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Folks, 
 
My comment pertains to the "beliefs" of academic economists concerning 
both "what is" and "what should be".  The relatively small number of 
departments that produce large numbers of academic economists generate 
beliefs of both kinds in their students. 
 
10 Oct 2002, Kevin D. Hoover wrote: 
 
> ----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
> In his review of Steven Medema and Warren Samuels, editors, 
> _Historians of Economics and Economic Thought: The Construction of 
> Disciplinary Memory_, Roger Frantz writes: 
> 
> >Most economists turn their attention to the history of economics 
> >during the later part of their careers. 
> 
> My experience is that this is what my colleagues believe to be true, 
> but is it actually true? [. . .] 
 
Kevin asked for systematic evidence.  Having none, I deleted that. 
 
Let me remark on the belief-formation. 
 
Many academic economists studied at Harvard or MIT; few at the University 
of New Hampshire or the University of Maine.  Many studied at Stanford or 
UC Berkeley; few at the University of Puget Sound.  I suspect that Kevin 
Hoover's department at UC Davis is in between: large in size, measured by 
its faculty or its graduate students, yet full of colleagues (academic 
economists, faculty) who studied in one of the top graduate programs and 
full of students who will teach few or no graduate students themselves. 
 
An academic economist who does not specialize or even dabble in HEcTh or 
HEcMeth must learn virtually nothing about it except by experience in 
her/s graduate department and experience where s/he teaches.  So the few 
departments which produce large numbers of academic economists play a very 
big part in forming beliefs about the profession, within the profession, 
especially among its academic workers. 
 
Indeed, beside the sheer force of numbers that I have outlined, I guess 
that the top graduate programs are also unusually influential because they 
serve some of their former students as norms, which later cast those 
students' own departments as deviations from the norm.  Blessed with the 
"model" colleague, when Kevin does well in HEcTh/HEcMeth as a young man, 
he only makes the colleague think less of their department! 
 
These remarks are only a beginning.  What did the many academic economists 
experience at the few top graduate departments where they studied? 
 
--Paul 
 
Paul Wendt, Watertown MA, USA <[log in to unmask]> 
Subscriptions manager, HES email list 
 
 
 
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