Time is running out for us but here are 3 more emails that may put extra pressure on the ABS: 1. A wonderful letter from Nicos Theocarakis on behalf of the HET and EH community in Greece. 2. An article from Steve Kates that will appear in today's Australian Financial Review - equivalent of your Wall Street Journal. 3. A letter I wrote to the boss of the ABS. ________________________________________ The HET and EH community in Greece will send tomorrow the following letter to Dr Brett joining the voices of our colleagues abroad. Yours sincerely, Nicos Theocarakis University of Athens September 11, 2007 Dr. David Brett Australian Bureau of Statistics [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Dear Dr. Brett, We, the undersigned are academic economists and economic historians, members of the Greek Society for the History of Economic Thought. Our research includes work in the fields of the History of Economic Thought and Economic History. We wish to add our voices to those of our colleagues abroad who "urge you to reconsider the decision to 'relocate' 'economic history' and 'history of economic thought' into the 'History, Archeology, Religion and Philosophy' category of the Australian Bureau of Statistics." Such a decision, if applied, will certainly compromise seriously the positions and research support of researchers in these fields. This "collateral damage", however, would not be the greater of all evils. Most importantly this decision will have dire implications for the future of these fields and for economics in general. It is no coincidence that the Journal of Economic Literature classifies methodology together with history of economic thought. It is difficult to do the one without the other. Ostracizing history of economic thought outside its proper discipline deprives economists from the tools to contemplate competently on the methods best for their science. In fact, the history and methodology of a discipline is an established integrated subfield in other sciences ('hard sciences' included!). To mention a few examples from other subjects, the history of psychology has a separate code in the PsycInfo database (Psychology), the history of Physics is included in the American Institute of Physics classification system PACS (Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme), and also the history of Mathematics has a separate code in Mathematics Subject Classification of the American Mathematical Society. The process of "relocation", once started, it will be irreversible. Teachers of HET and economic history will cease to exist in Economic Departments. If, in the future, economists realize the error of their ways, it would be extremely difficult, even impossible, to retie the severed thread of research. They will not be any of us around. Economists whose research is primarily in other fields will be discouraged to contribute to HET and economic history in this competitive age of quantitatively assessed research output. This would be unfortunate, since there is a long line of illustrious economists who have contributed to HET while their major contribution is in other fields. This list includes Nobel Laureates such as George Stigler, Friedrich Hayek, Paul Samuelson, James Buchanan, Kenneth Arrow, Gerard Debreu, Lawrence Klein, Robert Solow, Herbert Simon and Vernon Smith. Indeed the list of Nobel Laureates includes also Robert Fogel and Douglass North whose primary area of research is economic history, published in economic journals, worked in economic departments and have served as presidents of economic associations. Lesser mortals presumably need not apply. In truth, you cannot teach economics, or practice it, without a knowledge of history of thought and of economic history. Students will be unable to understand the processes through which economic theory is being created and its relation to history and economic reality. Relevance will be lost. Those who claim otherwise, adopt an extreme methodological position and instead of fighting it out in the field of scientific debate prefer to silence the opposition by bureaucratic means. "Relocation" means taking sides, even unwittingly. It may also mean that economics will become a poorer subject practiced by historically illiterates engulfed in their formalistic esoterica plus a toolbox of quantitative techniques. This will affect negatively the enrollment to economics courses everywhere. They would be substituted by business courses in business or management departments who, oddly enough, are more hospitable to historians of economic thought and economic historians, since, practical people as they are, are not convinced that teaching economics can be done without its history. It would be a pity if you have in the future to reclassify economics under "Religion". Moreover, it takes one to know one: philosophers and non-economic historians even though they have enhanced, occasionally significantly, the understanding of our science, they are a different breed and they cannot, by training, carry out the bulk of research that is required in these fields. But even if they publish important contributions, they will do it in partibus infidelium, in places out of reach for economists and in manner that eventually will become incomprehensible to economists who by then would have lost any touch with historical and philosophical arguments and the ability to understand them. Of course, intelligent people - as economists are - are bound to reinvent through reasoning in the course of their research, principles that are commonplace in the fields of HET and Economic History but with the inelegance of the amateur bereft of serious scholarship and of deeper understanding of the issues involved. We urge you to reconsider. "Relocation" would mean a disservice to economics. It would be a wrong representation of what the fields of history of economic thought and economic history are about. Certainly, if you "relocate", eventually these fields will truly become part of "History, Archeology, Religion and Philosophy". This would a case of "self-fulfilling reclassification". We think that you agree with the principle that a Statistics Bureau should not create reality but depict it. Yours sincerely, Avraam-Albert Arouh, Professor, Economics, The American College of Greece-Deree College. Stavros A. Drakopoulos, Professor, Department of Philosophy & History of Science, University of Athens. Aristides N.Hatzis, (Ph.D., Law & Econ, University of Chicago), Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy & History of Science, University of Athens. Anastassios D.Karayiannis, Associate Professor, Dept of Economics University of Piraeus. Vassilis Kardasis, Professor of Economic History, Dept of Economics University of Crete. George E. Krimpas, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Economics, University