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Issue 74: December 19, 2008

 

From the Editor

After I sent out the previous Newsletter website troubles emerged that resulted in all kinds of problems. All of the problems have been dealt with. So if you have not had the chance to look at issue 73 of the Newsletter you can find it on the website in the archives section.

With the ASSA quickly approaching, there are a number of events which may be worth your time and energy to attend:

The 2009 Annual Meeting for the Association for Social Economics will be held in conjunction with the ASSA meetings in San Francisco, January 2-6. Please remember the ASE Plenary Session, Friday, January 2, in the Hilton Imperial B. The session is scheduled for 6:30 – 9:00 p.m. The theme of the session is “Ethics and Capitalism” and the featured speaker is Deirdre McCloskey of the University of Illinois, Chicago. Discussants are Herbert Gintis and Nancy Folbre. A Reception, co-sponsored by ICAPE, will immediately follow.

URPE/RRPE reception will be Saturday, January 3, 6 - 7:30, San Francisco Hilton, Sutter Room.

The AFL-CIO Breakfast
Speaker: Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Topic: "Economic Renewal and the Employee Free Choice Act"
When: Sunday, January 4, 2009, 7:00 am until 8:00 am
Where: Colonial Ballroom, Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA
Complimentary Continental Breakfast Will Be Served; No RSVP Required

Examining the Practice of Ethical Economics: session sponsored by AIRLEAP on Sunday, January 4, 2009, 6.00 – 8.00pm—for more information see below under Conferences, Seminars and Lectures.

The Women of Color Resource Center, based in Oakland, is an advocacy and political education center, devoted to putting the issues of women of color at the center of the social justice agenda. The center was formed out of the Third World Women's Alliance, which sprung forth from the civil rights movement. The Center has a strong leftist political education history and works with its constituency-- activists, educators, grassroots folks, and low and no income women of color-- to provide timely, thought-provoking and inspiring educational and analysis sessions. We are looking for women of color speakers who are interested in speaking on topics of economic justice for women of color, the US financial crisis, and/or the housing crisis in our brown bag series during the time of the conference (Jan 3-5) or preferably, beyond, in to the week of the 5th. Speakers should be willing to make their findings and research accessible to a diverse audience and relevant to practical/applied work. Please contact Executive Director, Anisha Desai, at adesai@coloredgirls.org  if you are interested in working with us.

I hope to see many of you at the Meetings. Remember there is the ICAPE booth in the Exhibitor Hall—stop by and talk and look at the items on display. Also remember the is the ICAPE board meeting on Friday January 2, 2009—information is found below.

Finally, if you like cartoons and especially ones about PhD students, then check out the following website: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php.


Fred Lee

In this issue:
  Call for Papers
  - Econ Journal Watch
- Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies
- The 2009 Left Forum
- 6th Euroframe Conference
- Oeconomicus
- First Annual Social Science Consortium Award Competition
- History of Economics Society
- The 2nd International Conference of the Buddhist Economic Research Platform
- The Progressive Economics Forum
- Journal of Innovation Economics
  Conferences, Seminars and Lectures
- SEMINAIRE ARC 2
- The Political Significance of the Economic Crisis
- The Center for the History of Political Economy
- Examining the Practice of Ethical Economics
- Second Graz Schumpeter Summer School
- World Peace Congress 2008/09
  International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics - News
  - ICAPE
Job Postings for Heterodox Economists
  - City College of San Francisco
- OECD
- The Open University
- Regional Economist
  Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles
  - Conséquences économiques de la crise financière
- Economic consequences of the financial crisis
- Banking regulatory reforms emerging, in piecemeal way
- BIS banking statistics amidst the financial turmoil
- "Gender Equality and the Current Global Economic Crisis"
- Some instability puzzles in Kaleckian models of growth and distribution
- A Goodwinian Model with Direct and Roundabout Returns to Scale (An Application to Italy)
- Keynes Le Temps Des Crises..
Heterodox Journals and Newsletters
  - Review of Political Economy
- Economic Systems Research
- Journal of Economic Methodology
- INTERVENTION
  Heterodox Books and Book Series
  - Green Economics: An Introduction to Theory, Policy and Practice
- From Political Economy to Economics
- Varieties Of Capitalism And New Institutional Deals
- Advances In Evolutionary Institutional Economics
- Quality-of-Living and Human Development as the Outcome from Economic Progress
- Capitalism is Not Democracy
- Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization
- Capitalism and Christianity, American Style
- Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software
- The Violence Today - Actually-existing Barbarism?
- The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays
- The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History
- Central Banking, Asset Prices and Financial Fragility
- Finance-led Capitalism? Macroeconomic Effects of Changes in the Financial Sector
  Heterodox Websites and Associations
  - Center for the History of Political Economy
- ClimateChangeEconomics.net
- Association for Heterodox Economics
- The Critical Mass Forum on Political Economy and Power
The HEN-IRE-FPH Project
  - The HEN-IRE-FPH Project for Developing Heterodox Economics and Rethinking the Economy Through Debate and Dialogue
- A Buddhist Economic Approach to the Development of Community Enterprises
- Breaking the Mould
- Principles of Institutional-Evolutionary Political Economy
- Principles of Neo-Schumpeterian Economics
  For Your Information
  - Should the financial crisis prompt another look at social ownership?
- U. S. Census Bureau Announces a New Product for Tracking Business Activity
- Hampshire College Students Learn What Money Can't Buy
- Chicago Political Economy Group (CPEG): Jobs Program Proposal
- Where Are the New Jobs for Women?
- Whose Interests Will Shape Barack Obama’s “Change”?
- The Remedist
   

Call for Papers

Econ Journal Watch

Econ Journal Watch invites essay proposals on 'Notes from Underground' by economists and other social scientists. The goal is to get engaging essays on the inner life of the social scientist. Essays may be anonymous. The theme and invitation is described at:
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/main/call_proposals.php

Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies

http://www.upd.edu.ph/~twsc/publications_kasarinlan.html

Call for Papers: Political economy of cross-border flows of goods, capital, labor and ideas.
http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/kasarinlan/announcement/view/12

Resource flows among economies have not only improved over the years but have also transformed in complexity and speed. Yet, for instance, financial flows continue to remain within the industrialized region; only a fraction of global finance goes to the developing regions.
Still flows to the developing regions go mainly to high performing economies. And the composition of the flows is increasingly in liabilities and short-term in character. The prospect that finance takes root in the domestic economy and generates productive activities is thus low.

Similar pattern exists in goods flows. Trade is mainly within the industrialized region. The developing regions only get a small portion of trade, though high performing economies are able to participate more. The composition of developing regions trade is dominantly primary and/or low technology goods, which are easily absorbed by the industrialized region. The former cannot easily absorb the high value manufactures and high-technology goods from the industrialized region.
Meanwhile, direct investments to the developing regions continue not to generate technology transfers or significant innovations.

Parallel to the capital and trade flows is the evolving labor flows.
The standard view that labor is immobile is misplaced today. The view that trade and labor flows are substitutes is simplistic. The same applies for capital and labor flows. But because labor is not fully absorbed in the domestic economy, it moves out to other places for employment. In the end, labor from developing regions sustains productive activities in the industrialized region.

Ideas flows are far-reaching and penetrating as technology advances and goods, capital, and labor flows intensify. However, the reference point continues to be the industrialized region, thus developing regions are captured to assess their own progress according to the standards of the former. Industrialization, for example, is transformed into a form that fits with the industrialized region
rather than to improve its nature to develop indigenous economic progress.

The issue welcomes papers that explore aspects or the totality of cross-border flows of goods, capital, labor, and ideas. Do resource flows affect economic performance and socio-political conditions of economies, and how? Do the circuits in which resources flow evolve independent of flows themselves? How does one make sense of the rapidity in and complexity of resources flows brought about by globalization with the fixity of resources despite globalization? Do China and India affect the nature of the circuits and resources
flows?
How would the present global financial and economic crisis change the circuits and flows? Are there viable alternative arrangements at this juncture?

Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies invites theoretical and empirical papers that explore issues linked to the theme. Papers that use unorthodox perspectives or approaches, present solid analyses, and stimulate critical discourse are welcome.

