Issue 92: December 16, 2009

 

From the Editor

When I started the Heterodox Economics Newsletter in September 2004, I had no idea of how long it would last. But after 92 issues, it is time for me to step down. The new editors are Dr. Tae-Hee Jo and Dr. Ted Schmidt who teach at Buffalo State College. I have known both of them for many years and they are active in heterodox activities. They bring new energy to the Newsletter which hopefully will result in making it even more useful to its circa 4,000 subscribers, of which 33% are in the United States and Canada, 42% in Europe (including the UK and Ireland), 12% located south of the United States, and 13% located in the rest of the world. And they also bring the commitment to publish material that potentially interests some, many, and/or all heterodox economists. Tae-Hee and Ted will also maintain the heterodox newsletter web site which includes the Informational Directory for Heterodox Economists as well as other material. If you have any material you want put in the Newsletter or if you want to make additions or changes to the Directory, please send an e-mail with the material to the new editors at heterodoxnews@gmail.com. Part of the copy that appears in the Newsletter comes from e-mailing made by various heterodox associations and organizations and publishers (I am on a lot of e-mailing lists). If you want this to continue, please add the above e-mail address to your e-mail list.

Over the past five years the Newsletter and the Directory have played a remarkable role in the lives of heterodox economists. In the many conferences I have attended, I always have a couple of economists say to me how important the Newsletter is to them—it makes them feel that they are part of active community and not isolated. This perhaps explains why each Newsletter gets over 1,200 hits (which I am told is very good). Others have told me that they attended a very interesting conference that they would not have heard of if it was not for the Newsletter; and then there are others who got hired for academic positions that they first saw advertised in the Newsletter. In addition, the Directory must also be important to heterodox economists and their students, since it has received nearly 4,000 hits since it was put online fifteen months ago.

All of this was and is made possible with help from friends. In the beginning, Ergun Meric designed the Newsletter and made it possible. He also developed the heterodox newsletter web site and made possible to put the Directory online. After receiving numerous requests to include book reviews in the Newsletter, Fadhel Kaboub stepped up to make it happen. Off and on over the past five years, various UMKC graduate students have help me with the Newsletter—most recently Stephanie Sheldon and Xuan Pham have contributed significantly to producing the Newsletter. In addition, my department chair, Jim Sturgeon, has provided support that freed up time I needed to produce the Newsletter. Finally, the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind provided much needed financial support.

The importance of the Newsletter to the community of heterodox economists was not only due to the information on conferences, jobs, journals, books, and book reviews it contained. There was also the more pro-active content that appeared in “From the Editor”. Sometimes I suggested that heterodox economists needed to buy more heterodox books and subscribe to more heterodox journals. I still think this is very important, but if you cannot personally do so, the next best thing is to have your university/college library subscribe to the journals and purchase the books. Both Routledge and Edward Elgar have various heterodox book series that you can get you libraries to purchase. Other times I commented on research assessment, journal and department rankings, and discrimination; and this last Newsletter is no different.

A week ago I received an e-mail from a Spanish heterodox economist. He made two points. The first is that to get recognition for their economic research with regard to promotions and professorial appoints, it is necessary to publish in SSCI-listed economics journals. This was put in place by the state about a decade ago. It involves a national commission to which individuals can apply to get recognition. The members of the commission are appointed by the state and increasingly include ‘market fundamentalist’ mainstream economists. The pressure to publish in SSCI economic journals means that Spanish heterodox economists do not have the luxury of sending their papers to non-SSCI economics journals, such as ROSE, RRPE, JOIE, ROPE, and many others. Initially any SSCI publication was fine, but with the expansion of the number of SSCI economics journals to 209, only the top 50% are counted—which means that publications in the CJE, JEI, JPKE, and the AJES (along with lots of other mainstream journals) are not really recognized as acceptable research. Aside from the impact for promotion, not publishing in the top 50% of the SSCI journals has another consequence. When in a debate with heterodox economists, the mainstream market fundamentalists use the SSCI citation impact factor rankings to dismiss their arguments:

The Asociación Libre de Economía (ALDE) is an association of Spanish professors of applied economics working mainly in the field of Spanish economics, a subject in economics degrees. At its last meeting, the invited conference speaker dealt with Spanish labor market and the proposal for its reform introduced by a group of 100 economists most of them professing "market fundamentalism". It is an important group of Spanish economists mostly teaching in US universities, but only a few of them have expertise in labor market economics and the Spanish labor market. Their main proposal is to reduce the cost of dismissals and to reduce the influence of labor bargaining; and they legitimized their arguments by emphasizing that they are the best Spanish economists because they publish in highly ranked SSCI journals. To challenge this proposal, a group of 700 professors not just economists but also professors of labor law, trade unionists and other experts signed an alternative "manifesto" criticizing the "Group of 100" proposal. The reaction of the "Group of 100" was to state that they publish in SSCI neo-classical refereed journals whiles those in the "Group of 700" do not. Thus they are qualified economists and the Group of 700 are not, which means that the latter’s proposal is not legitimate. It should be noted that the "Group of 100" proposal was drafted in an economic institute (which is on the internet), call FEDEA, which is funded by the main Spanish banks including the Bank of Spain. The organizers of the ALDE meeting invited a member of the "Group of 100" to speak, but without initially providing time for debate and without inviting a spokesperson on behalf of the "Group of 700". During his presentation, the Group of 100 spokesperson discredited the signers of the alternative manifesto arguing that they have vested interests in the current system because they are working in law firms or are getting money from the current system; and the trade unions are the same since they are only interested in employees not in those on the dole. When I forced a debate giving empirical data (simply statistics showing that dismissal costs are irrelevant, no more than 2% of total labor cost) and quoting some papers, one of them published in Oxford Review of Economic Policy, his answer was "I don't know that journal, but I sure it is not in a good position in SSCI” [it happens to be ranked 74th out of 209] instead of trying to debate the findings.

A number of points can be taken from this. First, heterodox economists need to cite heterodox journals (whether in the SSCI or not) more extensively in their journal articles. In fact, as a whole, in their articles heterodox economists cite mainstream journals more often than heterodox journals (and mainstream journals simply do not cite heterodox journals), which give the mainstream journals a higher ranking relative to heterodox journals. Thus, perhaps a reduction in the citation of mainstream journals would in the long term have a positive impact on the rankings heterodox journals. Second, heterodox economists should become more involved in the literature of the ranking of journals and departments and in the research assessment literature. Constructing alternative rankings and critically evaluating national and local research assessment activities is one step in the right direct. A second step would be to query your favorite heterodox association and/or heterodox journal editor why they are so reluctant to deal with or publish articles on these topics. A third point is that heterodox economists need to be more active in challenging the dominance and anti-intellectual behavior of mainstream economics and economists. Not being respectable, standing up and just saying NO, pursuing heterodox research, and working with and through groups that are not part of the social-political-economic elite to promote better social-economics policies that benefit the non-elite are just some of the things heterodox economists can do. Of course, such behavior is frown upon, discouraged by the critics of heterodox economics—they would rather you be docile, embrace conformity, and behave as mainstream economist do. All I can do is to urge you to not crave respectability, but to develop a content-based heterodox economic theory and associated economic policy that contributes to building a better world out of the shell of the old.

Yours for Heterodox Economics (and the revolution),


Fred Lee

In this issue:
  Call for Papers
- Oeconomicus
- The Effects of Recessions and Recoveries on the Well-being of Workers and Families Small Grants Competition
- “THE EFFECT OF CRISES ON DISTRIBUTION”
- Rosa Luxemburg’s Political Economy: Contributions to Contemporary Political Theory and Practice
12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics
- TWENTY YEARS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX
- 3rd International ICAPE Conference
- Beyond the Crisis - IIPPE Conference 2010 in Crete
- FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES
- 11th Annual Summer Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economics
- Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?
- SASE 22nd Annual Conference
- 3rd PhD Conference in Economics 2010
- HOW CLASS WORKS - 2010
- Sixth Marx International Congress
- 23rd Annual Conference of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia
- HES 2010 Conference Call for Papers
- Revue de la Régulation, Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs
- The Origin of Paper Money in Theory and Practice
- PCPE 2010
- Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy
- Power & Knowledge
- ESHET Young Scholar Session
- HOPE Conference 2011
  Conferences, Seminars and Lectures
  - THE NEW ECONOMICS AS 'MAINSTREAM' ECONOMICS
- The Effects of Recessions and Recoveries on the Well-being of Workers and Families Small Grants Competition
- 2010 Annual Meeting of the Society of Socio-Economists and Socio-Economics
- SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL, CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
- The Transformation of Money into Capital
- CAMBRIDGE KEYNES LECTURE 2010
- ADVANCE CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: KEYNES SEMINAR LIVE
- HES Sessions Program at ASSA 2010
- The Pink Tide: Reconfiguring politics, power and political economy in the Americas?
- A esquerdização das Américas: Poder, reconfiguração e economia política?
- La Ola de Izquerdizacion: Reconfigurando La política, el poder y la economía política en las Américas?
- The Crisis in Europe
  Job Postings for Heterodox Economists
- Franklin & Marshall College
- PostDoc in Technology Governance
- Lancaster University
- University of Greenwich
- The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
- Columbia College Chicago
  Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles
  - Keynes Seminar
- A Transformational Conception of Evolutionary
- Is Development Back in the Doha Round?
- Unions and the Crisis: Ways Ahead?
- A THREATENING LINK BETWEEN WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS
- One million climate jobs now!
Heterodox Journals and Newsletters
  - CASE Newsletter
- Research Network of Innovation
- Nova Economia
- GDAE News
- IIPPE in brief
- Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM), Newsletter No 00-09
- International Journal of Political Economy
- LEVY NEWS
- The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
- RENEWAL
- IDEAs
- The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin
- GDAE
- CDPR
  Heterodox Books and Book Series
  - Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy
- Heterodoxe Ökonomie
- Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism
- The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism
- Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy
- Essays in Institutional Economics and Political Economy: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
- Privatisation against the European Social Model
- Ethics and Economics
- Theories Of Social Capital: Researchers Behaving Badly
- Dialectics of Class Struggle in the Global Economy
- Microeconomics in Context and Microeconomics in Context
- The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901
Heterodox Book Reviews
  - Economia Institucional y Evolutiva Contemporanea
  Heterodox Web Sites and Associations
  - The Global Labour University
- Proctereconomics
- New Deal 2.0
- King's College London Reading Capital Society
- Modern Economic and Social History Seminar
- The Chicago Political Economy Group
  For Your Information
  - Failure to Moderate Excess
- Marxist Analysis of the Crisis
- Early Christians lived by communist principles
- Tristan Milder
- EuroMemorandum 2009/10
- Was Henry George Right After All? (A shaggy dog story)
- Cleaning house at the WTO
- National Conference to Create Living Wage Jobs
- The Bhopal Library
- CSRC presents: 'The Roots of the Economic Crisis: Critical Perspectives'
- Employee Free Choice Act
- Why Global Poverty? Think Again
- Why Are We in Afghanistan?
- Joerg Huffschmid
   

Call for Papers

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- Post Keynesian, Marxist, Institutionalist, Austrian, Feminist, and Poststructuralist/Postmodern—are welcomed 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 soliciting submissions for our 2009-2010 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 DevinTRafferty@umkc.edu.  The deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2010. Three prizes of $200 each will be awarded to the three best submissions. 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/.

The Effects of Recessions and Recoveries on the Well-being of Workers and Families Small Grants Competition

Deadline: January 29, 2010
The NPC seeks to fund research that will broad and/or deepen our understanding of the effects of the recessions and/or impact of increased federal spending through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or through other programs initiatives on the well-being of workers and families. Learn more...http://npc.umich.edu/opportunities/research_grants/2010_poverty_grants/index.php 

“THE EFFECT OF CRISES ON DISTRIBUTION”

Economists and the public discussion have so far failed to focus on what the recent global crisis may spell for the distributional consequences. It is with this in mind, that the Economic Student Union at The New School for Social Research would like to invite you to present abstracts for a conference on “The Effect of Crises on Distribution.”
The conference is to be held on March 5, 2010 at The New School University, New York and is co-sponsored by the Economic Student Union, the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy
Analysis (SCEPA), and the Department of Economics. Major themes of the conference include the effects of historical and current economic crises on the distribution of income and wealth, labor, capital and finance, gender, global power relations, and the policies used and required to address these issues.
Speakers at the conference will include scholars from academia and multilateral organizations. We look forward to papers from a variety of backgrounds to stimulate debate
and improve our understanding of distributional issues Selected papers from the conference proceedings and from the submitted papers will be published as a special issue of the New School Economic Review. Please submit abstracts via e-mail to nssreconconference@gmail.com  on or before December 15, 2009. Abstracts should include: Paper Title, Full Name, Affiliation (Institution), Current Position, and an email address. Submissions will go through a double blind review process. Space is limited so early submission is suggested.
We look forward to your contributions.
Sincerely,
Lacey Keller
Conference Organizer
kelll921@newschool.edu

Rosa Luxemburg’s Political Economy: Contributions to Contemporary Political Theory and Practice

A Special Issue of Socialist Studies: the Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies
Fall 2010
Since her assassination, Rosa Luxemburg has been treated as an icon while her political and theoretical work is largely forgotten, neglected, or rejected. Recently, though, David Harvey used her ideas on capitalist expansion to explain the new imperialism. Other elements of her work are promising for socialist studies and the left, today. Her analysis of mass strikes in Russia in 1905, for example, may cast new light on workers’ struggles in China. Luxemburg’s critical discussion of nations’ right to self-determination inform, or ought to inform, contemporary Latin American struggles against imperialist domination. Her writings on mass strikes, parties and trade unions, like her better-known writings on ‘social reform or revolution’, offer insights into the role of (weakly) organized labour in political change. Although Luxemburg didn’t engage much with women’s issues directly, her work and its reception nonetheless have an important gender dimension. In particular, feminist women scholars have been quicker to recognize Luxemburg’s contributions to socialist political economy than their male colleagues.
This call invites articles on Luxemburg’s political economy, assessing her contributions to socialist debates in light of current political challenges. Papers may consider the implications of her work for contemporary anti-imperialist struggle, the dynamics of worker organization and progressive political change, and feminist scholarship within the left, or any other topic concerning Luxemburg’s theoretical and political contributions to socialist political economy and political struggle. In keeping with the Socialist Studies mandate, perspectives from all disciplines are welcome.
Deadline: May 30, 2010. Please see: www.socialiststudies.com  for information about submissions (word count, format, etc.).
Contact:
Ingo Schmidt: ingos@athabascau.ca , special issue coordinator

12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics

The Economy of Tomorrow
7-10 July, 2010
Hosted by the Research Unit in Theoretical and Applied Economics –
GREThA (UMR CNRS 5113)
Université de Bordeaux, France
http://www.hetecon.net 

The Twelfth Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics (AHE) will be held at the University of Bordeaux – France – from Wednesday 7th to Saturday 10th July 2010. This year’s Conference theme is The Economy of Tomorrow.
Long run processes have exacerbated the contradictions of the world economic system leading to a crisis in all spheres including social, political, financial and environmental. The economic crisis that opened in 2008 increases our awareness that economies and societies must change radically in all these spheres in the 21st Century, though views of the changes required, and their depth, will differ. This conference will provide a forum for discussion on current and future changes needed in developed and developing economies in all these spheres. The following areas, closely intertwined in theory and in policy action, are of special interest but this is not an exhaustive list and do not preclude other topics approached with a holistic perspective:
1. Social aspects: for example income distribution, labour markets, pensions, the nature of work, poverty, human development, welfare;
2. Financial aspects: for example financialization, capital mobility, corporate governance, taxes on international monetary transactions, financial innovations and possible reforms;
3. Environmental aspects: for example models of production and consumption, eco-innovations, environmental governance, alleviation or adaptation to global warming, and new cities;
4. North-South relations: for example the trajectories of emerging countries, potential for a new world order, international trade, development aid, development cooperation;
5. The reform of economics: for example pluralism in research and teaching, evaluation and metrics, innovation and creativity, and the relation between economists and decision-makers.
The conference invites submissions on or before 7th March 2010 which either accord with the conference title; or which otherwise deal with topics of ongoing interest in heterodox economics. To download the flyer in pdf doc formats.

