This is a reminder of the Call for Papers for the following conference:

THE SOUL OF ECONOMICS

Location: University of Zurich, Switzerland

Date: September 9-11, 2019

Website: https://soulofeconomics2019.weebly.com

List of confirmed invited speakers
Erik Angner (Stockholm University)
Alvin Birdi (University of Bristol)
Beatrice Cherrier (CNRS & THEMA, University of Cergy Pontoise)
Kevin Hoover (Duke University)
Shabnam Mousavi (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Andreas Ortmann (University of South Wales)
Don Ross (University of Cork)

(additional speakers to be confirmed)

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The occasion for this conference is the 10-year passing of the global financial crisis in 2007-08. The 
emphasis lies in particular on debates that have sparked or revived issues concerning the main 
constituents of the ‘soul of economics’ and have provoked new questions about the nature of this soul. 
More specifically, we focus mainly on questions that have been raised within but also outside the 
economics profession about some of the constituents of this soul, namely the discipline’s theoretical 
foundations, the desirability of old and new modeling tools, the role of empirical analysis in economics, 
and the usefulness of research programs such as behavioral economics, among many others. We 
furthermore address questions the crisis has provoked concerning the lack of public trust in economics 
and how to regain it. 

To enable a fruitful debate about those questions, the main goal of the conference is to provide a 
platform for economists, philosophers of economics, sociologists of economics, and historians of recent 
economics to push the examination that underlies this soul searching further. This will help us, in turn, 
to better understand where economics is headed in the near future. We attribute the major issues under 
discussion to the following three areas within which there is ongoing disagreement among economists: 
1) the debate in macroeconomics about the usefulness of DSGE models and the demand for 
microfoundations; 2) the discussion of the status and usefulness of behavioral economics and how it 
theoretically and conceptually differs from neoclassical economics; and, 3) the debate about the role of 
methodological consensus to regain public trust in economic expertise (for more specified questions we 
will address in each area, see conference website).

While we are also interested in papers that are concerned with other issues related to the conference 
topic, we are especially keen on receiving papers that address any of these issues. For each area, 
keynote speakers will discuss issues arising in those areas from an economic, a philosophical, and a 
historical perspective. We therefore welcome papers using systematic and conceptual approaches, case 
study analysis and historical approaches more generally, as well as sociological approaches.
 

Dates and deadlines
We invite submissions of contributed papers. Submissions should contain a title, a short abstract of 100 
words (copied in the body of the email), and an extended abstract of up to 500 words. The abstracts 
should be prepared for blind review and submitted via ​the Easychair system the latest by June 16, 2019. 
Authors will be notified the latest by July 15, 2019.
 

Organising Committee 
Charles Djordjevic (University of Zurich)
Catherine Herfeld (University of Zurich)
Chiara Lisciandra (University of Groningen) 
Carlo Martini (University of Helsinki)