Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, in Cato, Wisconsin, to Norwegian-American immigrant parents, Thomas Veblen … See more

After graduation from Yale in 1884, Veblen was essentially unemployed for seven years. Despite having strong letters of recommendation, he was unable to obtain a university position. It is possible that his dissertation research … See more

American pragmatism distrusted the notion of the absolute, and instead recognized the notion of free will. Rather than God's divine intervention taking control of the happenings of the universe, pragmatism believed th… See more

Thorstein Veblen laid the foundation for the perspective of institutional economics with his criticism of traditional static economic theory. As much as Veblen was an economist, he was also a sociologist who rejected hi… See more

Veblen and other American institutionalists were indebted to the German Historical School, especially Gustav von Schmoller, for the emphasis on historical fact, their empiricism and especially a broad, evolutionar… See more