TWENTY YEARS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK -28 and 29 January 2010

The Von Hugel Institute/Capability and Sustainability Network, University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme/HDRO, invites researchers from different disciplines and parts of the world to submit papers on the history of Human Development and its future prospects. The general aim of this workshop is twofold: to stimulate further understanding of the last twenty years of the Human Development perspective and to examine proposals for improving its future prospects.

Papers examining the following topics are especially welcome, namely:

1. The added-value of the Human Development Approach, in comparison to past and contemporary perspectives, such as Basic Needs, Happiness, Sustainable Development or Participatory approaches, among others.
2. Measuring human development through quantitative indices, such as the HDI, HPIs, GEM and GDI, as well as proposals for new indicators.
3. Assessment of progress in human development in the world over the past fifty years.
4. The policy implications of the human development approach, with particular emphasis on how adopting an HD approach affects the design of development strategies.
5. What should policies for human development look like in the Twenty-First Century? What should be the role of international organizations in fostering human development?

The workshop will consist of two key-note addresses delivered by Dr Francisco Rodríguez, Head of Research of the Human Development Report Office
(UNDP) and by Sir Richard Jolly, accompanied by a number of sessions to discuss the issues raised above.

- The deadline for submission of paper proposals is *21 DECEMBER 2009 *and full papers will be due on *21 JANUARY 2010 *.
- Paper proposals should include the title of the paper, a summary of no more than 1000 words and postal and e-mail addresses. Proposals should be sent to Flavio Comim ( flavio.comim@undp.org ).

The papers will be assessed by a Scientific Committee. Notice of acceptance of papers will be sent by 29 DECEMBER 2010.
*WORKSHOP FEES

Full fee: £120
Reduced rate: £ 45 for students

The conference fee includes lunches, dinners, refreshments served at breaks during the two days of the conference and access to papers.

Seven bursars of US$ 300, kindly offered by UNDP/HDRO, will be available for accepted proposals from developing countries, which will also be free of workshop fees. People who wish to be considered for those funds should apply at the submission of their paper proposals. Accommodation in College rooms and hotels, charged separately from conference fees, will also be available.

3rd International ICAPE Conference

The International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE) announces its 3rd International Conference:
“Failing Economies, Failing Economics: Rebooting Economics after the Crash”
3-5 June 2010
Western New England College, Springfield, Massachusetts
Click here for detailed information.

Beyond the Crisis - IIPPE Conference 2010 in Crete

The 1st IIPPE conference to be held in Rethymnon, Crete, 10-12 September 2010. The deadline for submission of paper summaries is 31 March 2010, although earlier submission is advised. For all relevant information, please see the attached document. In case of any questions, you can contact us at ippe@soas.ac.uk.

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES

Cambridge University, United Kingdom
2-5 August 2010
http://www.SocialSciencesConference.com/

The International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences examines the nature of disciplinary practices, and the interdisciplinary practices that arise in the context of 'real world' applications. It also interrogates what constitutes 'science' in a social context, and the connections between the social and other sciences.

As well as an impressive line-up of international main speakers, the conference will also include numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by social science researchers, practitioners and teachers. We would particularly like to invite you to respond to the conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic journal, as well as the option to submit a presentation to the conference YouTube channel.

The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 10 December 2009. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online proposal submission form, may be found at the conference website - http://www.SocialSciencesConference.com/.

11th Annual Summer Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economics

The 11th annual Summer Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economics will be held at the University of Richmond, June 20-23rd, 2010. The Institute offers a forum for graduate students and distinguished scholars to present work in progress or more polished papers to a lively audience. Our mission is to help young scholars connect in a workshop setting with young and eminent scholars in the field. Past speakers include Brad Bateman, Mauro Boianovsky, Marcel Boumans, James Buchanan, Dave Colander, Evelyn Forget, Dan Hammond, Samuel Hollander, Kevin Hoover, M. Ali Khan, Anthony Laden, David Levy, Deirdre McCloskey, Steve Medema, Phil Mirowski, Leon Montes, Mary Morgan, Maria Pia Paganelli, Sandra Peart, Malcolm Rutherford, Warren Samuels, Eric Schliesser, Gordon Tullock, Anthony Waterman, and Roy Weintraub.

For the 2010 session, we invite proposals on any topic. We are always looking for new participants and invite recommendations and submissions from any and all interested parties. With participation by Steven Durlauf and Ali Khan, we anticipate organizing a session on the state of economic science in the light of the recent financial crisis.
Papers on the concerns of Henry Simons and the Ordo Liberal school about the stability of capitalism would be of particular interest. It will be, one might note, the 100th anniversary of the publication of Wicksteed's Common Sense of Political Economy.

As in past years, we anticipate that the Institute will be supported by funding for modest honoraria. Participation by upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in economics or related disciplines will also be encouraged. The History of Economics Society assists with conference expenses for students. Conference events include good coffee (we aim to improve) and continental breakfasts, lunches, as well as one or two working dinners. Details about travel, housing and other matters will be posted early in 2010.

Please send expressions of interest, topics of interest, paper proposals or queries to:
Sandra J. Peart, Dean, Jepson School of Leadership Studies speart@richmond.edu  and
David M. Levy, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, DavidMLevy@gmail.com.

Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?

A joint conference of the USBIG Network and BIEN Canada

Hosted by Centre de recherche en ethique de l’Universite de Montreal (CREUM)
University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Thursday & Friday, April 15-16, 2010

Times of economic turmoil raise difficult questions but also offer radical new opportunities to rethink the economic fabric of our society. The current global economic recession is no exception. The political challenge is how to respond to economic decline in a way that opens a new future, while not leaving behind those citizens directly affected by the global downturn.

This two-day conference examines whether instituting an unconditional Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) as an economic floor, aimed at preventing those affected by the current economic upheavals from falling below what any modern democracy would consider a decent standard of living, constitutes a desirable and feasible option in Canada or the United States.

The conference will feature a keynote talk by Prof. Guy Standing (University of Bath), a leading expert on basic income, economic development and the labour market, and a special roundtable with political experts and policy activists.

The conference will be hosted by the Centre de recherche en ethique de l’Universite de Montreal (CREUM—The Center for Research in Ethics at the University of Montreal). This event will be the first joint conference of the two North American affiliates of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)—the US Basic Income Guarantee network (USBIG) and BIEN Canada. The conference aims to compare the prospects and challenges faced by the BIG proposal in the context of both Canada and the US, two countries that share many similarities and yet are profoundly different in terms of their economic, social and political background.

The organizers invite panel presentations from academic scholars, practitioners and policy activists on a wide variety of topics dealing with the challenges of designing, promoting or instituting a BIG in the current economic climate in Canada or the US. Priority will be given to papers that explicitly discuss BIG in the context of either Canada or the US, or that compare the distinct prospects in both countries.

The main language of the conference is English, but the organizers will try to accommodate French speakers as much as possible.

To submit a proposal, email a title and short abstract to bigmontreal2010@gmail.com  by Friday 15 January.

The official call for papers and further information are posted on the BIGMontreal website at http://bigmontreal.wordpress.com/ , which can also be reached by link for the USBIG website ( www.usbig.net ).

Admission is free. Everyone is welcome to attend, but pre-registration is required. Details about registration and other aspects of the conference will be announced on the conference website. If you have any additional questions, please contact the conference organizer: Jurgen De Wispelaere at bigmontreal2010@gmail.com.

SASE 22nd Annual Conference

June 24-26, 2010
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
www.sase.org 
One year after a highly successful and thought-provoking conference in Paris on Capitalism in Crisis, SASE turns its attention to an issue underpinning current debates on our global economy and society. This year, the annual meeting will focus on emerging forms of transnational governance – public, private, and hybrid – in the global economy, examining its development, dynamics, impact, and implications.

In Philadelphia: Eric Helleiner takes on money and global governance; Donald MacKenzie examines financial models, economic agents, and markets; Saskia Sassen looks at global cities….
And what about you? Click here to submit your paper or session proposal and join the conversation.
SASE’s diverse research networks and conference sub-themes offer an international, interdisciplinary forum to discuss ideas and raise questions on the cutting edge of your field. Click here for more information.
Submission deadline: January 31, 2010. This includes applications for student stipends and travel grants. Click here for submission guidelines and more.
As for location… Steeped in history, the cradle of American democracy, Philadelphia is a major crossroads on the East Coast, at the heart of the American academic scene with fast and easy transport to New York City and Washington, DC. In the immortal words of W.C. Fields: “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”
SASE President: Jonathan Zeitlin
Program Chairs: Glenn Morgan and Marc Schneiberg
Local Organizer: Richard Deeg

3rd PhD Conference in Economics 2010

Call for Papers
May 13-14th, 2010
Athens

The Department of Economics and the University of Athens Doctoral Program in Economics (UADPhilEcon) at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens invite PhD Students and Junior Researchers, in Economics and related disciplines from all around the world to submit papers for presentation at the 3rd PhD Conference in Economics 2010. Research papers to be presented may relate to all fields of economics, both theoretical and applied. Researchers interested in applying must send an abstract of no more than 200 words. The document submitted should additionally include contact information (name, affiliation, phone number, e-mail address), 3-4 keywords and JEL classification codes. All the above necessary information must be attached in a single PDF or Word file, sent to econphdconference@gmail.com.

The deadline for submitting the abstracts is February 7th, 2010.
Notification of acceptance will have been announced by mid-March 2010.
The deadline for submitting the final paper is mid-April 2010.
Papers and presentations must be in English.
No registration or participation fee will be required.

Please do not hesitate to contact with any member of the organizing committee for any questions.
- Georgalos Konstantinos: kgeorgal@econ.uoa.gr
- Kucuk Selcan: skucuk@econ.uoa.gr
- Magonis George: gmagonis@econ.uoa.gr
- Valsamopoulos Fotios: fvalsamop@econ.uoa.gr
As every year this conference is devoted to the memory of the PhD student Vassilis Patsatzis.
For more information check: www.uadphilecon.gr

For more information about the conference, please visit http://www.uadphilecon.gr/UA/content/en/Article.aspx?office=17&folder=782&article=2213

HOW CLASS WORKS - 2010

A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 3-5, 2010
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS


The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2010 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 3 - 5, 2010. Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 14, 2009 according to the guidelines below.

Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference. Formal papers will be welcome but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations that advance our understanding of any of the following themes.

The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class.

Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.

Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.

Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor standards.

Middle class? Working class? What's the difference and why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between the middle class and the capitalist class.

Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy matters.

Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture transmits and transforms class dynamics.

Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2010 Conference

Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) title; b) which of the eight conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter's name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants. Proposals for poster sessions are welcome. Presentations may be assigned to a poster session.

Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from each proposed session member.

Submit proposals as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works - 2010 Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384 or as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu.

Timetable: Proposals must be received by December 14, 2009. Notifications will be mailed on January 19, 2010. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 3- 5, 2010. Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible after February 15, 2010. Details and updates will be posted at http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu.

Conference coordinator:
Michael Zweig
Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384
631.632.7536
michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu

Sixth Marx International Congress

Paris (Sorbonne) et Nanterre (Université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense)
September 22/25, 2010

CRISES, REVOLTS, UTOPIAS

This message is devoted to the organization of the Economic Section of the congress, whose coordinators are:
Gérard DUMENIL, 39 rue d'Estienne d'Orves, 92260 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
gerard.dumenil@u-paris10.fr
Dominique LEVY, Cnrs-Pse, 48 bd Jourdan, 75014 Paris, France
dominique.levy@ens.fr

Information concerning the organization of the congress is gradually made available on Actuel Marx’s site, at the following address:
http://netx.u-paris10.fr/actuelmarx/cm6/index6.htm

As during earlier congresses, Economics will probably be an important section. During the Congress V, it gathered about 70 panelists, within one plenary session and 16 workshops. The official language of the congress is French, although we can normally make a translation into English available for several plenary sessions. For Economics, we will do our best to set up sessions in English and Spanish, according to the number of panelists. Reviews or groups of investigation can organize workshops of their own. The theme of the congress suggests multidisciplinary approaches (Economics, Sociology, Politics).

Call for papers (Download French and Spanish)
Applications must be sent before March 31, 2010

People willing to participate with a paper to be presented in a panel are asked to send a proposal of one page maximum, before the end of March 2010. We will inform the applicants before the end of April of the list of selected papers. We can, however, send letters of invitation to those willing to receive such a document as soon as possible (but such letters will not imply the acceptance of the proposal).
Sixth Marx International Congress
Paris (Sorbonne) et Nanterre (Université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense)
September 22/25, 2010

23rd Annual Conference of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia

The Twenty-Third Annual Conference of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia is to be held 7-9 July 2010, at the University of Sydney, Sydney. There will be a welcome reception on the evening of 6 July.

The distinguished visitor to give the keynote speech to the conference will be Professor Harald Hagemann, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. Harald has a most distinguished CV with important contributions to the history of economic thought as well as to economic theory. Harald is the current President of the European Society of the History of Economic Thought.

Abstracts for papers to the conference can be submitted up to 30 April 2010, though there is always some leeway given beyond this date. It is anticipated that the webpage for the conference will be set up by the New Year, which will provide all the important information.

HES 2010 Conference Call for Papers

http://hes2010.syr.edu/email-callforpapers.html
The 2010 meetings of the History of Economics Society will be held at the Syracuse University over June 25-28. Please join us, and add your voice to the discourse by submitting a paper or proposing a session at http://hes2010.syr.edu

The Distinguished Lecture will be delivered by Nancy Folbre. She will be speaking on "Greed, Lust and Gender: The Rhetoric of Self Interest in Political Economy".
Information on transportation, accommodations, and area attractions is also available at
http://hes2010.syr.edu.  Registration information will be posted in due course

If you encounter any problems will paper/session submission or have any other questions about the conference, please email me at HES2010@syr.edu

Revue de la Régulation, Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs

Bonjour,
Vous trouverez ci joint l'Appel à contribution de la Revue de la régulation, Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs

« Crise économique, nouvelle donne pour les sciences économiques ? »

Réponses souhaitée pour le 15 mars regulation@revues.org ;
 http://regulation.revues.org   

Il n’a échappé à personne, et P. Krugman s’en est fait largement l’écho, que nombre d’économistes n’ont pas vu venir la crise. Pour autant, on ne compte plus les conférences, déclarations, entretiens de ces mêmes professionnels pour tirer les leçons de la crise et identifier et corriger les « dysfonctionnements » qui en sont responsables.

