Issue 84: June 24, 2009

In this issue:

Call for Papers

The European Society for the History of Economic Thought

The European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) and the University of Castilla – La Mancha (UCLM) are jointly organizing a Workshop on:

“The Recession of 2008. Do Economists ever agree on Analysis and Prescriptions?

The current financial and economic crisis has been stimulating some very important and interesting debates. On the one hand, there have been several attempts to compare it with previous crisis, especially with the Great Depression of 1929. On the other hand, the current crisis has also stimulated lively debates about the current state of economic analysis and its effectiveness in providing adequate accounts of the crisis.

Hence, the current crisis has not only highlighted the changing nature of our economic reality, but also the usefulness of taking a longer view when approaching economic analysis. The potential contribution ! of the history of economic ideas seems to be extremely relevant on both accounts.

This Workshop is aimed at analyzing the current financial and economic crisis from a history of economic thought perspective. The papers presented may offer an overview of the crisis or focus on specific issues. They may refer to the global economy or to a single region or country. The may dig on the causes, the consequences or policy recommendations.

The Workshop will take place in the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales de Albacete (University of Castilla – La Mancha, Spain) on the 21 and 22 January, 2010. Albacete is a small but well communicated city. It can be reached by train from Alicante (1:15 hours), Valencia (1:30 hours) and Madrid (2 hours).

The seminar has been organized in three parts:

1.Thursday evening (16-18; 18:30-20:30): Presentation of four selected papers.
2.Friday early morning (9-11): Parallel sessions.
3.Frida y late morning (11:30-13:30): Presentation of two selected papers.

The papers should be sent to mariaangeles.tobarra@uclm.es  before 21 November 2009. Participants will receive confirmation of acceptance before 21 December 2009. The Committee will indicate the six papers selected at plenary sessions. They are supposed to cover a broad array of streams in the history of economic thought.

We aim to publish a book gathering together the 10 best papers. Apart form the six papers presented at plenary sessions, the Committee will select four additional papers among those discussed in parallel sessions.

There are no registration fees for the Workshop. ESHET and UCLM will provide three grants (of 350 euros each) to applicants who don’t have any other source of finance and present good papers.

For further information visit http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2009/workshopESHET-UCLM

Association for Institutional Thought [AFIT]

2010 CALL FOR PAPERS

The 31st annual meeting of AFIT will be held
April 14-17, 2010
Reno, Nevada
Grand Sierra Resort
In conjunction with the Western Social Science Association (WSSA) 52nd Annual Conference

Theme for the 2010 Conference: Toward a Socially Embedded Economy

Institutional economics starts from the view that economy or material provisioning is an instituted process and that institutions should be the basic unit of economic analysis (as opposed to the maximizing representative agent) because they act to both control and empower individuals and social groups and give rise to correlated and often predictable patterns of human behavior. The Association for Institutional Thought provides an excellent platform for the delivery of papers in a broad range of areas, including but not limited to macro and monetary economics, political economy, labor, regulatory and environmental economics, economies in transition, history of thought, institutional selection and evolutionary theory, healthcare, trade and globalization, poverty and inequality, and the economics of sports. The Association invites contributions that employ non-standard models or techniques of investigation and analysis. AFIT sessions are well-attended, and presenters can expect to receive valuable comments on their work. Proposals for complete panels (including discussant(s)) are welcome.

The theme for the 2010 AFIT conference is: Toward a Socially Embedded Economy. The social control of big business is a longstanding concern among institutional economists. The 2010 theme is predicated on the view that the design of key economic, legal, regulatory, and other institutions in the capitalist world (but especially the United States) manifests and promotes the iron rule of shareholder interest and consumerism at the expense of other important values such as income and health security, family and community, a reasonably equitable distribution of economic and political power, the availability of collectively consumed goods, and sustainable ecosystems. The conference organizer is especially interested in papers that identify and explicate institutions that serve narrow, elite, or class economic interests and stand in the way of a movement to a more humanized species of market capitalism. Papers that propose modifications to the institutional environment of corporatism will also fit nicely with the conference theme.

AFIT encourages proposals from graduate students, and it is anticipated that at least one and possibly more panels of graduate student papers will be included in the program this year. In addition, AFIT will continue to sponsor prizes for outstanding student papers. A formal announcement of this year’s competition is attached.

AFIT will continue the tradition of having one or more roundtables that explores ideas, experiences, and materials to advance economic education, from Institutional and other heterodox perspectives. Participants in these roundtables are encouraged to submit their materials for posting on the AFIT web site. Past contributions can be found at http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/afee/afit/teaching_institutionalism.htm 

AFIT is also receptive to proposals for panels to review and discuss books recently published by AFIT members.

Anyone interested in attending the AFIT Conference or in finding out more about the organization may visit the AFIT web site at http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/afee/afit/.  Conference registration information can be found at the WSSA web site http://wssa.asu.edu. 

You must be a member of AFIT to present a paper at the conference. Annual dues are $25. Browse to Contact Mary Wrenn, Secretary-Treasurer of AFIT, ( MaryWrenn@weber.edu ).

The Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM)

The Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM) organises its 13th conference on
‘The World Economy in Crisis – The Return of Keynesianism?’
30 – 31 October 2009, in Berlin.
The submission of papers in the following areas is encouraged:
- Global imbalances and the current crisis
- Financial crisis, real crisis and the risks of depression and deflation
- Paradigm shift in macroeconomics – the return of Keynesianism?
- Economic policy reactions and the future relationship between the market and the state
- Regulation of the financial sector from a Keynesian perspective
- Perspectives for a Keynesian New Deal

For the open part of the conference the submission of papers on the general subject of the Research Network is encouraged as well. We also ask for the submission of papers for graduate student sessions, on the specific subject of this conference or on the general subject of the Research Network.
Conference language is English. Selected papers will be published after the conference.
Invited speakers include Philip Arestis, Jesus Ferreiro, Heiner Flassbeck, Guiseppe Fontana, Jan Kregel, Thomas Palley, Robert Pollin, Jan Priewe, Malcolm Sawyer and Jan Toporowski.

The deadline for paper proposals is 30 June 2009. Please send an abstract (one page) to Susanne Stöger ( susanne-stoeger@boeckler.de ). Decisions will be made by mid-August. Accepted papers should be sent in by 15 October to be posted on the conference web page.
Organising Committee of the conference:
Sebastian Dullien ( dullien@fhtw-berlin.de ), Eckhard Hein ( eckhard.hein@hwr-berlin.de ), Peter Spahn ( spahn@uni-hohenheim.de ) , Achim Truger ( achim-truger@boeckler.de ), and Till van Treeck ( till-van-treeck@boeckler.de )
Coordinating Committee of the Research Network:
Sebastian Dullien (FHTW Berlin), Trevor Evans (Berlin School of Economics), Jochen Hartwig (KOF/ETH Zürich), Eckhard Hein (Berlin School of Economics), Hansjörg Herr (Berlin School of Economics), Torsten Niechoj (IMK, Düsseldorf), Jan Priewe (FHTW Berlin), Peter Spahn (University of Hohenheim), Engelbert Stockhammer (WU Wien), Claus Thomasberger (FHTW Berlin), Achim Truger (IMK, Düsseldorf), and Till van Treeck (IMK, Düsseldorf)
More on the Conference: http://www.boeckler.de/33_94949.html
and on the Research Network: http://www.boeckler.de/91434_36330.html

The Japanese Society for Post Keynesian Economics

The Japanese Society for Post Keynesian Economics wish to activate international activities and will hold an international seminar in Tokyo over September 5-6, 2009 in cooperation with the Japanese Reaserch Group of D. Ricardo.

