Autumn Post Keynesian Economics Study Group
Heterodox Economics Newsletter
Newsletter 90
From the Editor
The Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics book series is under new management. Wolfram Elsner (University of Bremen, welsner@uni-bremen.de) and Peter Kriesler University of New South Wales, p.kriesler@unsw.edu.au) are the new editors of the book series. Send all manuscript inquiries to them.
Association for Social Economics
ASE/ASSA Meetings
January 2-5, 2010
Atlanta, GA
Opening Plenary Session and Reception
Saturday 2, 6:30 p.m.
Hilton Atlanta, Grand Ballroom A
JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
Columbia University
Homo economics: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Economic Theory
Betsy Jane Clary, College of Charleston, Presiding
Reception Immediately Following
Fred Lee
Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics
The Economy of Tomorrow
7-10 July, 2010
Hosted by the Research Unit in Theoretical and Applied Economics –
GREThA (UMR CNRS 5113)
Université de Bordeaux, France
The Twelfth Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics (AHE) will be held at the University of Bordeaux – France – from Wednesday 7th to Saturday 10th July 2010. This year’s Conference theme is The Economy of Tomorrow.
Long run processes have exacerbated the contradictions of the world economic system leading to a crisis in all spheres including social, political, financial and environmental. The economic crisis that opened in 2008 increases our awareness that economies and societies must change radically in all these spheres in the 21st Century, though views of the changes required, and their depth, will differ. This conference will provide a forum for discussion on current and future changes needed in developed and developing economies in all these spheres. The following areas, closely intertwined in theory and in policy action, are of special interest but this is not an exhaustive list and do not preclude other topics approached with a holistic perspective:
1. Social aspects: for example income distribution, labour markets, pensions, the nature of work, poverty, human development, welfare;
2. Financial aspects: for example financialization, capital mobility, corporate governance, taxes on international monetary transactions, financial innovations and possible reforms;
3. Environmental aspects: for example models of production and consumption, eco-innovations, environmental governance, alleviation or adaptation to global warming, and new cities;
4. North-South relations: for example the trajectories of emerging countries, potential for a new world order, international trade, development aid, development cooperation;
5. The reform of economics: for example pluralism in research and teaching, evaluation and metrics, innovation and creativity, and the relation between economists and decision-makers.
The conference invites submissions on or before 7th March 2010 which either accord with the conference title; or which otherwise deal with topics of ongoing interest in heterodox economics.
Call for papers
The International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE) announces its 3rd International Conference:
“Failing Economies, Failing Economics: Rebooting Economics after the Crash”
3-5 June 2010
Western New England College, Springfield, Massachusetts
ICAPE and the organizers of “Failing Economies, Failing Economics: Rebooting Economics after the crash” invite proposals for papers that discuss or demonstrate the value of economic pluralism in the light of the recent global economic crisis. ICAPE wishes to invite papers on all aspects related to the financial and economic crisis, including:
• The crisis and aspects of policy making;
• The impact of the crisis on the developed and the developing world;
• The economic crisis and the impact upon the economics profession;
• The economic crisis and the teaching of economics.
Papers are invited from all domains of pluralism: economic theory and philosophy, economic institutions and policies, or economic education. More specifically, we suggest the following themes:
• Pluralism developments in heterodox economic theory;
• Neoliberalism and pluralism in economics;
• Pluralism and the science of economics.
Themed sessions are also welcomed.
Panels will be organized around thematic topics, with an eye to encouraging dialogue among authors whose papers address similar issues from different points of view. In this fashion, we hope to promote critical engagement and mutual learning among conference participants.
Submission for proposals:
All papers and panel proposals should be submitted to:
Fred Lee
Executive Director, ICAPE
E-mail: leefs@umkc.edu
Proposal deadline: January 4th, 2010
Notification deadline: January 25th, 2010
For individual paper proposals, please include the following:
Paper Title
Brief abstract (200-250 words)
Your name (s) and contact addresses (including institutional affiliation)
For Panel proposals (3-4 papers), please include: the panel title, a brief description of the panel’s focus, a brief abstract (200-250 words) for each paper, and each panelist’s name, contact address, and institutional affiliation. You are encouraged (but not required) to designate a session chair.
Also, you are encouraged to propose a format for your session, including non-traditional formats such as roundtables, workshops, or presenter/audience dialogues.
Proposal deadline: January 4th, 2010
Notification deadline: January 25th, 2010.
Conference Fees and Registration
The conference will be held over three days, beginning on Friday morning, June 3, 2010, and ending midday on Sunday, June 5.
The conference fee covers Friday and Saturday lunches, a conference dinner Friday evening, tea/coffee breaks throughout the conference, and all printed conference materials.
More details regarding the conference fees and details of payment will be available soon, on the website:
Lodging and Travel Information
A list of local hotels and other lodging options, along with basic travel information, will be available soon on the ICAPE website: .
Contact information
For further information about the conference or ICAPE, please visit the ICAPE website () or contact Karl Petrick at kpetrick@wnec.edu or by telephone at 1-413-782-1601.
Forum for
Social
Economics
Editor-in-Chief:
John Marangos, Ph.D. , Associate Professor, Department of Economics,
University of Crete, Greece
Description:
Sponsored by the Association for Social Economics, The Forum for Social Economics applies social economic analysis to practical
policy issues and the implications of alternative policy perspectives concerning the social economy. Papers contribute to our
understanding of past or current socioeconomic issues that have contemporary relevance for economists, social scientists,
policymakers, and business professionals.
This journal publishes work that addresses economic issues within the context of the wider ethical, cultural, and natural
environment. Papers often transcend established disciplinary boundaries. In addition, the journal explores issues relevant to the
teaching of economics, with an emphasis on approaches to teaching social and heterodox economics.
The "Explorations in Social Economics" section, a feature of the journal, publishes alternative views on emerging issues written by
distinguished scholars.
Associate Editor:
Mark D. White, Department of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy, College of Staten Island/CUNY, Staten Island, NY, USA
Editorial Board:
Anne M. de Bruin, Department of Commerce, Massey University at Albany, Auckland, New Zealand; Grainne Collins, Employment
Research Centre, Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; Laura Ebert,
Marist College, School of Management, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA Wolfram Elsner, Institute for Institutional and Innovation Economics
- IINO, Department of Economics, University of Bremen, Germany; John F. Henry, University of Misssouri, Department of Economics,
Kansas City, MO, USA; Alan Hutton, Division of Public Policy, Caledonian Business School, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland,
UK; Roel Jongeneel, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy, Wageningen University, The Netherlands; Charles J.
Whalen, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, USA / Utica College, NY, USA; Paul P. Wojick, St. Olaf College, Northfi eld, MN, USA
Forum for Social Economics
Abstracted/Indexed in:
BIOSIS Previews, Chemical Abstracts Service
(CAS), EconLit, PubMed/Medline, Repec.
M
Aims and scope
The Forum for Social Economics is an international
journal sponsored by the Association for
Social Economics. For 35 years the Forum has
published high quality peer-reviewed papers.
The primary focus of the Forum is on applying
social economic analysis to practical policy
issues and/or the implications of alternative
policy perspectives encompassing the social
economy. The Forum is a pluralistic journal
publishing work that addresses economic
issues within wider ethical, cultural or natural
environmental contexts, and is sympathetic to
papers that transcend established disciplinary
boundaries. Papers should make a contribution
to past or current socioeconomic issues that
have contemporary relevance to economists,
social scientists, policy makers and business.
The journal welcomes stimulating original
articles that are clearly written and draw upon
contemporary policy-related research. Preference
is given to non-technical articles of topical
and historical interest that will appeal to a wide
range of readers. The journal is also interested
in serving as an avenue for issues regarding
teaching economics, in particular teaching
approaches to social and heterodox economics.
Papers will pass a double-blind referee process
supervised and subject to the final approval
of the Editor. The „Explorations in Social
Economics“ section of the journal is an informative
solicited opinion piece by a distinguished
scholar presenting alternative views on
emerging issues.
The Forum invites graduate students to submit
research papers. Proof of graduate student
status should be provided with the submission.
While the students‘ papers will go through the
regular review process and be held to the same
standards for acceptance as other submissions,
the panel of reviewers will serve a mentoring
role to advise the student to strengthen the
paper.
Easy Ways to Order for the Americas Write: Springer Order Department, PO Box 2485, Secaucus, NJ 07096-2485, USA Call: (toll free) 1-800-SPRINGER
Fax: (201)348-4505 Email: journals-ny@ or (for outside the Americas) Write: Springer Customer Service Center GmbH, Haberstrasse 7, 69126 Heidelberg,
Germany Call: +49 (0) 6221-345-4303 Fax: +49 (0) 6221-345-4229 Email: subscriptions@ 05
Submit your research online via Editorial Manager
Our fully web-enabled online Manuscript submission & review system
Submit via FSSE
International Conference to be held in Chania (Crete), 6-10 October 2010
Managing Economic Transition (MET) Network
24st Research Seminar: “Crisis in Transition”
organised jointly with
Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Change in Europe,
SSEES, University College London &
European Association for Comparative Economic Studies
Call for Abstracts / Papers
The 24st MET Workshop will be held at UCL, London
On Friday, 8th of January 2010
All papers on macro and micro aspects of economic transition and
economic integration in CEE, fSU and China are welcome.
HOWEVER: We are particularly interested in comparative research on
the factors that made the impact of the current crisis more serious in some
countries than in the others, including the institutional setup.
Abstract or Paper Submission
Abstracts or Papers should be submitted to: Hannah Spikesey as attached
files (doc or PDF format) to the following e-mail addresses:
h.spikesley@ssees.ucl.ac.uk
Submission deadline: Papers received after 31 October will not be considered .
A final decision on the programme will be delivered within about two weeks after.
Organising Committee: Dr. Jens Hőlscher, Dr. Julia Korosteleva, Prof. Tomasz Mickiewicz,
Prof. Slavo Radosevic
Call for Papers: Special Issue "Economic thought, Theory and Practices for Sustainability" - A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2010
Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Brian Chi-ang Lin
Department of Public Finance, National Chengchi University, 64, Section 2, Chih-nan Road, Taipei 11605, Taiwan
E-mail: [pic]calin@nccu.edu.tw
To date, our modern, growth-oriented societies have been characterized by serious phenomena such as environmental degradation and growing economic inequality. Take climate change for example. Reacting to this phenomenon, governments all over the world have begun to implement energy preservation and carbon emission reduction policies, and so on. These governments have recognized that, to address such hazards, economic planning is necessary; governments are obligated to initiate various cooperative and institutional mechanisms to internalize individual choices, to coordinate various needs and interests, and to ensure an equal chance of participation for people of all levels of society.
This special issue seeks to offer a timely collection of scholarly papers that address the aforementioned challenges. Despite the fact that an economic school of sustainability (or sustainable development) has not yet appeared, concepts or ideas of sustainability have long been documented in the economics literature. Ecological economist Herman Daly, for instance, traced his analysis of the steady-state economy (SSE), a sustainable economy, back to classical economist John Stuart Mill’s notion of the stationary state.
By means of reviewing classical thought, we will be able to develop fresh conceptual and theoretical outlooks on the properties of sustainability compatible with the socioeconomic progress of this century. Also, an examination of some ancient economies will be instrumental to the construction of a modern version of sustainability. Take the conventional tribal economy for example. Most indigenous tribes have practiced a simple lifestyle for thousands of years. Self-sufficient indigenous tribes characterized by small-scale economic activities can be regarded to some extent as a prototype for a sustainable economy.
Sustainability has emerged as one of most pressing issues in the twenty-first century since it has been recognized that everyone has a stake in Our Common Future. We welcome original papers that provide theoretical breakthroughs, empirical advances, or further reflections on economic thought with endeavors for enhancing sustainability.
Submission Information
All papers should be submitted to sustainability@. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special issue website.
Submitted papers should not have been published nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is a new international, peer-reviewed, quarterly open access journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International.
Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal are waived for well-prepared manuscripts submitted by 30 June 2010. English correction or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those paper accepted for publication, that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.
Keywords
• Sustainable Development
• Economic Thought
• Economic Planning
• Institutions
• Institutional Change
Social Studies of Finance Workshop
“Reembedding Finance”
Paris, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense,
Thursday 20th and Friday 21st May 2010
Call for Papers
The subprime financial crisis has recently shown the limits of an abstract and disembodied view of financial markets and their so-called “efficiency”. A new interdisciplinary field of research – often known as “Social Studies of Finance” – has been purposefully tackling these limitations, and has developed with a view to “reembedding” financial practices into the social world. This collective dynamic of interdisciplinary research (gathering areas such as sociology, economics, history, anthropology, political science, management studies, geography and so forth), is grounded on a stiff conviction: the need to study financial activities as forms of social life. Showing how financial reality is embedded in social networks, culture, technology, scientific knowledge and institutional contexts can renew our understanding of finance.
While in France research in the Social Studies of Finance has been particularly active and structured through the activities of an association holding a regular seminar (the Social Studies of Finance Association or “Association d’études sociales de la finance”), the label “Social Studies of Finance” has been evolving, on an international level, with a neat inclination towards topics such as the scientific and technical embeddedness of finance, especially through the “performativity program”. However along with this thriving program, numerous studies in social networks analysis have shed light on various aspects of the social embeddedness of finance. Similarly, contributions in cultural geography or in globalization studies have examined at length the social aspects of financialization. Anthropological perspectives on financial markets, meanwhile, seek to scrutinize the moral and cultural frameworks underlying financial transactions. New institutionalism, through its various versions, has emphasized the legal and political organization that underpins financial markets and thus thoroughly contributing to the “reembedding” of finance within the social world. Heterodox perspectives in economics have also entered into a fruitful dialogue with more sociologically-inclined approaches.
The purpose of this conference, a Parisian initiative of the Social Studies of Finance Association, is to provide a venue for a productive dialogue between different perspectives to be found in the Social Studies of Finance, to think about their respective contributions, their commonalities, their differences and the opportunities of hybridization they may bring to light, stressing their relevance in the current historical context.
The organizers of the workshop are looking for suggestive contributions in the field of the Social Studies of Finance. Potential contributors should submit an abstract proposal containing roughly 500 words, indicating clearly the original contribution of the corresponding paper. The submission deadline for abstracts is January 15th, 2010. Notice of acceptance or rejection will be sent by early February 2010, completed papers will be due on April, 15th 2010.
The conference is to be held at the Nanterre Campus of the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense.
Organizing Committee
This Workshop is supported by researchers from different disciplines who are members of the Social Studies of Finance Association.
¬ €€€Yamina Tadjeddine, EconomiX, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, assistant professor in economics.
¬ €€€Olivier Godechot, Center Maurice Halbwachs, CNRS-ENS-EHESS, researcher in sociology.
¬ €€€Fabian Muniesa CSI, Mines ParisTech (CNRS UMR 7185), researcher in sociology.
¬ €€€Sabine Montagne IRISSO, CNRS-Paris-Dauphine (UMR 7170), researcher in economics.
¬ €€€David Martin, Negocia, CCIP, assistant professor in sociology.
¬ €€€Horacio Ortiz, LAIOS/IIAC (EHESS-CNRS, UMR 8177), associated research in anthropology.
¬ €€€Marc Lenglet, European Business School, assistant professor in management.
¬ €€€Pierre de Larminat, Center Maurice Halbwachs, CNRS-ENS-EHESS, Université de Reims, PhD student in sociology.
Scientific Committee
The scientific committee is composed of the organizing committee and the following external scientific experts:
¬ €€€Mitchel Abolafia, State University of New York
¬ €€€Michel Aglietta, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
¬ €€€Donald MacKenzie, University of Edinburgh
¬ €€€Philippe Steiner, Université Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV
¬ €€€Karel Williams, University of Manchester
Contact and Organization
Website of the SSFA:
Correspondence: reembeddingfinance@
Call for Papers
Dear colleagues,
I am preparing a discussion session for the 11th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics "Advancing Sustainability in a Time of Crisis" that will take place in Bremen/Oldenburg (Germany) on 22-25 August 2010 ().
The general topic of the session will be «Sources of knowledge for a sustainable decision-making». The session will discuss what kinds of knowledge and expertise need be taken into account in decision-making and governance systems if we want them to ensure sustainability in the long term. How does scientific advice have to be sought for? What are possible controversies around “science-based” policies? What is the relevance of the “local”
knowledge? To which extent and in which forms can “public” participation in decision-making enhance sustainability?
If some of you are interested in attending this conference and presenting theoretical considerations and/or case studies from particular countries related to this theme, please contact me as soon as possible so that we could co- ordinate the submission of abstracts. An abstract of up to 400 words would be needed from every panellist.
Sincerely
Demyan Belyaev
E-Mail: demyan.belyaev@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
RGC 2010 Conference in New Orleans
February 18-20, 2010
Hampton Inn Hotel
Gravier Conference Room
Downtown in the French Quarter Area
Daily Complimentary Hot Breakfast
Organized and Sponsored by the journal Race, Gender & Class
The 2010 Conference registration is $125 for students and $175 for non-students.
All attendees and presenters are expected to register.
Call for Participants and Organizers
Conference Theme
Race, Gender & Class Issues and the Obama Presidency
The 2010 RGC Conference will address the state of RGC with respect to President Obamas Government. Our three-day conference will include plenary sessions, concurrent panels, and social events. We will post additional information about the conference as soon as possible on the RGC website at suno.edu/Race_Gender_ Class/
To submit a paper or a panel proposal (only electronically) and/or to volunteer to serve as an RGC Conference organizer, please contact Dr. Jean Ait Belkhir at jbelkhir@suno.edu
Proposal deadline December 1st, 2009
Please check the Race, Gender & Class website for updated information at suno.edu/Race_Gender_ Class/
We hope to see you at the RGC 2010 Conference in New Orleans!
Please forward this Call to colleagues you think may be interested.
The journal Race, Gender & Class was founded in 1993 by Dr. Jean Ait Belkhir, Associate Professor of Sociology, Southern University at New Orleans and University of New Orleans.