La Revue de la Régulation propose de revenir sur ce paradoxe en cherchant à comprendre comment la structuration de la discipline a pu contribuer à cette situation, aussi bien dans son organisation interne (modes de production et de diffusion des savoirs, règles de fonctionnements et d’évaluation, etc.) que dans ses rapports complexes avec d’autres disciplines (sociologie, histoire, science politique, mathématiques etc.) et ses liens avec les mondes politiques, médiatiques ou des affaires. Elle entend également mettre en perspective les reconfigurations de la discipline qui ont pris place et celles qui se dessinent aujourd’hui.

Dans une perspective résolument pluraliste et pluridisciplinaire (science studies, sociologie de la connaissance et des professions, analyse de réseaux, histoire de la pensée économique, histoire des sciences, épistémologie, etc.), les thèmes suivants – la liste n’est pas exhaustive – retiendront plus particulièrement notre attention :

• En quoi l’usage de certaines méthodologies et certains
modèles a-t-il pu contribuer à la cécité ou à la myopie relative de la discipline ? En quoi ces outils et ces usages (statut des données empiriques, modalités d’administration de la preuve, mise en lumière
des limites de validité des modèles, etc.) sont-ils spécifiques aux
sciences économiques, notamment par rapport aux sciences physiques, biologiques ou aux autres sciences sociales ?

• En quoi l’évolution de l’enseignement de l’économie
(technicisation, marginalisation de l’histoire économique ou de la pensée par exemple) a-t-elle pu contribuer à cette situation ?

• Quels rapports l’économie comme discipline entretient-elle
avec les autres disciplines (impérialisme, ignorance, association) ?
En quoi ces rapports ont-ils influé sur sa capacité à comprendre le réel ? La place croissante de l’analyse institutionnelle, du droit, de la psychologie cognitive ou des sciences neuronales augure-t-elle de nouveaux objets d’analyse, préfigure-t-elle un redécoupage des frontières de la discipline ?

• La structuration des sciences économiques en « petits mondes
» fermés, (universités, labo, revues de courant...) laisse-t-elle une place suffisante au débat, à la critique et finalement au dialogue entre les différents courants de pensée ?

• De quelle manière les règles d’évaluation et de valorisation
des connaissances (chercheurs, revues, labo) jouent-elles ? Comment ont évolué les institutions de la profession ? et quelle est la capacité de la discipline à innover et se renouveler ?

• En quoi les liens de certains économistes avec la « vie des
affaires » (Conseil d’administration, directoires…) mais aussi les instances gouvernementales (Conseil d’Analyse Economique par exemple) ou les médias ont-ils influé sur leurs prises de position académique et leur pouvoir dans la discipline ?

Les contributions à ce numéro devront être envoyées avant le 15 mars
regulation@revues.org 
http://regulation.revues.org

Pour le comité de rédaction, Thomas Lamarche

The Origin of Paper Money in Theory and Practice

Hosted by the Economics Department City University London 8-9 April 2010
Call for Papers
Paper and fiat monies have been used as means of exchange for many centuries, and their circulation has been accompanied by the emergence of a series of theories attempting to explain the dilemmas that they pose. The objective of this workshop is to explore and illuminate the origin and acceptance of paper money and paper monetary systems. We will therefore focus on the development of monetary systems and monetary theory within the context of paper money by combining empirical historical research with research on the history of economic theory specifically on money and credit.
Abstracts of not more than 400 words should be sent to the workshop organizers by 15
December 2009.
Workshop Organizers:
Claudia de Lozanne Jefferies: Economics Department, City University London.
E-mail: claudia.jefferies.1@city.ac.uk
Anders Ögren: EHFF – Institute for Economic and Business History Research at the
Stockholm School of Economics and EconomiX at the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La
Défense.
E-mail: anders.ogren@hhs.se

PCPE 2010

Prague Conference on Political Economy
New Perspectives in Austrian Economics and Political Economy of Freedom
March 19-21, 2010
Conference papers are to be submitted to Pavel Ryska (pcpe.director (at) gmail.com).
Memorial Lectures
The highlights of the PCPE are named lectures commemorating the heritage of two towering statures of economic science whose lives are bound with the city of Prague: Franz Cuhel and Friedrich Wieser. These lectures are associated with memorial prizes of the same name.

For more information, please visit http://pcpe.libinst.cz/pcpe10/

Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy

State of Crisis / Crisis State:
Domination and Resistance in the Wake of Neoliberalism(s)
May 7-8, 2010
Carleton University, Ottawa

The neoliberal era has been characterized by the privatization of public assets, the growth of a global division of labour, and the development of flexible and highly mobile forms of capital accumulation. Yet the intensification of this capitalist model since the early 1970s has come to a head in the last year, and the world has played witness to multiple global crises, including the worst economic catastrophe since the great depression, the highest recorded atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and the continuation of seemingly unending conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

As such, we posit that a critical interrogation of the neoliberal paradigm is in order. Do contemporary crises mark a break or rupture with neoliberalism or are they an expression of its continuity and retrenchment? Do the present crises of finance, ecology and justice represent the culmination of the neoliberal era, or are they endemic components of a renewable cycle of laissez-faire capitalism? Have we seen the emergence of a new form of social organization continually riddled with instability (the crisis state), or are we merely in a temporary state of crisis?

The Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy is an interdisciplinary, international meeting of graduate students currently inviting submissions that broadly reflect and interrogate these and other (dis)continuities. We welcome submissions that fit within the broader tradition of political economy, though perhaps the following themes may serve to orient contributions:

• The origins and early history of neoliberalism
• Periodization and theories of capitalist crisis
• The spatialization of crisis: urban neoliberalization and the politics of scale
• The financialization of capital: subprime loans and the mortgage crisis
• The green economy and the ecological limits of capital
• Security, migration and citizenship
• Accumulation by dispossession and colonialism in neoliberal times
• Gender, privatization, and reproductive economies
• Labour unions, precarious employment and permanent exceptionalism
• Post-neoliberalism? Socialism in the twenty-first century

We welcome individual submissions as well as panel proposals. For individual papers, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words; for panel proposals send a 100 word panel abstract along with paper abstracts of up to 250 words. Proposals can be submitted by email until January 31, 2010 to greatlakes2010@gmail.com.

Please refer to http://greatlakes2010.blogspot.com/  for more information.

Power & Knowledge

The 2nd International Conference, Tampere, September 6-8, 2010
Call for Session Proposals

Inspired by the great success of the first conference (Power: Forms, Dynamics and Consequences, September 22-24, 2008), we carry on probing questions of power. This time the conference concentrates on the links between power and knowledge.

As is well known, Michel Foucault argued that power and knowledge are like two sides of the same coin. There are however many other approaches and research traditions that tackle the role of knowledge production in affecting and constituting power relations.

What are the roles of science, research and research-based knowledge production in promoting policy models? Does scientific research or evidence-based consultancy save the world and lead us to a better future? What effects does the key role of knowledge production in contemporary societies have on power and politics? How are the established databases and statistical classifications of the public and private organizations constructed and reproduced? What is the role of everyday knowledge in society? What is the relationship between knowledge and resistance?

By bringing together scholars who approach these questions from different angles this conference will advance our understanding about power relations in social reality.

Keynote speakers will include:
- Patrick Carroll
- Gili S. Drori
- Susan Haack
- Sakari Hänninen
- Michael Mann
- Yuval Millo
- Soile Veijola
- (to be announced)

To send a session proposal and to get more information about the conference, please email a session title and abstract (100-200 words describing the session) to power2010@uta.fi

The conference website is in
http://www.uta.fi/power2010/

The latest day to submit the proposal is January 31st 2010. Call for papers will be launched after approved sessions are confirmed.

ESHET Young Scholar Session

The European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) invites young scholars (i.e. those who are working on or have just completed a PhD, regardless of their age) to submit their work to the Young Scholars Seminar to be held on the occasion of the ESHET Conference.

Four submissions will be selected: ESHET will cover board, accommodation and registration fees plus travel expenses up to 300 Euros. The authors of the selected papers will have 30 minutes each to present the paper and a senior scholar, appointed by the ESHET Council, will discuss it. Papers may be on any topic relevant to the history of economics, and are not restricted to the conference theme. ESHET encourages young scholars to participate in the conference. A one-year ESHET membership is offered to all young scholars who submit a paper.

Candidates should e-mail a paper no longer than 9000 words! to Professors Ragip Ege and Tiziano Raffaelli (ege@cournot.u-strasbg.fr  and t.raffaelli@fls.unipi.it ), by 10 January 2010. The results of the selection process will be communicated to the candidates by 15 February 2010. Papers that have not been selected will be considered for presentation at other conference sessions. 

HOPE Conference 2011

Call for Papers: "A history of observation in economics"

Conference organisers: Harro Maas & Mary Morgan

The annual HOPE Conference in 2011 will take place in late April or early May of that year, and the topic for the meeting will be the history of observation in economics (see discussion below). We invite expressions of interest and initial ideas for papers that might be developed in discussion with either of the convenors, and/or written paper proposals of 300-500 words to which they will respond: please email h.b.j.b.maas@uva.nl  and/or m.morgan@lse.ac.uk.

About the conference: By tradition, this is a small "invitation only" conference, where a small number of papers from an open call are accepted and all discussion of papers is in plenary mode. These papers are then put through a normal refereeing process for consideration for publication in the Annual Supplement to the journal History of Political Economy (HOPE) for 2012. (In other words, acceptance of a paper at the conference does not guarantee publication in the supplement, only consideration for
publication.) The conference is a 2-3 day meeting, where conference funds usually cover participants' hotel costs and meals, but only rarely their travel costs.

Recovering the lost history of observation in economics:
The aim of the 2011 HOPE Conference is to recover/uncover/investigate the now lost history of observation in economics.

Observation is ubiquitous in economics, but has become completely eclipsed from its history.
After the rise of statistical thinking in the nineteenth century, and the econometric revolution in the nineteen-thirties, economists, methodologists and historians of economics came to identify "observations" with the statistical data sets that were gathered by statistical bureaus all over the world. These data sets - pre-recorded by others - served as inputs for economists' models and the testing ground for theories, and so these measurements came to be considered as the "observations" that economists work with. This state of affairs fits well with the mid-twentieth-century emphasis in the philosophy of science on observational statements, rather than on the process of observing itself, just as it fits economists'
emphasis on measurement, quantification and testing. But it makes the multifarious practices and techniques (political) economists have used and do use to observe the world vanish from view.
It prevents an understanding of the (changes in) observational practices that can be witnessed not only in the past, but also at present.

From an historical point of view the idea that the observations of political economists can be identified with statistical (quantified) data is far from obvious. Most famous perhaps are Adam Smith's observations of the working of the pin factory (probably taken from secondary sources such as the French Encyclopédie) that informed his analysis of the division of labour. Marshall made field notes of conversations with politicians, businessmen, and working men - the kind of observations made famous by Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street - and these notes were somehow translated into his diagrams and theories of long and short term markets and international trade. Ronald Coase's famous paper on transactions costs was amongst other things motivated by his experiences observing American industry. Because of the difficulties economists like Phyllis Deane and Wolfgang Stolper experienced in forcing statistical data from colonial and post-colonial Africa into the mould of Stone's system of national income accounts, they travelled there to observe and ask local inhabitants about their economic ways of doing.

Contemporary discussions about the importance of "real time data" for economic modelling and policy, show the economist's awareness that there is a gap between the recording and what the recording intends to express. The renewed popularity of surveys and questionnaires to gather information, the still very recent rise of game theory and the laboratory as new tools and sites to investigate markets and to produce "evidence", the introduction of spectacular new visualising tools like the fMRI-scan to observe individuals, the collapse of certain econometric forecasting techniques in the face of the current financial crisis, all press us to re-investigate our received understanding of what observations are in economics, and how practices of observation changed through history.

Possible themes that might be addressed by papers for the conference include:
- Observation at the interface between
economists, policy makers and the public.
- Skills, tools and techniques of the observer
- Sites for observing (political economy club, statistical office, laboratory)
- Trusting local observers versus imposing central standards
- Purposes of the observer and ways of observing
- 'Staging': intervening in order to observe, observing in order to intervene
- Travelling, recalling and recording
We encourage contributions from different disciplinary backgrounds that enhance our understanding of the changing observational commitments of economists, government officials, travel writers, learned societies, official institutes and so forth. We aim at a conference and volume - a supplement to the journal History of Political Economy - covering a long time line, and a range of different media, sites and geographical areas.

Top

Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

ATHE NEW ECONOMICS AS 'MAINSTREAM' ECONOMICS

Thursday 28 January / Friday 29 January 2010
Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
A conference organised by the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics
Click here for detailed information.

The Effects of Recessions and Recoveries on the Well-being of Workers and Families Small Grants Competition

Deadline: January 29, 2010
The NPC seeks to fund research that will broad and/or deepen our understanding of the effects of the recessions and/or impact of increased federal spending through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or through other programs initiatives on the well-being of workers and families. Learn more...http://npc.umich.edu/opportunities/research_grants/2010_poverty_grants/index.php 

2010 Annual Meeting of the Society of Socio-Economists and Socio-Economics

1.Annual Meeting
Society of Socio-Economics (SOS)
Co-sponsored by the Tulane University School of Law
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Hilton New Orleans Riverside

There is still room for additional participants in the SOS Program on a wide range of socio - economic topics.
If you would like to participate in the SOS Annual Meeting Program e-mail name and phone number to socioeconomics@aol.com.

2. Annual Meeting
Section of Socio-Economics
Association of American Law Schools
8:45 - 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hilton New Orleans Riverside
- The Newsletter can also be downloaded at the following link:
http://journaloflawandsocioeconomics.com/NL090731-5.pdf

- A brief summary of both programs is set forth below the asterisks.
For more information on either program
e-mail name and phone number to
socio-economics@aol.com 

SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL, CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador
5-7 January 2010
http://www.SustainabilityConference.com 

The International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability aims to develop a holistic view of sustainability, in which environmental, cultural and economic issues are inseparably interlinked. It works in a multidisciplinary way, across diverse fields and taking varied perspectives in order to address the fundamentals of sustainability.

The Sustainability Conference is held annually in different locations around the world. The Conference was inaugurated in 2005 at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, USA. It was held at Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, Vietnam in 2006; University of Madras, Chennai, India in 2007; Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu Malaysia in 2008 and the University of Technology, Mauritius in 2009. We are pleased to hold next year's Conference at the University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador. In 2011, the Sustainability Conference will be held 5-7 January at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

The 2010 Conference features the following Plenary Speakers:
* Natarajan Ishwaran, UNESCO/University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
* Lucía Astudillo Loor, ICOM/University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador
* Katya Gonzalez Ripoll, Ministry of Culture, Bogota, Colombia
* John M. Whiteley, University of California, Irvine, USA
* Douglas Worts, Worldviews Consulting, Toronto, Canada
For more information about these Speakers, please visit the Conference website:
http://onsustainability.com/conference-2010/plenary-speakers.

In addition to Plenary Presentations, the Conference includes Parallel Presentations by practitioners, teachers and researchers. We invite you to respond to the Conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters submit their written papers for publication in the refereed International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability. If you are unable to attend the Conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in the Journal.

The deadline for the final round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 15 December 2010. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the Conference, including an online proposal submission form, may be found at the Conference website: http://www.SustainabilityConference.com/.