The Ricardian- Post Keynesian Joint International Seminar
Language : English
September 5 : mainly Post Keynesian Topics, at Nishogakusha Univ. in Tokyo
September 6 : mainly Interpretations of D. Ricardo, at Meiji University
( http://www.meiji.ac.jp/cip/english/  )

Proposals for paper presentation on the Post Keynesian Economics, Topics on Keynes, Neo-Ricardian or Sraffian Economics, or Interpretation of Ricardo are also welcome.

Anyone who wish to present a paper should submit an abstract of 300 words (in English) to the organizer with the information of the title of the paper, author name, affiliation, e.mail address and postal address.

Organizer : Takashi Yagi (Meiji University)
E.mail : yagi8@kisc.meiji.ac.jp
FAX : +81-3-3296-2350

The deadline of submission will be by the end of June 2009. If you have any questions or requirements, please contact with the above by e.mail.

Our activities will be seen in the following URL:
http://www.kisc.meiji.ac.jp/~pk/pke.htm

You can check the announcements of the seminar in this website.

URPE Summer Conference, August 15 – 18, 2009

For more information about the Summer Conference program, fees, transportation, etc., click here: http://www.urpe.org/

Papers and workshops proposals are being accepted for the URPE 2009 Annual Summer Conference held August 15 - 18, 2009. The theme of this year’s conference is “Economic Crises: Opportunities for Radical Change.” Now is the time for Heterodox Economists of all persuasions to find creative solutions and to do serious analysis and speak out about the domestic and global economic recession and financial crisis!

As always we are looking for Political Economy papers from all disciplines (including at least sociology, political science, urban studies, and anthropology in addition to economics). The conference always has a mix of relatively more technical presentations of Political Economy research from scholars and graduate students in all stages of development with more popular and activist oriented presentations. Political Economy papers that address the current economic crises are encouraged, especially those that say something about how the current crisis provides opportunities for radical change. More general political economy submissions are of course as every year warmly welcomed as well !!

Please consider forming a workshop with 2 to 4 papers on a common theme that your and colleagues might be working on. Or just submit a paper. Please send all submissions to: laura.ebert@marist.edu .
Workshops and papers will be accepted until all space is filled… while last minute submissions are welcome they might not be accepted if there is no space, so please get your submission in early.

Plenary 1:
RADICAL RESTRUCTURING AND INSTITUTIONS
The Current World Economic Crisis, Neoliberalism and the Role of Finance Capital
Paul Cooney, Universidade Federal do Pará, Brazil
Rewriting the Book on Money and Banking
Jane D’Arista, Research Associate at PERI
Who Lost Wall Street? Should We Try to Find It Again?
Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts
The New Regional Financial Architecture in South America and its Relation with the Current Crisis
Matias Vernengo, University of Utah

Plenary 2:
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING AND RESPONSES
Uncovering the Costs of Employment-based Health Insurance
Jenny Brown, co-chair of the Alachua County Labor Party (Gainesville, Florida) and project director, Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement
Stopping Foreclosures and Evictions
Roxan McKinnon, Executive Director, City Life/Vida Urbana
Organizing the Urban Unemployed: From Mass Incarceration to a Green Justice Economy
Aaron Tanaka, Director, Boston Workers Alliance

David Gordon Lecture:
FINANCE WITHOUT FINANCIERS:
PROSPECTS FOR RADICAL CHANGE IN FINANCIAL GOVERNANCE
Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst & co-director, PERI (Political Economy Research Institute)

International Walras Association 2010 Conference

Léon Walras (1834-1910) – Centennial Conference»
9 - 11 September 2010
Lyon – TRIANGLE - Université Lumière-Lyon 2

The International Walras Association 7th Conference will take place from Thursday September 9th to Saturday September 11th, 2010 at the University Lumière-Lyon 2, in Lyon, France.

The 2010 conference is of particular importance since it is part of the centennial commemoration of Walras’s death, which occurred on January 5th, 1910 at Clarens near Montreux, Switzerland.

Through a discussion of the various themes developed by Walras in his writings of pure, applied and social economics, this conference should allow a thorough reappraisal of Walras’s entire intellectual output (and not exclusively his central contribution to general equilibrium analysis). Among the various themes that could be addressed, the organisers would particularly welcome contributions on Walras’s theory of history, his analysis of the dynamics of capitalism, crises, money, banks, public goods, natural monopolies and externalities, social legislation and insurances, property rights and taxes as well as free trade and protectionism.
Contributions on Walras’s intellectual networks, and notably his international connections with his fellow economists, are equally welcome.

Anyone interested should submit an abstract of 300 words (in French or English) before July 31st, 2009 to the AIW vice-presidents Pascal Bridel and Jean-Pierre Potier. Mail :
Pascal.Bridel@unil.ch ; Jean-Pierre.Potier@ish-lyon.cnrs.fr

Propositions (under PDF) should be sent electronically and indicate clearly title, author’s name, affiliation, postal as well as electronic addresses.

2009 International Historical Conference Critical Thought

International Forum: Social and Environmental Dimensions of the Global Economic Crisis
Peschanoe (Crimea, Ukraine), 18-22 July 2009
This international gathering, organized at an ecological summer campgrounds on the Crimean shore of the Black Sea, will bring together scientists, scholars and political activists for a four-day series of lectures, panels and round-tables devoted to the social and environmental dimensions of the global economic crisis as well as to various problems of theory, history and practice in the context of Left anti-totalitarian thought.

Click here for detailed information.

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

ISHET – International Symposium on the History of Economic Thought

“The Integration of Micro and Macroeconomics from a Historical Perspective”

August 3-5, 2009
Department of Economics
University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

The Department of Economics at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) is very pleased to invite you to attend the first international symposium on the history of economic thought. The symposium is organized by Professors Pedro Garcia Duarte and Gilberto Tadeu Lima and aims to bring together renowned international and local scholars in the field of history of economics to discuss historical aspects of the integration between micro and macroeconomics. International speakers include Kevin Hoover, Wade Hands, Philip Mirowski, Bruna Ingrao, Michel De Vroey and Robert Leonard, while the opening speech will be given by Robert J. Gordon. It is very likely that the symposium will be both streamed live on internet and recorded (in order to make the videos freely available on internet afterwards). For further information on this (to be posted later) and for further details, please check the symposium webpage.

Further information is available at: http://www.usp.br/feaecon/ishet/

Forum the Spirit of Innovation IV

We have the pleasure to announce the launching of the Forum the Spirit of Innovation IV, 2010, with two international conferences:

*Labour, Capital and Knowledge in the Global Economy*, Grenoble (France), March, 18-19, 2010
http://colloque.wesford.fr

**Environment, Innovation and Sustainable Development. Towards a Technoeconomic Paradigm?**, Chania (Crete, Greece), October 6-10, 2010
http://www.ceisd2010.enveng.tuc.gr

The 41st Annual UK History of Economic Thought Conference

The 41st Annual UK History of Economic Thought Conference, sponsored by the Hallsworth Foundation for the Study of Political Economy, will be held at Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre, University of Manchester, 2-4 September, 2009.

