Issue 200 August 01, 2016 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
It is a great honor to me to hereby announce the publication of the 200th issue of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter, your regular guide to what's going on in heterodox economics and related interdisciplinary research! Building on the work of our past editors - the late Frederic S. Lee as well as his successors, Tae-Hee Jo and Ted P. Schmidt - the Newsletter has managed to increase its scope in terms of readership (6.000 subscribers soon to be reached!) as well as covered content over time (ever more entries on interesting events, publications, scholarships & other stuff).
Given the current and continuing social and economic turmoils, which are partly created, but only seldomly resolved, by the application of standard economic thought, the need for alternative approaches to economic issues is as pressing as ever. Hence, I am quite confident that this Newsletter will easily witness the publication of another 200 issues as it serves as a main forum for approaching economics from a diversity of conceptual and theoretical perspectives.
All the Best,
Jakob
© public domain
19–22 October, 2016 | Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Economic thinking is in crisis. New frameworks are needed to guide our thinking. New approaches are being developed, but efforts are fragmented and need to be brought together if we hope to piece together a paradigm. On October 19-22, 2016, at the Central European University in Budapest, the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) will hold its first plenary, under the title "Piecing Together a Paradigm".
The event will bring together 15 diverse YSI working groups — each searching for frameworks to guide their research — to place their work in a bigger picture, asking how the specific questions of each group fit together.
We envision the plenary as an opportunity for our working groups to encounter and inspire each other enriched by the mentorship of more than 40 pre-eminent thinkers, including Sonja A. Amadae, Beatrice Cherrier, Giovanni Dosi, Sheila Dow, Gary Dymski, Doyne Farmer, Geoffrey Hodgson, Stephen Kinsella, Alan Kirman, Bill Lazonick, Marc Lavoie, Tiago Mata, Mariana Mazzucato, Stephanie Blankenburg, Annelise Riles, Perry Mehrling, Philip Mirowski, Julie Nelson, Arturo O’Connell, Jonathan Ostry, Zoltan Pozsar, Sanjay Reddy, Don Ross, Margaret Schabas, Alyssa Schneebaum, Daniel Neilson, Annemaria Simonazzi, Thomas Ferguson, Rob Johnson, and Lord Adair Turner.
The conference will also help to set the research agenda for YSI’s coming year and will include:
Call for Abstracts & Travel Stipends
Our working groups welcome contributions by young researchers who wish to present their work in the working group meetings. Click on the working group below to see their specific call for abstracts. You may submit your abstract (or paper) to one or two working group of your choice. The deadline for submissions is August 1st, 2016.
Travel stipends will be awarded on the basis of merit and need. If you indicate the need for travel support, please include a brief motivation (we are interested in your thoughts on new economic thinking, how this plenary may benefit you and your research, and whether you’ve had any previous engagement with YSI).
Working Groups: Call for Papers (click on the links below to see further details)
Accepted abstracts may be awarded travel support. Submitting an abstract will increase the likelihood of being awarded a travel stipend, but an application can also be made with motivation only.
Apply for Travel Support & Submit Abstract
Further details are available at the conference website.
19-20 January, 2017 | Lisbon, Portugal
Organised by INTREPID <www.intrepid-cost.eu> and TINT <www.helsinki.fi/tint> with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation <gulbenkian.pt/en>
Keynote speakers:
BACKGROUND
The slim but remarkable volume (Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences) was published in 1996. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation had established, in 1993, the multidisciplinary Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. After three years of work, led by Immanuel Wallerstein, the Commission published its report (with Stanford University Press). The Report analysed the situation in the social sciences, its origins, and possible futures, making recommendations for improvements, largely based on ideals of openness and interdisciplinarity. These deals have gained ground more broadly since then in the academia. The report attracted attention and incited commentary and some debate within the social sciences.
This year, 20 years have passed, and it is now an opportune time to revisit the themes and suggestions of the Report. Many of them are still very timely, awaiting further examination and debate. On the other hand, some things have changed in the social sciences and their various boundary conditions. It will be important to update the diagnoses and proposals accordingly. Reconsidering the Report and its messages collectively at a conference will provide an opportunity to address the challenges in a way that is respectful for historical continuity and generative of novel and updated insights.
CONFERENCE THEMES
The conference will focus on three general themes related to the Report of the Gulbenkian Commission:
We invite contributions that approach the themes in terms of case studies and detailed (more detailed than was possible in the short Report for the Gulbenkian Foundation) analyses of trends and practices and possible futures of scientific inquiry and education, its changing cognitive structures, institutional contexts, and interdisciplinary interconnections.
We welcome proposals from scholars active in a variety of research fields, from history and philosophy of science to the various disciplinary perspectives applied to the study of science, science policy, and higher education (those from economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, management, education, communication studies, bibliometrics etc). Mixing such perspectives will yield a rich and comprehensive picture of the future of interdisciplinarity in social science.
Examples (just examples!) of possible themes:
SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS
In addition to submitting an abstract of a single paper, you are also welcome to propose a whole session of 3 (or 4) papers (sessions are envisaged to be 90 minutes).
Abstracts of single papers should be 500-600 words. Proposals for full sessions should include a general abstract of 300-400 words describing the theme of the session plus separate abstracts of each paper of 300-400 words.
Please submit your abstracts through EasyChair. https://ifoss20.wordpress.com/abstract/
DEADLINE
The deadline of submitting your abstract is 15 September, 2016.
CONTACT
In all matters concerning the conference, please first contact research assistant Sofia Blanco Sequeiros at sofia.blancosequeiros@helsinki.fi
Conference website is available here: https://ifoss20.wordpress.com
25-26 Novemeber, 2016 | University of Sydney Business School Abercrombie Building, Australia
In recent years there has been a resurgence of populism on both the right and the left in response to the spiralling excesses of neoliberalism. Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and Corbyn’s Labour in the UK have, with varying degrees of success, mobilised the rhetoric of anti-austerity in order to appeal to a majority in Europe that has seen its standard of living fall while that of the wealthiest has remained stable or improved. Meanwhile, the refugee crisis has offered fresh opportunities for right-wing parties and groups to try to blame the fallout from the Global Financial Crash of 2008 on minorities and the marginalised, defending the interests of ethnic majorities as legitimate in the process. Populist rhetoric has also been on conspicuous display in the current US presidential campaign: Donald Trump’s slogan ‘Make America great again’ appeals to a mass of American voters who have lost out to capital’s relocation overseas, while Bernie Sanders has managed to make the word ‘socialism’ acceptable in mainstream American political discourse by focusing on the corruption of elites and a ‘rigged’ system. In a socio-economic climate increasingly dominated by precarity, inequality, and anxieties of all kinds, the politics of populism seem to be the order of the day.
However, despite the trenchant character of recent populist critiques of contemporary capitalism, populism has frequently proven itself incapable of advancing a progressive alternative. The organisers of the Historical Materialism Sydney Conference 2016 therefore invite proposals for papers and panels that investigate the nature of populism past and present, and especially its contemporary relationship to capitalism and prospective alternatives. A number of questions shape our enquiry: are populism and capitalism necessarily opposed? To whom does populism address itself, and what does it reveal about the dynamics of class societies? Is populism an inevitable feature of representative democracies? In a recent piece in New Left Review, Alberto Toscano, paraphrasing Fredric Jameson, claimed that the majority of the left today finds itself in the paradoxical position of seeking to defend social democracy tooth and nail only to prove it cannot work. With this in mind, we ask whether populism can help us think beyond capitalism, or whether it is part of the logic of the system itself.
As we consider these emerging political formations and trends, HM’s Sydney Conference this year will be joined this year by Esther Leslie, Professor of English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, London. Leslie’s work addresses Marxist theories of aesthetics and culture. Her most recent book is about the art, science and politics of liquid crystals, as a new and fluid phase of matter.