In 2011, the Sustainability Conference will be held 5-7 January at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Located on New Zealand's north Island, the city of Hamilton is an important center for manufacturing, research and education. The University of Waikato includes the internationally recognized School of Maori and Pacific Development, which plays an important role in sustaining Maori culture. For more details on the 2011 Conference, please visit the Conference website: http://onsustainability.com/conference-2011/.

We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope you will be able to join us in Cuenca in January 2010.

The Transformation of Money into Capital

Tuesday 8th December
6pm
Room 2.43 F-WB
Waterloo Campus KCL

“The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.”

N.B. We are reading Part II: Chapters 4-6 in preparation for this meeting.
Regards,
KCL Reading Capital

CAMBRIDGE KEYNES LECTURE 2010

Professor Lord Robert Skidelsky will give a public lecture on “Keynes: The Return of the Master” in the Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge at 5 pm on Tuesday 2 February 2010.

Please visit http://www.postkeynesian.net/updates.htm  for recent updates to the PKSG website.

ADVANCE CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: KEYNES SEMINAR LIVE

The first session next term will take place at 5.30 pm on Tuesday 26 January 2009 at Robinson College, Cambridge. Jesper Jespersen will speak on his new book “Macroeconomic Methodology”. Further details at http://www.postkeynesian.net/keynes.htm 

Please visit http://www.postkeynesian.net/updates.htm  for recent updates to the PKSG website.

HES Sessions Program at ASSA 2010


Jan. 3, 10:15 am, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, M105 HES The Integration of Micro and Macroeconomics From a Historical Perspective (B2)

Presiding: JOHN DAVIS, Marquette University PEDRO GARCIA DUARTE, Universidade de São Paulo - Not Going Away:
Representative-agent Model and Microfoundations in Recent Macroeconomics D. WADE HANDS, University of Pudget Sound - The Rise and Fall of Walrasian Economics: the Keynes Effect KEVIN D. HOOVER, Duke University - Microfoundational Programs PHILIP E. MIROWSKI, Notre Dame University - How Cowles Neutered Keynes and Laid the Groundwork for Neoclassical Macroeconomics
Discussant: PERRY MEHRLING, Barnard College

Jan. 3, 12:30 pm, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, M105 AEA/HES Complexity in the History of Economic Thought (B2)

Presiding: MAURO BOIANOVSKY, Universidade de Brasilia J. BARKLEY ROSSER JR., James Madison University - Chaos Theory Before Lorenz JOHN B. DAVIS, Marquette University - The Emergence of Agent-based Modeling in Economics PHILIP E. MIROWSKI, Notre Dame University - Complexity as Excuse versus Complexity as Inspiration DAVID COLANDER, Middlebury College, CASEY ROTHSCHILD , Massachusetts Institute of Technology - The Sins of the Sons of Samuelson
Discussants: WADE HANDS, University of Pudget Sound ELIAS KHALIL, University of Richmond JUDY KLEIN, Mary Baldwin College MICHAEL MAKOWSKY, Towson University


Jan. 4, 10:15 am, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, M107 HES 100 years of Walras's Death (B3)

Presiding: WADE HANDS, University of Pudget Sound MICHEL DE VROEY, Université Catholique de Louvain - Marshall and
Walras: Incompatible Bedfellows?
FRANCO DONZELLI, Universita degli Studi di Milano - Edgeworth versus Walras on Equilibrium and Disequilibrium ALAN KIRMAN, Groupement de Recherche en Economie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Walrasian Theory: The Starting Point for a Journey Down the Wrong Road?
PASCAL BRIDEL, Université de Lausanne - The Normative Origins of General Equilibrium Analysis
Discussants: JEAN PIERRE POTIER, Université Lumiere Lyon 2 DAVID COLANDER, Middlebury College CASEY ROTHSCHILD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Jan. 4, 2:30 pm, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, M107 HES Financial Crises and the History of Economic Thought (B1)

Presiding: SANDRA PEART, University of Richmond PERRY MEHRLING, Barnard College - New Lombard Street THOMAS HUMPHREY, Federal Reserve Bank-Richmond - The Lender of Last Resort in the History of Economic Thought SANDRA PEART, University of Richmond, DAVID LEVY, George Mason University - Economists, Cartoons and Crises
Discussants: KEVIN D. HOOVER, Duke University BENJAMIN FRIEDMAN, Harvard University

The Pink Tide: Reconfiguring politics, power and political economy in the Americas?

22-24 January 2010, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
This conference brings together academics, community scholars, activists and practitioners to create a unique space of dialogue and discussion about the shift to the left in governments and social movements across North, Central and South America.
With over 60 contributors from 13 countries presenting in paper format, workshops, open forums, round-table debates and through film and music, this aims to be an inclusive and interdisciplinary conference with diverse topics ranging from the political economy of the ‘Pink Tide’ to social movement knowledge production in the Americas. It is the organisers belief that our understanding of the development of alternatives to neoliberalism can be enhanced by intra-regional as well as cross-continental dialogue.
The Pink Tide Conference aims to foster the co-construction of knowledge relevant not only to the academics from the global North and South, but also to movements and communities struggling for social justice across the Americas and in Europe.
Key Speakers:
Noam Chomsky
John Holloway
Liam Kane
William Robinson
Marina Sitrin
Reduced rate by 10 Dec 09 – registration ends 10 Jan 2010
Further information:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/PinkTideConference/index.php 

A esquerdização das Américas: Poder, reconfiguração e economia política?

De 22 a 24 de janeiro de 2010, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Esta conferência oferece a acadêmicos, líderes comunitários, ativistas de movimentos sociais e profissionais engajados em diferentes causas e práticas um espaço único de diálogo e debate sobre o fenômeno da esquerdização das Américas – desde o nível de políticas de governo aos movimentos sociais de base.
Com mais de 60 palestrantes de 13 países apresentando seus trabalhos em diferentes formatos – do tradicional ao inovador, através de debates, oficinas, fóruns abertos, mesas-redondas, filmes e música – esta será uma conferência inclusiva e interdisciplinar que abordará tópicos desde a economia política do fenômeno de esquerdização das Américas até a produção de conhecimento dentro dos movimentos.
Acreditamos que a compreensão das alternativas emergentes em face ao neoliberalismo deve ser fomentada através de diálogos intra-regionais e intercontinentais.
A conferência almeja prover um espaço para a construção conjunta de conhecimento que seja relevante não só aos acadêmicos do Norte e do Sul global, mas também aos movimentos e às comunidades que lutam por justiça social nas Américas e na Europa.
Palestrantes convidados:
Noam Chomsky
John Holloway
Liam Kane
William Robinson
Marina Sitrin
Taxa reduzida até 10 dez 2009 – último registro 10 Jan 2010
Mais informações:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/PinkTideConference/index.php

La Ola de Izquerdizacion: Reconfigurando La política, el poder y la economía política en las Américas?

22-24 Enero 2010, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Esta conferencia espera reunir a académicos, profesionales, activistas y educadores populares para crear un espacio de debate único que permita discutir y dialogar sobre el cambio de los gobiernos de izquierda y los movimientos sociales en Norte, Centro y Sur de América.
Son más de 60 trabajos presentados desde 13 países diferentes, contribuciones por medio de papers, foros, workshops, mesas de debate, películas y expresiones musicales, cuya intensión hacer de esta conferencia un espacio inclusivo e interdisciplinario, que incluya tópicos desde la economía política de esta Ola de Izquierdización hasta el conocimiento producido al interior de los movimientos sociales. Es la creencia de sus organizadores que nuestro entendimiento sobre el desarrollo de alternativas al neoliberalismo puede ser profundizado por medio de un dialogo intra- regional e inter- continental.
La conferencia La Ola de Izquierdización tiene como objetivo profundizar la co- construcción del conocimiento no solo entre los académicos de los hemisferios Norte y Sur, sino que también entre las comunidades que luchan por la justicia social a lo largo de Europa y de América.
Conferencistas:
Noam Chomsky
John Holloway
Liam Kane
William Robinson
Marina Sitrin
Descuentos en Inscripción hasta el 10 de Diciembre 2009.
Inscripción cierra el 15 de Enero de 2010.
Más información:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/PinkTideConference/index.php

The Crisis in Europe

Depression economics –social crisis – state policy –alternatives

International workshop by transform! europe
Vienna, 15th/16th January 2010
please see the following link for more information: http://www.transform-network.net/uploads/media/Folder_transform_crisis_of_europe_2010-01-15.pdf 
Agenda
Friday, January 15th
13.00–13.15h
Welcome and opening by
Elisabeth Gauthier (transform! europe)
13.15–14.45h
Joachim Bischoff (editor of the monthly review Sozialismus): Overaccumulation of capital: what does it mean for
the understanding of the current crisis?
14.45–15.00h
Break
15.00–16.30h
Bob Jessop (Lancaster University)
The role of the state today: internationalization and the nation state
16.30–17.00h
Break
17.00–20.00h
Francisco Louça (Lisbon, tbc)
Europe in the world economic crisis: comeback of Keynesian politics or launching of a »financial coup d’état« (D. Harvey)?
Interventions by Euclides Tsakolotos (University of Athens), Peter Fleissner (Univ. prof. em.,
Vienna), Jiri Malek (transform!Czech Republic) and others (Spain, Italy...)
Saturday, January 16th
9.00–11.30h
Maria Karamessini (University Pantheion, Athens)
The social crisis in Europe: politics of precariousness or shift to a new social model of regulation
Interventions by Stephen Bouquin (University Amiens France), Asbjörn Wahl (Norway, Trade unionist, tbc), Lutz Brangsch (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Berlin)
11.30–12.00h
Break
12.00–15.00h
What are the lessons of the crisis and how can they be communicated?
Proposals and projects of »the left of the left«
Round table with:
Thomas Händel (MEP)
Jürgen Klute (MEP)
Miguel Portas (MEP)
Francis Wurtz (former leader of GUE/NGL in EP)
Inputs from transform!, European Left Party and members of GUE/NGL-Group
Walter Baier (transform!) is chairing the debate
Languages: English, German, French
Important: registration until December, 20th via E-Mail: office@transform.or.at

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Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

Franklin & Marshall College

The Department of Economics at Franklin & Marshall College invites applications for a three-year position at the Visiting Instructor or Visiting Assistant Professor level, beginning Fall 2010 and pending administrative approval. Teaching experience is required. Teaching load is 3/2 and may include participation in the College's general education program. The teaching responsibilities will include teaching Introduction to Economic Principles and/or the Introduction to Economic Perspectives, statistics, and an elective course chosen in consultation with the Department. We especially welcome applicants who can offer a data rich course on the US economy and the global economy, covering a broad range of areas. We strongly recommend visiting our web site at http://www.fandm.edu/economics.xml  for more information about our department. Salary and benefits are competitive and commensurate with qualifications.

Franklin & Marshall College is a highly selective liberal arts college with a demonstrated commitment to cultural pluralism. EOE

Candidates should send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, graduate transcript, three letters of recommendation, a teaching statement, a research statement, and teaching evaluations to Tami Lantz, Department Coordinator, Department of Economics, Franklin & Marshall College, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, PA 17604. Applications may be submitted electronically by email to tami.lantz@fandm.edu. Please reference three-year visitor position in your letter of application.

Email for Applications: tami.lantz@fandm.edu
FAX for Applications: 717-291-4369
For more information, phone: 717-291-3916

PostDoc in Technology Governance

The Estonian Ministry of Education and the Estonian Science Foundation will offer new research positions commencing in 2010 through its "Mobilitas" scheme. The purpose of the scheme is to develop and diversify Estonian research potential through scientific mobility and exchange of experience, and thereby to activate international exchange of knowledge, and support the development of careers of young researchers. Positions will be awarded on a competitive basis and will be full time for two or three years.

The Technology Governance program of the Tallinn University of Technology welcomes expressions of interest from early career researchers (PhD awarded within the last 5 years, counting from March 2, 2010) interested in applying through our program. See for our research www.technologygovernance.eu

For more details, please contact Prof. Rainer Kattel ( rainer.kattel@ttu.ee ). Promising candidates for a Mobilitas grant will receive assistance from our department in applying for the grant and in developing a detailed research proposal.

Remuneration in the postdoctoral research grant
For remuneration and taxes payable thereon postdoctoral researchers will be paid 300 000 EEK (19 173 EUR) per year. To cover research costs, a budget of 50 000 EEK (3 196 EUR) will be paid per year in non-experimental science disciplines. The postdoctoral researchers whose employment entails relocation from one country to another will receive a one-time relocation allowance in the sum of 400 000 EEK (25
565 EUR). The relocation allowance will be paid to the postdoctoral researchers who have not resided or worked (incl. studied) in Estonia longer than six months during the three years preceding the date of submission of the application.

The assessment criteria for the scheme includes a consideration of the research environment of the host department. If your research falls within the area characterized above and you are interested in applying for a fellowship, we invite you to contact Prof. Rainer Kattel
( rainer.kattel@ttu.ee ) outlining the proposed research area. Please also send a short CV.
Details on the scheme can be found at: http://www.etf.ee/index.php?page=298&
Closing dates:
Expression of interest of the candidate - 15 January 2010.
Full application (by invitation only) - 2 March 2010.

Lancaster University

Two positions in Sociology and Cultural Political Economy at Lancaster University Research Associate (Grade 6)
£24,877 - £28,839

You will join the Sociology Department and work with the Cultural Political Economy Research Cluster on discursive aspects of the global economic crisis. You should have finished or be close to completing a relevant PhD and have research experience in corpus linguistics and, importantly, critical discourse analysis. Principal Investigator is Bob Jessop and the post lasts 36 months. Closing date: to be confirmed
- sometime between 18 and 31 December 2009. Requests for further details and inquiries can be addressed to Bob Jessop. Starting date as soon as possible, ideally before 31 March 2010. To apply, please visit Human Resources ( http://www.personnel.lancs.ac.uk/CurrentVacancies.aspx  
) or Sociology ( http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology ) websites and/or contact r.jessop@lancaster.ac.uk

The research is part of a 3-year Economic and Research Council Funded Project on the Cultural Political Economy of Crisis and Crisis- Management. You will be compiling a corpus of texts from the USA, UK, Germany, the EU, and international institutions, conducting a corpus analysis, and selecting texts for a more detailed critical discourse analysis. There will be some international travel involved and a working knowledge of German would, obviously, be an advantage (though we might find ways to work round this if you do not and are otherwise well-qualified). Other parts of the research address the question of whether the forms, interpretations, crisis policies, and medium-term approaches to crisis-management provide evidence for the existence of distinct varieties of capitalism, convergence towards a neo-liberal regime, or adaptation to diverse constraints in an integrated world market.

Research Student (3 years' Home/EU fees and maintenance)

You will join the Sociology Department and work with the Cultural Political Economy Research Cluster on an aspect of the continuing financial and economic crisis. The research is conducted independently but will be part of a 3-year Economic and Research Council Funded Project on the Cultural Political Economy of Crisis and Crisis- Management. The preferred topics are either: (a) an analysis of how the current and previous major economic and financial crises were managed in different historical periods in the 20th century; or (b) an analysis of how current figures, parties, institutions, and so on, have used historical parallels to interpret the current crisis and to draw policy lessons, positive or negative, for how best to deal with the current crisis. You should have an undergraduate degree and, ideally, a master's degree in a relevant subject. Command of a major non-English language relevant to the research is desirable. Closing date: 05 January 2010. Starting date: as soon as possible. To apply or for further information please visit our Sociology website ( http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology  
) and/or contact Bob Jessop: r.jessop@lancaster.ac.uk

University of Greenwich

Greenwich Campus

LECTURER IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ECONOMICS – (REF: 01419)

As part of our on-going development strategy, the Business School is seeking a Lecturer in International Business Economics. You will be part of the International Business Department which provides a range of successful undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the fields of International Business and Economics.

