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Societies, Journals, and Research in the History of Economics
John Lodewijks
University of New South Wales
Margaret Schabas (1992: 191) has documented the impressive growth in our
craft and the healthy increases in membership of societies for the study of
the history of economics. Ignoring multiple subscriptions, it has been
estimated that there are now more than 2,000 economists registered as
members of one or other of the history of economics societies that exist.
The Society for the History of Economic Thought in Japan has over 800
members, the North American History of Economics Society has 600 members,
the various European Societies would easily account for another 700 and the
History of Economic Thought Society of Australia has around 170 members. We
do not have much information on the state of HET in Eastern and Central
Europe but there is some evidence that since 1990 it has been progressively
eliminated from universities of that region.
In this brief paper we describe these various societies and ask more
questions than we answer about the future of the sub-discipline in the
concluding section.
Associations and Conferences
A scholarly movement needs an institutional base and an 'invisible college'
or communications network. It requires scholarly publication outlets and an
organisational core, usually in the form of conferences and learned
societies.
The Society for the History of Economic Thought in Japan was founded in
April 1950 with 123 initial members. There is an annual meeting, with
around 300 scholars in attendance and usually twenty papers presented, and
various regional meetings. The Society has published the Annual Bulletin of
the Society since 1963 and also produces a Newsletter. The Japanese Society
also has an email list but the list is closed so that only its members may
join. The Classical Economists (particularly Smith) and Marx have been
popular research subjects in Japan with over 40 per cent of all papers
delivered at the annual conference dealing with these topics over the 1950-
80 period. Since the early 1970s there has been a broadening of research
interests with more scholars exploring Japanese economic thought, modern
economics and Austrian contributions. The popularity of History of Thought
in Japan partly reflects the fact that HET is a compulsory course in the
department of economics of at least some 300 Universities and Colleges.
Leading figures in Japanese HET include T. Negishi, Y. Shionoya, T. Tanaka,
T. Tsuda and T. Nishizawa. It should also be mentioned that there is now a
Japanese Society for the History of American Economics which publishes a
Newsletter in Japanese.
The North American History of Economics Society held its first annual
conference in May 1974, after an exploratory meeting the previous year and
began publishing the History of Economics Society Bulletin in 1979. This
publication was in 1990 renamed the Journal of the History of Economic
Thought (edited by D. A. Walker) and is in its nineteenth volume in 1997.
In July 1997 the Society had its 24th annual meeting. The annual conference
now runs over two and a half days and attracts up to 200 delegates. The
number of papers delivered has grown from 12 to around 150! The series
Perspectives in the History of Economic Thought, published first by Edward
Elgar and now by Routledge, consisted first of selected papers from the
annual conference and now presents papers selected by the President from
the conference on a particular theme. Prominent individuals in the
formation of HES include C.Goodwin, S. Hollander, G. Stigler, V. Tarascio,
W. Grampp, F. Fetter, R. Eagley, R. Brandis, L. Moss and W. Samuels. James
P. Henderson put together an oral conference with the founders of the HES
and the tape is in the HES archive at Duke University.
The Society has its own Manager of Electronic Information, R. Emmett, in
charge of managing the HES List and the Society's web site:
http://www.eh.net/HisEcSoc/ An ambitious goal of the HES List is to serve
as the major English-language forum for international discussion of the
history of economics and conference announcements. There are now over 400
HES email list subscribers in over 35 countries; half the subscribers are
non-USA based. Australia has the fourth highest number of subscribers after
the U.S., France and Canada. A searchable database of information on
archival and manuscript collection resources in the history of economics
has now been established (http://orbit.unh.edu/hes/archive.htm). There has
been an increase of interest among historians of economics in primary
archival research and the Duke Economists' Papers Project is of particular
importance here.
However, a journal which is published by Duke University Press and not
sponsored by the HES is clearly the discipline's leading avenue for the
publication of HET. History of Political Economy, is the foremost journal
in the field of history of economics. It is now in its 28th volume and
first came out in Spring 1969 (although its antecedents date back to the
1930s under the influence of J. Spengler at Duke). It is now a quarterly
publication with a hardbound annual supplement. Its only editor has been
Craufurd Goodwin whose vision, catholicity of interest and knack for
detecting financial sources has been instrumental in enhancing and
maintaining the status of HOPE and the American HES. N. De Marchi, and
later A.W. Coats and E.R. Weintraub, enriched the sort of history and
methodology of economics that was being initiated in America and elsewhere,
in their positions as Associate Editors of HOPE.