The conference will begin with lunch on 2 September and will close after lunch on 4 September. The Fee is GBP 280, inclusive of registration, accommodation and all meals (including the conference reception and formal dinner). Further details, including the booking form, are available by following this link:
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/economics/events/hetc/.

Click here to download the program.

Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy 2009

Registration for the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy 2009--the premier worker cooperative conference in the eastern region of the U. S.--is open! The conference will take place Friday to Sunday, July 31st to August 2nd, at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. This year's theme is Democracy Works: Worker Cooperatives, Labor Solidarity, and Sustainability.

The deadline for early bird registration and payment, which saves you $25, is Friday, June 26th. You can register online or by mail.
Link to the ECWD website: http://www.east.usworker.coop/
Link to the conference brochure and on-line registration: http://www.east.usworker.coop/registration.html
Link to mailable registration form: http://www.east.usworker.coop/2009/ecwd_registrationform_2009.pdf
Link to the scholarship form: http://www.east.usworker.coop/2009/ecwd_scholarshipapp_2009.pdf 

Is Black and Red Dead?

September 7th and 8th, 2009

An academic conference organised and supported by the PSA Anarchist Studies Network, the PSA Marxism Specialist Group, Anarchist Studies, Capital & Class, Historical Materialism, Critique-Journal of Socialist Theory.
Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, the University of Nottingham

Click here to download the program.

15th Workshop on Alternative Economic Policies in Europe

Europe in Crisis: A Critique of the EU's Failure to Respond
organised by the Euro Memorandum Group.
This year, the workshop will be held in Berlin, from 25 - 27 September 2009.
Click here for detailed information.

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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

Alternative Explanations of the Operation of Capitalist Economy: Efficient Market Theory vs. Keynes's Liquidity Theory

by Paul Davidson
Click here to download the paper.

The Debate on the Developmental State: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #31, “The Debate on the Developmental State: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry”. The author, Jyoti Saraswati, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, draws on a well documented case study of the successful Indian software industry in staking out a new position on the continuing debate on the preconditions for an effective developmental state. One of his major points is that supporters of such a state often assume, unrealistically, that ‘state autonomy’—namely, complete independence from vested political and economic interests—is a prerequisite for successful state interventions, such as in industrial policy.

Click here to download: http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/file51754.pdf.
CDPR’s other thought-provoking, diversified set of 30 Development Viewpoints published during the last year are available on http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

Economia e Sociedade

Econ. soc. vol.18 no.1 Campinas Apr. 2009

- Assessing the inflation targeting regime in Brazil
Arestis, Philip; Paula, Luiz Fernando de; Ferrari-Filho, Fernando

- Productive structure, external constraint and economic growth: the Brazilian experience
Carvalho, Veridiana Ramos da Silva; Lima, Gilberto Tadeu

- Financial and currency crises: comparing Latin America and East Asia
Aldrighi, Dante Mendes; Cardoso, André Daud

- The technological backwardness of Latin America as a consequence of geographical and microeconomics related factors
Feldmann, Paulo Roberto

- The control of monetary aggregates: lessons and experiences from the recent Venezuelan case
Vera, Leonardo V.

- Environmental value
Amazona, Maurício de Carvalho

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_issuetoc&pid=0104-061820090001&lng=en&nrm=iso

Levy News

Special Report, June 12, 2009
Who Gains from President Obama's Stimulus Package ... And How Much?
Ajit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson, and Kijong Kim
When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February, his administration estimated that the $787 million package of transfers and tax cuts would create or save approximately 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010, providing relief to low-income and vulnerable households while supporting aggregate demand.
In this Special Report, Levy scholars Zacharias, Masterson, and Kim provide a preliminary assessment of ARRA that points toward the necessity for a comprehensive employment strategy that goes well beyond the current legislation. While the ameliorating impact of the stimulus plan on the employment situation is surely welcome, say the authors, the government could have achieved far more at the same cost by skewing the stimulus package toward outlays rather than tax cuts.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/sr_06-12-09.pdf

Public Policy Brief No. 101, 2009
Promoting Gender Equality through Stimulus Packages and Public Job Creation: Lessons Learned from South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme
Rania Antonopoulos
Beyond loss of income, joblessness is associated with greater poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion; the current global crisis is clearly not helping. There is, therefore, a particular urgency to engage in dialogue and pursue new policy directions.
Research Scholar Rania Antonopoulos explores the impact of both joblessness and employment expansion on poverty, paying particular attention to the gender aspects of poverty and poverty-reducing public employment schemes targeting poor women. The author advocates public employment as a policy instrument that, when set up as a permanent institution, acts as an automatic stabilizer. Its main feature is that the government steps in as a guarantor to make available a job to those who fail to secure one through the market.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/ppb_101.pdf

Policy Note 2009/8
Some Simple Observations on the Reform of the International Monetary System
Jan Kregel
The rapid spread and global dimensions of the current financial crisis have drawn attention to the need for reform of the international financial system forged in 1944 at Bretton Woods. Most of the attention has focused on the role of the U.S. dollar and the need to find a substitute.
According to Senior Scholar Jan Kregel, discussions have ignored the basic criticisms (by John Maynard Keynes and Robert Triffin) of the functioning of the existing monetary system. The problem of the instability of the international reserve currency’s purchasing power is less a question of the asset that serves as that currency and more a question of the operation of the international adjustment mechanism. Is the mechanism automatic or coordinated, and is it sufficiently compatible with global aggregate demand to provide full employment and support the national development strategies of developing countries?
http://www.levy.org/pubs/pn_09_08.pdf

Policy Note 2009/7
“Enforced Indebtedness” and Capital Adequacy Requirements
Jan Toporowski
The present system of capital adequacy regulation for banks forces nonfinancial companies into debt (“enforced indebtedness”) and proposals to increase capital requirements during an economic boom (“dynamic provisioning”) simply accelerate the boom’s collapse.
According to the author, a much more viable alternative is lending to governments in the event of lending withdrawals from the private sector, alongside loans to foreign private-sector borrowers. In this way, capital outflows would be matched by new capital inflows to governments and provide an endogenous stabilizing mechanism.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/pn_09_07.pdf

Working Paper No. 568, June 2009
Distributional Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: A Microsimulation Approach
Ajit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson, and Kijong Kim
The authors provide a preliminary assessment of the likely impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on median household income, gaps between population subgroups, and income inequality (i.e., the employment channel). They find that ARRA partially replaces lost jobs and has a remedial effect on median household money income but is unlikely to restore robustness to middle-class incomes or improve the money income of the bottom 60 percent of households. It is also unlikely that the legislation will redress the substantial gaps in money income between nonwhites and whites, single female–headed families and married couples, and less-educated and college graduates. The analysis points toward the necessity for a comprehensive employment strategy that goes well beyond ARRA (e.g., an expanded role for public employment).
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_568.pdf

