Abstract
This entry will provide insights into Albert Hirschman intellectual trajectory and major concepts. We will over the main steps of his academic career and his major contributions to several and multidisciplinary fields. On the issue of law and economics, the entry underlines his high preference for pragmatic institutions (voice and the political arts of participation and deliberation at different social scales) and his everlasting caution to organic institutions (exit and spontaneous market mechanisms). However, we also state that in some of his contributions, Hirschman tried to rehabilitate, in an original and balanced way, the benefit consequences of organic institutions on the issues of growth and especially development.