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 27th 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
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 19th 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,
20th 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
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)