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Issue 49: September 20, 2007

From the Editor

This issue of the Newsletter announces some new call for papers—check out the one for the Association for Heterodox Economics. There is also a great many interesting seminars, conferences and lectures to attend. As it is job season, there are a number of new jobs for heterodox economists listed. You should also check out the New Economic Papers and the new heterodox web sites for the Association for Integrity and Responsible Leadership in Economics and Associated Professions and for the Heterodox Economics for Environment and Development Network. Finally there are a couple things under the FYI section that you should look at. One concerns the response by the History of Economic Thought community to an attempt to remove HET from economics and classify it as solely a historical subject; and the second concerns ‘freedom in classroom,’ an issue that certainly is relevant to those who teach in the US.

It is ASSA Conference registration time. Registration for the ASSA conference and hotel can now be made on line: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA.  Remembers when registering for the ASSA tick the membership box for the Association for Social Economics or Labor and Employment Relations Association. In 2006 ASE got $2951 ($990 in 2005) which it uses to support heterodox economics and LERA got $7,480 ($3,950 in 2005), but more is better. The breakdown for the ASSA 2007 in Chicago is not yet available.

For the AFEE, ASE, and the overall ASSA program at the ASSA see:
http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/afee/ASSA%20program%20&%20events%20Final%208-31-07.doc 
http://www.socialeconomics.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=1
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/Annual_Meeting/ASSA08_program.htm 

On Thursday evening of the ASSA Conference, the Association for Social Economics is having its plenary session which is open to all economists that support pluralism in economics. The reception after the session is co-sponsored by ICAPE.

Thursday, January 3, 2008
Session: Inequality, Democracy, and the Economy
Thursday, January 3, 2008, 6:30 pm
Presiding: John B. Davis, University of Amsterdam and Marquette University
Co-sponsors: National Economic Association, International Association for Feminist Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics
Participants:
Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
William J. Darity, Jr., Duke University
Lourdes Beneria, Cornell University
Reception follows co-sponsored by ICAPE

Fred Lee

In this issue:
  Call for Papers
  - The 10th International Post Keynesian Conference and the Graduate Summer School
- The 6th Society of Heterodox Economists Conference
- The XXXIInd Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) Conference
- AFIT Call for Papers and Student Competition Announcement
- 10th Anniversary Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics
- Third Symposium of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy
  Conferences, Seminars and Lectures
  - Dialogues: Economics
- Berlin Conference 26-27 October 2007
- Historical Materialism Conference
- What Makes Humans So Different?
- Mapping Global Inequalities
- Law and Economic Development: A Historical Perspective
- Perspectives on Monetary Policy
- Assessing Law and Economics in the Context of Development
- European Business Elites
- Post-Keynesian Perspectives on Development Economics
- Globalization: Long-run Perspectives
- Non-union Forms of Employee Representation in the Asia-Pacific Rim
- Growth and Distribution
- CofFEE
- Keynes Lecture in Economics
- The Economics of Global Warming
  Job Postings for Heterodox Economists
  - Western New England College
- James Madison University
- University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA
- Missouri State University
- Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Unidad Cuajimalpa
- NYC Human Resources Administration
- The University at Albany, State University of New York
  Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles
  - NEP - New Economics Papers
  Heterodox Journals and Newsletters
  - New Political Economy
- Journal of Economic Methodology
- Historical Materialism
- Levy News
- Metroeconomica
- Associative Economics Bulletin - September 2007
  Heterodox Books, Book Series, and Book Reviews
  - Political Economy and Global Capitalism
- A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917
- The Enclave Economy
- Research in Political Economy
- Macroeconomics in Context
  Heterodox Websites
  - AIRLEAP
- Political Economy Research Institute
- Heterodox Economics for Environment and Development Network (HEEDnet)
  For Your Information
  - Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator
- Gender and Trade Network
- An Historical Injustice
- AAUP Goes to Bat for 'Freedom in the Classroom'
   

Call for Papers

The 10th International Post Keynesian Conference and the Graduate Summer School

10th Post Keynesian Call for Papers

 

The 6th Society of Heterodox Economists Conference

The University of New South Wales will host the 6th Society of Heterodox Economists Conference on December 10 and 11, 2007.

This year's conference will have both refereed and non-refereed papers. The deadline for submission of abstracts of refereed papers is Friday October 26, and for papers is Friday 9 November. The deadline for submission of abstracts of non-refereed papers is Friday November 2, with papers due Friday 23 November. Further details will be available from the Conference website. In addition, we have arranged with the editors of the Economics and Labour Relations Review to have a Symposium Issue of selected papers from the conference. SHE Website: http://she.web.unsw.edu.au/ 

The XXXIInd Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) Conference

Thirty- Second Annual Conference of the Political Economy of the World System Section of the American Sociological Association (24-26 April 2008)

FLOWS OF PEOPLE AND MONEY ACROSS THE WORLD-SYSTEM: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The XXXIInd Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) Conference will take place 24-26 April, 2008, at Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. The organizers of the PEWS Conference invite papers relating to the theme, “Flows of People and Money across the World-System.” For detailed information: asa08.doc

AFIT Call for Papers and Student Competition Announcement

Association for Institutional Thought [AFIT]
2008 CALL FOR PAPERS
The annual meeting of AFIT will be held April 23-26, 2008
Denver, Colorado
Hyatt Regency Hotel 800 233 1234 In conjunction with the Western Social Science Association (WSSA) 50th Annual Conferencef

Theme for the 2008 Conference:
New Directions in Economics: The Emerging Conversation within Heterodox Economics

For detailed information:  AFITCallForPapersDenver2008.pdf and AFITStudentResearchComp2007.pdf

10th Anniversary Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics

Call for Papers
4-6 July, 2008
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
The Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics (AHE) will be held at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge from Friday 4th to Sunday 6th July 2008.

For detailed information: AHE July 2008 Tenth Anniversary Call For Papers.doc

Third Symposium of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy

In collaboration with
Economic Policy Laboratory, Department of Economics,
Athens University of Economics and Business
on
MARKETS AS INSTITUTIONS: HISTORY AND THEORY

Date: 5-6 September 2008
Place: Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens Greece.

Program: key note lectures and parallel sessions.
Deadline abstracts (500 words): 15 December 2007.
A final version of accepted papers is requested by 15 June, 2008.

Submissions to: Ioanna Minoglou
email: iminoglou@aueb.gr
Fee: 100 € . Participants will cover their air travel and hotel costs. However, we will secure for them preferential rates at a hotel near the venue. We will also provide hard copies of the papers; a welcome reception on the 4th of September; tea, lunch, dinner (5th and 6th of September) and an organised tour of the National Archaeological Museum.
Theme:
The purpose of this symposium is to explore new directions in historical and theoretical research on the institutional properties of markets. In world history markets have taken a plurality of shapes in terms of their routines, pricing procedures and other features. Among the key themes of interest are:
How have specific markets emerged?
What role have (national) institution building, codified legal systems, property rights and commercial/business culture played in the formation of markets?
How do institutional specificities influence the allocation of resources and the determination of prices?
In what ways do markets play a decisive part in determining alternative political economies?