Call for Papers
The Centre of Economic Development Research (CEDR) at Wuhan University, China, in cooperation with the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) and with the Society for the Chinese History of Economic Thought (SCHET) organizes a joint conference on
Thoughts on Economic Development, China and the West
11-12 October 2010, Wuhan
Chinese traditions of economic thinking are at least as old as their European counterparts, and in various periods Chinese ideas influenced economic thinking in the West, particularly in the age of physiocracy. Different strands of Western political and economic thought have, on the other hand, made a strong impact on the development of the Chinese society and economy during the 20th century, in the transition from empire to republic, in the emergence of the people's republic, and in the ongoing process of economic transformation. This conference will take stock of the development, cross-fertilization and contextual adaption of economic ideas in China and the West. The focus is set on theories about economic order and development in China. Other relevant contributions, in particular about the development of development economics and growth economics, are also welcome.
Paper proposals submitted for the conference should thus preferably address one or more of the following themes:
- Chinese Economic Thinking before the 20th Century
- Chinese Economic Thinking in the 20th Century
- Dissemination of Western Economic Ideas in China
- Dissemination of Chinese Economic Ideas in the West
- Economic Thinking in and about the Chinese Transformation Process(es)
- The Development of Development Economics and Growth Economics
Proposals of papers plus abstracts of no more than 800 words each should be submitted electronically before 31 March 2010 to Ma Ying
(yingma9494@) and Hans-Michael Trautwein (michael.trautwein@uni-oldenburg.de). Applicants will be informed about a decision concerning the acceptance of their proposals before 30 April 2010. First versions of the accepted papers will have to be submitted in full by 1 August 2010. Some travel grants will be made available by the organizers.
Scientific committee: Profs. Guo Xibao, Ma Ying (CSDE), Yan Qinghua (SCHET), Harald Hagemann, Cristina Marcuzzo, Hans-Michael Trautwein (ESHET)
Centre for Global Health, Population, Poverty, and Policy
Seminar on Fertility and Poverty: micro and macro linkages
28-29 January 2010 at the University of Southampton
Background
Poverty reduction is a core target of the international development agenda. The 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development brought the importance of sexual and reproductive
health (SRH) to the attention of policy-makers worldwide. The subsequent neglect of SRH, and its
exclusion from the Millennium Development Goals have, however, resulted in a patchy evidence
base concerning the links between poverty and SRH. Interest on the links between poverty and
fertility waned in the mid-1990s, when it became clear that global fertility decline was under way –
even in sub-Saharan Africa. However, a recent resurgence in studies related to failing family
planning programmes has emerged due to evidence of stalling fertility decline in some countries. At
the macro level, poverty – manifested in low investment in basic social services such as education
and health – can have significant implications for reproductive health and fertility trends. Low levels
of health investment keep mortality levels high, and failing to provide the contraceptive services
needed to achieve fertility decline keeps fertility higher than it might be otherwise. At the micro
level, some researchers have proposed that large families are a result of poverty, due to the need
for security in old age but the evidence for this ‘insurance policy’ hypothesis is lacking. Poverty may
however impede access to SRH services if couples have to pay for contraceptive commodities, which
then leads to unwanted pregnancies. There is a need to synthesise these issues and to propose a
coherent future research agenda that focuses on existing gaps in knowledge of the fertility-poverty
link as well as methodological challenges.
Papers are being invited that address the following:
i) New evidence on the linkages between fertility and poverty (at both macro and micro levels)
ii) Barriers to contraceptive use and safe abortion amongst those living in poverty
iii) Evidence on the intergenerational flow of wealth and high fertility as insurance for old-age
security hypothesis
iv) Interventions and strategies for meeting high unmet need for family planning among the
under-served that have worked (e.g. male involvement, voucher schemes, social marketing)
v) Methodological advances in measuring unmet need for family planning
This is one in a series of four seminars on “Poverty and Sexual and Reproductive Health: Towards
Unravelling the Vicious Circle” where academics and practitioners will meet to review evidence from
cutting edge research in the field and to identify gaps for further scientific research, policy, and
practice. We are inviting scholars and practitioners to attend this exciting two-day seminar to be
held at the University of Southampton. We also encourage applications from early career
researchers and PhD students. Limited bursaries are available for UK-based early career fellows with
innovative and high quality presentation.
To apply please submit an abstract of up to 250 words by 16th November to rl@soton.ac.uk.
Successful applicants will be sent invitation letters by 1st December 2009. For more information
about our forthcoming seminars please visit
Collaborators of the seminars series:
London School of Economics, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, City University,
Loughborough University, and University of Warwick.
Call for Papers
International Conference
Strikes and Social Conflicts in the Twentieth Century
Lisbon, 17, 18, 19 March, 2011
The Institute of Contemporary History (New University of Lisbon), the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), The Archive Edgard Leuenroth (Unicamp/Brasil), the Centre for the Study of Spain under Franco and Democracy (Autonomous University of Barcelona) and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (France) start the call for papers for the International Conference on Strikes and Social Conflicts in the Twentieth Century that will take place in Lisbon between 17 and 19 March 2011.
The twentieth century has been confirmed as the century when the capital-labour conflict was most severe. The International Conference on Strikes and Social Conflicts in the Twentieth Century will host submissions on the strikes and social conflicts in the twentieth century and works on the theoretical discussion on the role of unions and political organizations. We also invite researchers to submit papers on methodology and the historiography of labour.
We welcome submissions on labour conflicts that occurred in factories, universities or public services, on rural and urban conflicts and also on conflicts that developed into civil wars or revolutions. National and international comparisons are also welcome.
After the Russian revolution the relative strengths of capital and labour were never again the same, with a period of revolution and counter-revolution that ended with World War II. Protagonist of the victory over fascism, the labour movement found itself neglected in the core countries under the impact of economic growth in the 1950s and the 1960s. But May 1968 quickly reversed the situation, with a following boom of labour studies during the 1970s. Nevertheless once the crisis of the 1970s was over, capital has regained the initiative, with the deterioration of labour laws, the crisis of trade unions and the subsequent despise in the academy for the study of social conflicts. The recent crisis, however, shows that workers, the ones who create value, are not obsolete. The social movements regain, in the last decade, a central role in the world.
The intensification of social conflicts in the last decade promoted a comeback to the academia of the studies on labour and the social movements. This conference aims to be part of this process: to retrieve, promote and disseminate the history of social conflicts during the twentieth century.
The Scientific Committee
Alvaro Bianchi (AEL)
Raquel Varela (IHC)
Sjaak van der Velden (IISH)
Serge Wolikow (MSH)
Xavier Domïnech (CEDIF)
Calendar
Papers submission: January 2010 - 30th June 2010
Notification of acceptance: July 30th, 2010
Papers: December 15th, 2010
Conference: March, 17-19, 2011
Important:
The deadline for delivery of completed papers/articles is 15th December 2010. For reasons of translation no papers will be accepted after this date. The paper should be no longer than 4000 words (including spaces) in times new roman, 12, line space 1,5. For Registration Form see below.
Conference Languages
Conference languages are Portuguese, English, French and Spanish (simultaneous translation Portuguese/English).
Preliminary Program
The Conference will have sessions in the mornings and afternoons. There will be conferences of invited speakers, among other, Marcel van der Linden, Fernando Rosas, Serge Wolikow, Beverly Silver, Kevin Murphy, Ricardo Antunes, Alvaro Bianchi, Dave Lyddon, Xavier Domïnech. During the conference there will be an excursion guided by Prof. Fernando Rosas (Lisbon of the Revolutions); a debate about cinema and labour movement and a debate about Crisis and Social Change.
Thusday-17/03/11 Friday-18/03/11 Saturday-19/03/11
9:00 - 11:00 Opening Conference Sessions
Excursion: Lisbon of the revolutions (guide by Prof. Fernando Rosas)
11:15 - 13:15 Sessions Sessions Sessions
13:15 � 14:30 Lunch Lunch Lunch
14:30 � 16:30 Sessions Sessions Sessions
16:45 � 18:45 Sessions Sessions Sessions
19:30 Debate: Movies and Working class in the twentieth century.
Debate:
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it". Crisis and Social Change.
21:00 Dinner (Uai) Dinner (Portug�lia) Dinner (Casa do Alentejo)
Conference Fees
Fees including dinners and excursion Lisbon of the Revolutions: 80 euros
Fees without dinners and excursion: free
Entrance free
Organization
Instituto de Hist�ria Contempor�nea (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Maison des Sciences de L�Homme (Paris, France)
Centre d'Estudis de l'�poca Franquista i Democr�tica (Universitat Aut�noma de Barcelona, Spain)
Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth (Campinas, Brasil)
Presidents/Research directors of the Institutes
Fernando Rosas (IHC)
Fernando Teixeira da Silva (AEL)
Marcel van der Linden (IISH)
Pere Ys�s Solanes (CEDIF)
Serge Wolikow (MSH)
Registration form/Papers Submission
International Conference
Strikes and Social Conflicts around the World in the Twentieth Century
Lisbon, 17, 18, 19 March, 2011
For Registration/Papers Submission fill out this registration form and send it to ihc@fcsh.unl.pt
First Name: Family Name:
Position: Professor/ Associate Professor/ Assistant Professor/ Lecturer/ Ph.D Candidate/ Postgraduate/ Independent Researcher etc..
University/Organization/Job:
Detailed Post Address (Important!):
City: Country: Postcode:
Telephone: Mobile (Important): Email (Important):
Paper Title:
Abstract (max 200 words)
Contact information:
Instituto de Hist�ria Contempor�nea/ Faculdade de Ci�ncias Sociais e Humanas (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Av. de Berna, 26 C
1069-061 Lisboa, Portugal
E-Mail: ihc@fcsh.unl.pt
__._,_.___
Conferences, Seminars and Lectures
La prochaine séance du Séminaire Hétérodoxies du CES se tiendra avec :
Frank VAN DE VELDE
(CLERSE – IFRESI – Université Lille I)
Le capitalisme est-il intrinsèquement instable ?
Formes de capitalisme et Dynamique économique
Discutant : Michael Assous (Phare, Université Paris1)
Mardi 27 octobre 2009 à 16h00
Maison des Sciences Economiques
106 Boulevard de l’Hôpital, 75 013 PARIS (Métro Campo Formio) Salle des Conférences (6ème étage)
J'ai le texte de la communication, me le demander si vous le souhaitez. (le site étant momentanément indisponible)
Prochaines séances :
* 3 novembre 2009 (à 17h exceptionnellement) avec El-Mouhoub MOUHOUD (LEDa et IRISES, Université Paris Dauphine) et Dominique PLIHON (CEPN – Université Paris XIII) Le savoir et la finance : liaisons dangereuses au cœur du capitalisme contemporain
* 24 novembre 2009 (16h) avec Franck-Dominique VIVIEN (Université de
Reims) et Valérie BOISVERT (IRD) :
« La convention sur la diversité biologique : quelle lecture institutionnaliste ? »
Organisation du séminaire : Nathalie Berta, Jean-Marie Monnier Christophe Ramaux, Nadine Thèvenot, Bruno Tinel et Carlo Vercellone.
Contact : Seminaire-Heterodoxies@univ-paris1.fr
A Public Debate Hosted by KCL Capital Reading Group and KCL Business Society
Supported by the Centre for European Studies, King's College London
THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM:
THE ROOTS OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE
ALEX CALLINICOS, Professor of European Studies, King's College London, and author of The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
MARTIN WOLF, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times, and author of Fixing Global Finance
6.30 P.M. MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER
GREAT HALL, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, STRAND, LONDON WC2R 2LS
for more information contact KCLreadingCapital@
*Crisis what Crisis: Forward to the Past?
*Critical Labour Studies: 6th Symposium 2009
Venue: The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Saturday 21st/Sunday 22nd November 2009
Statement of Intent
It is clear to researchers and activists, both in the trade union movement and universities, that global capitalism is increasingly shaping the worlds of work and employment. The imposition of this neo- liberal orthodoxy has many profound implications, not least that states seek to both de-legitimise workers' opposition and marginalise their organisations. However, just as capitalism has embraced neo- liberal strategies, there has emerged a new politics of resistance that is varied and diverse, embracing: trade union and socialist organisations, green and ecological protest movements, anti-war activists, feminists, human rights campaigners and NGOs. It is against this background that the Critical Labour Studies (CLS) symposium has aimed to bring together researchers and activists to discuss key features of work and employment from a radical and labour-focused perspective. We recognise that while left academic researchers participate in the usual round of mainstream conferences, the scope for focused radical debate around these themes is actually quite limited. Through CLS we have developed an open working group and discussion forum that engages with many of the challenges facing researchers and trade unionists within the current environment of work and employment. By 'labour', we anticipate, in the traditions of radical researchers over the ages, a broad understanding of myriad social, economic and political agendas. To date, themes have included:
race, identity and organising migrant workers, global unionism and organising internationally, the new politics of production, privatisation, outsourcing and offshoring. The list of themes and questions that concern us continues to develop over time, and the intention will be to reflect this evolving agenda at this year's symposium. An ancillary objective is to engage in genuinely critical debate, rescuing this term from its co-option by mainstream agendas.
The Format of the Symposium
Building on the successes of the past five years, the forthcoming symposium will be structured as a series of plenary sessions. Each will be organised around a particular theme with speakers and discussants, followed by a broad discussion. It has been an important principle of CLS that the conference is not based on the convention of academic conferences with specific papers being presented in separate streams. Rather our intention has been to deepen discussion and debate, and to bring together researchers and labour/ union movement activists (where possible) in joint sessions. All sessions are genuinely open and inclusive and involve a broad range of participants, from established academics to early-career researchers, and from established trade union officials to shop-floor representatives and grass-roots activists. The distinctive organising principles of CLS are, therefore, to assist unions and workers in dealing with the challenges faced in the neo-liberal world of work and employment. Ultimately, discussion of strategies and tactics are related to the broader aim of creating a socialist society.
*
CLS PROGRAMME 2009*
VENUE: School of Oriental and African Studies
- Khalili Lecture Theater (KLT), University of London, Thornhaugh Street Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG
DATES: 21st and 22nd of November
Organisers: Demet Dinler, Jane Holgate and Miguel Martinez Lucio
Saturday 21st
8.30-9.30 Registration (with coffee and tea)
9.30 Welcome and introduction
First Session - Work Intensification and Lean Production
10.00 - 11.00
'Is that Banana Active?' Lean and Mean in the Civil Service Speaker from PCS, Bob Carter (de Montfort University), Andy Danford (University of West of England), Debra Howcroft (University of Manchester), Helen Richardson (University of Salford), Andrew Smith (University of East of London), Phil Taylor (University of Strathclyde)
11.00-11.30 tea and coffee
11.30-12.30
Challenging lean production in the car industry. The politics of developing critical research agenda in and beyond the shop floor.
Steve Craig (UCATT), Ken Murphy (UNITE and Paul Stewart (Strathclyde
University)
12.30-1.00
Prospects for a Critical Labour Psychology Thomas Ryan (Northumbria University)
1.00-2.00 Lunch
Second Session - Labour Markets, Migration and Labour
2.00-2.45
The growth of living wage campaigns across university campuses
Clare Soloman - SOAS coordinator of the campaign; Jose Stalin Bermudez
- shop steward; Demet Dinler - SOAS
2.45-3.30
Adapt or Decline - A Trade Union Future for Black Workers
Jane Holgate (Working Lives Institute) and Wilf Sullivan (TUC)
3.30- 4.00 tea and coffee
4.00-4.30
Racism, Nationalism and the Labour Movement in Northern Ireland:
Racist bigots; they haven't gone away you know
Independent Workers Union (IWU) address to CLS - Tommy McKearney IWU
4.30-5.30 Towards a Critical approach to Migration and Labour
Migration research: Why theory and methodology matters Jutta Moehrke, Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau Steve French, Centre for Industrial Relations, Keele University
Migration and the Politics of Research: Comparisons and Stereotypes Heather Connolly and Miguel Martinez Lucio (University of Manchester)
Social 7pm onwards Rugby Tavern, 9 Great James St London, WC1N 3ES
Sunday 22nd
Third Session: Politics and Unions: Class and Organising
9.30 tea and coffee
10.00-11.00
Organising and Class
Mel Simms (Warwick) and Martin Smith GMB
11.00-12.00
Towards a Typology of Alternative Trade Union Futures in Western Europe Martin Upchurch (Middlesex University), Andy Mathers (University of the West of England), Graham Taylor (University of the West of England)
12.-12.30
Time for a different model of public sector trade unionism Roger Kline (UCU) 12.30-1.30 - Lunch
1.30 -2.30 - Open Discussion: CLS and Future Developments _______
Join the Critical Labour Studies Email List
If you would like to be added to the CLS email list, please go to
Check out our website:
Registration and Contact for the Conference
* The sessions will be held at the Khalili Lecture Theater (KLT) and registration is at the entrance of this lecture theatre in SOAS.
* The registration fee for the weekend is £60.00 (unwaged or low waged £40). This will include food, tea/coffee and Saturday evening's entertainment.
* For further information contact Demet Dinler dd1@soas.ac.uk, Jane Holgatej.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk , or Miguel Martinez Lucio Miguel.MartinezLucio@manchester.ac.uk.
* TO REGISTER AND SEND YOUR CHEQUE CONTACT Jane Holgatej.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk
- Dr Jane Holgate, Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University, 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY - Make cheques payable to the 'LONDON ORGANISERS NETWORK'.
* It is recommended that you register and confirm attendance in advance of the conference due to the restrictions on numbers.
This event is supported by Historical Materialism, Capital and Class, and the BUIRA Marxist Study Group
Cambridge Realist Workshop - Michaelmas Term 2009
Another year (in fact this is our 20th year), and yet another programme for the Cambridge Realist Workshop.
Please note, though, that this year brings some significant changes.
