Issue 265 June 22, 2020 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
While books on economics do regularly become bestsellers, it is a rare occastion to see such a bestseller cover relevant terrain in heterodox economics. And although a series of successful books with heterodox content reached a broader audience in recent years – just think of Mariana Mazzucato's Entrepreunerial State, Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economicsor David Graeber's Debt: The first 5.000 years–, the frequency of such occasions is not very high. Hence, it is all the more reason to applaud the efforts of Stephanie Kelton, who seems to have landed such a bestseller with her recent book The Deficit Myth. The book deals with budgets, deficits and the potentials of central banking in the US from an MMT perspective and has found huge resonance in recent weeks. Although some of the more specific claims of MMT are controversially discussed also within heterodox circles, I think that a large majority of heterodox economists would agree that the dominant perception of public deficits in academic economics, political decision-making and public debate is somewhere between 'blurred' and 'distorted' and, hence, that any effort devoted to rectifying this is highly welcome.
While a change in perception on public deficits in the US and beyond seems to be also fuelled by the impact of the Corona-crisis, another important shift in perception is currently taking place in the US, where long-standing racist practices of social segregation and discrimination are now openly challenged on a large scale (see also these statements of solidarity from some heterodox economic associations). In this context, one should remember that the economic discipline has a long tradition, showing not only lack of (respect for) diversity, but also openly questioning the actual relevance of 'discrimination' at all. Just think of Gary Becker's models of discrimination (where discrimination is supposed to vanish because of the beneficial impact of market competition), Thomas Schelling's checkerboard model (which explains spatial segregation of blacks and whites solely in terms of individual preferences) or, most infamously, George Stigler's comments on the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s published under the title "The Negro problem".
The latter explains the subordinated position of people of color solely in terms of their individual capabilities & characteristics. In doing so, it is a quite cruel example of one of the normative subtleties of mainstream economics, namely the occasional transgression from methodological individualism ('solely individuals matter for analysis') to a crude version of a normative individualism, which allocates the responsibility for any plights fully to individuals and the decisions they make ('solely individual decisions determine well-being'). This routine explains away any structural features causing inequalities and allocates all the burden to the individuals, who obviously make poor choices – otherwise they would not experience any plight at all! The routine is visible when it comes to inequalities in the context of gender (as women are supposed to be too risk-averse to achieve high pay), development (as people in the global south are simply assumed to make poor choices, when not being guided by appropriate incentives or prescriptions), race (see Schelling or Stigler) or unemployment (which is not conceived as a structural feature of capitalism, but as an individual consequence of a lack of education, effort and training). This transgression from the ontological to the normative is still coining mainstream economics, although 'nudging' sounds admittedly less threatening than Stigler's openly racist application of the same underlying principle. But still, the principle is alive and well.
All the best,
Jakob
PS: See also this nice list of suggestions for reforming economics to improve both, diversity in economics as well as the appreciation of structural sources of inequalites in economic analysis.
© public domain
The Journal of International Business Policy is having a call for papers for a special issue on the topic of "Managing, Theorizing and Policy Making in an Age of Social and Politiical Uncertainty” co-edited by Timothy Devinney, Christopher Hartwell, Jennifer Oetzel and Paul Vaaler.
Papers submitted to the special issue could address local, regional, and global dimensions but should focus on implications of social and political uncertainty on the nature of policymaking and the impact of these policies on key stakeholders in business and society. You can find the full call here.
Submission Deadline is 1 September 2020.
Cambridge University Press has launched the Elements on Global Development Studies, a new series for short monographs or long essays (20,000-30,000 words; 40-70 pages).
The Cambridge Elements on Global Development Studies publishes ground-breaking, novel works that move beyond existing theories and methodologies of development in order to consider social change in real times and real spaces.
The series publishes three major types of work:
The series is soliciting manuscripts on heterodox economics and development in the Global South and Global North.
Contact the Editors
If you would like to have more information about this series, or are interested in writing an Element, please email Prof. Peter Ho and Dr. Servaas Storm at global.development@xs4all.nl.
A few months ago, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to postpone the 24th ESHET conference from May to September. Although the situation in Europe has improved considerably and the lockdown measures are gradually relaxed, a lot of restrictions remain in place. It is now clear there are still too many risks and uncertainties to guarantee that we can safely organize our conference in September. We have therefore taken the sad and difficult decision to postpone it again. It will be held on 27-29 May 2021, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
We are particularly indebted for their commitment to the Organizing committee in Sofia and to the Scientific committee. We will do our best to ensure that the work already done is maintained. After the two rounds of paper submissions, we now have a significant number of potential contributions. We hope, of course, that their authors will remain committed to presenting them in Sofia in May 2021. In the meantime, we are working on ways for the authors to share their current work with others and we will soon be in touch with authors about this. Likewise, the Young Scholar awards as well as the ESHET prizes and awards for 2020 will be postponed to 2021 - and will therefore be in addition to those awarded in 2021. From a practical point of view, registration and other fees already paid for the 2020 conference may be carried over to next year, unless a refund is requested.
The Forum for Social Economics (FSE) is pleased to invite submissions to a special issue, welcoming contributions from a variety of disciplines and encouraging application of different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method).
The special issue of FSE will address problems related to the rise of illiberal movements in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The illiberal turn is marked by a rejection of the main tenets of political, cultural and (to some extent) economic liberalism (Zielonka 2018, Galston 2018). This poses a serious challenge to the liberal status quo that emerged after 1989. Illiberal tendencies in CEE have also become a serious dilemma for the European Union (Makarychev 2019), which regards itself as founded on democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, and multiculturalism. However, in Poland and Hungary governments formed by Law and Justice and Fidesz, respectively, not only dismantle the fundamentals of constitutional democracy but also openly employ a scapegoating rhetoric directed at immigrants and other minorities. Even though Poland and Hungary are considered paradigmatic cases of “democratic backslide,” similar tendencies can be easily identified in the entire region (Cianetti, Dawson, and Hanley 2018). Several scholarly accounts of these phenomena have been developed, but we remain skeptical about explanations that seek the roots of this crisis in the communist legacy or the antidemocratic tendencies inherited from the history of CEE. As Mudde points out, although rightist movements have been long present in CEE, it would be an exaggeration to call this region a haven for extremists (Mudde 2017). In other words, CEE states are in no way predestined to turn into illiberal democracies. Nor can the rise of populism be fully explained by the failed attempts to imitate the West (Krastev and Holmes 2018) or by the unfinished process of building a nation-state (Minkenberg 2017). Such accounts are partial at best since they ignore or downplay the intersection between democratic politics and neoliberal economic reforms.
How can we make sense of the populist turn in CEE? In our view, the rise of the illiberal right can be properly understood only against the background of the neoliberal market transition. Our thesis dovetails with observations made by Karl Polanyi, who argues in The Great Transformation that “in order to comprehend German fascism, we must revert to Ricardian England” (Polanyi 2001, 32). As he makes clear, the reaction to market shocks can take both progressive and regressive political forms, with the latter proving hostile to individual freedom and the institutions that safeguard it. In Polanyi’s time, German fascism was regarded as a paradigmatic case of an illiberal countermovement, whereas contemporary examples of similar tendencies are described using various labels such as populism, elective authoritarianism, or illiberal democracy. What we witness today is a variant of Polanyian countermovement, one which has not yet developed its final form. Polanyi’s dictum that it is impossible to grasp German fascism without taking into account Ricardian England appears even more illuminating when interpreted in the context of the division between the center and the periphery of global capitalism. Although the project of a worldwide capitalism based on self-regulating markets was born in England and the United States, its most damaging social consequences have become apparent in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. Hence, a close study devoted to the politics of Europe’s Eastern periphery may reveal important clues that could help to understand the nature and roots of the populist movements which emerged around the world after the Great Recession (Judis 2016).
We argue that the current upsurge of the illiberal right is a reaction to the socially destabilizing consequences of the neoliberal capitalism adopted by all countries of CEE (Bohle and Greskovits 2012). This may seem counterintuitive since it is widely believed that in most CEE countries the market transition was an outstanding economic success marked by a rapid increase in GDP per capita, attractive employment opportunities, growing consumption, and rising living standards. However, a closer examination reveals serious shortcomings of the emerging market economies, including growing economic inequalities, dependence on foreign capital, underfinanced public services, and labor market insecurity. As suggested by Apple and Orenstein (2018), current problems faced by many CEE countries are rooted in their attempt to join the international economy by adopting the principles of the Washington consensus. The picture is becoming even bleaker when we consider the evidence provided by anthropology and critical sociology. As Chris Hann has observed, “the dislocation of the 1990s was an irruption of Karl Polanyi’s «market society» in a dramatic form that made the “disembedding” accomplished by nineteenth century liberalism seem mild and gradualist in comparison” (Hahn 2019, 297). For many inhabitants of CEE, the rise of market society was marked by the disruption of established identities and social practices (Dunn 2004). Moreover, those who could not adapt to the new market realities have been demonized in mainstream discourse for their alleged adherence to a “Soviet mentality” (Buchowski 2006). Mass migrations, new forms of poverty, and the growing divide between the “winners” and “losers” of the economic transition have provided fertile ground for a new coalition between the dispossessed and cynical political elites.
The rise of the anti-liberal right in CEE poses both intellectual and ethical challenges for social sciences. We invite contributions engaging with the above account of the rise of illiberal right, both developing or challenging this approach. Specific research questions include but are not limited to the following problems:
Notes for Authors
Anyone wishing to submit an abstract or having any questions can email Sławomir Czech. We shall gladly consider any suggestions and answer questions regarding possible topics. To submit a paper proposal, please email the title and a 300-word abstract to the editor Slawomir Czech. Please find further information about the submission process here.
Submission Deadline: 31 August 2020
The ILR Review invites submissions for a conference and subsequent special issue devoted to transnational employment relations in the European Union (EU). Roland Erne (University College Dublin), Marco Hauptmeier (Cardiff University), Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), and Peter Turnbull (University of Bristol) will serve as guest editors of this special issue.