Organizing Committee: John Groenewegen, Geoff Hodgson, Panagiotis Korliras, Pascal Petit, Ioanna Minoglou.

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

Dialogues: Economics

Tuesday 2 October 2007, 6.30pm
Italian Cultural Institute
39 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8NX

The Italian Revival of Marshallian Studies:
The Elgar Companion to Alfred Marshall

with
Prof. Marco Dardi,
Prof. Brian Loasby,
Prof. Stan Metcalfe and Prof.Tiziano Raffaelli

In light of the recent and ongoing surge of interest in Alfred Marshall's work, this new and original reference volume, edited by Tiziano Raffaelli, Professor of the History of Economic Thought, University of Pisa, Giacomo Becattini, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy and Marco Dardi, Professor of Economics, University of Florence, fills a gap in the literature through a detailed examination of his thought and of his contributions to economics and social science. Brian Loasby is Professor Emeritus at Stirling University and Stan Metcalfe is Professor of Political Economy at Manchester University.

Free event but booking essential on 020 7396 4430 or rsvp.icilondon@esteri.it

Berlin Conference 26-27 October 2007

The Research Network Macroeconomic Policies would like to invite you to participate in its 11th conference on
Finance-led Capitalism? Macroeconomic Effects of Changes in the Financial Sector,
Berlin, 26--27 October 2007,
Best Western Hotel Steglitz International, Albrechtstr. 2, 12165 Berlin.
Conference papers and further information on the conference will be made available on the conference website
http://www.boeckler.de/cps/rde/xchg/hbs/hs.xsl/33_88381.html
There are no conference fees. Meals will be covered by the Hans Boeckler Foundation. Participants have to cover their travelling and hotel costs.
If you would like the Hans Boeckler Foundation to make hotel reservations for you, please note that we need your requirements until 24 September 2007. Having registered you will receive the details for the hotel, how to get there etc. in early October. Payments will have to be made with the hotel in Berlin. Download the conference program.

Historical Materialism Conference

The fourth annual Historical Materialism Conference held in conjunction with the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Prize Committee and the Socialist Register will take place between 9–11 November, 2007 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Central London.

As has become a hall-mark of this event, the conference will be interdisciplinary in nature. Within this context several specific strands are highlighted this year. These include Gramsci’s contribution to Marxism, the significance of Marx’s Grundrisse, the Russian and Spanish revolutions, contemporary debates on labour, current issues in political economy with cross country/regional analysis, and critical film studies.

Confirmed speakers include:

Gilbert Achcar, Greg Albo, Chris Arthur, Jacques Bidet, Robin Blackburn, Robert Brenner, Alex Callinicos, Simon Clarke, Gregory Elliott, Ben Fine, Andrew Glyn, Michael Heinrich, Makoto Itoh, Sharon Kivland, Esther Leslie, Domenico Losurdo, David McNally, Fred Moseley, Michael Neocosmos, Ilan Pappe, Moishe Postone, Helena Sheehan, Max Tomba, Goran Therborn, Mike Wayne, Paul Willis and Slavoj Zizek.

One of the principle objectives of the conference has been to build bridges among the various Marxist communities, including the breaking down some of the linguistic and intellectual barriers which continue to hamper the circulation and expansion of critical Marxist thought. The fourth annual Historical Materialism Conference promises to continue and take forward this objective.

The conference has become an important event on the Left, providing an annual forum to discuss recent developments on the agenda of historical materialist research and has had a cumulatively high attendance over the past three years. While there is no call for papers, the Editorial Board of Historical Materialism welcomes attendance and active engagement in discussion with panellists from new as well as prior participants with an interest in critical Marxist thought.

More details of this year’s event will be posted shortly and online registration will be available soon.

For all further details, please contact:
historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk 

What Makes Humans So Different?

JOINT BRITISH ACADEMY/BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL LECTURE
Professor Robin Dunbar, FBA
Director, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford
Chair: Baroness O'Neill
President, British Academy
Thursday, 11 October 2007
5.30pm - 6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception
The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace,
London, SW1Y 5AH
Free Admittance
Although we share many aspects of our behaviour and biology with our primate cousins, humans are, nonetheless, different in one crucial respect: our capacity to live in the world of the imagination. This is reflected in two core aspects of our behaviour that are in many ways archetypal of what it is to be human: religion and story-telling. The lecture will show how these remarkable traits seem to have arisen as a natural development of the social brain hypothesis, and the underlying nature of primate sociality and cognition, as human societies have been forced to expand in size during the course of our evolution over the past 5 million years.
Professor Robin Dunbar was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998. He is a Project Director of the British Academy Centenary Research Project ‘Lucy to Language’: The Archaeology of the Social Brain, and is shortly to leave the University of Liverpool to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford.
A poster for your notice board can be downloaded here:
Please visit our website for full details of our Autumn Programme.
Telephone enquiries: 020 7969 5246 / Email: lectures@britac.ac.uk 
Please note our ticketing and seating policy:
British Academy Lectures are freely open to the general public and everyone is welcome; there is no charge for admission, no tickets will be issued, and seats cannot be reserved. The Lecture Room is opened at 5.00pm, and the first 100 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in the Lecture Room; the next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in the Overflow Room, which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room. Lectures are followed by a reception at 6.30pm, to which members of the audience are invited.
Joint British Academy/British Psychological Society Annual Lecture
In 2002, following the centenary of the British Psychological Society, the Academy and the Society set up a joint annual lecture.

Mapping Global Inequalities

Beyond Income Inequality December 13th and 14th at University of California Santa Cruz

For several years there has been debate in the academic and popular media about the implications of globalization for poverty and inequality. The debate has, however, become stalled partly because it is too narrowly conceived, being focused almost exclusively on income inequality and on the national scale. The conference will expand this debate by both mapping global inequality at various scales and by deploying multidisciplinary perspectives to take the debate beyond income inequality.

Commissioned papers will cover the latest trends in health inequalities and social outcomes, migration and inequality, wealth and other material inequalities, gender inequalities as well as aspects of globalization and culture. Prior to the conference, online maps, figures, animations will be developed based on commissioned papers. Both online presentations and a print atlas will be published based on the conference.

The goals of the conference are

* to advance the debate about global integration, inequality and poverty,

* to present workshops on the latest techniques in mapping global inequality

* to make the results of discussion promptly available through accessible online maps, figures and interactive utilities.

Speakers will include: Goran Therborn (Cambridge University), Tony Shorrocks (UN WIDER), Peter Tugwell (Center on Global Health, University of Ottawa), Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development), Helmut Anheier (UCLA Center for Globalization and Policy Research), Devesh Kapur (University of Pennsylvania), Giovanni Andrea Cornia (University of Florence), CIESIN (Columbia University) sponsored workshop on poverty mapping.

Who Should Attend?
The conference is intended for academics, policy-makers, and graduate students concerned with issues of global inequality. Scholarships are available for students.

Date and place
December 13-14 2007 UC Santa Cruz.

Submitting Papers

The UC Atlas is currently accepting abstracts for paper sessions. Paper presentations will be fifteen minutes long covering our five conference topics.