The post war growth in the history of economics started with a conference
organized by Donald Winch and held in Sussex, England in January 1968. From
this promising start the developments in Britain have been quite peculiar.
The British have no formal organization whatsoever (no Secretary-Treasurer,
Executive or President). They have informally-organized annual conferences.
In response to European initiatives, the formation of a formal society was
discussed in 1995 but not proceeded with. A proposal by Mark Blaug and
Bernard Corry to initiate a HET journal occurred immediately prior to
developments at Duke but was abandoned.
The annual British conferences have always been very small, with a careful
selection of speakers. Often there were fewer than 35 participants. Hence
there are a small number of papers delivered but each paper has 30 minutes
of detailed discussion. The average quality of these papers is very high.
In contrast, the North American meeting can have three or four sessions
running concurrently. Such a large volume of papers tends to produce a wide
range of papers presented in terms of topics and quality. The large
quantity of papers largely reflected the tyranny of distance in that North
American scholars need to present papers in order to qualify for funding to
attend far away conferences whereas in the UK distance and cost is much
less of a problem. John Vint edits the History of Economic Thought
Newsletter which began in 1969. It is now in its 58th number and has over
400 subscribers. The Newsletter and the annual conferences are strictly
unrelated. British historians of thought that come to mind include R.D.
Collison Black, M. Blaug, A.W. Coats, D.N. Winch, B.A. Corry, T.W.
Hutchison, D.P. O'Brien, D.A. Collard, R. Backhouse, M. Morgan, A. Skinner,
T. Brewer and S. Dow.
Over the last decade, the history of economic thought in Europe has
experienced a curiously uneven development with waning curriculum
popularity being matched by amplified enterprise in research. The research
activities have been stimulated by an increase in European publication,
ranging from new and improved journals to the publication of conference
proceedings. In terms of conferences the Europeans until recently have had
only local or national meetings, there being no umbrella group for their
activities as a whole.
The French and the Italians form the two largest communities of historians
of economics in Europe. The only field journal devoted to the history of
economics in France is Economies et Societes, series Histoire de la pensee
economique. Otherwise the two leading journals in economics, Revue
economique and Revue d'economie politique do publish HET articles. A French
association for the study of HET was established in the mid 1980s, the
Association Charles Gide pour l'Etude de la pensee economique. In Italy
Quaderni di storia dell'economia politica was established in 1983 and was
recently renamed the History of Economic Ideas. R. Faucci, D. Cavalieri and
M. Augello are key scholars here. There is also the Storia del Pensiero
Economico (P. Barucci and now P. Roggi). In Italy HET is taught in one form
or other in more than 50 Universities, where there are specialist chairs.
There are societies and organizations in other countries, such as the
Dutch-Flemish Society for the history of economic thought, the Erasmus
Seminar on Philosophy and Economics and the annual conferences on German
economics. This fragmented state of affairs has changed rapidly in the last
few years.
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought was first published
in September 1993 under the leadership of H. Kurz, J. L. Cardoso, A. Murphy
and G. Faccarello. The first issue contained a message from the managing
Editors that Historians of Thought needed to go on the offensive! Their
subject had been marginalized or totally removed in many cases from the
curriculum of their academic institutions.
The European Conferences on the History of Economics (ECHE) is not a
society, but an informal group of four (now six) people who decided to
organize conferences in Europe. This group was created in 1994 by Jose Luis
Cardoso, Albert Jolink, Robert Leonard and Philippe Fontaine (Michalis
Psalidopoulos and Guido Erreygers have since joined). The aims of the
Conferences are to have regular international contacts in a European
setting to increase communication between individual scholars in European
countries and to increase contact between European and non-European
scholars. The first conference was in Rotterdam in 1995 with 70 papers
presented and 100 participants. The second was in Lisbon in 1996 with 110
papers presented and 140 participants. The third conference in April 1997
was in Athens and the next one is scheduled for Antwerp in April 1998.
In December 1995 the European Society for the History of Economic Thought
(ESHET) was created by older members of the profession as a response to the
previous initiative. It now has 250 members. Individuals that have been
active here include J. Rosio, R. Faucci, H. Kurz, L. Pasinetti, A. Skinner,
P.L. Porta, P. Steiner, R. Arena, G. Vaggi and C. Schmidt. Their first
conference is in France in 1997 and the second in Bologna in 1998. The
first Newsletter of this Society was the Winter 1996 issue and edited by
John Vint. There appears to be no formal links between the EJHET, ECHE and
ESHET.
