Issue 79: March 19 , 2009

In this issue:

Call for Papers

Assessing Heterodox Economics in a European Context – A Workshop

You are invited to submit a paper for a Workshop on

Assessing Economic Research in a European Context: the future of Heterodox economics and its research in a non-pluralist mainstream environment

26-27 June 2009, University of Bremen, Germany

Click here for detailed information.

The Global Food Crisis

Zacatecas, Mexico
August 13-15, 2009

The Critical Development Studies (CDS) network
Announces an international conference.

Inviting participation and submission of a paper on any conference subtheme

Organised by the Critical Development Studies Network (www.critdev.org) the conference is hosted by the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas and co-sponsored by the Journal of Agrarian Change (JAC), theJournal of Peasant Studies (JPS), the Canadian Journal of Development Studies (CJDS), Globalizations,the Review of International Political Economy (RIPE), Routledge and Fernwood Books. Editors of these journals will be in attendance. Institutional and programmatic support is also provided by the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) and Food First.
Click here for detailed information.

2010 HOPE Conference: History of Econometrics as an Exact and Inseparate Science

The 2010 History of Political Economy Conference will be devoted to study the history of econometrics as an exact and inseparate science, to be held at Duke University, Durham NC, USA. The project is headed by the editors Marcel Boumans (University of Amsterdam), Duo Qin (University of London) and Ariane Dupont-Kieffer (Inrets). Our editorial aims are expressed in a prospectus, which will be sent by email on request.

The conference is one of a series of annual conferences that, starting in 1989, have been held each spring on a particular topic in the history of political economy. The conferences are sponsored by the journal, History of Political Economy, with the continuing support of Duke University Press. HOPE conferences are small and generally invitation-only events. However, a small number of places may be open for additional participants. The editors will select a number of the papers to be published in a conference volume (a special number of HOPE, published in hardcover and distributed separately as a book as well).

The 2010 HOPE Conference will be focused on history of econometrics in relation to the history of other disciplines and papers on the history of 'outside-west' econometrics are particularly welcome.
Should you be interested in contributing to the conference, please submit an abstract of 1000 words to one of the editors (deadline 1 June 2009):

Marcel Boumans
Dept. of Economics
University of Amsterdam
The Netherlands
m.j.boumans@uva.nl
Tel +31 20 525 4197

Duo Qin
Dept. of Economics
University of London
United Kingdom
d.qin@qmul.ac.uk
Tel. +44 20 7882 3641

Ariane Dupont-Kiefer
Dept. of Transport Economics and Sociology INRETS France adupont@inrets.fr  Tel. +33 1 4740 7273

The flexibilization of labor market between globalization and the global economic crisis: Comparing Japan and Germany

Call for Papers for a workshop on Friday June 05, 2009, at Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Bremen / Germany

Through the globalization push, which had started towards the end of the 1980s, economies all over the world were confronted with severe adjustment challenges, including considerable consequences for their labor markets. In nearly all high income countries, the structural component of unemployment increased, with the result that overall unemployment rates in cyclical booms did not generally return to their preceding levels (hysteresis and persistence effects).
For Japan and Germany, two of the so far most successful HICs and export economies, additional problems aggravated the situation: in Germany the challenge of the transformation of the East German economic system following the country's reunification in 1990, and in Japan the crisis following the burst of the Bubble Economy in 1991, demanding far-reaching structural change and adjustment.

Click here for detailed information.

2009 Thought & Action: A New Progressive Era in Higher Education

The Thought & Action Review Panel invites submissions for a Special Focus section in the 2009 Thought & Action: A New Progressive Era in Higher Education.
We would like to publish a range of articles from authors in a wide spectrum of disciplines and areas of knowledge explaining how the academy might contribute to a new era of progress if given sufficient opportunity and resources.
We invite contributions from the full range of academic disciplines—the hard sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. How might we persuade the nation to focus on higher education as a public good rather than a
private good? How do we ensure that the intellectual capital of the nation is invested to promote human progress rather than individual greed? And perhaps most importantly, how do we best educate our students in the New Progressive Era?
In addition to Special Focus submissions, Thought & Action welcomes
compelling articles on all aspects of life in the academy, especially teaching and learning, professional development, higher education policy, and union issues. Authors should send submission to the address below. Guidelines are available at www.nea.org/he/taguid.html  or contact: pubint3@nea.org  or clehane@nea.org.

Deadline: June 1, 2009

Con Lehane, Editor
NEA Higher Education Publications
1201 16th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036-3290
Phone: 202-822-7214
Fax: 202-822-7206
E-mail: clehane@nea.org

6th International Conference Developments in Economic Theory and Policy

The Department of Applied Economics V of the University of the Basque Country and the Cambridge Centre for Economic and Public Policy, Department of Land Economy, of the University of Cambridge, are organizing the 6th International Conference Developments in Economic Theory and Policy. The Conference will be held in Bilbao (Spain), in July 2-3, 2009.

Although papers are invited on all areas of economics, there will be Plenary Sessions with Invited Speakers about the following topics:
- Regional Economics
- Current Economic and Financial Crisis
- 21st Century Keynesian Economics
Invited Speakers include, among others, Gary Dymski (University of California), Marco Crocco (Universidade Federale de Minas Gerais), Barry Moore (University of Cambridge), Mike Kitson (University of Cambridge), Amitava Dutt (University of Notre Dame), Ilene Grabel (University of Denver), Philip Arestis (University of Cambridge), Malcolm Sawyer (Leeds University), Costas Lapavitsas (SOAS, University of London), Eckhard Hein (Berlin School of Economics), Terry Barker (University of Cambridge), Elias Karakitsos (University of Cambridge) and Giuseppe Fontana (University of Leeds).

