Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Issue 173 December 15, 2014 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory

This issue of the Newsletter contains an important item directed at our younger readers, namely the call for applications for the international "Erasmus Mundus" Master Program in "Economic Policies in the Age of Globalisation" (EPOG). The call for this outstanding program, which also includes the possibility to obtain an EU-funded scholarship, is open till the 21st of January. Of course, the Newsletter also features a lot of other interesting material: beginning with this issue I even decided to slightly increase the Newsletter's coverage by including not only calls for submissions related to academic awards, but also short statements announcing the winners of the respective awards and providing links to their "award-winning" contributions. Let fame go to all those, who deserve it ;-)

Another thing that caught my eye in this Newsletter is the critical exchange on Modern Monetary Theory between Tom Palley and Eric Tymoigne/Randy Wray in the current issue of the Review of Political Economy. Although lack of access and time forced me to postpone a close reading of these papers to the upcoming holidays, I think they not only make a worthwhile read but also raise a series of important questions for those researchers, who are interested in developing an integrated heterodox approach to monetary theory.

Additionally, please note that the publication of the next issue of the Newsletter is scheduled for the 5th of January, which directly collides with the ASSA-conference 2015 in Boston, where I am presenting two papers (see here in case you are interested). Although the editorial team will try to stick to its duties and thereby withstand the transatlantic divide, there is a small probability that the publication of the next issue will be slightly delayed due to the editor's absence. Should this indeed be the case, please do not panic but rather simply excuse the delay.

Many thanks and all the Best,

Jakob

© public domain

Table of contents

Call for Papers

12th Annual STOREP Conference on "Shifting Boundaries: Economics in the Crisis and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity" (Torino, 2015)

11-13 June, 2015 | University of Torino, Torino, Italy

Conference Theme: "Shifting Boundaries: Economics in the Crisis and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity"

The topic that we intend to explore is the relationship between economics and other disciplines. Especial attention will be devoted to the recent history of economic theory, while also considered will be how the current crisis has prompted new reflections on micro- and macroeconomic approaches.

Since its origins, economic theory has interacted with other sciences, and often adopted their paradigms and analytical tools (suffice to consider the role played by classical mechanics and evolutionary biology). At the end of the process that led to the neoclassical school’s dominance, the so-called “economics imperialism” led to the progressive expansion of economics into domains traditionally occupied by other social disciplines (political sciences, sociology, anthropology, psychology), doing so on the basis of the presumed superiority of the methods and theories of economics.

The situation today appears radically different. In recent decades, approaches originating from outside economics have contributed significantly to economic theory, inducing economics – and challenging it – to reopen discussion with the other social disciplines, and to adopt the perspectives and methods of new research fields. Game theory, behavioral economics, experimental economics, evolutionary economics, complexity economics are among the most striking examples of this evolution of economic inquiry, and they solicit scholars to deepen analysis of the new methodological and thematic horizons in economics.

Possible topics for the conference sessions include, but are not limited to:

We are pleased to announce that distinguished colleagues:

will join the conference as keynote speakers.

Selected papers on the main topic of the conference will be published in a special issue of History of Economic Ideas.

Besides plenary sessions, some parallel sessions will focus on the main topic of the conference; proposals of papers on all fields of the history of economic thought are also welcome.

An abstract of about 400 words for a paper and 600 words for a session (together with the abstracts of the three or four papers for the session) must be submitted before February 28, 2015 to: segretario@storep.org.

Notification of accepted and rejected abstracts will be sent by March 15, 2015.

Other important dates:

All relevant information concerning registration fees, accommodation and programme will soon be published on the association’swebsite.

Young Scholar Awards

STOREP provides two kinds of awards for young scholars:

  1. Scholarships for young scholars (under 35 years of age). In order to be eligible, the applicant is required to submit a Curriculum Vitae and a paper on any topic relevant to the history of political economy. The authors of the papers selected will be awarded free STOREP Conference registration, including the social dinner and the association’s annual membership fee.
    All applications, with CV and the final version of the papers, should be sent to segretario@storep.org no later than April 30, 2015. Applicants will be informed about the result of the evaluation process no later than May 15, 2015.

  2. The STOREP Award (of 500.00 €) for the best article presented at the Annual Conference by young scholars under 40 years of age.
    All applications, with CV and the final version of the papers, should be sent to segretario@storep.org no later than September 15,2015.

2nd International Conference on "BitCoins, Crypto-Coins and the Implications of New Private Electronic Monies for Public Policy" (Milan, 2015)

1-4 July, 2015 | Catholic University of Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

Conference Theme: "BitCoins, Crypto-Coins and the Implications of New Private Electronic Monies for Public Policy"

Organizer: Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, McMaster University, campbma3@mcmaster.ca

Debates contemplating the advent of crypto-coins such as Bitcoin have primarily taken place in law and economics as well as in the financial media. Observers have chiefly concentrated on whether or not digitally encrypted coins overcome the technological and psychological challenges faced by earlier generations of private electronic monies. However much less emphasis has been placed on the implications posed by crypto-coins for public control and management of monetary policy. Echoing earlier scholarly debates over digital monies, some commentators have suggested that crypto-coins may undermine public authority in the monetary realm, while others have countered that the emergence of crypto-currencies may actually enhance public authority. Meanwhile the local, national, and global repercussions for policy areas beyond the monetary realm, reaching for instance into fiscal or energy policy, have almost entirely been overlooked. In exploring a variety of theoretical and empirical issues related to the advent of crypto-coins this panel seeks to enhance scholarly understanding of the implications for multiple levels of governance of the emergence of these new forms of private electronic money. Paper proposals integrating a range of conceptual approaches and addressing various implications for public policies at different levels of analysis are welcomed, including but not limited to topics such as:

Further information on the panel and the conference, as well as instructions for submitting paper proposals of up to 500 words by January 15, 2015, can be found here.

2nd World Keynes Conference on "New Economic Thinking - A better way forward!" (Denizli, 2015)

9-13 September, 2015 | Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey

In memoriam of Frederic S. Lee (1949 – 2014)

"Mainstream economics is in disarray"– so much the economics discipline agrees on. It failed to foresee the recent World Financial Crisis and now proposes an economic policy that any proponent of economics as a serious science must be deterred from.

Though scienceand common sense would suggest that this moment would belong to those, such as the heterodox and the pluralists, who have long criticized mainstream economics and the monistic approach to the discipline, neither ‘empirical anomalies’ nor deductive weaknesses have ever caused paradigmatic shifts or made economics more pluralistic. Mainstream economics is simply too solidly entrenched politically and alternatives such as Marxian, Post Keynesian or Social economics, are too little understood. The minor axiomatic variations within mainstream economics are mistaken for the much greater axiomatic and heuristic variations between mainstream and competing paradigms.

The 2 World Keynes Conference will address these issues. It encourages the presentation of theoretical alternatives in the following areas or others they believe are related to the issues outlined above:

The Conference also welcomes inquiries into the dominance of mainstream economics:

in contesting mainstream variations:

and in focusing on institutional arrangements in the economic field:

Although the conference bears the name of John Maynard Keynes, approaches inspired by other economists such as David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Michal Kalecki, Hyman Minsky, Joan Robinson, Piero Sraffa, Karl Polanyi or Wynne Godley are welcome – the approach taken is one of in- not ex-clusion.

Finally, it should be mentioned that papers from all theoretical perspectives are welcome:

Abstract Submissions

To submit a proposal please send an abstract of about 400 words for a paper and/or a proposal of about 600 words for a session, together with the abstracts of the session papers, no later than March 31, 2015. Please include the title of the session or the paper, the authors’ names and institutional affiliations, and contact information in the form of an e-mail address for the corresponding author.

Submissions of Abstract Proposals and Conference Registration should be made through the Conference Webpage or sent to: Prof. Arne Heise at arne.heise@wiso.uni-hamburg.de. The subject line should read "WKC Denizli 2015".

Keynote Speakers (to be confirmed)

Organising Committee

Important Dates

More information is available here.

9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations on "The Worlds of Violence" (Sicilia, 2015)

23-26 September, 2015 | Giardini Naxos, Sicily, Italy

Organised by the European International Studies Association in cooperation with the University of Catania

The programme chairs of the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations invite paper, panel, and roundtable proposals for submission to any of the 64 sections on the 2015 programme:

Please contact the section chairs for any question regarding their section.

There will be no open section: all paper, panel, and roundtable proposals must fit into the sections listed above and be submitted online to the appropriate sections. A given proposal can be submitted to only one section at a time.

For more information on these sections and their convenors, as well as general information on the conference, please visit the conference website.