First, the location has changed. We will no longer be meeting at CRASSH. Instead we will be meeting in Clare College, which is in Trinity Lane. More specifically we will be meeting in the Latimer room, which is in the Old Court. For a 3-Dmap see:
Second, instead of meeting weekly, we will be meeting fortnightly, starting on the second week of term. This means that the first meeting is not tomorrow but Monday, October 19. As usual the seminars will start at 8pm, but drinks will be available from 7:30 pm.
The programme for the coming term (which has a clear ontological flavour) is as follows:
Monday October 19,
Speaker: Tony Lawson (Economics, Cambridge)
Topic: What is and Why Bother with Social Ontology?
Monday November 02,
Speaker: Andrew Gamble (Politics, Cambridge)
Topic: The Nature of Crisis
Monday November 16,
Speaker: Ha-Joon Chang (Economics and Development, Cambridge)
Topic: The Nature of Development: Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark
Monday November 30,
Speaker: Paul Lewis (Kings College London)
Topic:The Nature and Significance of Emergent Properties:The Case of FA Hayek
For more information go to:
or, for those who have access:
More on the first talk of Monday October 19, 2009
Tony Lawson will introduce the subject of social ontology, explaining his terms/categories, and allowing that many of those present may have little familiarity with the subject. Lawson will be arguing that a turn to social ontology is highly desirable, and likely essential, to modern social theorising. The talk will be self contained, but a background chapter from Lawson’s Reorienting Economics is attached. Further background material can be downloaded from the following sites:
An early position paper of the Cambridge social ontology group:
A currently (temporarily) free download of a recent Lawson paper in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, touching on ontology, academic economic and the crisis:
A recent interview with Lawson in the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics that focuses on social ontology:
And some other connected papers:
These, to repeat, are merely background material/readings.
The European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) and the University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM) are jointly organizing a Workshop on:
“The Recession of 2008. Do Economists ever agree on Analysis and Prescriptions?
The current financial and economic crisis has been stimulating some very important and interesting debates. On the one hand, there have been several attempts to compare it with previous crisis, especially with the Great Depression of 1929. On the other hand, the current crisis has also stimulated lively debates about the current state of economic analysis and its effectiveness in providing adequate accounts of the crisis.
Hence, the current crisis has not only
highlighted the changing nature of our economic reality, but also the usefulness of taking a longer view when approaching economic analysis.
The potential contribution of the history of economic ideas seems to be extremely relevant on both accounts.
This Workshop is aimed at analyzing the current financial and economic crisis from a history of economic thought perspective. The papers presented may offer an overview of the crisis or focus on specific issues. They may refer to the global economy or to a single region or country. The may dig on the causes, the consequences or policy recommendations.
The Workshop will take place in the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales de Albacete (University of Castilla La Mancha, Spain) on the 21 and 22 January, 2010. Albacete is a small but well connected city. It can be reached by train from Alicante (1:15 hours), Valencia (1:30 hours) and Madrid (2 hours).
The seminar has been organized in three parts:
1. Thursday evening (16-18; 18:30-20:30): Presentation of four selected papers.
2. Friday early morning (9-11): Parallel sessions.
3. Friday late morning (11:30-13:30): Presentation of two selected papers.
The papers should be sent to
mariaangeles.tobarra@uclm.es before 21 November 2009. Participants will receive confirmation of acceptance before 21 December 2009. The Committee will indicate the six papers selected at plenary sessions. They are supposed to cover a broad array of streams in the history of economic thought.
We aim to publish a book gathering together the 10 best papers. Apart form the six papers presented at plenary sessions, the Committee will select four additional papers among those discussed in parallel sessions.
There are no registration fees for the
Workshop. ESHET and UCLM will provide three grants (of 350 euros each) to PhD students who don’t have any other source of finance and present good papers.
For further information visit
.
Scientific Committee:
O. Dejuan (chair),
E. Febrero.
H. Hagemann,
M.C. Marcuzzo
P. Teixeira.
Call for Participants
PKSG Workshop on the Current Crisis
SOAS, University of London, 23rd October 2009
The current crisis largely took mainstream economics commentators by surprise. By contrast Post-Keynesian analysis may provide the analytical tools to explain crises through processes endogenous to contemporary economies. This workshop aims to consider the origins, nature and likely course of the current crisis and the appropriate policy response from a broadly Post-Keynesian perspective.
Venue: Room B102, Brunei Gallery, 2 - 6 pm
(followed by a book launch over a glass of wine from 6 - 7 pm)
Carlos J. Rodriguez-Fuentes (University of La Laguna):
From the long (global) boom to the severe current (local) recession. The Spanish economy from 1994 to 2008
Rorita Canale (University of Naples):
The Recessive Attitude of EMU Policies and the Remedies for the Crises: Reflections on the Italian Experience Within the Last Ten Years
Lino Sau (University of Turin):
Instability and Crisis in Financial Complex Systems
Victoria Chick (University College, London):
The current banking crisis: an evolutionary view
Geoff Harcourt (Cambridge; University of New South Wales):
Finance, speculation and stability: Post-Keynesian policies for modern capitalism
We will be launching Jesper Jespersen's new book Macroeconomic Methodology
THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES’
> 2009-2010
> Organised by the Department of Development Studies School of Oriental
> and African Studies (SOAS) University of London
> Convenor: Prof. Gilbert Achcar
>
> Tuesday 27 October, 6:30pm – Logan Hall, Institute of Education
>
> CRISES AND THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT
>
> PROF. NOAM CHOMSKY
> Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology (MIT) Co-sponsored by the Centre for International Studies
> and Diplomacy
> (SOAS)
> Information at
>
> Wednesday 25 November, 6:30pm – Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
>
> THE AMERICAN EMPIRE IN LIGHT OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS – A DEBATE BETWEEN
>
> PROF. ALEX CALLINICOS
> Director of the Centre for European Studies, King’s College London
> PROF. LEO PANITCH Distinguished Research Professor, York University,
> Toronto
>
> Wednesday 27 January, 6:30pm – Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
>
> FOR A GREEN AND JUST WAY OUT OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS
>
> DR. SUSAN GEORGE
> Board Chair of the Transnational Institute ()
>
> Wednesday 3 March, 6:30pm – Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
>
> HUMANITARIANISM AT THE RISK OF IMPERIALISM
>
> DR. RONY BRAUMAN
> Former President of 1999 Nobel Peace Prize winner Doctors without
> Borders (MSF, Paris)
>
>
>
[pic]
LANZAMIENTO DE AEDA EN ROSARIO
Lunes 19 de octubre de 2009 – 17:30hs
Sede de Gobierno de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario
Salón de los Espejos
Maipú 1065 – Rosario
PROGRAMA
17.30 hs. Acreditaciones.
18.00 hs. Apertura a cargo de Virginia Fernández.
18.15 hs. Primer Panel:
“Evolución de la industria argentina: transformaciones y desafíos”
Expone: Paula Español
“Cambio de régimen y dilemas del largo plazo. La economía argentina entre 2003 y 2007”
Expone: Matías Kulfas
19.00 hs. Café.
19.15hs. Segundo Panel
“Cambios en la distribución del ingreso por categoría ocupacional en el Gran Rosario; 2003-2007”
Expone: Oscar Sgrazzutti
“Cambio de época y política endógena. Una mirada desde las Ciencias Sociales”
Expone: Oscar Madoery
20.00 hs. Presentación de AEDA y cierre de la actividad
Exponen: Ivan Heyn – Paula Español – Matías Kulfas
Se solicita confirmar asistencia a correoaeda@
.ar
MICROFOUNDATIONS: THE LEGACY OF NEW CLASSICAL ECONOMICS
Tuesday 27 October 2009
14.00-17.00
Room 103,
London International Development Centre
36 Gordon Square,
London WC1H 0PD
Alessandro Vercelli: ‘Microfoundations and Vision: Lucas, Simon, and Keynes’
Victoria Chick: ‘Why Microfoundations?’
John King: ‘Microfoundations?’
Jan Toporowski: ‘Microfoundations, Minsky and Classical Political Economy.’
Ben Fine: 'The General Impossibility of Neoclassical Economics: Or Does Bertrand Russel Deserve a Nobel Prize for Economics'
SOAS SEMINAR SERIES ON MONEY FINANCE AND DEVELOPMENT
30 Russell Square 28th of October 2009
Room G2 , 6.00 p.m.
Sheila Dow
Cognition, Market Sentiment
and Financial Crisis
Chair: Jan Toporowski
Association for Institutional Thought [AFIT]
2010 CALL FOR PAPERS
The 31st annual meeting of AFIT will be held
April 14-17, 2010
Reno, Nevada
Grand Sierra Resort
In conjunction with the Western Social Science Association (WSSA) 52nd Annual Conference
Theme for the 2010 Conference: Toward a Socially Embedded Economy
Institutional economics starts from the view that economy or material provisioning is an instituted process and that institutions should be the basic unit of economic analysis (as opposed to the maximizing representative agent) because they act to both control and empower individuals and social groups and give rise to correlated and often predictable patterns of human behavior. The Association for Institutional Thought provides an excellent platform for the delivery of papers in a broad range of areas, including but not limited to macro and monetary economics, political economy, labor, regulatory and environmental economics, economies in transition, history of thought, institutional selection and evolutionary theory, healthcare, trade and globalization, poverty and inequality, and the economics of sports. The Association invites contributions that employ non-standard models or techniques of investigation and analysis. AFIT sessions are well-attended, and presenters can expect to receive valuable comments on their work. Proposals for complete panels (including discussant(s)) are welcome.
The theme for the 2010 AFIT conference is: Toward a Socially Embedded Economy. The social control of big business is a longstanding concern among institutional economists. The 2010 theme is predicated on the view that the design of key economic, legal, regulatory, and other institutions in the capitalist world (but especially the United States) manifests and promotes the iron rule of shareholder interest and consumerism at the expense of other important values such as income and health security, family and community, a reasonably equitable distribution of economic and political power, the availability of collectively consumed goods, and sustainable ecosystems. The conference organizer is especially interested in papers that identify and explicate institutions that serve narrow, elite, or class economic interests and stand in the way of a movement to a more humanized species of market capitalism. Papers that propose modifications to the institutional environment of corporatism will also fit nicely with the conference theme.
AFIT encourages proposals from graduate students, and it is anticipated that at least one and possibly more panels of graduate student papers will be included in the program this year. In addition, AFIT will continue to sponsor prizes for outstanding student papers. A formal announcement of this year’s competition is attached.
AFIT will continue the tradition of having one or more roundtables that explores ideas, experiences, and materials to advance economic education, from Institutional and other heterodox perspectives. Participants in these roundtables are encouraged to submit their materials for posting on the AFIT web site. Past contributions can be found at
AFIT is also receptive to proposals for panels to review and discuss books recently published by AFIT members.
Anyone interested in attending the AFIT Conference or in finding out more about the organization may visit the AFIT web site at . Conference registration information can be found at the WSSA web site .
You must be a member of AFIT to present a paper at the conference. Annual dues are $25. Browse to Contact Mary Wrenn, Secretary-Treasurer of AFIT, (MaryWrenn@weber.edu).
8th Society of Heterodox Economists Conference on December 7 and 8, 2009
Registration and accommodation details are available from the Conference website
SHE WEBSITE: she.web.unsw.edu.au
CASE- Center for Social and Economic Research
Cordially invites you to attend
Return of History: From Consensus to Crisis
bi-annual international conference
The “Return of History: From Consensus to Crisis” 2009 International Conference will be held November 20-21st at the Falenty Center in Warsaw. Distinguished panelists from around the world will discuss the global macroeconomic and financial crisis in the following four thematic sessions.
Session 1:
The role of countercyclical fiscal policy:
historical experience and contemporary challenges
Session 2:
The financial crisis: lessons for monetary policy
Session 3:
Twenty years after: from transition to crisis
Session 4:
Energy security in Europe and other regions
Confirmed speakers include: Wing Thye Woo, Anders Aslund, Leszek Balcerowicz, Eric Berglof, Karel Lannoo and Jacek Rostowski, among many others. For a complete list of conference speakers and detailed agenda please visit the conference website ⋄ caseconference.eu.
Conference registration is required. As the conference is quickly approaching, we encourage you to register at ⋄ .
We look forward to hosting another successful international conference and to greeting you in Warsaw in November.
[conference flyer]
Sixth Historical Materialism Annual Conference ‘Another World is Necessary:
Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives’
27–29 November 2008
at the School of Oriental and African Studies and Birkbeck College, London, WC1 In association with Socialist Register and the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Committee
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!
The annual Historical Materialism conference is organised by the editorial board of Historical Materialism in association with the Deutscher Memorial Prize committee and the Socialist Register. 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 attracted an increasingly high attendance over the past four years. 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.
One of the principal 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 sixth annual Historical Materialism Conference, under the banner of ‘Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives’, promises to continue and take forward this objective.
The conference is organised around three plenary sessions (the Deutscher lecture, the launch of the Socialist Register 2010, and Historical Materialism’s plenary) and a host of workshops dedicated to specific themes.
Amongst the many speakers: Gilbert Achcar * Gregory Albo * Robert Albritton * Kevin B. Anderson * Ricardo Antunes * Jairus Banaji * Robin Blackburn * Wendy Brown * Alex Callinicos * Vivek Chibber * Hester Eisenstein * Ben Fine * Robert Fine * Lindsey German * Peter Hallward * Chris Harman * Fredric Jameson * Bob Jessop * * Randy Martin * David McNally * Angela McRobbie * Kim Moody * Leo Panitch * Alexei Penzin * Moishe Postone * John Rees * Sheila Rowbotham * Alfredo Saad-Filho * Thomas Sekine * Julian Stallabrass * Hillel Ticktin * Alberto Toscano * Hilary Wainwright *
THE FULL TIMETABLE WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON
For more details, please contact: historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk
Attendance is free, but participants must register in advance online (if this is not possible, please contact historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk ). However, the conference is largely self-funded and we will depend on voluntary donations by attendants and participants to support the organisation and running of the event. The suggested advanced online donation is £40 for waged and £15 for unwaged <
>, and the suggested donation on the door is £50 for waged and £20 for unwaged.
For logistical and other support, Historical Materialism would like to thank the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Centre for International Security and Diplomacy. For sponsorship, thanks to the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at SOAS, SOAS Student Union, Brill Academic Publishers, the Deutscher Memorial Prize committee, Socialist Register, Journal of Agrarian Change, the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy and Bookmarks.
