Yesterday, this year's ASSA meeting( in San Diego...

Yesterday, this year’s ASSA meeting in San Diego has ended. The ASSA meeting is probably the greatest gathering of economists throughout the year and it is noteworthy insofar as the ASSA is one of the very few places, where exchange between heterodox and mainstream economists could be facilitated. I say ‘could be’, because actually this is only rarely the case: mainstream researchers typically do not participate in heterodox sessions, while heterodox economists, who do occasionally visit mainstream sessions, often remain invisible there as the standard mainstream session does not allow for much discussion. This separation has been further amplified by an evaluation system used by the AEA, which assigns future slots for sessions based on past attendance. This scheme creates an additional (and in my view unhelpful) incentive to stick in one’s ‘in-group’ and abstain from interparadigmatic engagement (see also here for a specific criticism of this practice). By the way, the same incentive - stick with your in-group to maximize visibility for your own field or approach - emerges in the context of citation-based evaluation routines (see here for an elaboration).

However, the ASSA is nonetheless a great to place to stay in touch with major debates in the profession and to find some potential insights and inspiration. Even if I cannot attend personally (as in this year; otherwise you would have gotten a more extended report:-), I always screen the contributions in the heterodox sessions, which can be quickly assessed here (Hint: You have to search of different heterdox associations first to not get lost - a compilation of these associations can be found here). In case you are interested in participating: the calls for the ASSA meeting typically close between April and May of the year before the event and are regularly announced in this Newsletter!

All the best for the upcoming year,

Jakob