Please submit a title, abstract, name and affiliation, to Conference Submissions (mapinequality@ucsc.edu).

More details can be found at: http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/flyer.html

Law and Economic Development: A Historical Perspective

Law and Economic Development: a Historical Perspective is a workshop along the lines of the Global Economic History Network conferences, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands on September 20-22, 2007.

Post-Keynesian Workshop
Perspectives on Monetary Policy

"Post-Keynesian Perspectives on Monetary Policy" is the theme of the 3rd (Bi)-Annual Canada / U.S. East Border Post-Keynesian Workshop, to take place September 29, 2007 at the Université du Quebec à Montréal.

Assessing Law and Economics in the Context of Development

Change, Rules and Institutions: Assessing Law and Economics in the Context of Development in London, UK on September 29 & 30, 2007 reassesses the relationship of law to economics in the context of development.


European Business Elites

Workshop in German and English
European Business Elites between the Emergence of a "New Spirit of Capitalism" and the "Erosion of State Socialism" in Potsdam, Germany on November 1-2, 2007 is a workshop to enhance research exchange concerning Western European and Eastern European business elites during the last third of the 20th century.

Post-Keynesian Perspectives on Development Economics

The Post-Keynesian Economics Study Group holds a meeting on Post-Keynesian Perspectives on Development Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London on November 16, 2007. Keynote speaker is Professor A. P. Thirlwall on "Keynes and Economic Development."

Globalization: Long-run Perspectives

27th APHES Meeting
The 27th conference of the Portuguese Association of Economic and Social History (APHES) takes place at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa on November 16 and 17, 2007. The main topic is Globalization: Long-run Perspectives.

Non-union Forms of Employee Representation in the Asia-Pacific Rim

On December 7, 2007 the University of Sydney's Work and Organisational Studies / Business and Labour History Group holds a Symposium on Non-union Forms of Employee Representation in the Asia-Pacific Rim. Papers can be both historical and/or contemporary in focus and cover schemes such as employee representation plans, occupational health and safety committees and works councils.

Growth and Distribution

Institutional and Social Dynamics
The goal of The Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution in Pisa, Italy on December 10-12, 2007 is to present and discuss approaches to the issues of the institutional and social dynamics of growth and distribution, with all the theoretical, empirical, historical, and methodological implications.

CofFEE

Information for the *Challenge to Restore Full Employment* Conference which is due to be held at the University of Newcastle, NSW, on December 6th and 7th , 2007, is available on the conference website:

http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/conferences/2007/index.cfm 

Latest news:
The closing date for abstracts for the refereed stream has been extended to 14th September, 2007. All other closing dates are unchanged.
Conference enquiries may be directed to:
coffee@newcastle.edu.au 
or contact Victor Quirk on (02) 4921 7283

Keynes Lecture in Economics

From shells and gold to plastic and silicon: a theory of the evolution of money, in the spirit of Keynes
Professor John Moore, FBA
Professor of Political Economy, University of Edinburgh and Professor of Economic Theory, London School of Economics
Chair: Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
President, British Academy
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
5.30pm - 6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception
The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace,
London, SW1Y 5AH
Free Admittance
Economists have long held the view that the development of the financial system (financial deepening) and economic development are closely intertwined. The literature, however, contains relatively few formal models presumably because it has proved hard to integrate money and financial intermediation into a standard framework of macroeconomics and growth. This lecture borrows from a model of money and liquidity that he has developed with Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, a model in the spirit of Keynes - to explore the impact of financial deepening. Our theory allows us to trace the evolution of different kinds of money, from ancient to modern.
Professor John Moore was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1999. His principal publications include 'A proposal for bankruptcy reform in the UK', Insolvency, law and practice 1993; 'The governance of exchanges', Oxford Economic Papers 1996; joint author 'Credit cycles', J. Political Economy 1997.
A poster for your notice board can be downloaded here:
Please visit our website for full details of our Autumn Programme.
Telephone enquiries: 020 7969 5246 / Email: lectures@britac.ac.uk 
Please note our ticketing and seating policy:
British Academy Lectures are freely open to the general public and everyone is welcome; there is no charge for admission, no tickets will be issued, and seats cannot be reserved. The Lecture Room is opened at 5.00pm, and the first 100 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in the Lecture Room; the next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in the Overflow Room, which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room. Lectures are followed by a reception at 6.30pm, to which members of the audience are invited.

This is an annual lecture, inaugurated in 1971. The lectures are devoted to an up-to-date survey of theoretical research and trends of thought in the field of economics. Lectures in this series are routinely published in the Proceedings of the British Academy.

The Economics of Global Warming

SCEPA and The New School for Research Economics Department are pleased to present:

The Economics of Global Warming: A One-Day Workshop Friday, October 12, 2007 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Wolff Conference Room, 65 Fifth Avenue (at 13th St) FREE Reservations Required

This one-day workshop centers on the economic analysis of the magnitude and distribution of the real and perceived costs of correcting the global-warming externality. The keynote address and panels will explore the issues of inter-temporal allocation and inter-generational equity raised by the global warming problem, and the political economy of policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Featuring:

Graciela Chichilnisky, Columbia University Tom Ferguson, University of Massachusetts Neva Goodwin, Global Development and Environment Institute Geoffrey Heal, Columbia University Jeff Madrick, SCEPA Julie Nelson, Global Development and Environment Institute Lance Taylor, The New School for Social Research

with keynote address by Duncan Foley, The New School for Social Research

For more information or to RSVP e-mail cepa@newschool.edu.

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Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

Western New England College

Western New England College’s Department of Economics is hiring two TENURE TRACK faculty. This link refers to the position advertised in the JOE for American Economic History and heterodox economics. For the other position, please go to http://mars.wnec.edu/~econ/openposition1.html

For detailed information: Western New England College.doc

James Madison University

Harrisonburg, Virginia
H: Public Economics
B: Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology
A: General Economics

The Economics Department invites applications for two tenure track appointments at the assistant professor level beginning fall 2008. One position is reserved for a candidate with a field in Public Economics (H); the other position is reserved for a candidate with a field in Economic Thought (B). Candidates with general fields A, who are willing to teach in B or H, will also be considered. Evidence of solid research program and quality teaching record is required. Ph.D. and teaching experience preferred but ABD’s will be considered. Candidates must send the following by postal mail no later than 12-01-2007 for consideration for interviews at the ASSA/AEA meetings in New Orleans: cover letter, vita, unofficial transcript, three letters of recommendation, sample of research output, and teaching evaluations. (Please identify the position for which you are applying on the top of your application letter). In addition, all applicants must complete an on-line employment application in the JMUJobLink system at https://JobLink.JMU.edu. An equal opportunity-affirmative action employer. Contact: Dr. Ehsan Ahmed, Department of Economics, MSC 0204, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807

University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA

H7 -- State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
I2 - Education
I3 - Welfare and Poverty
J - Labor and Demographic Economics
L3 - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics

The Department of Economics invites applications for two anticipated tenure track openings, assistant professor level or, perhaps, associate professor level, beginning Fall 2008 (subject to final budgetary approval). A successful applicant will have teaching and applied research records in the broad area of urban social problems. A person could approach urban social problems from a variety of areas within economics, including but not limited to labor economics, urban economics, poverty and social welfare, the economics of race and discrimination, the economics of education, the economics of migration, and the economics of state and local government.

