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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:19:17 2006 |
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================= HES POSTING =================
Regarding Ross Emmett's response to Robert Leeson on how an economic
historian can uniquely contribute to contemporary policy issues, ultimately
policy makers will evaluate the potential contributions of social
scientists based on whether they can help policy makers make useful and
meaningful decisions. While Ross outlines several issues that one might
take into consideration in the process of formulating policy, there
are surely other valuable functions in addition to the ones he mentions
that economic history can give to current policy formulation.
First, I would stress the importance of understanding long-run dynamic
processes in developing viable policy responses to contemporary problems.
Robert Fogel stressed this in his 1993 Nobel Address, where he contended
that "failure to take account of history...has often led to a
misunderstanding of current economic problems by investigators who have
not realized that their generalization rested upon transient circumstances.
Nowhere is the need to recognize the role of long-run dynamics more relevant
than in such pressing current issues as medical care, pension policies, and
development policies." In my own policy-related work, I have found that an
exploration into the historical factors shaping current conditions is
important to understanding the policy context and the subjective, transient
nature of defining property rights.
I also notice an interesting melding of history and economic theory in the
emerging literature on long-run processes, path dependence, technology
lock-ins and related issues being examined by analysts such as Paul David
and Brian Aurther. This literature has generated some interesting
implications for policy and debates over the role of government.
Regards.
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T.S. Jayne
Associate Professor
Department of Agricultural Economics
401c Agriculture Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Tel: (517) 355-0131 Fax: (517) 432-1800
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