Suggestions for Organized Sessions are encouraged. An Organized Session is one session constructed in its entirety by a Session Organizer and submitted to the conference organizers as a complete package. Session organizers must provide the following information:
- Title of the session, name and affiliation of the organizer, name and affiliation of chair (if different than organizer)
- Titles of the papers, name, affiliation and contact information of authors

Besides Plenary, Organized and Normal Parallel sessions, there will also be Graduate Student Sessions (i.e., students currently making a MSc or a PhD programme). In these sessions, students can present their research and discuss that of other students. Participants in Graduate Student Sessions will pay a lower conference fee.

The deadline to submit papers and ‘Organized Sessions’ is 31st May 2009.

For more information, you can contact with Jesus Ferreiro ( jesus.ferreiro@ehu.es ) or visit the website www.conferencedevelopments.com

Special Issue of Journal of Critical Realism

Engaging Postcolonialism: Critical Realism, Marxism and Other Realisms

Journal of Critical Realism 9 (3) 2010

Guest editor: Radha D’Souza
General editor: Mervyn Hartwig

Submission deadline: 30 November 2009

http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/JCR

Click here for detailed information.

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education

The objectives of IJPEE are:

to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas thereby fostering communication within the growing pluralist community; to advance the techniques and concepts of pluralist economics by providing practical suggestions to incorporate pluralism into the classroom; to offer teachers and educators interested in pluralism an outlet for their research; and to change the emphasis of economic education by making pluralism a central feature.


The subject matter will cover all branches of economics, with the objective of enhancing economic education in order to solve today’s pressing economic and ecological problems. Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

Defining pluralism
What is pluralism and how can we incorporate it into the classroom The rhetoric of pluralism: communicating within and across disciplines Teaching the theory of the firm from a pluralist perspective Teaching pluralism in developing countries What can pluralists learn from Adam Smith and other classical economists?
Incorporating pluralism into online courses Using pluralism to construct a framework for solving global problems Are there limits to extending pluralism?
Pluralism and the individual
Pluralism as a central component of honours courses Pluralism at the community college Encouraging pluralism at the high school level Necessary mathematics for pluralism Reaching out to other social sciences Teaching ecology from a pluralist perspective Understanding the financial crisis from a pluralist perspective Pluralism and system dynamics


You may send one copy in the form of an MS Word file attached to an e-mail to:

Jack Reardon, Editor IJPEE
Hamline University
Department of Management and Economics
School of Business
1536 Hewitt Avenue MS-A1740
St. Paul, MN 55104 USA
jreardon02@hamline.edu

The 4th Bi-Annual Cross-Border Post Keynesian Conference

“Financial Crisis and Reform”

Economics & Finance Department
Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY, USA
October 9-10, 2009
The Economics and Finance Department at Buffalo State College (SUNY) invites papers and participants for the 4th Bi-Annual Cross-Border Post Keynesian Conference in October 2009. Following the tradition of the Conference which was held in Vermont (U.S), Ottawa and Montreal (Canada), we are encouraging Post Keynesian scholarship. While the main theme is “Financial Crisis and Reform,” the Conference is also open to all perspectives and topics. Selected papers will be published in a conference volume.
Click here for detailed information.

Forum de la Régulation 2009

1-2 décembre 2009, Paris

Appel à communication

L'Association Recherche & Régulation organise le troisième Forum de la Régulation les 1 & 2 décembre 2009 à Paris. Ce Forum vise ``111à stimuler la production et la diffusion de recherches de qualité sur l'analyse des formes de régulation en économie, afin d'enrichir la connaissance et éclairer la prise de décision publique et privée. Il encourage aussi les échanges entre chercheurs travaillant sur ces questions (du doctorant au chercheur senior, en France et à l'étranger).

The EAEPE Conference 2009

The EAEPE Conference 2009 will be organized in Amsterdam from Friday 6 until Sunday 8 November.
The call for papers is available on the EAEPE website: http://eaepe.org/node/207 
Abstracts can be uploaded until the 1st of May. More information on submitting abstracts can be found here: http://eaepe.org/eaepe-conference-2008 

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

Oral History Workshop

If you are doing an oral history project or are thinking about doing one, you should apply to attend this year's Oral History Institute, June 2-4 on the beautiful campus of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. The program trains participants in planning and conducting successful oral history projects. Emphasizing hands-on experience, topics covered in the two-and-a-half-day schedule include framing questions, interviewing techniques, transcribing and archiving, and devising public programs based on oral history. To develop these skills, participants will work on a practice project that encompasses all stages of oral history and will also have time to consult with experts about planned projects. Sessions will also be available on using technology in oral history and on fundraising.

The faculty consists of professors from the fields of History, Sociology, Archiving, and Telecommunications who all have extensive experience with Oral History.

We encourage volunteers or paid staff from local historical organizations, libraries, schools, and colleges and universities to apply. Admission to the institute is limited to thirty and is competitive. The cost of the institute is $275, which includes two nights stay, six meals, and all other workshop materials. The Ohio Humanities Council is making available partial scholarships for Ohio residents to subsidize the cost of the institute. You can download an application from www.ohiohumanities.org , or contact the Ohio Humanities Council at (800) 293-9774 or frankd@ohiohumanities.org.  The application deadline is May 4.

The Oral History Institute is co-sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council and The Rural Life Center at Kenyon College, in cooperation with Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums and the Ohio Historical Society.

Forum on the Solidarity Economy: building another world

co-convened by the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network,
Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela and RIPESS, N. America
March 19-22, 2009 Isenberg SOM Bldng, UMass Amherst (Campus map)
The current economic crisis provides an historic opportunity to push for an economic system that puts people and planet front and center. The solidarity economy is a growing global movement that is building real world practices & policies, grounded in principles of solidarity, sustainability, equity, participatory democracy and pluralism.
Join us to learn, exchange, network, celebrate, and build ‘another world.’
Register online
Visit the Forum webpage for updated schedule, logistical information, map, parking, transportation from airport. Click here for detailed information.