Working Paper No. 567, June 2009
Revisiting (and Connecting) Marglin-Bhaduri and Minsky: An SFC Look at Financialization and Profit-led Growth
Claudio H. Dos Santos and Antonio Carlos Macedo e Silva
The stock flow–consistent (SFC) approach provides a general framework that allows the integration of important threads of heterodox macroeconomics that have tried to analyze the financialization of modern capitalist economies. However, the urge for realism has fostered the development of very large models and relatively complex computer simulations. Moreover, these short-period models are often used to shed light on long-period phenomena.
The authors believe that small SFC constructs can avoid the shortcomings of large models while addressing the concerns of heterodox economists and providing valuable (and possibly unconventional) insights into longer-period or dynamic phenomena. The key to Post Keynesian, structuralist, and heterodox dynamic analyses is using an approach that looks closely at the dynamics of both the size and the composition of sectoral balance sheets, as advocated by Levy Distinguished Scholar Wynne Godley.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_567.pdf

Working Paper No. 566, May 2009
Caste and Wealth Inequality in India
Ajit Zacharias and Vamsi Vakulabharanam
Caste is a persistent determinant of power, economic inequality, and poverty in contemporary India. The authors offset the general lack of economic literature on caste relations by analyzing the relationship between overall wealth inequality and caste divisions. They find that the average Dalit and Adivasis groups had a substantial disadvantage in wealth relative to other groups. Moreover, the relative median wealth of the rural and urban Adivasis group was lower in 2002 than in 1991. They also find an increase in within-group inequality, and a sizable wealth gap between the Hindu forward castes and everyone else. The picture that emerges is one of comprehensive and persistent disparities for the disadvantaged groups.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_566.pdf

Working Paper No. 565, May 2009

Housing Inequality in the United States: A Decomposition Analysis of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Homeownership
Sanjaya DeSilva and Yuval Elmelech
Homeownership is viewed as a key measure of economic well-being and wealth, and a significant indicator of social assimilation. However, it is unevenly distributed, particularly along racial and ethnic lines.
The authors study the trajectory into homeownership of black, Asian, white, and Latino households. They find that neoclassical economic theory is insufficient in explaining racial and ethnic inequality, and that immigration and spatial attributes are key to understanding racial-ethnic differences in homeownership. Moreover, family structure and unobserved factors such as prejudice and discrimination may continue to play a role in shaping the black-white homeownership gap.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_565.pdf

Working Paper No. 564, May 2009
New Consensus Macroeconomics: A Critical Appraisal
Philip Arestis
Senior Scholar Philip Arestis highlights the main characteristics of a New Consensus Macroeconomics (NCM) model in an open economy, where the role of the exchange rate provides a channel of monetary policy in addition to aggregate demand and inflation expectations. He raises a number of issues with the model’s theoretical foundations and its inflation-targeting framework.
Two main weaknesses in the model are based on the absence of money and banks, and the equilibrium real rate of interest. Arestis is critical of the NCM model from a Keynesian perspective, and concludes that it is based on inconsistencies and a great deal of “ad hoc” input.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_564.pdf

Working Paper No. 563, May 2009
Whither New Consensus Macroeconomics? The Role of Government and Fiscal Policy in Modern Macroeconomics
Giuseppe Fontana
The current New Consensus Macroeconomic (NCM) model lays the foundation for the ubiquitous inflation-targeting policy strategies of modern central banks. In the face of recent dramatic economic events and the inability of academics and policymakers to prevent them, the NCM model has encountered significant criticism.
The author analyzes one of the main objections to the model; namely, the absence of any essential role for the government and fiscal policy. He concludes that fiscal policy could play a role in the NCM model that is at least as important as monetary policy.
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_563.pdf

UPCOMING CONFERENCES
Employment Guarantee Policies: Responding to the Current Economic Crisis and Contributing to Long-Term Development
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
June 22–23, 2009
A collaborative project of the United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Bureau for Development Policy, in partnership with The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
The Levy Institute will convene an international conference to present the merits and challenges of public job creation programs as a constitutive component of an economic recovery strategy. The conference will bring together policy advisers, members of government organizations, academics, and international development specialists to analyze and exchange views on various public employment initiatives, drawing on extensive research and the outcomes of country-level programs in South Africa, Argentina, India, Iran, and Chile, among others.

9th GEM-IWG International Conference on Gender, Macroeconomics, and International Economics: Gender and the Global Economic Crisis
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
July 13–14, 2009
Organized by the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics, and International Economics (GEM-IWG) and The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College with support from the Ford Foundation, the UNDP, and UNIFEM
This conference, which follows a two-week intensive seminar on the same subject, is part of the GEM-IWG Knowledge Networking Progam, which is designed to strengthen intellectual links among economists whose work focuses on the interface of gender, globalization, and macroeconomic policy. This year’s program centers on the origins and consequences of the global economic downturn.

Associative Economics Bulletin

www.cfae.biz/fae-bulletin/09Jun/
1) Moral Sovereignty
2) Forthcoming Events
3) Associate! June 09 - Compete and Cooperate
4) The End of Money and The Future of Civilisation

International Review of Applied Economics

Volume 23 Issue 4  is now available online at informaworld.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Original Articles

Comparing employment estimates using different minimum wage variables: the case of Brazil, Pages 405 - 425
Author: Sara Lemos

Keynes, investment, unemployment and expectations, Pages 427 - 444
Authors: Ron Smith; Gylfi Zoega

A strong hysteretic model of Okun’s Law: theory and a preliminary investigation, Pages 445 - 462
Authors: Dany Lang; Christian de Peretti

Market forces and competition in university systems: theoretical reflections and empirical evidence from Italy, Pages 463 - 483
Author: Tommaso Agasisti

Government success, failure of the market: a case study of rural India, Pages 485 - 501
Author: Santonu Basu

Modelling variety in consumption expenditure on food in India, Pages 503 - 519
Authors: Raghbendra Jha; Raghav Gaiha; Anurag Sharma

Testing exchange rate efficiency: the case of euro–dollar, Pages 521 - 540
Authors: Marco Mazzoli; Christian Barducci

Journal of Innovation Economics (JIE)

Journal of Innovation Economics (JIE) is an academic review in English which presents in priority articles in economics (innovation, industrial, international, labour economics).

This review also accepts contributions from other academic fields such as law, management, political science,… when analyzing the origins and implications of economic and social innovations.

JIE wants to be a forum where economy and society evolutions are debated, while confronting theoretical analyses and empirical experiences.

Technical change, entrepreneurs’ action, firm strategies, social relationships and conflicts, economic policies, etc. lead to many interrogations and articles are selected by Innovations editorial and scientific committee because they contribute to the debate by offering… innovative analyses!

JIE is co-edited by the Research Network on Innovation and by De Boeck.
It is is downloadable on Cairn

JIE's Website : http://rrien.univ-littoral.fr/?page_id=10

*2008/1: The economic performances of Russia * http://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2008-1.htm

*2008/2: Dynamics of innovation, organisation and governance of the firm
* http://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2008-2.htm
*
2009/1 :Sustainable development and innovation. Concepts and context * http://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2009-1.htm

Innovations, Cahiers d'Economie de l'Innovation

Innovations is linked to the Journal of Innovation Economics and publishes articles in French

Innovations is published by De Boeck (Brussells). It is also available on Cairn

Website of Innovations, Cahiers d'Economie de l'Innovation:
http://rrien.univ-littoral.fr/?page_id=50

*Content of issue n°29, 2009/1: Sustainable development and innovation:
the responsability of enterprises*
http://www.cairn.info/revue-innovations-2009-1.htm

Content of all other issues: http://www.cairn.info/revue-innovations.htm

HEI- History of Economic Ideas

This to inform the SHOE List that issue 1-2009 of HEI- History of Economic Ideas has just been published:
http://digital.casalini.it/editori/default.asp?codice_opera=5554&numero=19&tipologia=R

Among the articles, review essays and book reviews, the issue features an English translation by professor John Chipman of three papers and two letters by Vilfredo Pareto, originally written in German and French.