A successful candidate should have a successful teaching record and the capacity to contribute to undergraduate general education, the economics major and, possibly, graduate instruction. We are interested in candidates who will interact well with the applied policy researchers currently in the department, and candidates with an interest in interdisciplinary work are particularly encouraged to apply. Evidence of successful teaching with diverse students is highly desirable.

Candidates must have completed the Ph.D. by September 1, 2008. Evidence of progress towards an excellent scholarly record is necessary.

Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2007, and continue until the position is filled. We anticipate preliminary interviews at the ASSA meetings in New Orleans.

Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, a sample of written work, and three current letters of recommendation. UMass Boston is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Title IX employer.
There is more info on the department at http://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/dept/economics/index.html.
CONTACT: Personnel Committee, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125-3393.

Missouri State University

Department Head

The Department of Economics, an academic unit within the College of Humanities and Public Affairs, is accepting applications for its next Department Head. The Head is responsible for administering the academic department which includes, but is not limited to, overseeing faculty recruitment, development, and evaluation, program and curriculum development, student advisement, budgeting, class scheduling, as well as general supervision of the teaching, research, and service activities in the unit. The Department of Economics currently has seven ranked faculty. We are hiring three new positions this year and have tremendous potential for future growth. The department currently offers the B.A. and B.S. degrees in Economics, maintains close ties to the College of Business Administration, and offers several graduate courses servicing programs at the university. We seek a strong leader possessing a vision consistent with the Missouri State University mission in Public Affairs. Minimal requirements are a Ph.D. in Economics along with academic credentials that qualify the applicant for tenure and rank of associate professor. Preferred qualifications include at least three years previous administrative experience at an institution of higher learning along with credentials qualifying the candidate for tenure and the rank of professor. Field of specialization is open. Send a letter of interest including a statement of administrative philosophy, vita, and contact information for five professional references to: Economics Department Head Search, College of Humanities and Public Affairs, Missouri State University, 901 S. National, Springfield, MO, 65897. We encourage applications from underrepresented groups. Salary is competitive and commensurate with background and experience. Consideration of applicants begins November 1, 2007, and continues until the position is filled. Direct further inquiries to Dr. Karl Kunkel, KarlKunkel@MissouriState.edu , (417) 836-5640. EO/AA. Employment will require a criminal background check at University expense.

Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Unidad Cuajimalpa

UAM-Cuajimalpa is a new campus of another big public university in Mexico City. There is an "institutional studies" department which is formulating an inter-disciplinary research program with economic, political, sociological, administrative and legal studies of institutional theory and policy design. For that reason the department is inviting heterodox economists and other social scientists to form part of our team. Necessary minimum conditions for hiring are a finished PhD, related research subjects and advanced Spanish knowledge. Any further information from the head of the department is Professor Eduardo Ibarra and he can be contacted about the position at eibarra@correo.cua.uam.mx.

Download the excel flyer.

NYC Human Resources Administration

Position Title: SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER (CITY RESEARCH SCIENTIST III)
Organization: NYC Human Resources Administration
Job Type: Full-Time
Description: The New York City Human Resources Administration's Office of Evaluation and Research in conjunction with the City's Center for Economic Opportunity is recruiting for a Senior Project Manager to provide leadership in research projects that develop and apply innovative measures of poverty, well-being, and economic opportunity in the City of New York. This position requires a management professional who will partner with lead researchers in other city agencies as well as other government and university-based research institutions; provide leadership in the development of new uses of administrative data and new forms of data collection; coordinate work with the City's Center for Economic Opportunity and other relevant city agencies; apply advanced techniques of statistical analysis to administrative and survey data; prepare written reports including technical and methodological papers on poverty measurement. Qualification Requirements: A master's degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an social science and three years of responsible full-time experience, including one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or research capacity in the appropriate field of specialization. Preference will be given to candidates who have: • A Ph. D in economics, sociology, or other related social science. • Expertise in statistical methods. • Experience in working with complex micro-data sets. • Knowledge of SPSS-PC (or other statistical software), Arc View (or other GIS programs), Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. • Excellent oral and written communication skills with emphasis on ability to explain analytical work to a lay audience. • Knowledge of relevant research literature. Non-residents may be hired contingent upon becoming a New York City resident within 90 days of employment. Salary: $73,498. New York City offers an excellent and comprehensive benefits package. Send cover letter, writing samples of analytical research and resume to: Joan Belthrop Personnel Officer 180 Water Street - 4th Floor New York, NY 10038 E-mail: mailto:belthropj@hra.nyc.govFax: (212) 331-3186 HRA/CITY OF NEW YORK AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

The University at Albany, State University of New York

SUNY


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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

NEP - New Economics Papers

NEP is an announcement service which filters information on new additions to RePEc into edited reports. The goal is to provide subscribers with up-to-date information to the research literature.

See the New Economics Papers web site for further information, including how to start a new report.

Post Keynesian Economics

Edited by Karl Petrick
Subscribe to the free nep-pke e-mail list

Available issues of the nep-pke report:

2007
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2006
2006 12 22   2006 12 16   2006 12 09   2006 12 04   2006 12 01   2006 11 25   2006 11 18   2006 11 12   2006 11 04   2006 10 28   2006 10 21   2006 10 14   2006 10 07   2006 09 30   2006 09 23   2006 09 16   2006 09 11   2006 09 03   2006 08 26   2006 08 19   2006 08 12   2006 08 05   2006 07 28   2006 07 21   2006 07 15   2006 07 09   2006 07 02   2006 06 24   2006 06 17   2006 06 10   2006 06 03   2006 05 27   2006 05 20   2006 05 13   2006 05 06   2006 04 29   2006 04 22   2006 04 08   2006 04 01   2006 03 25   2006 03 18   2006 03 11   2006 03 05   2006 02 26   2006 02 19   2006 02 12   2006 02 05   2006 01 29   2006 01 24   2006 01 01  

2005
2005 12 20   2005 12 14   2005 12 09   2005 12 01   2005 11 19   2005 11 12   2005 11 09   2005 11 05   2005 10 29   2005 10 22   2005 10 15   2005 10 08   2005 10 04   2005 09 29   2005 09 17   2005 09 11   2005 09 02   2005 08 28   2005 08 13   2005 08 03   2005 07 25   2005 07 18   2005 06 27   2005 06 19   2005 06 14   2005 06 05   2005 05 29   2005 05 23   2005 05 14   2005 05 07   2005 04 30   2005 04 24   2005 04 16   2005 04 09   2005 04 03   2005 03 20   2005 03 13   2005 03 06   2005 02 27   2005 02 20   2005 02 13   2005 02 06   2005 02 01   2005 01 23   2005 01 16   2005 01 09   2005 01 02  

