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Open research questions in Economic Theory and Institutions

464 gap statements mined from Economic Theory and Institutions papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,489 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • In the proposed model, the principal and the agent only have limited information access and are endowed with the ability to gain, store and retrieve information from their (finite) memory.

    Performance-Based Pay and Limited Information Access. An Agent-Based Model of the Hidden Action Problem · 2024 · DOI

  • Future research should explore the generalizability of these findings in different institutional contexts and examine variability in technology-institution interactions across diverse geopolitical landscapes.

    A New Concept of Techno-Economic Institutions within Institutional Economics: Integrating Technologies and Institutional Frameworks · 2024 · DOI

  • It highlights the need for a typology of knowledge to address this gap.

    Austrian Economics and Knowledge · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could explore the application of the study's findings to other financial markets. Further research could examine the impact of quantitative valuation practices on financial market outcomes.

    (Re-)assembling the gilt-edged market: quantification, model misfire, and the politics of expertise in post war Britain · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a gap in understanding the historical process behind the emergence of yield-based calculative practices. The paper identifies a need to examine the role of expertise in shaping financial markets.

    (Re-)assembling the gilt-edged market: quantification, model misfire, and the politics of expertise in post war Britain · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies the challenge of establishing a sovereign authority that can protect natural rights and maintain social order. The paper highlights the difficulty of balancing individual rights with the need for a strong central authority.

    The Économistes and the Genesis of the State: A Physiocratic Reinterpretation of the Social Contract · 2026 · DOI

  • The English Reformation faced challenges from the Catholic Church and the people who were against the reform movement.

    Comparison of King Alfred of Wessex and King Henry VIII of England in Terms of Their Economic and Political Objectives: The Founding of the Kingdom of England · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of critical thinking in economics, leading to a lack of constructive dialogue between different research programs. The limitations of critical thinking, including ontological, epistemological, and axiological limitations, which must be acknowledged and addressed.

    Ours among Strangers, Strangers among Ours: Why Does Economics Need Critical Thinking? · 2026 · DOI

  • It notes a lack of understanding of the complexity of the social world and the limits to its intelligibility. The paper argues that economists' paradigm thinking oversimplifies the complex, uncertain world, highlighting a need for alternative approaches.

    Albert O. Hirschman and the post-American, post-liberal conjuncture · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of a comprehensive monograph on Valenti's work. The need to reconcile Valenti's characteristics with economic analysis of law. The importance of understanding the theoretical origins of the Valenti cooperative movement.

    Value, law, and cooperation. The international dimension of Ghino Valenti’s insights · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a gap between the assumption of neoclassical economics that individuals' economic behaviour is consistent with maximizing theories of rational choice and the evidence that individuals' decisions often reveal inconsistent preferences.

    Disengaging Liberalism from Rationality · 2025 · DOI

  • Relatively little is known about the relationship between Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian school of economics, and his son, Karl Menger, the mathematician, geometer, logician, and philosopher of science, whose mathematical colloquium at the University of Vienna was essential for the development of mathematical economics.

    Karl Menger as Son of Carl Menger · 2018 · DOI

  • The article defines the concept of economic mentality as informal institution, analyzes the basic approaches to the interpretation of this category in institutional theory, the structure of the institutional environment, indicates the place and role of economic mentality in the system of institutional factors of economic development, outlines the prospects for further research of this problem.

    ECONOMIC MENTALITY AS A FACTOR OF DEVELOPMENT OF INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT · 2013 · DOI

  • Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter treats several immensely important and understudied topics—public ignorance of economics, political ideology, and their connection to policy error—from an orthodox economic perspective whose applicability to these topics is overwhelmingly disproven by the available evidence.

    THE IRRELEVANCE OF ECONOMIC THEORY TO UNDERSTANDING ECONOMIC IGNORANCE · 2008 · DOI

  • While a considerable body of empirical investigations seems to provide evidence of positive correlations between stock market development and economic growth, there is no consensus in other social sciences as to whether there are two‐way linkages, and if so, how to conceive a possible mechanism of interaction.

    The Global System of Finance · 2006 · DOI

  • The classical economic theory has a limited understanding of uncertainty. The paper identifies a gap in the existing literature on Keynesian uncertainty.

    On the difference between the keynesian, knightian and the ‘classical’ analysis of uncertainty and the development of a more general monetary theory · 1987 · DOI

  • The need to develop new insights into the work of economists such as Keynes and Veblen.

    Money as an Institution of Capitalism · 1987 · DOI

  • The dictionary definitions of money are insufficient for understanding its role in the economy. There is a need for a deeper understanding of money's impact on employment and output in the economy.

    Money as an Institution of Capitalism · 1987 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in our understanding of the concept of resources and how they are created. The paper identifies a gap in our understanding of the relationship between resources and human activity.

    Resources Are Not; They Become: An Institutional Theory · 1987 · DOI

  • The relationship between economics and philosophy has yet to be explicated in detail. The influence of pragmatism on institutionalist economic theory has not been fully explored.

    The Philosophical Bases of Institutionalist Economics · 1987 · DOI

  • The historical institutionalist approach emphasizes that the modern state is not the product of a sudden break, but rather of a long-term and gradual process of institutional transformation. The state's fiscal power and administrative capacity are formed not in a single historical period but through the continuity of institutional practices accumulated over different periods.

    Comparison of King Alfred of Wessex and King Henry VIII of England in Terms of Their Economic and Political Objectives: The Founding of the Kingdom of England · 2026 · DOI

  • Not limited to the University of Chicago precincts, the story also takes the reader back, for example, to the nineteenth-century currency school–banking school controversy, showing how the 1844 Bank of England Charter Act provided an inspiration for the Chicago Plan of banking reform.

    The Monetarists: The Making of the Chicago Monetary Tradition, 1927–1960 by George S. Tavlas · 2024 · DOI

  • Their impact, however, was limited by a thrust which went counter to most New Dealers’ conception of capitalism. The planner’s vision was not limited to any given bounds and thus transcended any economic order. ” Systems described as capitalist, he stated, varied widely over time and place; while “there may be legitimate concepts for ‘capitalisms,”’ there could be “no fixed concept ‘capitalism’.

    New Deal Pragmatism and Economic Systems: Concepts and Meanings · 1987 · DOI

  • The invocation of science in economics has been a vain hope. Philosophical preconceptions are still present in economics. The relationship between economics and philosophy is complex and has yet to be fully explored.

    The Philosophical Bases of Institutionalist Economics · 1987 · DOI

  • Among the 90 private managers in this Institutional 100, nearly every firm manages both mutual funds and pension funds, though the relative importance of each varies widely.

    Reflections on "Toward Common Sense and Common Ground?" · 2007

Most-cited papers in Economic Theory and Institutions

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Future research could explore the application of the study's findings to other financial markets (“(Re-)assembling the gilt-edged market: quantification, model misfire, and the…”, 2026); (2) The lack of critical thinking in economics, leading to a lack of constructive dialogue between different research programs (“Ours among Strangers, Strangers among Ours: Why Does Economics Need Critical…”, 2026); (3) It notes a lack of understanding of the complexity of the social world and the limits to its intelligibility (“Albert O. Hirschman and the post-American, post-liberal conjuncture”, 2026); (4) Future research should explore the generalizability of these findings in different institutional contexts and examine variability in technology-institution interactions across diverse geopolitical landscapes (“A New Concept of Techno-Economic Institutions within Institutional Economics:…”, 2024); (5) There is a need for a deeper understanding of money's impact on employment and output in the economy (“Money as an Institution of Capitalism”, 1987). 464 gap statements have been mined from Economic Theory and Institutions papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,489 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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