For the submission guidelines, please see this link:
http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/kasarinlan/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Due Date for Submission of Manuscript: June 30, 2009

All inquiries concerning the submission of articles should be addressed to:

The Editor
Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies Third World Studies Center Lower Ground Floor, Palma Hall College of Social Sciences and Philosophy University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines P.O. Box 210
Telefax: +63 2 920 5428
+63 2 981 8500 ext. 2488
E-mail: kasarinlan@up.edu.ph
kasarinlan@gmail.com

The 2009 Left Forum

The 2009 Left Forum ( http://www.leftforum.org/ ) will take place April 17-19 at Pace University, One Pace Plaza (across from City Hall), NYC.

This year's conference theme will be "Turning Points."

The Left Forum is generally attended by a few thousand activists and academics, and there is always a strong interest in economic aspects of current issues. URPE people have a lot to contribute to the general Left discourse. We encourage all URPE members who are interested to think about participating in a panel!
Click here for detailed information.

6th Euroframe Conference

6TH EUROFRAME CONFERENCE ON ECONOMIC POLICY ISSUES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
Causes and consequences of the current financial crisis: what lessons for European Union countries?
Friday, 12 June 2009, London
CALL FOR PAPERS
The EUROFRAME group of research institutes (CASE, CPB, DIW, ESRI, ETLA, IfW, NIESR, OFCE, PROMETEIA, WIFO) will hold its sixth annual Conference on Economic Policy Issues in the European Union in London on 12 June 2009. The aim of the conference is to provide an economic forum for debate on economic policy issues relevant in the European context.
The Conference will focus on causes and consequences of the current financial crisis with a view to draw lessons for EU countries. Contributions should address issues related to: Causes of the current financial crisis (search for high profitability, growth based on indebtedness and capital gains, functioning of global finance: banks’ behaviour, derivative products, financial bubbles, failure of financial mathematics; failures in the national and international regulatory frameworks); Financial crises and the real economy, analysing consequences and solutions to the problems they have caused (evidence for the links between financial crises and consumption behaviour; links between banks, equity markets and firms in financial crises; what can we learn from previous advanced economy financial crises); The development of the current crisis and policy answers (vicious circles in banking, financial and equity markets, failures and successes of government measures to restore the functioning of the financial and banking systems). Towards a new Financial System? (Less finance or finance without bubbles?, World growth without imbalances?, New banking and financial regulations?, A new European regulatory framework? A new global financial architecture? A new functioning of financial markets?)

Submission Procedure

Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail before 13 March to catherine.mathieu@ofce.sciencespo.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 mid-April.
Full papers should be received by e-mail by 25 May.

Scientific Committee

Karl Aiginger (WIFO), Ray Barrell (NIESR), Michiel Bijlsma (CPB), Marek Dabrowski (CASE), Christian Dreger (DIW), Klaus-Jürgen Gern
(IfW), Markku Kotilainen (ETLA), Paolo Onofri (PROMETEIA), Iulia Siedschlag (ESRI), Henri Sterdyniak (OFCE), Catherine Mathieu (OFCE,
Scientific Secretary)
Local Organising Committee (NIESR, London)
Ray Barrell, Dawn Holland, Simon Kirby; Phil Davis (NIESR and Brunel Univ)
Contacts - Abstract and paper submissions
Ray Barrell: rbarrell@niesr.ac.uk
Catherine Mathieu: catherine.mathieu@ofce.sciences-po.fr , tel.: +33 (0) 1 44 18 54 37

Oeconomicus

An all-student interdisciplinary journal of economic issues

Oeconomicus is an interdisciplinary journal of economic issues written, refereed, edited and published by current undergraduate, M.A., and Ph.D. students in the social sciences. The focus of the journal is on critical or heterodox approaches to issues of economic methodology and theory, history of economic thought, economic history, political economy, and economic policy. All heterodox traditions within the social sciences—including, but not limited to, Marxist, Institutionalist, Post Keynesian, Austrian, Feminist, and Poststructuralist/ Postmodern—are welcome in the journal. Oeconomicus is sponsored by the Economics Club at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and is published annually.

We are currently accepting submissions for our 2008-2009 issue and welcome students at all levels to submit full-length articles, book reviews, interviews or comments. Submissions should be no more that 5000 words and in MS Word format. Submissions and enquiries should be sent to the editors at karol.gil@umkc.edu,  or fcrp6d@umkc.edu.  The deadline for submissions is January 10th, 2009. For further information about detailed instructions for authors, the journal, the Economics Club and/or the UMKC Economic Department please visit
our website http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/Oeconomicus/.

First Annual Social Science Consortium Award Competition

The aim of the First Annual Social Science Consortium Award Competition is to encourage undergraduate and graduate students in Economics and Social Sciences to present their papers at UMKC and engage in academic discussions with other students and faculty.

Up to three winning papers will be selected. Winners are expected to present their research at UMKC.
Winners will each receive: $200 cash prize

Winning papers must be presented at a special seminar session at UMKC (to be announced at a later date) in order to collect the cash prize.
Papers must have no more that 5000 words, including references and appendices. They should be submitted electronically (preferably in Word format) to the editors at karol.gil@umkc.edu  or fcrp6d@umkc.edu  by January 10th, 2009

History of Economics Society

The 2009 meetings of the History of Economics Society will held at the University of Colorado Denver over June 26-29. Those wishing to
submit a paper or propose a session may do so at http://www.hes-conference2009.com/.

The conference will begin with an opening reception on Friday, June 26 and will end mid-day on Monday, June 29. The meetings will be held at the University of Colorado Denver's Kenneth King Academic and
Performing Arts Center on the University's Downtown Denver Campus.
The campus's location in lower downtown Denver affords easy walking access to hundreds of restaurants and a variety of hotels in all price ranges. The campus's extremely limited dormitory facilities mean that there will likely not be a dorm housing option available.
Conference rates will be arranged with several hotels within easy walking distance of the campus. Direct flights from London and Frankfurt make this a very accessible location for those traveling from Europe. Registration information will be posted in due course.

If you encounter any problems with paper/session submission or have any other questions about the conference, you can email me
directly at HES2009@ucdenver.edu.

The 2nd International Conference of the Buddhist Economic Research Platform

The 2nd International Conference of the Buddhist Economic Research Platform has been rescheduled for April 9-11, 2009. It will be held at Ubon Rajathanee University in Ubon Ratchathani Thailand.

None of the credit card transactions for the registration fees have been processed and all of those registrations will be destroyed.
If you paid for your registration by cash transfer and will not be attending the newly scheduled conference, please notify me immediately and we will begin the process of refunding your money.

If you are planning on attending the conference, please register again. If you had registered for the original conference dates, please use the same registration fee you paid before.

When you register, please be sure to include the following information:
1.How you will be arriving in Ubon
2.When you will be arriving in Ubon
3.Where you would like to stay (University, Ratchathani Asoke Community or Ubonburi Resort)
4.When you will be leaving Ubon
5.How you will be leaving Ubon
6.Please be sure to include your email address
If you were scheduled to present a paper at the previously scheduled conference, please indicate if you would like to present the same paper or would like to update or submit a different paper. All new papers should be submitted NO LATER THAN February 15, 2009. If you submitted a paper and will not be able to attend on the new dates, please indicate if you would like your paper to be published in the electronic transactions and if you would like it to be considered for publication with selected papers.

The Progressive Economics Forum

The Progressive Economics Forum will once again be hosting panels at the 2009 Canadian Economics Association meetings, to be held May 29-31 in Toronto.

Please come forward with any suggestions for panels that you would like to organize through the PEF. We will take all suggestions to the Steering Committee in early January to make a final submission. Please be as descriptive as possible - what topic, why, who will be on it.

Also if you have a paper you would like to present we can see if there is a panel that can fit it in. But you may want to submit through the regular CEA process for papers, just in case.

Nick Falvo will be coordinating the PEF's involvement with CEA this year. Please email Nick ( nfalvo@connect.carleton.ca ) and copy info@progressive-economics.ca  with any suggestions by Jan. 9, 2009.