To celebrate this accomplishment, the editors and publisher of HEI have decided to make available for free download, for a period of 30 days starting from June 8, one of those items, namely, Pareto's 1902 German Encyclopaedia article "Anwendungen der Mathematik auf Nationalökonomie"
(here translated as "The application of mathematics to political economy"). The file can be donwloaded directly from the homepage of our journal's new website:
www.historyofeconomicideas.com.

Review of Social Economy

Volume 67 Issue 2  is now available online at informaworld.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Original Articles

Social vs. Military Spending: How the Escalating Pentagon Budget Crowds out Public Infrastructure and Aggravates Natural Disasters-the Case of Hurricane Katrina
Author: Ismael Hossein-zadeh

Articles

Consumer Debt and the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality in the US*, Pages 127 - 148
Authors: Steven Pressman; Robert Scott

Recombinant Slave Equilibria and Their Cure: Living Wage Full Employment
Author: Douglas Grote

Workers on the Border between Employment and Self-employment*
Authors: Ulrike Muehlberger; Silvia Pasqua

Book Reviews

The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation
Author: Killian McCarthy

Fragments of Development: Nation, Gender, and the Space of Modernity

AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty
Author: Lorenzo Garbo

Frontiers of Capital: Ethnographic Reflections of the New Economy
Author: Benjamin Jewell

Joan Robinson's Economics: A Centennial Celebration
Author: Ingrid Rima

Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America
Author: Ali Alharbi

Cultures Merging: A Historical and Economic Critique of Culture
Author: Brad Andrew

Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Markets, Law, Ethics, and Culture
Author: Jonathan B. Wight

Taxation, Wage Bargaining, and Unemployment
Author: J. Harlan Johnstone

Obituary

Peter Danner, 1921-2008
Author: John B. Davis

Contributors

Call for Applications

William R. Waters Research grant

Journal of Economic Methodology

Volume 16 Issue 2  is now available online at informaworld (http://www.informaworld.com).

This new issue contains the following articles:

Original Articles

Mismeasuring the value of statistical life
Author: Till Grüne-Yanoff

Buchanan's catallactic critique of Robbins' definition of economics
Author: Alain Marciano

Applying economics, using evidence
Authors: Roger E. Backhouse; Matthias Klaes

Pragmatic methodology: a sketch, with applications to transaction cost economics
Author: Oliver E. Williamson

Exploring different visions of the model-empirics nexus: Solow versus Lipsey
Authors: Robert S. Goldfarb; Jonathan Ratner

Ethics, evidence and international debt
Author: Julie A. Nelson

Fixing ideas: how research is constrained by mandated formalism
Author: Arthur M. Diamond Jr

Book Reviews

Review Symposium
Author: Ken Binmore

Original Articles

Listening, really listening: a response to Graafland, Binmore and Ferber on The Bourgeois Virtues
Author: Deirdre McCloskey

Economic Systems Research

Volume 21 Issue 2  is now available online at informaworld.

This new issue contains the following articles:

PAPERS

THE TRANSPORT SECTOR AND REGIONAL PRICE DIFFERENTIALS: A SPATIAL CGE MODEL FOR CHINESE PROVINCES
Authors: Asao Ando; Bo Meng

ON THE PARAMETERIZATION OF TECHNIQUES FOR REPRESENTING REGIONAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURES
Author: Andrea Bonfiglio

APPLYING SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS TO INPUT-OUTPUT BASED INNOVATION MATRICES: AN ILLUSTRATIVE APPLICATION TO SIX OECD TECHNOLOGICAL SYSTEMS FOR THE MIDDLE 1990s
Authors: Sandro Montresor; Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti

THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF FORMAL AND INFORMAL SECTORS IN INDIA
Authors: Amarendra Sahoo; Thijs ten Raa

MULTIPLICATIVE DECOMPOSITION AND INDEX NUMBER THEORY: AN EMPIRICAL APPLICATION OF THE SATO-VARTIA DECOMPOSITION
Author: Paul De Boer

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

Volume 16 Issue 2 is now available online at informaworld.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Articles

Interdependence and independence in Cantillon's Essai
Author: John Berdell

Bilateral monopoly: a contribution by Francesco Ferrara
Author: Gioacchino Fazio

The Italian contribution to early economic dynamics
Author: Gianfranco Tusset

Keynes and India, 1909-1913: a study on foreign investment policy
Author: Carlo Cristiano

Schumpeter on money, banking and finance: an institutionalist perspective
Authors: Agnès Festré; Eric Nasica

Obituary

Professor Robert Denis Collison Black (1922-2008)
Authors: Antoin E. Murphy; Renée Prendergast

Review article

'If some people looked like elephants and others like cats, or fish ...' On the difficulties of understanding each other: the case of Wittgenstein and Sraffa
Author: Heinz D. Kurz

Book reviews

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism
Author: Marco E. L. Guidi

Le panoptique des pauvres - Jeremy Bentham et la réforme de l'assistance en Angleterre
Author: Nathalie Sigot

A History of Econometrics in France. From Nature to Models
Author: Michel Armatte

Money and Markets: A Doctrinal Approach (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics 86)
Author: David Laidler

Adam Smith: a Moral Philosopher and His Political Economy
Author: Tony Aspromourgos

Traité d'économie politique ou simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent et se consomment les richesses
Author: Alain Béraud

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Heterodox Books and Book Series

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Life and Labor in Precarious Times
By Andrew Ross, NYU’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis

“There are no easy answers in Ross’s often surprising case studies of work in the new millennium. His reach is global, from North America to Europe to Asia, as he teases out the contradictory character of contemporary employment.” Cary Nelson, University of Illinois

"Ross takes us on a wide-ranging journey through the global economy to analyze the dynamics of precarious work in the twenty-first century. Along the way, he poses an urgent question: can creative-class professionals make common cause with low-wage laborers, based on their shared experience of economic insecurity?" Ruth Milkman, University of California, Los Angeles

In Nice Work If You Can Get It, Andrew Ross surveys the new topography of the global workplace and finds an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven development on a massive scale. Combining detailed case studies with lucid analysis and graphic prose, he looks at what the new landscape of contingent employment means for workers across national, class, and racial lines — from the emerging “creative class” of high-wage professionals to the multitudes of temporary, migrant, or low-wage workers. Developing the idea of “precarious livelihoods” to describe this new world of work and life, Ross explores what it means in developed nations — comparing the creative industry policies of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, as well as developing countries — by examining the quick fire transformation of China’s labor market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of “green jobs” through restorative alliances between labor advocates and environmentalists. Ross argues that regardless of one’s views on labor rights, globalization, and quality of life, this new precarious and “indefinite life,” and the pitfalls and opportunities that accompany it is likely here to stay and must be addressed in a systematic way. A more equitable kind of knowledge society emerges in these pages” less skewed toward flexploitation and the speculative beneficiaries of intellectual property, and more in tune with ideals and practices that are fair, just, and renewable.

