How shifts in thought paradigms restructure institutional context and so impact upon systems of economic interactions. Very tasty.
"In this paper, I propose to explore a different and more elusive way in which the Enlightenment affected the Industrial Revolution, namely through its impact on institutions. The argument I will make is complementary to the one that focuses on useful knowledge alone. The logic is, essentially this: technological change was a necessary condition for long-term sustained economic growth. The Industrial Revolution provided a stream of innovations, improvements, and adaptations, which, in the longer term, generated growth beyond the wildest dreams of even the
most optimistic Enlightenment philosophe. Yet without changes in the institutional environment of Europe, such technological progress might have been slower in coming and more importantly, might have been arrested, as it had before, by what might best be called negative institutional feedback."
Full paper; http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jmokyr/stockholm.PDF
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