Annual Conference of History of Economics Society (Michigan, 2015)

26-29 June, 2015 | Michigan State University, US

The Annual History of Economics Society Conference for 2015 will held at Michigan State University. Papers dealing with any aspect of the history of economic thought are welcome, including work related to any period or any school of economic thought. Also welcome are papers that situate economics in wider intellectual and cultural contexts or relate it to other disciplines, and work related to the history of closely cognate disciplines (e.g., statistics with economic applications or economic sociology). Essentially, any work that touches the history of economics as a discipline or that would be of interest to scholars working in such an area is encouraged.

Information about travel and accommodation options is now available on the Conference website. Online registration for the Conference will be available through the website starting in early January.

To propose a paper:

Please send a title, a paper abstract (not longer than 200 words), and the name and contact information of the paper’s author(s) to hes2015@econ.msu.eduby March 1 , 2015.

To propose a session:

Proposals for complete sessions, including sets of papers related to a focused theme, or panel discussions of a well-defined topic are in demand. If you would like to propose such a session, or some other type of session that you believe would be of interest to our membership, please include a title for the session, a brief description of the session’s unifying theme, and the names of at least two other scholars who will participate. If the proposed session is a set of papers, please include titles and abstracts of the papers. Submit session proposals to hes2015@econ.msu.edu by March 1 .

Young Scholars

The HES provides special support for up to ten Warren J. and Sylvia J. Samuels Young Scholars to present papers at the conference, in the form of free registration, banquet and reception tickets, and a year's membership in the society. Five of the Young Scholars awardees will also receive a grant of $500 to cover travel and accommodation costs. If you wish to have your paper considered for the Young Scholars program, please provide details of the date of your last degree (or your current graduate student status) when submitting your paper proposal to hes2015@econ.msu.edu, and indicate that you wish to be considered for the Samuels Young Scholars program. A Young Scholar must currently be a PhD candidate, or have been awarded a PhD in the 2 years preceding the conference. The deadline for application is March 1.

Capital as Power: Broadening the Vista (Ottawa, 2015)

1-3 October, 2015 | Carleton University, Ottawa, CA

The theory of capital as power (CasP) offers a radical alternative to mainstream and Marxist theories of capitalism. It argues that capital symbolizes and quantifies not utility or labour but organized power writ large, and that capitalism is best understood and challenged not as a mode of consumption and production, but as a mode of power.

Over the past decade, the Forum on Capital as Power has organized many lectures, speaker series and conferences. Our most recent international gatherings include "Capitalizing Power: The Qualities and Quantities of Accumulation” (2012), "The Capitalist Mode of Power: Past, Present and Future" (2011), and "Crisis of Capital, Crisis of Theory" (2010).

The 2015 conference seeks to broaden the vista. We are looking for papers that extend and deepen CasP research, compare CasP with other approaches and critique CasP’s methods and findings. Articles could be general or specific, theoretical or empirical, analytical or historical.

The conference is open to everyone, with submissions vetted entirely on merit. We accept applications from established and new researchers, in and outside academia. However, we are particularly interested in submissions from young researchers of all ages, including MA and PhD students, private and public employees and free spirits. If you have an interest in the subject and something important – or potentially important – to say, please apply.

Financial assistance: we may be able to assist presenters by partly covering the cost of travel and accommodation. This possibility is still tentative; it is conditional on ability to secure sufficient funding.

Deadline for abstract submissions: March 20, 2015.

More information is available here.

EUROFRAME Conference on "Economic Policy Issue in the European Union: Challenges for Europe 2050" (Vienna, 2015)

12 June, 2015 | Vienna

Theme: Challenges for Europe 2050

The EUROFRAME group of research institutes (CASE, CPB, DIW, ESRI, ETLA, IfW, NIESR, OFCE, PROMETEIA, WIFO) will hold its eleventh annual Conference on Economic Policy Issues in the European Union in Vienna on 12 June 2015. The aim of the conference is to provide an economic forum for debate on economic policy issues relevant in the European context. Current long-term forecasts suggest much lower growth in Europe out to 2050. The Conference will focus on the challenges forEurope in such a low growth environment.

Contributions should address issues related, first of all, to the causes of the slowdown of the European economy, secondly, to the potential negative consequences of a lower growth path in Europe for the social system, employment, welfare and the European socio-economic model. How to cope with them? How to get more welfare (as characterised by “beyond GDP” goals) out of potentially lower growth rates? How to deal with an aging population in a low growth scenario? How to finance the welfare state at a lower growth path? What would lower growth imply for the labour market and the relationship between growth and employment? What are the implications of lower growth rates for income distribution? How to retain high ecological standards at a lower growth path?

Submission Procedure

Deadline: Abstracts and Papers should be submitted by e-mail until 2 March to catherine.mathieu@ofce.sciences-po.fr.

Abstracts (2 pages) should mention: title of communication, name(s) of the author(s), affiliation, corresponding author’s e-mail address, postal address, telephone number. Corresponding authors will be informed of the decision of the scientific committee by early April. Full papers should be received by e-mail by 22 May.

Selected papers will be published after a reviewing process in a Conference Proceedings - Special issue of the Revue de l’OFCE or in the WWWforEurope Policy Papers Series.

Scientific Committee

Karl Aiginger (WIFO), Kerstin Bernoth (DIW), Klaus-Jürgen Gern (IfW), Christopher Hartwell (CASE), Markku Kotilainen (ETLA), Kieran McQuinn (ESRI), Paolo Onofri (PROMETEIA), Henri Sterdyniak (OFCE), Paul Veenendaal (CPB), James Warren (NIESR), Catherine Mathieu (OFCE, Scientific Secretary)

Local Organising Committee (WIFO, Vienna)

More information is available on the EUROFRAME website.

First World Congress of Comparative Economics (Rome, 2015)

25-27 June, 2015 | Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

The European Association for Comparative Economic Studies (EACES), The Association for Comparative Economic Studies (ACES), The Japanese Association for Comparative Economic Studies (JACES), The Korean Association for Comparative Economic Studies (KACES), The Italian Association for Comparative Economic Studies (AISSEC), The Society for the Study of Emerging Markets (SSEM), Chinese Economists Society (CES), The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) and other scientific associations and networks are issuing a call for papers for the panels they will be organizing for the first World Congress of Comparative Economics in Rome (Italy).

We invite submission of entire panels (3 or 4 abstracts/papers) or individual abstracts/papers.

All submissions of abstracts/papers are possible by using CONFERENCE MAKER. Therefore you have to create a free, new account (possibly until December 31, 2014).

Dates

Registration:

Scientific Committee (to be completed): Marcello Signorelli, Josef C. Brada, Saul Estrin, Masaaki Kuboniwa, Ali M. Kutan, Jinlan Ni, Pasquale Tridico, Tomasz Mickiewicz, Byung Yeon Kim, Elisabetta Croci Angelini, Haizheng Li, Satoshi Mizobata, Si Joong Kim, Belton M. Fleisher, Francesco Farina, Janusz Brzeszczynski, Milica Uvalic, Wolfram Elsner, Ichiro Iwasaki, Hartmut Lehmann, Ikka Korhonen and Pauline Grosjean, Yan Bai, Jie He, Jun Ma.

All information is available on the conference website.

International Academic Conference on "Economics of Vices and Virtues" (St. Petersburg, 2015)

15–16 May, 2015 | Center for the Study of Economic Culture, St. Petersburg State University, Russia

While accepting the assumption about the rationality of economic agents as a starting point of analysis, economists still cannot afford to ignore that rational choice in any case is made within a framework of specific beliefs, values and behavioral patterns. Some of these behavioral patterns are traditionally considered to represent virtues, and some — passions and vices, and in different cultures and subcultures the interpretation may vary. Is this kind of assessment relevant for economic science and economic policy? In order to understand this, we propose to discuss (from the point of view of economics and culture) such phenomena as addictions and habits in consumption of certain products, the specifics of policy — making in such cases, problems of interpretation of consumer addictions and habits in culture and social science, as well as the problem of prohibitions. This topic is supposed to come back to the discussion of the provocative thesis of Bernard de Mandeville in his “The Fable of the Bees” (1714) that the private vices tend to form the public benefit.

The Conference topics will include:

The specific issues to be discussed will be the examination of the different aspects of the economics, historical facts and culture of alcohol production, consumption and regulation. We invite economists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians and the scholars from other spheres in the social sciences and humanities for the dialogue.

Conference languages: English and Russian

Important Dates:

The conference organizers welcome proposals of sessions with a description. Please send abstracts and proposals to maidachenko09@gmail.com

Link to the Call for Papers.

