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Second Summer Institute for the  
Preservation of the Study of History of Economics in Economics 
 
George Mason University 
Summer 2001 
 
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 private benefit/cost explanation is trivial: a history of 
economics thought dissertation is professional suicide in economics. The 
social consequence of giving monopoly power over the history of economics 
to those who actively dislike markets, and those who study markets, is 
described in the Levy-Peart "Secret history of the dismal science" at 
www.econlib.org. 
 
The Summer Institute will be an attempt to reserve this decline by offering 
a forum for students to present a history of thought chapter in their 
dissertation to a competent audience. The thought is that a history of 
thought chapter can be disguised as a "literature review" without raising 
professional eye-brows. Simultaneously, the Summer Institute will offer a 
forum for professional discussion of on-going work for those who find 
current trends unpleasant.  
 
The deal. Thanks to a grant from the Earhart Foundation and pizza money 
from the Economic Department at George Mason we can make the following 
offer to graduate students interested in the history of economics. There 
will be six day-long  seminars during the summer where 3-4 papers are 
presented each day.  A.M.C  Waterman will give lectures for the first two 
meetings on June 15 & 18. Sandra Peart will give lectures at the next four 
meetings which are currently being scheduled. 
 
Minimum participation. Attend as many seminars as possible. Benefit: copies 
of the papers, remarkable computer images,  good discussion, pizza and 
Peet's coffee / tea.  Median participation. For the minimum participation 
plus various scholarly tasks;  a $1000 grant.  Maximal participation. For 
the median participation plus presenting a dissertation chapter; a $2500 
grant.  
 
Applications to David Levy, [log in to unmask] State your preferences for 
level of participation, for type of coffee / tea and whether you hold with 
donuts or bagels in the morning. 
 
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