As one of the standing secretary of the Society of the History of Economic Thought, Japan (JSHET), I sent the following message to the Australian Bereau of Statistics last week.

Yasunori Fukagai

Yokohama National University


--- "Yasunori Fukagai" ---

September 14, 2007

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to
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Dr. David Brett


Dear Dr Brett

In these two weeks, many information reach to us on the decision to relocate the Economic History and the History of Economic Thought into the category of History, Archaeology, Religion and Philosophy by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. As I am one of the members of the standing secretary board of the Society for the History of Economic Thought, Japan (JSHET), I am now making some comments on this issue.

Our society of JSHET was established in 1950, being the oldest one among the societies on the research field of the history of economic thought in the world. It has also been one of the established academic societies in the area of economic science in Japan. The History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA), the excellent group of this field in Australia, is one of the equivalent societies for us, as well as the History of Economics Society and the European Society for the History of Economic Thought. Recent ten years, some members of our JSHET joined to, and presented papers at, the Annual Conferences of HETSA. Moreover, our Japanese research groups sometimes invited the scholars from Australia and had the seminars and joint research projects with them. Under the combination of these backgrounds, we Japanese scholars could not be indifferent to the relocation issue in Australia.

Considering the institutional, traditional and conventional differences of the educational system of the higher learning and academic atmosphere between the countries, I avoid to raise the general comment on the allocation of the academic fields. Instead, I pick up the statistical situation of the academics on this field in Australia. History of the Economics Review is one of the nice journals in our research field, and is basically promoted by the HETSA. By checking the affiliations of the authors who has the position in Australian academics, we can find that most of them belong to the department or section of economics or business. This situation explains well that the proposed relocation should damage the research activities of historians of economic thought in Australia.

Broadly speaking, it is certain that the relationship of statistics to the society is not necessary neutral. For example, some economic statistics have the announcement effect, namely that the members of the society may have the positive or negative prospects from the new information of the closest past. However, the substantial task of the statistics to the society is to provide the good and reliable information, not to give the uneven effect to the social situation. The issue now discussed is the very case of the uneven one which damages the research condition for the Australian scholars in our field. Because of this reason, I should recommend you to reconsider seriously the issue of relocation plan of History of Economic Thought.

With best wishes

Yasunori Fukagai

Member of the Standing Secretary Board
The Society for the History of Economic Thought, Japan



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Yasunori Fukagai
Professor (History of Economic Thought)
Yokohama National University
Faculty of Economics
79-3 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama Japan 240-8501
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: +81 (0)45 339 3562
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