Journal of Innovation Economics

Topic:
Innovation, Growth and Sustainable Development
Innovation is one of the essential factors of enterprise performance as well as national economic growth. Either on the micro or the macroeconomic level, the relationships between innovation and performance have been (and are still being) studied in several important works (Schumpeterian and neo-Schumpeterian analyses, endogenous growth theories, etc.). Although Schumpeter emphasized a multiplicity of innovation forms, the accent in most of these analyses is essentially upon technological innovation (based on Research and Development). Public policies to support innovation that are inspired by Schumpeterian analyses are henceforth and all scientific and technological policies.
Relatively recent preoccupations in terms of durability, either they concern social sciences or the public debate, invite to substitute for the question of growth, a question of sustainable development (considered under a tripartite dimension: economic, ecological and social); In other words, they invite to endogenize durability in economic and scientific systems.
In a sustainable development context, technological innovation plays an ambivalent role: it is the source of the problem (on the ecological side) and, at the same time, it represents its hope for solution. However, the change of orientation (from growth to sustainable development) invites one also to think more fundamentally about the nature of innovation. This change should allow renewed emphasis on (and integration into the theoretical analysis of) the non-technological
forms of innovation that could be present in the industrial sector, as well as in services and which are not necessarily based on R&D activity.
In some way, it can be thought that in a perspective of the relationship “innovationperformance”, the economic analysis is characterised by a double deficit or gap relative to innovation and performance. The “innovation gap” translates the difference between the reality of innovation produced in an economy and the perceptions of the traditional innovation
indicators (R&D, patents). It corresponds to what might be called invisible innovation (nontechnological
innovation, social innovation). As for the “performance gap”: it measures the difference between the reality of performance in an economy and performance evaluated by the traditional economic tools (essentially productivity and growth). It corresponds to the hidden performance that is invisible to these tools (sustainable performance). These two gaps blur the innovation-performance relationship and are at the origin of a “policy gap”: subsequently, they encourage speculation about the legitimacy of some public policies to support innovation.
The purpose of this special issue of the “Journal of Innovation Economics” is to highlight the question of the relationship between “innovation, growth and sustainable development” all by filling the different gaps outlined above. Original proposals could be empirical, theoretical or methodological.
General presentation of the Journal of Innovation Economics on:
http://rrien.univ-littoral.fr/?page_id=10
Editor of the Journal: Dimitri Uzunidis
Publisher: Electronic Journal published by Cairn : http://www.cairn.info
Editors of the Special Issue “Innovation, Growth and Sustainable Development”
Faridah Djellal
Dimitri Uzunidis
Deadlines:
- Proposal of paper (One or two pages abstract): December 22, 2008
- Full paper: March 1, 2009
- Reviewing process and final decisions on the publication of papers: May 10, 2009
Redaction, Scientific and Editorial Committees:
The redaction and scientific and editorial committees of the Journal of Innovation Economics are
the same as for the Journal Innovations, Cahiers d’Economie de l’Innovation:
http://riien.univ-littoral.fr/?page_id=39&page=2
Send abstracts to the following address: rri@univ-littoral.fr 

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

SEMINAIRE ARC 2

ACCUMULATION, REGULATION, CROISSANCE ET CRISE
CEPREMAP - GERME (Paris VII) - IRISES (Paris IX)
CEPN (PARIS XIII) - MATISSE (PARIS I)

Lundi 15 décembre (15h30-18h30)

Grande Salle, ENS - Jourdan
Accès : http://www.pse.ens.fr/pratique/index.html

Crise financière :
crise de régulation ou crise du capitalisme ?
Organisation : D. Gatti

Intervenants : R. Boyer, F. Lordon, A. Orlean, B. Théret
Discutants : B. Coriat, A. Lipietz

Calendrier des prochaines séances :

9 / 2 / 2009
Demi-journée autour de « La crise américaine et les plans de rescue »
Organisation : P. Petit

6 / 4 / 2009
Demi-journée autour de « Scénarios et politiques de sortie de crise »
Organisation : B. Théret

The Political Significance of the Economic Crisis

A Lecture by Frank Furedi, professor of sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury; author, Invitation to Terror, Where have all the intellectuals gone?, The Politics of Fear

“The financial crisis and recession have taken the world by surprise. The uncertain and sometimes contradictory response of the political class has already worsened the character of the crisis, and a widespread unwillingness to face up to its seriousness makes it all the more difficult to resolve. How is the situation likely to develop in 2009, and how should we respond?”

Date: Tuesday 16 December
Time: 7pm
Cost: £10 / £7 IoI associates
Tickets: http://www.instituteofideas.com/tickets/index.html  or contact 020 7269 9220
Venue: London School of Economics – New Theatre
E171, East Building, LSE Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
Details: http://www.instituteofideas.com/events/xmaslecture2008.html 

The Center for the History of Political Economy

The Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University has scheduled the following workshops and other events for the Spring 2009 semester. Workshops are held on Friday afternoons from 3:30 to 5 in the Social Science Building, Room 327.

Jan. 9 Joint Economic History/HOPE Workshop ¬ Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University “Islamic Financial Jurisprudence”

Jan. 16 HOPE Workshop Angus Burgin, Harvard University “The Colloque Lippmann and the Origins of Neoliberalism”

Jan. 20 HOPE Workshop Daniel Hammond, Wake Forest University “Strange Bedfellows: Msgr.
John A. Ryan and the Minimum Wage Movement”

Feb. 13 HOPE Workshop Warren Young, Bar-Ilan University “The Minnesota Fed Archives Project and the Role of Drafts of Papers in the History of Economics”

Feb. 17 Panel discussion: “John Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury.” Held at the Nasher Museum of Art as part of the “A Year of Bloomsbury” celebration at Duke University (http://news.duke.edu/2008/09/bloomsbury.html),
this will be the “kick-off” event for the establishment of the Center. Craufurd Goodwin, Roy Weintraub, Kevin Hoover, and Bruce Caldwell will explore the place of Keynes within Bloomsbury and offer an assessment of his legacy.

Feb. 20 HOPE Two-fer Workshop Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame, and Bruce Caldwell, Duke University “Neoliberalism, Chicago, and Hayek: Two Views”

March 20 HOPE Workshop Aiko Ikeo, Waseda University “Kaname Akamatsu (1896-1974) on Technology, Natural Resources, and the Flying-Geese Pattern Theory of Development” (Part of the Critical Biography Series Project organized by the Society for the History of Japanese Economic Thought)

March 27 HOPE Workshop Edward Nik-Khan, Roanoke University “George Stigler and the Chicago Business School”

April 17 HOPE Workshop Rob Leonard, Université du Québec à Montréal “Economics and Modernism, 1900-1950”

Examining the Practice of Ethical Economics

A Session Sponsored by the Association for Integrity and Responsible Leadership in Economics and Associated Professions (AIRLEAP®) (Free and Open to Everyone -- Registration in the ASSA meetings is not required.)
Sunday, January 4, 2009, 6:00-8:00 PM
Palace Hotel, French Parlor Room, 2 New Montgomery St., San Francisco
Organizer and Chair: Professor Seth Giertz, University of Nebraska
“‘I Do Solemnly Swear’: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics” Professor George DeMartino, University of Denver
Discussed by Dr. Yvon Pho, Manager, BearingPoint, Inc.
“Honesty and Integrity in Economics”
Professor Thomas Mayer, University of California, Davis
Discussed by Dr. Brian Sloboda, President of the Society of Government Economists
“Rhetoric Matters: The Case for Standards of Ethical Conduct in Economics”
Professor Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago
Discussed by Professor Gary Hoover, University of Alabama
George DeMartino
Deirdre McCloskey
Thomas Mayer
Seth Giertz

Second Graz Schumpeter Summer School

Classical Economics After Sraffa: Problems and Perspectives

Graz, Austria, 13-18 July 2009

2010 sees the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book by Piero Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Cambridge University Press, 1960). This is a fitting occasion to discuss in depth with leading experts the development, current frontiers of research and open questions of the return to ‘the standpoint of the old classical economists from Adam Smith to Ricardo’ advocated by Sraffa. The Graz Schumpeter Centre (GSC) is pleased to announce its next Summer School that is devoted to this theme. The topics to be dealt with include: production and distribution; capital accumulation and economic growth; innovations and technical change; exhaustible resources and the environment; financial and economic crises; and issues in the history of economic thought.