Overview
The aim of the special issue is to examine the actors, processes, and outcomes of transnational employment relations in the EU, including the impact of EU interventions on employment relations within and across member states, as well as the effects of countervailing collective action on the European integration process. Employment relations in the EU exist in an antagonistic context of market-making (economic) and market-correcting (social) integration. The EU has acknowledged the need to reconcile economic and social integration, as stated in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union and illustrated by numerous EU initiatives and laws in the area of work and employment relations. At the same time, EU laws have liberalized markets, removed trade barriers, and created the Single Market and the European currency. Although these EU interventions were designed to enhance Europe’s economic competitiveness, they drove greater labor competition and downward pressures on wages and working standards. In the wake of the 2008–2009 economic crisis and the following Euro crisis, the EU’s austerity policies and “Six-Pack” laws further constrained member states’ budgets. These actions limited member state’s capacity to finance unemployment protection and social policies and led them to further deregulate labor markets and reduce social protection. In response to the consequent social protests and populist backlash caused by the EU interventions, member state governments and EU leaders reaffirmed the EU’s Social Europe agenda and promised to deliver new and more effective social rights for citizens, as stipulated in the European Pillar of Social Rights of 2017. Nonetheless, the tensions between economic and social integration in the EU remain strong. They may likely be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which renders even more apparent the social and political effects of the EU’s new economic governance regime on labor, health care, and welfare policies. Assessments of EU governance and institutions vary from viewing the social and employment initiatives as mere window dressing in the context of far-reaching economic liberalization, to recognizing that the EU has promoted employment regulations that provide better conditions for workers compared to other world regions. This debate about the current state and future development of European employment relations will continue to resound, in particular in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis. How does the current level of EU employment regulation affect the way the COVID-19 pandemic affects working 2 people? And how will the pandemic reduce or intensify the existing tensions in employment relations caused by European integration?
To answer these and other questions, research needs to examine the processes through which specific EU institutions affect employment relations, on the one hand, and the ways in which employment relations actors affect EU institutions, on the other. Specifically:
• To what extent do EU institutions shape employment relations and social policies in the context of transnational competition and the fragmentation of work, whether in traditional jobs or the new workspaces of the gig and platform economy? Under what conditions and why?
• Will the European Pillar of Social Rights, the new European Labor Authority, and the EU’s Platform for tackling undeclared work and other initiatives stem the tide of liberalization and offer workers better protection? • What type of EU regulations provide more robust models to protect workers’ jobs and wages as well as to provide labor and social protections within a transnational context characterized by the risk of pandemics, climate change, and employment fragmentation?
• How will COVID-19 and the variety of European policy responses to the pandemic affect the future direction of European integration and employment relations?
Answers to these and other questions will advance our theories of transnational and European employment relations as well as the construction of appropriate policies to advance social protections in the European context, with potential lessons for employment relations in other regions of the global economy. These are core aims of the special issue.
Articles are invited for the special issue that deal with any aspect of transnational employment relations in the EU before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Such topics might include current research on actors, processes, policies, and outcomes of European employment relations. Contributions may be quantitative or qualitative empirical studies but can also address transnational employment relations in the EU from a historical and/or comparative perspective. Thus, the special issue aims to sample leading research in the field and spell out possibilities for future research.
Schedule and Submission
Scholars interested in participating in this conference and special issue should submit an extended abstract of 4 to 5 pages (up to 2,500 words) to Valeria Pulignano. Abstracts must include the research questions, theoretical framework, contribution to the literature, expected or preliminary findings, methods and data, and references. In the subject line of the e-mail, please write “Special Issue: Transnational ER in the EU.” Authors will be notified by June 30, 2021, if their paper has been accepted for presentation at the Conference that will be held in September 2021. A subset of authors will be asked to submit their papers to the ILR Review with the expectation that their papers will be published in the special issue provided 3 their papers pass the journal’s normal peer review process. Papers of high quality that are not selected for the special issue will be considered for publication in a regular issue of the journal.
Please find further information about the ILR Review here.
Submission Deadline: 31 March 2021
16-18 December 2020 | Paris, France
Conference organized with the support of Collège International de Philosophie (CIPH) and CAPhi (University of Nantes): "The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought"
The significant divergences that exist between different schools of economic thought seem to make dialogue between them very difficult. In view of the different theoretical and philosophical presuppositions of these schools, how can one imagine any form of discussion between the classical school, the Marxian school, the Austrian school, the Neoclassical school, the neo-Ricardian School, the Keynesian school, the Historical school, or Institutionalism?
The present conference aims to discuss this observation on the basis of a hypothesis. Provided that these schools are studied not through the prism of their theoretical contents, but from the point of view of the way they analyze the relationship between description and prescription, between what is and what ought to be, many common points between these approaches emerge, including a shared thesis: the development of positive economics is the only way to resolve disagreements on normative issues. Indeed, if we start from the distinction between positive economics and normative economics, systematically theorized in the works of John Neville Keynes – according to which positive economics, as distinct from normative economics, consists in dealing with what is, in contrast to normative economics, which deals with what ought to be – important similarities between different schools of economic thought and thinkers belonging to these schools can be found, for example between Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx.
All three thinkers agree that the positive representation of existing economic reality should be at the heart of economic thinking, and they all subordinate, albeit in different ways, normative economics to the analysis of the existing economic situation. For Friedman, normative economics depends on positive economics because decisions about economic policy are based on predicting the consequences of a given fact on the basis of positive economics. Only the progress of positive economics can thus resolve disagreements about which new economic policies should be implemented. For Mises, it is the positive analysis of the a priori structure of human action that can contribute to the formulation of different – mostly negative – proposals regarding what can and ought to be done in the economic field. Otherwise, normative proposals to change the economic situation may be futile or have catastrophic consequences. As for Marx, he intends to develop a critical economic analysis of what he calls the capitalist mode of production that would be immanent, i.e. non-normative, in order to avoid the pitfall encountered by critical-utopian socialists and communists. Indeed, Marx judges the critical plans of these thinkers to rectify existing social injustices “fanatical and superstitious”. By establishing normative ideas in a speculative manner, without grounding them objectively, these thinkers render them purely subjective and impotent. Considering that only ideas whose seeds are hidden in existing reality should be taken seriously, Marx refuses to propose alternative normative ideas and instead studies positive reality in order to identify such seeds for overcoming this reality.
By providing a forum for discussion between these schools on the relatively secondary role attributed to normative economics, this conference will attempt to debate the relevance of enhancing the value of normative approaches in economics, with particular emphasis on their philosophical and epistemological foundations. More specifically, its central issue will be to study how various attempts to reduce normative economics to positive economics can nourish a reflection on normative approaches in economics. While normative economics is concerned with creating frameworks for advancing the resolution of normative disagreements, it cannot ignore various forms of knowledge developed in positive economics. The challenge, therefore, is to identify the relationship between normative approaches in economics and positive economics, and to explore the implications of such a relationship for contemporary political philosophy and contemporary theories of justice.
This conference has a twofold objective:
The conference will be organized around five main research axes:
The conference will be held over four half-days (one afternoon, one full day, and one morning), with presentations in French and English.
Submission Prozess
We invite you to send your anonymized 500-word proposals in English or French, accompanied by bibliographical references via email. Each presentation should last 45 minutes (30 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion). From October 1st, 2020, the authors of the selected proposals will be contacted and will be asked to send the text of their presentation before December 1st, 2020.
We highly encourage submissions from members of underrepresented groups. For more information, please contact the organizers of the conference: Sina Badiei and Agnès Grivaux
Submission Deadline: 1 September 2020
Special Issue on: “What does the Covid-19 crisis reveal about interdisciplinarity in social sciences?”
The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic remain difficult to appraise. In just a few weeks, some of the fundamental assumptions underpinning our societies have been challenged. The ensuing transformations and responses to the pandemic will have structural effects that will last for decades. The IRS editorial board aims to stimulate a debate that goes beyond current headlines and to develop analyses within a pluralistic research community in social sciences. The call is open to empirical, analytical, and theoretical papers on the economic, political, and social issues of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contributions must address how the pandemic challenges the basic assumptions and presuppositions of social sciences:
Given the variety and scope of issues raised by COVID-19, this call is not limited to the above-mentioned issues. The core objective of the call is to enable the scientific community to read and write solid and structured contributions, that might cast a new light on a hugely demanding debate, at this critical moment.
Submit Your Paper
Papers submitted to marcella.corsi@uniroma1.it must be between 20,000 and 45,000 characters. They must be written in English (non-native speakers are asked to have a linguistic proofreading done); they must include an abstract in English of 250 words maximum; they must be structured according to a detailed plan and include a scientific bibliography following the format of the journal. See instruction for authors here. All submitted papers will undergo editorial screening and peer reviewing.
Open Deadline
Bristol University Press are delighted to inform you of our new journal Work in the Global Economy, launching in April 2021.
Work in the Global Economy is an inter-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal that promotes understanding of work, and connections to work, in all forms. The scope of this journal includes labour processes, labour markets, labour organising and labour reproduction. The journal is associated with the International Labour Process Conference (ILPC). Its editorial approach is rooted in the principals of the ILPC. Like the conference, the journal adopts a pluralist approach to theory, method and discipline. This journal is being launched at a time when profound change in economy and society are having impact on work and employment. Work in the Global Economy will be at the forefront of analysis and policy debates exploring issues such as digitalisation, automation, climate change and the effects global health crises.
The international editorial board is led by Editors in Chief, Sian Moore (University of Greenwich, UK) and Kirsty Newsome (University of Sheffield, UK); Managing Editor, Abigail Marks (University of Stirling, UK); Associate Editors, Donna Baines (University of British Columbia, Canada), Paul Brook (University of Leicester, UK), Rachel Cohen (City University, London, UK) and Martin Krzywdzinski (WZB, Germany); and Consulting Editor, Paul Thompson, (University of Stirling, UK). The editorial team welcomes wide-ranging contributions that explore all aspects of the division of labour; from production networks that underpin the global economy, to the gender and racial divides that shape how work is allocated and organised. We also encourage contributions from both emerging and existing scholars.
Work in the Global Economy has an independent editorial structure that reflects geographic, disciplinary and social diversity. We are committed to delivering an intellectually rigorous, supportive and fair reviewing process that can strengthen the vitality and engagement of academic communities. Be among the first to publish in Work in the Global Economy. Our first issues will be published in April and September 2021 and the journal will soon be open for submissions. See our call for papers and read about the journal’s aims and scope for more information. If you have an idea for an article please contact the Editors in Chief for information on how to submit: editors.workintheglobaleconomy@gmail.com.
You can also sign up to the Work in the Global Economy mailing list to receive the latest news and journal updates.
The Review of Social Economy invites submissions for publication in a special issue exploring the conceptual, political and economic aspects of deprivation. European countries are emerging from a decade of austerity which has resulted in significant increases in deprivation and inequality across the continent. Over the same period a series of political events has rocked the European Union: the collapse of mainstream social democratic parties, the rise of so-called ‘populist’ parties, and the exit of the United Kingdom in 2020.
Public discourse, and much academic work, draws a direct link between deprivation, inequality and political upheaval. In Britain much of the discussion is dominated by the notion of ‘Left Behind’ people and places; ‘La France Peripherique’ is a similar concept. Some of the discussion focuses on changes that have taken place since the onset of austerity, while others focus on longer run changes to European societies going back to the 1980s.
