Daniele Besomi asked, "what happened eventually to Economic History, our fellow disgraced sub-discipine?" The letter below is the notice sent out by the ABS in response to the more recent submissions in which it outlines the decision reached within the Bureau itself. It should however be noted that there are other review bodies which must still pass judgement on the ABS recommendation, but at the present moment the following letter outlines the state of play in both History of Economics and Economic History. But do please note the careful phrasing where the ABS merely states that this is "the current thinking". Nothing yet has been finalised. Steve Kates Thank you for your submission to the Australian Standard Research Classification review. Your concerns with regard to the proposed treatment of Economic History and History of Economic Thought have been formally noted by the review team, and your submission and interest together with others on this issue has been taken into consideration. On the basis of the information received by the review team, the proposal with regards to these research fields has been revised. The revised proposal is to keep Economic History and History of Economic Thought within Economics. The revised proposal is based on extensive feedback on this issue and the core reasoning behind this proposal is as follows: . the techniques used in Economic History research are identical to those used in other areas of applied economics - the subject matter is historical economic data; . the History of Economic Thought can be described as being primarily concerned with the development of economic theory. The current thinking is therefore to align these categories with the respective sub-categories of applied and theoretic economics. I appreciate your input to this process and the classification in its entirety is not due to be finalised until November 2007. Publication of the new classification is expected early in 2008. I hope that this addresses your concerns and thank you again for your submission. If you have any further concerns please contact Dr David Brett - [log in to unmask] . ABS appreciates such feedback in informing its deliberations for this review.