of Athens, Past Head of the Dept of Economics, Past Vice-Rector of the University of Athens, Past Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics & Politics, Former Ambassador of Greece to the OECD. Theodoros Mariolis, Assistant Professor, Dept of Public Administration, Panteion University, Athens. Stavros Mavroudeas, Associate Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Macedonia. John Milios, Professor of Political Economy and the History of Economic Thought, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, National Technical University of Athens. Dimitris Milonakis, Associate Professor of Political Economy, Deputy Head, Dept of Economics, University of Crete. Dimitrios S. Patelis, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Sciences, Technical University of Crete. Socrates Petmezas, Associate Professor of Economic and Social History, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete. Michalis Psalidopoulos, Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Athens George Stathakis, Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Crete. Nicholas J. Theocarakis Ph.D. (Cantab.), Assistant Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Athens. Euclid Tsakalotos, D.Phil. (Oxon.), Professor, Dept of International and. European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business. Lefteris Tsoulfidis, Associate Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Macedonia. Michael Zouboulakis, Associate Professor in the History and Methodology of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Thessaly. ____________________________________________ The following is an unedited version of an article that will be published in the Education Section of the AFR on Monday. An Historical Injustice Dr Steven Kates In June this year I went to the United States for a number of purposes but amongst the main ones was to meet with Professor Thomas Sowell, a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Sowell is one of the most widely published economists in the world, has written a host of books on a variety of subjects in economics and politics, is highly influential in his policy work and has a syndicated column that appears in the press across the US. The person he met with, me that is, has worked in the economics department of a major bank, spent a quarter of a century as the economist for Australia's largest business association and now divides his time between a university appointment in a school of business and his work as a commissioner investigating major economic policy issues on behalf of the federal government. But what Thomas Sowell and myself have in common is this. Both of us did our doctorates on the same subject and both of us had our PhDs published soon after. And the subject: Say's Law, a notion that was first articulated in the first decade of the nineteenth century but which has remained controversial amongst economists ever since. Both of us, that is, had undertaken our doctoral research work in the branch of economics referred to as the History of Economic Thought. And it is this area of economics which is now about to be removed by the ABS, along with Economic History, from amongst the legitimate fields of economics. It is to be cast out on some lonely outpost, classified within a new catch-all division of social sciencey type subjects which, in the ABS's own conceptual system, is referred to as "History, Archaeology, Religion and Philosophy". The president of the Australian historians of economics society has received a letter of explanation from the ABS outlining the reasoning for this decision. How does the ABS get to make such decisions? The first and main reason given for this change is this: "The processes used in History of Economic Thought are primarily historical and philosophical rather than economic." How many different ways is this untrue. It is not whether historians of economics are steeped in economics, deal with major economic issues and provide policy advice based on the unique perspective that HET provides. It is that the "processes" are not economic. On this basis one would have to conclude that mathematical economics is not economics but maths, or that econometrics is not an area of economics but statistics instead. Behavioural economics, a burgeoning field, would be psychology, and so on. If the classification system is really based on "processes" and not subject matter, then it is a classification system that is clearly built on a flawed premise. It appears to have been based on the practices of the "hard" science rather than the subject matter of the social sciences. Economics must deal with events that occur within historical time. Historical events are the feedstock of economic theory; they are an economist's only laboratory. The second reason given was that "groups (formerly disciplines) which are not useful for describing either the breadth of R&D or how spending is apportioned, were restructured." To translate, students of the history of economic thought and economic historians seldom sought, or received, public money. As noted by the ABS, these areas had been responsible for "only 1.2% of all public sector R&D in economics in 2004 (the most recent data available), thus is too narrow to be useful for understanding where economics R&D expenditure occurs." Thus, HET and Economic History should be excluded from the discipline of economics because such economists do not apply for grants, and even if they do apply, very seldom receive a cent. If more public funds were being spent on these areas, we would be classified as part of economic theory. But because we go about our work without requiring huge sums of money, we cannot be included as a branch of economics. It's a classification thing which has no merit in terms of subject matter. A group of economists is dropped from being officially designated as economists because they don't apply for grants, not because they are not engaged in the study of economies. So how might this decision be reversed? This, too, the ABS has explained: "If this change is undesirable to your research community, we can contemplate undoing these changes on the following grounds: Evidence that R&D activity is significantly underreported or anticipated to significantly increase in the near future. Evidence that the assumption that History of Economic Thought R&D primarily involves processes that are historical and philosophical is false. That is, either show we intend to spend lots more public money or show that we do not largely employ historical or philosophical processes in our research. But, as this letter also states, irrespective of what we show, "the Economic History and History of Economic Thought group will not be reinstated." Well, we think it should be. Historians of economics and economic historians are economists