REMINDER -- CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE 1997 HOPE CONFERENCE -- REMINDER 
 
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CALL FOR PAPERS 
 
1997 HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY CONFERENCE 
 
"THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN ECONOMICS: FROM INTERWAR 
PLURALISM TO POSTWAR NEOCLASSICISM" 
 
The theme of this conference is "The Transformation of 
American Economics: From Interwar Pluralism to Postwar 
Neoclassicism."  This theme relates to a highly important 
episode in the history of economics: the development of 
what would now be regarded worldwide as mainstream American 
economics -- the formalized neoclassical economics that has 
come to dominate the major American graduate schools, the 
leading journals, and economic policy making in the years 
since 1950.  This situation can be contrasted with that of 
the interwar period.  In this earlier period American economics 
was notable for its eclecticism and concern with empirical 
issues.  There was no single dominant research program, and a 
considerable amount of intercommunication between those with 
differing viewpoints.  How did this wide range of beliefs and 
approaches become transformed into the postwar mainstream?  How 
did neoclassicism, and particularly neoclassicism in a formalized 
form, develop a dominant position among American economists and 
displace other programs and approaches?  The subsequent 
internationalization of this type of economics was the subject of 
the 1995 HOPE conference, so this theme leads the historian of 
thought back into a consideration of the formation of this brand 
of economics and of the particular conditions that account for 
its rise to preeminence. 
 
We would be interested in receiving proposals for papers that 
address this theme.  Some possibilities include studies of 
the development, rise or fall, of particular schools of 
thought or research programs that contributed to the overall 
transformation; the changing character of economic discourse 
over the period, including studies of professional journals; 
The impact of changing concepts of science or of modernism; 
of professionalization, the role of funding agencies, and the 
demand for a technocratic economics; the role of the in-migration 
of economists from continental Europe: the interaction between 
academic economics and policy issues; and the role of the changing 
social, political, and ideological context in America. 
 
Proposals should take the form of an abstract of not more than 500 
words outling your paper and its contribution to the conference 
theme.  The proposal should be mailed or faxed (not e-mailed) to 
BOTH of us, clearly marked HOPE Conference, and sent no later 
than December 1 1995.  We expect to receive more proposals than 
we can accomodate, and we will decide which to accept by 
February 1 1996.  Papers should be ready to circulate to 
conference participants by February 1997.  Papers presented 
at the conference will be considered for inclusion in the 
1998 HOPE Supplement volume.  The conference will be held 
at Duke University, probably in March 1997. 
 
Dr. Mary Morgan, Dept. of Economic History, 
London School of Economics and Political Science, 
Houghton St., London, WC2A 2AE, England. 
Phone 171 955-7081; Fax 171 855-7730 
e-mail [log in to unmask] 
 
Professor Malcolm Rutherford, Dept. of Economics, 
University of Victoria, PO Box 3050, 
Victoria, BC, Canada, V8W 3P5. 
Phone 604 721-8531; Fax 604 721-6214 
e-mail [log in to unmask]