The Editorial Board of Historical Materialism
THEMES FOR THIS YEAR’S CONFERENCE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
A LEFT PROJECT: TRANSFORMING THE STATE? * AGENCY * AGRARIAN CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM: TECHNICAL DYNAMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL TRAJECTORIES * ALTHUSSER AND PHILOSOPHY * APOCALYPSE MARXISM * ART AGAINST CAPITALISM * ART AND CRITIQUE IN GERMANY BETWEEN THE WARS * BOOK LAUNCH: ALEX CALLINICOS'S IMPERIALISM AND GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY * BOOK LAUNCH: KARL MARX AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY * CAPITALISM, CITIZENSHIP AND CRISIS * CLASS AND CONFLICT IN ANCIENT GREECE * CLASS AND POLITICS IN THE ‘GLOBAL SOUTH’ * CLASS, CRISIS, DISTRIBUTION * COGNITIVE MAPPING, TOTALITY AND THE REALIST TURN * COMMODIFYING HEALTH CARE IN THE UK * CUBAN REVOLUTION AND CUBAN SOCIETY * DERIVATIVES * DEVELOPMENTALISM, THE STATE AND CLASS FORMATION * DIMENSIONS OF THE FOOD CRISIS * EASTERN CENTRAL EUROPE FROM TRANSITION TO EU ENLARGEMENT: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY * ECOLOGICAL CRISIS * EMPIRE AND IMPERIALISM * ENERGY AND GEOPOLITICS * ENERGY, WASTE AND CAPITALISM * EPISTEMOLOGY, DIALECTICS AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM * EXTENDING THE MINERALS-ENERGY- COMPLEX * FEMINISM AND SOCIALIST STRATEGY * FINANCE, THE HOUSING QUESTION AND URBAN POLITICS * GLOBAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS: MARXIST REFLECTIONS * GRAMSCI RELOADED * GREEN CAPITALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS * HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND LATE CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT * HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND SOCIAL RESEARCH * HISTORICISING HISTORICAL MATERIALISM * HM BOOK SERIES LAUNCH: MIKKO LAHTINEN ON ALTHUSSER AND MACHIAVELLI * HM BOOK SERIES LAUNCH: PETER THOMAS’S THE GRAMSCIAN MOMENT * IN MEMORY OF PETER GOWAN * INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CRISIS * INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRISIS * ISAAC AND TAMARA DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL PRIZE LECTURE: KEES VAN DER PIJL, NOMADS, EMPIRES, STATES * KNOWLEDGE, NATURE, PROPERTY * LABOUR * LABOUR AND THE ECONOMIC SUBJECT IN CONTEMPORARY ART * LABOUR BEYOND THE FACTORY * LATIN AMERICAN WORKING CLASSES * LEARNING FROM PAST CRISES * LINEAGES OF NEOLIBERALISM * LISTEN TO VENEZUELA SCREENING AND DISCUSSION * MARXISM AND LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY * MARXISM AND NATIONALISM TODAY * MARXISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE * MARXISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS * MARXISM AND TIME * MARXISM BETWEEN ETHICS AND UTOPIA * MARXISM, DEMOCRACY AND CLASSICAL POLITICAL THEORY * MIGRATION * MONEY * MORBID SYMPTOMS:
HEALTH UNDER CAPITALISM * NEOLIBERALISM, AESTHETICS AND THE RECUPERATION OF DISSENT * ON THE OBJECTS OF COMMUNISM: A HACKING PANEL
* PHILOSOPHY AND COMMUNISM IN THE EARLY MARX * PLANNING, LOCALISM AND THE LEFT * POSTNEOLIBERALISM * PRESENTATION OF THE JOURNAL CHTO DELAT/ WHAT IS TO BE DONE? * RACE, NATION AND ORIENTALISM * RED PLANETS:
MARXISM AND SCIENCE FICTION * RE-EMBEDDING MARXISM: COERCION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY * REGISTERING THE CRISIS: A SOCIALIST REGISTER ROUNDTABLE * RESEARCH ON MARX * RESTRUCTURING, OUTSOURCING,
DISTRIBUTION: DIMENSIONS OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS * REVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AUTONOMIST MARXISM AND THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY * SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM IN THE US SOUTH * SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA: THE CURRENT CONJUNCTURE * STUDENT MOVEMENTS AND YOUTH REVOLTS * THE ARTS AND CAPITALIST CRISIS: THE NEW DEAL EXPERIENCE * THE CRITIQUE OF RELIGION AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM * THE POLITICAL AESTHETICS OF REALISM * THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WORK * THE POLITICS OF FINANCE * THE POLITICS OF THE WILL * THE POLITICS OF VALUE * THE RIGHT: RACE, NATION, IDENTITY * THE TURN TO ETHICS AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM *
'TURBULENCE: IDEAS FOR MOVEMENT', NEW ISSUE LAUNCH * UNION STRUGGLES * UNOISM, ECOLOGY AND CRISIS * UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS AND SOCIALIST BIOPOLITICS * WEBLOGS AND THE OPPOSITIONAL PUBLIC SPHERE: A DISCUSSION
* WHAT IS ABSTRACTION? * WORKERS AND STRUGGLE TODAY * ZIONISM, ANTISEMITISM AND THE LEFT - A DEBATE
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Gilbert Achcar * Gregory Albo * Robert Albritton * Peter Alexander * Noaman Ali * Kevin B. Anderson * Ricardo Antunes * Caroline Arscott * Sam Ashman * John Ashworth * Ilker Atac * Jairus Banaji * Fletcher Baragar * Banu Bargu * Colin Barker * Tom Barnes * Luca Basso * Matthew Beaumont * Pinar Bedirhanoglu * John Bell * Aaron Benanav * Halil Berktay * Armin Beverungen * Robin Blackburn * Paul Blackledge * Max Blechman * Derek Boothman * Mark Bould * Bill Bowring * Ulrich Brand * Craig Brandist * Michael Brie * Wendy Brown * Dick Bryan * Adrian Budd * Verity Burgmann * Alex Callinicos * Mauro Farnesi Camellone * Bob Cannon * Thomas Carmichael * Warren Carter * Giorgio Cesarale * Maria Elisa Cevasco * Dae-op Chang * Vivek Chibber * Andrew Chitty * Christopher Chitty * Joseph Choonara * Sheila Cohen * Alex Colas * Tim Cooper * Stipe Curkovic * Steve Cushion * Gareth Dale * Neil Davidson * Gail Day * Tim Dayton * Kathryn Dean * Angela Dimitrakaki * Demet Dinler * Kevin Doogan * Elizabeth Dore * Nick Dyer- Witheford * Juliane Edler * Aram Eisenschitz * Hester Eisenstein * Fuat Ercan * Adam Fabry * Daniel Fairfax * Mariano Feliz * Ben Fine * Robert Fine * Mark Fisher * Peter Fleming * Gregory C. Flemming * Keith Flett * John Foran * Vassillis Fouskas * Carl Freedman * James Furner * Alexander Gallas * Andreia Galvao * Ferruccio Gambino * Earl Gammon * Mike Geddes * Lindsey German * Frantz Gheller * Lesley Gill * John Glenn * Jesse Goldstein * Maya Gonzalez * Jeff Goodwin * Jamie Gough * Nick Gray * Juan Grigera * Peter Hallward * Ayeesha Hameed * Carrie Hamilton * Bue Hansen * Jane Hardy * Chris Harman * Stefano Harney * Barnaby Harran * David Harvie * Owen Hatherley * Mike Haynes
* Lesley Henderson * Christoph Henning * Rob Heynen * Andy Higginbottom * Sarah Hines * John Holloway * John Holst * Patricia Howard * Peter Hudis * Liz Humphries * Robert Jackson * Dhruv Jain * Fredric Jameson * Elinor Jean * Seongjin Jeong * Bob Jessop * Bonn Juego * Anush Kapadia * Brian Kelly * Sami Khatib * Jeff Kinkle * Kelvin Knight * Meri Koivusalo * Ahmet Hasim Kose * Conor Kostick * Primoz Krasovec * Maria Kyriakidou * Xavier Lafrance * Mikko Lahtinen
* Alex Levant * Les Levidow * Iren Levina * William Lewis * Nicola Livingstone * Jean-Guy Loranger * Monica Clua Losada * David Mabb * Andreas Malm * Gonzo Poso Martin * Randy Martin * Jonathan Martineau * Meade McCloughan * David McNally * Angela McRobbie * Simon Mohun * Peter P. Mollinga * Kim Moody * Colin Mooers * Jason W. Moore * Adam Morton * Sara Motta * Tadzio Müller * Vlad Mykhnenko * Ozgur Narin * Jonathan Neale * Mike Newman * Susan Newman * Benjamin Noys * Blair Ogden * Ozlem Onaran * Deidre O'Neill * Ebru Deniz Ozan * Melda Ozturk
* Leo Panitch * Giorgos Papafragkou * David Parker * Jaime Pastor * Jody Patterson * Knox Peden * Alexei Penzin * Simon Pirani * Iain Pirie * Amedeo Policante * Nicolas Pons-Vignon * Charles Post * Moishe Postone * Nina Power * Gonzalo Pozo-Martin * Lucia Pradella * Toni Prug * Ozren Pupovac * Thomas Purcell * Hugo Radice * Ravi Raman * Akbar Rasulov * Gene Ray * John Rees * Tobias Reichardt * Paul Reynolds * Sébastien Rioux * John Roberts * Ed Rooksby * Ellen Rosen * Christina Rousseau * Sheila Rowbotham * Sally Ruane * Frank Ruda * Alfredo Saad-Filho * Spyros Sakellaropoulos * Birgit Sauer * Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt * Alan Sears * Thomas Sekine * Ben Selwyn * Greg Sharzer * Stuart Shields * Subir Sinha * Gary Slater * John Smith * Johan Soderberg * Clare Solomon * Panagiotis Sotiris * Dimitris Sotiropoulos * Susan Spronk * Kerstin Stakemeier * Julian Stallabrass
* Engelbert Stockhammer * Adam Swain * Erik Swyngedouw * Lotta Takala- Greenish * Daniel Tanuro * Jean Baptiste Thomas * Peter Thomas * Hillel Ticktin * John Timberlake * Bruno Tinel * Massimiliano Tomba * Jonathon Tomlinson * Alberto Toscano * Ben Trott * Julian Tudor-Hart * Emily van der Meulen * Marco Vanzulli * Leandro Vergara-Camus * Zaira Rodrigues Vieira * Dmitry Vilensky * Marina Vishmidt * Andriana Vlachou * Hilary Wainwright * Mike Wayne * Xiaoping Wei * Duncan Wigan
* Evan Calder Williams * Michael Wood * Phil Woodhouse * Galip Yalman
* Karel Yon * Christian Zeller * Alexander Zevin * Mislav Zitko *
International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics - News
Job Postings for Heterodox Economists
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Head of School and Professor of Economics
School of Economics
Kingston University - Arts & Social Sciences
An outstanding individual is sought to lead the School of Economics at Kingston University, London, into the next stage of its development. You will be expected to develop and facilitate the research performance of the School as well as build on existing strengths in undergraduate and postgraduate recruitment. You will have a world-class research profile in any aspect of Economics as well as an ability to foster the work of others. You will have a track record of managerial experience and be able to work collegiately with staff at all levels. This is an excellent opportunity for an individual committed to creating pedagogical and research excellence in London in the context of a vibrant and progressive Faculty.
Post open until filled: review of applications begins 30th November 2009. For informal discussions contact the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences: Professor Martin McQuillan, Tel: 020 8417 2112
For further information and to apply online, please visit our website at kingston.ac.uk/jobs. Alternatively you can email recruitment@kingston.ac.uk for an application pack, or if you do not have access to the internet, please call the recruitment line on 020 8417 3153, quoting reference 09/329.
The School's declared research tracks include "political economy", so in principle a candidate with strengths in this area ought to be in the running if they meet the other criteria.
Trinity College
Department of Economics
G -- Financial Economics
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor
The Department of Economics invites applications for a tenure track position in financial economics at the assistant, associate or full professor level beginning September 2010. The position requires a Ph.D. or degree completed by August 2010. Applicants should be committed to excellence in undergraduate teaching and scholarly research in a liberal arts college. Teaching duties include financial economics, core economics courses, and other courses in the candidate's field(s) of specialization. The teaching load is five courses per year, with a one-semester leave every fourth year. In a cover letter applicants should carefully discuss areas of research and teaching interest. Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, writing sample(s), graduate transcript, and at least three letters of recommendation. Priority will be given to completed applications received by November 1, 2009. Trinity College is an equal opportunity /affirmative action employer. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. CONTACT: Carol Clark, Co-Chair, Department of Economics, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106 (carol.clark@trincoll.edu).
Position at the University of Michigan
The Center for Afroamerican & African Studies (CAAS) at the University of Michigan seeks to hire a tenure-track junior faculty member specializing in environmental and resource issues in sub-Saharan Africa. The preferred focus would be on sustainable development and Asia-Africa relations. We encourage applications from social science disciplines including economics. The successful candidate will be expected to develop an interdisciplinary research agenda with three members of a cluster hire. Information on the hiring initiative is located at .
This position is 100% within CAAS, with possible ?dry appointments?
elsewhere. Candidates are expected to teach four grad and/or undergrad courses per year, including core and new courses. Send applications including a cover letter, CV and three references to: Chair, EISD Search Committee, Center for Afroamerican & African Studies, University of Michigan, 4700 Haven Hall, 505 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI. 48109. Letters should address your qualifications and interest in the research cluster. Application reviews will begin November 1, 2009. Candidates will be interviewed at the ASSA meetings in Atlanta in January, 2010. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. The University of Michigan is supportive of the needs of dual career couples and is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.
Drew University, a highly selective liberal arts college located 30 miles outside New York City, invites applications for a tenure-track assistant or associate professor in Macroeconomics beginning September 2010, pending budget approval. PhD. required at time of appointment.
Courses will include: intermediate macroeconomic theory, a macroeconomic policy course, and an additional course in the area of specialization.
Because the occupant of this position will be responsible for co-directing Drew's Wall Street Semester and will also have a role in the new Business Studies Major, familiarity with financial institutions and experience in program administration is preferred. Candidates with an interest in History of Economic Thought are particularly encouraged to apply. Applicants should submit a letter of application, curriculum vitae, three letters of reference, a statement of teaching philosophy, evidence of teaching effectiveness, and a job paper or published article. Application deadline: December 1, 2009. In order to enrich education through diversity, Drew University is an AA/EO employer.
Applications may not be submitted electronically. Send completed applications to:
Prof. Marc Tomljanovich, Chair
Economics Search Committee
Drew University
36 Madison Ave.
Madison, NJ 07940
University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA
Q5 – Environmental Economics
R0 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
I2 – Economics of Education
F22- Economics of Immigration
The Department of Economics invites applications for two anticipated tenure track openings at the Assistant Professor level, beginning Fall 2010 (subject to budgetary approval). One position is in environmental economics; the other is in urban/regional development, preferably related to human resource development, such as in education or immigration. A successful applicant will have teaching and applied research records in these areas. We are interested in candidates who include heterodox political economy, feminist approaches, applied policy analysis, or innovative methodologies in their research. An interest in international comparisons of environmental or urban/regional issues would also be valued.
Candidates should have a successful teaching record and the capacity to contribute to undergraduate general education, the economics major and, possibly, graduate instruction. Evidence of successful teaching with diverse students is highly desirable.
Candidates must have completed the Ph.D. by September 1, 2010. Evidence of progress towards an excellent scholarly record is necessary.
Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2009, and continue until the position is filled. We anticipate preliminary interviews at the ASSA meetings in Atlanta.
Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, a sample of written work, and three current letters of recommendation. Please include in your letter of application an explanation of how your work would complement the heterodox nature of the department. UMass Boston is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Title IX employer.
CONTACT: Personnel Committee, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125-3393.
Visiting Instructor/Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
Institution: Franklin & Marshall College
Location: Lancaster, PA
Category:
* Faculty - Liberal Arts - Economics
Posted: 10/16/2009
Application Due: 12/11/2009
Type: Full Time
The Department of Economics at Franklin & Marshall College invites applications for a three-year position at the Visiting Instructor or Visiting Assistant Professor level, beginning Fall 2010 and pending administrative approval. Teaching experience is required. Teaching load is 3/2 and may include participation in the College's general education program. The teaching responsibilities will include teaching Introduction to Economic Principles and/or the Introduction to Economic Perspectives, statistics, and an elective course chosen in consultation with the Department. We especially welcome applicants who can offer a data rich course on the US economy and the global economy, covering a broad range of areas. We strongly recommend visiting our web site at for more information about our department. Salary and benefits are competitive and commensurate with qualifications.
Candidates should send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, graduate transcript, three letters of recommendation, a teaching statement, a research statement, and teaching evaluations to Tami Lantz, Department Coordinator, Department of Economics, Franklin & Marshall College, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, PA 17604. Applications may be submitted electronically by email to tami.lantz@fandm.edu. Please reference three-year visitor position in your letter of application.
Franklin & Marshall College is a highly selective liberal arts college with a demonstrated commitment to cultural pluralism. EOE
Application information:
Postal Address: Tami Lantz, Department Coordinator
Economics Department
Franklin & Marshall College
P.O. Box 3003
Lancaster, PA 17604-3003
Phone: (717)-291-3916
Fax: (717)-291-4369
Online App. Form:
Email Address: tami.lantz@fandm.edu
Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles
WHAT IS GOOD FOR GOLDMAN SACHS IS GOOD FOR AMERICA
THE ORIGINS OF THE CURRENT CRISIS
Robert Brenner
People may be interested in an article I just finished, which presents a simple economic model with some insights into the 2008-9 crisis. It's based on a 1940 model by Nicholas Kaldor and describes a steep recession ("falling off a cliff," in Warren Buffett's phrase) as a jump between equilibria. Following Hyman Minsky and Michal Kalecki, I suggest that under capitalism, such a fall off the cliff is more likely to the extent that we see sustained prosperity (as with the so-called "Great Moderation" of 1985-2006). Once the economy falls off the cliff, it's very difficult to climb back up the cliff without government stimulus. A PDF version of the article can be found at:
.
Any and all comments are welcome.
cheers,
Jim Devine, a.k.a. James G. Devine | Professor of Economics Loyola Marymount University | Los Angeles, CA 90045 jdevine at lmu.edu | 310 338-2948
The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #39, “The 2009 Uprising in Iran: The Need to Dispel Prevailing Misconceptions.” The author, Elaheh Rostami-Povey, a member of the London Middle East Institute and the Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS, argues that the reality of the struggle and the nature of the opposing sides in Iran are more complex than commonly portrayed in the Western press, political circles and academia. The struggle there can certainly not be painted, she asserts, as a contest between two polar opposites, such as ‘the modern versus the traditional’ or ‘the West versus Islam’. The mass democracy movement tends to support, for example, an Islamic state, Iran’s nuclear programme and the country’s growing influence in the region, and is staunchly opposed to any imperial domination or external meddling in the country’s affairs.
Click here to download:
"The Persistent Fall in Profitability Underlying the Current Crisis: New Temporalist Evidence" by Andrew Kliman
"Green shoots, profits, and great depressions (or recessions)", commenting on the views of different economists on the present crisis.
It is neither very long nor very academic, but I hope it can be stimulating. Comments are welcome.
José A. Tapia Granados, MBBCh, MPH, Ph.D.(Econ) Assistant Research Scientist, The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.
Symposium: The ‘British School’ of International Political Economy Selected articles now FREE online access
The symposium on the so-called 'British school' of international political economy builds on the debate that has recently emerged around Benjamin J. Cohen's International Political Economy: An Intellectual History. In tandem with the special issue from Review of International Political Economy (tandf.co.uk/journals/RRIP), which reflected at length on the 'American school' of IPE, this issue seeks to bring together a collection of essays by some of the leading figures in the field. The symposium aims to debate what might be meant by a 'British school of IPE', to reflect on its present condition and think about its likely future directions. We think that the essays together constitute a lively, engaging and robust debate and have already attracted wide interest. To see the table of contents for the Symposium and to view the free access articles please see the following link: smpp/title~db=all~content=g915170775
Heterodox Journals and Newsletters
October 2009
1) The Geo-Political Context of Economics
2) Upcoming Events
3) Associate! October 2009
1) The Geo-Political Context of Economics
In a recent BBC interview, Alan Greenspan said that the roots of the financial crisis "are global and geo-political": such a statement suggests that this aspect of modern economic life is ready for more open discussion than before. While it is our view that economic questions can be most fruitfully considered in a depoliticised context, the current issue of Associate! nevertheless alludes to discussions currently being had as to the background of recent events.
The material chosen is illuminated by the lead piece, 'The Case of Goldman Sachs', by D'Arcy Mackenzie, who argues that the problem is humanity's refusal to write off excess capital, suggesting that the behaviour of organisations such as Goldman Sachs is as much opportunistic symptom as anything else. 'Shadow Banking' is this month's Sign of our Time, in which Norman Gall corroborates the information to which Matt Taibbi reacts so forcefully in his stinging critique of Goldman Sachs, 'The Bubble Machine'. This latter is reprinted more for the evidence it provides than for the sentiment it expresses, understandable though that is. The Archive, 'Permanent Jubilee', focuses on Rudolf Steiner's idea of 'gift money', considered as a modern version of such things as jubilee, the building of cathedrals, and so on. From this perspective, such 'negatives' as shadow banking and Goldman Sachs's behaviour can look very different in that they occur in a context because there is no concept of debt remission. Some important historical backgrounding to what amounts to macro-economic balancing is then provided by the AE Hero, Michael Hudson's piece on debt cancellation. Accounting Corner completes the issue with a reflection on 'bad' debts.