2004
2004 12 20   2004 12 12   2004 12 02   2004 11 22   2004 11 07   2004 10 30   2004 10 21   2004 09 30   2004 09 12   2004 09 05   2004 08 31   2004 08 23   2004 08 16   2004 08 09   2004 08 02   2004 07 26   2004 07 18   2004 07 11   2004 07 04   2004 06 22   2004 06 07   2004 06 02   2004 05 26   2004 05 16   2004 05 02   2004 04 11   2004 04 04   2004 03 22   2004 03 14   2004 03 07  

2003
2003 10 28   2003 10 20   2003 10 12   2003 10 05   2003 09 28   2003 09 24   2003 09 14   2003 09 08   2003 08 31   2003 08 24   2003 08 17   2003 03 25   2003 03 19   2003 03 14   2003 03 10   2003 03 03   2003 02 24   2003 02 18   2003 02 10   2003 01 27   2003 01 19   2003 01 12   2003 01 05  

2002
2002 12 09   2002 12 02   2002 11 18   2002 11 10   2002 11 04   2002 10 23   2002 10 18   2002 10 08   2002 09 28   2002 09 21   2002 09 11   2002 08 29   2002 08 19   2002 08 16   2002 08 08   2002 07 31   2002 07 21   2002 07 08   2002 07 04   2002 07 02   2002 06 24   2002 06 18   2002 06 13   2002 05 14   2002 05 03   2002 04 25   2002 04 15   2002 04 03   2002 03 14   2002 03 04   2002 02 15   2002 01 22   2002 01 05  

2001
2001 12 26   2001 12 19   2001 12 14   2001 12 04   2001 11 27   2001 11 21   2001 11 05   2001 10 29   2001 10 22   2001 10 16   2001 10 09   2001 10 01   2001 09 26   2001 09 10   2001 08 30   2001 08 21   2001 08 15   2001 07 30   2001 07 23   2001 07 17   2001 07 13   2001 06 22   2001 06 14   2001 06 08   2001 04 21   2001 04 11   2001 04 02  

1999
1999 11 15   1999 11 01   1999 10 20   1999 09 27   1999 09 21   1999 09 17   1999 09 09   1999 09 01   1999 08 27   1999 08 20   1999 08 15   1999 08 04   1999 07 28   1999 07 12   1999 07 06   1999 06 28   1999 06 23   1999 06 08   1999 05 25   1999 05 17   1999 05 10   1999 05 03   1999 04 27   1999 04 22   1999 04 13   1999 03 08   1999 02 15  

1998
1998 11 05   1998 10 26   1998 10 19   1998 10 15   1998 10 05   1998 09 14   1998 06 03

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

New Political Economy

Volume 12 Issue 3 is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).
This new issue contains the following articles:

Recasting the Global Political Economy: Counting Women's Unpaid Work p. 297
Authors: Catherine Hoskyns; Shirin M. Rai
Link

Regionalisation and Civil Society: The Case of Southern Africa p. 319
Authors: Fredrik Söderbaum
Link

New Actors in a Financialised Economy and the Remaking of Capitalism p. 339
Authors: Julie Froud; Adam Leaver; Karel Williams
Link

Is the Stock Market a Disciplinary Institution? French Giant Firms and the Regime of Accumulation p. 349
Authors: Sukhdev Johal; Adam Leaver
Link

Banks as Continuous Reinvention p. 369
Authors: Ismail Erturk; Stefano Solari
Link

Constructing the Market Frame: Distributed Cognition and Distributed Framing in Financial Markets p. 389
Authors: Iain Hardie; Donald Mackenzie
Link

Private Equity and the Culture of Value Extraction p. 405
Authors: Julie Froud; Karel Williams
Link

The Political Economy of New Labour: The Failure of a Success Story? p. 421
Authors: Joel Krieger
Link

Google p. 433
Authors: Xiudian Dai
Link

Journal of Economic Methodology

Volume 14 Issue 3 is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

This new issue contains the following articles:

Introduction p. 273
Authors: Roger E. Backhouse
Link

The turn in economics and the turn in economic methodology p. 275
Authors: John B. Davis
Link

Great expectations, mixed results and resilient beliefs: the troubles of empirical research in economic controversies p. 291
Authors: Pedro N. Teixeira
Link

The ‘materials’ of experimental economics: technological versus behavioral experiments p. 311
Authors: Ana C. Santos
Link

Setting the scene with ‘firms’ and ‘workers’ p. 339
Authors: Fredrik Hansen
Link

What does tacit knowledge actually explain? p. 353
Authors: Jonathan Perraton; Iona Tarrant
Link

‘Practical comparability’ and ends in Economics p. 371
Authors: Ricardo F. Crespo
Link

Historical Materialism

Research in Critical Marxist Theory
Volume 15 Issue 2
2007

CONTENTS

Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Lecture
Kevin Murphy
Can We Write the History of the Russian Revolution? A Belated Response to Eric Hobsbawm
Articles
David Camfield
The Multitude and the Kangaroo: A Critique of Hardt and Negri’s Theory of Immaterial Labour

Peter Thomas
Editorial Introduction

Roberto Finelli
Abstraction versus contradiction: Observations on Chris Arthur’s The New Dialectic and Marx’s ‘Capital’

Samuel Knafo
Political Marxism and Value Theory: Bridging the Gap between Theory and History

Jan Dumolyn
The Political and Symbolic Economy of State Feudalism. The Case of Late Medieval Flanders
Archive
William S. Lewis
Editorial Introduction
Louis Althusser
A Letter to Comrades on the PCF Central Committee
Review Articles
Jan Rehmann
on Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico. Biografia intellettuale e bilancio critico

Ian Birchall
on Michel Surya’s La Révolution rêvée: Pour une histoire des intellectuels et des œuvres révolutionnaires 1944–1956

Markar Melkonian
on Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America, Philosophy and Social Hope, and Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies

Pat Devine
on Michael Albert’s Parecon: Life After Capitalism

Paulo L. dos Santos
on Alfredo Saad-Filho’s The Value of Marx and Ben Fine’s and Alfredo Saad-Filho’s Marx’s ‘Capital’

The Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism
Bob Jessop
Statism

historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk 
www.brill.nl/hima

Levy News

Digital Newsletter of The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
August 2007


1. PUBLIC POLICY BRIEF
2. WORKING PAPERS

1. PUBLIC POLICY BRIEF
Cracks in the Foundations of Growth: What Will the Housing Debacle Mean for the U.S. Economy?
No. 90, 2007
by DIMITRI B. PAPADIMITRIOU, GREG HANNSGEN, and GENNARO ZEZZA
http://www.levy.org/pubs/ppb_90.pdf 
2. WORKING PAPERS
Implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India: Spatial Dimensions and Fiscal Implications
No. 505
by PINAKI CHAKRABORTY
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_505.pdf 
The Effects of a Declining Housing Market on the U.S. Economy
No. 506
by DIMITRI B. PAPADIMITRIOU, GREG HANNSGEN, and GENNARO ZEZZA
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_506.pdf 

Who’s a Jew in an Era of High Intermarriage? Surveys, Operational Definitions, and the Contemporary American Context
No. 507
by JOEL PERLMANN
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_507.pdf 

