*We were notified that some colleagues encountered problems with their
submissions at the Conference website, probably caused by an
insufficient time between the renewal of their ESHET membership and the
abstract submission. We therefore decided to extend the submission
deadline to 31 January 2024.
The Conference organizers*
*Call for Papers*
The 27^th Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of
Economic Thought (ESHET) will take place in Graz from 9 – 11 May 2024.
Proposals for papers or sessions on all aspects of the history of
economic thought are welcome.
An abstract of about 400 words for a paper and 600 words for a session
should be submitted on the conference website no later than *31 January
2024*.
https://www.eshet-conference.net/graz
<https://eshet.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f054d8dfd35ce5999b552d5f0&id=c474fd0ce2&e=c7a3c69965>
Please note that _in case of a session proposal_ the submission must be
done individually: the title of the session should be mentioned either
in the title of the paper or in the abstract.
Decisions will be notified by *12 February 2024.*
Note that: a) published papers are not eligible for submission; b) only
one conference presentation is allowed per person (but more than one
submission may be accepted, if involving co-authors who are also
presenting); c) session proposals must conform with standard format (3
papers, 90 minutes).
*Conference* *Theme*
*Economics and Policy Making: From Art and Craft to Welfare Optimization
and Evidence Based Policies*
As observed by A.C. Pigou in the opening pages of Economics of Welfare,
the object of any inquiry “may be either light or fruit”. According to
Pigou, economics belongs to those sciences where the latter is bound to
play a major role: “If it were not for the hope that a scientific study
of social actions may lead, not necessarily directly or immediately, but
at some time and in some way, to practical results in social
improvement, not a few students of these actions would regard the time
devoted to their study as time misspent. That is true of all social
sciences, but especially true of economics.”
This may appear obvious. However, since Adam Smith’s more qualified than
assertive /Science of the legislator,/ the development of economic
thought and scientific economics was accompanied by changing mental
models regarding the transfer from theory to politics and to practical
policy making. Donald Winch summarized post-Smithian vicissitudes as
follows: “Much of Smith’s science of the legislator died with him, and
any account of the branch of it that constitutes political economy must
take account of that fact”.
The 19^th century saw developments in classical economics that Alfred
Marshall later criticized as “dogmatic”, including the tendency to
“suppress even such conditioning and qualifying clauses as they had in
their own mind”. National traditions such as the German Historical
School developed a particular style of organizing scientific foundations
for politics in the form of the /Verein für Socialpolitik/. John Stuart
Mill re-invigorated an approach closer to Adam Smith’s carefully
qualified conclusions and policy recommendations, based on his
conception of tendency laws, operating “in a certain manner unless
counteracted; but we can never be assured to what extent or amount it
will so operate, or affirm with certainty that it will not be
counteracted; because we can seldom know even approximately, all the
agencies which may co-exist with it, and still less calculate the
collective result of so many combined elements”.
An important tradition in the wake of such reasoning understood economic
policy as the/“art and craft”/ of combining scientific tendency laws
with complementary knowledge of the scope and power of “counteracting,
co-existing agencies”. In contrast, 20^th century developments of
normative economics (“Social Welfare Functions”) as well as improvements
of empirical tools were and are (claimed to be) conducive to a “more
scientific” and rigorous approach to policy making, conceiving of
economic policy as applied economics, envisaging welfare maximization,
“evidence-based policies”, and sometimes even “policies without
alternative”.
While there are good reasons for highlighting problems of such
developments (as suggested by David Colander and Craig Freedman),
historians of economic thought are in a position to deal with pertinent
questions at various levels, including
* National traditions in policy advising
* Paradigms in economics and their implications for the style of
policy advice
* Economic education as a means of knowledge transfer
* Economic research institutes and policy-oriented thinktanks
* Institutionalization of policy advice
* Expert economists in specific fields such as monetary policy or
social policy
* Evolution of the theoretical background conceptualizing
science-politics interfaces
* Case studies on the role of economic advice in specific reform
processes or in the design and implementation of anti-depression
policies
*Scientific Committee*
*Vladimir Avtonomov* *– Higher School of Economics, Moscow*
*Katia Caldari *- University of Padova
*Christian Gehrke* - University of Graz
*Heinz D. Kurz* – University of Graz
*Steven G. Medema* – Duke University
*Richard Sturn *- University of Graz
*Estrella Trincado Aznar* - Complutense University of Madrid
--
Sylvie Rivot
Professeur des Universités
Faculté de marketing et d'agrosciences, Université de Haute-Alsace
Vice-Présidente recherche et formation doctorale, Université de Haute-Alsace (https://www.uha.fr)
Membre du BETA, Université de Strasbourg
(http://www.beta-umr7522.fr)
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