The History of Economic Thought Society of Australia was founded in 1981 by
J.Wood, J. Pullen and R. Petridis. Bi-annual conferences were held until
1996 when annual conferences commenced. These meetings attract about 36
papers presented over three days, with no multiple sessions. The Ninth
Conference was held in 1996. HETSA membership expanded by a hefty 75% over
1991-93 and by another 25% since then. The Society published the HETSA
Newsletter and then Bulletin until 1991 when the History of Economics
Review appeared, under the editorship of J. Lodewijks. Prominent
contributors to HETSA not elsewhere mentioned include P. Groenewegen, B.
Gordon, J. Pullen, J. King and T. Endres. The Centre for the Study of the
History of Economic Thought at the University of Sydney under the
directorship of Peter Groenewegen should also be noted in the Australian
context.
There are a number of other journals and associations with a more narrowly
focussed interest in particular economists or schools of thought. For
example, there are a number of journals and societies that deal with the
work of Marx. The Marshall Studies Bulletin was first published in 1991 and
the Managing editor is T. Raffaelli and the publication is distributed free
of charge. Donald Walker was instrumental in establishing The Walras
Society in 1994. This society is devoted to the study of the work of Leon
Walras and closely related topics and plans an information network,
meetings and a Review of Walrasian Studies. The International Joseph A.
Schumpeter Society publishes the Journal of Evolutionary Economics and runs
quite spectacular conferences. There are also Adam Smith and John Locke
Societies and an "Invisible College" of Researchers in Ancient, Medieval
and Renaissance history of economic thought, founded by S. Todd Lowry.
Perhaps one of the best funded and most active organizations is the Robert
Schalkenbach Foundation devoted to the works of Henry George and taxation
issues. Incidentally, 1997 is the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry
George and the Foundation has organized a conference to commemorate this in
New York in November. Austrian and libertarian thought is published by the
Liberty Press and in the Review of Austrian Economics and Journal of
Libertarian Studies. There is an Austrian Economics Programme at NYU. Other
journals concentrating on particular economists or schools of thought
include the Journal of Economic Issues (Institutionalists -- there is also
an active Association for Evolutionary Economics), Scottish Journal of
Political Economy (Smith), Manchester School of Economics and Social
Studies (Jevons) and the American Journal of Economics and Sociology (Henry
George, American institutionalism). The latter journal is now under the
editorship of Laurence Moss, Past President of the History of Economics
Society.
It should also be mentioned that under the editorship of Ingrid Rima (and
her successor) space for history of economic thought articles was always
found in the Eastern Economic Journal. Similarly HET is published regularly
in the Canadian Journal of Economics and the Cambridge Journal of
Economics. Warren Samuels' publication Research in the History of Economic
Thought and Methodology is an excellent venue for papers in HET that exceed
the normal page limit requirements of a journal. This series is now edited
jointly by Samuels and Jeff Biddle at Michigan State. Malcolm Rutherford
and Mary Morgan now have an American Economics Network, which is a mailing
list of individuals who are working on the history of American economics.
Omar Hamouda (York University) has a newsletter for the HET that is
circulated among scholars located in Ontario universities and a few others.
The Veblen Society for the History and Philosophy of Economics, a regional
club serving the American mid-west (meeting are usually held in Chicago),
holds regular seminars on all topics and does not focus specifically on
Veblen. Finally, the New England History of Economic Thought Club was
renamed in 1979 as the Kress Society and meets monthly between September
and May. The web site for the superb Kress Collection in the HET is:
http://library.hbs.edu/kress.htm
A Curious Interlude: The Network for Economic Methodology
One area where there has been an abundance of work in the last few decades
has been that of economic methodology. Notable examples include the work of
Roger Backhouse, Mark Blaug, Bruce Caldwell, Larry Boland, D. Wade Hands,
Daniel Hausman, John Pheby and Neil de Marchi. It was intriguing to see the
rise of this movement especially in terms of its influence at the American
history of thought meetings. This was curious for a number of reasons; one
is that traditional historians had mixed feelings about this intrusion,
some seeing methodology as a substitute for not complement to, much less an
essential component of, the history of economic analysis. Be that as it
may, in 1989 the International Network for Economic Method was established.
Leading figures in the formation of the Network to develop closer links
among economic methodologists were Victor Mok, Henry Woo and Daniel
Fusfeld. Methodus was the Network's bulletin and this was renamed the
Journal of Economic Methodology in 1994. Places with a particular strength
in the methodology and philosophy of economics include the University of
Notre Dame, University of Pittsburgh and the Erasmus University of
Rotterdam. There is also now an International Economics and Philosophy
Society which has an email list (IEPS-L). In addition to the Journal of
Economic Methodology, the journal Economics and Philosophy has brought a
greater level of sophistication to methodological concerns, drawing in a
number of philosophers.