The American Jewish Committee’s Annual Opinion Surveys: An Assessment of Sample Quality
No. 508
by JOEL PERLMANN
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_508.pdf 

On Various Ways of Measuring Unemployment, with Applications to Switzerland
No. 509
by JOSEPH DEUTSCH, YVES FLÜCKIGER, and JACQUES SILBER
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_509.pdf 

A Post-Keynesian View of Central Bank Independence, Policy Targets, and the Rules-versus-Discretion Debate
No. 510
L. RANDALL WRAY
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_510.pdf 
The Fed’s Real Reaction Function: Monetary Policy, Inflation, Unemployment, Inequality—and Presidential Politics
No. 511
by JAMES K. GALBRAITH, OLIVIER GIOVANNONI, and ANN J. RUSSO
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_511.pdf

Metroeconomica

OnlineEarly Articles

OnlineEarly is a Blackwell Synergy service whereby fully corrected, fully web-functional and complete articles, which can be cited by DOI, are published online as and when they are ready, prior to their ultimate inclusion in an issue.
More details can be found at What is OnlineEarly?

For detailed information: Metroeconomica.doc

Associative Economics Bulletin - September 2007

The Associative Economics Bulletin consists of news and views on associative economics, including short extracts from Associative Economics Monthly (available electronically for £1 an issue at www.cfae.biz/aem or in a hard copy format - tel (UK) 01227 738207).

For detailed information: One Level Up.doc

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Heterodox Books, Book Series, and Book Reviews

Political Economy and Global Capitalism

The 21st Century, Present and Future

Edited by Robert Albritton, Robert Jessop and Richard Westra

EDITORS
Robert Jessop is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lancaster.
Robert Albritton is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Political Science at York University.
Richard Westra is Assistant Professor of the Division of International and Area Studies at Pukyong National University, South Korea.

A timely and unique collection in which esteemed authors explore the future of the global political economy.
• An original and pertinent collection of essays from leading authorities on a topic of increasingly far-reaching import.
• No other book currently available approaches this subject as comprehensively or from such a wide-range of viewpoints.
• Ideal for upper level undergraduate and MA/PHD graduate students who are studying comparative and international political economy, political economy theory, sociology, political science, Marxist theory, globalization, neo-liberal economic change, Asian economic development, gender analysis, and socialism.

For detailed information: Political Economy and Global Capitalism.doc

A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917

Marcel van der Linden
Series:
Historical Materialism Book Series, 17

The ‘Russian Question’ was an absolutely central problem for Marxism in the twentieth century. Numerous attempts were made to understand the nature of Soviet society. The present book tries to portray the development of these theoretical contributions since 1917 in a coherent, comprehensive appraisal. It aims to present the development of the Western Marxist critique of the Soviet Union across a rather long period in history (from 1917 to the present) and in a large region (Western Europe and North America). Within this demarcation of limits in time and space, an effort has been made to ensure completeness, by paying attention to all Marxist analyses which in some way significantly deviated from or added to the older theories.
Marcel van der Linden (1952) is Research Director of the International Institute of Social History and Professor in the History of Social Movements at the University of Amsterdam. http://www.brill.nl/hm

The Enclave Economy

Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley
By Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky
MIT Press, 214 pages, September 2007: $21.00/£13.95 (PAPER)

Foreign investment has been widely presented as a panacea for developing countries, a way to create good jobs, reduce poverty, and kick-start sustainable modern industries. The Enclave Economy calls this prescription into question. The authors show that Mexico's post-NAFTA success in attracting foreign direct investment to its information technology sector, particularly in the Guadalajara region, did not translate into the promised, social, economic, and environmental benefits. Foreign investment created an “enclave economy” the benefits of which were confined to an international sector not connected to the wider Mexican economy. Charting the rise and fall of Mexico's "Silicon Valley," the authors explore issues that resonate through much of Latin America and the developing world.
For more on The Enclave Economy, and to order:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/EnclaveEconomy.html

Research in Political Economy

VOLUME 24, Paul Zarembka, ed., Elsevier, hardback, 2007.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka/volume24.htm

With a world balance of forces in tension, this volume slices the political map in two dimensions, the geographical dimension and the imperialism/socialism dimension ("socialism", of course, having widely varying meanings). As a region, Latin America is in the forefront of resistance to imperial schemes, particularly those by the United States.
Venezuela and Cuba represent leading edges of resistance, and Colombia, a leading edge of U.S. hegemony. Chapters addressing the political economies of these countries form the first part of the volume.

Poland has led the anti-Soviet transition into a pro-market realignment, a realignment of this country which is particularly oriented toward the United States. Syria, on the other hand and even as it moves into a pro-market orientation, is subject to particular U.S. hostility. Both cases are analyzed in Part II, with the chapter on Poland having considerably broader applicability. Also included here is the continued deeper penetration of capitalist relations within the United States, represented by analysis of the transition of its medical sector.

For almost a century, stages of capitalism has been an important theme within Marxism. The theme is analyzed at the beginning of Part III, and connects to the more empirical work represented by the prior six chapters. The volume concludes with translation from Japanese of an important critique of the classical political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who, in a certain sense, were the leading proponents, historically, of the market, of capitalism. Most poignantly, this chapter argues that Ricardian value theory opens the door to a vulgar system of economic thought.

Macroeconomics in Context

A complete test bank is now available for the Preliminary Edition of Macroeconomics in Context, the free online textbook produced by the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. The test bank provides 15 multiple-choice and 25 true/false questions for each chapter in the text. Available for download as a Word file, the test bank questions can be easily selected to produce quizzes and exams. If you already have the web address for the instructor notes page, just go to that page for access to the test bank. Otherwise, please e-mail us at gdae@tufts.edu  so that we can verify your instructor status and provide you with access to the test bank.

Macroeconomics in Context is available for free download at:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/macroeconomics.html
In addition to the textbook chapters (in pdf file format), a glossary defining all terms highlighted in the text and a complete set of PowerPoint slides are freely available to instructors and students. Instructors have access to a set of instructor notes which include answers to all text questions, as well as the test bank.
Macroeconomics in Context incorporates the theoretical content expected in a principles text, but it also delves deeper, offering a fresh understanding of economic realities. Instructors will find that standard topics, including Classical and Keynesian approaches, are covered clearly and succinctly. In addition, questions of ecological sustainability, non-marketed production, the quality of life, and income distribution are given more attention than in standard texts. Taking history, institutions, and environmental constraints seriously, this textbook balances analysis of market processes in the macroeconomy with discussion of public policies that go beyond short-term stabilization targets to promote long-term sustainability and human well-being. The text is the companion to Microeconomics in Context (Goodwin et al., Houghton Mifflin, 2005), http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/microeconomics.html

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Heterodox Websites

AIRLEAP

The Association for Integrity and Responsible Leadership in Economics and Associated Professions (AIRLEAP) is a non-profit organization.

We are deeply concerned about the issues of integrity and responsible leadership in economics as they relate to economic discourse, economic decision making, and the career development of economists and related professionals.