Most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant hardship across Europe and the world, with the most deprived areas bearing the brunt of the pandemic in many countries. The relationship between deprivation and exposure to adverse health outcomes is well known; the political and economic consequences of the current crisis remain unknown.
The Review of Social Economy invites both theoretical and empirical contributions exploring the political, social, and economic consequences of deprivation and inequality, broadly construed. The journal values methodological and disciplinary diversity. Submissions from economics, philosophy, sociology, political science, law, and related fields are very welcome, as are submissions pertaining to the current crisis.
Submissions should should not exceed 8000 words. All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review. Please specify that the paper is meant for the ‘special issue on deprivation’ both on the online submission system and in the cover letter. Should you have any doubts or queries please do not hesitate to contact the special issue editors, Robert Calvert Jump (University of Greenwich) and Jo Michell (UWE, Bristol).
Submission Deadline: 31 December 2020
22-23 January 2021 | online
The 2nd Winter Institute for the History of Economic Thought will be conducted as a Zoom webinar, January 22-23, 2021. The Winter Institute offers a forum in which both early-career and distinguished scholars can meet, network, and present work in progress to an audience of engaged peers. Our primary goal is to provide a workshop setting where early-career scholars and more experienced members of the field can engage with each other’s work. We are especially committed to encouraging scholars new to the field. Of the 10 presentation spots available this year, 6 will be reserved for graduate students and scholars within 2 years of completion of their PhD.
Our plan is to arrange all presentations over two days, as if we were meeting in person. All papers will be made available in advance to Winter Institute participants. A $500 stipend will be paid to each of the 10 presenters; a $250 stipend will be paid to 5 senior scholars who will not present at the Institute, but who will commit to reading all 10 presentation papers in advance and to participating in all sessions of the webinar program. Each session will be viewable via Zoom Webinar to anyone who registers in advance. Outside viewers will be able to ask questions about and comment upon papers using the Zoom chat feature.
We invite proposals in any area, on any topic, from any perspective, relevant to the history of economic thought. If you would like to present at the Institute, please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words and a 2-page CV. If you are a senior scholar who would like to participate without presenting a paper, please provide only a 2-page CV. For more information or to submit your paper for consideration, please visit our website. Notifications will be sent after October 15, 2020. Final papers will be due by January 1, 2021.
Submission Deadline: 1 September 2020
"Postcolonial Institutions, Cognition and Behavoir"
Institutions shape minds, and their effect on being, on the colonization of being and of the minds of individuals, are perduring far after their internal reform or substitution, long after political independence. The topics that will be discussed in the webinar are then primarily located at the intersection between institutional economics and cognitive sciences. They can also be related to a broad view of what behavioral mechanism theory is about, to the extent that this formal field is open to an analysis of how minds and institutions interact, and of how cognitive or affective frictions between them are solved or accentuated, a theme that seems to us acutely relevant in many diverse post-colonial contexts. We indeed consider that a central element of welfare or of well-being is a certain degree of cognitive and affective adequacy between the institutional settings wherein individuals live and their mental dispositions. One particular point of departure is, for instance, the following: how metacognitive feelings of agency (feelings of control, autonomy, etc.) are still modulated by the degree of "coloniality" of some central institutions in the lives of individuals; institutions such as money, school, the legal system, or even language. Contributions and attendance to this seminar are open to any disciplinary approach (economics, psychology, law, philosophy, political science) and to any person who considers she can provide theoretical, experimental or practical ways to shed light on the lingering cognitive and affective impact of post-colonial institutional settings.
If you are interested in participating in the International Webinar Series as a speaker or participant please contact the initiator of the project Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (Universite Paris 2).
1 September 2020, online
Pre-Conference will be held ONLINE in advance of the 32nd Annual Conference of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, 2 - 4 September 2020
The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) seeks to institutionalize and deepen the involvement of and exchange with young scholars and student initiatives at the association’s annual conference. One of the key forums for young scholars at EAEPE is the annual pre-conference, a series of workshops by distinguished scholars, accompanied by a social environment to interact and network. Organised by a team of young scholars, the pre-conference was first launched in Genova (2015). This year, we invite young scholars to join the 6th pre-conference that will have to be held online due to the pandemic
The workshops aim at generating interactive discussions and, therefore, the participants are expected to actively contribute to the discussions. This year we will have the honour to host the following invited speakers to discuss various faces of inequality:
All pre-conference participants are warmly invited to participate at EAEPE main conference as well.Please see the Call for Papers for the main conference.
Please find further information and how to apply on the website.
As economists from the Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre and the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA), we are hosting a series of webinars exploring the economic challenges of our time: from COVID-19 to the ecological, financial and social sustainability of modern capitalism.
Overview (upcoming events):
Register here for the webinar.
10-16 August 2020, online
The present global economic relationships are complex and diverse – the answers of mainstream economics education, however, are often one-sided and mono-dimensional. Disappointed by the lack of pluralism and critical thinking in economics teaching, students and young scholars of the Network for Pluralist Economics Germany are organizing this year's Online Summer Academy for Pluralist Economics together with the Protestant Academy of Thuringia. However, as in mainstream economics, perspectives and academics from the global south are underrepresented in the movement for pluralism in economics so far. Especially when discussing topics like unequal development opportunities due to the long legacy of colonialism or the coronavirus crisis, it is precisely the exchange between young people from the global north and the global south that is indispensable.
In order to be able to learn from and debate with each other on an equal footing, we are striving to further internationalize the pluralist economics movement. We want to diversify the discourse on a sustainable and just global economy by taking into account perspectives from the global south as well as the global north. Therefore, more educational events on these topics should take place locally and online in the global south. We are looking for inspiring people that are motivated to implement such educational events. This is why we established the Global Pluralist Economics Training - in cooperation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V. - as an extension to the annual Summer Academy for Pluralist Economics in Germany.
For more information and to apply for the program please visit the website.
Application Deadline: 24 June 2020
Job title: Executive Director
This is a rare and exciting opportunity to lead a dynamic, cutting-edge research centre with real impact. Now more than ever, the world needs evidence-based research and advocacy to challenge the power and role of multinational corporations in societies around the globe. Building from a position of strength, the executive director (ED) will lead SOMO to increase its impact, both nationally and internationally. S/he will be responsible for ensuring the organisation is well-run, and will secure a stable and more diversified funding base.The executive director provides strategic leadership to SOMO – leadership that is participatory, empathetic and inclusive. The ED forms the executive board of the organization, reports to the supervisory board, chairs SOMO’s management team and facilitates the decision-making by the staff. S/he has extensive experience as a strategically-oriented and supportive team leader and manager, has experience in running an
organization, focused on building the capacity of colleagues to deliver on organisation and strategic objectives.
The executive director has a demonstrable affinity with SOMO’s research, advocacy and vision for change. The ED must develop a coherent organizational strategy that maximizes SOMO’s impact and ensures its organizational resilience and financial health. The executive director represents SOMO at various fora, articulates vision for social change, synthesises and communicates – alongside SOMO researchers – the essence of its activist research, and actively pursues fundraising opportunities.
Profile
Passionate about the vision and mission of SOMO and able to articulate this vision. A thought leader able to inspire and to motivate. The executive director has excellent internal and external communication skills and understands political and corporate research, including in low-income countries. S/he will have a proven ability to fundraise, both nationally and internationally. The ED has experience in participating in civil society alliances and networks.
The executive director knows how to run an organisation of highly-skilled, knowledgeable, independent professionals. S/he is a team player who knows how to delegate and how to make others stronger. The ED has experience with leading a horizontal and democratic organisation using participatory decision-making and policy development. S/he is familiar with managing operational processes of an organisation. Improves operational and financial health of the organisation, and fosters a lean and effective way of working. Transparent and accessible. Fluent in English and Dutch.SOMO is committed to equal opportunities and strives to have more diversity among its staff. SOMO therefore explicitly encourages people with backgrounds that are underrepresented in the NGO sector and specifically in management positions to apply.
Offer
A dynamic and challenging job in an organisation with a mission! The position is for 32 or 36 working hours per week, with excellent benefits and a salary of max € 6,439 per month (based on a 40-hour workweek), depending on relevant work experience.
Procedure
In the week of June 29th, selected candidates will be presented to SOMO. The recruitment process will have three stages, in which you will meet several colleagues and the supervisory board.
Please respond directlyby uploading your CV and motivation letter (both in English) at the website of KV.nl, the recruitment agency we hire For any questions, please contact Helga Bijker (K+V, +31 (0)6 22 698 599). Candidates who are invited will be asked in advance to fill out an online personality test.
Application Deadline: 23 June 2020
Job Title: 2-year Postdoc in Interdisciplinary Project on Behavioral Policy
The division of philosophy at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm is advertising a 2-year postdoc in an interdisciplinary project on behavioral policy interventions. The postdoc will work in the project Boosts vs. Nudges: A mechanism-based framework for assessing the effectiveness and normative acceptability of behavioral interventions for sustainable energy consumption. The project investigates mechanisms of behavioral policies directed at sustainable energy consumption, both through theoretical modelling and experimental research.
Requirements: PhD cognitive science, philosophy of science or related; research focus on behavioral policy; experience in designing and running behavioral experiments.
For more information and online application visit the website.
Job title: post-doctoral researcher
Leiden University’s Institute of Public Administration is looking for a post-doctoral researcher to join the research project “Democratic Governance of Funded Pension Schemes” (DEEPEN) for a period of three years at 1.0 FTE. This position is made possible by a grant from the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (NORFACE) Network. The project explores the democratic governance of capital-funded occupational pension schemes and investigates how governments, regulators and labor market actors govern funded pensions and whether participants are satisfied with pension fund performance. The project focuses on Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Ireland and Spain. The project combines quantitative analysis of survey data with comparative case studies based on elite and expert interviews and analysis of primary and secondary documents.
The postdoc will be part of the research team at Leiden University, led by Dr. Natascha van der Zwan. Other research teams are based in Austria, Ireland and Spain. The postdoc will conduct case studies of selected occupational pension schemes in the Netherlands to investigate the decision-making processes that link welfare provisions to financial markets. The postdoc will also contribute to comparative research on the regulatory context of occupational pensions in the project countries.
Key responsibilities
Selection criteria
Our organization
The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) offers academic education in the field of Public Administration, Safety and Security, and International Relations, as well as in-depth post-academic programmes for professionals. In addition, the Faculty is also home to Leiden University College.
Our institute
The Institute of Public Administration has an established international profile and has consistently received high ratings in peer reviews of both its teaching and research programs. The Institute offers a Dutch-language Bachelor program with two tracks, a Dutch-language Master Program in Public Sector Management and an English-language Master programs in ‘Public Administration.’