Innovative Economic Policies for Climate Change Mitigation

We are seriously concerned with global climate change, the higher frequency of extreme weather conditions, the rise of sea level, the acidification of the oceans, the salinisation of sweet water in small islands, the dramatic reduction in biodiversity, and ubiquitous pollution. But we are optimist that mitigation is still possible if the world reacts with extreme energy and cohesion.

Economics as a science has been reducing the issue of climate change to prices and quantities, interest rate and utility functions, converting health and security issues in tradable commodities. Neoclassical economics with all its empirical and logical flaws risks to provide unsufficient advice to goverments and firms, while neglecting technological and fairness issues.

At the same time, economic aspects of any mitigation strategy will be crucial for its success. So we are keen to solicit economists to device, develop and articulate innovative economic policies and measures to be integrated in effective and fair climate change mitigation efforts at every geographical and industry level.

New insights from evolutionary economics, prospect theory, behavioural economics and finance might be coupled with the established body of knowledge developed by sociology and managerial disciplines and with the experience on the terrain of real policymaking.

Instead of framing climate change mitigation as a cost, we feel it is a huge opportunity for innovation, profits, employment, wages and improvement of real quality of life.

Join us in the International Symposium on "Innovative Economic Policies for Climate Change Mitigation" to be held on the 25th-26th June 2009 near Rome
(Italy) and contribute to the subsequent book we would like to submit to national and international authorities before the Copenhagen summit, where the new Treaty will be signed and whose recomendations could be implemented in the following months and years.

Influencing the debate, the outcome and the implementation of decisions is the practical goal of this initiative, while helping the consolidation of a new attention in those strands of economics for real policymaking.

For more information, please visit our website:

http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/innopolicymitigation.htm

Thanks,

Valentino Piana
Director
director@economicswebinstitute.org

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Job Postings for Heterodox Economists
 
California State University-Fresno

The Department of Economics, California State University-Fresno invites applications for two tenure track assistant professor positions to begin Fall 2009:

MACROECONOMICS:
E0 General Macroeconomics
E4 Money and Interest Rates
O4 Economic Growth
E3 Business Fluctuations
E5 Monetary Policy

We seek candidates with teaching and research interests in macroeconomics and money and banking, and one or more of the following
fields: economic growth, business fluctuations, or monetary policy. In addition, candidates will be expected to teach principles of economics as well as intermediate macroeconomics. Faculty responsibilities include research and publication, advising students, and service at all levels of the university. An earned doctorate (Ph.D.) in Economics is required for appointment to a tenure track position. Candidates nearing completion of the doctorate (ABD) may be considered for a lectureship (temporary position) with the possibility of conversion to tenure track upon completion of the doctorate. Preference will be given to candidates with teaching experience and strong commitment to excellence in undergraduate instruction. The Department is committed to economic pluralism and welcomes applicants from all economic perspectives.
Applicants are encouraged to have all application materials on file by April 15, 2009 to ensure consideration. Send application form (www.csufresno.edu/aps/vacancy/sc1.pdf), vita, 3 letters of reference and evidence of teaching performance to: Dr. Va Nee Van Vleck, Search Committee Chair, Department of Economics, California State University, Fresno, 5245 North Backer Avenue M/S PB 20, Fresno, CA 93740-8001,
Phone: (559) 278-4932, Fax: (559) 278-7234, Email:
vanvleck@csufresno.edu

REGIONAL ECONOMICS:
R1 General Regional Economics
R11 Growth, Development and Change
E0 General Macroeconomics
H Public Economics
Q5 Environmental Economics

We seek candidates with teaching and research interests in regional economics, and one or more of the following fields: macroeconomics, public economics, or environmental economics. In addition, candidates will be expected to teach principles of economics. Faculty responsibilities include research and publication, advising students, and service at all levels of the university. An earned doctorate (Ph.D.) in Economics is required for appointment to a tenure track position.
Candidates nearing completion of the doctorate (ABD) may be considered for a lectureship (temporary position) with the possibility of conversion to tenure track upon completion of the doctorate. Preference will be given to candidates with teaching experience and strong commitment to excellence in undergraduate instruction. The Department is committed to economic pluralism and welcomes applicants from all economic perspectives. Applicants are encouraged to have all application materials on file by April 15, 2009 to ensure consideration. Send application form (www.csufresno.edu/aps/vacancy/sc1.pdf), vita, 3 letters of reference and evidence of teaching performance to: Dr. Janice Peterson, Search Committee Chair, Department of Economics, California State University, Fresno, 5245 North Backer Avenue M/S PB 20, Fresno, CA 93740-8001, Phone: (559) 278-2673, Fax: (559) 278-7234, Email:
japeterson@csufresno.edu

California State University-Fresno is an equal opportunity employer.

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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

Boom for Whom?

