Review Essay: On the Problematic Relationship between Economy of Conventions and Neoinstitutionalism

In her book on the justification of economic action, Lisa KNOLL provides one of the most extensive and ambitious empirical applications of the Economy of Conventions so far available in the German language. The book focuses on the practical treatment of "heterogeneity" regarding different conceptions of rationality and their actualization in economic organizations. The author undertakes to reconstruct the implementation of the CO2 emissions trade in municipal utilities. This empirical study prompted the author to develop and apply a combination of neoinstitutionalism and the economy of conventions. This choice of methods renders the study particularly interesting. This review will first introduce the book and its strengths, before focusing on the author's chosen combination and examining how far it succeeds and in how far the study's present strengths could have been improved, taking into consideration the coherent fitting of theory and method (DIAZ-BONE 2010, 2012a). URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1302158