and work as economists everywhere - one such person even used to run the ABS. Economics is a policy science. Economies cannot be studied without studying the history of those economies. Without a thorough understanding of historical circumstance, it is impossible to develop or implement sensible economic policies. Similarly, economic theory itself cannot be studied without also having some understanding of how those theories were developed. Few PhDs in economics are complete without a "literature review" which is expected to encompass an historical compendium of all of the relevant theoretical approaches that have been previously used to analyse whatever the topic being studied happens to be. The decision to drop history of economics and economic history from within the economics classification is a decision that needs to be reviewed and reversed. Dr Steven Kates __________________________________________________ September 9, 2007 Brian Pink, Australian Statistician Australian Bureau of Statistics ABS House 45 Benjamin Way Belconnen ACT 2617 CC: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask] Dear Brian, I am writing to express my concern over the proposed Australian Bureau of Statistics revision of its research classifications. As I understand it this is part of a DEST commissioned review of the use of the Australian Standard Research Classification. My specific concern relates to the proposal, effective from 2008, to remove from the Economics listings the fields History of Economic Thought and Economic History. Instead "Economic History" and "History of Economic Thought" will be "relocated" into a category of "History, Archeology, Religion and Philosophy". It is also proposed that in any future revision History of Economic Thought and Economic History will be eliminated entirely. Our universities have asked us for feedback on these proposed changes to transmit to you by September 14. We have also made our concerns known via the ABS email site: [log in to unmask] Could I ask you to look at the amount of feedback the ABS has received on that site. I think you will agree that it is very substantial and in almost complete consensus apposing the elimination of the fields History of Economic Thought and Economic History from the Economics category. I hope you might also note the standing of the representation that has been made. Strong support has come domestically from the: President, Economic Society of Australia=20 President, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand President, History of Economic Thought Society of Australia Chief Executive Officer. Universities Australia Senior Staff, Productivity Commission Australian Research Council Federation Fellows Former Governor, Reserve Bank of Australia Executive Director, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Internationally, there are letters of support from organizations such as: President of the Royal Economic Society, UK Chair of the Economics section of the British Academy President of the (British) Economic History Society President, North American History of Economics Society. This is in addition to the countless number of academics, both here and overseas, that have written in support. I would have thought that this overwhelming support for keeping the fields History of Economic Thought and Economic History in the Economics classification would have been decisive in over-turning this proposal.=20 However, correspondence with one of your staff, David Brett, indicates otherwise. In an email dated 8/30/2007 he tells us that "The Economic History and History of Economic Thought group will not be reinstated" and that both would most probably be deleted at the next revision. This it seems to me defeats the whole purpose of requesting feedback as the decisions have been already made and will not be changed. This is despite the overwhelming reaction from the discipline supporting these fields as valuable and legitimate research fields in economics.=20 We are trying desperately to understand why this decision was made.=20 I accept that the ABS is doing this classification for its own purposes - namely, as I understand it, to record R & D expenditures more appropriately. That is fine but do you fully realize the consequences of what you are doing? You will not be the only one using these research codes and fields, such as the revised RFCD and SEO codes. They will be also used by DEST, ARC and for forthcoming RQF rounds.=20 For example, at UWS for every new publication I get I have to fill in a form to send to the Research Office indicating these codes. It is on the basis of these DEST publications that conference funding, promotion and all else depends. They are also the basis for the RQF exercise. With the reclassification, HET and Economic History publications will no longer count in the total for Economics and the funding that is associated with that. So that our research output will count for nothing in economics (although it might count in Religion, Philosophy, History etc which is all in the Faculty of Arts where we are not employed). These publications do not add to the economics research quantum. As long as DEST, ARC, RQF, and Universities use these revised codes then History of Economic Thought and Economic History is effectively dead in economics departments. This reclassification will lead to that outcome despite the overwhelming disciplinary support for these fields to remain in economics. The basis of the reclassification of research activity is research funding (R & D expenditures). I think you would be aware that while this may be a good measure in the physical sciences, it has limitations when applied to the social sciences. In the physical sciences you need the external funds to set up a laboratory to hire the research students to run the experiments and hence publish the results. In the social sciences, in many fields, we can generate high quality research output without extensive research grants. The Commonwealth Government used research grants as only one indicator for research activity. The others are Ph.D completions and DEST publications. I realize the ABS is attracted to using R & D expenditure as it is easier to quantify and compare. However, the other two indicators are important too, especially DEST publications. The fields of History of Economic Thought and Economic History in this country have a very high research profile internationally. Our books are widely recognized. Our articles go into the top international journals, indicated by impact factors, citations and journal rankings. Our academics regularly win international awards for research. By only considering R & D expenditures you obtain an incomplete and misleading indicator of research activity.=20 I hope that this reclassification can be reconsidered. Sincerely, John Lodewijks