We believe that most economists and related professionals share our concerns, but many are doubtful that anything can be done to improve the state of affairs in economics, which has existed for quite some time. In fact, many arguments, both verbal and published, by prominent leaders in economics, have suggested that little can be done to improve economics in the areas of integrity and responsible leadership. Others have disagreed, and we are among them. We believe, in fact, that a great deal can be done to improve integrity and responsible leadership in economics. And, we are doing it.

In our mission statement we discuss our views and overall perspective, and how we plan to foster and promote integrity and responsible leadership in economics.

In our suppose page we dare to ask, and address, the difficult questions that must be asked to enable people to see what is truly going on in economics.

In our monthly happy-hour discussions and dinner meetings, and in our call for members and volunteers, we strive to spread the word about what we are doing, and to attract new people to help us.

In our AIRLEAP survey, we are collecting the hard facts the world should know regarding what is truly occurring in economics.

In our literature reviews and our research and publications, we are planning to analyze these issues and contribute to the existing literature about them.

Please surf our site and see what we are about:  www.airleap.org.

If you have any questions or comments, by all means contact us at: AIRLEAP_NEWS@airleap.org

Or write to us at:

AIRLEAP
7481 Huntsman Blvd., #505
Burke, VA 22153
USA

Political Economy Research Institute

http://www.umass.edu/peri/

Heterodox Economics for Environment and Development Network (HEEDnet)

HEEDnet, the Heterodox Economics for Environment and Development network, was set up in 2004 to bring alternative approaches to economic analysis to the attention of the environmental and sustainable development policy community in the UK and to demonstrate how such approaches can better support policy development. To date we have done this mainly through developing links with researchers in heterodox economics and providing platforms for them in Westminster for evening seminars, which have achieved very good attendance. We also have a internet list with almost 100 members. Further details are on www.heednet.org  or from henry.leveson-gower@environment-agency.gov.uk.  To join the internet list (light traffic) send a blank email to heednet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

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For Your Information


Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator

I am writing to let you know about a simulation package I have helped to put together. The Canadian Tax and Credit Simulator (CTaCS) consists of a set of Stata programs that allows the user to simulate the Canadian tax and transfer system. The CTaCS package also includes a comprehensive database of over 1000 parameters describing the Canadian tax and transfer system from 1962 to 2005.

This package is available for free as a service to those interested in Canadian tax policy research. You can find it here: www.econ.ubc.ca/kevinmil/ctacs.
You may be wondering about the relative advantage of this simulator over the Statistics Canada SPSD/M policy simulator. There are several:

• CTaCS allows you to attach tax calculations to micro-data sets (such as the SLID, SHS, etc.) with ease.
• CTaCS has a very easy-to-use interface.
• CTaCS makes use of the Stata programming language.
• CTaCS will get better through time through user-generated updates and improvements; a distributed rather than centralized development model.
• And best of all, CTaCS is free!
For more information, please consult the CTaCS website here. Please pass this email on to other researchers who might be interested.

I welcome any feedback and ideas for improvements of the package. I expect to post updates and improvements a couple of times a year, and will gladly incorporate user suggestions. Updates for the 2006 and 2007 tax years are on the way...

CTaCS has already contributed to 20 research papers on the Canadian tax and transfer system. I hope you will find it useful for your research, as well.

With best regards,

Kevin Milligan
Assistant Professor of Economics
UBC

Gender and Trade Network

Greetings from Gender and Trade Network!

The online discussion forum on the issues related to the gendered effects of trade on the web portal www.genderandtrade.org is now open to all for participation. On behalf of all the members, we would like to welcome you all to this Gender and Trade discussion network: GENTRADE.

The purpose of the online discussion is to contribute meaningfully to the already existing range of research in this area. Some of the main aims to initiate online discussions in the forums are to create an awareness on different issues involved in the developing as well as the least developed economies in this area as well as facilitate the interlinking research, advocacy and action across the countries with the objective of promoting gender sensitive trade policies at the national, regional, bilateral and multilateral levels.

The link to the discussion forum is as follows:
http://www.genderandtrade.org/forums/164151/164158/forums/ 

Please follow the link below and register yourself in order to participate in the discussion forum:
http://www.genderandtrade.org/s/gtregister/164063/register/

An Historical Injustice

In Australia there is a move to reclassify History of Economic Thought and Economic History as not part of economics but part of history. Below are three comments on this reclassification.

An Historical Injustice

By Dr Steven Kates

In June this year I went to the United States for a number of purposes but amongst the main ones was to meet with Professor Thomas Sowell, a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Sowell is one of the most widely published economists in the world, has written a host of books on a variety of subjects in economics and politics, is highly influential in his policy work and has a syndicated column that appears in the press across the US.

The person he met with, me that is, has worked in the economics department of a major bank, spent a quarter of a century as the economist for Australia’s largest business association and now divides his time between a university appointment in a school of business and his work as a commissioner investigating major economic policy issues on behalf of the federal government.

But what Thomas Sowell and myself have in common is this. Both of us did our doctorates on the same subject and both of us had our PhDs published soon after. And the subject: Say’s Law, a notion that was first articulated in the first decade of the nineteenth century but which has remained controversial amongst economists ever since.

Both of us, that is, had undertaken our doctoral research work in the branch of economics referred to as the History of Economic Thought. And it is this area of economics which is now about to be removed by the ABS, along with Economic History, from amongst the legitimate fields of economics. It is to be cast out on some lonely outpost, classified within a new catch-all division of social sciencey type subjects which, in the ABS’s own conceptual system, is referred to as “History, Archaeology, Religion and Philosophy”.

The president of the Australian historians of economics society has received a letter of explanation from the ABS * how does the ABS get to make such decisions? * outlining the reasoning for this decision.

The first and main reason given for this change is this: “The processes used in History of Economic Thought are primarily historical and philosophical rather than economic.”

How many different ways is this untrue. It is not whether historians of economics are steeped in economics, deal with major economic issues and provide policy advice based on the unique perspective that HET provides. It is that the “processes” are not economic.

On this basis one would have to conclude that mathematical economics is not economics but maths, or that econometrics is not an area of economics but statistics instead. Behavioural economics, a burgeoning field, would be psychology, and so on.

If the classification system is really based on “processes” and not subject matter, then it is a classification system that is clearly built on a flawed premise. It appears to have been based on the practices of the “hard” science rather than the subject matter of the social sciences.

Economics must deal with events that occur within historical time. Historical events are the feedstock of economic theory; they are an economist’s only laboratory.

The second reason given was that “groups (formerly disciplines) which are not useful for describing either the breadth of R&D or how spending is apportioned, were restructured.”

To translate, students of the history of economic thought and economic historians seldom sought, or received, public money. As noted by the ABS, these areas had been responsible for “only 1.2% of all public sector R&D in economics in 2004 (the most recent data available), thus is too narrow to be useful for understanding where economics R&D expenditure occurs.”

Thus, HET and Economic History should be excluded from the discipline of economics because such economists do not apply for grants, and even if they do apply, very seldom receive a cent. If more public funds were being spent on these areas, we would be classified as part of economic theory. But because we go about our work without requiring huge sums of money, we cannot be included as a branch of economics.

