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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:27 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
It seems to me that the first question could be answered fairly easily,
simply by looking at the major contributors to the Journal of Economic
Issues and their contributions to the economic literature beyond JEI.
However, the second question is more challenging in my opinion: "Why has
Institutionalism fallen out of favor?" It will also be equally challenging
to replace the word "Institutionalism" with "Keynesianism", "Marxism" or
"critical thought" in general.
Institutionalism in the US used to be part of the mainstream up to the
1940s and 1950s. But it was slowly loosing ground, less and less
Institutionalist economists published in the AER (for various reasons),
less and less topics were discussed from an Institutionalist perspective in
AEA panels etc... this however was not due to the lack of Institutionalist
contribution, but rather to the dominance of neoclassical economists in
most PhD programs, editorial boards, and scientific committees in the US.
Institutionalists eventually got together and created their own association
(AFEE), their own editorial board, their own conferences.... They continued
to develop Institutionalist thought with few resources (few if any graduate
programs teaching institutionalism), and few research grants allocated to
them... Now put this picture into a cumulative causation process and after
a few decades you'll get institutionalism in 2002.
How can this tendency be reversed? First and for most, Institutionalists
must keep improving their theoretical arguments and applying them to real
world policy issues. This, I believe, a large part of Institutionalists are
doing today. Second, try to challenge the mainstream both in the media as
well as in academic journals (if they get accepted). The average citizen
today believes that (mainstream) economics doesn't make sense, and is
irrelevant to societies problems. That's why I hope that more
Institutionalists will take the time and target local and national media to
get some Institutionalists ideas into the mainstream through the "back
door". Who knows maybe things will change.
Fadhel Kaboub
UMKC
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