Senior Faculty include:

Professor Pierangelo Garegnani, University of Rome III, Italy
Professor Harvey Gram, Queens College, New York, U.S.
Professor Eiji Hosoda, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Professor Man-Seop Park, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
Professor Sergio Parrinello, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Italy
Professor Neri Salvadori, University of Pisa, Italy
Professor Bertram Schefold, University of Frankfurt/M., Germany
Professor Ian Steedman, Manchester Metropolitan University, U.K.

The Summer School will be held on the campus of Graz University, Graz, Austria. Admission is open to up to 30 Junior Fellows, that is, graduate students and recent Ph.D.’s. The schedule of the Summer School has between three and four lectures each day, given by members of the Senior Faculty. A further part of the time will be devoted to seminars in which Junior Fellows are given the opportunity to present their research and get feedbacks from peers. Successful participation in the Summer School will be certified.

Application: Applications should include three copies of: a CV; a one-page statement of the student's motivation to participate in the Summer School, indicating also his or her familiarity with modern Classical economics; two letters of recommendation from university professors. The Application Form will be available on the homepage and should be completed and attached to any application. The material should be sent per mail to: Graz Schumpeter Centre, “Summer School 2009”, University of Graz, RESOWI-Centre FE, A–8010 Graz, Austria by the end of April. For questions about the application procedure and the Summer School in general, please contact us per E-mail: schumpeter.centre@uni-graz.at

Detailed information about tuition fee, accommodation and board will be given by the end of February. See the homepage of the Summer School at:
www.uni-graz.at/schumpeter.centre 

Cooperation: The GSC cooperates with other European academic institutions to secure a diversified scientific board and a broad attendance. The partnership with other Academic Institutions creates a scientific network ensuring useful spillover effects.

Scientific Committee: Christian Gehrke (Graz), Heinz D. Kurz (Graz), Sergio Parrinello (Rome), Ian Steedman (Manchester), Richard Sturn (Graz), Neri Salvadori (Pisa).

Contact: For further information on application and funding please access the Summer School Website at www.uni-graz.at/schumpeter.centre  or contact the Summer School Office.

World Peace Congress 2008/09

World Peace Congress 2008/09, a multi-thematic conference focussed on grassroots programs devoted toward realizing a more peaceful and convivial future will be held in Bangalore, India from 27 Feb - 1 Mar 2009.More information is available at: www.worldpeacecongress2008.net
Expressions of interest may be made to the organizers at:
worldpeacecongress@gmail.com 
 
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International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics - News

ICAPE

ICAPE will be having its annual membership meeting in the "Golden Gate 5" room in the Hilton Hotel from 2:30-4:00 p.m. on Friday, January 2, 2009. While only members can vote, anybody interest in pluralism in economics and want to know more about ICAPE is welcome to attend. ICAPE is also co-sponsoring the ASE Plenary session at the ASSA, as noted in ‘From the Editor’. Finally, ICAPE is again paying for a booth at the ASSA. Associations, institutes, individuals, etc. who would like to use the booth to promote whatever, please contact me. The ASSA booth costs around $2,000. If you think that a booth at the ASSA that promotes pluralism in economics is important, then financial support of ICAPE is important. If you have any questions about ICAPE or want to get involved in its activities, please send me an e-mail.

Fred Lee
Executive Director

Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

City College of San Francisco

Position title: Economics and Statistics Instructor (Tenure-Track/Part-Time Pool)
Posting number: 0080045
Filing deadline: 01-29-2009 (4:00 p.m.)
Start date for Tenure-Track Position: Fall Semester 2009, beginning mid-August 2009.

Appointment types:
A. CONTRACT: FIRST YEAR (PROBATIONARY), TENURE-TRACK (BASED ON AVAILABLITY OF FUNDS)
EC §§87602-87615 as amended by SB2298 (1990)

B. TEMPORARY, PART-TIME (9 HOURS OR LESS PER WEEK)
THIS WILL BE A PART-TIME HIRING POOL TO BE IN EFFECT FOR A ONE-YEAR PERIOD.
EC §87482

Applying for tenure-track, part-time, or both positions does not affect how an application is reviewed.

Click here for detailed information.

OECD

The OECD seeks to recruit highly qualified women and men from its 30 member countries. As an OECD Economist you will be at the hub of global policy dialogue and will have the opportunity to interact with major actors who address economic, social and governance challenges. You will play a key role in providing rigorous intellectual input towards finding solutions for pressing policy issues.
Our success depends on the talented staff who bring a cross-section of qualifications and experience to the OECD. It is one of our top priorities to become a more diverse and inclusive organization.
Human Resource representatives, Makoto Miyasako and Niki Ruggeri, will be present at the OECD booth 402, AEA Annual meeting (January 3-5 2009, San Francisco) and look forward to discussing with you the potential opportunities. For more information on current job openings, we invite you to visit www.oecd.org/hrm/vacancies  where you can also register to receive email alerts.

The Open University

Post Doctoral Research Fellow: Innovation, Knowledge and Development - IKD

Economics Department, Faculty of Social Sciences
Salary £24,152-£32,458 depending upon qualifications and experience, Ref: 5135
Based in Milton Keynes
12 month temporary contract start date as soon as possible

This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Assistant to assist the Director of IKD (Innovation, Knowledge and Development).

You will be focussed on the organisation and co-ordination of individual and group external grant bids, mainly in the finance and innovation area, within the Innovation, Knowledge and Development interdisciplinary research centre (IKD, www.open.ac.uk/ikd ). You should have experience in writing grant proposals and conducting academic research. Part of your work will involve co-ordinating academics in different institutions (and countries) around grant projects, and so previous experience with co-ordinating researchers would be a benefit.

You will also be able to conduct your own research within one of IKD’s projects related to finance and/or innovation, and hence progress your career through publications. Knowledge and experience of UK and EU research funding bodies is important, and some experience with organising research events is desirable.

For detailed information and how to apply go to www.open.ac.uk/employment , call Carol Fuller on 01908 654483 or email SocSci-recruitment@open.ac.uk  quoting the reference number. Closing date: 12 noon 2 January 2009.

Further particulars are available in large print, disk or audiotape (minicom 01908 654901).

We promote diversity in employment and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

Regional Economist

ASSISTANT RESEARCH PROFESSOR/NEW ENGLAND REGIONAL ECONOMIST JOB DESCRIPTION
December 16, 2008
Regional economist to work with a team of highly regarded progressive economists to explore innovative policies that can improve quality of life and conditions for low and moderate income people throughout New England.
Ph.D. in economics required; excellent quantitative analysis skills; professional experience in a policy environment is preferred; expertise in some combination of the following:
- public economics, including budgets, tax and fiscal policy
- the economics of public policy, including social and human service policy, labor policy, education policy, health policy, energy and transportation policy, and local and regional economic development
- current economic policy issues in the New England region
The regional economist will write for academic and general audiences and make media appearances. He or she will take part in meetings with policy makers and network with economists around the country to solicit ideas and advice about economic policy.
This is a full-time position. A two-year contract will be offered to the successful candidate, with a high likelihood of renewal upon excellent performance. Salary is commensurate with experience.
Application review will begin on 1/5/09 and continue until the position is filled. Candidates should submit a letter, C.V., writing sample (under 25 pages, on a topic relevant to the position), and two letters of recommendation to:
Judy Fogg Political Economy Research Institute Gordon Hall, 418 N. Pleasant St. Amherst, MA 01002
Electronic submissions are preferred: fogg@econs.umass.edu.  No phone calls, please. The University of Massachusetts is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups are encouraged to apply.
NOTE: Applicants attending the January 3-5 ASSA conference in San Francisco should submit materials by December 31 in order to be considered for an interview at that meeting.