In addition to this year’s focus, HM Sydney welcomes proposals within the historical materialist tradition on any theme, from all disciplines and perspectives on Marxism.
Please send proposals for papers and panels to hmaustralasia@gmail.com by 2 September 2016. Proposals should be no more than 250 words. Papers should be 20 minutes long, and panels may include three speakers.
Call for book chapters - in the US, and on African Americans or any other Black diaspora group in US.
This is a call for authors to do a chapter capturing the US experience. The book is titled: 'The Black Social Economy: Diverse community economies in the Americas' and a contract has been signed with Palgrave. Given, what is going on in the US, we want to make sure there are at least 2 chapters on the US. We welcome a variety of disciplines but the authors must be engaged in community economies and the social economy of persons of African descent. We want stories about the ways the Black diaspora engages with the social economy and this ranges from informal groups, cooperatives, non-profits and other organizations in the third sector. Ideally the work should draw on contemporary examples.
This work is to be 8,000 words maximum and can be re-worked from an older piece to merge with ideas of Du Bois, Garvey or Gordon-Nembhard.
Deadline is August 30 as this is an extended deadline.
Please send an email and abstract/draft to Caroline Hossein at chossein@yorku.ca
We are looking to revisit some of the ideas of formal and informal imperialism and of collaboration that run through and have been developed from the classic essay by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’ (1953). In particular, we are looking at ways in which their ideas might be helpfully developed in understanding contemporary economies.
This call for expressions of interest follows on from an initial invitation by the senior editor for Economics and Finance at Routledge to put together an edited collection proposal on the back of an article we published in 2014 which appeared in Capital and Class, entitled, ‘“Naked Abroad” – The Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade’.
In the proposed volume, we would like to draw out yet further how concepts such as formal and informal imperialism, and collaboration, can help us to understand capitalism both historically and/or in the contemporary world. Potential book chapters might cover, at either/both an empirical or theoretical level:
If you would be interested in developing any of these ideas, or if you have alternative ideas, please feel free to send us a brief paragraph outlining your potential contribution. If you could do so by 2 August, we will then be able to assess how potential contributions might fit into the volume. We anticipate that chapters will be 6,500-7,500 words each and are happy to work to a schedule that suits contributors (though we would prefer to have a substantial draft of the book ready by no later than this time next year).
All best,
Chris Grocott,
Lecturer in Management and Economic History, University of Leicester.
c.grocott@le.ac.uk
Jo Grady,
Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management, University of Leicester.
j.grady@le.ac.uk
23-24 March, 2017 | Hamburg University, Germany
We welcome paper proposals for an academic conference on Social Finance and Impact Investing. A conference hosted by Hamburg University, Centre for Globalisation and Governance, Germany.
Submission deadline for paper proposals to siconf2017@ehess.fr; 2 November 2016 500 to 800 words plus references.
Social finance covers a wide range of practices aiming at providing private capital to social organizations, businesses and funds. The development of these practices is justified by promising ways to finance development and social policies in a period of austerity that sees limits to and reductions in public spending. Social finance is a heterogeneous field in the process of formation. In the US, social finance has gained momentum since 2007, when the Rockefeller Foundation decided to finance an Impact Investing program. In Europe, the UK government has put Impact Investing at the heart of its G8 presidency agenda in 2013. Since then, the EU organizations have launched a number of policy initiatives, such as a “Social Impact Accelerator” fund of funds. Social finance includes practices such as Impact Investing (i.e. investments into companies’ equity with the intention to generate a financial return as well as social or environmental “impact”), Social Impact Bonds, Venture Philanthropy, Mission-Related Investment and Program-Related Investment. Its development requires also (more or less sophisticated) social impact assessment methods and social reporting standards. Various types of actors are interested in the development of these practices, among them audit and consulting firms, private and public fund managers, banks, foundations and social entrepreneurs. Like practices and actors, financed objects vary largely, ranging from investments into the Global South, such as microfinance, locally owned cooperatives, certified B corporations, or private-public hybrid organizations in Western welfare states.
As these activities come with a general redefinition of the public interest and the welfare state, we welcome interdisciplinary contributions on the conference theme. Questions to be considered may include, but are not limited to:
Contributors are invited to submit an initial proposal of up to 800 words. These proposals are to be sent by email to siconf2017@ehess.fr by November 2, 2016.
Authors will be notified in November 2016 whether their proposals have been accepted. Accepted authors are required to send a full paper (maximum 12,000 words) by March 15, 2017. A limited number of grants will be available to cover travel and residence costs (to be checked after the acceptation).
Organizing committee includes Philipp Golka (PhD, Jena University), Theo Bourgeron (PhD, Edinburgh University) and Laure Celerier (PhD, HEC Paris)
Further details are available here.
Special Issue Call for Papers
Submissions are invited to a special issue of Economic Issues. This special issue accompanies an ESRC seminar series focusing on factor income distribution, work and employment (ESRC Award: ES/M002039/1).
About the ESRC seminar series
The aim of the seminar series is to explore factor income distribution from a plurality of perspectives, including heterodox approaches (such as post-Keynesianism, Kaleckian and radical economics), as well as mainstream analyses. The gender lens of feminist economics will be also considered, together with institutional perspectives, and contributions from other disciplines. For more information about the seminar series, and if you would like information regarding booking your place on remaining seminars in the series, please visit: https://factorincomedistribution.wordpress.com/.
About Economic Issues
Economic Issues is a peer reviewed academic journal published twice a year in March and September. Further details about the journal can be found at: http://www.economicissues.org.uk.
Submission Guidelines
Submissions, in WORD format, should be sent via an e-mail attachment to economic-issues@ntu.ac.uk. Please clearly mark the submission as being for consideration for the special issue.
Articles should be no more than 8,000 words in length. The article should be accompanied by an abstract of (max.) 200 words, up to five keywords, and three JEL codes. The manuscript should be double line spaced. Please place tables, figures and any other matter at the end of the paper, marking their approximate position in the text (i.e. Table 1 here).
Papers wishing to be considered for the special issue should be submitted no later than 31 December 2016, for publication in the special issue in September 2017.
EDITOR
The concept of identity has been increasingly used in economics to explain the nature and behavior of individuals and different kinds of economic agents. The importance of the concept lies in the basis it provides for explaining economic behavior since the kind of behavior an agent exhibits depends on the kind of agent it is.
One of the reasons identity has become an issue in economics has to do with the influence of other sciences on economics in the last several decades. As economics incorporates other science contents, it broadens and deepens the issues it investigates. This also means that foundational issues are back on the agenda in economics, and one avenue for exploring them is through the concept of identity.
This special issue of the Forum for Social Economics is open to submissions from any approach that makes identity central to its topic of explanation. Papers can be empirical, applied, policy-oriented, theoretical, methodological, and historical. Authors are encouraged to draw on and refer to the existing literature on identity in economics, philosophy, and in other social sciences. Because of the diversity approaches this allows, papers should begin with brief discussion of what their approach is and how it advances the investigation of identity in economics.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
SCHEDULE
For questions about the issue, requirements, and possible submissions, please contact: John.davis@mu.edu
Guest Editors
Deadlines
Topic of the special issue
Should we attribute agency and responsibility exclusively to individuals, or can they also be properties of groups such as corporations and states? If corporate agents exist, do they have the same rights and responsibilities as natural persons? How should responsibility for collective harm be shared? The relevance of such questions is apparent in the difficulty of specifying individual responsibility for systemic problems such as climate change, global poverty, the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the recent sovereign debt crisis. It has proved equally challenging to assign culpability in organisational contexts such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the Union Carbide gas leak and Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in the 1980s, and the collapse of the investment banks that triggered the financial crisis. In the censure of Amazon, Starbucks, Google and Facebook for irresponsible tax avoidance, corporations apparently are perceived as agents fit to be held responsible. On the other hand, the rights and ‘personhood’ of corporate agents have been widely questioned following the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) decision to apply First Amendment rights to corporate speech.
