Ethical Codes and Income Distribution: A Study of John Bates Clark and Thorstein Veblen

In contemporary non-mainstream economic debate, it is widely thought that the functioning of a market economy needs a set of rules (i.e. institutions) which bind agents in their behaviour, allowing efficient outcomes. This idea is contrary to the General Equilibrium Model (GEM) where markets are pictured as working in an institutional vacuum and where social and historical variables play no role. However, in more recent times, a large group of economists have begun to insert social and mora...