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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

Conséquences économiques de la crise financière

(1) Un texte d'Angel Asensio (ADEK) sur les "Conséquences économiques de la crise financière"
Click here to download the paper.

Economic consequences of the financial crisis

(1bis) A text from Angel Asensio (ADEK) "Economic consequences of the financial crisis - A Keynesian point of view"
Click here to download the paper.

Banking regulatory reforms emerging, in piecemeal way

by Andrew Cornford
Click here to download the paper.


BIS banking statistics amidst the financial turmoil
by Andrew Cornford
Click here to download the paper.

"Gender Equality and the Current Global Economic Crisis"
By Diane Elson
Click here to download the paper.

Some instability puzzles in Kaleckian models of growth and distribution

Hein, Eckhard / Lavoie, Marc / van Treeck, Till: Some instability puzzles in Kaleckian models of growth and distribution: A critical survey, IMK Working Paper, Nr. 19/2008. Düsseldorf 2008:

http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_imk_wp_19_2008.pdf


A Goodwinian Model with Direct and Roundabout Returns to Scale (An Application to Italy)

by A. Ryzhenkov http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121556774/abstract

Keynes Le Temps Des Crises..

Voilà revenu le temps des crises, où sifflera bien mieux le keynésien moqueur... Le président Sarkozy réclame un Bretton Woods financier et de la régulation pour un capitalisme qu’il ne croit plus s’autoréguler. Il veut revenir « au capitalisme de l’entrepreneur et plus au capitalisme du spéculateur ». L’intervention de l’État redevient une évidence puisqu’il est le seul à voir plus loin que le bout de son nez. H. Guaino, conseiller du président, annonce que les engagements de Maastricht ne sont plus la priorité... Des thèmes keynésiens certes ! (cont.)

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

Review of Political Economy

Volume 21 Issue 1 is now available online at http://www.informaworld.com.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Effective Demand and Short-term Adjustments in the General Theory
Author: Olivier Allain

Capital Accumulation, Technical Progress and Labour Supply Growth: Keynes's Approach to Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis Revisited
Author: Alfonso Palacio-Vera

Marx and Schumpeter: A Comparison of their Theories of Development
Author: Eric Rahim

Sraffa's Interpretation of Marx's Treatment of Fixed Capital
Author: Fred Moseley

The 2000–2001 Financial Crisis in Turkey: A Crisis for Whom?
Authors: Mathieu Dufour; Özgür Orhangazi

Political Economy and Organizational Leadership: A Hope-based Theory
Authors: Joe Wallis; Brian Dollery; Lin Crase

A Conversation with Kurt Rothschild
Authors: Kurt Rothschild; John King

Enigma in the Origins of Paul Sweezy's Political Economy
Author: Ben Fine

Book Reviews
Authors: Paul Lewis; Elisabeth Allgoewer; Paul Zarembka; Jurriaan Bendien; John Lodewijks; J. E. King; William K. Tabb; William K. Tabb; Tae-Hee Jo; Martin Gregor

Economic Systems Research

Volume 20 Issue 4  is now available online at http://www.informaworld.com.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Knowledge Flows, Patent Citations and the Impact of Science on Technology
Authors: önder Nomaler; Bart Verspagen

Using Additional Information in Structural Decomposition Analysis: The Path-based Approach
Authors: Esteban Fernández-Vázquez; Bart Los; Carmen Ramos-Carvajal

Estimating International Interindustry Linkages: Non-survey Simulations of the Asian-Pacific Economy
Authors: Jan Oosterhaven; Dirk Stelder; Satoshi Inomata

Additivity of Deflated Input–Output Tables in National Accounts
Author: Utz-Peter Reich

The First Two Eigenvalues of Large Random Matrices and Brody's Hypothesis on the Stability of Large Input–Output Systems
Author: Guang-Zhen Sun

Trade Liberalization and India's Informal Economy
Author: Arup Mitra

Journal of Economic Methodology

Volume 15 Issue 4  is now available online at http://www.informaworld.com.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Sraffa's mathematical economics: a constructive interpretation, Pages 325 - 342
Author: K. Vela Velupillai

The explanatory logic and ontological commitments of generalized Darwinism, Pages 343 - 363
Author: J. W. Stoelhorst

Rationality, behavior, institutional, and economic change in Schumpeter, Pages 365 - 390
Authors: Agnès Festré; Pierre Garrouste

On the autonomy of experiments in economics, Pages 391 - 407
Author: Martin K. Jones

Method and appraisal in economics, 1976–2006, Pages 409 - 423
Author: Uskali Mäki

Not all machines are alike – Harro Maas

A review of Donald MacKenzie

Expanding the domain of macroeconomic theory

INTERVENTION

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICIES
Vol. 5 (2008), Number 2
Journal website: http://www.journal-intervention.org/seiten/englisch/current_issue.shtml 
Publisher's website: http://www.metropolis-publisher.com/1/ausgaben/journal.do 

Contents
Forum
Interview with Jan Kregel
Special Forum on Economic Policy Studies
Nigel F.B. Allington, John S.L. McCombie: Productivity Growth and Unemployment under Mrs. Thatcher Reconsidered
Thomas Bernhardt: Dimensions of the Argentine Crisis 2001/02. A Critical Survey of Politico-economical Explanations
Karin Fischer: Policy Reform and Income Distribution in Honduras
Special Forum on Recent Interpretations of Keynes and the General Theory
Victoria Chick: Contextualising Keynes’ Revolution. Review of Michael S. Lawlor’s ›The Economics of Keynes in Historical Context‹
Jan Toporowski: Keynes Betrayed? Review of Geoff Tily’s ›Keynes’ General Theory, the Rate of Interest, and Keynesian Economics: Keynes Betrayed‹
Paul Davidson: Understanding Keynes: A Response to Spahn’s Review of »John Maynard Keynes«
Peter Spahn: Davidson on Keynes and Others - A Rejoinder
M.G. Hayes: The Post Keynesian Economics Study Group – After 20 Years
Articles
Reiner Franke: A Microfounded Herding Model and its Estimation on German Survey Expectations
Special Issue on Financial Markets, Financialisation and the Macroeconomy
Marc Lavoie: Financialisation Issues in a Post-Keynesian Stock-Flow Consistent Model
Soon Ryoo, Peter Skott: Financialization in Kaleckian Economies with and without Labor Constraints
Sebastian Dullien: Who is Afraid of Asian FX Interventions? Lessons for Europe from a Three-Asset-Portfolio Model

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Heterodox Books and Book Series

Green Economics: An Introduction to Theory, Policy and Practice

By Molly Scott Cato

The world as we know it needs a new economics. Climate change, financial crisis and out-of-control globalization–all the major problems facing the world have their root in the dominant economic system.

Green economics offers an alternative to mainstream economics, which views society and the ecosystem as subsets of the wider, limitless global economy. Starting with the recognition of planetary limits and an understanding of the importance of using resources wisely, green economics views the economy as nested within society, which itself as part of the greater ecosystem.

This highly readable introduction explains the axioms of green economics including views on taxation, welfare, money, economic development and work through the work of its inspirational figures including Schumacher, Robertson and Douthwaite. It also explores the contributions and insights of schools of thought critical of the dominant neo-classical economic paradigm, including ecofeminism, views from the global South, and the perspective of indigenous peoples. Examples of effective green policies that are already being implemented across the world are presented, as well as policy prescriptions for issues including economic measurement, localization, citizens’ income, taxation and trade.

About the Author
Molly Scott-Cato is a Reader in Green Economics at Cardiff School of Management and Economics Speaker for the Green Party. She is also a member of the core group of Transition Stroud and regularly addresses other Transition Towns on economics themes.

Download the flyer.

From Political Economy to Economics

By Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine
http://www.routledge.com/books/From-Political-Economy-to-Economics-isbn9780415423212

Download the flyer.

Varieties Of Capitalism And New Institutional Deals

Regulation, Welfare and the New Economy,
Eds. W. Elsner, G. Hanappi http://www.e-elgar-economics.com/Bookentry_contents.lasso?id=12843
Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, USA: E. Elgar, 2008.