The purpose of this special issue is to bring together new ideas on agency and responsibility from the breadth of disciplines in which such questions are addressed. Arguments from the field of business ethics have typically drawn on the discipline of analytical philosophy to answer whether business corporations are moral agents (e.g. Goodpaster and Matthews, 1982; Werhane, 1985; Pfeiffer, 1990; Phillips, 1992; Moore, 1999; Velasquez, 2003; Arnold, 2006; Altman, 2007; Ashman and Wistanley, 2007; Dubbink and Smith, 2011; List and Pettit, 2011; Dempsey, 2013; Lampert, 2016). However, continental philosophy has provided resources to question whether such terms as ‘agency’ (Painter-Morland, 2011) and ‘responsibility’ (Dunne, 2008) have stable meanings even before they are attributed to corporate organisations. More recently these concepts have been theorised from numerous novel perspectives outside the field of business ethics, as we outline below.
For example, shareholder primacy and the nexus-of-contracts theory of the firm have been challenged by a stream of recent work in critical legal studies, economics and political science (Ireland, 2003; Gindis, 2009; Robé, 2011, 2012; Deakin, 2012; Stout, 2012; Veldman and Parker, 2012; Ciepley, 2013; Mansell, 2015). These works push towards a revival of the ‘real entity’ and the ‘concession’ theories of the corporation, with important implications for the recent landmark legal rulings in the US. Furthermore, legal scholars have long debated the concept of corporate personality (Freund, 1897; Maitland, 1905; Dewey, 1926; Naffine, 2003; Harris, 2006; Ghadas, 2007; Ripken, 2009; Avi-Yonah, 2011; cf. Collison et al., 2014), particularly in relation to corporate criminal liability (Laufer, 1994; Sullivan, 1996; Khanna, 1996, 1999; Lederman, 2000). However, little of this work has influenced parallel discussions in business ethics.
More recently, political theorists have increasingly engaged with issues of corporate agency and responsibility in the state. For example, recent literature analyses how citizens can be complicit in their state’s wrongdoing and share responsibility for state policies (Ashford, 2006; Beerbohm 2012; Goodin and Lepora 2013; Kutz, 2000). Some of these accounts draw on corporate ethics in suggesting that the status of the state as a corporation is vital in establishing conditions under which citizens can be held responsible for the actions of the governments they have elected (e.g. Parrish, 2009; Stilz, 2011; Pasternak, 2013; Collins, forthcoming). Here the question of whether the government of a state is properly accountable to the legislature, all its citizens, to every person resident in its territory or to a broader set of stakeholders (e.g. the ‘international community’), is analogous to the question confronting business ethicists of whether boards of directors should serve the interests of shareholders, employees, all primary stakeholders, or society at large. And the literature on the criminal liability of business corporations is undoubtedly relevant to a state’s liability to pay reparations to those harmed by actions taken on its behalf, and the question of how those obligations are distributed among its citizenry.
The corporate status of guilds, towns, collegiate churches and the state is now an established area of intellectual history (e.g. Gierke, 1900, 1990; Maitland, 2003; Kantorowicz, 1957; Black, 1988, 2002; Runciman, 1997; Skinner, 2009; Tierney, 2010; Ryan, 2011). Gierke (1900, 1990), for example, famously expounded the medieval conception of the corporation as a group person and its gradual displacement by the idea of the modern state. In this way a genealogy of corporate personhood, were it to be attempted, might unearth fruitful alternatives to our contemporary notions of corporate responsibility.
References and further details are available here.
Prospective themes of the special issue
The aim of this issue is to bring together works that traverse disciplinary boundaries and engage with questions of corporate agency and responsibility from a variety of disciplines. We especially welcome papers that reflect on possible connections and interactions between philosophy, business ethics, political theory and critical legal theory around these issues. The questions addressed by contributions to the special issue might include the following (though this list is not exhaustive):
Timeline for submissions
4-6 April, 2017 | University of Sheffield, UK
Call for Papers, Special Streams and Symposia
The 2017 International Labour Process Conference (ILPC) will take place in Sheffield between 4 and 6 April. Each year the ILPC brings together researchers from a variety of countries with the objective of enhancing our understanding of contemporary developments relating to work and employment. The conference organisers welcome papers from any topics on ‘Work and Employment’ broadly defined.
In addition, the theme of the 2017 conference is ‘Reconnecting Work and Political Economy’. The turbulence unleashed by the financial crisis of 2008 has led to increased interest in the relationships between work and employment and the wider economy, as reflected in the recent concern with exploring forms and consequences of ‘financialisation’ and efforts to establish links between labour process analysis and the comparative analysis of institutions (Vidal and Hauptmeier, 2014). The growing interest in ‘global value chains’ (Newsome et al., 2015) has also encouraged greater attention to be paid to the contemporary global economy, while simultaneously prompting a reconsideration of the meaning, status and analytical potential of core labour process concepts and the connections between production, distribution and exchange.
Building on these developments, the aim of the conference is to extend and deepen connections between political economy research and labour process analysis. We encourage papers that seek to develop inter-disciplinary linkages through their empirical, conceptual or theoretical content. We particularly welcome submissions on topics such as:
We also welcome papers related to traditional labour process territories and concerns. Examples include:
Conference Submissions and Deadlines
Abstracts
All abstracts are externally refereed. Papers must not have been previously published or presented elsewhere. The abstract should contain clear information about the topic, how it is being investigated and the intended contribution to knowledge. Abstracts relating to new empirical research should contain information about theoretical orientation, findings, methodology and the stage of the research. Abstracts of papers that are concerned solely with theoretical or conceptual matters will need to provide clear information about the nature of the anticipated advance or innovation.
Abstracts should be approx. 500 words. Abstract submission is through the ILPC website (www.ilpc.org.uk). The website will open for submissions on 2nd August 2016.
Abstract Submission Deadline: 21st October 2016
Symposia
Each year, ILPC hosts a number of symposia. The format for a symposium should be roundtable rather than paper-based. If you wish to propose a symposium, please submit a proposal that includes information about the topic and that explains why a symposium format is appropriate. Please list all of the contributors and provide information about their individual contributions.
Symposia Submission Deadline: 21 October 2016
Stream Proposals
During the past few years, the conference has incorporated a select number of streams into the programme. While there is no intention to become a fully-streamed event, we have found that additional streams have been an important and intellectually stimulating aspect of our conference. This year we welcome stream proposals that reflect the theme of the conference notably ‘Reconnecting Work and Political Economy’
Since streams only represent a portion of our conference, we may not be able to accept all stream proposals. Acceptance of streams is based on a review process in which streams are evaluated based on two main criteria (in addition to the substantive focus of the proposed stream):
Stream proposals of approx. 500 words should include:
If you wish to discuss the possibility of organizing a stream please contact
Jason Heyes j.heyes@sheffield.ac.uk and/or Kirsty Newsome k.j.newsome@sheffield.ac.uk
Stream Proposal Deadline : 29 July 2016
PhD workshop
Doctoral students and early career researchers are especially welcome at the ILPC. The 2017 conference will include a pre-conference workshop and dinner, which will provide an opportunity to learn more about the scope and development of labour process research. It will also provide an informal environment in which to share experiences and develop relationships.