Family Farmers Saw Lower On-Farm Income Despite High Prices
by Timothy A. Wise and Alicia Harvie
Policy Brief No. 09-02, February 2009
To listen to the last year of press reports, these have been boom times for U.S. farmers thanks to high crop prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated net farm income of $89.3 billion in 2008, 50% above the average for the preceding 10 years. Cash receipts for the sector in 2008 were up 35% over 2006. USDA also reported average farm operator household income of $86,864 in 2008, 27% higher than in 2003. This seemed to confirm that farm households were better off than those of most Americans, with average farm household income nearly 28% above the U.S. average.
As GDAE’s Timothy Wise pointed out in a 2005 paper, many sector-wide statistics are misleading, and these are no different. To better understand how most farmers fare, one must look behind the press releases and big averages for the “farm sector.” GDAE previously examined disaggregated data from the USDA’s ARMS survey for 2003, a year of relatively low commodity prices, to illustrate some of the ways that the USDA data is “true, but truly misleading.” Recently published survey data for 2007 allow us to examine this issue once again, revealing how family farmers fared in a year with high crop prices.
The data suggest that mid-sized family farmers actually saw lower incomes from farming operations in 2007 than they did in 2003, with high costs and reduced government support outpacing the rise in income from higher crop prices. The only reason their household incomes were higher was an unprecedented rise in off-farm income. According to USDA data, only the largest farms were able to gain from high crop prices.
Now, with crop prices falling faster than the prices for inputs, many farmers are in crisis. The diary sector is under particular stress, with prices more than 50% below production costs. Any suggestion that farmers should be able to weather the current economic storm by drawing on savings from the price boom is misguided. For family farmers, at least, there were no savings. With prices falling precipitously and costs remaining stubbornly high, and with credit tight due to the financial crisis, family farmers face a very difficult year on the farm.
Download “Boom for Whom?”:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/PB09-02BoomForWhomFeb09.pdf

A (Post-) Keynesian perspective on "financialisation"

by Hein, Eckhard: IMK Studies, Nr. 1/2009. Düsseldorf 2009

http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_imk_studies_01_2009.pdf

Rethinking Macro Economic Strategies from a Human Rights Perspective

By Diane Elson, Raj Patel and Radhika Balakrishnan
http://www.ushrnetwork.org/files/ushrn/images/linkfiles/MES-II.pdf

The finance-dominated growth regime, distribution, and aggregate demand in the US

by O. Onanan, E. Stockhammer, and L. Grafl
http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/inst/vw1/papers/wu-wp126.pdf

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

economic sociology - the european electronic newsletter

Vol. 10, No. 2 - March 2009
http://econsoc.mpifg.de/newsletter/newsletter_current.asp
Note from the Editor

Dear reader,

The financial crisis has drawn attention to the fragility of markets, and the importance of trust and organization for their stabilization. Ideas of deregulation and free market coordination are under scrutiny. The roles of markets and of governments are rethought and the boundaries between politics and markets redrawn. Markets are no longer seen only as a way to promote choice and efficiency, but also as beasts to be ordered, tamed and civilized. Reflecting on recent events, this issue of the Newsletter focuses on economic sociology and the study of risk, regulation and security.

I invited Michael Power, author of Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management (Oxford University Press, 2007), to provide the lead editorial. He argues that we should be cautious about taking the label of ‘financial crisis’ too much at face value. "We should be mindful of the mechanisms by which the crisis is represented by regulators and others since this will reveal the diagnostic biases of any reform process", he writes. Jakob Vestergaard analyzes regulatory failure underlying the financial crisis. Oliver Kessler discusses systemic market risks as social phenomena. Ute Tellmann scrutinizes "scenario planning" as a new "post-probabilistic" approach to producing knowledge about risk. Andreas Langenohl examines the relationship between social security and financial professionalism in neo-liberalism.

The interview was conducted with Richard Sennett, one of the world’s foremost critical sociological thinkers. In the interview, Richard Sennett, amongst other things, discusses the relevance of the notion of craftsmanship for economic sociology and the organisation of economic life.

As in previous issues, Brooke Harrington edited the book review section, and I would like to thank her for all her work. Further, William Davies and Horacio Ortiz provide summaries of their doctoral research projects, in which they investigate rival normative and cultural frameworks shaping fields of neoliberal thinking, and practices of valuing, investing and innovating in French investment companies, respectively.

The next issue of the Newsletter will focus on intersections between economic sociology and law. Please continue to submit material that you think should be published in the Newsletter. From November 2009, Philippe Steiner (Université Paris-Sorbonne) with associate editors Sidonie Naulin (Université Paris-Sorbonne) and Nicolas Milicet (Université Paris-Sorbonne) will take over the editorship of the Newsletter. Materials for the November issue should be send to one of the following email addresses: Philippe.Steiner@paris-sorbonne.fr,  sidonie.naulin@gmail.com , milicet@phare.normalesup.org.
 
Finally, I would like to thank Christina Glasmacher (MPIfG) and Rita Samiolo (LSE) in helping me to put this issue together.

With best wishes, until Summer,

Andrea Mennicken
a.m.mennicken@lse.ac.uk

Links:
economic sociology - the european electronic newsletter: http://econsoc.mpifg.de/newsletter/newsletter_current.asp

Review of Social Economy

Volume 67 Issue 1  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

Special Issue:Ethics and Economics

This new issue contains the following articles:

Introduction to Ethics and Economics
Author: Mark D. White

Virtue and Behavior
Author: Jennifer A. Baker

Communitarianism and the Market: A Paradox
Author: Irene van Staveren

Pareto, Consent, and Respect for Dignity: A Kantian Perspective
Author: Mark D. White

Identity and Individual Economic Agents: A Narrative Approach

Adam Smith on Instincts, Affection, and Informal Learning: Proximate Mechanisms in Multilevel Selection
Author: Jonathan B. Wight

The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce
Author: Maryann O. Keating

Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples
Author: Nazmi Sari

Human Development in the Era of Globalization. Essays in Honor of Keith B. Griffin
Author: Lorenzo

CASE Newsletter

www.case-research.eu

CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research,
Sienkiewicza 12, 00-010, Warsaw, POLAND

T: +48 22 622 66 27
F: +48 22 828 60 69
E: case@case-research.eu

Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales

Adjuntamos un fichero con el sumario de Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales Vol. 26, num. 2, 2008, “Domesticación del Trabajo”, coordinado por María Jesús Miranda López, María Teresa Martín Palomo y Matxalen Legarreta Iza, que acaba de publicarse

Así mismo le recordamos los títulos de los últimos números:

Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales, Vol. 26, núm. 2, 2008, “Globalización y Sindicalismo” presentado y coordinado por Fausto Miguelez

Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales, Vol. 25, núm. 2, 2007, “La transformación del Derecho del Trabajo” presentado y coordinado por Fernando
Valdés Dal-Ré y Jesús Lahera Forteza

El contenido de todos los números de Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales, salvo los dos últimos, puede consultarse directamente en el Portal de revistas Científicas de la UCM en la página: http://www.ucm.es/BUCM/revistasBUC/portal/modulos.php?name=Revistas2&id=CRLA&col=1

Local Economy

Volume 24 Issue 2  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

This new issue contains the following articles:

Managing the Urban Consumption Experience?
Author: Gary Warnaby

A Framework for Assessing Regeneration, Business Strategies and Urban Competitiveness
Authors: Shaleen Singhal; Jim Berry; Stanley Mcgreal

Which Sectors Drive Regional Economic Development? Changes in Employment in Knowledge-based and Consumption-based Sectors and Regional Economic Performance
Author: Andrew Johnston

Structural Funds and Gender Equality: The Impact of Gender Mainstreaming in Western Scotland
Authors: Jim Campbell; Rona Fitzgerald; Leaza Mcsorley

The Revitalization of New England's Small Town Mills: Breathing New Life into Old Places
Authors: Zenia Kotval; John Mullin

In Recession
Author: David Walburn

Cities in Recession–The Crisis in UK Financial Services
Author: Malcolm Cooper

Regeneration Projects and the Credit Crunch
Author: Michael Ward

Policy Making in a Time of Transition: Economic Development in the New Obama Administration
Author: Erik R. Pages

State Aids and the Credit Crunch
Author: David Walburn

The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin

March 2009
1) Colbertism - Out of the frying pan into the fire
2) Forthcoming Events
3) Associate! March 2009 - Romancing Economics

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

Development Dialogue

we are happy to announce the publication of a special issue of the journal "Development Dialogue" (Day Hammarskjöld Foundation) on the highly actual topic on postneoliberalism.

Find below the table of content.

In order to get a copy (for free), please send your mailing address to: secretariat@dhf.uu.se

Best wishes,
Nicola Sekler and Ulrich Brand

Development Dialogue 51 (January 2009)
Preface
Henning Melber
Postneoliberalism : catch-all word or valuable analytical and political concept? – Aims of a beginning debate
Ulrich Brand and Nicola Sekler
Ways out of the crisis of neoliberalism
Michael Brie
Postneoliberalism and its bifurcations
Ana Esther Ceceña
Postneoliberalism and post-Fordism: Is there a new period of capitalist mode of production?
Alex Demirovic
Postneoliberalism from and as a counter-hegemonic perspective
Nicola Sekler
Postneoliberalism or postcapitalism? The failure of neoliberalism in the financial market crisis
Elmar Altvater
‘Neoliberalism’ and development policy: dogma or progress?
Kurt Bayer
Environmental crises and the ambiguous postneoliberalising of nature
Ulrich Brand
The crisis of neoliberalism and the impasse of the union movement
Gregory Albo
Women peasants, food security and biodiversity in the crisis of neoliberalism
Christa Wichterich
On recent projects and experiences of the sufficiency economy: a critique
Chanida Chanyapate and Alec Bamford
Struggles against Wal-Martisation and neoliberal competitiveness in (southern) China: Towards postneoliberalism as an alternative?
Ngai-Ling Sum
Postneoliberalism in Latin America
Emir Sader
Notes on postneoliberalism in Argentina
Verónica Gago and Diego Sztulwark
Realistic postneoliberalism: A view from South Africa
Patrick Bond

International Journal of Political Economy

Volume 37 Number 3 / Fall 2008 of International Journal of Political Economy is now available on the mesharpe.metapress.com web site at http://mesharpe.metapress.com/link.asp?id=P2V351858405

This issue contains:

Editor's Introduction
Mario Seccareccia

The Search for a New Developmental State
Jamee K. Moudud, Karl Botchway

The Concept and Evolution of the Developmental State
Esteban Pérez Caldentey

Toward a New Developmental Paradigm for Latin America
Ignacio Perrotini, Juan Alberto Vázquez, Blanca L. Avendaño

What Is New and What Is Left of the Economic Policies of the New Left Governments of Latin America?
Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, Igor Paunovic

Marxist Interventions

Marxist interventions , a new on-line journal has just gone live at www.anu.edu.au/polsci/mi/. 

PERI In Focus: Winter 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

- Green Economics: An Update on PERI's Activities
- Financial Crisis and Re-Regulation: The Progressive Perspective
- A Progressive Economists' Program for Economic Recovery
- Resources on the Employee Free Choice Act
- Welcome Jeff Thompson, PERI’s New Assistant Professor
- Pro-Poor Development in Europe and Africa
- Employment, Growth & Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries: A Festschrift Conference in Honor of Professor Aziz Khan
- Robert Pollin in New Labor Forum
- Gerald Epstein in Truthout
- PERI Working Papers
- PERI Events

Levy News

http://www.levy.org/pubs/LevyNews/2009/March/13.html
IN THIS ISSUE
- 18th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference: Meeting the Challenges of Financial Crisis
- The Return of Big Government: Policy Advice for President Obama
- The Case Against Intergenerational Accounting: The Accounting Campaign Against Social Security and - Medicare

International Socialist Review

ISSUE 64:March-April 2009
http://www.isreview.org/

Hothouse Earth
Capitalism, climate change, and the fate of humanity


EDITORIALS
Letter from the editor
Obama's mixed message

REPORTS AND ANALYSIS
Behind the myths about Hamas
Israel and South Africa--a tale of two apartheids
Australia: Crisis down under