Following Marx: Method, Critique and Crisis

Michael A. Lebowitz
http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=18166

What does it mean to follow Marx? In this examination of Marx’s methodology combined with specific applications on topics in political economy such as neo-Ricardian theory, analytical Marxism, the falling rate of profit, crisis theory, monopoly capital, Paul Sweezy, advertising and the capitalist state, this volume argues that the failure to understand (or explicit rejection of) Marx’s method has led astray many who consider themselves Marxists. By focusing particularly upon the concept of a totality and the necessary form of appearance of capital as many capitals in competition, Following Marx both demonstrates why Marx insisted that ‘in competition everything is reversed’ and provides a guide for following Marx.

Rethinking Foreign Investment for Sustainable Development: Lessons from Latin America

Kevin P. Gallagher and Daniel Chudnovsky (eds)
Anthem Press 2009
Foreword by José Antonio Ocampo
After almost twenty-five years of experimenting with the neo-liberal economic reforms collectively known as “Washington Consensus” policies, Latin Americans are starting to re-assess the merits of these policies – at the voting booth. Many recently elected governments are beginning to scrutinize the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in particular. The great promise of FDI by multinational corporations is that capital will be a source of dynamic growth. In this collection of in-depth studies, Latin American and U.S.-based political economists find that FDI often fell far short of generating the necessary linkages required to make FDI work for sustainable economic development.
Edited by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and the late Daniel Chudnovsky, the book is the product of a study by the GDAE-sponsored Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas, which last year published a policy report, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, summarizing the group’s findings. Several members of the group will be presenting their papers at the Latin American Studies Association Congress in Rio de Janeiro June 11. The group has also published policy reports on agriculture and the environment.
For more on the new Anthem book:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/RethinkForInv.html
For more on the Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/WGOverview.htm
For more on GDAE’s work on Mexico under NAFTA:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/MexicoUnderNafta.html 

Embedded With Organized Labor

Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home
by Steve Early

TO ORDER, Click Here, or call 800.670.9499

Join author Steve Early for a talk on the most pressing issues facing the U.S. labor movement today. Click here for a list of dates and locations.
“Steve Early has long been a voice of distinctive clarity, honesty and intellectual seriousness in and about the labor movement. This collection performs a valuable service in bringing together a broad sample of his writing on class, politics, the trade union movement, its status and prospects. As always with Early’s work, these essays are grounded in concrete history and problems. To that extent, they also provide a unique window onto the last several decades of evolving American political history. At a time like this it is all the more important to have the benefit of a voice like his.”
—Adolph Reed Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
“Steve Early says things other people in the labor movement would like to say but don’t, because of protocol, fear of firing, or, if truth be told, fear of afflicting the comfortable.”
—Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes
“This is an exciting collection that respects workers enough to engage them in desperately needed discussions about union strategy. It presents a radical defense of the working class and an uncompromising critique of the labor movement as it exists today.”
—Sam Gindin, former Research Director, Canadian Auto Workers Union; Packer Visitor in Social Justice in the Political Science Dept. at York University, Toronto
“For three decades, Steve Early has been in the forefront of the fight for worker power and union democracy. His experience as an organizer gives him rare insight into the problems that unions face.”
—Sal Rosselli, ex-President, SEIU/UnitedHealth Care Workers-West

Embedded With Organized Labor describes how union members have organized successfully, on the job and in the community, in the face of employer opposition now and in the past. The author has produced a provocative series of essays—an unusual exercise in “participatory labor journalism” useful to any reader concerned about social and economic justice. As workers struggle to survive and the labor movement tries to revive during the current economic crisis, this book provides ideas and inspiration for union activists and friends of labor alike.

Steve Early has been an organizer, strike strategist, labor educator, and lawyer. He recently retired from his job as national staff member of the Communications Workers of America. Early’s articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces have appeared in The Nation, New Politics, CounterPunch, The Progressive, American Prospect, WorkingUSA, New Labor Forum, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and many other publications. He is currently completing a book on the role of 1960s activists in American unions.

Heterodox Macroeconomics

Keynes, Marx and globalization
Edited by Jonathan P Goldstein, Michael G Hillard
http://www.routledge.com/books/Heterodox-Macroeconomics-isbn9780415778084 

Heterodox Macroeconomics offers a detailed understanding of the foundations of the recent global financial crisis. The chapters, from a selection of leading academics in the field of heterodox macroeconomics, carry out a synthesis of heterodox ideas that place financial instability, macroeconomic crisis, rising global inequality and a grasp of the perverse and pernicious qualities of global and domestic macroeconomic policy making since 1980 into a coherent perspective. It familiarizes the reader with the emerging unified theory of heterodox macroeconomics and its applications.
The book is divided into four key sections: I) Heterodox Macroeconomics and the Keynes-Marx synthesis; II) Accumulation, Crisis and Instability; III) The Macrodynamics of the Neoliberal Regime; and IV) Heterodox Macroeconomic Policy. The essays include theoretical, international, historical, and country perspectives on financial fragility and macroeconomic instability.

ZED Books- Development Studies

http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/books.asp?catid=275
Click here to download the catalogue.

Development of Economic Analysis, 7e

By Ingrid H. Rima
Request an Inspection Copy Today!
Now in its seventh edition, Ingrid Rima's classic textbook charts the development of the discipline from the classical age of Plato and Aristotle, through the middle ages to the first flowering of economics as a distinct discipline - the age of Petty, Quesnay and Smith - to the era of classical economics and the marginalist revolution.
http://www.routledge.com/9780415772921
The book then goes on to offer extensive coverage of the twentieth century - the rise of Keynesianism, econometrics, the Chicago School and the neoclassical paradigm. The concluding chapters analyze the birth of late twentieth century developments such as game theory, experimental economics and competing schools of economic thought.
This text includes a number of practical features:
- a "family tree" at the beginning of each section, illustrating how the different developments within economics are interlinked
- the inclusion of readings from the original key texts
- a summary and questions to discuss, along with glossaries and suggestions for further reading

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Heterodox Book Reviews

Lawrence E. Mitchell, _The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed over Industry

San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2008. xiii + 395 pp. $25 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-57675-28-7.
Reviewed for EH.NET by J. Peter Ferderer, Department of Economics, Macalester College.
Click here to download the review.

The Case for Big Government

Jeff Madrick. The Case for Big Government. Princeton University Press, 2009. 205 pp. ISBN 978-0-691-12331-8 (Hardcover).
Reviewed by Michael Meeropol

Click here to read the review.

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Heterodox Web Sites and Associations

The International Adam Smith Society

The International Adam Smith Society now has a fully re-designed website, with a wide range of news and information:

http://www.adamsmithsociety.net/

Please send along Smith-related events you'd like to publicize.