The 2017 Organising Team
1st October – 1st December, 2016
Setting the scene
Food production has always been present in the economic debate on behalf of the concern about the relationships between the population growth and demographic changes. At this respect, one of the most famous references is the book Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) written by the British economist Thomas Malthus that describes the unbalanced growth of food production in relation to the population rate of growth. The outcome of this unbalanced growth was seen as catastrophic because of the big deficit in food supply and the social problem of hunger. At that time, the population control was considered to be one of the proposals to face the food challenges.
In spite of the Malthusian concern, new methods of food production have emerged which allowed the increase in food supply. Technological changes, however, have not occurred uniformly throughout the world. Indeed, some countries have managed to expand their production and trade surpluses while situations of hunger remained a reality in many parts of the world.
In addition to technological factors in food production, other political and economic issues are involved in the access to food. Wars and conflicts prevent people from growing or purchasing food and promoted social vulnerability in situations of hunger. Other political issues involve the appropriation of land (land grabbing) by hegemonic groups, corruption, etc. In the economic field, although the Malthusian theory has not been proven to be true, there is a challenge in people’s access to food. Access to food refers to the lack of financial resources preventing households to purchase food (mainly in urban areas) in addition to the lack of financial resources in small business to buy land and inputs, and also to adopt modern technologies.
In the 21st century, the scenario of changes in food production means that even with a larger supply of food, many people, mainly the poor ones, still live in a situation of starvation. Data from the United Nations World Food Program (World Food Program UN-WFP-UN) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization-FAO-UN) have shown that hunger has been greater in some groups such as women, children, especially in the rural areas of the world and in rural areas of Africa and Asia. Indeed, the food challenges need to be discussed in the context of the promotion of social justice.
Call for Papers
The current food challenges involve issues ranging from food access to national and international regulation. Although the scope and intensity of these challenges vary according to the economic situation of countries, the debate has been global.
The purpose of this Conference is to enhance a debate that could stimulate the articulation of various aspects of the relationship between food and justice.
To organize the discussions suggested that these be grouped into large blocks described the following:
Deadline for Paper Submissions: 15th September, 2016
More information is available at the WEA website.
7–9 September, 2016 | Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
The central theme of the GSEF2016 is the collaboration between local governments and organizations of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) for the development of cities.
Around the world, SSE initiatives contribute to addressing major challenges faced by the public administrations of cities and of the communities living there: how to promote inclusive and sustainable development; ensure social cohesion; improve the quality of life of residents; and enable a wide variety of stakeholders to address these challenges.
Valuable lessons can be learned from the collaborations taking place between local governments and SSE actors on every continent. Starting from the principle that city governments are responsible for meeting their communities’ basic needs with regards to infrastructure and security and fostering residents’ wellbeing, the GSEF2016 will present best practices in these areas. These include processes, tools, and other innovative results of co-constructed public policies designed to create decent jobs, ensure local services, and other initiatives that support the development of smarter cities, i.e. ones that are more equitable and sustainable. The Forum will also be a space to consider questions such as prior conditions, challenges, and procedures for local governments and SSE organizations to co-construct public policy on local development.
See the Complete Guide of the Themes and Sub-themes.
See the preliminary program here.
Further details and registration form are available at the conference website.
15 September, 2016 | London, UK
Call for Applications: International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) Publication Workshop, London, 15 September 2016, with support from the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD, University of Westminster).
IIPPE invites applications from those who are members of IIPPE to attend a one-day publication workshop for PhD students and early career academics on 15 September.
The workshop will bring the editors and editorial board members of top political economy journals together in order to provide detailed feedback to authors on articles that should be made available in advance to the workshop by July 31st. This will be to support the articles for preparation for journal submission. There will also be the opportunity to learn more about journals' remits, interests and peer review processes. Please note that subsequent submissions to a journal will go through the usual review process – the workshop feedback does not imply automatic publication or any form of preferential consideration by any journal. You will be expected to read a small number of submitted papers, and to discuss these with participants during the workshop, in addition to feedback from two editors.
The contributors will include: Ben Fine (Journal of Southern African Studies/Development and Change/ and others), Johnna Montgomerie (general expertise), Stuart Shields (Capital and Class), Juan Grigera (Historical Materialism), Tariq Jazeel (Antipode), Hannah Cross (Review of African Political Economy) and Alfredo Saad-Filho (Critical Sociology).
To apply, please send: A drafted, full-length article of up to 10,000 words, based on original research, which is consistent with IIPPE’s objectives, here. You may also indicate which journal(s) you are targeting (although advice will be offered on this as well and you may be assigned to a different editor, depending on suitability and the balance between participating journals).
Please also include: an abstract, institutional affiliation, and details of previous publications. Applications may be sent electronically to: iippepublicationworkshop@gmail.com
Deadline for receipt of applications: extended to 7 August 2016.
Please also note the change in email address for submissions due to a technical problem. Please resend previous submissions to this address.Applicants will be informed of the decision by 15 August 2016.Please note that this invitation is only for members of IIPPE. Those who are not members may join here, and will need to do so before they confirm their attendance.
8 September, 2016 | Kingston University, London, UK
The Political Economy Research Group at Kingston University is organizing an international workshop on Inequality, Property Prices and Financial Stability on 8 September 2016. The workshop is part of the INET project ‘Rising inequality as a structural cause of the financial and economic crisis' which started in 2013. The project investigated how rising inequality, in interaction with financial deregulation, has contributed to the macroeconomic imbalances that erupted in the financial and Euro crisis.
The aim is to present the major findings of the project and to explore questions like what effects has increasing inequality had on consumption expenditures? What is the evidence that increasing income inequality led to an increase in consumption via ‘keeping up with the Joneses'-effects? How strong are wealth effects in consumption? How does the housing market affect financial (in)stability?Kingston University, 8 September 2016Penrhyn Road campus, room JG2011
Registration is required. Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inequality-property-prices-and-financial-stability-tickets-26602699390
Geoffrey Brooke, Bruce Littleboy: Message from the Editors
Selwyn Cornish, Alex Millmow: A.W.H. Phillips and Australia
John Pullen: Variables and Constants in the Theology of T. R. Malthus
David Ress: The Plum Tree and the Lean-to: A Case Study of Native Americans in 19th Century Economic Thought
James Forder: Hall and Hart on Samuelson and Solow: Some Comments
Thomas E. Hall, William R. Hart: Forder on Hall and Hart on the Samuelson–Solow Phillips Curve: Reply
Bryan R. Stikeleather: When do employers benefit from offering workers a financial reward for reporting internal misconduct?
Thomas G. Canace, Richard C. Hatfield, Scott B. Jackson: Conservatism and Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 108
Brian Bratten, Ross Jennings, Casey M. Schwab: The accuracy of disclosures for complex estimates: Evidence from reported stock option fair values
Eddy Cardinaels: Earnings benchmarks, information systems, and their impact on the degree of honesty in managerial reporting
Emer Mulligan, Lynne Oats: Tax professionals at work in Silicon Valley
Michael KOPEL, Marco A. MARINI: ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNANCE IN SOCIAL ECONOMY ENTERPRISES: AN INTRODUCTION
Patrick HERBST, Jens PRÜFER: FIRMS, NONPROFITS, AND COOPERATIVES: A THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHOICE
Alessandro FEDELE, Sara DEPEDRI: IN MEDIO STAT VIRTUS: DOES A MIXED ECONOMY INCREASE WELFARE?
