Victor Nee's current interests are focused on developing theories of the middle-range and their extension to empirical research:
1). He is completing a five-year study of endogenous institutional change focusing on networks and norms of entrepreneurs and firms in the Yangzi delta region of China. Why and how did a modern capitalist economic order emerge in China? Where do economic institutions come from? In Capitalism from Below: Markets and Institutional Change (forthcoming, Harvard University Press), he and Sonja Opper detail the theory and evidence in explaining the emergence of economic institutions of capitalism. The study employs "mixed-methods" integrating a two-wave survey of private firms (2006 and 2009), 134 face-to-face qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs and large-scale field experiments on Knightian uncertainty. The quantitative, experimental and qualitative data from this study will be analyzed for research reports to be submitted to journals, 2011-12.
2). He has begun a new research program focusing on markets, firms and innovative activity in the United States. This entails an initial study of networks and social exchange of economic agents with Scott Golder using data on Fortune 1000 firms and emergent networks and norms on Twitter. The second phase of the research program will be a study of start-up firms and innovative activity using mixed methods in New York City and Los Angeles. The aim is an in depth study of 21st century entrepreneurs and firms in the U.S.