The school is seeking an academic capable of conducting quality research and lecturing on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the areas of Business Economics, Institutional Economics, Financial Economics, Microfinance or a related area. The role will involve conducting research in a relevant discipline. You may also be involved in developing new part time and flexible learning courses in your area of teaching and research specialism.

Salary Scale: £32,963 - £46,881 per annum inclusive of London Weighting.

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

To obtain further particulars and an application form visit our website www.gre.ac.uk, email Jobs@gre.ac.uk  or write to the Personnel Office, University of Greenwich, Avery Hill Road, London, SE9 2UG quoting reference. Applications should be returned by 5pm on 17 December 2009.

http://www.gre.ac.uk/recruitment


VISITING PROFESSORS AND RESEARCH FELLOWS

To support our rapidly growing PhD programme, the Department of International Business and Economics at the University of Greenwich is seeking Visiting Professors and Research Fellows to join supervisory teams and support research funding bids.
The appointments, on a 0.2 fractional basis, may suit London-based faculty with a particular interest in our research areas or senior academics in semi-retirement, European faculty with an interest in periodic visits to London, or those from farther afield who may wish to spend a 2-3 month period in London annually.
Based in a stunning baroque world heritage site on the Thames, the Department of International Business and Economics specialises in the study of the institutional structures and regulation of international business. The Department hosts a number of vibrant research groups, including the Public Services International Research Unit, the Centre for Business Network Analysis, the Centre for Indian Business, the Economic Governance Research Group, and the China Business Network. In the latest Research Assessment Exercise, two thirds of our research was rated as of international standard or world leading, and our economics teaching was tied-second in the UK in the latest National Student Satisfaction Survey.
Candidates must have previously supervised at least 3 PhDs to successful completion. We are particularly interested in candidates with expertise in financial markets, microfinance, corporate governance and regulation, business or industrial economics and heterodox perspectives on these. Please note that the title Professor in the UK is a senior academic of international standing, somewhat equivalent to an endowed chair in the US.
Application by covering letter and cv to:
Dr Bruce Cronin, Head of Department.
b.cronin@greenwich.ac.uk
www.gre.ac.uk

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

INNOVATION ECONOMIST

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – a Washington, DC think tank – has a temporary opening (one year) with the possibility of renewal for additional years for an economist with a research interest in neo-Schumpertarian economics, with a particular focus on the economics of global warming and the role of innovation in addressing it.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Plan and conduct a policy research program focused on the limitations of the conventional neo-classical doctrine in providing effective solutions and the role of innovation and innovation economics in addressing climate change.
• Write policy reports, blog posts, op eds, and other policy materials on the role of innovation in addressing climate change.
• Speak at forums and events.
• Organize policy conferences, roundtables, and other events on the role of innovation in addressing climate change.
• Engage in outreach to Capitol Hill to help members and staff better understand the role of innovation in climate change.

Qualifications Requirements:

• A minimum of a Master’s Degree and ideally a Ph.D. in Public Policy or Economics, ideally with a focus on the economics of growth and/or environmental economics.
• An ability to write for policy audiences and an understanding of the public policy process.
• Strong understanding of various, competing economic schools of thought, with solid understanding of neo-Schumpertarian economics (e.g., innovation economics, endogenous growth theory, evolutionary economics).
• Strong understanding of the process of technological innovation.

ITIF is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy think tank committed to articulating and advancing a pro-productivity, pro-innovation and pro-technology public policy agenda in Washington and the states. We believe that innovation is central to spurring economic growth and addressing key societal challenges and that public policies should actively work to support innovation. ITIF works to help policy makers around the world understand the critical importance of innovation. We focus on technology policy issues such as broadband, e-commerce and e-government, privacy and copyright, research policy, trade and innovation, green energy innovation, and others. We produce publications, hold events, meet with policy makers, speak at forums and engage in other activities to shape technology policy.

ITIF offers a competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. Send resume with cover letter and salary requirements to: Director of Personnel, ITIF, 1101 K. Street, NW, Suite 610, Washington, DC, 20005. Fax (202) 638-4922; or email info@itif.org.  View our website at www.itif.org.

Columbia College Chicago

Tenure-Track Economics Faculty
Department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences
School of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Columbia College Chicago
-SEARCH REOPENED-
Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution of over 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students, emphasizing arts, media and communication in a liberal arts setting. The Department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences is responsible for providing courses in the social sciences, history, the humanities, and foreign languages, and offers a Cultural Studies major and minors in Latino/Hispanic Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, Black World Studies, as well as Cultural Studies.
Responsibilities include: a full-time teaching load (3/3), scholarship and professional activity, and service to the college and community.
We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits package. Columbia College Chicago encourages women, GLBT, disabled, minority classified, and international individuals to apply for all positions. Applications must be received by February 5, 2010. Please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, evidence of teaching excellence, a writing sample of research/scholarship, an official graduate transcript, and three letters of reference to: HHSS1126@colum.edu
www.colum.edu
The Department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago invites applications for a new tenure-track position in Economics, starting in Fall 2010 (contingent upon funding). We are strongly interested in candidates who are able to successfully integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in a general education context, teaching in our LAS Core Curriculum to students who are non-majors. The ideal applicant should have teaching and research interests in at least two of the following areas: economic history, political economy, economic development, game theory, or industrial organizations; international, behavioral, resource and environmental, labor, public, or urban/regional economics. A completed Ph.D. in economics or related field is required at time of hire. Teaching experience at the undergraduate level is also required.
Application Information
Contact: Columbia College
Email Address: HHSS1126@colum.edu


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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

Keynes Seminar

24 November Giuseppe Fontana, University of Leeds Money, Uncertainty and Time
discussant: Alberto Feduzi, Judge Business School
10 November Malcolm Sawyer, University of Leeds
Competition and money in Keynes (and Kalecki)
discussant: Mark Hayes, Robinson College
Please visit the following link for videos, powerpoints, and background papers of the seminars: http://www.postkeynesian.net/keynes.htm

Also, two new working papers have been added (members only access)
Jesper Jespersen on “Keynes’s lost distinction between industrial and financial circulation of money.”
Paul Ormerod on “The Current Crisis and the Culpability of Macroeconomic Theory.”
Please visit the following link to access the papers (members only access): http://www.postkeynesian.net/

A Transformational Conception of Evolutionary

Processes
Nuno MARTINS
Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Portuguese Catholic University,
Faculdade de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Rua Diogo Botelho,
1327, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal. E-mail: nmartins@porto.ucp.pt

Abstract
The transformational conception of social activity provides a non-deterministic framework within which evolutionary models of natural selection can be located, and constitutes an alternative to sociological and economic traditions that adopt a deterministic conception of social processes, in which the causal effects of social structures, or technology, for example, are conceptualized in a deterministic way. Natural selection processes can be conceptualized as a more specific instance of this broad (non-deterministic) transformational conception, and hence can provide additional insight whenever addressing cases where a more specific model is required.
Keywords: transformational conception of social activity, evolutionary processes, economic methodology, technology, social structures.

See link for paper: http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/eier/6/1/71/_pdf

Is Development Back in the Doha Round?

New Policy Brief Questions New-Found “Gains from Trade”
As trade ministers prepare to assemble November 30 in Geneva for further WTO talks, they are hearing another round of new and refurbished projections of how much wealthier the world might be after liberalizing trade. The upcoming ministerial is no different, and neither, fundamentally, are the projections, notwithstanding one recent claim – cited by WTO director Pascal Lamy – that an ambitious Doha deal could deliver $300-$700 billion in global welfare gains, with the benefits “well-balanced” between developed and developing countries.
These recent projections, from the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, contrast with the World Bank’s widely publicized 2005 estimates of global gains from a “likely Doha scenario” of less than $100 billion, with just $16 billion going to developing countries. Did economists find another $150-$350 billion in benefits for developing countries that the World Bank missed in 2005? Is development back in the Doha Round?
The answer, of course, is no. The purpose of this policy brief from the Geneva-based South Centre, by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, is to look behind the press releases to examine the recent economic projections, review previous estimates, and put these seemingly large numbers in their proper context. As before, the claims that developing countries will be the big winners from Doha rest on shaky assumptions, controversial economic modeling, misleading representations of the benefits, and disregard for the high costs of Doha-style liberalization for many developing countries
Gallagher and Wise find that:
- The gains in the new study from agriculture and NAMA are of the same order of magnitude as previous studies, about $100 billion, with the vast majority going to rich countries.
- The new estimates for services, sectorals, and trade facilitation are highly speculative, use methodologies that are unproven, and assume far more ambitious outcomes than seem at all likely at this point.
- Peterson finds high gains in services and sectorals because they assume that developing countries will make big concessions and that those same countries are big winners (from lower prices) even if they lose significant parts of those sectors to imports.
- The estimates of $365 billion in gains from trade facilitation are particularly exaggerated, because they assume not only agreement on reforms but resources for the vast investments in infrastructure and human capital needed to make them happen.
- The claims of “balance” are unfounded, as developing countries receive less than one-third of the projected income gains. Previous modeling has shown that many poorer regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, are projected to be worse off after an agreement.
- As with most such projections, researchers disregard the costs of liberalization for developing countries. Specifically:
- Tariff losses just from NAMA reforms are estimated at $64 billion, far more than the estimated gains to developing countries. As countries struggle to recover from the financial crisis, this is not the time to cut needed government revenues.
- Terms of trade for developing countries are projected to decline significantly, as they shift back toward primary production rather than forward toward industrial or knowledge-based development.
The authors conclude with a series of recommendations to put development back into the Doha Round. In particular, they call for a moratorium on North-South preferential trade agreements, which exploit the asymmetric nature of bargaining power between developed and developing nations, divert trade away from nations with true comparative advantages, and curtail the ability of developing countries to deploy effective policies for development.
Download “Is Development Back in the Doha Round?”
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/SouthCtrPB18IsDevBackNov09.pdf

Unions and the Crisis: Ways Ahead?

We are pleased to announce that a new Global Labour Column article has been published on the Column's website.

The article "Unions and the Crisis: Ways Ahead?" has been contributed by Prof. Gregory Albo. It discusses the difficulties faced by trade unions in responding to capitalist strategies in the workplace and beyond, highlighting new challenges and opportunities in the context of the crisis. It also addresses the issue of possible alliances with social movements. Gregory Albo, is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto. He teaches courses on the foundations of political economy, Canadian political economy, alternatives to capitalism, and democratic administration..

Please find the full articles at the following link http://column.global-labour-university.org/2009/12/unions-and-crisis-ways-ahead.html.  We encourage you to post your responses to the articles by using the "comment" box below the article.

Also, please note that the next column will be published on the 22nd of December.

A THREATENING LINK BETWEEN WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/tapia_granados/files/a_threatening_link_f5___refs.pdf

a paper showing how the annual increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 correlates with the annual absolute change in world economic output ("world GDP"). Indeed, CO2 concentrations and world GDP seem to be cointegrated.

The results of the paper mean that, for instance, an annual growth of the world GDP at an annual rate of 3% will associate with increasingly greater annual increases of CO2 concentrations, since an annual increase of the world GDP at a constant rate imply that each successive year the absolute increase in world GDP will be greater. Since for earth scientists the present levels of CO2 at almost 390 parts per million (ppm) are deleterious for global climate, and only levels around 350 ppm would be compatible with the stabilization of world climate, the policy implications of a link between world GDP and CO2 concentrations are obvious.

Global warming is a major economic issue that was not around in the times of Smith, Marx or Keynes. If we really care about economic perspectives for our grandchildren, should we deal with a new issue with tools and ideas received from the past?

One million climate jobs now!

A commission for four British trades unions argues the case for the immediate creation of a million new jobs all of which reduce green house gases - and urges the British government to create a national climate service.

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/resources/green_workplaces/green_campaigns/one-million-climate-jobs-now.cfm   
 

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

CASE Newsletter

e-Newsletter
August –October 2009
http://www.case.com.pl/plik--27317454.pdf?nlang=710
Highlights from the eNewsletter

The Return of History: From Consensus to Crisis
CASE Hosts 2009 International Conference
CASE introduces 22 new Fellows!
Meet our new Fellows

Project Highlights

- Analyzing the Euro-Mediterranean Road map until 2010 and beyond
- Trade and Economic Integration in the Euro-Mediterranean Region (EUROMED) project publishes its final report
- Trade Integration: Impact on the European Neighborhood
- Eastern Neighborhood—Economic Potential and Future Development Project releases CASE Network Report
- Assessing Key Competences and Teacher Education
- Project publishes study on education in the 27 EU member states
- Do higher research and development investments increase innovation inflows in firms?
- Microdyn Competitiveness in the Knowledge Based Economy presents report on innovation inflows in Central European firms
- New EuropeAid Projects!
- CASE wins Lot 7 and Lot 11 EuropeAid Framework Contracts
- Golden era potential falls short of meeting development challenges
- UNICEF Public Financial Management Reform project publishes findings

Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation

Chère Madame, cher Monsieur,
Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que l’éditorial de décembre du Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation, « Voitures électriques : Un marché juteux pour les constructeurs automobiles », est disponible ici :
http://rrifr.univ-littoral.fr/?p=165

Research Network of Innovation

Dear Madam, Dear Sir
We are pleased to inform you that the editorial for December from the Research Network of Innovation « Electric Vehicles : A Profitable Market for the Motor Industry » is available here :
http://rrien.univ-littoral.fr/?p=117

Nova Economia

The current issue of Nova Economia features the following articles on "Amazon and the Development":

Hugo Eduardo da Gama Cerqueira
Apresentação

Douglas Sathler
Roberto L. Monte-Mór
José Alberto Magno de Carvalho
As redes para além dos rios: urbanização e desequilíbrios na Amazônia brasileira

Sérgio Rivero
Oriana Almeida
Saulo Ávila
Wesley Oliveira
Pecuária e desmatamento: uma análise das principais causas diretas do desmatamento na Amazônia

Alisson F. Barbieri
Richard E. Bilsborrow
Dinâmica populacional, uso da terra e geração de renda: uma análise longitudinal para domicílios rurais na Amazônia equatoriana

Rodolfo Coelho Prates
Maurício Serra
O impacto dos gastos do governo federal no desmatamento no Estado do Pará

Marcelo Bentes Diniz
José Nilo de Oliveira Junior
Nicolino Trompieri Neto
Márcia Jucá Teixeira Diniz
Causas do desmatamento da Amazônia: uma aplicação do teste de causalidade de Granger acerca das principais fontes de desmatamento nos municípios da Amazônia Legal brasileira

Sérgio Roberto Bacury de Lira
Márcio Luiz Monteiro da Silva
Rosenira Siqueira Pinto
Desigualdade e heterogeneidade no desenvolvimento da Amazônia no século XXI

Vitor Marcos Gregório
O progresso a vapor: navegação e desenvolvimento na Amazônia do século XIX

All articles are available for download at http://www.face.ufmg.br/novaeconomia/

GDAE News

11/19/2009
GDAE Announcements

GDAE BROWN BAG LUNCH SERIES

Tuesday December 1, 12:00-1:00PM

“The Global Poverty Implications of an Earth Atmospheric Trust”
Brian Roach, Research Associate, Global Development And Environment Institute


GDAE Brown Bag Lunches are informal presentations of current research taking place at the Global Development And Environment Institute. Brown Bag lunches will take place between 12:00-1:00PM in GDAE’s conference room on the 3rd floor of its offices at 44 Teele Ave on Tufts Medford Campus. Directions are available at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/contact_us.html

 
Jillian Gladstone has joined GDAE as a graduate research assistant working with the Globalization program on its expanding communications work. She is in the first year of the three-year Fletcher-Friedman joint masters program where she is focusing on sustainable agriculture and development economics. She brings strong communications background from previous work in human rights and at Waterkeeper, where she worked on factory farm pollution, among other things.

