Significance and Relevance of the Equity and Development Line of Investigation: Social Innovation and its Relation to Economic and Social Development from Economic Institutionalism

Abstract

This paper is related to the relevance and significance of the Equity and Development line of investigation from the School of Economics and Social Sciences at La Salle University in terms of social innovation. This concept has been brought up at the Economics of Public Services research group in terms of equity, such as the recognition of the excluded other, and in terms of development, regarding the rules of the game and organizations as determinants of economic and social performance. Through the interpretation of the results of microanalysis of the empirical research on the provision of sewerage services in Bogotá and Cartagena, this paper raises the need for new epistemological, theoretical-conceptual and methodological approaches to the concept of <em>social innovation</em> generated by this reflection when it comes to the new institutional designs in the provision of household utilities in Colombia.