El Grupo de Investigación en Pensamiento y Teoría Económica (GIPTE)

Los invito a visitar la página Web (en prueba) del Grupo de Investigación en Pensamiento y Teoría Económica (GIPTE) de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. El link es http://www.fce.unal.edu.co/facultad/gipte/

Agradecemos comentarios sobre la página y información que consideren relevante para ser publicada al siguiente correo electrónico gipte_fcebog@unal.edu.co

Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation Initiative for Re-thinking the Economy

http://www.i-r-e.org/?lang=en
http://www.i-r-e.org/?lang=fr 
http://www.i-r-e.org/spip.php?article82 

Economic Perspectives from Kansas City

UMKC economists have a new blog called Economic Perspectives from Kansas City. The link is
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/

This website offers policy advice and economic analysis from a group of professional economists at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. We created this site in order to weigh in on the serious challenges facing the global economy today. We aim to provide an accurate description of the cause(s) of the current meltdown as well as some fresh ideas about how Congress, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve should respond. Our approach, which has been dubbed “The Kansas City School,” builds on the work of Abba P. Lerner, John Maynard Keynes and Hyman P. Minsky. Above all, we are careful to provide analyses and policy recommendations that are applicable under a modern, fiat money system.

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For Your Information

Survey on Education for Sustainable Development

Version 1.5 of a survey on education for sustainable development is online. The objective is to gather an inventory of critical issues that are unavoidable in sustainable development. Many interactions between social, economic, environmental, and other factors are included, but there may be more. *Hope you all can participate!*

This is the link:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cnoyc2ZKeF9RSDFiQkw2eTZzdGszMGc6MA..

Make sure you click on "submit" at the end so that your responses are recorded. If you want to take a look at the database:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rz2sfJx_QH1bBL6y6stk30g&output=html

The first link above has an intro. For more background info on Version
1.5 and the previous versions of the survey:

http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv05n06page1.html

FYI, there is also a new article, very instructive and very timely:

Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil, by Charles Hall and John Day http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv05n06page2halldayamsci.html

James Galbraith

A l'invitation d'Alain Parguez, James Galbraith a fait une conférence à Besançon dont vous trouverez un compte rendu de M. D. Pichoud.

Videos from Professor Sidney Winter

I have put a number of links to interesting videos on the SHE sight.
Most of these are from Professor Sidney Winter, well known evolutionary economist, talking about aspects of the current crisis, and also an ABC interview by myself on Rethinking Economics after the financial crisis.
You can either access these from the SHE homepage: http://she.web.unsw.edu.au
Or directly
http://www.economics.unsw.edu.au/contribute2/Economics/research/Heterdox/HeterodoxVideos.htm

 The Phillips Machine

If you have ever wanted to see Phillips’ MONIAC machine in action check out this video from Cambridge:

http://mediaplayer.group.cam.ac.uk/component/option,com_mediadb/task,play/idstr,CU-AllanMcRobie-Phillips2004/vv,-2/Itemid,26

Maybe this is old hat, but I had never seen this thing in action and didn’t imagine that it still existed.

Academics languish behind the curve set by journalists

From Dr Hugh Goodacre.
Sir, Patrick Crowley (Letters, June 4) rightly deplores the “abject failure of the mainstream economics profession to predict and adequately respond to the current recession”, and singles out for particular criticism “the gradual elimination of economic history and history of economic thought”, citing as an example that “most mainstream economists are hardly aware of Keynes’s legacy”.
In this country, a major contribution to this professional meltdown has been made by the Research Assessment Exercise, as a result of which economists have their path to promotion determined by the number of articles they publish in a limited number of formally ranked journals.
These articles are written almost exclusively by those who, in Prof Crowley’s words, see economics as “a technical subject, more akin to physics than other social sciences”. This is hardly surprising, since it is precisely economists of this type who edit the journals in question, and who “peer-review” each other’s articles.
The “academic” economics profession is well behind the curve set by economics journalists, whose columns have in recent months been buzzing with commentary on Marx, Keynes, Minsky and other writers whose thought is so self-evidently relevant for any meaningful discussion of the present severe and possibly even systemic crisis in the economic system, but whose writings remain absent from the curriculum of even our most “well-qualified” economists.
Hugh Goodacre,
Teaching Fellow,
University College London,
London WC1, UK
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Warren Samuels Prize

The Association for Social Economics (ASE), one of the founding member organizations of the Allied Social Science Associations, together with the Review of Social Economy, would like to invite submissions for the 2010

Warren Samuels Prize

This prize is awarded to a paper, presented at the January ASSA meetings, that best exemplifies scholarly work that:

• Is of high quality,
• Is important to the project of social economics, • Has broad appeal across disciplines.

It is preferable, but not required, that the paper is presented at one of the ASSA sessions sponsored by the Association for Social Economics. Papers will not normally exceed 6,500 words (inclusive of references, notes), and should follow the style guidelines for the Review of Social Economy.

The winner of the prize will be announced during the ASE presidential breakfast, to which the winner is invited. The winning paper may, subject to peer review, be published in the subsequent September issue of the Review of Social Economy. The winner of the Warren Samuels Prize receives a $500 stipend.

The selection committee consists of:
A Past-President of ASE;
A Co-editor of the Review of Social Economy (Chair); A member of the Editorial Board, Review of Social Economy.

Papers presented at the 2010 ASSA meetings in Atlanta, GA, in sessions not restricted to sessions in the ASE programme, may be send electronically, as a word or pdf attachment, to Wilfred Dolfsma, Corresponding Editor, Review of Social Economy, before December 5th,
2009 at w.a.dolfsma@rug.nl.

Interview- Paul Davidson

An interview with Paul Davidson can be read here:
http://www.mecpoc.org/2009/04/06/interview-with-paul-davidson-regarding-the-crisis/

The Association for Institutional Thought

Fifth Annual Student Scholars Award Competition

The Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) proudly announces the Fifth Annual AFIT Student Scholars Award Competition. The aim of AFIT is to encourage undergraduate and graduate students in Economics and Political Economy to pursue research in topics within the Institutional Economics framework.

Between three and five winning papers will be selected. Winners are expected to present their research during a special session at the Annual Meetings of AFIT, held during the Western Social Science Association’s 52st Annual Conference at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, April 14 - 17, 2010.

Winners will each receive:

1.$300 prize
2.One year student membership in AFIT
3.Paid WSSA Conference Registration
4.Paid admission to the AFIT Presidential Address Dinner

Winning papers must be presented at a special AFIT session in order to be eligible for the prize. Prizes will be presented during the AFIT Presidential Address Dinner.

Application Procedures and Deadlines

Papers must be between 25-40 pages in length, including references and appendices. They should be submitted electronically (preferably in Word format) by 12/15/09 to:

John F. Henry
Economics Department
UMKC
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499

Phone: (816) 235-1309
email: henryjf@umkc.edu

Winners will be notified by 1/15/10.

For more information about AFIT, visit our website at
http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/afee/afit/AFIT%20Association%20for%20Institutional%20Thought.htm

The Nature of Capital in the Knowledge-Based Economy

I just wanted to mention that I just finished a dissertation: "The Nature of Capital in the Knowledge-Based Economy; The Case of the Global Pharmaceutical Industry". It is in a fact a Veblenian interpretation of the economic power of Big Pharma. Parts of the analysis even received some media coverage, for example on ABC news: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4081712
I synthesized some of my points in an op-ed piece: http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2368

Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3)

Never has there been a greater need for innovative thinking about economics and the environment. Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3) is looking to engage more economists who subscribe to a vision of an engaged, practical economics, in which an understanding of social equity and environmental protection cannot be separated.

The goal of E3 Network is to develop new economic arguments for environmental protection and to involve our economists more actively in public policy. Our economists engage in innovative research, publish in top journals and newspapers, testify before Congress, participate in press conferences, and consult with decision makers and NGOs on either a fee or pro bono basis. For a great example of our projects, visit RealClimateEconomics.org, an online review of the peer reviewed literature in economics that supports an immediate and appropriate policy response to the climate crisis.