Advances In Evolutionary Institutional Economics

Evolutionary Mechanisms, Non-Knowledge, and Strategy,
Eds. G. Hanappi, W. Elsner, http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=13139
Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, E. Elgar, 2008.

Quality-of-Living and Human Development as the Outcome from Economic Progress

by Horace Carby-Samuels
ISBN: 1897036353, 2006

General description:
The capitalist system currently functions as an incentive for the destruction of humanity. Capitalism conditions people to only think of themselves in terms of a financial achievement context. Instead, this book presents a rejuvenated developmental context in which government public policies are guided by the need to facilitate the quality-of-living of all people, instead of primarily the commercial interests of a relative handful of entrepreneurs. The book also stresses that the capitalist emphasis on education as human capital formation, has primarily been an ideological tactic for overlooking how humans have historically linked their efforts to the achievement of enhanced quality-of-living. This book further stresses that the prevailing capitalism, in the context of Globalization in which humans are institutionalized as being seekers after financial gain, is a threat to human quality of survival. In that spirit, this book presents a people-centred economic development focus in which the economy is re-oriented to quality-of-survival outcomes. It provides a guidance context which citizens are invited to require government to pursue, in order to affirm vital quality-of-living features and considerations.
ISBN: 1897036353
http://www.agorapublishing.com/Quality_of_Living.html


Capitalism is Not Democracy

by Raymond Samuels II
Book reveals Capitalism is about "capital" and not people.

The current so-called "global" economy is on a reckless course of on-going self-destruction, which threatens World War III. This self-destruction is being caused from a glorification of the pursuit of commercial profit irrespective of social and environmental costs, which in turn creates a 'culture of violence' and war.

The well-being of people are the last things on the mind of most financially wealthy elites. These elites do such things as fire people from their jobs without thinking twice, or create knowingly unhealthy and dangerous products in order to maintain high levels of commercial profit. These elites also do things like instigate so-called "Wars on Terrorism" in order to subtantially pursue "oil riches", that create hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

The book "Capitalism is Not Democracy" exposes that market capitalism in association with so-called Globalization is about furthering the interests of principal owners of "capital", and not people. These principal owners of capital are elites who own the largest corporations. The net result of "capitalism" is worsening human suffering; as well as environmental destruction, from pollutions to Global Warming.

Elites and their representatives have preached in popular culture that market capitalism goes hand in hand with democracy. These elites include U.S. President George W. Bush who talks about the "spread of markets" as "spreading democracy" throughout the world. This book substantiates that such statements are simply propaganda toward the manipulation of "the masses". This book systematically presents that market capitalism actually undermines the democratic development of society.

The book 'Capitalism is Not Democracy' not only presents a very well-considered, insightful and easy to read critical perspective on capitalism, compared to other treatments on this subject area.

Raymond Samuels, the critically acclaimed author of this book, is a member of the University of Toronto. He also furthermore presents a comprehensive alternative to capitalism, not available in other books. Indeed, the publishing industry is largely owned by corporations. These corporations seek to "dumb-down" the diverse public from becoming critically aware to such progressive alternatives to capitalism.

The author presents a people-economy which would affirm human rights; social justice toward the eradication of poverty; a context for global peace; and environmental protection, in a manner that would support democratic societal development.

No, the proposed alternative to capitalism is not "socialism" or totalitarian "communism" which are just forms of state "capitalism". Interested in knowing more about this proposed alternative to our self-destructive capitalist system? Read the book entitled 'Capitalism is Not Democracy'.

http://www.agorapublishing.com/featured-book.html

Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization

The Movements against Corporate Globalization
Jeffrey S. Juris, Arizona State University

“Networking Futures is one of the very first books to map in detail the multiple networks that are challenging corporate globalization. Taking as a point of departure an exemplary case—the Catalan anti–globalization movements of the past decade—Jeffrey S. Juris moves on to chronicle the collective struggles to construct not only an alternative vision of possible worlds but the means to bring them about. Networking Futures is a compelling portrait of the spirit of innovation that lies behind an array of progressive mobilizations, from anarchist movements and street protests to the World Social Forum. Based on a well-developed notion of collaborative ethnography, it is also a wonderful example of engaged scholarship: a much-needed alternative to academic work as usual.”—Arturo Escobar, author of Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes

“Jeffrey S. Juris gives us an illuminating model for how to study networks from below using the tools of ethnography. And in the process he reveals the extraordinary power (as well as the challenges) of network organizing for social movements today.”—Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire and Multitude


“Networking Futures is a terrific, deeply informed ethnographic account of the origins and activities of the anti–corporate globalization movement. Jeffrey S. Juris’s identity is as much that of an activist who happens to be doing first-rate anthropology as vice versa, and there is much for anthropologists to reflect on in the way that this work is set up and narrated through these dual identities.”—George E. Marcus, co-author of Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary

Since the first worldwide protests inspired by Peoples’ Global Action (PGA)—including the mobilization against the November 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle—anti–corporate globalization activists have staged direct action protests against multilateral institutions in cities such as Prague, Barcelona, Genoa, and Cancun. Barcelona is a critical node, as Catalan activists have played key roles in the more radical PGA network and the broader World Social Forum process. In 2001 and 2002, the anthropologist Jeffrey S. Juris participated in the Barcelona-based Movement for Global Resistance, one of the most influential anti–corporate globalization networks in Europe. Combining ethnographic research and activist political engagement, Juris took part in hundreds of meetings, gatherings, protests, and online discussions. Those experiences form the basis of Networking Futures, an innovative ethnography of transnational activist networking within the movements against corporate globalization.

In an account full of activist voices and on-the-ground detail, Juris provides a history of anti–corporate globalization movements, an examination of their connections to local dynamics in Barcelona, and an analysis of movement-related politics, organizational forms, and decision-making. Depicting spectacular direct action protests in Barcelona and other cities, he describes how far-flung activist networks are embodied and how networking politics are performed. He further explores how activists have used e-mail lists, Web pages, and free software to organize actions, share information, coordinate at a distance, and stage “electronic civil disobedience.” Based on a powerful cultural logic, anti–corporate globalization networks have become models of and for emerging forms of radical, directly democratic politics. Activists are not only responding to growing poverty, inequality, and environmental devastation; they are also building social laboratories for the production of alternative values, discourses, and practices.

Capitalism and Christianity, American Style

William E. Connolly, John Hopkin’s University

“William E. Connolly is a towering figure in contemporary political theory whose profound reflections on democracy, religion, and the tragic unsettle and enrich us. In this powerful work he casts his philosophical gaze on the internal dynamics of the American Empire—especially the role of Christian traditions and capitalist practices. The result is vintage Connolly, namely, indispensable!”—Cornel West, Princeton University

“In these times, we desperately need William E. Connolly’s impassioned study of inequality and the destruction of nature, his sheer awe at living-ness itself, his philosophy of immanent naturalism and deployment of the Deleuzian assemblage, and, especially, the interdisciplinary concreteness of his proposals for a resonance machine of resistance on the left. Along with Connolly’s description of an ethos, or spiritualization, of academic engagement, a key contribution of this book is to advance what has been dangerously lacking on the left, a powerful analytics of the right’s resonance machine and its recognition that the intellectual and the corporeal, the theological and the secular, never exist in purified, ‘clean’ categories.”—Linda Kintz, author of Between Jesus and the Market: The Emotions That Matter in Right-Wing America

“I immensely enjoyed reading Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. William E. Connolly offers insight, innovation, and wisdom. He brings substantive theorizing to the pressing political concerns of the moment, providing a sense of momentum and sheer energy. This book is relevant, in the strongest sense.”—Nigel Thrift, author of Knowing Capitalism

Capitalism and Christianity, American Style is William E. Connolly’s stirring call for the democratic left to counter the conservative stranglehold over American religious and economic culture in order to put egalitarianism and ecological integrity on the political agenda. An eminent political theorist known for his work on identity, secularism, and pluralism, Connolly charts the path of the “evangelical-capitalist resonance machine,” source of a bellicose ethos reverberating through contemporary institutional life. He argues that the vengeful vision of the Second Coming motivating a segment of the evangelical right resonates with the ethos of greed animating the cowboy sector of American capitalism. The resulting evangelical-capitalist ethos finds expression in church pulpits, Fox News reports, the best-selling Left Behind novels, consumption practices, investment priorities, and state policies. These practices resonate together to diminish diversity, forestall responsibility to future generations, ignore urban poverty, and support a system of extensive economic inequality.

