This article presents a brief review of the role played by institutions in economic exchange and decision-making within the neoclassical, institutionalist, and neoinstitutionalist schools of economic thought. For the neoclassical school, institutions are exogenous, don't affect exchange or economic decisions and, paradoxically, exclude from their analysis the main economic institution: the market. The author contrasts this point of view with the institutionalist and neoinstitutionalist visions in which institutions are essential in shaping the system of exchange and ensuring the functioning of markets, and presents a synthesis of the analytical concerns and contributions of these two approaches to economic thought.
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