Latin American Perspectives: Special Issue on "Neoliberalism and Higher Education in Latin America"

Since the globalization of the neoliberal economic model began during the 1980s, higher education systems have entered a phase of accelerated mercantilization throughout much of Latin America. If the first post-Soviet decade was marked by the new social movements as the main expression of opposition to late capitalism, the second saw uneven but often more prominent student uprisings. The capitalist crisis begun in 2008—variously interpreted as a global financial crisis, a structural or cyclical crisis, or exhaustion of the prevailing model—has accelerated protest. By 2010 secondary or university students had risen en masse against aspects of the neoliberal system in Chile, France and Greece (all 2006); the U.S. (California, 2009); Italy, England and Puerto Rico (2010); and finally, in the context of the Arab Spring, in several countries in the Middle East, starting with Tunisia and Algeria (2010). It is no coincidence that Chile—the world’s first country to adopt the “Chicago Boys” doctrine—has from 2011 been shaken by the largest student mobilizations since the 1960s, contesting the effects of the near-complete privatization of the education system.

Under the promise of democratization of access for the masses to higher ​ education, governments and ​ ​ education corporations on a worldwide scale have ​ ​ transformed an area which was a state responsibility ​ ​ for much of the ​ twentieth century into one more frontier for the expansion of corporate ​ capital and ​ ​ accumulation of private profit. As the product of neoliberal ​ ​ demands, the expansion of higher ​ ​ education has been accompanied by a ​ transformation of the way the university and other higher ​ ​ education ​ ​ institutions define themselves and justify their existence. In this ​ ​ process, the liberal idea of ​ ​ the university ​ ​ as a space open to free ​ intellectual debate with emphasis on autonomy, research, and ​ ​ contributing ​ ​ to the intellectual and moral formation of the nation has been assailed by ​ market demands which prioritize productivity and performance indicators. ​ The meanings and practices associated with this paradigm shift in higher ​ education have permeated the diverse political-economic regions of the ​ planet and have been instrumentalized by governments of both ​ ​ right and ​ ​ left. This has been particularly evident in Latin America, where such ​ policies have combined privatization and government control.

In Brazil, for instance, under the same argument of expansion and ​ ​ massification of higher education’s ​ ​ reach, policies quite different in ​ appearance but not necessarily in consequences were tried by the ​ ​ administrations of presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio ​ ​ Lula da Silva. Instead of ​ ​ promoting the expansion of higher education ​ ​ combining increased privatization with the drastic reduction of the ​ salaries of academic staff and functionaries, and of the maintenance funds ​ of public institutions—as did Cardoso—Lula promoted privatization while ​ also investing in public higher education. Although statistically his ​ government has funded private education even more than his predecessor, ​ ​ Lula’s government protected itself politically with the creation of new ​ public institutions of higher education and ​ ​ the expansion of existing ​ ​ vacancies. But it has rendered such institutions ​ ​ increasingly less ​ autonomous ​ ​ and subject to ever-increasing state control.

The aim of this special issue is to investigate how neoliberalism has ​ transformed the university in Latin ​America, and concurrent expressions of ​ resistance to this process. In brief: what kind of university has ​neoliberalism produced, or does it intend to produce? For whom, with whom ​and for what purposes?

We invite articles that present national or comparative studies ​ panoramically and those that reflect on the new university structure, ​ intellectual mission (e.g., curriculum, research) and/or culture in ​political ​economic, ethnographic or historical perspective.

Topics which are particularly welcome, although not intended to preclude ​ others, are:

Please submit inquiries about possible submissions to the issue editors:

Instructions for manuscript submission are available on the LAP website.

​Deadline for submission of articles: 30 September 2015

The New School Economic Review calls for submissions

The New School Economic Review (NSER) is a peer-reviewed, student-run economics journal that publishes original and high-quality articles.

We encourage diversity of subject matter and writing style covering a wide range of topics in economics. Submissions can be in the form of but not limited to, scholarly articles, commentaries, book reviews, guest editorials, and announcements. The papers will be reviewed by a committee of New School alumni. The NSER welcomes submissions from academics, practitioners and students of all levels seeking to broaden and strengthen the foundational structure of the study of economic systems.

The NSER editorial board reserves the right to suggest both minor and substantive revisions to accepted works. Finally, following the standard practices of North American scholarly journals, the NSER is not in a position to offer payments for accepted and published manuscripts.

In preparing your submissions, we ask that follow the journal’s procedures and editorial practices. Papers should be submitted in PDF as well as either MS Word or LaTeX. We will accept submissions of a variety of lengths, however, please no longer than 25 pages. All papers should be in line with The Chicago Manual of Style.

All submission should be sent to submit@newschooljournal.com. There is no submission or publication fee.

Submission Deadline: February 20th 2015
Publication: May 2015

More information is available here.

Workplace: Special Issue on "Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor"

Guest Editors: Karen Gregory & Joss Winn

Articles in Workplace have repeatedly called for increased collective organisation in opposition to a disturbing trajectory: individual autonomy is decreasing, contractual conditions are worsening, individual mental health issues are rising, and academic work is being intensified. Despite our theoretical advances and concerted practical efforts to resist these conditions, the gains of the 20th century labor movement are diminishing and the history of the university appears to be on a determinate course. To date, this course is often spoken of in the language of “crisis.”

While crisis may indeed point us toward the contemporary social experience of work and study within the university, we suggest that there is one response to the transformation of the university that has yet to be adequately explored: A thoroughgoing and reflexive critique of academic labor and its ensuing forms of value. By this, we mean a negative critique of academic labor and its role in the political economy of capitalism; one which focuses on understanding the basic character of ‘labor’ in capitalism as a historically specific social form. Beyond the framework of crisis, what productive, definite social relations are actively resituating the university and its labor within the demands, proliferations, and contradictions of capital?

We aim to produce a negative critique of academic labor that not only makes transparent these social relations, but repositions academic labor within a new conversation of possibility.

We are calling for papers that acknowledge the foundational work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for labor theory and engage closely and critically with the critique of political economy. Marx regarded his discovery of the dual character of labor in capitalism (i.e. concrete and abstract) as one of his most important achievements and “the pivot on which a clear comprehension of political economy turns.” With this in mind, we seek contributions that employ Marx’s and Engels’ critical categories of labor, value, the commodity, capital, etc. in reflexive ways which illuminate the role and character of academic labor today and how its existing form might be, according to Marx, abolished, transcended and overcome (aufheben).

Contributions:

  1. A variety of forms and approaches, demonstrating a close engagement with Marx’s theory and method: Theoretical critiques, case studies, historical analyses, (auto-)ethnographies, essays, and narratives are all welcome. Contributors from all academic disciplines are encouraged.
  2. Any reasonable length will be considered. Where appropriate they should adopt a consistent style (e.g. Chicago, Harvard, MLA, APA).
  3. Will be Refereed.
  4. Contributions and questions should be sent to: Joss Winn (jwinn@lincoln.ac.uk) and Karen Gregory (kgregory@ccny.cuny.edu)

Publication timetable

Full details are available here (PDF).

Workshop for doctoral and early-career researchers on "Critical Perspectives on the Financialisation of Nature" (Sussex, 2015)

19-20 March, 2015 | University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

This workshop will be hosted by the the Sussex-based Centre for Global Political Economy and the STEPS Centre.

It will be a 1.5 day intensive workshop to discuss, theorise and critically reflect on the practical and political implications of the commodification, marketisation and financialisation of nature.

Papers

Participants will be required to submit full papers in advance of the workshop and are expected to read each other’s work beforehand to enable in-depth engagement with one another’s arguments. The sessions will be chaired by academics working in the field who will also provide feedback on papers. Moreover, the workshop will bring together activists and academics for a panel discussion, reflecting on the interlinkages between activism and research on the financialisation of nature.

Speakers

Timeline and practical arrangements

Registration is free and food will be provided. We have some funding for accommodation and travel for a limited number of doctoral researchers.
Details about applying for this funding will be sent out once abstracts have been selected.

Read more about the event and the CfP at STEPS Centre website.

Call for Participants

IFS/PEUK Conference on "Household Wealth Data and Public Policy 2015" (London, 2015)

9-10 March, 2015 | Bank of England Auditorium, London, UK

This conference is jointly organised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies andPublic Economics UK with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, the Bank of England and the ESRC.

Attendance is free but registration is required. Please email events@ifs.org.uk to register.

Organisers: Orazio Attanasio (UCL and IFS), Thomas Crossley (University of Essex and IFS), Cormac O’Dea (IFS and PEUK) and Sarah Smith (University of Bristol, IFS and PEUK).

