*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)