Beginning in January, Elen Shrestha will join R&P to serve as a research assistant on projects conducted by GDAE Senior Researcher Kevin P. Gallagher. Elen holds a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Smith College and is concentrating on Development Economics and International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School.


Congratulations to Kevin Gallagher whose recent Guardian article, “Trading away our future in China” appeared in Chinese. Click here for a link to the article 

IIPPE in brief

Highlights include the call for papers for the 1st IIPPE Conference to be held in Crete, 10-12 September 2010, as well as several panel reports from the recent IIPPE workshop in Ankara.

Please see attached file entitled "newsletter_iippe__nov 09" for the newsletter.

Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM), Newsletter No 00-09

CONTENTS
A. SPECIAL ISSUE OF INTERVENTION
B. CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: INSTITUTE FOR COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF ECONOMY (ICAE), INSTITUT FÜR DIE GESAMTANALYSE DER WIRTSCHAFT, 3.–5.12.2009 (IN GERMAN)
C. CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: WORKSHOP ORGANIZED BY THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT (ESHET) AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CASTILLA-LA MANCHA ON THE RECESSION OF 2008, 21-22 JANUARY 2010
D. CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: THE NEW ECONOMICS AS ‘MAINSTREAM’ ECONOMICS, CAMBRIDGE, 28-29 JANUARY 2010
E. CALL FOR PAPERS: KEYNES GESELLSCHAFT, 15.-16.2.2010 (IN GERMAN)
F. CALL FOR PAPERS: AK POLITISCHE ÖKONOMIE, 16.-18.4.2010 (IN GERMAN)
G. NEW PUBLICATIONS/BUCHVORSTELLUNG

Click here to read the journal.

International Journal of Political Economy

Volume 38 Number 3 / Fall 2009 of International Journal of Political Economy is now available on the mesharpe.metapress.com web site at http://mesharpe.metapress.com.

This issue contains:
Editor's Introduction: Prospects and Challenges for Development Theory and Policy in the Twenty-first Century
Mario Seccareccia

Revisiting Development in the Twenty-First Century
Ignacy Sachs

Keynes and Sustainable Development
Eric Berr

Mobilizing Domestic Resources: Employer of Last Resort as a National Development Strategy to Achieve the Internationally Agreed on Development Goals
Jan Kregel

Why Foreign Savings Fail to Cause Growth
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, Paulo Gala

Mexico's Economic Prospects Reconsidered
Julio López G.

LEVY NEWS

Public Policy Brief No. 106, 2009
Can Euroland Survive?
Stephanie A. Kelton and L. Randall Wray

The controversial title of this brief is based on a belief that the nature of the euro itself limits Euroland's fiscal policy space. The nations that have adopted the euro face “market-imposed” fiscal constraints on borrowing because they are not sovereign countries.
Research Associate Stephanie A. Kelton and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray warn that the prospects for stabilizing the euro appear grim unless these nations can avert market-induced financial constraints—for example, by establishing a sizable European Union budget and giving the European Parliament fiscal authority on par with that of the U.S. Congress. Since such measures are likely to be politically, culturally, and socially difficult, a trend toward dissolution remains a possibility.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Public Policy Brief No. 105, 2009
It Isn’t Working: Time for More Radical Policies
Éric Tymoigne and L. Randall Wray

The Obama administration’s efforts with regard to the financial crisis have largely focused on preserving the financial interests of major banks. Research Associate Éric Tymoigne and Wray believe that maintaining the status quo is not the solution, since re-creating the financial conditions that led to disaster will set the stage for a recurrence of the Great Depression or a Japanese-style “lost decade.” The financial bailout, they say, has crowded out more sensible spending policies.
The authors describe the leveraging of income and equity by households, firms, and financial institutions as the underlying cause of the crisis. They recommend federal spending programs that directly provide jobs and sustain employment, thereby helping to restore the creditworthiness of borrowers, the profitability of firms, and the fiscal position of state and federal budgets. The government's programs will not work unless they deal with the core issue: many financial institutions are probably insolvent and should not be saved because they form a barrier to sustainable recovery.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being
Has Progress Been Made in Alleviating Racial Economic Inequality?
Thomas Masterson, Ajit Zacharias, and Edward N. Wolff

In this report, Research Scholar Thomas Masterson and Senior Scholars Ajit Zacharias and Edward N. Wolff examine trends in economic well-being between 1959 and 2007 based on the race/ethnicity of households. They find that changes in household wealth and net government expenditure are the key elements in the story that unfolds about racial differences.
The level of racial disparity has stagnated over the past 40 years. The experience of the 1960s, which includes poverty alleviation, public education, affirmative action, and increased public sector employment for nonwhites, shows that government policy can be instrumental in diminishing racial inequality. Therefore, it is imperative to contemplate serious policy initiatives to address this issue, such as a proactive strategy that combines elements of both asset building and job creation.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Working Paper No. 582, November 2009
Minsky Moments, Russell Chickens, and Gray Swans: The Methodological Puzzles of the Financial Instability Analysis
Alessandro Vercelli

This is a companion paper that discusses methodological issues of a heuristic model based on Hyman P. Minsky's financial instability hypothesis (FIH) that was developed by Vercelli in Working Paper No. 579 (see below). In the author's view, these issues have hindered the development of a research program based on Minsky's insights.
Vercelli points out that Minsky's contributions are topical as a result of his underlying vision concerning the workings of a sophisticated monetary economy, not his analytical constructs. The FIH's relevance for mitigating financial crises has increased with time and will continue to do so, if we analyze Minsky's insights and fully understand his powerful methodological approach.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Working Paper No. 581, October 2009
Lessons from the New Deal: Did the New Deal Prolong or Worsen the Great Depression?
Greg Hannsgen and Dimitri B. Papadimitriou

This paper forms the basis for Public Policy Brief No. 104 and Policy Note 2009/10. The thrust of Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen and President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou's analysis is that the National Industrial Recovery Act and the National Labor Relations Act did not prolong or worsen the Great Depression. Rather, the New Deal era strengthens the case for the effectiveness of fiscal policies and jobs programs.
The authors note that John Maynard Keynes's general theory of an economy is still apropos, and that the number of jobs created by the Works Progress Administration and other federal agencies was perhaps more important than the size of the fiscal stimulus. They therefore recommend a permanent employer-of-last-resort (ELR) program, as proposed by Hyman P. Minsky, to mitigate the effects of today's Great Recession.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Working Paper No. 580, October 2009
An Alternative View of Finance, Saving, Deficits, and Liquidity
L. Randall Wray

According to orthodoxy, the current crisis is a result of excessive liquidity and a euphoric real estate boom. Wray believes that the crisis stems from the long-term transformation of the global financial system by “money managers” who control huge pools of institutional funds. The liquidity crisis could have been resolved very quickly if the Federal Reserve had immediately opened the discount window to all financial institutions, he says.
The United States now faces a massive insolvency problem and rapidly declining employment and production. The unrecognized issue is that gross insolvencies at the larger financial institutions are the result of unprecedented fraud rather than subprime loans. Moreover, the planned fiscal stimulus will fall far short of what is needed, despite the fact that the United States can financially “afford” to resolve the crisis.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

Working Paper No. 579, October 2009
A Perspective on Minsky Moments: The Core of the Financial Instability Hypothesis in Light of the Subprime Crisis
Alessandro Vercelli

Most definitions of the “Minsky moment” establish a link between crucial features of the subprime crisis and Minsky's financial instability hypothesis (FIH). Vercelli provides a more rigorous definition of a Minsky moment based on a restatement of the core of Minsky's hypothesis, and suggests an alternative to Minsky's threefold taxonomy that classifies a unit's financial conditions based on continuous measures of liquidity and solvency. Vercelli believes that Minsky's narrow threefold classification has likely hindered the development of analytical models of the FIH.
The author outlines policy insights on how to mitigate the financial cycle and stabilize the economy, including stricter capital requirements and well-designed constraints on the units' illiquidity and indebtedness. He recommends that the financial authorities enforce these rules irrespective of the phase of the economic cycle.
>> Read complete text (pdf)

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

Volume 16 Issue 4  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

This new issue contains the following articles:

Articles

Knowledge, coordination and the firm: Historical perspectives
Author: Brian J. Loasby

A nostalgic retrospect on a debate on various aspects of welfare economics
Author: Kurt Rothschild

The history of economics as economics?
Author: Yuichi Shionoya

Max Weber's critical response to theoretical economics
Author: Patrick Mardellat

Continuity and change: Mapping the community of economists in Greece (1944 to 1967)
Author: Andreas Kakridis

Average cost and marginal cost pricing in Marshall: Textual analysis and interpretation
Author: Luca Zamparelli

Book reviews

Hobbes, Économie, Terreur et Politique
Author: Thierry Demals

Johann Heinrich von Thünen als Vordenker einer Sozialen Marktwirtschaft
Author: Carsten Pallas

RENEWAL

Vol 17 No 3
Rebalancing the economy

"the current consensus on reform focuses only on technical fixes to improve the inner workings of financial markets. What is needed is political reform of economic governance priorities, which until now have overwhelmingly privileged financialised growth"
- Johnna Montgomerie

DAN LEIGHTON & MARTIN MCIVOR Political economy after the end of history* GEORGE IRVIN From profit squeeze to wage squeeze* JOHNNA MONTGOMERIE A bail-out for working families?* PHILIP ARESTIS & MALCOLM SAWYER The future of public expenditure* TIM JACKSON Recovery without growth?* ADAM LENT A new economic paradigm*
* For a limited period only, articles can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/renewal/current.html

PLUS
- Can Labour survive? STEVE RICHARDS, JOY JOHNSON AND PAUL THOMPSON
- A critique of liberal republicanism by SIMON PARKER
- reviews by RACHEL REEVES on Vince Cable and DAVID MOON on devolution and socialism

Subscribe to RENEWAL online at http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals.html 
RENEWAL is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5300696914
Contact the editorial team with feedback and ideas by emailing editorial@renewal.org.uk

IDEAs

What's New on IDEAs (November 1, 2009 to November 30, 2009)
www.networkideas.org or www.ideaswebsite.org
Click here for detailed information.

The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin

December 2009
1) Unfolding Money
2) Upcoming Events
3) Associate! December 2009

The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin provides an overview of what is going on around the world in the associative economics movement. The bulletin is viewable as a webpage at www.cfae.biz/fae-bulletin/09Dec/

GDAE

GDAE Launches New Publications on “Lessons from NAFTA
Building on ten years of research on the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico, GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program is launching several new publications on reforming North American trade policies based on the NAFTA experience. Two new reports will be launched in an event Dec. 9 at 9:00 am at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington:
- “Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons from Mexico Under NAFTA”, a Policy Outlook paper from the Carnegie Endowment by Carnegie’s Eduardo Zepeda and GDAE’s Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, reviews the evidence on Mexico’s weak economic performance under NAFTA.
- “The Future of North American Trade Policy: Lessons from NAFTA” is a Pardee Center Task Force Report from Boston University, coordinated by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, along with Enrique Dussel Peters. The report reviews NAFTA and makes concrete recommendations for reform.
The reports present a detailed critique of NAFTA’s weaknesses for Mexico, which experienced a dramatic rise in trade and foreign investment but saw slow economic growth, sluggish job creation, and continued environmental degradation. The Task Force’s trade-policy experts from the three NAFTA countries offer detailed analyses and proposals for reform in eight key areas: services, manufacturing, agriculture, investment, intellectual property, labor, environment, and migration.
Both reports recommend changes to U.S. trade policy that go far deeper than the 2007 bipartisan agreement on reforms to the labor, environmental, and intellectual property provisions of more recent U.S. agreements, such as the one with Peru. Gallagher, Wise, and some of their co-authors will be briefing Congress members and staff this week.
The new reports are part of a series of publications that build on GDAE’s ten-years of research on “Lessons from NAFTA.” This week, GDAE is also releasing:
- “Agricultural Dumping under NAFTA,” a GDAE Working Paper by Timothy A. Wise that estimates the costs to Mexican producers of U.S. agricultural dumping at $12.8 billion from 1997-2005.
- “Reforming North American Trade Policy,” an Americas Program Commentary by Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise that summarizes the Pardee Center report’s policy recommendations.
- “Foreign Direct Investment and Innovation in Mexico,” a Working Group Discussion Paper by Enrique Dussel Peters that adds to GDAE’s body of work on Foreign Investment for Development.

CDPR

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #42, “Financial Integration Intensifies New Vulnerabilities: Brazil in the Global Financial Crisis”. The authors, Annina Kaltenbrunner and Juan Pablo Painceira, Economics Department, SOAS, analyse how Brazil’s increasing integration with international financial markets in the period leading up to the global financial crisis in 2008 had left its economy gravely exposed to externally generated instability. Though Brazil’s ‘economic fundamentals’ were relatively stable at that time, the global crisis precipitated a massive outflow of short-term speculative capital and rapid depreciation of its exchange rate. The authors note that the danger of a similar reversal of portfolio investment in Brazil (as well as in other emerging economies) looms again in the current period.
Click here to download the report.

CDPR’s other thought-provoking, diversified Development Viewpoints are available on http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/.
The Centre for Development Policy and Research draws on the broad range of development expertise at the School of Oriental and African Studies to engage in innovative policy-oriented research and training on crucial development issues.

Top

Heterodox Books and Book Series

Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy

Edited by: Giuseppe Fontana , Mark Setterfield
In recent years, there has been much debate over the extent to which undergraduate textbook macroeconomic models are theoretically well grounded and whether they adequately reflect the latest developments in the field. The aim of Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy is to encourage and advance this debate, with a specific view to improving macroeconomics education.

Click here for detailed information.