It may be the case that the history of economics and economic methodology
are moving apart now. They have different institutional bases and are
developing different communication networks. Methodology has more
philosophers involved in it, while some influential historians of economics
are moving closer to history, economic history and science studies.
An extreme version of the "historians of economics should interact more
with historians of science" theme is presented by Schabas (1992). She
suggests that we should give up trying to speak to, and seek approval from,
economists and merge with the history of science. Historians of science
speak primarily to one another, and do not need to win the respect of
scientists. Historians of economics should follow a similar strategy and
break away, or talk more to different audiences by publishing in standard
history or history of science journals. Articles on the history of
economics now regularly appear in the history of science publications. The
most important journal here is Isis but Schabas article notes several
others.
While some commentators have urged that a more hospitable market for the
historian of economics might be the history of science or history proper,
the rate of conversion so far has been quite small. Other observers want a
more rigid demarcation of what constitutes genuine history of economics and
the screening of material that masquerades as history but really advances
some heterodox research agenda.
Reflections
To those within the history of thought community the present appears as a
very fruitful and productive period for the sub-discipline. We have noted
the impressive growth of these scholarly societies. We are overwhelmed by
the quantity of books being published in our field by Edward Elgar,
Routledge, JAI Press, Thoemmes Press and the Cambridge University Press
with its 'Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics' series. The
entrepreneurial efforts of Mark Blaug, Craufurd Goodwin and Warren Samuels
should especially be mentioned with their connections to a number of these
publishing houses. The initial impetus to these publication ventures was
probably the Croom Helm volumes entitled Critical Assessments of Leading
Economists and edited by John Wood and primarily targeted at the Japanese
market. On the journal front the result is just as pleasing. Where there
was once just one specialist journal, History of Political Economy, there
are at least six journals. Now in addition to HOPE, we have Research in the
History of Economic Thought and Methodology and Journal of the History of
Economic Thought. In Australia there is the History of Economics Review. In
Europe we have the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought and
History of Economic Ideas, among the English language journals.
Despite this frenzy of activity we should not lose sight of our marginal
position within the profession as a whole. Even in North America most
historians of economic thought live in isolation. Only in a few schools -
Duke, Toronto, Illinois, Michigan State, Massachusetts, Wake Forest,
Auburn, Notre Dame, York, Utah, NYU, George Mason and the New School - are
there assembled sizeable numbers of historians of economics.
The state of research in our field is much more encouraging than the
teaching situation or its status in the profession. Indeed this sense of
embattlement with courses in HET being steadily under threat or eliminated
was the key stimulus that led younger historians of thought to establish
its first journal, History of Political Economy, in the late 1960s. There
appears to be an contradiction between the recent explosion of HET
literature and the sub-discipline's increasing marginalization in the
profession (Lodewijks 1995). These comments apply with lesser strength in
the European context as HET is still an important sub-discipline. The
Aggregation in France, an exam that enables people to become full
Professors, still includes a "lesson" in the history of economics.
A number of concerns arise in response to this juxtaposition. First, is the
surge of publications in HET likely to continue? If not, as A.W. Coats
recently suggests is likely, what are the implications for the
sub-disciple? Secondly, there are genuine concerns about the quality of
scholarship associated with the recent flood of contributions, particularly
the loose refereeing of books by particular publishing houses. The role and
impact of electronic communication needs to be considered here. While the
CD-ROMS of major authors and the scanning of non-copyright HET material
(via Rod Hay and Tony Brewer) provides a wonderful public "good" for
researchers, the almost unrestricted communications on the HES list may
lead to Gresham's Law! While the List has over 400 members there are only
about 10 really active participants and certain individuals have an
irrepressible urge to comment on all issues. Thirdly, with the aging and
retirement of some of the crafts' most well-known and scholarly
contributors, there are concerns about the future.
*First draft was written on 25 November 1996. Presented at Duke University
for discussion on 17 December, 1996. The comments of Ross Emmett, Philippe
Fontaine, Craufurd Goodwin, Peter Groenewegen and Roy Weintraub are much
appreciated.
Selected References
Lodewijks, John. 1995. Relevance, Scholarship and the Historian of
Economics. History of Economic Ideas III.2: 131-155.
Schabas, Margaret et al. 1992. Breaking Away: History of Economics as
History of Science. Minisymposium: The History of Economics and the History
of Science. History of Political Economy 24.1: 185-247.
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