Following on the History Wars here in Australia dealing with the
classification of History of Economic Thought and Economic History
within the statistical collections complied by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, I and my colleague Alex Millmow will be writing an article
on the events and final resolution for the History of Economics Review,
the HET journal here in Australia. 

It is a story that goes far beyond mere classification error since the
issue for the ABS was whether historians of economics are historians who
study economics and are therefore not properly described as economists,
or are instead genuinely economists who pursue economic issues through
the study of economic theory but within an historical context. 

The ABS has now decided that it will classify History of Economics
within the discipline of Economics and include it as a sub-field within
Economic Theory. 

Historians of economics here in Australia are in agreement with this
decision as it represents a proper understanding of the role of HET and
the importance of this particular classification for our own future
studies and for the actual future of the history of economics as an
important subject area. 

Part of the reason for this decision to review the proposed
classification was the enormous international response, which occurred
in part because members of this list were alerted to this proposal.
There were, as a result, a large number of submissions sent to the ABS
to explain why history of economics needed to remain within the
economic
classification and why it would be wrong to remove HET to the area of
History per se. 

I am writing to ask those who wrote to the ABS to forward their own
submissions to me at the following email address: 

     [log in to unmask] 

If you would like to keep your correspondence confidential, please
indicate this when you send us copies of any of the material forwarded
to the ABS and we will ensure that neither the name of the author nor
the contents of the message are disclosed. 

In addition, if there are any further suggestions and comments that
list members might be interested in providing to us in undertaking this
study, please also forward this material to the above email address. 

With much thanks, both for your assistance in ensuring that the history
of economics was kept within the Economics classification and also in
advance for forwarding to us your correspondence with the Bureau. 

Steve Kates