FEATURES
Return of the one-state solution
Phil Gasper makes the case for a single democratic state in all of Palestine
The Road to Gaza's killing fields
Toufic Haddad draws a balance sheet on Israel's offensive in Gaza
Colombia: the right wing counteroffensive
Ernesto Herrera on the role of Colombia in Washington's plans for Latin America
Hothouse Earth: Capitalism, climate change, and the fate of humanity
The second and final installment of Chris Williams' analysis of global warming
The New Deal: Myth and Reality
An excerpt from Lance Selfa's new book The Democrats: A Critical History

SPECIAL SECTION ON THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
The U.S. economic crisis: Causes and solutions
Fred Moseley
Prospects for a new labor movement
Kim Moody
Looking at the crisis through Marx
Ben Fine

REVIEWS
Manufacturing the "silent majority"
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reviews Rick Perlstein's Nixonland
Food and the fight for social justice
Nicole Colson reviews Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved
PLUS: The American way of poverty; Uprising on the inside; A social democratic plan for Obama; A "New Keynesian" prescription

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Heterodox Books and Book Series

Handbook on Trade and Environment

Edited by Kevin P. Gallagher
Edward Elgar, 2009
Just as policy-makers in the United States are evaluating how to fulfill President Barack Obama’s pledge to evaluate the environmental impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and policy-makers and scholars worldwide are looking to mitigate the effects of global climate change in a manner that does not disrupt the global economy, GDAE has published a comprehensive handbook on international trade and the environment.
The Handbook on Trade and Environment has been edited by GDAE Senior Researcher and Boston University professor Kevin P. Gallagher. It includes chapters by GDAE researchers and affiliates Timothy A. Wise, Lyuba Zarsky, Frank Ackerman, and Alejandro Nadal. The volume will serve as a guide for scholars new to the field as well as students and policy-makers needing a quick reference to the research on the interface between trade and environment.
For more information and for ordering see:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/TradeEnviron.html

Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History

Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=28984

The studies offered in this volume contribute to a Global Labor History freed from Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism. Using literature from diverse regions, epochs and disciplines, the book provides arguments and conceptual tools for a different interpretation of history – a labor history which integrates the history of slavery and indentured labor, and which pays serious attention to diverging yet interconnected developments in different parts of the world. The following questions are central:
▪ What is the nature of the world working class, on which Global Labor History focuses? How can we define and demarcate that class, and which factors determine its composition?
▪ Which forms of collective action did this working class develop in the course of time, and what is the logic in that development?
▪ What can we learn from adjacent disciplines? Which insights from anthropologists, sociologists and other social scientists are useful in the development of Global Labor History? 

Economic Abundance: An Introduction

by William M. Dugger and James T. Peach
March 2009. 240 pp. Tables, figures, references, index.
Cloth 978-0-7656-2340-9 $69.95
Paper 978-0-7656-2341-6 $25.95

Most principles of economics texts are predicated narrowly on the concept of scarcity, but that is only one aspect of economics. This supplemental text for basic and intermediate level undergraduates provides a serious discussion of the concept of abundance —what it means, how we can move toward it, and what keeps us from doing so.
https://www.mesharpe.com/mall/resultsa.asp?Title=Economic+Abundance%3A+An+Introduction 

Why Unions Matter

10th Anniversary Edition
by Michael D. Yates

“A comprehensive, readable introduction to the history, structure, functioning, and yes, the problems of U.S. unions. For labor and political activists just coming on the scene or veterans looking for that missing overview, this is the best place to start.”
—Kim Moody, founder of Labor Notes
author of Workers in a Lean World and U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition
University of Illinois, Chicago

“Everyone needs to read Why Unions Matter. Michael Yates shows why unions are worth fighting for—despite the decline in membership and power and their checkered past of exclusion. Unions are still one of the best hopes for working people, as Yates vividly explains, whether it involves nitty gritty issues like protecting workers against unjust firings or enforcing safer workplaces, or larger concerns like securing more control over the work process or democratizing the entire economy. This book is a classic, and the new edition could not be more timely. With the world economy in recession some employers see this as the moment to crush unions once and for all. Yates argues that now is the moment for unions to build a broad social movement that can advance labor’s vision of a better society, centered on the needs of all working people. Why Unions Matter is essential reading for anyone wanting to help build that new world.”
—Stephanie Luce, Labor Center of the University of Massachusetts–Amherst
author of Fighting For a Living Wage

“If there was ever a time for workers to rethink their organizations and ensure that unions really continue to matter, that time is now. Michael Yates’s Why Unions Matter appreciates that the threats to unions are not only external but also internal and provides essential background for the strategic discussions we consequently need to share. His passion and respect for the class he came out of delivers a book that is especially accessible without retreating from the complexities and internal contradictions of working class life and organization—a book committed not only to defending workers, but also to building on their potentials to transform society. Get a copy for yourself and one to pass around.”
—Sam Gindin, former chief economist, Canadian Auto Workers Union

Packer Visitor in Social Justice in the Political Science Dept. at York University, Toronto
“For anyone interested in where the American labor movement has been, where it is now, and, most importantly, where it is likely headed in the years to come, Mr. Yates’s book is a must read. It offers a rousing and compelling account of organized labor’s unique role in our history. Uncompromising, riveting, and, despite some brutally honests truths, oddly inspiring. A terrific book for both the casual reader and the labor wonk.”
—David Macaray, labor writer for CounterPunch
and playwright, author of Junk Bonds and Borneo Bob

In this new edition of Why Unions Matter, Michael D. Yates shows why unions still matter. Unions mean better pay, benefits, and working conditions for their members; they force employers to treat employees with dignity and respect; and at their best, they provide a way for workers to make society both more democratic and egalitarian. Yates uses simple language, clear data, and engaging examples to show why workers need unions, how unions are formed, how they operate, how collective bargaining works, the role of unions in politics, and what unions have done to bring workers together across the divides of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.