Connolly describes how the evangelical-capitalist machine works, how its themes resound across class lines, and how it infiltrates numerous aspects of American life. Proposing changes in sensibility and strategy to challenge this machine, Connolly contends that the liberal distinction between secular public and religious private life must be reworked. Traditional notions of unity or solidarity must be translated into drives to forge provisional assemblages comprised of multiple constituencies and creeds. The left must also learn from the political right how power is infused into everyday institutions such as the media, schools, churches, consumption practices, corporations, and neighborhoods. Connolly explores the potential of a “tragic vision” to contest the current politics of existential resentment and political hubris, explores potential lines of connection between it and theistic faiths that break with the evangelical right, and charts the possibility of forging an “eco-egalitarian” economy. Capitalism and Christianity, American Style is William E. Connolly’s most urgent work to date.

Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software

The Cultural Significance of Free Software
Christopher M. Kelty, University of California

“I know of no other book that mixes so beautifully a deep theoretical understanding of social theory with a rich historical and contemporary ethnography of the Free Software and free culture movements. Christopher M. Kelty’s book speaks to many audiences; his message should be understood by many more.”—Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School

“Two Bits describes the way those who work and play with Free Software themselves change in the process—engendering what Kelty calls ‘recursive publics’—social configurations that realize the Internet’s non-hierarchical, ever-evolving, and thus historically attuned logic, creatively updating the types of public spheres previously theorized by Habermas and Michael Warner, among others. Two Bits does something similar, pulling readers into an experimental (ethnographic) mode that draws out how Open Source movements have garnered the momentum and significance they have today. The book—on paper and online—quite literally shows how it is done, itself embodying the standards that make Free Software work. Two Bits is critical reading, in all senses.”—Kim Fortun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

In Two Bits, Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software but also music, film, science, and education. Free Software is a set of practices devoted to the collaborative creation of software source code that is made openly and freely available through an unconventional use of copyright law. Kelty explains how these specific practices have reoriented the relations of power around the creation, dissemination, and authorization of all kinds of knowledge. He also makes an important contribution to discussions of public spheres and social imaginaries by demonstrating how Free Software is a “recursive public”—a public organized around the ability to build, modify, and maintain the very infrastructure that gives it life in the first place.

Drawing on ethnographic research that took him from an Internet healthcare start-up company in Boston to media labs in Berlin to young entrepreneurs in Bangalore, Kelty describes the technologies and the moral vision that bind together hackers, geeks, lawyers, and other Free Software advocates. In each case, he shows how their practices and way of life include not only the sharing of software source code but also ways of conceptualizing openness, writing copyright licenses, coordinating collaboration, and proselytizing. By exploring in detail how these practices came together as the Free Software movement from the 1970s to the 1990s, Kelty also considers how it is possible to understand the new movements emerging from Free Software: projects such as Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that creates copyright licenses, and Connexions, a project to create an online scholarly textbook commons.

The Violence Today - Actually-existing Barbarism?

Socialist Register 2009 edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (Paperback) (ISBN: 9780850366082)

Given the extent and extremity of violence today, even in the absence of world war, and two decades after the end of actually-existing socialism, it is hard not feel that we are living in another age of barbarism. The scale and pervasiveness of violence today calls urgently for serious analysis - from "the war on terror" and counter-insurgencies, from terror and counter-terror, suicide bombings and torture, civil wars and anarchy, entailing human tragedies on a scale comparable to those of the two world wars, not to mention urban gang warfare, or the persistence of chronic violence against women. That the nirvana of global capitalism finds millions of people once again just "wishing (a) not to be killed, (b) for a good warm coat" (as Stendhal is said to have put it in a different era) is, when fully contemplated, appalling.
http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/the-violence-today-actually-existing-barbarism-I9780850366082/

The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays

Utsa Patnaik, The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays , Three Essays Collective, New Delhi, 2007. ISBN: 81-88789-33-XX, pp. 232, Price (PB): Rs. 250.

"It is necessary for development…..some people have to pay the price for the time being……Once we are developed and become superpower everybody would be benefitted.”

There can be different reactions to this statement. For somebody following the development discourse from a people’s perspective, this kind of argument doesn’t come as a surprise. Rather, a routine reaction follows—oh, here comes another neo-liberal. But one has to take it with pinch of salt if it comes from a 12 year old boy in a small town of Madhya Pradesh. This boy was arguing in favor of large dams, Sardar Sarovar in particular. The argument then went further, supporting all sorts of displacements of people due to so-called ‘development’ projects. His argument was supplemented by more than a dozen other boys and girls of his age who were visibly excited by the idea of becoming a ‘superpower’ one day. They were convinced that only dams and shopping malls mean development and unless Indian has them it cannot become a superpower. There were also a handful boys and girls, little younger, who didn’t seem convinced with this idea of development and tried to articulate their concerns and doubts, but they certainly lacked the language and information. They could not understand how the electricity produced at the dams would improve the lives of those who have been displaced. Those who don’t have houses anymore wouldn’t need that electricity in the first place. They lost the battle of words despite applying their minds to an extent their parents don’t expect them to (or may even don’t want them to). Those who were dumb otherwise parroted what is available in plenty in electronic and print media, won the battle.
http://radicalnotes.com/content/view/59/39/

The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History

Edited by Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day and Immanuel Ness
March 2009. 800 pp.
Cloth 978-0-7656-1330-1 US$175.00 *Pre-Pub Price $155.00 until 3/31/09
Strikes have been part of American labor relations from colonial days to the present, reflecting the widespread class conflict that has run throughout the nation’s history. Against employers and their goons, against the police, the National Guard, local, state, and national officials, against racist vigilantes, against their union leaders, and against each other, American workers have walked off the job for higher wages, better benefits, bargaining rights, legislation, job control, and just plain dignity. At times, their actions have motivated groundbreaking legislation, defining new rights for all citizens; at other times they have led to loss of workers’ lives.
Click here for detailed information.

Central Banking, Asset Prices and Financial Fragility

By Éric Tymoigne
Series: Routledge International Studies in Money and Banking
http://www.routledge.com/9780415773997 
The current literature on central banking contains two distinct branches. On the one side, research focuses on the impact of monetary policy on economic growth, unemployment, and output-price inflation, while ignoring financial aspects. On the other side, some scholars leave aside macroeconomics in order to study the narrow, but crucial, subjects of financial behaviours, and financial supervision and regulation. This book aims at merging both approaches by using macroeconomic analysis to show that financial considerations should be the main preoccupation of central banks. Eric Tymoigne shows how different views regarding the conception of asset pricing lead to different positions regarding the appropriate role of a central bank in the economy. In addition, Hyman P. Minsky’s framework of analysis is used extensively and is combined with other elements of the Post Keynesian framework to study the role of a central bank.
Tymoigne argues that central banks should be included in a broad policy strategy that aims at achieving stable full employment. Their sole goal should be to promote financial stability, which is the best way they can contribute to price stability and full employment. Central banks should stop moving their policy rate frequently and widely because that creates inflation, speculation, and economic instability. Instead, Tymoigne considers a pro-active financial policy that does not allow financial innovations to enter the economy until they are certified to be safe and that focuses on analyzing systemic risk. He argues that central banks should be a guide and a reformer that allow a smooth financing and funding of asset positions, while making sure that financial fragility does not increase drastically over a period of expansion.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers engaged with central banking, macroeconomics, asset pricing and monetary economics.