If you are interested in joining over a hundred other economists across the country in these efforts, please sign up online for our Green Economist Directory. Signing up doesn’t commit you to anything and your contact information will never be shared with anyone without your permission.

For more information about E3’s programs for economists and graduate students, please visit our website or check out our spring 2009 newsletter (attached).

Center for the History of Political Economy

Dear SHOE colleagues,

I am writing to you in my capacity as the new director of the recently established Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. I wanted to update you on the progress we have made with the Center so far, and also to ask you for your help.

The purpose of the Center is to support research in, and the teaching of, the history of political economy. The larger goal is to revitalize an interest in the history of economic thought among students and within the economics profession as a whole.

To support research, we have a fellowship program, which brings both senior and junior research fellows to Duke for a semester or a year to pursue their own research. Fellows come from around the world. For example, in the 2008-2009 academic year Rob Van Horn (USA) worked on a book on the origins of the Chicago Law and Economics movement, Yann Giraud (France) developed further his research on visualization in economics, Hansjoerg Klausinger (Austria) worked on two volumes he is editing for the /Collected Works of F.A. Hayek/, Aiko Ikeo (Japan) developed some papers for the Critical Biography Series sponsored by the Society for the History of Japanese Economic Thought, and Rob Leonard
(Canada) did initial research for a project investigating modernism in the social sciences during the inter-war years. Next year there will be two junior and four senior fellows in residence, as well as a number of visitors coming for shorter stays.

Fellows and visitors have a number of resources on which to draw. There are five faculty members at Duke who specialize in the history of thought, and the Center has a number of affiliated faculty in cognate areas at Duke and on other area campuses. We have an active workshop series, weekly luncheons where work in progress is discussed, and various special events. During the
2008-2009 academic year the last included a one day mini-conference on Creative Communities in Economics, a panel discussion on “John Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury” held at the Nasher Art Museum (this was the kick-off event for the Center), and the annual HOPE conference, this one organized by Roger Backhouse and Philippe Fontaine on “The Unsocial Social Science?
Economics and the Neighboring Disciplines Since 1945.” The world-class combined Triangle Libraries system has extensive holdings that are available to all Fellows through Duke's Perkins Library, which is located literally footsteps away from the Center. Fellows have workspaces assigned to them, either in the Center itself or in private library carrels located in the library. Finally, Duke is home to the Economists’
Papers Project, a collection which includes the papers of 8 Nobel laureates in economics, as well as such luminaries as Carl Menger, Oskar Morgenstern, Nicholas Geogescu-Roegen, Tibor Scitovsky, Arthur Burns, Don Patinkin, Paul Davidson, and many others, as well as the papers of the American Economic Association.

To support teaching, we encourage junior fellows to sit in on or assist us with the many courses we offer at Duke. These courses may also be taken by undergraduates or graduate students enrolled at two neighboring universities, UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State. We are also organizing a Summer Teaching Institute, to begin summer 2010, that will be a sort of “Boot Camp” on the history of thought, aimed at helping faculty who may not have had training in the field to be able to offer a course in it. For more information on the various initiatives of the Center, please visit our website at www.econ.duke.edu/CHOPE

I hope that you will agree that the Center is an exciting new development, and that you might be willing to help us to accomplish our goals. So how might you help us?

1. First, if you have good undergraduate students with an interest in the history of economic thought who might be going on to graduate school in economics, please let them know about our program and let them know that they can take courses in the field at Duke if they enroll at Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, or NC State.

2. Next, if you know of graduate students who want to do research in the history of political economy and who might benefit from a year at Duke, either as they finish up their dissertation or as a post-doc, tell them about us.

3. If you have a colleague who might benefit from our Summer Teaching Institute, let them know about us.

4. Finally, if you have a semester research leave or a sabbatical year coming up and would like to explore the possibility of spending all or part of it here at Duke, send me an e-mail or give me a call ¬ I’d be happy to discuss it with you.

We are excited about the prospects of building a community of like-minded scholars here at Duke. I appreciate any support that you might be able to give us to help us to reach our goals. Should you be attending the upcoming HES meetings in Denver, I will be there and will be happy to discuss with you any matters of interest relating to the Center.

My best regards,

Bruce Caldwell

Center for Global Justice

(Español abajo)
Hello to all the friends and supporters of the Center for Global Justice!
As all of you know this year has been an exciting one for CGJ and it keeps getting better! Hopefully all of you have received our most recent newsletter, if not here is the link to check out what we have been up to:

http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/tools/view_newsletter.php?newsletter_id=1409909941

We are working diligently to keep all our records and information up to date on all our contacts and friends. We need your help! Can you take a moment to send us your most updated information? We want to be able to get in touch with you about programs, news, and fundraising! It’s so important that we all stay connected. If you could please take a minute and send us the following:

Name
Email (if this email is no longer correct of if you prefer another)
Phone
Address

It’ll just take a minute and will help us to keep in touch with folks that much more. Thanks in advance.

Lydia Carey
Executive Director
The Center for Global Justice

Centro Para la Justicia Global

Estimados miembros y colaboradores de Centro Para la Justicia Global,
Antes que nada reciban un caluroso saludo de todo el personal que labora en el Centro. Como mucho de ustedes saben, este año ha sido muy activo y emocionante. Aprovechamos este mensaje para, además de saludarles, recordarles que el nuevo boletín lo pueden ver en la siguiente dirección:
http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/tools/view_newsletter.php?newsletter_id=1409911183
Así mismo queremos solicitar su apoyo para mantener actualizada nuestra base de datos y en caso de que tengan nuevo teléfono o dirección hacérnoslo saber. De esta manera podremos contactarles oportunamente e informarles a cerca de los eventos, programas, noticias, recaudación de fondos, etc. Consideramos de suma importancia poder localizarlos manteniendo así una comunicación bidireccional.
Les agrademos tomarse el tiempo para llenar los siguientes datos:
1. Nombre completo
2. Email (en caso de que éste no esté correcto o utilice otra cuenta)
3. Número de Teléfono
4. Dirección
¡Sólo le tomará un minuto, el cual nos ayudará mucho!

¡Les agradecemos su participación! En la espera de su respuesta, reciban nuevamente, un afectuoso saludo.

Lydia Carey
Executive Director
The Center for Global Justice

The Union of Concerned Scientists

The Union of Concerned Scientists is engaging Pennsylvania scientists and economists to emphasize the importance of taking action to mitigate the worst effects of climate change in the Commonwealth, and to point up the opportunities it offers for the Commonwealth to become a leader in renewable energy technology. Members of the Pennsylvania delegation represent key votes in the climate debate.

The Pennsylvania Cover Letter to the Scientists and Economists' Call for Swift and Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions will be delivered to Pennsylvania representatives during the week of June 22nd and to senators later this summer or fall. The cover letter and underlying statement are open to Pennsylvania Ph.D. or doctoral candidate professionals with expertise relevant to our understanding of the scientific and economic dimensions of climate change, its impacts, and solutions.

If you meet these criteria, we ask that you become a supporter. To read and sign the letter, visit http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/what_you_can_do/pennsylvania-letter.html.

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