Turud, kommunikatsioon ja võrgustikud. Katsed mõtestada informatsioonikulude rolli ajaloos
Markets, Communications and Networks: Attempts to Make Sense of the Role of Information Costs in History

Summary/Abstract: This article examines how studies of the evolution of markets, communications and networks have contributed to the research and renewal of economic history in recent decades. The article finds that the concept of information costs, which comes from the theoretical concepts of so-called new institutional economics, is the possible link connecting these different research directions. I argue that tracing the long term changes in information costs can reveal historical interconnections and -dependencies from a new angel. I started with enlightenment thinkers who developed a vision of the market as a spontaneous order, i.e. developed as a consequence of human activity but independent of human will. In the 20th century, an influential Austrian school developed the idea further. They thought of the market as a non-hierarchical and spontaneously emerging organisation where price functions as the mechanism that coordinates the activities of many individuals. But in their ‘free’ price dictation, there was no place for the past in its diversity. The market, although in competition with other forms of distribution, was, by its very nature, timeless and eternal. This inevitably gave historical development a secondary, illustrative role.

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