Culture in Neoinstitutional Economics: An Integration of Myrdal and Galbraith into the Veblen‐Ayres Matrix

. Neoinstitutional economics, exemplified in this instance by the contributions of Gunnaar Myrdal and John K. Galbraith, exhibits a basic proclivity toward fragmentation. It is argued that a further advance of the Veblen‐Ayres general theory of economic development will serve as the foundation to reverse such centrifugal tendencies and provide a basis for integration and synthesis. The key conceptual framework for analysis and theory resides in culture and its evolution. The core of culture is transformed through the processes of economic development fed by the dynamics of technological change. In a modified Veblen‐ Ayres matrix, social institutions are assumed to be integral to the organic whole of technology. Given further modifications of mainstream institutional economics contained in the “dichotomy of useful knowledge” and the “wheel of economic development,” it is suggested that the cultural approaches of Myrdal and Galbraith might then be integrated into the culture‐analysis of economic evolution inherent in mainstream institutional economics