The October issue of Associate! is available here.
2) Upcoming Events
Air Beneath Your Wings! / Finance and Education / The Colours of Money
Air Beneath Your Wings!
USA: 30-31 Oct 09
Financial Literacy for Free Initiative: A practical response to the global financial crisis
The Threefold Educational Centre - Spring Valley NY, USA
See here for details
An evening presentation and all-day workshop with Arthur Edwards of The Centre for Associative Economics. This double event focuses on how Rudolf Steiner's economic thinking can be given practical effect today. A special emphasis is on whether and how economics, as financial literacy, is taught in schools. Educational initiatives arising today will have profound consequences for tomorrow's thinking if, in both the form and content of their economics, they can embody an approach that is coherent from idea to practice. In the cultural life of one generation the economic life of the next is born. Nothing less than a new economic paradigm is now needed.
Finance and Education
UK: Oct-Dec 09
A short but comprehensive course concerning finance and education, with particular reference to the Waldorf movement and Rudolf Steiner's insights in this regard.
See here for details.
25 October | Spiritual Sovereignty
15 November | Financial Literacy
13 December | Public Benefit
The Colours of Money Seminar
UK: 5-7 February 2010
In the Bristol area, see here for details
3) Associate! October 2009 - Too Much Capital
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Click image to subscribe
Lead: The Case of Goldman Sachs - An associative economic perspective D'Arcy Mackenzie
A Sign of Our Time: Shadow Banking Norman Gall
Feature: The Bubble Machine - A Critique of Goldman Sachs. Matt Taibbi
Archive: Permanent Jubilee Rudolf Steiner
Glossary: D for Debt
AE Hero: Debt Cancellation, a Lost Tradition. Michael Hudson.
Accounting Corner: 'Bad' Debts. Stephen Torr
Click here to subscribe
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 fae-bulletin/09Oct/
Historical Materialism
Research in Critical Marxist Theory
Volume 17 Issue 3
2009
CONTENTS
Articles
Massimo de Angelis and David Harvie
‘Cognitive Capitalism’ and the Rat-Race: How Capital Measures Immaterial Labour in British Universities
Iain Pirie
The Political Economy of Academic Publishing
Maria Turchetto
Althusser and Monod: A ‘New Alliance’?
Reflections on ‘Gewalt’ (contd.)
Vittorio Morfino
The Syntax of Violence. Between Hegel and Marx
Archive
David Fernbach
Editorial Introduction to Paul Levi’s Our Path: Against Putschism and What Is the Crime: The March Action or Criticising It?
Paul Levi
Our Path: Against Putschism
Paul Levi
What Is the Crime: The March Action or Criticising It?
Interventions
Alberto Toscano
Partisan Thought
Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho
Twixt Ricardo and Rubin: Debating Kincaid Once More
Jim Kincaid
The Logical Construction of Value Theory: More on Fine and Saad-Filho
Review Articles
Christian Høgsbjerg
on Frank Rosengarten’s Urbane Revolutionary: C.L.R. James and the Struggle for a New Society and Brett St Louis’s Rethinking Race, Politics, and Poetics: C.L.R. James’ Critique of Modernity
Robert T. Tally Jr
on Loren Goldner’s Herman Melville: Between Charlemagne and the Antemosaic Cosmic Man: Race, Class, and the Crisis of Bourgeois Ideology in the American Renaissance Writer
Seongjin Jeong
on Iain Pirie’s The Korean Developmental State: From Dirigisme to Neo-Liberalism
Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism Peter Thomas Catharsis
Volume 32 Number 1 / Fall 2009 of Journal of Post Keynesian Economics is now available on the mesharpe. web site at .
This issue contains:
|Keynesian macroeconomics as the rejection of classical axioms | p. 3 |
|Steven M. Fazzari |
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|Davidson on Keynes: the open economy dimension | p. 19 |
|Robert A. Blecker |
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|Keynes and the real world: Davidson, money, and uncertainty | p. 43 |
|Virginie Monvoisin, Louis-Philipe Rochon |
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|Central themes of Paul Davidson's John Maynard Keynes | p. 59 |
|Robert W. Dimand |
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|Reply to contributors to the discussion of the central themes of John Maynard Keynes | p. 73 |
|Paul Davidson |
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|Paradoxes in Lucas's 1988 model with variable returns | p. 83 |
|Giulio Guarini |
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|Money supply endogeneity under a currency board regime: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina | p. 97 |
|Shirley J. Gedeon |
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|Thirlwall's law and the long-term equilibrium growth rate: an application to Brazil | p. 115 |
|Gustavo Britto, John S. L. McCombie |
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|Mainstream economics: searching where the light is | p. 137 |
|Rogier De Langhe |
|Having trouble viewing this email? |
|View it in your browser. |
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|Welcome to to the eInsight Economics Update. Our key experts summarise some of the most interesting developments and economic indicators below, providing |
|you with useful and timely reflections on the economy as it continues to evolve and respond to circumstances. We hope you find it interesting and welcome |
|your comments. |
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|Trade Deficit Falling |
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|Over the course of the recession the UK has seen its balance of trade deficit fall - that is, the gap between what the UK imports and what it exports has |
|been declining. This is directly linked to the recession through a number of mechanisms. |
| |
|Firstly, the fall in the value of sterling has made foreign goods sold in the UK more expensive from the perspective of UK consumers. As such individuals |
|have shifted their consumption towards UK-produced goods and services. |
| |
|Read more... |
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|LIBOR and Base Rate |
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|At the peak of the financial crisis, the divergence of LIBOR and Base Rate was cited as a major symptom of the freezing up of credit. |
| |
|In November 2008 the gap between LIBOR and Base Rate peaked at 2.5 per cent. Since then it has been declining and now stands at 0.08 per cent - some way |
|below the historic average. So, if the gap between LIBOR and Base Rate is an indicator of the health of the financial system, why do credit conditions |
|remain so tight? |
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|Read more... |
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|Mortgage Interest Rates |
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|Whilst the Base Rate remains at an all-time low of 0.5 per cent, average mortgage interest rates continue to be stubbornly high. The gap that has opened up |
|between average tracker and SVR rates over Base Rate - at around 3.4 per cent - is an historic high. Fixed rates have also spiked in recent months, with an |
|average fixed rate now at 5.7 per cent. This is a truly exceptional margin over Base Rate. |
| |
|The previous section discussed one of the reasons that rates are so high - there is simply not the available capital in the system with which to lend. Banks|
|are under-capitalised and face a major task in rebuilding their balance sheets. |
| |
|Read more... |
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|Public Sector Debt |
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|The Government's Sustainable Investment Rule aimed to hold public sector debt (the total amount owed by the government to the private sector) at around 40 |
|per cent, over the course of the economic cycle. The latest data shows debt to actually be 57 per cent of GDP and growing. Forecasts from the 2009 Budget |
|show the debt level increasing to 80 per cent by 2014. |
| |
|The UK debt level has grown due to the nationalisations of several major banks, in the process staving off the worst of the financial crisis. More recently,|
|the Bank of England's programme of quantitative easing has been buying up vast quantities of government debt. This is effectively monetising public sector |
|debt, converting it directly into new money that is immediately available for spending - not too far off from printing money to fund spending. |
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|Read more... |
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ECONOMIA DELLE FONTI DI ENERGIA E DELL’AMBIENTE
Journal of environmental economics and policy
Special Issue on Heterodox environmental economics
The Special Issue hosts papers of the Nobel Prize Elinor Ostrom and of Xavier Basurto, Damien Bazin, René Kemp, Jouni Paavola, Arild Vatn, and Gerardo Marletto.
Review of Political Economy: Volume 21 Issue 4 () is now available online at informaworld ().
This new issue contains the following articles:
Original Articles
Retirement Policies and the Life Cycle: Current Trends and Future Prospects, Pages 515 - 536
Author: William A. Jackson
DOI: 10.1080/09538250903215823
Link:
The Tragedy of the Commons: Institutions and Fisheries Management at the Local and EU Levels, Pages 537 - 547
Author: Rouba Al-Fattal
DOI: 10.1080/09538250903214834
Link:
Method, Structure and Argument in Edith Penrose's Theory of Growth, Pages 549 - 566
Author: Carol M. Connell
DOI: 10.1080/09538250903214842
Link:
The Impact of Unions on Labor's Share of Income: A Time-Series Analysis, Pages 567 - 588
Author: Rudy Fichtenbaum
DOI: 10.1080/09538250903214859
Link:
RICARDO: Standard Commodity : : MARX: ?, Pages 589 - 619
Author: Bruce B. Roberts
DOI: 10.1080/09538250903214875
Link:
Heterodox Books and Book Series
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MACROECONOMICS: CONSUMPTION, INVESTMENT, AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Edited by Jonathan M. Harris and Neva R. Goodwin (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)
The authors and editors of this volume challenge traditional assumptions about economic growth, and develop the elements of a reoriented macroeconomics that takes account both of environmental impacts and of social equity. Policies including carbon trading, revenue recycling, and reorientation of private and social investment are analyzed, providing insight into new paths for economic development with flat or negative carbon emissions. These issues will be crucial to macroeconomic and development policies in the twenty-first century.
Now available at 35% discount -- for more information and to order:
For this volume and other new climate change work from GDAE go to:
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|AVAILABLE NOW |
|order online |
|or call 800.670.9499 |
| |
|$11.95 paperback |
|144 pp. |
| |
|* PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY * |
| |
|NEW FROM MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS |
| |
|The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: |
|What Working People Need to Know |
| |
|by Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates |
|The economic crisis has created a host of problems for working people: collapsing wages, lost jobs, ruined pensions, and the anxiety that comes |
|with not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Compounding all this is a lack of reliable information that speaks to the realities of workers. |
|Commentators and pundits seem more confused than anyone, and economists—the so-called “experts”—still cling to bankrupt ideologies that failed to|
|predict the crisis and offer nothing to explain it. |
|In this short, clear, and concise book, Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates explain the nature of the economic crisis. Contrary to conventional |
|wisdom, the authors demonstrate that this crisis is not some aberration from a normally benign capitalism but rather the normal and even expected|
|outcome of a thoroughly irrational and destructive system. No amount of tinkering with capitalism, whether it be discredited neoliberalism or the|
|return of Keynesianism and a “new” New Deal, can overcome the core contradiction of the system: the daily exploitation and degradation of the |
|majority of the world’s people by a tiny minority of business owners. |
|While the current economic maelstrom has laid bare the web of greed, corruption, and propaganda that are central to capitalism, only an aroused |
|public, demanding the right to health care, decent employment, a secure old age, and a clean and healthy environment, can lead the United States |
|and the world out of the worst crisis since the Great Depression and toward a system of production and distribution conducive to human happiness.|
|This book is aimed primarily at working people, students, and activists, who want not just to understand the world but to change it. |
|Fred Magdoff taught at the University of Vermont in Burlington, is a director of the Monthly Review Foundation, and has written on political |
|economy for many years. He is most recently the author (with John Bellamy Foster) of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (Monthly|
|Review Press). |
|Michael D. Yates is associate editor of Monthly Review and editorial director of Monthly Review Press. He is the author of Why Unions Matter |
|(Second Edition), and Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate (both Monthly Review Press). |
|"Rich, powerful, highly-educated people created the economic crisis of 2008-09, while hundreds of millions of working people suffer the |
|consequences--lost homes, lost jobs, rising insecurity, and falling living standards. How could this happen? In The ABCs of the Economic Crisis, |
|Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates tell the story clearly, simply, and briefly. Here's one way to become part of the solution: think hard about |
|everything Magdoff and Yates write in this book."--Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute |
|(PERI), University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
|"Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates have written a sorely needed and extremely clear guide to the economic crisis. They pull back the curtains to |
|reveal the role and power of the Wall Street financial interests and the economic policies that brought us to this point. The book is both a |
|quick read and a clear, easy-to-understand explanation of the economic system and how it has been rigged to benefit corporate and financial |
|interests at the expense of working people. The glossary alone is worth the price of the book but the chapter detailing the role and influence of|
|Wall Street in the U.S. government is invaluable."--Carol Lambiase, UE Education Director and International Representative |
|"Clear and well written! The ABCs of the Economic Crisis also includes the XYZs. Magdoff and Yates's systemic analysis of the crisis shows both |
|how and why the crisis occurred, while pointing to the kind of actions required to prevent a repetition."--Michael Perelman, Professor of |
|Economics, California State University, Chico |
|"Despite the severity of the current economic crisis, few people have been able to explain what has happened--not just the technical details of |
|the housing market, but the larger economic trends that impact wages, employment, and equality. Yates and Magdoff provide a sharp analysis of how|
|we got to this moment and how most of the proposed solutions will do little to change the deeper underlying problems most people have been facing|
|not just in the last year, but in the last several decades. Clear, accessible, and timely, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone |
|trying to understand our economy."--Stephanie Luce, Associate Professor, Labor Center of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
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|UPCOMING EVENTS |
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|10/3 Revolutionary Hip Hop in New York City |
|Our friends at the Venezuelan Consulate in NYC are sponsoring a concert featuring Dame Pa Matala of Venezuela and Rebel Diaz on Saturday, Oct |
|3rd, at the Marian Anderson Theater, Aaron Davis Hall, City College of NY, 150 Convent Ave, NY NY. The concert is free and begins at 7 PM; doors |
|at 6 PM. For more info call 212.281.9240 |
| |
|Steve Early's Ongoing Book Tour |
|The author of Embedded With Organized Labor has been touring the U.S. and speaking to audiences about workers and the economic crisis, the fight |
|for health care reform, the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act, current struggles for union democracy and rank-and-file control, the changing |
|face of the AFL-CIO, and recent developments within Change to Win. Keep an eye on his schedule for frequent updates and additions, and check out |
|the September/October issue of Left Turn magazine for a great interview with Early! |
| |
|10/9 and 10/24 Fred Magdoff Speaks on the World Food Crisis and Capitalism |
|At 1:30 PM on 10/9, Magdoff will deliver the keynote address to the Food, Energy, Environment Conference on the topic Multiple Crises as Symptoms|
|of an Unsustainable System. Location: Casadesus Recital Hall, Fine Arts Bldg, SUNY Binghamton, NY. The conference is sponsored by The Fernand |
|Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at Binghamton University. More information on the conference. |
| |
|At 2:30 PM on 10/24, Magdoff will speak on Capitalism and the Global Food Crisis at the Northeast Socialist Regional Conference at Columbia |
|University, New York City. The conference is sponsored by the International Socialist Organization. |
| |
|10/29 John Bellamy Foster Lecture in Vermont |
|The editor of Monthly Review and author most recently of The Ecological Revolution will speak on "The Roots of the World Ecological Crisis" at |
|the University of Vermont, in the Davis Student Center's Livak Ballroom, from 7 PM to 9 PM. This lecture is free and open to the public. |
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Work after Globalization
Building Occupational Citizenship
Edward Elgar Publishing Lt., London, 2009.
Guy Standing
Professor of Economic Security
University of Bath, UK
And Professor of Labour Economics
Monash University, Australia
“This is an important book. It shifts emphasis from the role of capital to the creativity of labour in the creation of value in the real economy. A central role is accorded to each and all of the skills and occupations which contribute to the construction of an economy and a civic culture governed by the public interest. Guy Standing has made an original contribution to the validation of human creativity in the economic process. The work owes an acknowledged debt to the vision of Karl Polanyi.� Kari Polanyi Levitt, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation marked the rise of industrial citizenship, which hinged on fictitious labour decommodification. Since the 1970s, this has collapsed and a Global Transformation is under way, in which inequalities and insecurities are becoming unsustainable. Guy Standing explains that while a struggle against paternalism is essential, the desirable egalitarian response to the problems caused by globalization is a strategy to build occupational citizenship. This is based on a right to universal economic security and institutions to enable everybody to develop their capabilities and work whilst respecting the ecological imperatives of the 21st century. The book also explores a phasing out of labour law and re-orientation of collective bargaining towards collaborative bargaining, highlighting the increased importance of the relationship between groups of workers and citizens as well as between workers and capital.
After the Crash: Designing a Depression-Free Economy
Selected works of MASON GAFFNEY
Edited and with an Introduction By
CLIFFORD W. COBB
Chapter 1: The Role of Land Markets in Economic Crises
Part 1: Boom and Bust in Real Estate
Part 2: Factors Affecting Land Use (Intensity, Timing, Location)
Part 3: Avoiding The Real Estate Cycle
Part 4: Conclusion
Chapter 2 A New Framework for Macroeconomics: Achieving Full Employment by Increasing Capital Turnover
Part 1. Introduction
Part 2: Why We Need a New Form of Macroeconomics
Part 3: Combining Land, Labor, and Capital for Macroeconomic Health
Part 5: Conclusion
Chapter 3: Money, Credit and Crisis
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Liquidity and the Real Economy
Part 3: Sources of Equilibrium and Liquidity
Part 4: How Banks Are Seduced Into Illiquidity
Part 5: Lessons from the 1920s and 1930s
Part 6: Conclusion
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Chapter 1: The Role of Land Markets in Economic Crises
Summary: It is widely recognized that the economic crisis of 2009 was caused by unsound lending for real estate. Largely ignored, however, is that this contraction was easily predicted on the basis of a well-established pattern of land speculation, premature subdivision, and excessive building on marginal land that recurs approximately once every eighteen years. Capital locked up in projects that are started during a land bubble is effectively lost during the downturn, leaving the nation without sufficient capital to finance ordinary business operations during the recovery period. The best instrument for avoiding this boom-bust cycle is the property tax, and more specifically, the portion that falls on land. We explore here the ways in which the property tax influences the intensity, timing, and location of development. We also examine why the frequency and accurate assessment are essential to make the property tax an effective method of preventing speculative real estate bubbles.