Good quality, detailed microdata on household wealth is increasingly available and is of central importance in policymaking. This conference will highlight recent research using household wealth data and serve as a forum for the discussion of directions in the collection of such data, the measurement of wealth and its use in the policymaking process in the UK and abroad. It will discuss the future of the measurement of household wealth in the UK including the Wealth and Assets Survey.

The conference will consider the link between household wealth and both long-run and short-run policy questions. Longer run issues include patterns of wealth inequality, mechanisms generating such inequality, the role of inheritances, life-cycle saving and retirement preparedness, taxation and other policy responses. Issues of concern in the short-run are household balance sheets, household financial vulnerability and fragility and the use of wealth data to inform monetary policy and fiscal stability policy.

Confirmed speakers include:

Venue: Bank of England Auditorium, 20 Moorgate, London EC2R 6DA20

More information is available here.

IPE/EU PhD workshop (Paris, 2015)

7 July, 2015 | Paris

The Global Poltical Economy group of the Council for European Studies are holding a pre-conference workshop for PhD students on July 7 in Paris. This is a great opportunity for early stage researchers in IPE with some link to the EU to test their ideas in a supportive, friendly setting; and would serve as a good preview to the main conference. The theme is ‘inequality and integration’ but this is interpreted generously, and should not put potential applicants with a focus on other areas of IPE/the EU off.

To apply, please send an email to regine.paul@uni-bielefeld.de (max 750 words) by 1 February, with an abstract, research question, methodological approach, data, any challenges you face in researching inequality & integration, and key queries for faculty and peers. Funding is available on competitive and needs bases.

Workshop Faculty: Claes Belfrage (Liverpool University), Caroline De la Porte (Roskilde University), Regine Paul (Bielefeld University), Aidan Regan (UCD) and Holly Snaith (Copenhagen University).

Roundtable Speakers: Alan Cafruny (Hamilton College), Ben Rosamond (Copenhagen University), Cedric Durand (University of Paris-XIII) and Jonathan Hopkin (LSE)

See the attached file for more information and get in touch with any queries.

Marie Curie/IAPP Summer School (Zagreb, 2015)

29 August – 1 September 2015, Zagreb

Theme: "Multiple moralities and shadow economies in post-socialism: debating positive and negative incentives to tackle the informal economy"

In recent years, growing attention has been paid to fighting, or at least controlling, incomes that are hidden from or unregistered by, the state for tax, social security and/or labour law purposes. Starting from the assumption that such non-compliance is not some minority practice (according to an OECD report, of the global working population of some three billion, nearly two-thirds - 1.8 billion - work in the informal economy, see Jütting and Laiglesia, 2009) and pushed by the need for governments to gather revenues to face the economic crisis, the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU-27) and Norway, as well as the EU Candidate countries, have been earnestly seeking new policy measures to enable the formalization of undeclared work (see EIRO, 2005; European Employment Observatory, 2004, 2007; Renooy et al, 2004; Williams and Renooy, 2009, 2013).

Two broad approaches have been distinguished towards undeclared work: a deterrence approach which seeks to engender compliance by detecting and punishing non-compliance, and an enabling approach which aims to encourage compliance by either: preventing businesses or people from engaging in undeclared work from the outset; providing incentives to enable the transfer of undeclared work into the declared realm, or facilitating commitment to ‘tax morality’ (Small Business Council, 2004; Williams and Renooy, 2009).

Conventionally, the deterrence approach was dominant across most European countries. However, the recent crisis and recalculations of the advantages of formalisation of informal economies have led to rethinking the way to deal with undeclared economies. Rather than seek to eradicate the undeclared economy, it is now becoming more popular an approach to encourage the formalisation of undeclared work.

Previous research from the GREY project has suggested that the informal economy may be higher the broader is the gap between individual and state morality. Our understanding is that where a citizen does not see the advantage of contributing to state development, or when s/e perceives the state as unreliable, not giving but only taking, or not giving enough, they are more likely to leave the game. In this respect, economic actors may even perceive as “moral” not contributing to the state (and thus doing something stigmatised by state morality). Indeed, there is an increasing amount of work in the informal economy and the emergence of individual accounts that contrast with a state-led view on individual morality (see, among others, Van Schendel & Abrahams, 2005; Wanner, 2005, Morris, 2012; Morris & Polese, 2014; Polese & Rodgers, 2011)

For this Summer School, we welcome the submission of early stage researchers with empirically-based papers, based on recent research by PhD students and early post-docs, as well as theoretically-rich accounts on the relationship between the formal and the informal economy, state-citizen dynamics and conflictual moralities. Contributions may be on (but are not limited to)

Please submit 200 word abstracts and a short biographical statement with your current position and affiliation to: iapp.summerschool@gmail.com

Deadline for abstract: 15 February 2015

Travel, board and lodging for the selected participants will be covered by the organisers. This summer school has been made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission (grant no. 611259).

More information is available here.

Job Postings

Hofstra College, US

Job Position: Assistant Professor in Economics

The Department of Economics seeks to fill an anticipated opening for a tenure track position at the assistant professor level, beginning September 2015. Beside courses related to her/his research, the successful candidate will teach economic principles and contribute to our teaching needs in the areas of intermediate microeconomics and/or mathematical economics. We are especially interested in candidates whose teaching and research interests focus on public economics, environmental economics, and the economics of antitrust and regulatory policy. Normal teaching load is three courses per semester.

The successful candidate will have a strong teaching and research record, and interest in being part of a department representing and welcoming a variety of approaches to economics. Ph.D. at the time of employment is required. Salary and benefits are competitive.

Please submit cover letter, CV, dissertation abstract, evidence of teaching effectiveness, one research sample, and three recommendation letters, via email to econsearch@hofstra.edu. For fullest consideration kindly submit applications by December 22, however the position will remain open until filled. We will be conducting preliminary interviews at the ASSA meetings in Boston. For further questions, contact Roberto Mazzoleni, Chair, Department of Economics, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549.

Hofstra University is the largest, private, liberal arts institution on Long Island, NY. It is located 25 miles east of Manhattan and includes the following schools: Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Frank G. Zarb School of Business; Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine; The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication; School of Education; School of Health Sciences and Human Services; Maurice A. Dean School of Law; and Honors College. There are approximately 500 full-time faculty members, approximately 6,800 full-time and part-time undergraduates, and 3,000 graduate students.

Bilkent University, Turkey

Job Position: Assistant Professor in International Relations (2 positions)

The Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey invites applications for two positions at Assistant Professor level.

Applicants should have a PhD (or equivalent qualification) in International Relations or another relevant field and be specialised either in Foreign Policy Analysis preferably with a focus on Turkish Foreign Policy, or EU Studies preferably with a focus on International Political Economy. Position holders will be expected to teach core and elective courses in their field of expertise at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels and may also be required to teach other core courses (e.g. Research Methods in International Relations).

Key selection criteria:

University of Missouri-Kansas City, US

Job Position: Assistant Professor (Microeconomics)

Job Description

The Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City announces a tenure-track assistant professor position in microeconomics. We are interested in candidates whose work compliments the department’s existing pluralistic orientation. Preference will be given to candidates whose secondary research and teaching fields include political economy, labor, development, or health economics. Teaching opportunities are available at undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. We value candidates who have experience working in settings with students from diverse backgrounds, and possess a strong commitment to improving access to higher education for historically underrepresented students.

Application Deadline

Review of applications begins Monday, December 14, 2014, continuing until the position is filled.

Application Instructions

Application materials must be submitted online at www.umkc.edu/jobs. Applicants must combine all application materials (cover letter, a complete vitae, a short sample of scholarly work, transcript(s), statement of teaching philosophy) into one PDF or Microsoft Word document and upload as a resume attachment. Limit document name to 50 characters. Maximum size limit is 11MB. Do not include special characters (e.g., /, &, %, etc.).

Three letters of recommendation should be submitted to taylorkath@umkc.edu.

For questions about how applicants apply, please call (816) 235-1621, or if you are experiencing technical problems, please call (855) 524-0002.

Comments

Representatives of the Department will attend the 2015 meetings of the American Economic Association.

UMKC is an equal access, equal opportunity, affirmative action employer that is fully committed to achieving a diverse faculty and staff. The university will recruit and employ qualified personnel and will provide equal opportunities during employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran or status as a qualified individual with a disability. For more information, call the Vice Chancellor – Human Resources at 816-235-1621.

To request ADA accommodations, please call the Director of Affirmative Action at 816-235-1323.

More information is available here.

Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

Job Position: Fulltime Assistant Professor

The Institute for Multi-Level Governance and Development - Prof. Clive L. Spash - is currently inviting applications for a fulltime Assistant Professor, non-tenure track position (post-doc, gross monthly salary: € 3,483.30) or two (30 hours/week) Teaching and Research Associate positions (pre-doc, minimum gross monthly salary: € 1,961.85, recognition of previous employment - if relevant to the advertised position - possible). ) (Employees pursuant to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement for university employees - Angestellte/r gemaess Kollektivvertrag fuer die Arbeitnehmer/innen der Universitaeten). These employee positions will be limited to a period of 6 years, starting on February 01, 2015 (commencement date subject to change).

For more detailed information about the position you may contact Prof. Clive L. Spash (clive.spash@wu.ac.at). Your application must be uploaded here - with Ref.No.: 2701

Please note that under the terms of the WU personnel development plan, the position of Assistant Professor, non-tenure track, is limited to an employment period of not more than six years. Applicants who are already employed at WU as substitute employees can therefore only be employed for the time remaining to complete the six-year period. Persons who have already been employed at WU in an Assistant Professor, non-tenure track position cannot be re-employed in this position at WU (except as a substitute employee) due to legal restrictions.

Please note that under the terms of the WU personnel development plan, the position of Teaching and Research Associate is limited to an employment period of not more than six years. Applicants who are already employed at WU as substitute employees can therefore only be employed for the time remaining to complete the six-year period. Persons who have already been employed at WU in a Teaching and Research Associate position can only be re-employed in an Assistant Professor, tenure track position.

Responsibilities:

Teaching and Research Associate or Assistant Professor non-tenure track, wanted in the area of transformation of society in light of on-going social, economic and environmental crises. A key aspect of this work concerns the potential for developing alternative institutions, governance structures, norms of behaviour and ways of organising society. The research agenda is large and complex involving at one level the practical blocks to achieving transformation and at another scientific utopian visions of potential alternative futures. As a result the skills of the successful applicant will determine the direction taken e.g. history of markets and money, structuring societal transformation, living in alternative communities. The overall aim is to inform public policy and governance on the new directions necessary to run a different political economy, from the industrial fossil fuel driven growth machine, where Society-Nature conflicts and Human-Human conflicts are minimized.

Responsibilities for both posts include: contributing to research work, and teaching and administrative tasks as required; assisting with examinations; participating in organizational and administrative duties; student support activities; independent research activities; holding classes independently and conducting examinations.

Your Profile:

Teaching and Research Associate: high level undergraduate and master degree in politics, philosophy and economics or related field(s). Excellence in academic writing. Demonstrated commitment to interdisciplinary and heterodox political economy research. Commitment and ability to undertake doctoral studies evidenced through a study plan proposal. Strong communication and presentation skills. Experience in teaching.

Assistant Professor: doctoral degree in area of politics, philosophy and economics or related field(s). Research experience showing strong publication ability and potential. Record of ability to attract research grant funding. Evidence of ability to critically appraise and understand the drawbacks of orthodox economic approaches. Excellence in theoretical and applied research to develop new and alternative approaches to political economy in order to address social and environmental problems. Advanced understanding of environmental issues and their relationship to human behaviour and institutional structures.

Both posts: Excellent written and communication skills in English, essential. Good written and communication skills in German, recommended. International and cross cultural experience and understanding.

Both posts, at respective knowledge levels, require interdisciplinary background including the social sciences and research/studies in one (or more) of economics, political science, human geography, social psychology, philosophy, history. Areas of interest should cover one, or ideally more, of the following: political economy, degrowth/post-growth/sufficiency economy, attitude-behaviour research, critical institutional analysis, critical realism, social ecological economics, public policy and governance. Diverse potential topic areas include corporate power and control, the role of markets (past, present and future), democratic institutions and processes, alternative eco-communities.

Other recommended skills include: ability to conduct statistical analysis of data, structured/semistructured interviews and run small group deliberation. Previous experience of designing and conducting surveys/interviews is helpful for this job. Experience obtaining/managing grants.

Reference Number: 2701

Application materials can be submitted online until 07.01.2015.

Travel and lodging expenses:

We regret that WU cannot reimburse applicants for travel and lodging expenses incurred as part of the selection and/or hiring process.

Equal opportunities:

WU is an Equal Opportunity Employer and seeks to increase the number of its female faculty and staff members, especially in management positions. Therefore qualified women are strongly encouraged to apply. In case of equal qualification, female candidates will be given preference. WU has an Equal Opportunities Working Group (information in German).

Awards

Mark Blaug Student Essay Prize

The Mark Blaug Student Essay Prize has been established in honour of the great critical economist Mark Blaug (1927-2011).

2014 Mark Blaug Student Essay Prize

The 2014 entries were judged by Robert Skidelsky and Ha-Joon Chang. It was decided to award the prizes jointly (£400 each) to the following two students for their essays:

2015 Mark Blaug Student Essay Prize

Eligible essays submitted for the 2015 Mark Blaug Student Essay Prizemust be critical discussions of any aspect of modern economics.

Rather than applying economics to a particular problem, eligible essays must reflect critically on the state of economics itself, as Mark Blaug did in many of his works. Critical reflections may include the assumptions adopted, the suitability of the concepts deployed, the mode of analysis, the role of mathematical models, the use of econometrics, real-world relevance, the presumed relationship between theory and policy, the unwarranted influence of ideology, the use (or otherwise) of insights from other disciplines, and so on.

The required language is English. Eligible essays are by university undergraduates, or by graduates who obtained their Bachelor’s degree no earlier than 1 January 2014. There are no residential or geographical restrictions.

Up to two prizes will be awarded each year, depending on the quality of the best papers. The respective awards will be £500 and £300. The Foundation for European Economic Development (FEED) will reserve the right to award no prize, or one prize only, if there are inadequate essays of quality. The prizes will be judged by a committee of leading scholars.

Essays should be a maximum of 8,000 words and submitted by email to g.m.hodgson@herts.ac.uk by 1 October 2015.

The 2015 awards will be made in late 2015 or early 2016.

More information is available here.

The 2015 ISRF Essay Competition in Economics

The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and the Cambridge Journal of Economics (CJE) intend to award a prize of CHF 7,000 for the best essay on the topic ‘What is the place of care in the economy?’ This is a topic, not a title. Accordingly, authors are free to choose an essay title within this field.

Please read these details carefully before submitting your essay for consideration or contacting the Independent Social Research Foundation or the Cambridge Journal of Economics with a query.

The essay will be judged on its originality and independence of thought, its scholarly quality, its potential to challenge received ideas, and the success with which it matches the criteria of the ISRF and the CJE. The successful essay will be intellectually radical, orthogonal to existing debates, and may articulate a strong internal critique across the fields of economic research. Its challenge to received ideas will have the potential to provoke a re-thinking of the topic.

The ISRF is interested in original research ideas that take new approaches and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems. The full statement of the ISRF’s criteria and goals may be viewed here.

The CJE provides a forum for theoretical, applied, interdisciplinary, history of thought and methodological work, with strong emphasis on realistic analysis, the development of critical perspectives, the provision and use of empirical evidence, and the construction of policy. More detail about the Journal can be found on the Journal’s website.

The submitted essays will be judged and the winning essay will be chosen by an academic panel (the ISRF Essay Prize Committee). The panel’s decision will be final, and no assessments or comments will be made available. The result will be notified to applicants by email on 30th June 2015 and will then be announced by posting on the websites of the ISRF and of the CJE. The ISRF and the CJE reserve the right not to award the prize, and no award will be made if the submitted essays are of insufficient merit.

The winning essay, and any close runners-up, will be accepted for publication in the Journal; authors may be asked to make some corrections before publication. Other applicants may receive encouragement to revise and then re-submit their essays to the CJE.

The details and criteria are as follows:

Essay topic: ‘What is the place of care in the economy?’

Essay length: Approximately 7, 500 words.

Essay format: Follow the CJE Author Guidelines, available on the CJE website.

Language: English

Submission deadline: 31 March 2015 (authors may not submit their essay before 1st March 2015

Submissions should be made online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cje. Authors must indicate in an accompanying letter to the Editors that they wish their essay to be considered for the prize when submitting.

Queries: Telephone +44 (0) 20 7262 0196 or email essayprize2015@isrf.org

The 2015 Mark Blaug Prize in Philosophy and Economics

The Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics invites submissions from Young Scholars for the 2015 Mark Blaug Prize.