Heterodoxe Ökonomie

Die heterodoxe Ökonomie umfasst eine Vielfalt von Strömungen. Dieses Buch stellt diese Ansätze und ihre zentralen Fragestellungen dar und geht auch der Frage nach, was diese Strömungen gemeinsam haben. Die Themen reichen von dem Verhältnis heterodoxer Ökonomieansätze zur Wirtschaftssoziologie über marxistische und postkeynesianische Ansätze bis hin zur Regulationstheorie und Theorien kapitalistischer Entwicklung in der Peripherie. Damit gibt der Band nicht nur einen kompakten Überblick über verschiedene heterodoxe Ansätze im deutsch- und englischsprachigen Raum, sondern auch Einblicke in die hierzulande weniger bekannten wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Debatten in Frankreich oder Lateinamerika.
Inhalt
http://www.metropolis-verlag.de/Heterodoxe-Oekonomie/772/book.do
* Hermann Rauchenschwandtner, Reinhard Pirker
Wissenschaftstheoretische Grundlagen heterodoxer Ökonomie
* Gertraude Mikl-Horke
Das ökonomische Vorverständnis in Ansätzen der Wirtschaftssoziologie
* Reinhard Pirker, Engelbert Stockhammer
Die Marx’sche Ökonomie: von Marx zu aktuellen Debatten
* Joachim Becker
Regulationstheorie
* Engelbert Stockhammer
Effektive Nachfrage, Einkommensverteilung und Inflation. Keynesianische und Kaleckianische Ansätze
* Elisabeth Springler
Endogenes Geld und Instabilität auf Finanzmärkten. Postkeynesianische Ansätze
* Joachim Becker, Oliver Schwank
Theorien peripher kapitalistischer Entwicklung
* Luise Gubitzer
Feministische und Alternative Ökonomie
* Andrea Grisold
Zur ökonomischen Bedeutung von Massenmedien. Eine heterodoxe Erweiterung

Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism

The Politics of Resistance and Domination
By Susanne Soederberg
Series: RIPE Series in Global Political Economy

www.routledge.com/9780415467889

About the Book
Despite the influence corporations wield over all aspects of everyday life, there has been a remarkable absence of critical inquiry into the social constitution of this power. In analysing the complex relationship between corporate power and the widespread phenomenon of share ownership, this book seeks to map and define the nature of resistance and domination in contemporary capitalism.
Drawing on a Marxist-informed framework, this book reconnects the social constitution of corporate power and changing forms of shareholder activism. In contrast to other texts that deal with corporate governance, this study examines a diverse and comprehensive set of themes, from socially responsible investing to labour-led shareholder activism and its limitations. Through this ambitious and critical study, author Susanne Soederberg demonstrates how the corporate governance doctrine represents an inherent feature of neoliberal rule, effectively disembedding and depoliticising relations of domination and resistance from the wider power and paradoxes of capitalism.
Examining corporate governance and shareholder activism in a number of different contexts that include the United States and the global South, this important book will be of interest to students and scholars of international political economy, international relations and development studies. It will also be of relevance to a wider range of disciplines including finance, economics, and business and management studies.

Table of Contents
Part 1: Introduction 1. Repoliticizing Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism
Part 2: Power and Paradoxes of Corporate Power and Mass Investment 2. Repoliticizing the Ownership Society and the Marketization of Security 3. Repoliticizing Corporate Governance: Scandals, Struggles, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 4. Deconstructing the Myth of Corporate Democracy: The Case of the Equal Access Proposal
Part 3: The Changing Forms of and Limits to Shareholder Activism 5. The Limits to Labour’s Capital and the New Activism 6. Corporate Governance and Entrepreneurial Development: The Case of the Permissible Country Index 7. The Marketization of Social Justice: The Case of the Sudan Divestment Campaign

The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism

The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism explores the history of and collision between two of the major global phenomena: the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases of poverty and the ascendancy of neoliberal economic ideas. This book explains how IMF policies of restrictive spending have exacerbated public health problems in developing countries, in particular the HIV/AIDS crisis.
http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Ideas-Neoliberalism-Undermined-Against/dp/1848132859

Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy

Edited by: Andrew Chitty and Martin McIvor

ANDREW CHITTY is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex with interests in political philosophy, ethics, and the history of political thought. He has published widely on Hegel and Marx.
MARTIN MCIVOR is a long-standing editor of the journal Historical Materialism. He took his PhD at the London School of Economics, where he taught history of political thought. He currently works as a trade union researcher.

In the twenty-first century, new debates over globalization, 'market society' and the crises of capitalism are leading to a resurgence of interest in Marx's ideas about politics, economics, history and human nature.
This collection of articles brings together the latest work of some of the world's leading Marxist philosophers, along with that of a new generation of young researchers. Based upon work presented at meetings of the recently founded and fast-growing Marx and Philosophy Society, it offers a unique snapshot of the best current scholarship on the philosophical aspects and implications of Marx's thought.
Contributors discuss Marx's moral and political philosophy, his critique of orthodox economics, and his relation to more recent trends in social theory. Although many diverse perspectives are represented, all share a commitment to careful historical scholarship and philosophical clarity and rigour.
This book will be invaluable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in philosophy, political theory, and the social sciences.

Contents:
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; A.Chitty & M.McIvor

PART I: MARX AND HIS PREDECESSORS
'The Entire Mystery': Marx's Understanding of Hegel; J.McCarney
Karl Marx's Philosophical Modernism: Post-Kantian Foundations of Historical
Materialism; M.McIvor
Marx, the European Tradition, and the Philosophic Radicals; S.Meikle

PART II: MARX AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Marx's Theory of Democracy in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the State;
G.Daremas
Marx and Conservatism; A.Collier
Forms of Right, Forms of Value: The Unity of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and Marx's
Capital; R.Fine

PART III: MARX ON LABOUR, MONEY AND CAPITAL
Species-Being and Capital; A.Chitty
Labour in Modern Industrial Society; S.Sayers
The Concept of Money; C.Arthur
Value, Money, and Capital in Hegel and Marx; P.Murray
Abstraction and Productivity: Reflections on Formal Causality; W.Roberts

PART IV: 20TH CENTURY MARXISM
The Subject and Social Theory: Marx and Lukács on Hegel; M.Postone
Multiple Returns: Althusser on Dialectics; J.Grant
The Rationality of Analytical Marxism; R.Veneziani

PART V: MARX AND FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY
Marxism and Feminism: Living with your 'Ex'; T.Carver
After Postmodernism: Feminism and Marxism Revisited; G.Howie
Index

See link to order the book: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=318271

Essays in Institutional Economics and Political Economy: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

By Arturo Hermann
Arturo Hermann is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Studies and Economic Analyses (ISAE), Rome, Italy. In his research activity he is developing an interdisciplinary perspective for the studies of economic and social phenomena, with particular attention to the links between Institutional Economics, Sociology, Psychology and Psychoanalysis. In these fields, he has participated in many international Conferences and authored numerous articles in scholarly Journals. He has published with the Uni Service the book Institutional Economics and Psychoanalysis: How Can They Collaborate for a Better Understanding of Individual-Society Dynamics?, Second Edition, January 2009.

See link to order the book: http://www.uni-service.it/essays-in-institutional-economics-and-political-economy-an-interdisciplinary-perspective.html

Privatisation against the European Social Model

A Critique of European Policies and Proposals for Alternatives
Edited by Marica Frangakis, Christoph Hermann, Jörg Huffschmid and Károly Lóránt

This book addresses the EU as powerful driver of the wave of privatisations in the network industries and public services since the early 1990s. Based on theoretical arguments and empirical studies it examines the impact of these policies on what is regarded as the normative pillars of the European
Social Model.

CONTENTS:
Introduction: Privatisation and the Crisis of Social Europe

PART I: PRIVATISATION IN THE EU: PROCESS AND DISCUSSION – AN OVERVIEW
Privatisation in Western Europe
Privatisation in the Central and East European Countries
Finance as Driver of Privatisation
Theoretical Approaches to Explaining and Understanding Privatisation
The European Social Models: Contours of the Discussion

PART II: CASE STUDIES
Privatisation in the Industrial Sector
Liberalisation in Network Industries
Privatisation and Marketisation of Health Care Systems in Europe
Privatisation of Education
Privatisation of Pensions
Bank Liberalisation and Privatisation
Privatisation Trajectories in Europe: A Cross – Sector View

PART III: PERSPECTIVES
The Impact of Privatisation and Liberalisation of Public Services on the European Social Model
Elements of a Progressive European Social Model
The Role of the Public Sector in a Progressive Construction of Europe
Social Actors – Trade Unions and Social Movements

Ethics and Economics

New perspectives
Edited by Mark D. White, Irene van Staveren

Since the days of Adam Smith, ethics and economics have been closely intertwined, and were nominally separated only with the advent of neoclassical economics in the beginning of the last century. This book features eleven essays by leading scholars in economics and philosophy who argue for a renewal of the bond between the two disciplines.
Several of the contributors argue that the ethical content of economics and moral status of the market have been misunderstood, for better and for worse. Some recommend changes in the way that individual economic choice is modelled, in order to incorporate ethical as well as self-interested motivations. Finally, others question the way that societies assess economic policies that affect the welfare and dignity of their constituents.
A wide range of philosophical perspectives is offered, drawing from the classic writings of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and the ancient Stoics, to that of current scholars such as Amartya Sen, Elizabeth Anderson, and Christine Korsgaard. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the cutting edge of interdisciplinary research between ethics and economics, and is sure to be an important resource for scholars in both fields.
This book was published as a combination of the special issues Review of Political Economy and Review of Social Economy.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction Irene van Staveren and Mark D. White 2. The 'Dismal Science' - Still? Economics and Human Flourishing Mark A. Lutz 3. Communitarianism and the Market: A Paradox Irene van Staveren 4. Not by P Alone: A Virtuous Economy Deirdre N. McCloskey 5. Virtue and Behavior Jennifer A. Baker 6. Freedom, Values and Sen: Towards a Morally Enriched Classical Economic Theory Vivian Walsh 7. Pareto, Consent, and Respect for Dignity: A Kantian Perspective Mark D. White 8. Identity and individual economic agents: A narrative approach John B. Davis 9. Adam Smith on Instincts, Affection, and Informal Learning: Proximate Mechanisms in Multilevel Selection Jonathan Wight 10. Two Views of Corruption and Democracy Mozaffar Qizilbash 11. From 'Hume's Law' to Problem- and Policy-Analysis for Human Development. Sen after Dewey, Myrdal, Streeten, Stretton and Haq Des Gasper 12. The Efficiency of Equity Stephen Klasen

Author Biography
Mark D. White is Professor in the Department of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy, at the College of Staten Island/CUNY.

Irene van Staveren is Professor of Economics and Christian Ethics, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Associate Professor of Feminist Development Economics, Institute of Social Studies.
Visit www.routledge.com/978-0-415-55055-0  for more details. 

Theories Of Social Capital: Researchers Behaving Badly

Part of the IIPPE/Pluto Book Series
Ben Fine
Released January 2010
PB / £ 17.99 / 9780745329963 / 215mm x 135mm / 304pp

Ben Fine is the world’s most thorough and indefatigible critic of the abuse of the concept of capital that follows from adding ‘social’ - and other adjectives - to it. Further intellectual confusion is generated by the different meanings social capital can have as it colonises the social sciences.

Tracing the evolution of social capital since his highly acclaimed contribution of 2001 (Social Capital Versus Social Theory), Ben Fine consolidates his position as the world’s leading critic of the concept.
Fine forcibly demonstrates how social capital has expanded across the social sciences only by degrading the different disciplines and topics that it touches: a McDonaldisation of social theory. The rise and fall of social capital at the World Bank is critically explained as is social capital’s growing presence in disciplines, such as management studies, and its relative absence in others, such as social history.
Writing with a sharp critical edge, Fine not only deconstructs the roller-coaster presence of social capital across the social sciences but also draws out lessons on how (and how not) to do research.
www.plutobooks.com

CONTENTS
1 Introduction
2 From Rational Choice to McDonaldisation
3 The Short History of Social Capital
4 The BBI Syndrome
5 Social Capital versus Social History
6 Social Capital is Dead: Long Live Whatever Comes Next
7 Management Studies Goes to McDonald’s
8 Degradation without Limit
9 W(h)ither Social Capital?
References
Index

Here he builds on his magnum opus - ‘Social Capital and Social Theory’ - to explore the reasons behind the chaos this causes and the consequences of the penetration of notions of profit into every nook and cranny of our lives.
Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University

PRE - ORDER DISCOUNT AVAILABLE
£ 27.50 Order now for the discount price of £25 inc P&P

Ben Fine is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He recently co-authored with Dimitris Milonakis From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The Shifting Boundaries Between Economics and Other Social Sciences (2009), winner of the 2009 Deutscher Prize, and From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the Social and the Historical in the Evolution of Economic Theory, winner of the 2009 Gunnar Myrdal Prize. He serves on the Social Science Research Committee of the UK’s Food Standards Agency

For orders within the UK, please complete this order form (prices subject to change) and send to:
Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London, N6 5AA.

Or you can phone your order on 0208 348 2724, fax your order on 0208 348 9133, or email your order to
pluto@plutobooks.com.

Dialectics of Class Struggle in the Global Economy

(Routledge, 2010)

http://www.routledge.com/9780415778107
Dialectics of Class Struggle restores Marx’s emphasis on class struggle as the dialectics of human social production. Humans’ reproduction makes them subjects for their activities in two forms: their objective forms (e.g., capitalists and workers), which are necessary to their reproduction as classes and their social forms (e.g., shared urban existence), in which they are subjects within social production in certain cooperative ways. This is a dialectical relation, a social opposition and unity that inheres in the same individuals at the same time. Western Marxism and Social Democracy only repeat the positive categories necessary to the reproduction of classes.
Much ink has been spilled in attempts to prove that humans are only animals and are, like other species, only aggressive. Marx distinguishes both class and cooperative relations as inorganic: humans create their subjectivity through their mutual social production. They build upon previous forms of social production and, with capitalism, become not only an opposition of classes, but have the capacity for urban individualism and cooperation.
Dialectics of Class Struggle examines the historical development of classes from ancient times to present. It analyzes the development of ancient slavery into feudalism and the latter into capitalism. It focuses upon the laws and limits of capitalist development, the contradictions inherent in the capitalist state, and revolutions in the twentieth century and the possibilities for human freedom that they revealed. It concludes with an examination of class struggles in the global economy and shows the human deprivations as well as the human possibilities.
Clark Everling is professor emeritus at Empire State College at the State University of New York, USA.
Contents
1. Marx’s method
2. Marxist theory: from class struggle to political economy
3. Pre-capitalist social formations
4. Capitalism and social production
5. Capitalist state and society
6. Imperialism and world wars
7. The dialectics of world working class struggle
8. International working class revolution
9. Globalization and class struggle
10.Dialectics of the present struggle: the laws of capitalist development

Microeconomics in Context and Microeconomics in Context

Now available as E-texts
We are happy to inform you that GDAE’s introductory texts Microeconomics in Context and Macroeconomics in Context are now available as e-texts through our publisher M.E. Sharpe. These e-texts present students with a lower-cost alternative to the traditional texts. While the hardcopy books are still available for $49.95 each, the e-texts sell for $34.95 each. The e-texts allow students to view the full text online and download material. Online instructor exam copies are available at no cost to potential adopters.
Separate e-text websites are available for instructors and students. The faculty sites are:
Macroeconomics in Context:
http://www.sharpe-etcinstructor.com/product/macroeconomics-in-context4937

Microeconomics in Context, 2nd. Ed.:
http://www.sharpe-etcinstructor.com/product/microeconomics-in-context4876
The student sites are:
Macroeconomics in Context
http://www.sharpe-etext.com/product/macroeconomics-in-context

Microeconomics in Context, 2nd Ed.
http://www.sharpe-etext.com/product/microeconomics-in-context
If you have any questions about the texts, feel free to e-mail us at gdae@tufts.edu.  