Terms and conditions
The position starts between 1 October 2020 and 1 December 2020. The appointment will be made initially on a one-year full-time basis, with an extension to a total of three years after positive evaluation. The appointment will be under the terms of the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) of Dutch Universities. The starting salary, depending on qualifications and experience, varies from € 2.709,-to € 4.274 gross per month (pay scale 10) in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.
Information with respect to conditions of employment of the University can be found online.
Excellent benefits
Leiden University offers an attractive benefits package with additional holiday (8%) and end-of-year bonuses (8.3 %). Our individual choices model gives you some freedom to assemble your own set of terms and conditions. For international spouses we have set up a dual career programme. Candidates from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for a substantial tax break. Leiden University is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from members of underrepresented groups.
Enquiries can be made to dr. Natascha van der Zwan.
Applications
Please submit online your application via this link. Please ensure that you upload the following additional documents in PDF format:
Application Deadline: 23 June 2020
Job title: prae-doc researcher
TU Wien (Department of Public FInance and Infrastructure Policy) is looking for a prae-doc researcher for quantitative studies in public finance, fiscal federalism, economic geography and/or infrastructure economics. The contract is limited to 4 years and includes research and teaching obligations. Please consult the website for more information, and for uploading your resume, letter of motivation, and 2-page outline of your potential research topics.
Application Deadline: 25 June 2020
Early Stage Researchers (PhD Studentship)
The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies is seeking to appoint two high-calibre Early Stage Researchers (ESR), starting in January 2021 for a 3 year contract period to join (MARKETS) - Mapping Uncertainties, Challenges and Future Opportunities of Emerging Markets: Informal Barriers, Business Environments and Future Trends in Eastern Europe, The Caucasus and Central Asia.
Coordinated by Dublin City University, MARKETS is a business and policy oriented PhD training equipping 15 fellows with theoretical knowledge, analytical skills and complementary training to understand and deal with practical and business problems in the region. Our goal is to compare countries that had fully opened to foreign investors by the early 2000s – Estonia, Latvia (now EU members), Georgia (considered by many as an example of best practice in reforms), and Kyrgyzstan (where markets are stable but no major economic leap is expected in the next immediate future) – with what have been identified as significant prospective post-USSR markets for the next ten years - Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan (all of which have shown a more concrete desire for economic dialogue in the past three years), Russia (its eastern region and, in particular, Siberia, which has remained largely unexplored by EU companies), and Azerbaijan, a country that has finally started interacting in more concrete terms with the EU.
Starting from an individual research and training path, that will be tailored to each PhD student career aspirations, MARKETS researchers will engage in a collective team-exercise to:
Our goal is to translate scientific results into valuable strategic intelligence, guidelines and recommendations that can mitigate the difficulties European entrepreneurs often face when trying to enter and succeed in the region. There are two Projects of which all will be enrolled on the PhD programme at the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies. Please state which project you wish to apply for i.e. Project 1 or Project 2.
Project 1 – ESR3: Measuring functional ambivalence of informal practices: supportive vs subversive roles in integration in post-USSR spaces.
Project 2 - ESR13: Informal governance: where informality stops and corruption begins.
Key Requirements
Each selected candidate will be enrolled in a PhD programme, be seconded to the target region for data collection. They will subsequently be seconded to a non-academic partner to gain hands-on work experience on how research skills can be used beyond academia for the benefit of the governmental, private or international development sector. The training is intensive and demanding but it is also what we call a “career accelerator”. Each fellow will be offered first-class working conditions, salary, mobility allowance, family allowance and networking opportunities with more than 20 rganizations worldwide. Financial conditions and background documents are available here and change country by country according to EC/REA rules that you can find here.
You cannot have had your main activity/residence for more than 12 months at the time of the application and you must have a degree allowing to enrol in doctoral students in the UK according to national rules. Submit your application to be considered by each project. Applications must contain your
For queries relating to the post, please contact Professor Alena Ledeneva - a.ledeneva@ucl.ac.uk. For queries relating to the application process, please contact Shevanese Anderson - Shevanese.anderson@ucl.ac.uk. For further information and to apply please visit the website.
Application Deadline: 16 July 2020
Job title: Doctoral Fellowship
Graduate students interested in a phd on the regulation of repugnant behaviors can contact me for a possible doctoral fellowship at the University of Montpellier. Alain Marciano (Professor of Economics, University of Montpellier) will be the supervisor. He is looking for economists, interested in law and economics and ethics.
The concept of 'repugnance' was formally in economics by Nobel Prize laureate, Alvin Roth. It was one of the firsts – if not the first – to refer to market transactions by using this term. With this article and the reference to repugnance, Roth contributed to a debate about how morality matters and why moral concern should put limits to market transactions. Philosophers had discussed these limits and also a few economists. Philip Tetlock also contributed a great deal to the definition of “repugnance” even though he did not specifically used the term but rather reasoned in terms of “taboos” and “sacred values”. In economics, works on repugnance are rarer but they exist, in particular in health economics. Repugnant markets and behaviors have been studied in the case of organ donation.Then, comes the question of the regulation of these behaviors. Repugnant behaviors are unacceptable to society but do not violate legal rules. Adopting a repugnant behavior means transgressing moral norms. These behaviors are therefore not supposed to be punished by the law. In reality, repugnant behaviors are punished by the law because the law seeks to enforce certain moral standards - the law is guided by an ethical principle. But must all moral behavior unacceptable to society be punished by law? How to distinguish between the behaviors thatshouldand those who should not be punished by the law? In particular, how to punish or control disgusting behaviors? Should we use the law or can we simply use social norms?
Many examples can be cited. A good example concerns food waste. Is it disgusting or disgusting? That is, is it repugnant to waste food or to buy food to give it to animals (when certain human beings do not eat their fill)? Or is it just disgusting? Should food punishment be punished by law or by social norms? In a way, the thesis deals with the economic analysis of social norms, applied to the particular case of repugnant and disgusting behavior.For further information and Application please visit the website.
Application Deadline: 30 June 2020
Job title: postdoctoral researcher (grade 7) in technological and economic change
The Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change investigates how technological advances will disrupt the global economy in the coming decades. The programme is unique in its approach of combining the expertise of leading scientists with economists and other social scientists.
We are looking for an individual to undertake the exciting and varied role, joining the team as a Postdoctoral Researcher to undertake a wide range of activities to contribute to both the programme and to the research consortium Horizon 2020 “Technequality: Understanding the Relation between Recent Technological Innovations and Social Inequalities.” This is a European Commission funded research collaboration between several leading European institutions and the Oxford Martin School.
The postholder will work closely with the team to master existing conceptual and theoretical discussions, be familiar with the literature and provide original insights and evidence to contribute to the success of programme. Located at the Oxford Martin School, he or she will manage and undertake their own academic research and administrative activities, within guidelines provided by the Principal Investigators; contribute to management and coordination of research activities and manage a part of the programme; contribute ideas for new research projects; contribute ideas to generate research income, and present detailed research proposals to senior researcher; prepare working theories and analyse qualitative and/or quantitative data from a variety of sources, reviewing and refining theories as appropriate; work independently to identify ways in which disruptive technologies are likely to impact on economies and societies; gather, analyse and present qualitative and/or quantitative data from a variety of sources; undertake comprehensive and systematic literature reviews and write up the results for publication in peer-reviewed journals and/or for presentation at conferences or public meetings; contribute to research publications, book chapters, reviews, policy briefs and white papers.
We are inviting applications from across disciplines including those with a combination of degrees in economics with engineering, computer science, biology, medicine or other to address these global challenges and contribute to the multidisciplinary environment at the Oxford Martin School. You must hold a doctorate in economics, engineering or computer science, or anticipate completing your PhD by the end of August 2020, with some relevant experience.
This full-time position is fixed-term for 2 years. Further particulars, including details of how to apply, can be obtained here. Applications for this vacancy should be made online and you will be required to upload a CV and supporting statement as part of your application.
Application Deadline: 8 July 2020 (12:00 a.m.)
Job title: researcher (grade 6) in technological and economic change
New technologies have the potential to fundamentally disrupt economic growth, investment, savings, consumption, employment, incomes, pensions, careers and productivity. Yet our understanding of what this will mean for the global economy, and how it will impact on markets, cities and societies is, at best, limited.
We are looking for an individual to undertake an exciting and varied role as a part of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change team. The Researcher will undertake a wide range of activities to contribute to both the programme and to the research consortium 'Horizon 2020 “Technequality: Understanding the Relation between Recent Technological Innovations and Social Inequalities.” This is a European Commission funded research collaboration between several leading European institutions and the Oxford Martin School.
The Researcher will work closely with the team to master existing conceptual and theoretical discussions, be familiar with the literature and provide original insights and evidence to contribute to the success of programme. Areas to be covered by the programme include the implications of technological change for employment, incomes, and location of activities as well as the potential disruptive consequences for businesses and commerce. The programme will provide insights into innovation and the application of new technologies that have the potential to disrupt economies. Managing your own research activities within guidelines provided by the Principal Investigators you will contribute to wider project planning, including ideas for new research projects; contribute to the design of research materials and make arrangements for data gathering; gather, analyse and present qualitative and/or quantitative data from a variety of sources; undertake comprehensive and systematic literature reviews and write up the results for publication in peer-reviewed journals and/or for presentation at conferences or public meetings; contribute to research publications, book chapters, reviews, policy briefs and white papers.
We are inviting applications from across disciplines including those with a combination of degrees in economics with engineering, computer science, biology, medicine or other to address these global challenges and contribute to the multidisciplinary environment at the Oxford Martin School. You must hold a Bachelor's degree in economics, engineering, computer science, biology or medicine with some relevant experience.
This full-time position is fixed-term for 2 years. Further particulars, including details of how to apply, can be obtained here. Applications for this vacancy should be made online and you will be required to upload a CV and supporting statement as part of your application.
Application Deadline: 8 July 2020 (12:00 a.m.)
New technologies (e.g., blockchain and robotics) are expected to radically reshape product market competition, jobs and governance of the firms.The research project aims at carrying out an empirical study on the impact of current technological progress on (centuries-old) economic institutions of capitalism à la Oliver Williamson, i.e., markets, firms, semantic and relational contracts. Appointee, among other things, will be able to exploit LIW datasets (e.g., International Federation of Robotics dataset). Data science skills (e.g., text analytics with R or Python) are desirable. A particular attention will be devoted to study data on Italy.
Please find further information here or write an email to Massimiliano Vatiero.
Application Deadline: 8 July 2020
Please be informed that in view of the particular situation that many countries are experiencing, the deadline for submitting applications for the "Pierangelo Garegnani" Thesis Prize 2020 is postponed to 30 June 2020.
Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione “Piero Sraffa”, in accordance with the wishes of the family and with its financial support, establishes for the seventh year a Prize in memory of Pierangelo Garegnani of the amount of € 3,000 (before tax), aimed at young scholars who are engaged or plan to engage in research in economic analysis along the lines of the work of Pierangelo Garegnani.
The Prize is awarded to researchers in the field of Economics who are attending a PhD course, or have defended since 2015 their PhD thesis, in Italian or foreign Universities.
The applications must be submittedby electronic mail to centro.sraffa@uniroma3.it.
Please find all details on the Centro Sraffa website
The History of Economics Society (HES) is delighted to announce this year's Distinguished Fellow Award goes to Bruce Caldwell.
Professor Caldwell received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina in 1979, working under the guidance of Vincent Tarascio. He has held professorships at the University of North Carolina—Greensboro and, since 2008, at Duke University, where he serves as Research Professor and Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE). He was twice the Ludwig M. Lachmann Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and is a Life Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge.
Professor Caldwell’s early career began with methodological questions about how economics is done. The impressive analysis in Beyond Positivism (a development of his PhD thesis) showed how positivist philosophies of science were applied and misapplied in contemporary economics; this was the first monograph to challenge the unthinking acceptance of such conventional methodologies by economists. The book’s influence was recently marked by a 35th anniversary session at the 2017 HES meetings, featuring papers by Wade Hands, Kevin Hoover, Tony Lawson,and Peter Boettke, along with a reflective response by Professor Caldwell. There followed, through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, some seminal analytical articles on the philosophy of science in relation to economics, of which one of the most remarkable might be “Clarifying Popper”, an article that was both explanatory and highly informative for professional economists (as befits an article in the Journal of Economic Literature, 1991), but equally insightful for those fellow specialists who thought they already knew their Popper! His detailed analysis brought new understanding of the nuances and real relevance of this philosopher of science for economics and for social sciences in general. At this time, Caldwell might be seen as a brilliant member of a small cohort of impressive younger scholars working on the philosophy of economics from within economics.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, his scholarship turned to include serious historical work, not for its own sake, but as a way to get more deeply under the skin of economics as a socially and politically relevant social science. His focus was on Austrian economics, at that time, still regarded as an unfashionable strand of economics, but one that was well chosen just because of Austrian economists’ long-standing concern with questions of information, time, uncertainty and individual rationality - all issues that mainstream economics was about to rediscover as the main neoclassical paradigm began to move beyond its hard core of post-war theorizing. This move thus proved extremely insightful of him and pivotal for his later career.
Caldwell is now widely acknowledged internationally as the expert on the history and philosophy of Austrian economics from its foundation with Carl Menger in the late nineteenth century through Hayek’s work and into its modern manifestations. Caldwell’s research and analysis show how Austrian economics arose in its local context and became one of the main streams of economics throughout much of the first half of the twentieth century. His masterful exploration of the interwar debates between Austrians and Cambridge economists (explored in his Editor’s “Introduction” to Vol 9 of Hayek’s Collected Works) shows both his strong historical grip on the material and his persuasive writing: he skillfully explains the intricacies of interwar debates about the business cycle, its causes and it characteristics, as Keynes and Hayek battled each other while simultaneously developing and changing their own theories and approaches.
While some scholars would have focussed their attention narrowly in order to get at the essence of this Austrian tradition, Caldwell’s research gaze has illuminated for us not only the depths of Austrian economic theory, but has enlightened and delighted his readers by explorations that both reveal its breadth and show how important it is for the continuing work of professional economists. Through his study of its main twentieth century adherent, Hayek, he has found ways to show how economics is naturally bound to politics, to philosophy, and to psychology. Thus, for example, through his wonderful Editor’s introduction to Socialism and War (Vol 10 of the collected works) and his “Hayek and Socialism” (Journal of Economic Literature, 1997), he uses the historical debates about the possibilities of planning an economy to analyse the relationships between types of economy and types of freedoms, both economic and political. We come to understand the relevance of these debates not as dead historical monuments, but as arguments with continuing relevance for the relation of polity and economy.
The work of Hayek had become marginalized by economists in the third quarter of the twentieth century, when his work was more narrowly seen as political philosophy. But, more recently the problems he considered and his brilliant analysis of the market and competition, and of knowledge and liberty, have once again become an important resource for economists as well as political scientists and philosophers working on these fundamental questions that cut across the social sciences. Professor Caldwell’s work has been instrumental in bringing these many facets of Hayek work into focus in such ways that these different communities can all appreciate the importance of his many ideas. In our judgement, Caldwell’s Hayek’s Collected Works project is not just one of editorship, but of re-assembling the pieces of 20th century debates in political economy in such ways that do not just retain, but create, relevance for our 21st century problems.
Caldwell’s 2004 intellectual biography of Hayek, Hayek’s Challenge, is a landmark work, one that situates Hayek’s methodological position and various other of his scholarly contribution in their appropriate context in the stream of economic thinking. It has set the standard for scholarship on Hayek’s broad intellectual efforts and will be the touchstone for work by others in this area for decades to come. We are very pleased that Caldwell has elected to build on this work by penning a full-scale biography of his subject. Hayek was a fascinating figure, regardless of what one thinks of his economics and his politics, and his influence in economics, politics and popular debates, taken as a whole, dwarfs that of virtually all other economists of the twentieth century. In short, Hayek’s larger life is ripe for a true biography, and Dr. Caldwell is just the scholar to do it—and do it proper justice. Caldwell’s broad-based historiographic approach, which draws on close textual analysis, archival sources, oral histories, larger social, political and economic contexts, and so forth is exactly what is needed to get at the essence of Hayek, and this work promises to add immensely to our understanding of this figure who played such an important role at the LSE, at the University of Chicago, in affecting Western attitudes toward socialism and communism, and in the Reagan-Thatcher “revolutions” in the 1980s.
While Caldwell’s scholarly contributions alone merit recognition as a Distinguished Fellow of the HES, we consider equally important his efforts to support and grow the history of economics field. Much of Caldwell’s energy over the last decade has been devoted to developing the Center for the History of Political Economy and its various programs, the success of which to date we count as outstanding. When the idea for CHOPE was first floated more than a decade ago, many scholars wondered whether it could, in fact, become a viable entity. The Center’s first decade has shown that it not only can be viable, but thrive. Its program of workshops, junior and senior visiting fellows, and summer institutes for economics graduate students and for professors and graduate students from across the humanities and social sciences (the latter funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities) have been resounding successes.
At least as important, though, are Caldwell’s efforts in attracting scholars to participate in the Center’s various enterprises, including the visiting fellows program and the summer institutes. He has created a thriving intellectual community at the Center, a place where the oft-isolated members of our field can come together with other scholars to develop their own research and work with others on the development of theirs, whether through “water cooler” conversations or the weekly lunch and seminar series’. Caldwell’s mentorship of young scholars through these efforts has been particularly important, and these young scholars regularly credit the important influence that Caldwell and their time at the Center have had on their scholarly development.
It is a credit to Caldwell, and indicative of the respect that he commands within the field, that he has been able to bring to the Center a group of scholars, young and “old,” who are so diverse in their interests, talents, and historiographic approaches. There are precious few in the field who could bring off these efforts with such success, and this diversity is essential for the Center to thrive in the long run. There are many ways of doing the history of economics well, but there are also strong prejudices about historiographic methods and the like. Caldwell is the consummate pluralist and rises above all of these prejudices for the greater good of the field.
Caldwell’s service to the field goes well beyond CHOPE. He has served the HES as President (1999-2000), Vice President (1989-90), and member of the HES Executive Committee (1986-89), as well as being a member of the JHET editorial board since 2003. In his capacity as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Associate (1998-2002) and then as the society’s Vice President (2006-2008) and President (2011-12), the actively promoted work in the history of economics to the larger profession.
In short, Dr. Caldwell is one of the leading history of economics scholars of his generation, in the broadest sense of the term “scholar.” He has done path-breaking research and shows no signs of letting up on this front. He is a fabulous teacher who is excited about engaging students in the life of the mind. Through his work as Director of CHOPE, he is “giving back” to the profession and, in particular, to the field of the history of economics in a way that leaves him with no rivals on that front. We can think of no one whose contributions to the aims of the Society are more worthy of recognition as an HES Distinguished Fellow than Bruce Caldwell.
The 2020 Joseph J. Spengler Best Book Prize is awarded to The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas, by Janek Wasserman by the committee of Paul Dudenhefer, Manuela Mosca, and Verena Halsmayer.
The Austrian school has “transformed our world,” Wasserman claims, and his book successfully supports his contention by providing a lively account of this enigmatic community of economists. Wasserman traces the origins, evolution, and, above all, the social activities and thought style of this multigenerational group from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the United States, where most present-day members of the school can be found.
More than focusing on the ideas of the Austrians, Wasserman concentrates on the activities of the group—their seminars, their policy involvement, their institution building. He conveys the tremendous and tenacious goings-on of three generations of economists (and counting) who felt connected to each other through their haut bourgeois Austrian roots and who at every turn sought a vigorous engagement with the world as that world went through imperial dissolution, two world wars, and a global economic depression, along with the establishment, and eventual dissolution, of socialist states.
Wasserman's account follows the lives and careers of around a dozen men, from Menger to Machlup and Morgenstern. But in Wasserman’s telling, the biggest star is not any particular individual but rather a city, or perhaps better yet a milieu: coffeehouse, fin-de-siècle, and Red Vienna. What became Austrian economics was made possible by the extraordinary intellectual and social life of the capital city between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1930s, taking place in coffeehouses and salons and organized in avant-garde circles (“Kreise”). It was the spirit and ethos of Vienna, with its emphasis on community and conversation, that gave the Austrian school its initial energy and sustained it over the next hundred years, surviving not only the collapse of the Empire but wars, emigration, and exile. As Wasserman states, “The Austrian School was a social network first and last.”
In providing the first history of the Austrians as a movement, Janek brings his account from central European elites to the 1980s Washington Consensus up to the present day--including the troubling use of theneo-Austrians by the far right. As he states, “The current crisis of Austrianism demonstrates . . . that there is urgent need for a better understanding of the intellectual traditions that inform these contemporary debates and for a firmer disavowal of the ideological machinations of the Alt-Right and the Kochtopus.”
The Spengler committee is very pleased to award the best book prize to Janek Wasserman.
The Craufurd Goodwin Best Article Prize Committee, composed by Andrej Svorencik, Hsiang-Ke Chao and Ana Maria Bianchi would like to announce this year's winner is
Robert Leonard:“E. F. Schumacher and the making of ´Buddhist Economics´
Robert Leonard tells us a beautiful story about a conventional German émigré economist, Ernst F Schumacher, who turned from an enthusiast in progress and economic growth to a critic of Western modernity. His three month experience in Burma, India, as a United Nations consultant, as well as his extensive study of Buddhism, shaped his work thereafter. This is reflected in his best-seller Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered, published in 1973. Based on a widespread archival and bibliographical review, the article leads the reader to engage in contemporary debates on modernity, organic agriculture and the role of technology.