Part I: Boom and Bust in Real Estate
A. Hoyt’s Land Cycle Research
B. Elements of the Land Cycle
• ELEMENT 1: FROM PROSPERITY TO OVERPRICING OF LAND:
• ELEMENT 2: OVERPRICED LAND INDUCES SPRAWL
• ELEMENT 3: INFLATED LAND PRICES REDUCE PROFITABILITY OF PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENT:
• ELEMENT 4: LAND PRICE APPRECIATION INDUCES DESTRUCTION OF CAPITAL
• ELEMENT 5: OVERPRICED LAND MISGUIDES INVESTING.
• ELEMENT 6: LENDING FOR OVERPRICED LAND WEAKENS BANKS
• ELEMENT 7: SHIFTING INVESTMENTS TO LAND REDUCES REAL SAVING, WHICH LEADS TO COLLAPSE
• ELEMENT 8: LAND REMAINS OVERPRICED, EVEN AFTER ECONOMY COLLAPSES:
Part 2: Factors Affecting Land Use (Intensity, Timing, Location)
A. Intensity of Use
• Taxes on buildings
• Taxation of land value
B. Timing of Demolition and Renewal
• Short-run effects
• Long-run effects
C. Choice of Location
D. Ripening of Land for Higher Use
Part 3: Avoiding The Real Estate Cycle
A. Property Tax Slows Speculation
1. Land taxes
2. Building taxes
B. The Importance of Assessment
1. Accuracy of assessment
2. Frequency of assessment
Part 4: Conclusion
Chapter 2 A New Framework for Macroeconomics: Achieving Full Employment by Increasing Capital Turnover
Summary: All forms of macroeconomics today, whether Keynesian or monetarist, presuppose that problems of economic instability can be treated as errors in financial management. Neither fiscal nor monetary policy recognizes the existence of systemic faults in the real economy that result in overinvestment in durable capital that turns over slowly, in contrast to forms of capital that interact more frequently with land and labor. Only by removing serious distortions in microeconomic relations can macroeconomic problems be resolved. The current global economic crisis exemplifies the limitations of policies that ignore distortions in the rate of turnover of investment capital.
Part 1. Introduction
A. Paradox: Idle Labor, Shortages of Capital and Land
B. Recent History of the Failure of Macroeconomics
Part 2: Why We Need a New Form of Macroeconomics
A. The Origins of Macroeconomics
B. The Half Truths of Macroeconomics
1. Half-truth #1: Adding capital to increase labor productivity raises wages.
2. Half-truth #2: Capital always complements labor
3. Half-truth #3: A fixed amount of capital is required for each job to be created
C. Basic Principle of a New Macroeconomics: Increasing the “Valence” of Capital
D. Environmental Benefits of a New Macroeconomics
E. Austrian-Georgist Roots of New Macroeconomics
Part 3: Combining Land, Labor, and Capital for Macroeconomic Health
A. Factor Mix and Factor Prices
1. Historical observations about land “engrossment”
2. Tax biases affecting land and capital combinations
3. Counterproductive expansionism
4. Varying intensities of land use: tax biases and employment effects
5. Concentrated land ownership and diminishing labor intensity
6. Expansionism: civilian and military
7. Longevity of capital and the displacement of labor
8. Growing and flowing capital, including a Field Guide to Capital Intensity
9. Activating capital by encouraging faster turnover
B. How Taxes Induce Land and Capital to Displace Labor
1. Property tax treatment of land
2. Property tax treatment of capital
3. Income tax treatment of capital
4. Inflation as a tax
5. Corporate income tax
C. Capital Investment and Capital Turnover
D. The Microeconomic Basis for a Correct Macroeconomics
1. Historic recognition of capital turnover: Smith, Mill, Wicksell
2. A homely example of business turnover
3. The Great Revolving Fund
4. Capital replacement as the true source of national income
Part 5: Conclusion
A. Directing Capital to Enhance Employment
B. Faster Recovery of Capital
C. Monuments and Frontiers as Capital Sinks
D. The Role of Taxes
Chapter 3: Money, Credit and Crisis
Summary: The financial crisis of 2008-2009 has antecedents in earlier crises, including the Great Depression. In order to understand how the current crisis arose, we must review the most fundamental principles of banking. Doing that, we find that the main service performed by banks is the creation of liquidity, a collective good that can be destroyed by the behavior of individual financial institutions. The key element in creating liquidity is the monetization of various types of collateral. When collateral takes the form of land or capital that turns over slowly, banks lose liquidity. That is why major banking crises have frequently been associated with real estate lending. The best way to restore health to the financial system is by restoring the principles of the “real bills” doctrine that requires loans to be self-liquidating.
Part 1: Introduction
A. The Trap of Conventional Wisdom
B. Misleading Keynesian Orthodoxy
Part 2: Liquidity and the Real Economy
A. The Amount of Money
B. How Liquidity Is Created
C. The Rationale for Interest
D. Cost Of Creating Liquidity
E. Technical Limits on Destabilizing Effects
Part 3: Sources of Equilibrium and Liquidity
A. Limit #1. Loss of public confidence
B. Limit #2. Federal Reserve Board controls
1. Reserve requirements
2. Federal Reserve Bank lending to member banks
3. Qualitative controls on bank lending
A. “REAL BILLS” REJECTS THE DOGMA OF MARKET PERFECTION.
B. THE CHICAGO SCHOOL REJECTS QUALITATIVE REGULATION.
C. THE UNCONVENTIONAL IDEA THAT REAL ESTATE MATTERS.
C. Limit #3: The market
1. "Creditworthiness" of borrowers
2. Major kinds of loan collateral; basis of valuation.
3. Bank capital or net worth
D. Limit #4: The limited liquidity of M2
Part 4: How Banks Are Seduced Into Illiquidity
A. Short-term gains
B. Periodic Land Booms
1. The Difference Between Land and Capital
2. Interest Rates and Asset Values
3. The Role of Banks in Fueling Booms
4. How Capital is Destroyed During a Speculative Boom
Part 5: Lessons from the 1920s and 1930s
A. Nation-wide Perspectives
B. Florida and New York City in the 1920s
C. Real Estate Speculation and Detroit Bank Failure of 1933
Part 6: Conclusion
Socialist Register 2010 - Morbid Symptoms: Health under capitalism
I am writing to tell you that the new Socialist Register website is now fully up and running, featuring SR 2010 on Morbid Symptoms: Health under capitalism alongside our amazing archive of all 700+ essays we've published since 1964. We're sure you will want to check it out at .
This is first year the Register is being published simultaneously online and in print and it is the first time that all the essays ever published in the Register are available in one electronic archive. We are sure you agree this is a big deal, and given how much the world needs the Socialist Register that you will want to do all you can to make it successful. I would very much hope that you will personally subscribe now (from the home page go to the Subscriptions tab and click on the Merlin order link at the bottom - at £25 it's value for money.
I also would appreciate your concerted help to make effective a major subscriptions campaign we are undertaking. At the very least, could you immediately contact the appropriate people at your library and ask them to take out an institutional subscription to the Register. Many of these librarians will be getting a version of the attached flyer, but we know that librarians are only likely to act on this when requests are made from faculty and other users. I would really appreciate hearing from you as to your librarian's response.
Book Series in Economics
Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics
The Coming of Age of Information Technologies and the Path of Transformational Growth
A long run perspective on the late 2000s recession
By Davide Gualerzi
In this book, Davide Gualerzi employs the concept of transformational growth to explore the investment-driven cycle of expansion of the 1990s in the US economy,…
read more
September 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-48268-4 (Routledge)
more information about The Coming of Age of Information Technologies and the Path of Transformational Growth
Cultural Economics and Theory
The evolutionary economics of David Hamilton
Edited by David Hamilton, Glen Atkinson, William M. Dugger, William T. Waller Jr.
David Hamilton is a leader in the American institutionalist school of heterodox economics that emerged after WWII. This volume includes 25 articles written by Hamilton…
read more
September 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-49091-7 (Routledge)
more information about Cultural Economics and Theory
The Foundations of Non-Equilibrium Economics
The principle of circular and cumulative causation
Edited by Sebastian Berger
This thought-provoking volume presents essays on the foundations of non-equilibrium economics, i.e. the principle of circular cumulative causation (CCC). This work presents empirical research on…
read more
July 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77780-3 (Routledge)
more information about The Foundations of Non-Equilibrium Economics
Informal Work in Developed Nations
Edited by Enrico Marcelli, Colin C. Williams, Pascale Joassart
Almost everyone residing in a developed nation knows someone who has engaged in paid work that is licit but not reported to the government (e.g.,…
read more
July 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77779-7 (Routledge)
more information about Informal Work in Developed Nations
The Handbook of Pluralist Economics Education
Edited by Jack Reardon
This book provides a blueprint for those interested in teaching from a pluralist perspective, regardless of ideology. It provides educators, policy makers and students with…
read more
July 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77762-9 (Routledge)
more information about The Handbook of Pluralist Economics Education
The Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution
A Critical History
By John Pullen
The Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution (MPTD) claims that in a free-market economy the demand for a factor of production will depend upon its marginal…
read more
June 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-48712-2 (Routledge)
more information about The Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution
Heterodox Macroeconomics
Keynes, Marx and globalization
Edited by Jonathan P. Goldstein, Michael G. Hillard
Heterodox Macroeconomics offers a detailed understanding of the foundations of the recent global financial crisis. The chapters, from a selection of leading academics in the…
read more
May 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77808-4 (Routledge)
more information about Heterodox Macroeconomics
A History of Heterodox Economics
Challenging the mainstream in the twentieth century
By Frederic Lee
Economics is a contested academic discipline between neoclassical economics and a collection of alternative approaches, such as Marxism-radical economics, Institutional economics, Post Keynesian economics, and…
read more
March 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77714-8 (Routledge)
more information about A History of Heterodox Economics
Radical Economics and Labour
Essays inspired by the IWW Centennial
Edited by Frederic Lee, Jon Bekken
To celebrate the centenary of the most radical union in North America - The Industrial Workers of the World - this collection examines radical economics…
read more
January 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77723-0 (Routledge)
more information about Radical Economics and Labour
Currencies, Capital Flows and Crises
A post Keynesian analysis of exchange rate determination
By John T. Harvey
Breaking from conventional wisdom, this book provides an explanation of exchange rates based on the premise that it is financial capital flows and not international…
read more
2008 | Hardback: 978-0-415-77763-6 (Routledge)
more information about Currencies
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Ontology and Economics
Tony Lawson and His Critics
Edited by Edward Fullbrook
This original book brings together some of the world's leading critics of economics orthodoxy to debate Lawson's contribution to the economics literature. The debate centres…
read more
2008
The World Bank and the post-Washington Consensus in Vietnam and Indonesia: Inheritance of Loss By Susan Engel (Routledge, Publication Date: 11th August 2009)
This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite being the largest development organisation and the largest development research body in the world with tremendous direct and indirect influence on developing economies, has rarely received the critical attention its importance merits. The book’s unique contribution is twofold: it provides an original analysis of the interaction between economic theory, political practice and the Bank’s development praxis as well as two detailed, grounded studies of the Bank’s lending practices.
The book starts with a detailed examination of the development theory and practice of the World Bank from its Keynesian origins to the current shift through the Washington Consensus to the so-called post-Washington Consensus. The second part is a detailed analysis of the Bank’s lending practices in two countries, Vietnam and Indonesia. The case studies extensively utilise World Bank sources —analysing the Project Appraisal Documents for some 113 loans. They also draw on the secondary literature and on interviews with World Bank staff, government officials, academics and NGOs in both countries. The case studies enable the development of empirically-based conclusions regarding the impact of Bank policies on the economic and social development of two important Southeast Asian nations making possible an assessment of the extent to which the rhetoric of the post-Washington Consensus has been incorporated into the Bank’s lending practices.
The Political Economy of Monetary Circuits Tradition and Change in Post-Keynesian Economics, Edited by: Jean-François Ponsot , Sergio Rossi
This collection of essays in the tradition of monetary circuit theory, also known as
monetary theory of production, elaborates on the foundations of modern monetary
macroeconomics. It contributes to a new approach to monetary analysis, which
provides original insights into the complex fields of money, banking, and finance. The
contributors, all prominent experts in these fields, explain a number of economic
activities, such as production, consumption, investment, and fixed capital
accumulation, in terms of monetary circuits, providing a deeper understanding of the
working of contemporary economic systems. This book offers an original analysis of
the fundamental factors that led to the current global economic and financial
crisis. It will be of great interest to students, postgraduates and scholars in monetary
economics, as well as to practitioners and decision makers involved in monetary,
banking and financial policies.
Heterodox Book Reviews
Book Review in THE ECONOMIST of three books about Keynes:
Thursday, September 3, 2009 [20]
Akerlof & Shiller, Animal Spirits: A Misnomer for Their Sound Economics by Mario Nuti
Animal Spirits - How Human Psychology Drives The Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2009. It is a timely book, as it addresses the questions of why most economists failed to foresee the current global crisis, to provide explanations for its occurrence and to suggest effective remedies to counteract it. But above all it is a refreshingly original, formidable set of economic propositions, corrosive and at the same time constructive, with pointed and valuable policy implications.
Bob Solow’s book-cover endorsement - “… a sorely needed corrective” - is an understatement. The book should be highly recommended in the reading lists of all social sciences students in every year of their curriculum, and made compulsory reading for government officials, businessmen and anybody operating in credit and financial markets. If I could afford it I would do for the book what a US millionaire is reputed to have done for Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, advertising in the press to give away free copies to the general public.
Akerlof and Shiller claim that “Keynes appreciated that most economic activity results from rational economic motivations - but also that much economic activity is governed by animal spirits” (p. ix). They understand these as “individual feelings, impressions and passions” (p. 1), “a basic mental energy and life force” (p. 3) and “describe five different aspects of animal spirits … confidence, fairness, corruption and antisocial behaviour, money illusion, and stories” (p.5). Confidence changes interact with the state of the economy and amplify disturbances. Concerns about fairness affect the setting of prices and wages. Temptations of corrupt and antisocial behaviour have a significant role in the economy. The public is confused by inflation and deflation and suffers from money illusion. “Finally, our sense of reality, of who we are and what we are doing, is intertwined with the story of our lives and the lives of others. The aggregate of such stories is a national or international story, which itself plays an important role in the economy” (p.6). The book first describes how these five animal spirits affect economic decisions, then argues that they play a crucial role in answering eight crucial questions:
“1. Why do economies fall into depression? 2. Why do central bankers have power over the economy, insofar as they do? 3. Why are there people who can’t find a job? 4. Why is there a trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the long run? 5. Why is saving for the future so arbitrary? 6. Why are financial prices and corporate investments so volatile? 7. Why do real estate markets go through cycles? 8. Why does poverty persist for generations among disadvantaged minorities?”. Moreover, a post-script to Chapter 7 includes their analysis of the current crisis and policy recommendations.
Akerlof and Shiller criticise and de-bunk many conventional economic theories, the foundations of the hyper-liberal tradition associated with the Thatcher and Reagan governments: from rational expectations to the efficient market hypothesis, from the natural rate of unemployment - and the associated denial of a trade-off between unemployment and inflation - to the very notion of voluntary unemployment, from the alleged benefits of de-regulation to the significance of Tobin’s q (the ratio between the current stock exchange valuation of a company’s shares and bonds and the replacement cost of its productive assets: a high q is supposed to promote investment but not always does). We are presented, instead, with waves of optimism and pessimism, manias, euphoria, panics, dishonesty, booms and busts, and the problems of how to put back together again the broken pieces of the financial Humpty-Dumpty.
The conclusion is that “… capitalism can give us the best of all possible worlds, but it does so only on a playing field where the government sets the rules and acts as a referee. Yet we are not really in a crisis for capitalism. We must merely recognise that capitalism must live within certain rules”. “And … in our view capitalism does not just sell people what they really want; it also sells them what they think they want. Especially in financial markets, this leads to excesses…”(p.173).
All very convincing, but for reasons largely different from the ones they offer. Keynes mentioned “animal spirits” as a shorthand for the driving force of entrepreneurship in general and particularly investment. Akerlof and Shiller turn it into a generalised motive that pervades and dominates the whole economy; they dissect the genus into the five species listed above, quite arbitrary and each of them still something of a black box. They identify animal spirits with 1) irrational behaviour and 2) non-economic motives, which is neither necessary nor useful. A powerful critique, but we are left clutching only a few straws. In the end animal spirits become a trite and somewhat irritating cliché, like the fuzzy drawings by Edward Koren supposed to capture them, and of little value added for our understanding of the modern economy.
Irrationality and non-economic motives
The inclusion of irrational behaviour and non-economic motives in macroeconomics is crucial for Akerlof and Shiller: “Picture a square divided into four boxes, denoting motives that are economic or noneconomic or responses that are rational or irrational. The current model fills only the upper left hand box; it answer the question: How does the economy behave if people only have economic motives, and if they respond to them rationally? But that leads immediately to three more questions, corresponding to the three blank boxes: How does the economy behave whith noneconomic motives and rational responses? With economic motives and irrational responses? With noneconomic motives and irrational responses?”.
“We believe that the answers to the most important questions regarding how the macroeconomy behaves and what we ought to do when it misbehaves lie largely (though not exclusively) within those three blank boxes. The goal of this book has been to fill them in” (p. 168).
The question of whether Keynes meant animal spirits to imply irrationality has been the object of a debate, completely ignored by Akerlof and Shiller. R. C. O. Matthews (1984) [“Animal spirits”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 70, 209-229, pay per view] backs the irrationality implication. He argues that Keynes first heard about the term in a lecture in Modern Philosophy on Descartes and other philosophers: in his lecture notes, Keynes commented on animal spirits: "unconscious mental action" (p. 212). Also for Roger Koppl (1991) [“Retrospectives: Animal Spirits”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5 , no. 3, 203-210, pay per view] Keynes believed that "the actions induced by animal spirits are irrational." (p. 205). Koppl also conjectures a connection with Descartes for whom, he says, blood that was heated in the heart and transported to the brain could be "animated" and as such make the person "act contrary to their best judgment."
