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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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