The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986

By Edgar Dosman, York University, Ontario

"A comprehensive and very readable account of a fascinating personality - this will, for some considerable period and perhaps forever, be the definitive source on Prebisch's personal life and career." Gerry Helleiner, University of Toronto
"It is hard to think of a better moment for the appearance of the first full biography of Raul Prebisch, an Argentine who was a towering figure in the international debates on economic development from the 1940s to the 1970s...Mr Dosman has read everything Prebisch wrote and interviewed many of those who were closest to him. His research is exhaustive. In rescuing Prebisch for a new generation, and above all in allowing the reader to separate the man from the myth, he has performed a valuable service for all those interested in economic thinking in Latin America and in the field of international development in general." Economist
Raúl Prebisch was a leader in economic development theory and international economic policy, an institution builder, and an international diplomat. The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986 provides the first book-length account of his life and work, a story cast against the backdrop of Latin America, the Cold War, the rise of the United Nations, and the struggle for equity between First and Third Worlds.
Edgar Dosman has used archival research and interviews with family, friends, and associates to look at the historical and political contexts of Prebisch's career, providing new information on such topics as the creation and development of international networks, the tensions within international bureaucracies, and the constitution of a Latin American field of social sciences. Many of Prebisch's ideas were originally rejected as unorthodox but are now taken for granted. His life and work remain an enduring symbol of leadership for Latin America and the global community.
SPECIAL DISCOUNTED PRICE OF £22.00 to CAPITAL-AND-CLASS subscribers
McGill-Queen's University Press
January 2009 592pp £33.00 HB: 9780773534124
Postage and Packing £3.50
(PLEASE QUOTE REF NUMBER: RP081209CC for discount)
To order a copy please contact Marston on 44(0)1235 465500 or email direct.orders@marston.co.uk
or visit our website:
http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/catalogue.asp?ex=fitem&target=9780773534124&fmt=f
where you can still receive your discount

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Heterodox Book Reviews

Economia Institucional y Evolutiva Contemporanea

Economia Institucional y Evolutiva Contemporanea, by Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Cuajimalpa-Xochimilco, 2007, ISBN: 0-970-31-0753-2; 249 pages.

Reviewed by Jairo J. Parada, Universidad del Norte-Colombia

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Heterodox Web Sites and Associations

The Global Labour University

The Global Labour University is launching a new weekly Labour Column http://column.global-labour-university.org.
The blog will be a forum of open and wide ranging debate on responses of labour to the risks and opportunities of the global crisis.

Ideas might not change the world, but the world will not change without ideas. And no idea can be as unrealistic as the conservative utopia that all will stay as it is. We invite trade unionists, academics and others interested in the topic to join us for an international discussion about options and alternatives beyond business as usual.

Philip Bowyer, Deputy General Secretary of UNI Global Union Devan Pillay, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand as members of the GLU International Steering Committee

The blog is managed by CSID in Johannesburg, South Africa. The pdf of the first article is attached – please visit the blog if you want to subscribe, via email or rss feed.

Proctereconomics

http://proctereconomics.blogspot.com/

New Deal 2.0

ND2.0 is a one-stop-shop for current news, fresh insight, sharp analysis of the country’s fiscal crisis – and the people and policies that offer potential solutions. A new and defining project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, ND2.0 brings you commentary from the country’s leading thinkers: economists, historians, political scientists, policy experts and elected officials.
http://www.newdeal20.org

King's College London Reading Capital Society

http://www.kclreadingcapital.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49539959005
Now for download: Joseph Choonara on 'Money':

A recording of our last session is now available here:
Patience required as file is quite big, but worth the wait.

Modern Economic and Social History Seminar

A recording of Geoff Harcourt speaking to the Modern Economic and Social History Seminar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 26 November can be found on the PKSG website at http://www.postkeynesian.net/Recent%20events.htm .
He is introduced by Dr Simon Szreter. The seminar is affiliated with History and Policy, www.historyandpolicy.org.

The Chicago Political Economy Group

The Chicago Political Economy Group (authors of the Permanent Jobs Program to Restructure the U.S. Economy) has just launched a new website:
www.cpegonline.org 
Of particular interest might be the "Call to Action" for a national "Living Wage Jobs for All" mobilization with NJFAC, and Bill Barclay's excellent presentation of the permanent jobs program to the National DSA convention in Chicago - see "multimedia" section.
 

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For Your Information

Failure to Moderate Excess

William Dixon has an interesting article in Mute magazine, reviewing responses to the financial crisis, “Failure to Moderate Excess: A Round-Up of Crisis Chronicles” . Go to:

http://www.metamute.org/en/content/failure_to_moderate_excess_a_round_up_of_crisis_chronicles

Marxist Analysis of the Crisis

Interesting series of articles giving a Marxist analysis of the crisis at
http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/capitalist-crisis.html

Early Christians lived by communist principles

From Dr Hugh Goodacre.

Sir, Guy Priestly (Letters, November 19) concurs with the view that “neither the communist system nor the capitalist system acknowledged any God”. What about the early Christian community, which was itself communistic?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/137b1f60-d7d0-11de-b578-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Tristan Milder

My name is Tristan Milder and I'm based at CNN's London office.

I was wondering if you were familiar with the theories that Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz story is an economic and political allegory? CNN is looking to potentially do a piece on the subject.

If you are familiar with the economic allegory theories, would you be interested to be interviewed on the subject? If you are not familiar, do you know of any economic professors in London that may?

Many thanks,
Tristan Milder- Tristan.Milder@turner.com 

EuroMemorandum 2009/10

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

With this mail we are sending you the text of the EuroMemorandum 2009/10:

'Europe in Crisis: A Critique of the EU's Failure to Respond and Proposals for a Democratic Alternative'.

If you are in broad agreement with the main lines of this year's EuroMemorandum, we ask you to express your support.

In order to submit your declaration of support to the EuroMemorandum Group, you can either fill in the declaration of support  in the form in the attachment and send it back to wehlau@uni-bremen.de  or by fax to ++49-(0)421-2182680. Please submit your declaration of support until 8.December 2009, since this year's EuroMemorandum will be published - with the list of signaturies - in early December.

Last year's EuroMemorandum, 'A democratic transformation of European finance, a full employment regime, and ecological restructuring --  Alternatives to finance-driven capitalism', was signed by a total of 390 people from almost every corner of Europe.

With best wishes,

Trevor Evans, Diana Wehlau and Marica Frangakis for the EuroMemo Coordinating Committee.

Was Henry George Right After All? (A shaggy dog story)

I am not, to put it mildly, an expert on the endgame leading to last year’s banking panic. For that we have authors Andrew Ross Sorkin, of The New York Times (Too Big to Fail); David Wessel, of The Wall Street Journal (In Fed We Trust); the beat reporters of the newspapers; several columnists; and blogger Yves Smith, who provides a stream of commentary. (For an insider’s view of the run-up to the crisis, there is Lawrence McDonald’s A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers.) But I like to think that, as a journalist, I know something about how public opinion is formed (cont.)

Cleaning house at the WTO

The US and other wealthy countries continue to fight the same stale battles over international trade. It's time to move on

Kevin Gallagher and Timothy Wise
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 1 December 2009 22.30 GMT
This week, the 10th anniversary of the infamous "Battle in Seattle," ministers assembled in Geneva with renewed hopes of reviving world trade talks. To dampen expectations, World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy bills the event as a mere "housekeeping session," rather than full-fledged negotiations (cont.)

National Conference to Create Living Wage Jobs

Dear Friend,

Our November 13-14 National Conference to Create Living Wage Jobs, Meet Human Needs and Sustain the Environment greatly exceeded our expectations. Over 125 attendees came representing over 50 organizations. The diversity of attendees was as impressive as their numbers. People came from Atlanta, Chicago, California and many points in between. Participating organizations spanned the broad range of constituencies we need to mobilize to achieve the conference goals of jobs for all at a living wage. The religious community, labor, community non-profits and employment policy experts all participated. (cont.

The Bhopal Library

Today, Dec. 3, 2009, on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal, India tragic gas disaster, we call to your attention a special collection of books - The Bhopal Library - that reveal the evolving understanding of the meaning of the Bhopal, India tragedy over the last 25 years. The Bhopal Library is an offering of the Apex Press, publishing arm of the Council on International and Public Affairs, whose Publisher Ward Morehouse is a co-founder of the International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal. (He has also co-authored several of these books.)

This collection of books, recording the history of this 25-year-period in real time, offers a unique chronicle of the growing understanding of human rights activists, doctors, lawyers, historians and social scientists, of the enormity of this still-ongoing case. With today’s globalization of multinational corporations, the lessons for the world from the Bhopal case illuminates the need to understand how to make Human Rights a key standard in today’s industrial globalization. These books—including documents and primary sources-- shed light on the growing understanding of the meaning of the Bhopal gas study for a globalized world and offer a special retrospective for the study of Bhopal and/or the study of the coming to consciousness of the impact of globalization.
http://www.bhopallibrary.org/

CSRC presents: 'The Roots of the Economic Crisis: Critical Perspectives'

LeftStreamed - Recorded October 29, 2009:

Critical Social Research Collaborative presents:
The Roots of the Economic Crisis: Critical Perspectives

This workshop explores alternative interpretations of the current economic crisis. The presentations are from organized labour, community activists and academics. The focus of this workshop is critical engagement, discussion and debate. Questions addressed include: How have various perspectives analyzed and understood the roots of the current economic crisis? Is there something fundamentally unsound about the current political-economic structure? Is the current crisis to be located within a set of recently established policies, or better understood over the long-term historical development of capitalism? How have the policy prescriptions and ideological rationales shifted over the years? And, more ambitiously, where do we go from here?

* Andrew Jackson – is the National Director, Social and Economic Policy, with the Canadian Labour Congress.
* Toby Sanger – is a Senior Economist with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
* Justin Paulson – is assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Carleton University.

Click here to view video presentation:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed/ls31.php

Produced by the Left Streamed Collective. Viewers are encouraged to distribute widely. Comments on the video and suggestions are welcome - write to info@socialistproject.ca

For more analysis of contemporary politics check out
'Relay: A Socialist Project Review' at www.socialistproject.ca/relay

Employee Free Choice Act

Dear URPE members,

As soon as you finish with this semester (or even sooner), those of you in academia will be planning for next semester. I want to quickly remind everyone, both in academia and activists, Employee Free Choice Act of the battle for the that (probably!) will come up this winter/spring - presumably whenever the fight over healthcare ends.

The greater the discussion going on about it when it does come up, the better its chances - and for long term considerations, a fight for this is important (along with many other things) for strengthening the long term efforts of working Americans to fight or their rights, regardless of the legislative fate or the EFCA.

Last spring a couple of schools managed to hold teach-in on this. If that is something you could organize this spring, that would be great. (More on materials below). If you go this route, you will certainly want a partner group to work with you on building it - you will not be able to build a teach-in as an individual. Maybe the most likely group that one finds on many campuses (or off campus) is Job with Justice (JwJ), or their student group that exists on many campuses, Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) http://www.jwj.org/projects/slap.html . Among many other groups that are on campuses that might help build such an event (depending on the politics of the local group) are local branches of United Students Against Sweatshops, United States Student Association, Young Democrats, National Lawyers Guild, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, NAACP, Black Student Union, MECHa, or any progressive group on campus, including ones tied to disciplines like sociology, economics, etc.
Easier for many of you would be to incorporate something on this in some economics class you are teaching, either on the EFCA itself of more broadly on decent work.

Two places with the most material (for both your own background, and reading for students or politicians or social actors you are trying to convince) on this remain the Political Economy Research Institute Web site ( www.peri.umass.edu ) and American Rights at Work ( www.americanrightsatwork.org ).

Two new pieces of material have just been put out by the AFL-CIO, which could be useful in a class setting, a teach-in, or for activist work. A 16 slide Power Point presentation on the EFCA, http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/upload/Teach-Ins.ppt
and a description of how to go about organizing a teach-in, things to consider, http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/upload/Teach-Ins.pdf 
Please think about doing something around the EFCA this spring if possible.
I will be back in touch with our membership when this legislation begins to move, but again, we need have some activities going on before that begins.

Why Global Poverty? Think Again

A Companion Guide to the Film "The End of Poverty?" by Clifford W. Cobb and Philippe Diaz

Read the companion guide to "The End of Poverty?"
Over 400 pages featuring extended interviews with more than 100 individuals--plus photographs and a complete transcript of the film.

Please see attached form to order the companion guide.

Why Are We in Afghanistan?

See the trailer, get more information, and order now for the holiday season! $9.95 plus shipping

http://www.WhyAreWeInAfghanistan.org  

U.S. military action in Afghanistan originated in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. That was then. This is now. Reasons for the war have become more cloudy as other factors have developed.

This film looks at domestic pressures and geo-strategic interests that keep the U.S. in the region, and the long history of U.S. foreign interventions that forms the broader context for this war. We also see today’s peace movement continuing another long tradition - popular resistance to war.

Why Are We in Afghanistan? is an educational resource for communities, unions, veterans and active duty military, classes, and anyone who wonders why we are in Afghanistan, and what to do about it.

Written and directed by Michael Zweig
Illustrated by Mike Konopacki
Edited by Trish Dalton
Produced by Trish Dalton, Michael Zweig, and the Center for Study of Working Class Life

Joerg Huffschmid

Dear Comrades,

I have a sad message: Joerg Huffschmid passed away on Dec 5th after struggling for months with cancer. Joerg was one of the leading leftist economists in Germany. Before retirement he was a professor of political economy at the University of Bremen. He started his academic career writing about capital formation. In 1969, he published his first major book 'The Politics of Capital. Concentration and Economic Policy in Germany' (Die Politik des Kapitals. Konzentration und Wirtschaftspolitik in der Bundesrepublik), which was widely read and reprinted several times. He kept on researching ownership structures, while in the 1990s his interest shifted towards financial markets. His 'Political Economy of Financial Markets' (Politische Oekonomie der Finanzmaerkte), first published in 1998, became an influential book for the emerging anti-globalization movement in Germany and beyond. In addition to being a passionate and committed scholar and a fierce critic of capitalism, Joerg always engaged outside the academic world. In the 70s, he was connected to the German Communist Party (Deutsche Kommunistische Partei), and the de-militarization movement; in the 80s, he co-founded the 'Working Group for Alternative Economic Policy', better known as German Memorandum Group, which made a name for itself by criticizing the prevalent conservative economic policy of the German government. In the 90s, Joerg was the main activist behind the establishment of the ‘European Economists for an Alternative Economic Policy’, or Euromemo Group, which for the past 15 years has issued a yearly report on European economic policy. He was deeply involved with trade unions, social movements and leftist parties, as a member of the scientific board of Attac Germany and an academic adviser for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin. Even after retirement, he continued to publish, give talks and teach seminars for students and activists. In the past years, he was involved in the organization of a series of Alternative Ecofin meetings with left scholars and activists. His last project, which he unfortunately could not complete, was an activists' book on 'How does privatization work?' (Wie geht Privatisierung?). Much of these projects would not have happened if it had not been for Joerg tirelessly pushing for it. He was an inspiration to and a motivator for his friends and colleagues. Joerg would have turned 70 in February. There will be a conference in Berlin that month to commemorate his work. He will greatly be missed in Germany and around the world as a friend, a scholar and an activist.

Christoph Hermann

 

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