Kazuhiko MIKAMI: COOPERATIVES, TRANSFERABLE SHARES, AND A UNIFIED BUSINESS LAW
Joaquim Rubens FONTES-FILHO, Michelle M. BRONSTEIN: GOVERNANCE SOLUTIONS IN LISTED COMPANIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
Derek C. JONES, Iiro JUSSILA, Panu KALMI: THE DETERMINANTS OF MEMBERSHIP IN COOPERATIVE BANKS: COMMON BOND VERSUS PRIVATE GAIN
Anjel ERRASTI, Ignacio BRETOS, Enekoitz ETXEZARRETA: WHAT DO MONDRAGON COOPITALIST MULTINATIONALS LOOK LIKE? THE RISE AND FALL OF FAGOR ELECTRODOMÉSTICOS S. COOP. AND ITS EUROPEAN SUBSIDIARIES
Simon BERGE, Wayne CALDWELL, Phil MOUNT: GOVERNANCE OF NINE ONTARIO FOOD CO-OPERATIVES
Yena LEE, Yunhwan NAM, Sanghoon LEE: THE ROLE AND STRATEGY FOR A COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION OF CO-OPERATIVES AS A SECONDARY ORGANIZATION: THE CASE OF THE GURO COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION OF CO-OPERATIVES IN KOREA
Werner Bonefeld: Bringing critical theory back in at a time of misery: Three beginnings without conclusion
Thoralf Dassler: The significance of Marx’s value for strategy theory: Competitive advantage and the issue of tautology within the resource-based view of the firm
Ipsita Chatterjee: Beyond the factory: Struggling with class and class struggle in the post-industrial context
Steven Bittle: Rational corporation meets disciplined worker: The (re)production of class subjects in corporate crime law reform
Daniela Tepe-Belfrage and Jill Steans: The new materialism: Re-claiming a debate from a feminist perspective
Corinne Painter: Non-human animals within contemporary capitalism: A Marxist account of non-human animal liberation
Andrea Szalavetz: Post-crisis developments in multinational corporations’ global organizations
Nana Wesley Hansen: International company restructuring and the effects on high-skilled employees in lead companies
Patrick O'Keeffe: Supply chain management strategies of agricultural corporations: A resource dependency approach
Nicole D Breazeale: The impact of pressure groups on inter-firm competition in the cigarette-manufacturing sector: A global value chain approach
Murray Milgate: A Neglected Bicentenary: George Pryme’s Lectures on Political Economy
Fabio Petri: Walras on Capital: Interpretative Insights from a Review by Bortkiewicz
Constantinos Alexiou, Persefoni Tsaliki, and Lefteris Tsoulfidis: Classical Theory of Investment: Panel Cointegration Evidence From 13 EU Countries
Giancarlo de Vivo: SOME NOTES ON MARX'S ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SRAFFA'S THOUGHT
Andrea Ginzburg: Professor de Vivo on Sraffa and Marx
Gabriel Sabbagh: CANTILLON IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH. TWO EDITIONS BY RICHARD VAN DEN BERG AND ANTOIN E. MURPHY: NEW FACTS AND HYPOTHESES
Roland Boer: Marxism, Religion and the Taiping Revolution
Susan Ferguson; Genevieve LeBaron; Angela Dimitrakaki and Sara R. Farris: Introduction
Susan Ferguson: Intersectionality and Social-Reproduction Feminisms
Kevin Floyd: Automatic Subjects
Rebecca Jane Hall: Reproduction and Resistance
Nicole Leach: Transitions to Capitalism
Alan Sears: Situating Sexuality in Social Reproduction
Cedric Johnson: Between Revolution and the Racial Ghetto
Giorgio Cesarale: Between Schelling and Marx: The Hegel of Slavoj Žižek
Jason Read: Under Pressure
Mark E. Blum: Otto Bauer and the Philosophy of Praxis – Then and Now
Rogéro Arthmar, Michael McLure: A. C. Pigou and the ‘Real Purpose’ of the 1924-25 Committee on the Currency and Bank of England Note Issues
Francesco Farina: The Path Dependency of Poverty Reduction Policies
Manuela Mosca: Antonio de Viti de Marco as a Political Commentator in the Daily Press
Roberto Scazzieri: Political Economy as Intellectual History: Pier Luigi Porta (1945-2016)
Marco Dardi: Tiziano Raffaelli 1950-2016
José Luis Malo Guillén, Begoña Pérez Calle: Los debates en torno al ferrocarril en España anteriores a la creación de RENFE: el camino hacia el monopolio de Estado
Guglielmo Forges Davanzati, Andrea Pacella: Keynes’s "Treatise on Money" and the role of the State
Esteban Cruz Hidalgo, Francisco Manuel Parejo Moruno: El dinero en la historia del pensamiento económico: la teoría monetaria postkeynesiana y su confrontación con la ortodoxia
Antonio Mora Plaza: Líneas posibles de avance del modelo de Sraffa
Philipp Mundt, Simone Alfarano, and Mishael Milaković: Gibrat’s Law Redux: think profitability instead of growth
Marc D. Bahlmann: Finding value in geographic diversity through prior experience and knowledge integration: a study of ventures’ innovative performance
Jungwon Min and Hitoshi Mitsuhashi: Sources of transfer problems in within-industry diversification
Inmaculada Aguiar-Díaz, Nieves Lidia Díaz-Díaz, José Luis Ballesteros-Rodríguez, and Petra De Sáa-Pérez: University–industry relations and research group production: is there a bidirectional relationship?
Francesco Franceschi and Vincenzo Mariani: Flexible labor and innovation in the Italian industrial sector
Muhamed Kudic, Andreas Pyka, and Marco Sunder: The formation of R&D cooperation ties: an event history analysis for German laser source manufacturers
Catherine Lecocq and Bart Van Looy: What differentiates top regions in the field of biotechnology? An empirical study of the texture characteristics of biotech regions in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific
Johan Bruneel, Pablo D’Este, and Ammon Salter: The impact of financial slack on explorative and exploitative knowledge sourcing from universities: evidence from the UK
CorrigendumCorrigendum: Modernizing the Business of Health: Pharmaceuticals in Britain, in comparison with Germany and the United States, 1890–1940
Symposium: The Formation of Global Capitalism
Jerry Harris & Marek Hrubec: Introduction: The Formation of Global Capitalism
Leslie Sklair: The Transnational Capitalist Class, Social Movements, and Alternatives to Capitalist Globalization
George Liodakis: Recent Developments of Totalitarian Capitalism and the Evolving World Order: Some Implications for Social Movements
Anthony van Fossen: Flags of Convenience and Global Capitalism
Marek Hrubec: Conflicts of the Global State
Articles
John Bellamy Foster: Marxism in the Anthropocene: Dialectical Rifts on the Left
Ariel Salleh: The Anthropocene: Thinking in “Deep Geological Time” or Deep Libidinal Time?
Wei Xiaoping: A Comparison of the Research Approaches of Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Capital
Zhang Xinning & Pei Shaohua: “Socialist” Factors in the US Presidential Election
Yong Tao: Spontaneous economic order
Erkan Gürpınar: Organizational forms in the knowledge economy: a comparative institutional analysis
Brigitte Hoogendoorn, Cornelius A. Rietveld, André van Stel: Belonging, believing, bonding, and behaving: the relationship between religion and business ownership at the country level
Sylvie Geisendorf: The impact of personal beliefs on climate change: the “battle of perspectives” revisited
Michele Berardi: Endogenous time-varying risk aversion and asset returns
David B. Audretsch, Donald F. Kuratko, Albert N. Link: Dynamic entrepreneurship and technology-based innovation
Anton Bondarev: Intensity of R&D competition and the generation of innovations in heterogeneous setting
Brendan Markey-Towler: Law of the jungle: firm survival and price dynamics in evolutionary markets
Articles
Christine Trampusch & Bruno Palier: Between X and Y: how process tracing contributes to opening the black box of causality
Tulia G. Falleti: Process tracing of extensive and intensive processes
Derek Beach: It's all about mechanisms – what process-tracing case studies should be tracing
Invited responses
Renate Mayntz: Process tracing, abstraction, and varieties of cognitive interest
Kimberly J. Morgan: Process tracing and the causal identification revolution
James Mahoney: Mechanisms, Bayesianism, and process tracing
Colin Hay: Process tracing: a laudable aim or a high-tariff methodology?