T. Brown, Stephanie M. Grant, Amanda M. Winn: The effect of mobile device use and headline focus on investor judgments
Anıl Divarcı Çakmaklı, Christophe Boone, Arjen van Witteloostuijn: Identity realization, multiple logics and legitimacy: Organizational foundings during the emergence of the Dutch accounting industry
Lukas Löhlein, Anke Müßig: At the boundaries of institutional theorizing: Individual entrepreneurship in episodes of regulatory change
Kenneth L. Bills, Matthew Cobabe, Jeffrey Pittman, Sarah E. Stein: To share or not to share: The importance of peer firm similarity to auditor choice
Phoebe V Moore, Kendra Briken, and Frank Engster: Machines and measure
Moritz Altenried: The platform as factory: Crowdwork and the hidden labour behind artificial intelligence
Kendra Briken: Welcome in the machine: Human–machine relations and knowledge capture
Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano: The social production of radical space: Machinic labour struggles against digital spatial abstractions
Phoebe V Moore: The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism
Frank Engster and Phoebe V Moore: The search for (artificial) intelligence, in capitalism
Frederick Harry Pitts, Eleanor Jean, and Yas Clarke: Sonifying the quantified self: Rhythmanalysis and performance research in and against the reduction of life-time to labour-time
Rabih Jamil: Uber and the making of an Algopticon - Insights from the daily life of Montreal drivers
Frank Engster: Measure, machine, money
Adrian Mengay: Digitalization of work and heteronomy
Christopher Wimmer: The automatic revolution
Antonin Pottier, Adrien Nguyen-Huu: No-regret Pollution Abatement Options: A Correction of Bréchet and Jouvet (2009)
Marija Pavleska, William A. Kerr: Importer's risk, smuggling and the role of incentives in the management of animal diseases
Samrat B. Kunwar, Alok K. Bohara, Jennifer Thacher: Public preference for river restoration in the Danda Basin, Nepal: A choice experiment study
Heinz Welsch: Moral Foundations and Voluntary Public Good Provision: The Case of Climate Change
Artti Juutinen, Anne Tolvanen, Miia Saarimaa, Paavo Ojanen, Seppo Tuominen: Cost-effective land-use options of drained peatlands– integrated biophysical-economic modeling approach
Thomas Bauwens, Marko Hekkert, Julian Kirchherr: Circular futures: What Will They Look Like?
Coulibaly Thierry Yerema, Mihoko Wakamatsu, Moinul Islam, Hiroki Fukai, Bingqi Zhang: Differences in Water Policy Efficacy across South African Water Management Areas
Lutz Philip Hecker, Frank Wätzold, Gunther Markwardt: Spotlight on Spatial Spillovers: An Econometric Analysis of Wastewater Treatment in Mexican Municipalities
Kévin Bernard, Aurélie Bonein, Douadia Bougherara: Consumer inequality aversion and risk preferences in community supported agriculture
Stephan Wolf, Cameron Dron: The effect of an experimental veil of ignorance on intergenerational resource sharing: empirical evidence from a sequential multi-person dictator game
Kelly W. Jones, Alex Mayer, Juan Von Thaden, Z. Carter Berry, Heidi Asbjornsen: Measuring the net benefits of payments for hydrological services programs in Mexico
Isabelle Tritsch, Gwenolé Le Velly, Benoit Mertens, Patrick Meyfroidt, Kenneth Houngbedji: Do forest-management plans and FSC certification help avoid deforestation in the Congo Basin?
Zsuzsanna Csereklyei, David I. Stern: Flying More Efficiently: Joint Impacts of Fuel Prices, Capital Costs and Fleet Size on Airline Fleet Fuel Economy
Biying Yu, Xiaojuan Yang, Qingyu Zhao, Jinxiao Tan: Causal Effect of Time-Use Behavior on Residential Energy Consumption in China
Elia Axinia Machado, Helene Purcell, Andrew M. Simons, Stephanie Swinehart: The Quest for Greener Pastures: Evaluating the Livelihoods Impacts of Providing Vegetation Condition Maps to Pastoralists in Eastern Africa
Arjan Trinks, Machiel Mulder, Bert Scholtens: An Efficiency Perspective on Carbon Emissions and Financial Performance
Julia Jouan, Aude Ridier, Matthieu Carof: SYNERGY: A regional bio-economic model analyzing farm-to-farm exchanges and legume production to enhance agricultural sustainability
Gregory C. G. Moore: Michael V. White: A Scholar’s Scholar and 2018 HETSA Fellow
David A. Harper: ‘New Combinations’ in Schumpeter’s Economics: The Lineage of a Concept
Carlos Bastien & Ana Bela Nunes: Explaining the Economic Crisis: Portuguese Perspectives on Marxist Theory
Harry Bloch: Price Theory, Historically Considered: Smith, Ricardo, Marshall and Beyond
Manuela Mosca, Cheltenham: Monopoly Power and Competition: The Italian Marginalist Perspective
Haroon Akram-Lodhi: COVID-19 and the World Food System
David Primrose, Robin Chang and Rodney Loeppky: Unplugged: COVID-19, Public Health and the Persistence of Neoliberalism
Stuart Rosewarne: From One Crisis to Another: The Underlying Malaise in the Australian Economy
John Quiggin: Crises and Recession as the Norm
Michael Berry: The Strange Death of Neoliberalism
Kavita Dattani: Rethinking Social Reproduction in the Time of COVID-19
Andrew Leigh: We Can’t Let Coronavirus Worsen Inequality
Stephen Clibborn and Chris F. Wright: COVID-19 and the Policy-Induced Vulnerabilities of Temporary Migrant Workers in Australia
Joo-Cheong Tham: The COVID-19 Crisis, Labour Rights and the Role of the State
Alfredo Saad-Filho and Alison J. Ayers: ‘A Ticking Timb-Bomb’: The Global South in the Time of Coronavirus
Evan Jones: COVID-19 Hits the French Health System
Heribert Dieter: Germany in the COVID-19 Crisis: Poster Child Or Just Lucky?
Pat Ranald: COVID-19 Pandemic Slows Global Trade and Exposes Flaws in Neoliberal Trade Policy
Terence Wood: The Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Foreign Aid to Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Adam Triggs: From a Health Crisis to a Financial Crisis: Australia’s Role in Preventing COVID-19 Financial Crises in Asia
Sarah Kaine: Australian Industrial Relations and COVID-19
David Peetz, Linda Colley and Rachel Nolan: The Shock Doctrine and Industrial Relations
Ray Markey: The Impact of the COVID-19 Virus on Industrial Relations
Ben Spies-Butcher: The Temporary Welfare State: The Political Economy of Job Keeper, Job Seeker and ‘Snap Back’
Alison Pennington and Jim Stanford: Rebuilding After COVID-19 Will Need a Sustained National Reconstruction Plan
Ronald E. Johnson: How Labour Can Lead the Way and Land on its Feet
Shaun Wilson: Rising Pressures, New Scaffolding, Uncertain Futures: Australia’s Social Policy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Natasha Heenan and Anna Sturman: Labour, Nature, Capitalism and COVID-19
Robert Fletcher, Bram Büscher, Kate Massarella and Stasja Koot: ‘Close the Tap’: COVID-19 and the Need for Convivial Conservation
Juliet Bennett: Reorienting the Post-Coronavirus Economy for Ecological Sustainability
Frank Stilwell: ‘Snap Back’ or ‘Press On’: From the Current Crisis to a Green New Deal?
Meredith Burgmann: Vale Jack Mundey: A Hero of the Australian Left
James K. Galbraith: Backwater Economics: A Life Story
David A. Zalewski: Confronting the Trilemma: Culture, Institutions, and Macroeconomic Disequilibria
Kota Kitagawa: From Judicial Sovereignty to Collective Democracy: The Development of J.R. Commons’ Perspective on Progressive Institutional Change
Emilia Ormaechea: Latin American Development: What About the State, Conflict and Power?
Akira Matsumoto: Considerations on Inequality, Corporate Governance, and Financialization
James T. Peach & Richard V. Adkisson: Regional Income Inequality in the United States: 1969–2017
Wilfred Dolfsma & Łukasz Mamica: Industrial Policy—An Institutional Economic Framework for Assessment
Kalpana Khanal & Ruchira Sen: The Dowry Gift in South Asia: An Institution on the Intersection of Market and Patriarchy
Paolo Ramazzotti: Economic Policy and the Progressive Idea
F. Gregory Hayden: Examination of Multiple Criteria in Health Technology Assessment for Application to Instrumental Analysis
Janice Peterson: Welfare Policy and Precarious Lives: “Welfare Reform” Revisited
Felipe Almeida & Gustavo Goulart: Recontextualizing Clarence Ayres’s The Theory of Economic Progress through Archival Evidence
Ann E. Davis: Waves of Populism: A Recent Manifestation of Polanyi’s “Double Movement”?
Melissa Langworthy & Tonia Warnecke: Capabilities and (Missed) Opportunity for Women’s Entrepreneurship in Kuwait
John Battaile Hall & Manuel Ramon de Souza Luz: Thorstein Veblen as Evolutionary Feminist Economist of the Progressive Era
Shingo Takahashi: Toward Reasonable Capitalism: The Role of John R. Commons’s Price and Business Cycle Theories
Charles J. Whalen: John R. Commons and Government as Employer of Last Resort: Three Paths to a Progressive Right to Work
Faruk Ülgen: An Institutionalist Framework for a Consistent Financial Regulation
Orsola Costantini & Mario Seccareccia: Income Distribution, Household Debt and Growth in Modern Financialized Economies
Eugenia Correa & Alicia Girón: The Limits of the “Progressive” Institutional Change: Migration and Remittances Experiences
Gregorio Vidal & Wesley C. Marshall: Public Knowledge and Financial Regulation: Two Post Crisis Periods
Brian Chi-ang Lin: Sustainable Growth: A Circular Economy Perspective
Ricardo C. S. Siu: Policy Dimensions of Progressive Institutional Change: Lessons from China’s Construction of a Socialist Market Economy
Kosta Josifidis & Novica Supic: Innovation and Income Inequality in the USA: Ceremonial versus Institutional Changes
Avraham Izhar Baranes: Automation, Financialization, and Institutional Change: Challenges for Progressive Policy
Mary V. Wrenn: From Mad to Mindful: Corporate Control Through Corporate Spirituality
Timothy A. Wunder: Financial Insecurity in a World of Plenty
Craig Medlen & Zelin Chen: Deficits for the Rich: Inequality and Instability
Cem Oyvat, Oğuz Öztunalı, Ceyhun Elgin: Wage‐led versus profit‐led demand: A comprehensive empirical analysis
João Gabriel de Araujo Oliveira, Joanilio Rodolpho Teixeira: A note reconsidering a post‐Keynesian model of growth and distribution in the globalization context
Ori Zax: Human capital acquisition as a competitive response to the promotion distortionLaura Policardo, Edgar J. Sanchez Carrera: Can income inequality promote democratization?