Sheila and Alexander Dow, (1985) [“Rationality and Animal Spirits” in Tony Lawson and Hashem Pesaran, Eds, Keynes' Economics: Methodological Issues] on the contrary claim that explanations based on animal spirits do not imply irrationality: "If evidence is scant for the propositions put to business decision-makers, then they may legitimately weigh them lightly as offering little in their way of prescience. This behaviour is wholly rational, as is the use of direct knowledge (such as business intuition) in such circumstances." Hans O. Melberg [“A Note on Keynes' Animal Spirits, Critical notes on the use of Keynes' suggestion that animal spirits can "explain" economic instability". (Observation, 14 February 1999)], also strongly criticises the inference of irrationality. Akerlof and Shiller conveniently ignore all these arguments and plunge for non-economic motives and irrational responses without making a case for either of them. In their book even trust and confidence are irrational, rather then born out of experience or a plausible game strategy: “The very meaning of trust is that we go beyond the rational” (p. 12)
What Keynes actually said is: "our knowledge of the factors which govern the yield of an investment some years hence is usually very slight and often negligible." (General Theory, p.149). "If we speak frankly we have to admit that our basis for knowledge for estimating the yield ten years hence of a railway, a copper mine, a textile factory, the goodwill of patent medicine, an Atlantic liner, a building in the City of London amounts to very little and sometimes nothing ...)" (p. 149-150)
"Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits - a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities." (161-162) "... human decisions affecting the future, whether personal or political or economic, cannot depend on strict mathematical expectation, since the basis for making such calculations does not exist ... it is our innate urge to activity that makes the wheel go around ..." (p. 162).
Now, there is nothing irrational, or uneconomic, in pessimism and optimism. The same applies to the “spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction”, seeing that the particular course of action we select on that basis remains unspecified; until we know such a course we cannot rule on its rational and economic character or otherwise. If “a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities” is not available, spontaneous impulses rooted in moods (pessimism/optimism) are perfectly rational and economic. What Akerlof and Shiller themselves define as “a basic mental energy and life force” does not lend itself to characterisation as either irrational or uneconomic. Rightly or wrongly one feels that Shiller - the successful author of Irrational Exuberance (Alan Greenspan’s famous expression) - may have led Akerlof farther in this direction than he would have gone on his own.
Moreover what Keynes actually said or meant is immaterial, what counts is the validity of whatever today he is understood or claimed to have meant. All that remains of Keynes’ proposition about animal spirits today is the volatility of investment decisions, their dependence on “the state of the news” as well as the interest rate relatively to the perceived marginal efficiency of capital, or the internal rate of return of investment projects. (Keynes was wrong, here, to consider the expected internal rate of return of investments, instead of the expected present value per unit of investment as a suitable criterion; but not seriously wrong in so far as internal rates of return and present value criteria normally lead to the same screening of investment projects into profitable and unprofitable, though with a different ranking).
And what is irrationality in this context, anyway? According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, irrational means: ”Not logical or reasonable. Not endowed with the power of reason.” As opposed to rational: “(of a person) able to think clearly, sensibly and logically. Endowed with the capacity to reason. … from Latin ratio, reckoning, reason; ... based on or in accordance with logic or reason”. In economic terms irrational can only mean: “knowingly and deliberately acting against one’s perceived interest” (my definition, for Akerlof and Shiller do not provide one; compare with Koppl’s “a person act[ing] contrary to [his or her] best judgment”).
True, economic agents can be and often are misguided: superstitious, gullible, incompetent; they may believe in dreams, ghosts, miracles, magics, Unidentified Flying Objects, kidnapping by alien visitors, metempsychosis, after-life punishments and rewards, luck and unluck; horoscopes; the ability to predict lotto or roulette numbers from their recorded infrequency, and to predict stock exchange trends by drawing charts; casting the evil eye and getting rid of it, love potions; proteins-only diets, homeopathy, aromatherapy and acupuncture. Economic agents may be addicted to drugs; suffer from mental illnesses; be psychopaths. These phenomena and their intensity and distribution are all aspects of society’s history and culture, but do not necessarily imply irrationality in the sense of “knowingly and deliberately acting against one’s perceived interest”. They are data like the state of technology or the distribution of primary resources; they only matter when they change rapidly, radically and systematically. There is method in human action, no matter how mad humans are: even the actions of masochists are ultimately directed towards the pursuit of their happiness. I for one am completely indifferent to whether or not the three empty boxes that worry Akerlof and Shiller are ever filled or remain empty.
Expectations are most certainly never “rational” in Lucas’s terms. This does not make them “irrational”, though: there is a long-standing tradition in the theory of expectations - rigid (tomorrow’s values like today’s, as in the cobweb or pigs’ cycle), regressive (tending to return to a normal value when falsified, as interest rates in Keynes’s liquidity preference), extrapolative (projecting past rate of change into the future, perhaps the most common model), adaptive (adjusting expected change to the degree of success of the last prediction), with any number of lags and distributed lags. And of course often expectations are self-fulfilling. None of these expectations models can be said to be “irrational” or “uneconomic”. The question is whether one or another expectations model is right or wrong, or at any rate performs satisfactorily or does not, in a particular market at a particular time and place.
An alternative to Akerlof’s and Shiller’s five animal spirits
Is the concept of animal spirits the only unifying approach, or let’s call it umbrella, for the five phenomena which Akerlof and Shiller characterise (exhaustively, one presumes) as animal spirits? Namely, “confidence, fairness, corruption and antisocial behaviour, money illusion, and stories”? Suppose instead that we choose as a unifying approach a fairly conventional “intertemporal allocation”, and split this into “expectations, aspirations, enforcement of contracts and laws”. Do we miss out anything of all the things that Akerlof and Shiller include under the allegedly innovative five categories of animal spirits?
We do not. Confidence issues arise primarily in an inter-temporal framework, that must be backed by means of inter-temporal contract enforcement, if only to reinforce confidence; while simultaneous bilateral transactions only require a minimum of law and order. Fairness is a question of aspirations, which may be inconsistent in the judgement of several agents, something that is otherwise missed when we talk of fairness tout court. Corruption - which Akerlof and Shiller use not so much in the sense attributed to it by Transparency International but as associated with antisocial behaviour - is covered squarely by our notion of law enforcement; it is true that antisocial behaviour is a broader concept, for it would include also moral hazard, i.e. opportunistic behaviour, but this is a first and most conspicuous omission from the analysis offered by Akerlof and Shiller, so they would not miss it. Money illusion, especially in the way it is used by A&S in the inflation-unemployment trade-off, is precisely a matter of expectations and aspirations, and would be well covered by our alternative framework. [Incidentally, here there is second inexplicable omission from A&S, namely the principle of Central Bank Independence that is strictly derived from the lack of an inflation-unemployment trade-off, a lack that they rightly so strongly criticise]. As for “stories”, they are simply the experience (or presumed experience, that sometimes may have been wrongly distilled from available facts, or glorified into false myths) which is at the basis of expectations, nothing else.
Under the heading “Inter-temporal allocation”, and its three subheadings “expectations, aspirations, enforcement of contracts and laws”, one could still address the eight questions whose analysis is regarded as the pay-off of the theory of animal spirits developed by Akerlof and Shiller.
Eight Issues: 1. Depression
“Why do economies fall into depression?” Because markets do not guarantee inter-temporal efficiency, or rather because they guarantee inter-temporal inefficiency. Because savings depend on the level of income and investment on its rate of growth, so that their equilibrium is not necessarily automatic and anyway takes time. Because of the interaction between the multiplier and the accelerator (Paul Samuelson once wrote that economics is the science of optimisation under constraint - except for the interaction between multiplier and accelerator - one of the most eloquent statements of the inadequacy of neoclassical economics). Because economic growth along the long term trend of population and productivity has a full employment ceiling, and a floor due to the fact that net investment and feasible subsistence consumption cannot fall below zero. As the ceiling or the floor are approached, without necessarily being hit, the growth slowdown turns into decline and the decline slowdown turns back into growth. Because booms cause wage growth thus carrying the seeds of their own bursting, while recessions depress wages and restore profit margins allowing the financing and the encouragement of new investment. Because on top of all this there is also the political cycle first investigated by Michal Kalecki. I am very happy with the Harrod-Domar knife-edge growth paths, Dick Goodwin' growth cycle and Hyman Minsky's financial cycles.
2. Central Banks powers
“Why do central bankers have power over the economy, insofar as they do?” Because on the basis of a faulty theory (of rational expectations and the associated denial of a trade-off between inflation and unemployment) since the late ‘eighties they have been given Independence from the government and discretionary powers over inflation targeting, while they are allowed to ignore the wreckage they often inflict on output and employment (the Fed is not so bad, because it is less independent and its remit includes also interest rates, employment and the exchange rate).
3. Unemployment
“Why are there people who can’t find a job?” Because in a closed economy (and the global economy is closed to the outside by definition) unemployment cannot necessarily be solved by lower wages, for these lead immediately to lower consumption, which may or may not be compensated for by higher investment - not least because lower wages will tend to lower also the investment intensity of new capacity. In the open traditional non-global economy these considerations apply to a lesser extent, but they are still operational if import and export weighted elasticities with respect to prices add up to less than unity.
Some unemployment is “classical”, i.e. caused by the lack of equipment in a quantity sufficient to employ everybody even at subsistence wages, or rather at the efficiency wages that minimise labour costs per unit of output. Some unemployment is “neo-classical”, i.e. due to the money value of the marginal product of labour measured at its competitive price being lower than money wage. Some unemployment is Keynesian, i.e. due to the lack of effective demand and to imperfect competition.
The most important cause of unemployment of all is probably imperfect competition - which does not gets a single mention in the entire ambitious theoretical construction by Akerlof and Shiller. For under imperfect competition producers will value the marginal product of labour not at its price but at its marginal revenue, which may become zero or negative well before full employment of labour is reached, therefore preventing full employment even if wages were flexible downwards right down to zero. Apart from the fact that even if the full employment marginal product of labour reckoned at its marginal revenue was positive, and the wage rate fell down to its level, entrepreneurs might regard as unrealistic - on the basis of experience - the continuation of such a low wage into the future, necessary to make investment pay, and still refrain from additional investment thus maintaining unemployment.
By comparison with this set of explanations, the one provided by Akerlof and Shiller is not at all satisfactory. People - they say - are perfectly willing to work for the wage rate per unit of time that would correspond to full employment, but then employers will take into account the positive feedback of higher wages on productivity (through higher morale of employees and the like), and will go and pay wage rates per unit of time higher than the full employment rate in an effort to reduce, indeed minimize, the wage cost per unit of effort, or for unit of product. At this higher wage rate, lots of willing workers remain unemployed. But this is just another form of a naïve theory of voluntary unemployment, because the implication is that the unemployed would be willing to work for a lower wage but would then supply a more than proportionally lower amount of effort or product. If this is the problem, there is a simple remedy: linking wages to productivity, but A&S do not take it into consideration. And their neglect of imperfect competition is a damaging omission in any serious discussion of unemployment.
4. The Phillips Curve
“Why is there a trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the long run?“ Because there is at least some money illusion, A&S say. This is one way of looking at it; more rigid inflationary expectations will also do the trick. Except that the question of whether or not there is a trade off is ultimately an empirical question, and empirical verifications of the Phillips curve linking inflation and unemployment are not particularly satisfactory.
5. Saving
“Why is saving for the future so arbitrary?” Because the inter-temporal trade-off between dated consumption of an individual or of households depends on too many, too uncertain factors, and on different responses. For instance people might save more at a higher (real? nominal?) interest rate, but a target saver will save less to obtain a given consumption transfer into the future. And there is absolutely nothing in saving behaviour to support the necessity for a positive real interest rate, as usually presumed by the Bretton Woods institutions. Here again, as for the Phillips Curve, it is not enough to note or even explain the erratic nature of saving behaviour, but it is necessary to positively identify and verify empirically the impact of the many factors that might be at play.
6. Volatile assets prices
“Why are financial prices and corporate investments so volatile?” This one is easy. The market valuation of the shares of a company, if market work, will correspond to the current dividend d per share, cumulated at its expected nominal growth rate g per year, and discounted at the appropriate nominal discount rate r. Thus the slightest change in the rates g and r expected to prevail in the future will generate disproportionate, massive changes in the share price. If both the expected growth rate g and the discount rate r were constant, and r>g, the price of the share will be equal to d/(r-g). If g>r the share price would tend to infinity with the time horizon tending to infinity. Conversely, the generalised downwards revision of g relatively to r (as in the bursting of the bubble) will precipitate a stock exchange crisis [With apologies to readers for an earlier ambiguous formulation of this problem]. This is the beginning of an answer. Add securitisation, originating assets not to hold but to sell, leveraged betting on derivatives (never mentioned by A&S as such) and a credit crunch, and Bob’s your uncle.
7. Real estate cycles
“Why do real estate markets go through cycles?” Because there is a cycle in building activity, just as there is in pig production or in general investment: high rentals lead to high capital values of existing buildings and to new construction; as new houses and commercial buildings are built their rental and therefore market value fall, and so on for the time it takes to reduce the buildings stock to an equilibrium level, which will then tend to overshoot. And for the same reasons of optimistic expectations, non sustainable asset price increases, the slowdown in capital gains leading to a decline in asset prices, etcetera etcetera in reverse.
8. Poverty Traps
“Why does poverty persist for generations among disadvantaged minorities?” From the impact of so-called stories of minority discrimination, - say Akerlof and Shiller - to be remedied by stories of positive role models and “affirmative action”, that “can play a a significant role in breaking down the barrier between the two Americas” (p. 164). But look at it another way, as Branko Milanovic does in a recent paper [“Global inequality of opportunity. How much of our income is determined at birth?”, mimeo, World Bank, February 2009]. “Suppose that all people in the world are allocated only two characteristics over which they have no control: country of citizenship and income class, within that country, of their parents. Assume further that there is no migration.” Under this premise, Milanovic shows that “at least 80 percent of variability in income of almost 6 billion people in the world is explained solely by these two characteristics. Thus, globally-speaking, the role of effort or luck in improving one’s income position, cannot be large. On average, “drawing” one-notch higher parental income class (on a twenty-class scale) is equivalent to living in an eleven-percent richer country” (Milanovic, op.cit.). This makes A&S’s concern for disadvantaged minorities pale into insignificance. And let there be no doubt that Milanovic’s kind of explanation and analysis rests on no notion of animal spirits.
The current crisis and its remedies
A post-script to Chapter 7 of Akerlof and Shillers includes their analysis of the current crisis and policy recommendations. This is one of the best parts of the book, but their kind of analysis is by now more and more widely accepted. It does not sound very different from, say, the analysis by one of the most conventional, shrewd economists around: the ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, [“The ECB Enhanced Credit Support”, a keynote address given on 13 July 2009 at the University of Munich].
The only original new remedy proposed by Akerlof and Shiller is a credit target, in addition to the traditional interest rate and fiscal stimulus. “The aggregate demand target will indicate, on the one hand, the fiscal stimulus and interest rate policy needed for full employment. The credit target will show what judicious application of methods 1, 2, and 3 [respectively: expansionary discount window, direct investment in banks, and use of government sponsored enterprises] must achieve: together they must create the financial flows - the issuance of commercial paper, bonds and other instruments - that are also associated with full employment” (p.96). And “of course the two target approach and Humpty Dumpty [meaning coping with the irrevocable fall of financial markets, see also earlier reference] do not apply only to the United States but internationally as well” (Ibidem).
The alleged originality of the animal spirits theory that Akerlof and Shiller have been developing in their book is exposed as another way of speaking of what is well understood in standard analysis.
Michele Alacevich, _The Political Economy of the World Bank: The Early Years_. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. xvi + 197 pp. $30 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-8047-6066-9.
Reviewed for by Louis Galambos, Department of History, Johns Hopkins University.
At the end of World War II, a momentous change took place in relations between the strong and weak nations. For all of human history to that point, the strong had systematically exploited the weak, taking their people for slaves, stealing booty, and creating colonies subject to the authority and taxation of this or that empire. Seeking to create a new and stable world order, the victors in the late 1940s set out to build a series of international institutions that would no longer involve exploitation. One of these new institutions was the World Bank.
As Michele Alacevich points out, the Bank began its evolution with a relatively simple mandate. It was designated The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and sent out to help the allied and associated nations recover from the war’s devastation. Preempted in that task by the Marshall Plan, the Bank quickly turned to the task of encouraging the economic development of those nations that had yet to experience the first and second industrial revolutions.
Alas, there was no consensus among economists or government officials as to how, exactly, that should be done. Enter the Canadian-born Lauchlin Currie, who had studied at the London School of Economics and Harvard University before heading to Washington, DC, where he prepped in Treasury and the Fed, then became FDR’s economic advisor. Dedicated to a full-blown form of economic, political, and social planning, Currie was at home in the New Deal White House. In 1948, the World Bank selected Currie to head its mission to Colombia, the first significant effort to launch the new development program. Enter economist Albert Hirschman, who left a position at the Federal Reserve in order to explore the new and exciting field of development economics. Sent by the Bank to assist in Colombia, Hirschman soon clashed with Currie. Their struggle provides the central tension of Alacevich’s stimulating, on-the-ground account of this important phase of the Bank’s grand experiment in clo!
sing the gap between the developed and the under-developed nations.
