Marginality is the Mother of Invention: A New Institutional Economics Perspective

Summary

It has long been assumed that the original inhabitants of the Bahama archipelago practiced lifeways that were essentially identical to those practiced on their larger neighbors. Recent research suggests that there actually were substantial differences, including a much higher degree of mobility and a focus on maize instead of manioc cultivation. Some of these differences may be attributed to their origins in Cuba, versus Hispaniola; and the possibility that their ancestry can be traced to what are called Archaic Age communities. This paper explores the economic foundations of the Lucayan inhabitants of the Bahamas from the perspective of New Institutional Economics. NIE, which came to prominence in the 1970s, seeks to bridge the gap between Price Theory and Institutional Theory. In this regard it is comparable to bridging the gap between individual and population-level behaviors. NIE emphasizes the relationship between transaction costs and property rights in a modified neoclassical model. The objective in this paper is to expose the relevant variables and cost accounting that are not covered in the neoclassical economic models or in traditional behavioral ecology. By incorporating these variables the margin shifts in ways that better explain the economic foundations of indigenous Bahamian communities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Model Environments: Human Ecodynamics on Islands

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