Carlos Bethencourt, Fernando Perera‐Tallo: On the relationship between sectorial and institutional structural changes
Lídia Brochier: Conflicting‐claims and labour market concerns in a supermultiplier SFC model
Pompeo Della Posta, Enrico Marelli, Marcello Signorelli: A market‐financed and growth‐enhancing investment plan for the euro area
Guilherme R. Magacho, John S. L. McCombie: Structural change and cumulative causation: A Kaldorian approach
Santiago Poy: Labor heterogeneity and processes of impoverishment in Argentinian households (2003-2017)
Sergio Tezanos and Fernando de la Cruz: A multidimensional taxonomy of developmental States
Felipe Torres and Agustín Rojas: Food security and regional imbalances in Mexico
Gloria Mancha and Edgardo Ayala: Family income as a determinant of young people's school attendance in Mexico
Armando Sánchez Vargas, Verónica Villarespe and Anadeli Naranjo: Scholarships and their impact on the perception of grade averages: Evidence from Mexico City
Edel J. Fresneda: The functionality of illegality in the experiences of Mexican migrants
Andrés Musacchio: Neoliberalism, international insertion and financialization: a comparison between Argentina and Portugal
David Kiefer, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, and Rudiger von Arnim: Secular Stagnation and Income Distribution Dynamics
William Outhwaite and Kenneth Smith: Karl Marx, Le Capital
Robin Hahnel and Allison Kerkhoff: Integrating Investment and Annual Planning
Young Soo Lee, Han Sung Kim, and Seo Hwan Joo: Financialization and Innovation Short-termism in OECD Countries
Pedro M. Rey-Araújo: The Contradictory Evolution of “Mediterranean” Neoliberalism in Spain, 1995–2008
Adalmir Marquetti, Luiz Eduardo Ourique, and Henrique Morrone: A Classical-Marxian Growth Model of Catching Up and the Cases of China, Japan, and India: 1980–2014
Gilles Jacoud & Jean-Pierre Potier: Auguste and Léon Walras and Saint-Simonianism*
Thierry Demals & Alexandra Hyard: Pareto and Saint-Simonianism. The history of a criticism
Michel Bellet : Introduction to ‘Economists and Saint-Simonism’
Ludovic Frobert: Industrialism in the mirror: Edward S. Mason, reader of the Saint-Simonians
Michel Bellet & Adrien Lutz: Piero Sraffa’s St. Simonian temptations. An examination of the Sraffa Papers
by Christopher Cramer, John Sender, and Arkebe Oqubay | Oxford University Press, 2020
Unevenness and inequalities form a central fact of African economic experiences. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about economic performance and possible policies for economic development in African countries, using the striking variation in economic performance as a starting point.
African Economic Development: Evidence, Theory, and Policy highlights not only difference between countries, but also variation within countries. It focuses on issues relating to gender, class, and ethnic identity, such as neo-natal mortality, school dropout, and horticultural and agribusiness exports. Variations in these areas point to opportunities for changing perfomance, reducing reducing inequalities, learning from other policy experiences, and escaping the ties of structure and the legacies of a colonial past.
African Economic Development rejects teleological illusions and Eurocentric prejudice, criticizing a range of orthodox and heterodox economists for their cavalier attitude to evidence. Instead, it shows that seeing the contradictions of capitalism for what they are - fundamental and enduring - may help policy officials protect themselves against the misleading idea that development can be expected to be a smooth, linear process, or that it would be if certain impediments were removed.
Drawing on decades of research and policy experience, this book combines careful use of available evidence from a range of African countries with economic insights to make the policy case for specific types of public sector investment.
Please find a link to the book here.
by Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Bradley A. Hansen | University of Chicago Press, 2020
In 2005, more than two million Americans—six out of every 1,000 people—filed for bankruptcy. Though personal bankruptcy rates have since stabilized, bankruptcy remains an important tool for the relief of financially distressed households. In Bankrupt in America, Mary and Brad Hansen offer a vital perspective on the history of bankruptcy in America, beginning with the first lasting federal bankruptcy law enacted in 1898.
Interweaving careful legal history and rigorous economic analysis, Bankrupt in America is the first work to trace how bankruptcy was transformed from an intermittently used constitutional provision, to an indispensable tool for business, to a central element of the social safety net for ordinary Americans. To do this, the authors track federal bankruptcy law, as well as related state and federal laws, examining the interaction between changes in the laws and changes in how people in each state used the bankruptcy law. In this thorough investigation, Hansen and Hansen reach novel conclusions about the causes and consequences of bankruptcy, adding nuance to the discussion of the relationship between bankruptcy rates and economic performance.
Please find a link to the book here.
edited by Valentin Beck, Henning Hahn and Robert Lepenies | Springer, 2020
This anthology constitutes an important contribution to the interdisciplinary debate on poverty measurement and alleviation. Absolute and relative poverty—both within and across state boundaries—are standardly measured and evaluated in monetary terms. However, poverty researchers have highlighted the shortfalls of one-dimensional monetary metrics. A new consensus is emerging that effectively addressing poverty requires a nuanced understanding of poverty as a relational phenomenon involving deprivations in multiple dimensions, including health, standard of living, education and political participation.
This volume advances the debate on poverty by providing a forum for philosophers and empirical researchers. It combines philosophically sound analysis and genuinely global research on poverty's social embeddedness. Next to an introduction to this interdisciplinary field—which links Practical Philosophy, Development Economics, Political Science, and Sociology—it contains articles by leading international experts and early career scholars. The contributors analyse the concept of poverty, detail its multiple dimensions, reveal epistemic injustices in poverty research, and reflect on the challenges of poverty-related social activism. The unifying theme connecting this volume's contributions is that poverty must be understood as a multidimensional and socially relational phenomenon, and that this insight can enhance our efforts to measure and alleviate poverty.
Please find a link to the book here.
by Marcin Piatkowski | Oxford University Press, 2019
The book is about one of the biggest economic success stories that one has hardly ever heard about. It is about a perennially backward, poor, and peripheral country, which over the last twenty-five years has unexpectedly become Europe’s and a global growth champion and joined the ranks of high-income countries during the life of just one generation. It is about the lessons learned from its remarkable experience for other countries in the world, the conditions that keep countries poor, and challenges that countries need face to grow and become high-income. It is also about a new growth model that this country—Poland—and its peers in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere need to adopt to continue to grow and catch up with the West for the first time ever. The book emphasizes the importance of the fundamental sources of growth—institutions, culture, ideas, and leaders—in economic development. It argues that a shift from an extractive society, where the few rule for the benefit of the few, to an inclusive society, where many rule for the benefit of many, was the key to Poland’s success. It asserts that a newly emerged inclusive society will support further convergence of Poland and Central and Eastern Europe with the West and help sustain the region’s Golden Age, but moving to the core of the European economy will require further reforms and changes in Poland’s developmental DNA.
Please find a link to the book here.
edited by Guillaume Vallet | Edward Elgar, 2020
Inequalities and the Progressive Era features contributors from all corners of the world, each exploring a different type of inequality during the Progressive Era (1890s-1930s). Though this era is most associated with the United States, it corresponds to a historical period in which profound changes and progress are realized or expected all over the globe. The original and international perspectives of the book make it possible to examine important issues or authors of the Progressive Era, who have at times been neglected or insufficiently discussed. This analysis allows us both to know more about this key period of the history of capitalism, and to consider contemporary debates regarding the treatment of inequalities with a pluralistic approach.
Academics and students of all levels, from PhD and Master degree students to undergrads will appreciate the original focus on the roots and treatments of inequalities, and this innovative collaboration between researchers of various fields in social sciences.
Please find a link to the book here.
by Hyung-A Kim | University of Washington Press, 2020
South Korea’s triumphant development has catapulted the country’s economy to the eleventh largest in the world. Large family-owned conglomerates, or chaebŏls, such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, have become globally preeminent manufacturing brands. Yet Korea’s highly disciplined, technologically competent skilled workers who built these brands have become known only for their successful labor-union militancy, which in recent decades has been criticized as collective “selfishness” that has allowed them to prosper at the expense of other workers.
Hyung-A Kim tells the story of Korea’s first generation of skilled workers in the heavy and chemical industries sector, following their dramatic transition from 1970s-era “industrial warriors” to labor-union militant “Goliat Warriors,” and ultimately to a “labor aristocracy” with guaranteed job security, superior wages, and even job inheritance for their children. By contrast, millions of Korea’s non-regular employees, especially young people, struggle in precarious and insecure employment. This richly documented account demonstrates that industrial workers’ most enduring goal has been their own economic advancement, not a wider socialist revolution, and shows how these individuals’ paths embody the consequences of rapid development.
Please find a link to the book here.
by George G. Szpiro | Columbia University Press, 2020
At its core, economics is about making decisions. In the history of economic thought, great intellectual prowess has been exerted toward devising exquisite theories of optimal decision making in situations of constraint, risk, and scarcity. Yet not all of our choices are purely logical, and so there is a longstanding tension between those emphasizing the rational and irrational sides of human behavior. One strand develops formal models of rational utility maximizing while the other draws on what behavioral science has shown about our tendency to act irrationally.
In Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty, George G. Szpiro offers a new narrative of the three-century history of the study of decision making, tracing how crucial ideas have evolved and telling the stories of the thinkers who shaped the field. Szpiro examines economics from the early days of theories spun from anecdotal evidence to the rise of a discipline built around elegant mathematics through the past half century’s interest in describing how people actually behave. Considering the work of Locke, Bentham, Jevons, Walras, Friedman, Tversky and Kahneman, Thaler, and a range of other thinkers, he sheds light on the vast scope of discovery since Bernoulli first proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox. Presenting fundamental mathematical theories in easy-to-understand language, Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty is a revelatory history for readers seeking to grasp the grand sweep of economic thought.
Please find a link to the book here.
by Cédric Hugrée, Etienne Pénissat, and Alexis Spire | Verso Books, 2020
Over the last ten years the issue of Europe has been placed at the centre of major political conflicts, revealing profound splits in society. These splits are represented in terms of an opposition between those countries on the losing and those on the winning sides of globalisation. Inequalities beyond those nations are critically absent from the debate. Based on major European statistical surveys, the new research in this work presents a map of social classes inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology. It reveals the common features of the working class, the intermediate class and the privileged class in Europe. National features combine with social inequalities, through an account of the social distance between specific groups in nations in the north and in the countries of the south and east of Europe. The book ends with a reflection on the conditions that would be required for the emergence of a Europe-wide social movement.
