Colleagues,
Some of the the proceedings of the 23rd Conference of the History of Economic Thought  Society being held at the University of Sydney to be held in the first week of July is now on the HETSA web site at Hetsa.org.au.

Some of the papers, not all, can be downloaded. 


The Conference has 25 papers Iinvolving researchers from Australasia Japan and Europe.
The Conference convenor is Matthew Smith from the University of Sydney who is als presnting a paper. Some 50 academic are expected to attend.


Best Wishes
Alex MIllmow
President of HETSA

>>> "Coffin, Donald A" <[log in to unmask]> 06/22/10 8:33 AM >>>
I have to admit that my work has been outside the history of economics (although a fair amount of my reading is within that area).

I am also very much in favor of moving in this direction and would encourage us to consider not jus POD, but ebook formats.  As ebook readers become technologically better (friends tell me the iPad is a major step in this direction, capable of handling color, graphics, and images with a facility that Amazon’s Kindle lacks), they will provide a better outlook for scholarly (and other) work.  It also makes sense to me that the HES should take the institutional lead in this effort.

I also recognize the concern of organizing the work of this effort, whatever platform it evolves into.  Having been involved with a (minor) on-line journal, I know that the editorial function can become a time sink, and one that may not receive the institutional support or recognition it deserves.  In whatever direction this initiative moves, the resource requirements will not be trivial.

Don Coffin



From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Samuel Bostaph
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 2:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] HES Books

I like this proposal for three reasons:

1. Self-publishing, print-on-demand, with distribution through Amazon or other general distributors, is a growing phenomenon and, arguably, the future of book publishing. Like online independent news sources are now crowding out conventional newspapers, self-publication and online reviews may crowd out conventional publishers in the future. HES could be on the crest of this wave of change.

2. Articles published in academic society-sponsored journals are, in effect, given the imprimis of the society through the editorial and referee process. Why not move on to books?

3. History of Economics is increasingly given short shrift by publishers, except for those cited by Roy. As the living memory of our profession, we should do whatever we can to counter this trend. My personal view: The sore need for our services is most glaringly illustrated by the public reversion by so many mainstream economists to the crudest sort of "keynesian" policy recommendations [the small "k" is intentional] in the face of the current recession, and in defiance of its obvious historical failures.

Samuel Bostaph, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics and
Chairman
Department of Economics
University of Dallas
(972)721-5159