Finance-led Capitalism? Macroeconomic Effects of Changes in the Financial Sector

Eckhard Hein, Torsten Niechoj, Peter Spahn and Achim Truger (eds.):
Finance-led Capitalism? Macroeconomic Effects of Changes in the Financial Sector
http://www.metropolis-publisher.com/Finance-led-Capitalism%3F/705/book.do
Contents
The Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies
Introduction, Eckhard Hein, Torsten Niechoj, Peter Spahn and Achim Truger

I. Financialisation – trends and implications
Financialisation: What it is and why it matters, Thomas I. Palley
Private equity: financial engineering or solution to market failure?, Sigurt Vitols
Rising shareholder power – effects on distribution, capacity utilisation and capital accumulation in Kaleckian/Post-Kaleckian models, Eckhard Hein
II. Financial systems and economic development
Financial systems in developing countries and economic development, Hansjörg Herr
Financial flows and international imbalances – the role of catching-up by late industrializing developing countries, Jan Kregel
Crisis prevention and capital controls in India: Perspectives of capital account liberalisation in the current scenario, Nishtha Khurana
III. International monetary order and imbalances
The international monetary (non-) order and the ‘global capital flows paradox’, Jörg Bibow
Trends that can’t go on forever, won’t: Financial bubbles, trade and exchange rates, Michael Hudson
Macroeconomic policy with open capital accounts, Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho
IV. Financial (in)stability and financial crises
Inefficient markets: Causes and consequences, Wolfgang Filc
On the manic-depressive fluctuations of speculative prices, Stephan Schulmeister
V. Financial market crisis in the USA
The rise and fall of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, David F. Milleker
On shaky ground: The U.S. mortgage boom and its economic consequences, Christian E. Weller and Kate Sabatini
Global imbalances: The U.S. and the rest of the world, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou

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Heterodox Websites and Associations

Center for the History of Political Economy

The Website for the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University is now up and running. You may visit it at
http://www.econ.duke.edu/CHOPE
Please note that this address is case sensitive.

ClimateChangeEconomics.net

A comprehensive website of resources and tools dedicated to addressing the carbon intensity of our economy and related climate change policy in the 50 states and territories. Our aim is to make ClimateChangeEconomics.net the premier objective research tool for state and federal legislators, as well as regulators and policy analysts, on the economic opportunities presented by the fight against climate change.
Roles for heterodox economists:
1. Site members can post links to documents, to web sites and comment on the listings to influence other readers. (Postings rate readability, political bias, geographic focus, web accessibility and offer a description; members can add comments on the posted materials and the documents/web sites.)
2. We also solicit short pieces from site members for our sections on:
"Basic Economics Guidance" to educate about (neoclassical) economic analysis (and its weaknesses) and to offer other modes of analysis, and "Legislators' Tools" to help them to dissect the analyses and testimony provided to them by asking better questions and understanding the assumptions and analytical logics that lead to particular empirical findings.

Association for Heterodox Economics

I have successfully established (with the administrator's approval) a new organisation called the 'Association for Heterodox Economics' on 'Academia Tree' - the 'facebook for academics' ( www.academia.edu ).

If heterodox economists add themselves to one or more of our present three 'Departments' (Committee, Conference Committee, and Members) they will be able to identify their research interests (and add new research interests), upload papers, and will be reached by searches by other academics and from 'outside' (eg Google).

A good way, I think, to demonstrate the research-active and productive nature of heterodox economics and its relevance to the present economic situation.

Regards
Alan Freema

The Critical Mass Forum on Political Economy and Power

The Critical Mass Forum on Political Economy and Power brings together researchers interested in exploring the possibilities and limitations of the concept of power as an alternative basis for re-thinking the tradition of political economy and its foundational categories of value, capital and accumulation. Created and maintained voluntarily by graduate students of political economy at York University in Toronto, Critical Mass aims to extend beyond York to foster online discussion and debate between the global community of researchers working in these areas.

In addition to facilitating a general discussion on political economy and power, the forum also gives participants an opportunity to discuss issues related to statistical data, to post and discuss upcoming political economy events and to receive feedback on their own research.

If you are interested in participating, please visit the forum website:
http://www.yorku.ca/cmass/forum/  

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The HEN-IRE-FPH Project

The HEN-IRE-FPH Project for Developing Heterodox Economics and Rethinking the Economy Through Debate and Dialogue

The Heterodox Economics Newsletter, The International Initiative for Rethinking the Economy (IRE), and the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH) ( www.fph.ch ) have undertaken a joint project to promote the development of heterodox economics. It involves publishing in the Newsletter reviews, analytical summaries, or commentary of articles, books, book chapters, theses, dissertations, government reports, etc. that relate to the following themes: diversity of economic approaches, regulation of goods and services, currency and finance, and trade regimes. These themes relate to heterodox economics and to the open and pluralistic intellectual debates in economics. For further information about the project and queries about reviewing, contact Fred Lee ( leefs@umkc.edu ).

A Buddhist Economic Approach to the Development of Community Enterprises

Prayukvong, W. (2005) "A Buddhist Economic Approach to the Development of Community Enterprises: a case study from southern Thailand," Cambridge Journal of Economics, 29(6): 1171-1185.
Reviewed by Ulas Basar Gezgin, PhD, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Click here to download the review.

Breaking the Mould

Chang, Ha-Joon (2002), ‘Breaking the Mould: an Institutionalist political economy alternative to the neoliberal theory of the market and the state’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 26(5): 539-60.
Reviewed by Lynne Chester, Curtin University, Australia
Click here to download the review.

Principles of Institutional-Evolutionary Political Economy

O’Hara, Phillip Anthony (2007), ‘Principles of Institutional-Evolutionary Political Economy – converging themes from the school of heterodoxy,’ Journal of Economic Issues, March 2007, 41(1): 1-42
Reviewed by Lynne Chester, Curtin University, Australia
Click here to download the review.

Principles of Neo-Schumpeterian Economics

Hanusch, Horst and Pyka, Andreas (2007), "Principles of Neo-Schumpeterian Economics", Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31(2): 275-90.
Reviewed by Hans H. Bass, Bremen University of Applied Sciences
Click here to download the review.

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For Your Information

Should the financial crisis prompt another look at social ownership?

A short talk on Australian ABC radio entitled "Should the financial crisis prompt another look at social ownership?" Here is the podcast and transcript.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2008/2426170.htm
by David McMullen
http://economsoc.wordpress.com/
A discussion of the talk can be found at Strange Times.
http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?p=155

U. S. Census Bureau Announces a New Product for Tracking Business Activity

The U.S. Census Bureau announces the release of the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS), a data series that allows users to track annual changes in employment for growing and shrinking businesses at the establishment level.

There are more than 6 million establishments with paid employees in the United States. These businesses are dynamic: opening and closing, adding and losing employees.(cont.)

Hampshire College Students Learn What Money Can't Buy

By PETER SCHMIDT
Worried about a tanking stock market? Declining home values? Deflation? Inflation? Your job?
In the face of tough economic times, a new course at Hampshire College this fall offers a consoling thought: Material possessions might not be making you happy anyway — at least not as happy you think.(cont.)

Chicago Political Economy Group (CPEG): Jobs Program Proposal

Here is a link to a jobs program proposal aimed at the kind of fundamental restructuring of the US economy that we believe is necessary to right the U.S. economy over the long term: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhgjvbdv_531ftpbfsdw.  We invite your comments. 

Where Are the New Jobs for Women?

By LINDA HIRSHMAN
Published: December 9, 2008
Washington

Hadley Hooper
BARACK OBAMA has announced a plan to stimulate the economy by creating 2.5 million jobs over the next two years. He intends to use the opportunity to make good on two campaign promises — to invest in road and bridge maintenance and school repair and to create jobs that reduce energy use and emissions that lead to global warming.(cont.)

Whose Interests Will Shape Barack Obama’s “Change”?

Radical Change Needs Pressure from Below
By Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Click here to download the paper.


The Remedist

By ROBERT SKIDELSKY
December 14, 2008; The Way We Live Now; New York Times
Among the most astonishing statements to be made by any policymaker in recent years was Alan Greenspan’s admission this autumn that the regime of deregulation he oversaw as chairman of the Federal Reserve was based on a “flaw”: he had overestimated the ability of a free market to self-correct and had missed the self-destructive power of deregulated mortgage lending. The “whole intellectual edifice,” he said, “collapsed in the summer of last year.” (cont.)

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