Daniele Besomi asked, "what happened eventually to Economic History, our
fellow disgraced sub-discipine?" The letter below is the notice sent out
by the ABS in response to the more recent submissions in which it
outlines the decision reached within the Bureau itself. It should
however be noted that there are other review bodies which must still
pass judgement on the ABS recommendation, but at the present moment the
following letter outlines the state of play in both History of Economics
and Economic History. But do please note the careful phrasing where the
ABS merely states that this is "the current thinking". Nothing yet has
been finalised. 

Steve Kates



Thank you for your submission to the Australian Standard Research
Classification review.

Your concerns with regard to the proposed treatment of Economic History
and History of Economic Thought have been formally noted by the review
team, and your submission and interest together with others on this
issue has been taken into consideration. On the basis of the information
received by the review team, the proposal with regards to these research
fields has been revised. The revised proposal is to keep Economic
History and History of Economic Thought within Economics. The revised
proposal is based on extensive feedback on this issue and the core
reasoning behind this proposal is as follows:

.  the techniques used in Economic History research are identical to
those used in other areas of applied economics - the subject matter is
historical economic data;

.  the History of Economic Thought can be described as being primarily
concerned with the development of economic theory.

The current thinking is therefore to align these categories with the
respective sub-categories of applied and theoretic economics. I
appreciate your input to this process and the classification in its
entirety is not due to be finalised until November 2007. Publication of
the new classification is expected early in 2008.

I hope that this addresses your concerns and thank you again for your
submission. If you have any further concerns please contact Dr David
Brett - [log in to unmask]  .

ABS appreciates such feedback in informing its deliberations for this
review.