This annual academic prize is intended to promote and reward research by Young Scholars in the history, ethics, methodology and philosophy of economics. It is named in honour of Mark Blaug, a founder of the field of philosophy and economics, whose generosity and commitment to Young Scholars was recognized by all who knew him. The prize includes a cash sum of 500 Euros.

Submissions must be received by December 31st. For more information visit EJPE website.

The Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics is committed to supporting and encouraging the work of Young Scholars in philosophy and economics. This academic prize is intended to promote and reward the best of such scholarship.

The prize is named in honour of Professor Mark Blaug (1927-2011), a founder of the field of philosophy and economics who made a tremendous scholarly contribution to many areas of the history and philosophy of economics. Mark Blaug’s generosity and commitment to Young Scholars was recognized by all who knew him.

The prize includes a cash sum of 500 Euros.

2015 Prize is open for submissions:

To qualify for the Mark Blaug Prize the author has to be a Young Scholar, defined as someone who:

You may be asked for evidence of your eligibility.

Young Scholars should submit a single-authored article for publication in EJPE in the usual way before the end of December 2014, and mention that you would like to be considered for the prize. Co-authored papers where all authors are Young Scholars are also eligible. Prize submissions should not include articles previously published or under consideration elsewhere. For more information about submissions, see the EJPE Call for Papers.

Articles that pass peer-review and are accepted for publication will be considered by a committee of experts and the winner will be announced in mid-2015.

The 2015 Rhonda Williams Prize

Sponsored by Routledge/Taylor and Francis, publisher of Feminist Economics

In memory of Rhonda Williams, associate editor of Feminist Economics from 1994 to 1998, the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) has established a prize to help scholars from underrepresented groups in IAFFE, whose work reflects Rhonda Williams' legacy of scholarship and activism, attend the annual IAFFE conference and present a paper.

Amount: $1000 to be awarded at the IAFFE conference in Berlin, July 16-18, 2015. The funds are intended to partially defray travel costs to attend the annual conference. Conference information is available here.

Application Deadline: April 4, 2015.

Criteria: The recipient's work in activism, advocacy, or scholarship should demonstrate a commitment to one or more of the following issues:

Special consideration will be given to applicants from groups not well represented in IAFFE and those with limited access to travel funds from their home institutions or international funders. This prize is targeted to junior scholars and activists.

The recipient of the prize must present a paper at the IAFFE conference (therefore you must also separately submit the paper for inclusion in the Conference program at the Conference website) and submit the manuscript to Feminist Economics within a reasonable period after the conference. The paper will undergo an expedited review process, but publication is not guaranteed.

While it is rare, a travel grant may be awarded instead of the Rhonda Williams Prize in the event that the criteria for the prize are not met.

Application Process:

Applications should be sent to Marlene Kim, Chair, Rhonda Williams Prize, at Marlene.Kim@umb.edua and should include:

  1. A cover letter/email that includes a statement of (a) the connection between the applicant's experience and the Rhonda Williams legacy as described in the criteria above; and (b) how the applicant would bring diversity to IAFFE and how the applicant would like to be engaged with IAFFE in the future.
  2. A curriculum vitae or resume, labeled "resumeRWS<applicantlastname>"
  3. A draft of a full paper (not an abstract or outline) for the 2015IAFFE conference, scheduled for July 18-19, 2015 in Berlin (label file "paperRWS.2015<applicantlastname>)."

Please send all files in Microsoft Word or in PDF Acrobat format. Please be sure that all materials are sent. Applicants who omit any of the three items listed above may not be considered for the prize.

Applicants who haven’t yet registered for the annual conference because they need funding: the prize winner will be allowed to register for the annual conference and will be included in the conference program after being notified of the prize. You must, however, still submit your paper for consideration for the program on the conference website.

If you are not an IAFFE member for2015, please send in your membership application prior to submission of your prize application.

Please direct any questions to Marlene Kim, Chair, Rhonda William Prize, Marlene.Kim@umb.edu, or (617) 287-6954.

The 2nd WWWforEurope Best Paper Award

The 2nd WWWforEurope Best Paper Award will be granted for research dealing with important, yet so far under researched topics relating to various economic and social consequences of a low-growth development path for Europe:

The best paper award – including a special prize for the best work of a young researcher – will be presented during the second WWWforEurope Feedback Conference in Vienna on the 5th and 6th of May 2015. Authors of excellent papers will be presented with the opportunity to publish their research work in the WWWforEurope working paper series.

Download the Call for Papers

Winner of the 2014 JSPE-Routledge Book Prize

The 2014 prize winner is Professor Samuel Bowles (Arthur Spiegel Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute) based on his two books

  1. Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions and Evolution, Princeton University Press, 2004, and
  2. The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

More information about the prize itself and the winner is available here.

Winners of the 2014 EAEPE-Kapp Prize and of the EAEPE-Simon Young Scholar Prize

EAEPE would like to congratulate the 2014 prize winners for their outstanding contributions for the EAEPE William Kapp Award Peter Ho and the EAEPE Herbert Simon Young Scholar Award going to Federico Bassi as well as Kota Kitagawa.

The prizes are awarded for the following papers:

The 2014 EAEPE-Kapp Prize winner is Peter Ho for his 2013 paper:

Furthermore the EAEPE Council took the exceptional decision to award special honourable mentions to the two following entries:

The 2014 EAEPE-Simon Young Scholar Prize was awarded to two young scholars:

Journals

Economy and Society, 43 (4): Special Issue on "New Directions in Polanyian Scholarship"

Christopher Holmes: Introduction: A post-Polanyian political economy for our times

Nancy Fraser: Can society be commodities all the way down? Post-Polanyian reflections on capitalist crisis

Hadrien Saiag: Towards a neo-Polanyian approach to money: integrating the concept of debt

Christopher Holmes: ‘Whatever it takes’: Polanyian perspectives on the eurozone crisis and the gold standard

Matthew Watson: The great transformation and progressive possibilities: the political limits of Polanyi's Marxian history of economic ideas

Chris Hann: The economistic fallacy and forms of integration under and after socialism

Gareth Dale: The iron law of democratic socialism: British and Austrian influences on the young Karl Polanyi

Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 7 (2)

Articles:

Guus Dix: Ricardo’s discursive demarcations: a Foucauldian study of the formation of the economy as an object of knowledge

Erwin Dekker: The Vienna circles: cultivating economic knowledge outside academia

Bernd Lahno: Challenging the majority rule in matters of truth

Special contributions:

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey: Measured, unmeasured, mismeasured, and unjustified pessimism: a review essay of Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century

Rational choice as a toolbox for the economist: an interview with Itzhak Gilboa

Book reviews:

John Davis: Review of Don Ross’ Philosophy of Economics

Norbert Waszek: Review of Lisa Herzog’s Inventing the Market: Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Spencer J. Pack: Review of Ricardo Crespo’s A Re-Assessment of Aristotle’s Economic Thought and Philosophy of the Economy: An Aristotelian Approach

Craig Smith: Review of Jack Russel Weinstein’s Adam Smith’s Pluralism: Rationality, Education, and the Moral Sentiments

Laure Bazzoli: Review of Cyril Hédoin’s L’Institutionnalisme historique et la relation entre théorie et histoire en économie

PhD thesis summaries:

Judith Favereau: The J-PAL’s experimental approach in development economics: an epistemological turn?

Manuela Fernández Pinto: Learning from ignorance: agnotology’s challenge to philosophy of science

Guus Dix: Governing by carrot and stick: a genealogy of the incentive

Industrial and Corporate Change, 23 (6)

Articles

Ajay Bhaskarabhatla and Steven Klepper: Latent submarket dynamics and industry evolution: lessons from the US laser industry

Mie Augier, Thorbjorn Knudsen, and Robert M. McNab: Advancing the field of organizations through the study of military organizations

Tain-Jy Chen and Ying-Hua Ku: Indigenous innovation vs. teng-long huan-niao: policy conflicts in the development of China’s flat panel industry

Special Section: Financial Constraints and Firm Behavior in International Markets

Stefano Schiavo: Financial constraints and firm behavior in international markets: an introduction to the special section

Joachim Wagner: Credit constraints and exports: a survey of empirical studies using firm-level data

David Aristei and Chiara Franco: The role of credit constraints on firms’ exporting and importing activities

Roberto Álvarez and Ricardo A. López: Access to banking finance and exporting

Sarah Guillou and Stefano Schiavo: Exchange rate exposure under liquidity constraints

Juan A. Máñez, María E. Rochina-Barrachina, Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis, and Óscar Vicente: Financial constraints and R&D and exporting strategies for Spanish manufacturing firms

Angelo Secchi, Federico Tamagni, and Chiara Tomasi: The micro patterns of export diversification under financial constraints