John Edward King: Nicholas Kaldor after Thirty Years
Elisabetta Montanaro: The Process towards the Centralisation of the European Financial Supervisory Architecture: The Case of the Banking Union
Chiara Assunta Ricci: The Mobility of Italy’s Middle Income Group
Giulia Zacchia: Paolo Sylos Labini: Reflections of a Classical Economist
Alasdair R. Young: Not your parents' trade politics: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations
Antonio Postigo: Institutional spillovers from the negotiation and formulation of East Asian free trade agreements
David A. Steinberg: Developmental states and undervalued exchange rates in the developing world
Thomas R. Eimer, Susanne Lütz & Verena Schüren: Varieties of localization: international norms and the commodification of knowledge in India and Brazil
João Rodrigues, Ana C. Santos & Nuno Teles: Semi-peripheral financialisation: the case of Portugal
Lukas Hakelberg: Coercion in international tax cooperation: identifying the prerequisites for sanction threats by a great power
Symposium: The Economics of Augusto Graziani
Riccardo Bellofiore and Marco Veronese Passarella: Introduction: the theoretical legacy of Augusto Graziani
Mario Pomini: Augusto Graziani and general economic equilibrium: from statics to dynamics,
Guglielmo Forges Davanzati: Credit supply, credit demand and unemployment in the mode of Augusto Graziani
Massimo Cingolani: Augusto Graziani's Equilibrio generale ed equilibrio macroeconomico: a key milestone in a long journey out of the neoclassical mainstream
Malcolm Sawyer: Graziani's analysis of the circuit: does it extend to the era of financialisation?
Articles
J.E. King: Joan Robinson's Accumulation of Capital after 60 years
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira: Reflecting on new developmentalism and classical developmentalism
Federico Bassi: Aggregate demand, sunk costs and discontinuous adjustments in an amended new consensus model
Noah Quastel: Ecological Political Economy: Towards a Strategic-Relational Approach
Brett Fiebiger: Rethinking the Financialisation of Non-Financial Corporations: A Reappraisal of US Empirical Data
Lefteris Tsoulfidis, Constantinos Alexiou & Persefoni Tsaliki: The Greek economic crisis: causes and alternative policies
Sherry Yu: The effect of political factors on sovereign default
Symposium on Rational Econometric Man
Marcel Boumans: Methodological institutionalism as a transformation of structural econometrics
Aris Spanos: Transforming structural econometrics: substantive vs. statistical premises of inference
Lawrence A. Boland: Econometrics and equilibrium models
Edward J. Nell & Karim Errouaki: Modeling and Measuring Economic Reality: Reply to the Reviews
Martha C. Nussbaum: Economics still needs philosophy
Catherine Pollak & Nicolas Sirven: Active ageing beyond the labour market: evidence on the role of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards at work
Bana Bashour & Ramzi Mabsout: Reconciling economics with naturalist ethical theory
Jérôme Blanc & Marie Fare: Turning values concrete: the role and ways of business selection in local currency schemes
Jakob Kapeller, Bernhard Schütz & Dennis Tamesberger: From free to civilized trade: a European perspective
States of work special section: Foreword
Guglielmo Meardi, Jimmy Donaghey, and Deborah Dean: The strange non-retreat of the state: implications for the sociology of work
States of work special section: Articles
Chris Howell: Regulating class in the neoliberal era: the role of the state in the restructuring of work and employment relations
Chris Forde and Gary Slater: Labour market regulation and the ‘competition state’: an analysis of the implementation of the Agency Working Regulations in the UK
Manuela Naldini, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Cristina Solera: Female employment and elderly care: the role of care policies and culture in 21 European countries
Pierre Barron, Anne Bory, Sébastien Chauvin, Nicolas Jounin, and Lucie Tourette: State categories and labour protest: migrant workers and the fight for legal status in France
Articles
Ricardo Rodrigues, David Guest, and Alexandra Budjanovcanin: Bounded or boundaryless? An empirical investigation of career boundaries and boundary crossing
Jean Gardiner, Andrew M Robinson, and Fathi Fakhfakh: Exploring the private pension gender gap and occupation in later working life
Shelagh Mooney: ‘Nimble’ intersectionality in employment research: a way to resolve methodological dilemmas
Sergio Ordóñez, Carlos Sánchez: Knowledge Capitalism, Globalization, and Hegemony: Toward a Socio-Spatial Approach
Helen Caraveli: Global Imbalances and EU Core-Periphery Division: Institutional Framework and Theoretical Interpretations
Irene Sotiropoulou: Collective Viewings of Value(s) and the Struggle for What is Valuable: The Case of Grassroots Initiatives
Ramanamurthy V. Rupakula: Class Differentiation and Crisis of Agrarian Petty Producers in India
Daniel Bin: The Politics of Financialization in Brazil
Ezra Davar: Marx and Input-Output Analysis and General Equilibrium Theory
Shoujun Lyu: Economic Crisis and Regulation Theory: Review of International Conference of Research & Regulation 2015
Edited by Sara R. Farris | 2016, Haymarket Books
Marx’s thought is being reappropriated and reinterpreted by a new generation of activists in their own struggles. This entails a return to Marx, a return that is never simple or innocent, for it demands the abandonment of a “dogmatic” approach to the texts and the willingness to strive in the present for an understanding of Marx’s analyses of capitalism.
“[T}he collection of essays presented in this volume aims to demonstrate the richness, rigour and importance of Marx’s thought for developing alternative worldviews and politics in the present. We hope the reader will find these texts interesting and useful not only in her efforts to make sense of the world that surrounds us, but also in her fight against the many forms of injustice brought about by capitalism.” — Sara R. Farris, from the introduction
Contributors: Riccardo Bellofiore, Roland Boer, Chiara Bonfiglioli, Guglielmo Carchedi, Katja Diefenbach, Jan Drahokoupil, Peter Drucker, Sara R. Farris, Michael Heinrich, Laura Horn, Joost Kircz, Gal Kirn, Geert Reuten, Tom Rockmore, Peter D. Thomas, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Marcel van der Linden, Jeff Webber, Frieder Otto Wolf, Steve Wright, Wei Xiaoping
Link to the book is available here.
In order to understand the resilience of capitalism as a mode of production, social organization, and an intellectual system, it is necessary to explore its intellectual development and underlying structure.
A Historical Political Economy of Capitalism argues that capitalism is based on a dominant intellectuality: a metaphysics. It proposes the construction of a history-based 'critique of political economy', capable of revealing the poverty of capitalism's intellectual logic and of its application in practice. This involves a reconsideration of several classical thinkers, including Smith, Marx, Berkeley, Locke, Hobbes, Hume and Rousseau. It also sketches an emancipative methodology of analysis, aiming to expose any metaphysics, capitalist or none. In doing so, this book proposes a completely new approach in materialist philosophy.
The new methodology in political economy that is proposed in this volume is an alternative way to organize a materialist approach. Some basic aspects of what is argued by the author can be found in Marx. This book is well suited for those who study political economy and economic theory and philosophy, as well as those who are interested in Marxism.
Linke to the book is available here.
By Stefan Ouma | 2015, Wiley
Assembling Export Markets explores the new ‘frontier regions’ of the global fresh produce market that has emerged in Ghana over the past decade.Link to the book is available here.
By William Mitchell | 2016, Edward Elgar
Eurozone Dystopia traces the origin of the Eurozone and shows how the historical Franco-German rivalry combined with the growing dominance of neo-liberal economic thinking to create a monetary system that was deeply flawed and destined to fail. William Mitchell argues that the political class in Europe is trapped in a destructive groupthink. Based on a flawed understanding of macroeconomic fundamentals, groupthink extols the virtues of the erroneous concept of the self-regulating free market and prevents Europe from seeing its own policy failures. As a result, millions are unemployed, with imperilled member states caught in a cycle of persistent stagnation and rising social instability.