Please find a link to the book here.
by Stephanie Kelton | PublicAffairs, 2020
Vice-president Dick Cheney famously boasted, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” He was wrong. Deficits do matter, but not the way we’ve been taught to believe. We’ve been told that China is our banker and that Social Security and Medicare are pushing us into crisis. We’re told the U.S. could end up like Greece and that deficits will burden future generations. These are all myths.
Deficits can be used for good or evil. They can enrich a small segment of the population, driving income and wealth inequality to new heights, while leaving millions behind. They can fund unjust wars that destabilize the world and cost millions their lives. Or they can be used to sustain life and build a more just economy that works for the many and not just the few.
Please find a link to the book here.
The Master of Arts in Political Economy of Money and Development at Franklin University Switzerland is a 12-month, full-time, course-based, intensive program that allows students the opportunity to develop a critical understanding of issues arising from the attempts to “rethink” economics in the aftermath of the global crisis, and frame new problems in a changing world. Students will acquire skills of theoretical and practical relevance in three areas: new and changing views of macroeconomic policy management, state-of-the-art tools of political, economic and financial analysis, and the changing role of developing and emerging economies in the global economy.
The program consists of three terms, with the last devoted to research (with the option of an internship at Ceresio Investors), and begins with an orientation session to understand students’ interests and backgrounds that will tailor the program to match students’ profiles. There is a limited number of teaching assistantship positions available
For more information please visit the official website or email at pdasgupta@fus.edu
The University of Rhode Island offers undergraduate students an heterodox economics education. All majors are required to take “Competing Traditions in Economics” a kind of mashup of history of thought and contemporary heterodox economics. Field courses are offered in gender, race, and class and in radical economics. All of the younger faculty are heterodox or heterodox friendly. Recent students have been getting into good heterodox graduate programs and winning major national awards.
Please find a link to the university's programms here.
Over 30 prominent Sout Africans-economists and people working in economic policy have signed a statement calling for a change in South African's neoliberal eocnomic policies. It's a response to critiques of SA Reserve Bank (SARB) monetary policy.
Please find the link to the full statement, as well as a list of subscribers here.
HEIs in the UK have shown support for Black Lives Matter on account of the recent police killing of George Floyd in the USA. Within this context, various HEIs have declared that they stand in solidarity with the plight of Black and ethinic minority (henceforth BME) people facing racial injustice. It must be noted that racism and police brutality are British issues as well.
Students of some institutions have highlighted the hypocrisy of this stance. As Black academics, we join these students’ efforts. We highlight racialised inequalities in HEIs and put forward suggestions, as one of many means for taking meaningful and committed action.
Many HEIs are environments where BME students and staff experience racism, yet various institutions have not addressed thousands of racist incidents and have structures that work against properly tackling racism. BME academics face major hurdles in equal opportunities ranging from access to research funding, the significant ethnic pay gap to promotion. Fewer than 1% of UK university professors are Black. This is of particular concern as BME staff are already disadvantaged because of slow action on diversity and systemic racism in UK higher education. It is essential to also note that, for Black women, and women of colour, the situationis particularly dire.
Racism in UK universitiesis systemic, and UK universities are failing to address racism against students and staff.
As such, we think that significantly more ought to be done than acknowledgements of support for #BlackLivesMatter. Much greater effort is needed on racial equality through secure, full-time employment, equal pay, access to support and resources, more equitable workloads, and closing the BME attainment gap in HEIs. This lack of racial justice in HEIs is an outcome of broader structural issues. These have become particularly apparent during the Covid-19 crisis, as seen by the disproportionate negative impacts on BME communities and the worsening of already entrenched disparities.
We hope that this statement and the information therein can serve as a reminder about the importance of ensuring that racism and enduring racialised inequalities are dealt with. These matters impact staff and students’ well-being profoundly. This recognition needs to be met with real, meaningful and committed action. This action list is only a short set of measures and a starting point for addressing decades of marginalisation and unfairness embedded in university structures. We suggest that HEIs can demonstrate their commitment to racial justice by considering, at least to start, the following measures:
For students
For staff
For staff and students
Please sign here you are an academic in a UK HEI and supportive of this call to action: https://forms.gle/qegLssZYNaTLPSja6.
5 June, 2020| IAFFE Statement in Solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter
We, members of the International Association for Feminist Economics, stand in firm solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and those protesting the senseless murder of Mr. George Floyd in the United States. We condemn and decry this murder in unwavering terms, and we recognize and acknowledge that structural and systemic anti-Black racism contributed to the death of Mr. Floyd at the hands of four police officers, one of whom knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck until he stopped breathing while the other three assisted in the murder. We also wish to highlight that anti-Black racism in the United States contributes to the deaths of Black women at the hands of state-sponsored law enforcement as well, including, most recently, Ms. Breonna Taylor. We mourn Ms. Taylor’s loss, Mr. Floyd’s loss, and all others lost due to the reckless and inhumane acts conducted by police officers whose job is to serve and protect, not wantonly kill. To be clear, we do not condemn all law enforcement officials, but we do recognize that there is inequitable treatment of people of color in the U.S. with respect to policing. We condemn in the strongest terms racism and all forms of bias, discrimination, and human rights abuses in the United States and in this world we all share.
IAFFE is an international association with members from over 70 countries whose common cause is to further gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis with the goal of enhancing the well-being of children, women, men and transgender people in local, national and transnational communities. As such, we know that the U.S. is one among many countries where state-sponsored abuses and human rights violations occur, some resulting in death. But at this moment, in this time and in this context, we feel compelled to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with African Americans and the larger Black community in the Americas and the world to say we detest and condemn anti-Black racism wherever it exists. We are quite clear that anti-Black discrimination, as it has manifested over centuries in the United States, played the definitive role in the murder of Mr. Floyd.
As an academic and professional association, we recognize that we must also “walk the walk” in our respective spheres of influence—academia, the economics profession, and as producers and users of knowledge. Thus, we commit to taking the necessary steps to examine how we, as an organization, can ensure that anti-Black racism is nowhere reflected in our work, our teachings, and our values. But we cannot stop there—we will commit to proactive steps that promote dialogue and knowledge about the far-reaching role of anti-Black racism in the contemporary conditions of women and people of color in the U.S. and the world. And further, we will also examine whether and how we, as an institution, have provided a space and platform for economists who are Black to feel seen, heard, valued, and supported.
Because our networks are wide and deep, we also commit and will undertake steps to actively engage with and foster dialogue about anti-Black racism and its ugly ramifications with our students and colleagues, our families and friends, our communities and institutions. Silence is complacency, and we must be clear that each and every one of us in our organization has the power and potential to use their voice and resources to bring attention to the ways anti-Black racism is perpetuated, not just by commission, but by omission.
In peace and solidarity,
Executive Committee on behalf of IAFFE
The National Economic Association Stands in Solidarity with Those Who Are Protesting Anti-Black Racism and its Manifest Violence Against the Black Community
The National Economic Association (NEA) was founded in December 1969 as the Caucus of Black Economists, to formalize the struggle to research, analyze, understand, and address the systematic and institutionalized practices of anti-Black racism generating the economic and social inequalities oppressing the Black community. Since its founding, NEA scholars have been leaders in researching and exposing the structural conditions by which U.S. racial inequality and oppression creates and perpetuates a desperate and unsafe reality for Black and Brown communities, in the U.S. and around the world.
The recent police killings of Black people is part of the political, economic, social, and physical violence that has been built into America’s institutions since its inception, and makes anti-Black racism America’s most notorious export.
The NEA unequivocally denounces these acts of violence against Black people and the Black community and stands in solidarity with that community and all those who are protesting against anti-Black racism.
There may be some who see the current protests as a spontaneous response to the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery by police, or those acting under the cover of a perceived authority to police Black bodies. However, those who have been paying any attention know that these were only the latest wave in the flood of injustices perpetrated against Black people in the United States since the founding of this country. The growing protests are indicators of deep, long-standing, inhumane, intolerable, and dangerous economic and social inequalities in this country. Inequalities that disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities, and trap in poverty generations of individuals, families, and communities.
As has recently been often quoted – Dr. King said – “A riot is the language of the unheard.” As economists, intimately familiar with how economic and political capital are linked, we know that wealth is power. We also know that wealth inequality will manifest not only in resistance to the oppressive conditions that generate that inequality, but also will manifest in actions, by those who benefit from these systems of inequality, to suppress that resistance and maintain the status quo. We see this manifested in the long-standing police violence against Black communities, in the system of mass incarceration, in the system of unequal education, in the system of inadequate access to health care, and in the system of unequal income and wealth; that is, in structural, deliberate systems of inequality weaponized against Black people in the United States.
While these systems of inequality are long-standing, they have been made more visible, even to those who would deny them, by the unequal impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Black communities. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, “Black Americans make up 12.5% of the U.S. population but account for 22.4% of COVID-19 deaths.”
This statistic is a reflection of other social and economic inequalities.
The NEA calls for concerted, forceful, engaged action aimed at fostering structural change through policies and practices to improve the lives of Black people in the United States and around the world. NEA members, as part of a research and policy-oriented community, have been engaged in creating blueprints for these policies and we call on policymakers, stakeholders and allies to commit to enacting these plans. We will continue our efforts to fight against all forms of anti-Black racism and to improve the lives of members of the Black community.
THE NEA STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL THOSE PROTESTING FOR A MORE JUST AND EQUITABLE WORLD
The Association for Social Economics (ASE) endorses Solidarity Statement from the National Economic Association (NEA)
The ASE recently endorsed the statement from the National Economic Association (NEA). Organizations and individuals were invited to sign the NEA statement to “stand in solidarity with those who are protesting anti-black racism and its manifest violence against the black community.”As we expressed in another statement as well, we must use our privileged platforms to be a solution to the problems of racial and other biases that cause too many voices to go unheard.
With solidarity,Association for Social EconomicsDear friends,
The Union for Radical Political Economics stands in solidarity with all those marching for justice against institutionalized racism and white supremacy across the US and the world. We encourage our members and supporters to take part in local actions demanding justice for George Floyd, all other victims, and against police brutality. We find outrageous the violations of first amendment rights with the nationwide assault on people rising up and raising our voices demanding an end to America’s racist affliction. We are committed to challenging institutionalized racism and white supremacy within the field of economics and our society as a whole.
In solidarity,
The Steering Committee of the Union for Radical Political Economics