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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:21 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
Fourth Annual Summer Institute for the Preservation of the Study of History
of Economics in Economics
Will the competence in the history of economics become lost to the
discipline of economics? Extrapolating the trend gives an easy answer: the
future serious history of economics will be conducted in literature
departments. The
benefit/cost explanation is trivial: a history of economics thought
dissertation is professional suicide in economics. And if a student were
sufficiently perverse to take the risk, to whom would one talk? While the
private benefit/cost calculation is easy, the social benefit/cost
calculation needs to consider how disciplinary rational ignorance results
in the wide-spread belief that our “dismal science” tag results from the
inhumanity of past economists.(Think so? Look at
www.econlib.org/library/Columns/LevyPeartdismal.html)
The Summer Institute is an attempt to reverse this decline by offering a
forum for students to present a history of thought chapter in their
dissertation
to a competent audience. A history of thought chapter can be disguised as a
“literature review” without raising professional eyebrows.
Simultaneously, the Summer Institute will offer a forum for discussion of
on going work for those who find current trends unpleasant.
The schedule. July 14-18 at George Mason University. Speakers include James
Buchanan, Deirdre McCloskey, Sandra Peart, William Coleman and Ali Khan.
Topics. We have papers planned for clusters of topics – I) right/left
attacks on markets and economics, II) prudential behavior and proverbial
wisdom, III)
why unlike statistics, there is no code of ethics in econometrics and IV)
the role of sympathy.
The deal. Thanks to a grant from the Earhart Foundation and lunch money
from the Economics Department we can make the following offer to graduate
students interested in the history of economics.
Participation. Attend all the seminars and participate in the discussions.
Benefits: copies of the papers, good discussion, pizza and Peet’s
coffee and $500.
Give a paper. Benefits: good discussion, pizza, Peet’s and $750.
Responses and questions? Drop me a note at [log in to unmask] I’m
particularly interested in research which falls within one of the cluster
of paper topics.
David M Levy
MSN 1D3 Buchanan Center
George Mason University
Fairfax VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-2319 Fax: 703-993-2323
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