Providing a detailed historical analysis of the evolution of the Eurozone and its failings from the 1940s to the present day, the book argues that the Eurozone lacks the necessary monetary architecture, particularly the existence of a federal fiscal function which could have resolved the economic crisis quickly. The author examines the options available to Europe and concludes that an orderly abandonment of the euro and a return to national currencies is the superior option available. The justification for this conclusion is exhaustively argued within a Modern Monetary Theory framework.
This thoughtful and accessible account of Europe’s economic woes will appeal to all those who are seeking an explanation for the crisis and are receptive to sensible and credible alternatives to the current scenario.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan and Otaviano Canuto | 2016, Palgrave Macmillan
This collection empirically and conceptually advances our understanding of the intricacies of emerging markets’ financial and macroeconomic development in the post-2008 crisis context. Covering a vast geography and a broad range of economic viewpoints, this study serves as an informed guide in the unchartered waters of fundamental uncertainty as it has been redefined in the post-crisis period. Contributors to the collection go beyond risks-opportunities analyses, looking deeper into the nuanced interpretations of data and economic categories as interplay of developing world characteristics in the context of redefined fundamental uncertainty. Those concerns relate to the issues of small country finance, the industrialization of the developing world, the role of commodity cycles in the global economy, sovereign debt, speculative financial flows and currency pressures, and connections between financial markets and real markets. Compact and comprehensive, this collection offers unique perspectives into contemporary issues of financial deepening and real macroeconomic development in small developing economies that rarely surface in the larger policy and development debates.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Eckhard Hein, Daniel Detzer and Nina Dodig | 2016, Edward Elgar
Financialisation and the Financial and Economic Crises provides comparative, empirical case studies of a diverse set of eleven countries. In particular, the book helps in understanding the current (mal)performance of Euro area economies by explaining the causes of the shifts in growth regimes during and after the crises. It goes well beyond the dominant interpretation of the recent financial and economic crises as being rooted in malfunctioning and poorly regulated financial markets.
The contributions to this book provide detailed accounts of the long-term effects of financialisation and cover the main developments leading up to and during the crisis in 11 selected countries: the US, the UK, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Estonia, and Turkey. The introductory chapter presents the theoretical framework and synthesizes the main findings of the country studies. Furthermore, the macroeconomic effects of financialisation on the EU as a whole are analysed in the final chapter.
Offering an illuminating overview and invaluable alternative perspective on the long-run developments leading to the recent crises, this book is essential reading for researchers, students and policymakers and an ideal starting point for further research.
Link to the book is available here.
By Gareth Dale | 2016, Columbia University Press
Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) was one of the twentieth century's most original interpreters of the market economy. His penetrating analysis of globalization's disruptions and the Great Depression's underlying causes still serves as an effective counterargument to free market fundamentalism. This biography shows how the major personal and historical events of his life transformed him from a bourgeois radical into a Christian socialist but also informed his ambivalent stance on social democracy, communism, the New Deal, and the shifting intellectual scene of postwar America.
The book begins with Polanyi's childhood in the Habsburg Empire and his involvement with the Great War and Hungary's postwar revolution. It connects Polanyi's idealistic radicalism to the political promise and intellectual ferment of Red Vienna and the horror of fascism. The narrative revisits Polanyi's oeuvre in English, German, and Hungarian, includes exhaustive research in five archives, and features interviews with Polanyi's daughter, students, and colleagues, clarifying the contradictory aspects of the thinker's work. These personal accounts also shed light on Polanyi's connections to scholars, Christians, atheists, journalists, hot and cold warriors, and socialists of all stripes. Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left engages with Polanyi's biography as a reflection and condensation of extraordinary times. It highlights the historical ruptures, tensions, and upheavals that the thinker sought to capture and comprehend and, in telling his story, engages with the intellectual and political history of a turbulent epoch.
Link to the book is available here (30% discount on hardcover with coupon-code "EMAIL").
By Nicholas Hildyard | 2016, The Corner House
This new 144-page book, just published by Manchester University Press, argues that the current push worldwide for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is not about building infrastructure -- roads, bridges, hospitals, ports and railways -- for the benefit of society but about constructing new subsidies to benefit the already wealthy. It is less about financing development than developing finance.
Understanding and exposing these processes is essential to challenge growing inequality. But equally important is critical reflection on how the wealthy are getting away with it. What does the wealth gap suggest about the need for new forms of organizing by those who would resist elite power? What oppositional strategies unsettle elite power instead of making it stronger?
Link to the book is available here.
This collection is inspired by the coming retirement of Professor Wolfram Elsner. It presents cutting-edge economic research relevant to economic policies and policy-making, placing a strong focus on innovative perspectives.
In a changing world that has been shaken by economic, social, financial, and ecological crises, it becomes increasingly clear that new approaches to economics are needed for both theoretical and empirical research; for applied economics as well as policy advice. At this point, it seems necessary to develop new methods, to reconsider theoretical foundations and especially to take into account the theoretical alternatives that have been advocated within the field of economics for many years. This collection seeks to accomplish this by including institutionalist, evolutionary, complexity, and other innovative perspectives. It thereby creates a unique selection of methodological and empirical approaches ranging from game theory to economic dynamics to empirical and historical-theoretical analyses.
The interested reader will find careful reconsiderations of the historical development of institutional and evolutionary theories, enlightening theoretical contributions, interdisciplinary ideas, as well as insightful applications. The collection serves to highlight the common ground and the synergies between the various approaches and thereby to contribute to an emerging coherent framework of alternative theories in economics. This book is of interest to those who study political economy, economic theory and philosophy, as well as economic policy.
Link to the book is available here.
By Caroline Shenaz Hossein | 2016, University of Toronto Press
When Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, microfinance was lauded as an important contributor to the economic development of the Global South. However, political scandals, mission-drift, and excessive commercialization have tarnished this example of responsible or inclusive financial development. Politicized Microfinance insightfully discusses exclusion while providing a path towards redemption.
In this work, Caroline Shenaz Hossein explores the politics, histories and social prejudices that have shaped the legacy of microbanking in Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad. Writing from a feminist perspective, Hossein’s analysis is rooted in original qualitative data and offers multiple solutions that prioritize the needs of marginalized and historically oppressed people of African descent.
A must read for scholars of political economy, diaspora studies, social economy, women’s studies, as well as development practitioners, Politicized Microfinance convincingly argues for microfinance to return to its origins as a political tool, fighting for those living in the margins.
Link to the book is available here.
By Dave Elder-Vass | 2016, Cambridge UP
Our economy is neither overwhelmingly capitalist, as Marxist political economists argue, nor overwhelmingly a market economy, as mainstream economists assume. Both approaches ignore vast swathes of the economy, including the gift, collaborative and hybrid forms that coexist with more conventional capitalism in the new digital economy. Drawing on economic sociology, anthropology of the gift and heterodox economics, this book proposes a ground-breaking framework for analysing diverse economic systems: a political economy of practices. The framework is used to analyse Apple, Wikipedia, Google, YouTube and Facebook, showing how different complexes of appropriative practices bring about radically different economic outcomes. Innovative and topical, Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy focuses on an area of rapid social change while developing a theoretically and politically radical framework that will be of continuing long term relevance. It will appeal to students, activists and academics in the social sciences.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Hasan Cömert and Rex A. McKenzie | 2016, Edward Elgar
The Global South after the Crisis is an appraisal and analysis of how the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009 unfolded in the developing world and an exploration of its effects on those countries, particularly on each one’s economic management. Essays identify the ways in which the crisis was transmitted to these countries and the associated policy responses of the governments concerned.
