paulo - FGV-SP, São Paulo/SP, Brasil.
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 23 No. 2 (2003), Apr-Jun / 2003, Pages 311-323

Abstract

This paper analyses the rhetoric of Douglass North. After a brief discussion about the relevance of rhetorical studies for methodological purposes, we investigate the author’s speech in Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (1990) in two stages. The first deals with the way in which North delivers his theory — the main focus here is in the way he “talks” to his audience. The second shows the author’s use of some of the classical rhetorical rules as proposed by Arida (1983). In the last section we discuss some aspects of North’s work considering other studies with the same task in Brazil.

JEL Classification: B15; B31.


Keywords: Douglass North new institutional economics