Journal of Economic Methodology, 21 (4)

Till Grüne-Yanoff, Caterina Marchionni & Ivan Moscati: Introduction: methodologies of bounded rationality

Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti: Welfare economics and bounded rationality: the case for model-based approaches

Konstantinos V. Katsikopoulos: Bounded rationality: the two cultures

Nathan Berg: The consistency and ecological rationality approaches to normative bounded rationality

D. Wade Hands: Normative ecological rationality: normative rationality in the fast-and-frugal-heuristics research program

Don Ross: Psychological versus economic models of bounded rationality

Journal of Philosophical Economics VIII (1)

Friedel Weinert: Social mechanisms and social causation

Ross A. Tippit: Modeling exogenous moral norms

Tara Natarajan: Shifting economics: fundamental questions and Amartya K. Sen’s pragmatic humanism

M. Northrup Buechner: A comment on scarcity

Utku Balaban: Commentary on secrets of economics editors: an unintended ethnography of economics

On The Horizon, 22 (4): Special Issue on "Language & Economics"

Tom P. Abeles: The fate of academic publishing and academia in a semantic environment

David Starr-Glass: First steps into the metaphoric wilderness of macroeconomics

Rojhat B. Avsar: “Financialization” of public discourse: the case of AIG

Brendan K. O’Rourke: Learning from interacting: language, economics and the entrepreneur

Lukasz Hardt: Metaphors as research tools in economics

Oliver Levingston: ‘I will return as millions?’: Reflections on the contradictions between structure and agency in theories of the Bolivian Revolution, 2000-2005

Marc Pilkington and Christine Sinapi: Crisis perception in financial media discourse: a concrete application using the Minskian/mainstream opposition

Tanweer Ali: Money as metaphor

Emil Urhammer: Crisis in the habitat of the economic growth monster

Elke Muchlinski: Why do markets react to words?

Peter T. Hughes and Stefan Kesting: A literature review on central bank communication

Guest Editor Tanweer Ali introduces the Special Issue on Language and Economics.

Review of Political Economy, 27(1)

Review Symposium

Thomas I. Palley: Money, Fiscal Policy, and Interest Rates: A Critique of Modern Monetary Theory

Eric Tymoigne & L. Randall Wray: Modern Money Theory: A Reply to Palley

Thomas I. Palley: The Critics of Modern Money Theory (MMT) are Right

Original Articles

Mimoza Shabani & Jan Toporowski: A Nobel Prize for the Empirical Analysis of Asset Prices

Book Reviews

Emily Northrop: The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World

Michael E. Bradley: The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good

Javier López Bernardo: Private Equity at Work. When Wall Street Manages Main Street

J. E. King: The Handbook of the PoliticalEconomy of Financial Crises

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 25 (4)

Symposium Articles:

Wylie Bradford: Quo vadis: Does economic theory need a sustainability makeover?

Shachi Amdekar and Ajit Singh: Climate change and the premises for a New Society

Andrew Martin Fischer: Redistribution as social justice for decarbonising the global economy

Stefano Bartolini: Building sustainability through greater happiness

Wendy Harcourt: A feminist response to Stephen Marglin’s Premises for a New Economy

Amiya Kumar Bagchi: Earth-grab by corporate feudalism and how to go about resisting it

Policy reflection:

Patrick Troy: Climate change response: Linking research, policy and action

Obituary:

GC Harcourt: Hirofumi Uzawa 1928–2014: A personal tribute

Book Reviews:

Michael Johnson, AM: Book review: Paul Smyth and John Buchanan (eds), Inclusive Growth in Australia: Social Policy as Economic Investment

Jocelyn Pixley: Book review: Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It and John Coates, The Hour between the Dog and the Wolf: Risk-taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Booms and Bust

Felicity Lamm: Book review: David Walters, Richard Johnstone, Kaj Frick, Michael Quinlan, Geneviève Baril-Gingras, Annie Thébaud-Mony, Regulating Workplace Risks: A Comparative Study of Inspection Regimes in Times of Change

Books and Book Series

An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht: Revolution and Aesthetics

By Anthony Squiers | 2014, Brill

An important and comprehensive presentation of the social and political thought of Bertolt Brecht. Squiers argues that Brecht, the well-known poet and dramatist, should also be considered a social and political thinker in his own right. Relying on close readings of Brecht’s poems, plays, stage directions and other writings, Squiers reveals the theoretical significance of Brecht’s distinctive account of praxis as well as his critique of instrumental rationality. This is a truly interdisciplinary work that speaks to political and critical theorists as well as to scholars of contemporary literature and theatre. — Emily Hauptmann, Ph.D. Western Michigan University

Link to the book is available here.

Globalization and the Critique of Political Economy New Insights from Marx's Writings

By Lucia Pradella | 2014, Routledge

The nature of the contemporary global political economy and the significance of the current crisis are a matter of wide-ranging intellectual and political debate, which has contributed to a revival of interest in Marx’s critique of political economy. This book interrogates such a critique within the broader framework of the history of political economy, and offers a new appreciation of its contemporary relevance.

A distinctive feature of this study is its use of the new historical critical edition of the writings of Marx and Engels (MEGA²), their partially unpublished notebooks in particular. The sheer volume of this material forces a renewed encounter with Marx. It demonstrates that the international sphere and non-European societies had an increasing importance in his research, which developed the scientific elements elaborated by Marx’s predecessors.

This book questions widespread assumptions that the nation-state was the starting point for the analysis of development. It explores the international foundations of political economy, from mercantilism to Adam Smith and David Ricardo and to Hegel, and investigates how the understanding of the international political economy informs the interpretations of history to which it gave rise.

The book then traces the developments of Marx’s critique of political economy from the early 1840s to Capital Volume 1 and shows that his deepening understanding of the laws of capitalist uneven and combined development allowed him to recognise the growth of a world working class. Marx’s work thus offers the necessary categories to develop an alternative to methodological nationalism and Eurocentrism grounded in a critique of political economy.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of Marx’s thought and in the foundations of International Political Economy.

Link to the book is available here. To get a 20% discount please use discount codes LRK69 (in 2014) or FDC20 (in 2015).

For more details, or to request a copy for review, please contact Renata Novak (Renata.Novak@tandf.co.uk).

Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan | 2014, World Economics Association Books

Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has already attracted more serious attention than any economics book published in the last 75 years. This collection of 17 essays by some of the world's most prominent economists explores Piketty's book in depth and from various vantage points. Here is what economists around the world are already saying about this book.

"Marx's CapitalI is strong on theory but, its detractors allege, weak on data. In a dialectic worthy of Hegel himself, the critics assembled here argue that Piketty's Capital stands opposite to Marx's, as strong on data but weak on theory. This combination - plus its exquisite timing - explains its critical acclaim. The juxtaposition of economic stagnation and obscene inequality in the aftermath of the financial crisis made it impossible for mainstream economists to continue ignoring inequality, let alone applauding it as they have done for so long. Piketty made it possible for them to acknowledge it without abandoning their comforting but false mainstream theories of capitalism. The authors in this volume applaud Piketty for his contribution to empirical knowledge, but reject his views on how this inequality came about. The true Capital for the 21st century is still yet to be written." Steve Keen, Kingston University, London

Link to the book is available here.

The Economics Curriculum: Towards a Radical Reformulation

Edited by Maria Alejandra Madi and Jack Reardon | 2014, World Economics Association Books

This World Economics Association (WEA) volume - edited by Maria Alejandra Madi and Jack Reardon and supported throughout by Grazia Ietto-Gillies - originated with a successful WEA online conference. The volume has been conceived with current and future economics students in mind: they will be the economists of the future.

One of the main ideas underlining the book is that "being an economist" in the XXI century requires a radical change in the training of economists and such change requires a global effort. A new economics curriculum is needed in order to improve the understanding of the deep interactions between economics and the political forces and the historical processes of social change. The need for trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work is highlighted.

Discussions include the following. Main critiques of current practices on theory, methods and structures. Current gaps in the economics curriculum. What should economics graduates know? The contributors are: Nicola Acocella, Sheila Dow, David Hemenway, Arturo Hermann, Grazia Ietto-Gillies, Maria Alejandra Madi, Lars P&aaring;lsson Syll, Constantine Passaris, Paul Ormerod, Jack Reardon, Alessando Roncaglia, Asad Zaman.

Link to the book is available here.

The Governance Of Socio-Technical Systems: Explaining Change

By Susana Borrás and Jakob Edler | 2014, Edward Elgar

Why are so few electric cars in our streets today? Why is it difficult to introduce electronic patient records in our hospitals? To answer these questions we need to understand how state and non-state actors interact with the purpose of transforming socio-technical systems.