This volume is split into two accessible sections. The first part concentrates on the impact of the crisis on growth, inequality, policy responses and policy shifts in key areas such as central banking. The second part comprises individual country case studies and includes an exploration of the vulnerabilities related to the integration of developing economies into the world economy.
This well-integrated compilation of both original case studies and thematic essays will be of interest to scholars and professionals working in the development field and other readers wishing to obtain an understanding of socio-economic developments in the wider world. Aid workers, policy makers, and social science researchers will also find value in this book.
Link to the book is available here.
Neoliberalism is easily one of the most powerful concepts to emerge within the social sciences in the last two decades, and the number of scholars who write about this dynamic and unfolding process of socio-spatial transformation is astonishing. Even more surprising though is that there has, until now, not been an attempt to provide a wide-ranging volume that engages with the multiple registers in which neoliberalism has evolved.
The Handbook of Neoliberalism seeks to offer a wide-ranging overview of the phenomenon of neoliberalism by examining a number of ways that it has been theorized, promoted, critiqued, and put into practice in a variety of geographical locations and institutional frameworks. With contributions from over 50 leading
authors working at institutions around the world, the volume’s seven sections provide a systematic overview of neoliberalism’s origins, political implications, social tensions, knowledge productions, spaces, natures and environments, and aftermaths in addressing ongoing and emerging debates.
The volume aims to provide the first comprehensive overview of the field and to advance the established and emergent debates in a field that has grown exponentially over the past two decades, coinciding with the meteoric rise of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology, state form, policy and program, and governmentality. It includes a substantive introductory chapter and will serve as an invaluable resource for undergraduates, graduate students, and professional scholars alike.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Jeremy Morris, Abel Polese | 2016, Routledge
From smugglers to entrepreneurs, blue-collar workers and taxi drivers, this book deals with the multitude of characters engaged in informal economic practices in the former socialist regions. Going beyond a conception of informality as opposed to the formal sector, its authors demonstrate the fluid nature of informal transactions straddling the crossroads between illegal, illicit, socially acceptable and symbolically meaningful practices. Their argument is informed by a wide range of case studies, from Central Europe to the Baltics and Central Asia, each of which is constructed around a single informant. Each chapter narrates the story of a composite person or household that was carefully selected or constructed by an author with long-standing ethnographic research experience in the given field site.
Wide in geographical, empirical and theoretical scope, the book uses ethnographic narrative accounts of everyday life to make links between ‘ordinary’ meanings of informality. Challenging reductively economistic perspectives on cross-border trading, undeclared work and other informal activities, the authors illustrate the wide variety of interpretive meanings that people ascribe to such practices. Alongside ‘getting by’ and ‘getting ahead’ in recently marketised societies, these meanings relate to sociality, kinship-ties and solidarity, along with more surprising ‘political’ and moral reasonings.
Link to the book is available here.
The PhD program in “Methods and Models for Economic Decisions” at Insubria University, Varese, Italy, has opened a new call for applications (deadline: August 22, 2016).
The program is entirely in English and focuses on microeconomic theory, applied microeconomics, and quantitative methods for economics, but welcomes students with research interests in the history and methodology of microeconomics.
Six positions, each endowed with a fellowship of Euros 13,600 per year, are available.
More information on the program and the call for applications are available at: http://www.eco.uninsubria.it/PhDMMED.
Objectives
EGM is a master course designed to meet the growing demand of those students who seek a degree that combines a solid training in Economics and Quantitative Techniques with a thorough knowledge of the European and the global economic and institutional context.
In the era of information, globalization and of deep institutional changes across Europe and major industrialized economies, students in Economics and Global Markets will learn how to assess the impacts of normative changes, regulations and institutions that govern the functioning of product, labour and financial markets. The main objectives of the analysis are the performances of public and private enterprises, as well as the growth prospects of countries and organizations.
The course provides strong economic foundations, institutional knowledge as well as statistical and econometric tools necessary to perform market and sector analysis, impact evaluations and forecast scenarios also at the firm level. The course covers a wide range of economics fields, including international economics, industrial economics, labour economics, public policy and macroeconomics.
Learning is envisaged in an international perspective; the environment is open to the contributions of international scholars and students; internships, stages and learning periods abroad are encouraged and assisted. These activities will allow the graduates to develop language, relational and decisional skills which will strengthen the specific economic competences and prepare to high-level professional careers.
Please visit the Moodle platform of the Master course by linking to EGM Moodle platform.
INTERNATIONAL OPPORTUNITIESDOUBLE DEGREE
Students enrolled in EGM are offered the opportunity to attend the second year of their Master Degree at the University of Trier (Germany) and obtain a M.Sc.in Economics: European Economic Integration in addition to the Laurea Magistrale in Economics and Global Markets form the University of Bergamo. For further information please contact Prof. Annalisa Cristini.
ERASMUS PROGRAMS
Students are encouraged to spend a period in another European university, by applying to the Erasmus program or to similar agreements that have been signed between the University of Bergamo and other Universities.
For a number of European universities there exist a ready-to-use map linking courses taught in EGM to those that students can attend abroad in substitution of the former. Maps are available for the following Universities: Trier (GE), Maastricht (NL), Alcalá (SP); many other universities offer courses that can be mapped.
For further information please contact prof. Elena Cefis or prof. Annalisa Cristini.
Career prospects
Graduates are expected to successfully compete for jobs in firms and financial institutions, in consulting, in national and international public institutions and corporates. Graduates will aim to roles that require abilities to relate to international partners, to assess the validity of institutional and normative changes, of economic policies as well as of specific programs and investments, where autonomous judgment and decisional capacity are required. Examples of specific fields where graduates from EGM can give valuable contributions, both in private firms and public institutions, are:
Admission
International students
Applicants are required knowledge of English corresponding to level B2, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Applicants who do not submit the relevant certificate with the pre-application shall be asked to pass an English language test. Applicants should also submit to an individual interview in order to test if they satisfy the admission requirements.
For information on how to apply, pre-enrolment form, admission test and enrolment, please follow the links below:
Italian students
a. Students holding an Italian bachelor degree in classes 18 or 33:
b. Students holding an Italian bachelor degree in classes other than 18 or 33 [from a.y. 16/17]:
c. All applicants: knowledge of English language corresponding to level B2, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
For more information see go the university's website.
Job Position: Opening for two paid PhD positions at the WTI
The WTI is offering the opportunity to two political science graduates to join a new research project on globalisation as PhD candidates. The successful applicants will be involved in the “BRICs Globalization and Labor Protections in Advanced and Emerging Economics” project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The initial appointment will be for one year, with a possibility of extension.
For further information click here.
Please note also, the deadline for early admission to the PhD programme for the next academic year is 1 September 2016.
Further information
Link to the current issue is available here.
Link to the current issue is available here.
Welcome to the Binzagr Institute’s Vlog (video blog) series “Jobs, Money, Debt: Economic Common Sense” by Mathew Forstater, Research Director at the Binzagr Institute and Professor of Economics at UMKC. This Vlog series is designed to debunk myths about unemployment, deficits, the national debt, and the monetary system, and to articulate how we can create sustainable prosperity for the 21st century.
Watch, comment, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and stay tuned for more videos in the coming weeks and months.
At last week's 29th history of Economic Thought Society of Australia Conference in Melbourne the new publishers of the History of Economics Review have been announced.
This current issue, No. 63, is freely available on line to mark the occasion. Existing subscribers will receive their hard copy in a few weeks. The HER will now be published three times a year.
The individual subscription rate for online and hard copy is $60 US which also will allow you to access all previous 62 issues on the taylor and francis website for the journal.