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."--Winston Churchill

--- On Mon, 6/21/10, E. Roy Weintraub <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: E. Roy Weintraub <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SHOE] HES Books
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, June 21, 2010, 12:39 PM
A Proposal for the History of Economics Society
             At this stage in the life of our subdiscipline, the balance between articles and books in a scholar’s publishing career seems to have shifted somewhat in favor of articles.  Nevertheless, a number of books in the history of economics are published each year.  While many of these books are small or large revisions of doctoral dissertations for degrees from (primarily) in European universities, some of the books are scholars’ monographs which refocus an accumulated body of work, while others are done by more senior scholars with more tenure-leisure to undertake long term projects.
             The number of book publishers however is small.  In North America, several university presses will consider publications in the history of economics – Duke, Princeton, Chicago, Harvard, and Michigan come readily to mind.  In a different category are the larger presses with old university affiliations, Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press.  Large commercial publishers will occasionally publish a book in the history of economics for a large trade audience (like Wiley for Perry Mehrling’s book on Fischer Black).  Two commercial publishers have large lists in the history of economics and take on more publishing projects than any of the others, Routledge and Edward Elgar.  Their business model consists of placing their hard back volumes in libraries and generally forgoing sales to individual scholars.The difficulty and distinction of these commercial publishers is associated with the fact that their pricing structures are quite different from those of the other presses: books priced between $100-$200 U.S. are the rule, where these prices are roughly equivalent to a five year subscription to JHET or HOPE.
        The object of publication by authors in the present academic environment is not only the advancement of knowledge, but also the prestige-benefit (there is of course hardly any pecuniary gain to the author) that accrues to the author for having published a book.  Most humanities departments in North American universities require a book to be published before tenure may be granted.  The stresses on humanities publishing are well known.  The history of economics, located generally in an institutional setting within departments of economics, presents different prestige-challenges.  As one who has served in various capacities on my own university’s committee on appointment, promotion and tenure, evaluating and reviewing cases from all units of a large research university (except for law and  clinical medicine), I am aware generally of how various academic units construct their internal standards for tenure, and promotion.  I have come to believe that in the future, as economics continues to regard itself as an article-based culture like the sciences, publishing books will become increasingly anomalous; economics faculty personnel committees will struggle to compare the “value” of a book with the “value” of articles.  The usual way in which these matters are addressed is to argue on the basis of merit and quality in the publication, and this generally results in a desire to see that books are published by “major” rather than “minor” publishers with the reputation of the publishers serving as a proxy for the quality of the book under discussion.  It is important to have a book contract or published book in a humanities and interpretative social science field, but it is perhaps more important to have a “good” publisher if one seeks tenure in a department of English.  Knowledge of which publishers are “good” in each field is learned as part of the socialization process that scholars in various disciplines engage.
             A difficulty in the history of economics community is that location in “good” book series is difficult because of the extremely small number of books in the history of economics published by, say, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Chicago and MIT.  Oxford and Cambridge do a good job but they are publishers with, again, limited lists, or lists limited to one or two series at best.  Thus book publishing in the history of economics is increasingly done by the commercial publishers Elgar, Routledge, and to a lesser degree M.E. Sharp and Palgrave Macmillan.  Since those books are expensive, individuals have more difficulty purchasing such books, and so they are less likely to refer back to the book in their own work.  Impact factors, citation studies, Google Scholar “hits”, H-indices and so on require that, for larger scores, more individuals need to have access to the publications. Financially stressed libraries are increasingly unable to serve this need or perform this service.  Consequently those who publish must rely on book reviews, which are increasingly infrequent in mainstream economics journals (hence the growing importance of on-line reviews).
             I recently reviewed a book by a Nobel Laureate which was in effect self-published.  That scholar’s reputation will certainly sell copies and his own distribution will assure availability.  I do not know whether this volume is print on demand, but it might well be.  How is one to achieve reputational advantage if one publishes in a print-on-demand self-publishing operation using, say, Amazon as the distributor? If one has a Nobel Prize, one simply does it.  If one is a young scholar, it seems to be a rather hopeless task. Currently a young scholar’s book requires the imprimatur of a “good” press to insure that the book is a “serious” work.
             The foregoing considerations lead me to suggest, for the consideration of the History of Economics Society, the following scheme: The History of Economics Society, through a standing committee on book publishing, might solicit manuscripts for publication through a yet to be determined mode of producing books (e.g. perhaps books published on demand?). These books could be sold independently and individually through the use of Amazon, which would make it unnecessary to incur any warehousing, order fulfillment, or other distribution costs.  The function of the committee would be, simply, to provide a certain number of books per year with the label “A History of Economics Society Book”.  These books, with that label awarded competitively, would have a possible path to value-recognition of scholarship by institutions seeking an external valuator of quality.  The HES has a reputation of some significance, and its article and book prizes are very highly valued as honors for the recipient at the recipient’s home institution.  Pricing of these volumes would need to cover costs and could, under various different pricing structures, permit free copies to all members of HES, much as History of Political Economy includes a book (a supplementary issue) in each volume number, for the annual HOPE conferences. Alternatively, deep discounts to HES members could be achieved easily.  Some revenues might accrue to HES as well.
             This course of action is obviously but one idea to increase the visibility of scholars who write monographs in the history of economics, but it does so in a way that places the History of Economics Society itself in a highly visible position within the history of economics community.

--
E. Roy Weintraub
Professor of Economics
Duke University
www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html<http://www.econ.duke.edu/%7Eerw/erw.homepage.html>