The job wasn’t (and still isn’t) easy. Currie’s mission struggled with a lack of good data, with third-world political turmoil, and with an inefficient agricultural economy stubbornly resistant to change. The mission’s approach emphasized a broad, New-Deal type program that included consideration of health as well as productivity, education as well as infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Bank was drifting toward a project-centered approach to development. Hirschman, who was skeptical about balanced growth, became the Bank’s leading advisor after Currie completed his mission and began to work with the Colombian government. Alacevich does an excellent job of unraveling the opposing concepts of growth and demonstrating how important personality was in this innovative stage of the development saga. Meticulous research in the extant records enables the author to convey a powerful sense of the sort of confusion and conflict that drops out of history written from the top down.
Does the book fall short in any regards? Yes, of course. It still has the marks of originating in a doctoral dissertation -- in this case, a Ph.D. completed at the University of Milano, Italy. Far better written than most revised dissertations, the book nevertheless seems to be reaching for an appropriate philosophy of history without actually grasping one aligned with this subject. The most serious limitation is one the author probably couldn’t avoid. Having set up the Currie-Hirschman conflict as the central story, Alacevich has a problem when that particular tension is resolved. As a result, the final section of the book appears to be tacked on to a story that has already ended. While the author goes into the Bank’s reorganization of 1952 as a final denouement, the reader’s impression is that this structural adaptation was an epilogue, not a conclusion.
These problems aside, _The Political Economy of the World Bank_ is a study that merits a careful reading. The author has dug deeply into a significant process of institutional change, a process worthy of serious reflection half a century later. The World Bank, despite its thick layers of expertise, has not escaped the problems first uncovered in Colombia. Powerful reasoning could not persuade Colombian leaders that they did not need and could not operate efficiently the integrated steel mill that they badly wanted. Import substitution became an even more powerful form of reasoning, and the Bank had to yield. Amidst steadily increasing costs and some episodes of bad-faith negotiating by the government, Colombia moved ahead with the steel plant at Paz de Rio. As the Bank’s vice president noted with a shrug, “Paz de Río had become a national symbol” (p. 98).
Every international program has collided with this style of resistance. Should you provide fresh, safe water or build a hospital -- with a naming opportunity. Should you improve agriculture or buy a modern weapon system? The list of tensions seems endless, and they define the boundary between the ideology of nationalism and the internationalism the Bank was attempting to strengthen. More than fifty years later, we are still perched along that boundary, looking for better ways to close the gaps that still exist between the developed and developing worlds. That, in large part, explains why Alacevich’s history deserves our attention today.
Louis Galambos is a professor of economic and business history at Johns Hopkins University and is a co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics and the Study of Business Enterprise. He has long been interested in the Bretton Woods institutions and has just completed a book on “The Creative Society -- and the Price Americans Paid for It.”
Copyright (c) 2009 by . All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the Administrator (administrator@). Published by (October 2009). All reviews are archived at .
The HEN-IRE Project for Developing Heterodox Economics and Rethinking the Economy Through Debate and Dialogue
The Heterodox Economics Newsletter and The International Initiative for Rethinking the Economy (IRE), (; ) have undertaken a joint project to promote the development of heterodox economics. It involves publishing in the Newsletter reviews, analytical summaries, or commentary of articles, books, book chapters, theses, dissertations, government reports, etc. that relate to the following themes: diversity of economic approaches, regulation of goods and services, currency and finance, and trade regimes. These themes relate to heterodox economics and to the open and pluralistic intellectual debates in economics. For further information about the project and queries about reviewing, contact Fred Lee (leefs@umkc.edu).
Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships
The Department of philosophy and moral sciences Ghent University
has a vacancy for a PhD researcher in connection with the research professorship of Prof. Dr. Eric Schliesser. The area of interest is open with a slight preference for candidates interested in history and philosophy of science, early modern philosophy, philosophy and history of economics, and the role of sympathy in moral sciences/ethics.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Eric Schliesser.
Starting date: between June 1 and October 1, 2010.
Period: four years.
Salary: approx. 1700 EUR/month (net).
Profile of the candidate:
- Independent, passionate thinker.
- Entrepreneurial attitude.
- Master's degree in philosophy (or equivalent in exact science, economics, history, or Latin with strong interest in philosophy).
- Able to read, speak and write in English fluently.
Task of the researcher:
The research has to result in a PhD thesis.
The researcher will present the fruits of his/her research at international conferences. S/he will be expected to publish regularly research results in international, refereed journals.
The researcher is expected to organize at least one international conference on the topic of her dissertation. S/he is expected to spend some of his/research time with top-experts at universities abroad. The researcher is expected to be an active participant in the exciting intellectual life of the department and to be eager to keep developing philosophically.
Applications
If you are interested in this position, send an email with your dissertation proposal (ca. 1000 words), a CV and list of publications (if any) to Eric Schliesser (nescio2@), no later than 30 December 2009.
Heterodox Web Sites and Associations
This is a political economy website from my home and native land.
This is an amazing forum from Canada, a blog and so on.
This is also from Canada.
Queries from Heterodox Econoists
Heterodox Economics Archive Material
DOCUMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF HETERODOX ECONOMICS
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URPE REALITY TOUR: WALKING THE COLOR LINE
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
January 2, 2010 2:00-4:00 pm
In The Souls of Black Folk, as he reflected on the history of the South and the nation at the dawn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois stated: “The Problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” Now that the twentieth century has concluded, it is clear that Du Bois was right. The writings of Du Bois from his base at Atlanta University will be the start for an interpretive historical tour of the color line in Atlanta. Sites to be visited include the Atlanta University complex where W. E. B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk and where the student protests that attacked the color line in downtown restaurants in 1960 were organized and marches begun; the County Courthouse, City Hall, and the Georgia Capitol, all sites of segregation and protest; Auburn Avenue, the center of black business; and the Martin Luther King National Historic Site, including his tomb, birth home, the church where he preached (Ebenezer Baptist), and the location where he had his office as head of the SCLC (Prince Hall Mason’s Building). Our tour leader will be Prof. Timothy Crimmins of Georgia State University.
Price: $25.00 or $15.00 for students. Send your check by December 1, 2009 to:
Hazel Dayton Gunn
Department of City & Regional Planning
106 W. Sibley Hall, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853 USA
(hg18@cornell.edu)
Tour participants will be sent information on where to meet in Atlanta in December.
Chère Madame, cher Monsieur,
Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que l’éditorial d’octobre du Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation, « Vous avez dit “systèmes régionaux d’innovation” ? A propos de la “schizophrénie territoriale” des décideurs politiques français », est disponible ici :
Dear Madam, Dear Sir
We are pleased to inform you that the editorial for October from the Research Network of Innovation « Did You Mean “Regional Innovation Systems” : About the “Territorial Schizophrenia” of French Policy-Makers », is available here :
Dear Sir/Madam,
As you are aware, the Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Hyderabad, is a non-profit educational society established in 1964. It is devoted to Education, Training, Research and Consultancy for business enterprises in the public and private sector. IPE is the premier Business School at Hyderabad and is recognized as a “Centre of Excellence” by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi, for doctoral studies. To know about our institute you can go through our website
We at IPE are publishing two journals namely : The Journal of Institute of Public Enterprise and the Journal of Economic Policy and Research, which are widely circulated in India and abroad. In this connection, we would like to invite articles from Professors and Research Scholars etc., of your department.
The articles may deal with empirical analysis, historical analysis and situational analysis, on themes pertaining to Public Enterprises policy and public systems, Public Enterprises v. Private Enterprises etc. The articles may broadly cater to functional disciplines like Strategic Management, Finance, HRD, IT, Marketing, Logistics and other inter-related sector specific topics like infrastructure, Airports, Roads, Ports Bridges Power (Energy), Telecommunications etc. Sections of Theses of any completed M. Phil.,/Ph. D, from your department, covering the period from 2006 to 2009 if any, may be extracted and forwarded. For the articles selected, honorarium would be given.
For further clarifications you may kindly contact 040 27095480 between 10.00 am and 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday. You may forward the soft copies of the articles to the e-mail journalipe@ or journalepr@
Dr.K.Trivikram,
Associate Professor &
Programme Co-ordinator [M.B.A. (P.E)],
Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE),
OU Campus,
Hyderabad - 500 007.
Video on “Revolutionizing Economic Thought,”
The Nobel prize for economics may need its own bailout
Facing a similar crisis of legitimacy, the prize needs to prove it is much more than an award for stockmarket speculators
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o Jayati Ghosh
o guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 22.00 BST
The economics award is usually the last of the Nobel prizes to be announced. Correctly so, for it was also the last to be created – and strictly speaking is not even a real Nobel prize. The five original awards, first given out in 1901 for literature, peace, medicine/physiology, physics and chemistry, were intended by Alfred Nobel to recognise contributions that enhanced the quality of human life, through scientific advance, literary creativity or efforts at bringing about peace.
The economics prize is not a prize of the Nobel Foundation; rather, it was created in 1968 by the Central Bank of Sweden as a "prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel". However, it now has the same procedure of selection by the Swedish Academy, and the same cash award presented at a similar ceremony as the Nobel prizes.
There have been recurrent doubts about whether it conforms to the basic goals of the prizes as envisaged by the founder. Is economics a science, on the same lines as physics or chemistry? Does it unambiguously contribute to human wellbeing, like peace or literature? In any case, should economics be privileged over other branches of learning?
Peter Nobel, great-grandnephew of the founder and human rights activist, famously argued that Alfred Nobel would not have approved of such a prize, which he termed "a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation ... most often awarded to stockmarket speculators".
Certainly the reputation of economists has needed building up, not only in the wake of the global financial crisis, but even before that. As much of mainstream economics became obsessed with navel-gazing esoteric models or theories designed to justify market liberalism, the public became relatively more alienated from the activities of economists. In such a context, the Nobel prize has been a useful tool not only to proclaim the conceptual advances supposedly made by "the dismal science" but also to encourage certain types of economic analysis and research. So its power extends beyond public recognition, altering the very production of economic knowledge.
The early prizes generally honoured economists whose work was already widely recognised. But even in the first decade, the list of exceptions was probably more impressive than that of the recipients, as greats like Michal Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Richard Kahn, Nicholas Kaldor and Piero Sraffa were overlooked in favour of lesser contributors. In the subsequent period, the award has occasionally gone to economists of relatively minor and sometimes absolutely questionable achievement, whom others in the profession quickly had to look up when the announcement was made.
The political effect of the prize in the profession has been undeniable. There has been overwhelming domination of neoclassical economics, to the exclusion of alternative streams of thought, with only a few nods in the direction of broader and more socially embracing approaches. This has encouraged more conservative approaches in research and teaching.
Monetarist and free market approaches have been disproportionately rewarded, often at crucial times. For example, the 1974 award to Friedrich von Hayek led to a resurgence of interest in the Austrian school and made his book The Road to Serfdom a bestseller. Two years later the prize went to Milton Friedman, making his extreme form of monetarism academically respectable and even leading to a conservative policy revolution. Economic history in the turgid and restricting form of retrospective econometrics was promoted by the 1993 award to Robert Fogel and Douglass North, while rational expectations theory was given a big boost by honouring Robert Lucas in 1995.
The geographical distribution of the award both creates and reflects power hierarchies in the discipline. The economics prize has been awarded 40 times to 62 recipients, 42 of whom have been from the US, while more than 50 were working in the US at the time of the award. The University of Chicago has 11 laureates, leading to the joke about "the Stockholm-Chicago Express". This does not reflect the actual state of economic knowledge so much as the biases and blindness of the jury. Only two people from developing countries have received it (Arthur Lewis and Amartya Sen) and both worked in the US and Britain. Only three with an interest in the economics of developing countries – which is the economic reality for around three quarters of the world's population – have received the award.
In recent years the prize has been focused on financial market behaviour. In 1997, the award went to two economists – Robert Merton and Myron Scholes – who were supposed to have discovered a method of valuing derivatives that could reduce or eliminate risk in financial investment. When the hedge fund they ran (Long Term Capital Management) went bust within the year and had to be rescued by the US federal reserve, there was some embarrassment. Perhaps to right this wrong, a few years later the prize was given to economists George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz, who had pointed to the imperfect functioning of financial markets. The award last year to Paul Krugman may also have indicated some bowing to changing times.
So far, no woman has received the economics Nobel. Apart from obvious exclusions such as Joan Robinson, this also reflects power hierarchies within the subject, because women economists even in the US and UK tend to be concentrated in the lower reaches of the academics profession, as researchers and lecturers rather than professors.
These imbalances will not be rectified easily. But the Nobel prize in economics may now be as much in need of wider legitimacy as the economics profession itself. It will be interesting to see if this is reflected on Monday, when the current year's winner is announced.
Statement against Government of India’s planned military offensive in adivasi-populated regions: National and international signatories
This is a green jobs conference that is upcoming in the United States.
Dear correspondent,
Would your Newsletter be interested in disseminating the weblink to a short movie that was shot by a group of "post-autistic" economics students at Ankara Univesity? Below, I copy the link to the movie at Metacafe Web Site and a short description. The movie is fully worked by amateurs who claim no copyrights.
Description:
We shot this short video with a group of undergradaute students at Ankara University in 2007. It was a little cinema workshop in one of the History of Economic Thought courses offered by the Economics Department of Ankara University, in which people wanted to shoot short videos about the current state in economics. In this work, students want to show how boring the economics classes are: they leave the classroom one after another until the last one throws Samuelson's Economics (1948) into trash. The video lasts less than 6 mins. The soundtrack is Supertramp's "School" from "Crime of the Century (1974). The quotation in the very begining of the video (in Turkish) is from a short passage by Anthony Standen Science is a Sacred Cow (1950). A cow, sitting in front of the Faculty building, is the amblem of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Mekteb-i Mulkiye. ("Inek" (=Cow") is the Turkish equivalent of "nerd.")
New Political Economy
Graduate Student Prize Paper Competition £500 prize
New Political Economy (tandf.co.uk/journals/CNPE) is pleased to invite submissions to the 2009/10 Graduate Student Prize Paper Competition. We welcome submissions from graduate students working across the field of political economy, from all relevant disciplinary backgrounds and on any topic consistent with the overall aims and remit of the journal.
The prize is £500 (GB sterling) and publication of the paper in New Political Economy.
For a pdf file of the poster and full terms and conditions of the competition please see the following link:
tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/competitions/cnpe.pdf
PRESS RELEASE
From Professor Geoffrey M. Hodgson
g.m.hodgson@herts.ac.uk
geoffrey-
The Business School, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Financial Crisis: How Economists Went Astray
Two Nobel Laureates and over 2000 Signatories Uphold that Economists have Mistaken Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth
On 2nd September 2009, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash “the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.”
An online declaration in support of a fuller extract from Krugman’s article (see the text below) has received over 2000 signatures in little over a month. This is already higher than all earlier appeals for the reform of economics, since and including the June 2000 petition by students at the École Normale Supérieure (France's premier institution of higher learning) protesting against the excessive mathematical formalisation of their curriculum and its neglect of economic realities. This petition received 1545 signatures and prompted the French Minister of Education to set up formal enquiry.
Krugman joins a line of Nobel Laureates, including Ronald Coase, Wassily Leontief and Milton Friedman, who have argued that economists has become largely transformed into a branch of applied mathematics, with inadequate contact with the real world. On the online website, Krugman’s words are supported by Nobel Laureate Douglass North.
The narrow training of economists – which concentrates on mathematical techniques and the building of empirically uncontrolled formal models – has been a major reason for the failure of the economics profession to appreciate market vulnerability and warn of the serious risks in the financial system. In their pursuit of tractable models, economists have made over-simplified and misguided assumptions concerning of human agents, markets and other institutions, rather than engaging adequately with the complexities of the real world.
Mathematics is very important and useful, but it should be a servant to economics, and not its master. Real-world substance should prevail over mathematical technique. To help avoid further failings, governments in the USA, Europe and elsewhere should look into the state of economics and the way economics is taught.
Of the 2000-plus signatories of the current online appeal, 62% have PhDs, 20% are from the USA, and 10% from the UK.
As well as Nobel Laureate Douglass North, other prominent signatories include leading international academics and researchers such as Masahiko Aoki, Tony Aspromourgos, Michael Bernstein, Margaret Blair, Mark Blaug, Daniel Bromley, John Cantwell, Ha-Joon Chang, Victoria Chick, Keith Cowling, Kurt Dopfer, Gregory Dow, Ronald Dore, Giovani Dosi, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Peter Earl, Jan Fagerberg, Olivier Favereau, Duncan Foley, John Foster, Geoffrey Harcourt, Arnold Heertje, Joseph Henrich, Stuart Holland, Will Hutton, Peter Kellner, Arjo Klamer, Mark Lavoie, Richard Lipsey, Brian Loasby, Mark Lutz, Ronald Martin, William McKelvey, Deirdre McCloskey, Stanley Metcalfe, Julie Nelson, Richard Norgaard, Luigi Pasinetti, Peter Richerson, Erik Reinert, Barkley Rosser, Kurt Rothschild, Bridget Rosewell, Robert Rowthorn, Malcolm Rutherford, Paolo Saviotti, Malcolm Sawyer, Esther-Mirjam Sent, Mark Setterfield, Gerald Silverberg, Laurence Shute, Robert Skidelsky, Peter Skott, Ronald Stanfield, Arthur Stinchcombe, Thomas Weisskopf, Sidney Winter and Stefano Zamagni.
All 2000-plus signatories endorse the following words by Paul Krugman:
"Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy ... the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth ... economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets, this time gussied up with fancy equations ... Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets – especially financial markets – that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation. ... When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly." (New York Times, September 2nd, 2009.)
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Additional supporters can sign the petition on
(If you do not wish to make a contribution, then exist immediately when the web page changes.)
Venezuela: The Battle for Workers' Control
Caracas, October 30, 2007: Produced as part of Centro Internacional Miranda's Transformative Practice and Human Development, directed by Michael Lebowitz.
* Wokers' Control: Theory and Experiences
* Building the Triangle of Socialism
Click here to view the video presentation:
Darling Alicia: The Love Letters of Alicia Kaner and Stephen Merrett
(Stephen Merrett is a longstanding member of the community of heterodox economists)
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