Examining the “who” (agents), “how” (policy instruments) and “why” (societal legitimacy) of the governance process, this book presents a conceptual framework for the governance of change in socio-technical systems. Bridging the gap between disciplinary fields, expert contributions provide innovative empirical cases of different modes of governing change. The Governance of Socio-Technical Systems offers a stepping-stone towards building a theory of governance of change and presents a new research agenda on the interaction between science, technology and society.

This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of political science, economics, STS and innovation studies, who are interested in the processes of socio-technical change, their democratic legitimacy, and the governance of grand societal challenges.

Link to the book is available here.

The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America - The Art of Organising Hope

By Ana Cecilia Dinerstein | 2014, Palgrave Macmillan

Dinerstein offers a much-needed review of the concept and practice of autonomy. She argues that defining autonomy as either revolutionary or ineffective vis-à-vis the state does not fully grasp the commitment of Latin American movements to the creation of alternative practices and horizons beyond capitalism. By establishing an elective affinity between autonomy and Bloch's principle of hope, the author defines autonomy as 'the art of organizing hope', that is, the art of shaping a reality which does not yet exist but can be anticipated by the movements' collective actions. Drawing from the experience of autonomous resistance of four prominent indigenous and non-indigenous urban and rural movements, Dinerstein suggests that the politics of autonomy produce an excess that cannot be translated into the grammar of power. This involves an engagement with a reality that is not yet and, therefore, counters value with hope. The book also offers a new critique of political economy, reading Marx's philosophy in key of hope, and emphasises the prefigurative features of autonomy at a time when utopia can no longer be objected.

Link to the book is available here.

The Specter of Capital

By Joseph Vogl |Combined Academic Publishers

In his brilliant interdisciplinary analysis of the global financial crisis, Joseph Vogl aims to demystify finance capitalism—with its bewildering array of new instruments—by tracing the historical stages through which the financial market achieved its current autonomy. Classical and neoclassical economic theorists have played a decisive role here. Ignoring early warnings about the instability of speculative finance markets, they have persisted in their belief in the inherent equilibrium of the market, describing even major crises as mere aberrations or adjustments and rationalizing dubious financial practices that escalate risk while seeking to manage it.

"The market knows best: this is a secular version of Adam Smith's faith in the market's "invisible hand," his economic interpretation of eighteenth-century providentialist theodicy, which subsequently hardened into an "oikodicy," an unquestioning belief in the self-regulating beneficence of market forces. Vogl shows that financial theory, assisted by mathematical modeling and digital technology, itself operates as a "hidden hand," pushing economic reality into unknown territory. He challenges economic theorists to move beyond the neoclassical paradigm to discern the true contours of the current epoch of financial convulsions.

Link to the book is available here.

Book Reviews

Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment

Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment, by Ali Kadri, New York, NY: Anthem Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-783-08267-4. 259 pages.

Reviewed by Aqdas Afzal, University of Missouri – Kansas City

The full review of the book is available here.

Heterodox Graduate Programs, Scholarships and Grants

EPOG - Master's course and scholarships

The main objective of the EPOG Master's course is to give birth to a new generation of international experts, able to define and assess economic policies and evolve within different political, social and regional contexts. Towards this objective the EPOG Master’s Program goes beyond the reach of standard economic theory to include various heterodox approaches that may have more to say about the challenges facing national policy makers in a globalized context.

The programme relies 8 prestigious universities:

SCHOLARSHIPS

The very best students from all over the world will be eligible for scholarships awarded for 2 years by the European Commission, based on our selection:

WHEN TO APPLY?

Deadline for students who are applying for Erasmus Mundus scholarships will be the 21st of January 2015.

The course will start in September 2015.

More information is available here.

Grant Competition of the Indepedent Social Research Forum

ISRF Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG1): Providing Research Support in Interdisciplinary Social Science

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers from different disciplines who wish to work together towards conceptual innovation in social science. Such work would be unlikely to be funded by existing funding bodies.

The awards are intended as enabling one or more short periods of face-to-face joint group work such as workshops, working-in-pairs, or short academic visits (e-working, video-conferencing or Skype expenses are not included) over a period of up to one year, and must be taken up no later than end of December 2015.

Projects ranging across the breadth of the social scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary research fields are welcome, and relevant applications from scholars working within the humanities are also encouraged.

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply as Principal Investigator(s) to lead a small group of 2-10 scholars (which may include graduate students). The amount of an award depends on the nature of the work proposed and individual circumstances – the ISRF expects applications for grants up to a maximum of £5,000.

Applicants should hold a PhD and will normally have a permanent appointment at an institution of higher education and research. Applications may be made by those whose sole or principal post is a part-time equivalent. Independent scholars with an academic affiliation may also apply.

Applicants should consult the Criteria as set out in the Further Particulars (see link below) and show that they meet them. Applicants should follow the Application procedure and should present their Proposal in the format specified there.

Closing date for applications is 4pm on December 22nd 2014.

Click Here for Further Particulars

PhD-Scholarships in Philosophy at Durham University

The Department of Philosophy at Durham University and Centre for Humanities Engaging Science an Society (CHESS) are inviting applications for full-time, three-year PhD studentships in philosophy of the natural, social and policy sciences, starting in October, 2015. Suitable candidates should have a Masters degree (with merit or distinction) or equivalent, an interest in ʻscience and policyʼ and are expected to work in one of the six areas below. We are especially interested in work on these topics that interfaces with climate science, medicine, economics and other social sciences, and social policy.

Topics

  1. Evidence, conviction, endeavour
    The nature of scientific evidence; evidence-based medicine; evidence-based social policy; hierarchies of evidence; non-randomised and randomised experiments; theory and practice of measurement.

  2. Expertise
    The nature of scientific expertise; problems of legitimacy and extension; experts in democracy; experts versus mechanical objectivity; the nature of tacit knowledge.

  3. Moral and social order
    Visions of well-ordered and disordered, decent and indecent societies; strategies of creating and maintaining order in society; the nature and role of institutions; justifying economic systems; studies of specific cases

  4. Narratives, modelling and representation
    Models and representation in science; representation in art versus representation in the sciences; literary methods and thought experiments in the sciences and humanities; narratives as evidence; understanding and narratives.

  5. Modality and power
    Causality and causal powers; theories of causation; causal inference; counterfactuals.

  6. Values in science and policy
    What role values play and why; whose values and who decides; well-ordered science; areas of
    special concern, e.g. genetic engineering, human subject research, politically sensitive issues
    where scientific results matter.

Primary supervisors of PhD dissertations will be CHESS directors Professors Nancy Cartwright, Julia Reiss, associate director Dr Wendy Parker or Professor Alison Wylie. Successful candidates are expected to contribute to the research environment at the Centre. Complete applications have to be received by January 12, 2015. These Durham Doctoral Studentships are awarded by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities after candidates have been nominated by the Philosophy Department and CHESS.

Ahead of applying for a post through the university online system (available here) candidates should discuss their research proposal with a member of CHESS

Please send a CV, grade average and two-page research proposal to admin.chess@durham.ac.uk

Newsletters

Global Economic Governance Initiative

News

In Depth Analysis

Global Labour Column

Patrick Belser: Fiscal redistribution: yes, but inequality starts in the labour market: Findings from the ILO Global Wage Report 2014/2015

Elísio Estanque and Hermes Augusto Costa: Austerity policies and trade unionism: A glance at Portugal

Calls for Support

Heterodox Economics Exhibition Booth at the ASSA (Boston, 2015)

3-5 January 2015 | Boston

This is the last announcement about the Heterodox Economics Booth at the ASSA 2015. Since our last call many have volunteered to help staff the booth. We still have some vacant time slots for volunteers. If you want to help us, visit this page and sign up by the end of December.

The booth is open to all. It is the place to promote heterodox economics. And it is also the place to meet other heterodox economists. If you want to meet John Weeks (SOAS) and talk about his recent book, Economics of the 1%: How mainstream economics serves the rich, obscures reality and distorts policy (2014), come to the booth between 2 and 4 pm on January 3rd. If you want to meet well known heterodox economists such as John Henry (UMKC), Hendrik van den Berg (U of Nebraska), and Dorene Isenberg (Redlands), look at the staffing schedule (linked above) and come to the booth. We are also excited that Adbusters will be displaying their books and posters at the booth.

We look forward to meeting many of you in Boston.

In solidarity,

Tae-Hee Jo,
SUNY Buffalo State

and

Zdravka Todorova.
Wright State University