It’s a classification thing which has no merit in terms of subject matter. A group of economists is dropped from being officially designated as economists because they don’t apply for grants, not because they are not engaged in the study of economies.

So how might this decision be reversed? This, too, the ABS has explained: “If this change is undesirable to your research community, we can contemplate undoing these changes on the following grounds: Evidence that R&D activity is significantly underreported or anticipated to significantly increase in the near future. Evidence that the assumption that History of Economic Thought R&D primarily involves processes that are historical and philosophical is false.”

That is, either show we intend to spend lots more public money or show that we do not largely employ historical or philosophical processes in our research. But, as this letter also states, irrespective of what we show, “the Economic History and History of Economic Thought group will not be reinstated.”

Well, we think it should be. Historians of economics and economic historians are economists and work as economists everywhere * one such person even used to run the ABS.

Economics is a policy science. Economies cannot be studied without studying the history of those economies. Without a thorough understanding of historical circumstance, it is impossible to develop or implement sensible economic policies.

Similarly, economic theory itself cannot be studied without also having some understanding of how those theories were developed. Few PhDs in economics are complete without a “literature review” which is expected to encompass an historical compendium of all of the relevant theoretical approaches that have been previously used to analyse whatever the topic being studied happens to be.

The decision to drop history of economics and economic history from within the economics classification is a decision that needs to be reviewed and reversed.

Dr Steven Kates
School of Economics, Finance
and Marketing
RMIT University
Level 12 / 239 Bourke Street
Melbourne Vic 3000

Phone: (03) 9925 5878
Mobile: 042 7297 529

Letter from Deirdre McCloskey

David Brett
Australian Bureau of Statistics

Dear Dr. Brett:

I have heard of the astonishing proposal to take the history of
economics (the study of past economics) and even economic history (the
study of past economies) out of departments of economics.

You will do permanent damage to the prestige of Australian economics by
doing so. No serious economic scientist---though a good many
non-serious ones, it must be admitted, 3rd-raters with no intellectual
depth---sees the past as a foreign country. To make Australia the only
country in the world to adopt such an anti-intellectual line is to
reinforce the incorrect but widespread impression that Australian is a
land of ignoramuses, and glad of it.

Look at it this way. Most of what we know about economies and their
analysis is, well, past. In fact, all of it is. Time moves, alas, in
one direction. So cutting off slightly old, or even very old, economic
facts is like doing an astronomy that confines itself to the Solar
System, or the local star group.

Let me give you an example from my own current work. We will never
understand the rise of capitalism and the modern world until we
understand what happened in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. The crux of "what happened" was an intellectual change in attitude towards markets. So history of thought joins with economics is illuminating the most important event in world history since the domestication of plants and animals, and casts light therefore on present economic policy.

I love the Lucky Country, and have spent a good deal of time there.
(See my brief CV attached.) One of its attractions was precisely the
combination of democratic values with intellectual rigor (my friend the
late Noel Butlin was the model of this). The proposal throws all that
away.

Sincerely,

Deirdre McCloskey


Young History of Economics Scholars Perspective

Every historian of economics who contributed to the discussion on the Australian reclassification of the History of Economic Thought on this list seems to agree that HET should maintain a strong connection, both theoretically and academically, with economics.

This contrasts with the HET-as-science-studies program that has been at the centre of the debate in last few years, and that has been supported by several leading scholars in the field.

As is probably familiar to the readers of this list, one of the main tenets of the HET-as-science-studies program is the belief that historians of economics could break away from economists and economic departments, and be welcomed by different scholarly communities such as those of historians, philosophers, political scientists, or sociologists.

To a certain extent the decision of the Australian Bureau of Statistics may be seen as an implementation of the HET-as-science-studies program, and the strong reaction of HET scholars to that decision may be read as a manifestation of the awareness that this program is not a winning strategy for our field.

An alternative strategy, much more in line with the letters sent in opposition to the Australian relocation of HET, emerges in contributions to the symposium on “The Future of the History of Economics: Young Scholars’ Perspective” that was organized by Paola Tubaro and Erik Angner at the ESHET 2006 Conference, and which is to appear in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

The symposium contains an Introduction by Tubaro and Angner, a paper by Nuno Palma on “History of Economics or Selected History of Economics?”, a paper by Eric Schliesser on “Philosophy and a Scientific Future of the History of Economics”, and a contribution by myself entitled “More Economics, Please:
We’re Historians of Economics”.

The entire symposium in a pre-print version can be found at http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~angner/future.html

Ivan Moscati

AAUP Goes to Bat for 'Freedom in the Classroom'

By ROBIN WILSON
The American Association of University Professors released a statement on Tuesday in response to critics who say professors regularly interject ideologically tinged material into classroom discussions and fail to present views that conflict with their own.
The statement, "Freedom in the Classroom," was written by a subcommittee of the association's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and is billed as a tool to help professors decide what they can and cannot safely say in the classroom -- particularly when it comes to hot-button cultural and political issues.
It reads, however, more like a defense of the professoriate in the face of heavy criticism from people like David Horowitz, a conservative activist who has urged state legislators to make faculties more ideologically diverse. The report acknowledges that some of the complaints alleging professors' intolerance have come from students.
In a news release describing the statement, the AAUP asks, "Does a teacher of 19th-century American literature have the right to ask his or her students whether the character of the obsessed Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby-Dick could justifiably be compared with President George Bush?"
It notes that "many critics of higher education and opponents of academic freedom would answer with a resounding 'No!'" But the statement, according to the release, "defends the right of college faculty to make comparisons, contrasts, and analogies across the whole range of subjects and historical periods -- no matter what course they are teaching."
The statement says professors have opinions, sometimes controversial ones, because they are experts in their fields. Offering those opinions, it says, is a professor's job and doesn't count as "indoctrination" as long as a professor is careful not to put forward an opinion as "dogmatic truth."
The statement also takes up the complaint that faculty members' classroom presentations are ideologically unbalanced. Maintaining neutrality, it says, is not only something that professors should not strive for, it can sometimes be ridiculous. For example, says the statement, neutrality "would require an instructor in a class on constitutional democracy to offer equal time to 'competing' visions of communist totalitarianism or Nazi fascism."
Cary Nelson, the AAUP's president, said in an interview that the new statement would allow professors to say to their critics, "You shouldn't mess with me." He said he hoped the statement would also "stiffen the spines" of university officials who might be inclined to establish "kangaroo courts" to investigate complaints about whether "a faculty member has the right to make a certain analogy or reference."
Mr. Nelson said he felt compelled to issue the statement because "people are being more careful about making political statements in the classroom." He added: "We need to take back the classroom and reestablish faculty rights to have the classroom be an intellectually challenging space."
But Anne D. Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and a frequent critic of the AAUP, said the new statement is faulty precisely because of its "bald unwillingness to acknowledge academic responsibility as well as academic rights."
The statement, she said, ignores recent cases in which students complain they were coerced by professors into accepting an ideological premise in order to do a class assignment. Those cases highlight, she said, "the academy's frequent failure to regulate itself" by disciplining professors who go too far. Download FreedomClassrmRpt.pdf



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