The new edition not only updates the first, but also examines the record of the New Voice slate that took control of the AFL-CIO in 1995, the continuing decline in union membership and density, the Change to Win split in 2005, the growing importance of immigrant workers, the rise of worker centers, the impacts of and labor responses to globalization, and the need for labor to have an independent political voice. This is simply the best introduction to unions on the market.

Michael D. Yates is Associate Editor of Monthly Review and Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press. He has taught working people in Labor Studies programs at Penn State University; The University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Cornell University; Indiana University; and Baltimore County Community College. He is the author of Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: An Economist’s Travelogue, Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy, and Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs.

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Heterodox Websites and Blogs

Financial Crisis

In collaboration with my heterodox colleagues (and your contributions), I have developed a bibliography of internet resources explaining the current economic crisis. www.wright.edu/~barbara.hopkins/Financial_crisis.htm  (note it is an _ between financial and crisis).
Barbara Hopkins
Wright State University

Blog Grupo Lujan

http://grupolujan-circus.blogspot.com/ 

Rethinking Finance

An international group of civil society organisations has launched a new website:

http://www.rethinkingfinance.org

The global financial and economic system is in crisis. Existing economic policies and institutions have overseen an economic system scarred by high levels of poverty and inequality, which is contributing to an environmental catastrophe. Blind faith in the virtues of markets, and inadequate public control, regulation and accountability of finance are at the heart of the financial crisis. Before the financial crisis, people across the world and in Britain were already suffering from the effects of rising food prices, inadequate essential services and the threat of climate chaos. There can be no return to business as usual.
Fundamental change is needed.

Rethinking finance addresses these shortcomings. It puts forward alternative ideas and analyses, provides information about and comments on latest events, and gives an overview of civil society and other alternative activities. In consolidated the latest thinking from the best blogs, commentary, blogs, analysis, and includes links to the most important mainstream media coverage. We hope you find it useful. You can email suggestions, ideas, comments, and other observations to info@rethinkingfinance.org

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Queries from Heterodox Economists

Updating Radical Political Economy: A Concise Introduction

We are planning to update my text _RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: A Concise Introduction_ and would like suggestions and feedback on the current edition. Any and all suggestions or feedback would be most welcome, especially from those of you who have used this text in your courses but also for those of you have not used this text it would be helpful to know what changes might be made that would make it a text that you would adopt.

A few words about the nature of this text: This text was written as an accessible introductory text for undergraduates that could be taught in a few weeks. It was not written as a text for a semester long course course in radical economics. I wrote this text for a required course for econ majors on heterodox economics at Dickinson College where multiple perspectives are covered in addition to RPE including Institutional, Feminist, and Austrian economics. Of course we are lucky here to have a pluralist economics program and it would be good to hear from users of this text how you have used it and in what courses, as well as how it could be improved and updated.

Any and all comments will be most helpful and appreciated. Chuck Barone barone@dickinson.edu

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For Your Information

PhilPapers

PhilPapers is a comprehensive directory of online philosophy articles and books by academic philosophers: http://philpapers.org/.

Time For The World To Turn The Page To Chapter 11

Nick Potts
28-2-09
Southampton Solent University
Nick.Potts@Solent.ac.uk

Stiglitz (2008) is right to suggest that the big three US carmakers should not be bailed out but rather, should be placed in Chapter 11 pre-packaged bankruptcy. This essentially means the business continues to operate after it is financially wound down, to the cost of shareholders and holders of corporate bonds issued by these carmakers. (cont.)

Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy

By PATRICIA COHEN
For years economists who have challenged free market theory have been the Rodney Dangerfields of the profession. Often ignored or belittled because they questioned the orthodoxy, they say, they have been shut out of many economics departments and the most prestigious economics journals. They got no respect.
That was before last fall’s crash took the economics establishment by surprise. Since then the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has admitted that he was shocked to discover a flaw in the free market model and has even begun talking about temporarily nationalizing some banks. A Newsweek cover last month declared, “We Are All Socialists Now.” And at the latest annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said, “The new enthusiasm for fiscal stimulus, and particularly government spending, represents a huge evolution in mainstream thinking.” (cont.)

World Recession Forces Economic Re-thinking

By Mark Weisbrot

This op-ed was published by The Guardian Unlimited on March 4, 2009. If anyone wants to reprint it, please include a link to the original.

A serious economic crisis can force some rethinking of economic and political dogma. The current crisis is serious for most of the world; the IMF is projecting world economic growth of just one half percent this year - the worst since World War II - and this number could easily be revised downward. (cont.)

Folly of excluding the hard-won wisdom of the past

From Mr Robert Jones.
Sir, Lord Turner’s claim that there has been a “fundamental intellectual failure” around the world of regulators, politicians and economists, (“FSA head promises regulation revolution”, February 26) is only partially justified.
In economics there has been intellectual failure, but by zealous and influential members of the neoclassical school of economics. Those economists have unfortunately dominated “the mainstream” and have dictated the terms of the conventional wisdom, to the exclusion of what therefore became labelled “heterodox”.
There are many economists who did not suffer intellectual failure but, on the contrary, have consistently warned of the dangers of systemic financial instability. Their output can be found in various publications, such as the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics and those of research bodies such as the Levy Institute.
It is now more than 30 years since mainstream economics last entertained the possibility that uncertainty and unstable money market behaviour could have contagious effects on the real macro economy. In those days “monetary economics” went hand in hand with macroeconomics, a subject that was still truly “macro” in the sense that it rested on the Keynesian premise that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
For neoclassical macroeconomists, who have since dominated the mainstream, that era represented a dark age. For them, what constituted intellectual progress was a concerted and co-ordinated attack on the wisdoms drawn from the Great Depression. Nobel prizes were awarded for reducing mainstream macroeconomics to a high-tech application of pre-Keynesian supply-side microeconomics, divorced from any consideration of the possible problems arising from institutional changes in the monetary economy.
At the same time “monetary economics” turned into “financial economics”, a much narrower, technical subject. The efficient markets hypothesis had well and truly replaced Keynes’s theory of liquidity preference. The significance of the insights of Keynes, and his “disciple”, Hyman Minsky, are now being widely discussed and promoted, but this would have been inconceivable just a few years ago.
As the public “blame debate” focuses on the roles of politicians and regulators, it is worth remembering Keynes’s observation that “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.”
None of the above is to imply that all, or even most, neoclassical economics is wrong, or that market incentives are unimportant. But there will be times when its crude application is dangerous and when it is folly to exclude hard-won wisdoms of the past, no matter how inconvenient to vested interests.
Robert Jones,
Senior Lecturer in Economics,
Nottingham Business School,
Nottingham, UK

copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

The Economic Crisis and the Developing World: What Next?

In November 2008, GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher interviewed economists José Antonio Ocampo and Robert Wade when they were at Tufts University to receive the institute’s Leontief Prize for Advance the Frontiers of Economic Thought. The interview appeared in the January-February 2009 issue of Challenge magazine under the title “The Economic Crisis and the Developing World: What Next?” The interview is now available online at:
http://www.challengemagazine.com/interview.htm 
For the Ocampo-Wade interview:
http://www.challengemagazine.com/Challenge%20interview%20pdfs/027_039.pdf
For more on GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/globalization.html
For more on the Leontief Prize awards ceremony in November of 2008:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/leontief08.html
 
Information for those of you who teach macroeconomics -- my KEYNES book will be available in paperback in May --- in time to order for Fall 2009 semester for your class. (Price under $30.)

John Maynard Keynes (Great Thinkers in Economics)

publisher Palgrave/Macmillan- New York and London
by Paul Davidson (Author)


Editorial Reviews
Review
'Davidson convincingly shows how Keynes's radical assault on classical economic theory was undermined by mainstream interpreters anxious to make his doctrines politically acceptable. Keynes's own 'general theory' is compellingly explained; its obfuscators attacked with Davidson's familiar panache.' - Lord Skidelsky, author of John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman
'This could be the best one-volume treatment of Keynes's economics since Keynes himself. Clear, logical and faithful, Paul Davidson introduces the real Keynes to a new generation. And do we ever need him.' - James K. Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin and Levy Economic Institute
'Global imbalances, the unshackling of capital, the precarious state of modern capitalism: rarely has the world of economics been in more need of the thoughts of John Maynard Keynes. Although Keynes is no longer with us, this book is the next best thing. Paul Davidson is the leading expert on Keynes and Keynesianism and his book should be read by anybody who wants to understand the world as it is, rather than as the economic text books say it ought to be.' - Larry Elliott, Economics Editor, The Guardian

'Paul Davidson's fascinating, encyclopaedic book captures the drama of the appearance of the General Theory, illuminates the controversies still surrounding it, and passionately defends Keynes's radical innovations in economic theory and policy. It is high time for economists and policymakers to go back to Keynes's own words, whose power Davidson so effectively articulates.' - Peter L. Bernstein, President of Peter L. Bernstein, Inc., and author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk and Capital Ideas Evolving

The unfortunate uselessness of most ’state of the art’ academic monetary economics

by Willem Buiter
March 3, 2009 1:37pm
The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England I was privileged to be a ‘founder’ external member of during the years 1997-2000 contained, like its successor vintages of external and executive members, quite a strong representation of academic economists and other professional economists with serious technical training and backgrounds. This turned out to be a severe handicap when the central bank had to switch gears and change from being an inflation-targeting central bank under conditions of orderly financial markets to a financial stability-oriented central bank under conditions of widespread market illiquidity and funding illiquidity. (cont.)

Warning

Assuming the present crisis will bring many new readers to Keynes's "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," I thought I might warn against a very bad new edition from BN Publishing (2008, 2009) prominently displayed on the Amazon.com website. The book is riddled with errors, including omissions of text and substitution of incorrect text and numbers. Tables are thoroughly garbled. All equations are muddled by substituting Roman letters for the standard Greek algebraic operators (e.g., delta for "change," sigma for "summation"). Keynes's detailed index is entirely omitted. Perhaps most egregiously, the edition removes Keynes's important graph analyzing the classical theory of interest and re-writes his text to cover up this omission.
As if this difficult book needed additional muddying! Reliable editions of "The General Theory" are available from Prometheus Books and Palgrave/Macmillan.

Promoting Excellence in Research

The Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council has produced a interesting report on peer-review practices: “Promoting Excellence in Research – An International Blue Ribbon Panel Assessment of Peer Review Practices at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada”.

http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/site/about-crsh/publications/peer-pairs_e.pdf

The Revenge of Karl Marx

The late Huw Wheldon of the BBC once described to me a series, made in the early days of radio, about celebrated exiles who had lived in London. At one stage, this had involved tracking down an ancient retiree who had toiled in the British Museum’s reading room during the Victorian epoch. Asked if he could remember a certain Karl Marx, the wheezing old pensioner at first came up empty. But when primed with different prompts about the once-diligent attendee (monopolizing the same seat number, always there between opening and closing time, heavily bearded, suffering from carbuncles, tending to lunch in the Museum Tavern, very much interested in works on political economy), he let the fount of memory be unsealed. “Oh Mr. Marx, yes, to be sure. Gave us a lot of work ’e did, with all ’is calls for books and papers …” His interviewers craned forward eagerly, to hear the man say: “And then one day ’e just stopped coming. And you know what’s a funny fing, sir?” A pregnant pause. “Nobody’s ever ’eard of ’im since!” This, clearly, was one of those stubborn proletarians for the alleviation of whose false consciousness Marx had labored in vain. (cont.)

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904/hitchens-marx

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