================== HES POSTING ======================== HESsians---- The Kress Seminar is a Boston regional seminar in HET. I am coordinator and I owe the HES web site an updated entry. For now, here is the current Notice, which foreshadows the subsequent session too. I will post the notices here. Papers are commonly available by arrangement with the author, whose e-mail address I intend to include (as below) --never by arrangement with me. ----Paul Paul Wendt, Watertown MA coordinator, Kress Seminar in HET (and HES co-editor) ====[here follows the Kress Seminar Notice, Oct 96] KRESS SEMINAR in the HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT Paul Wendt 64 Riverside St #3 Watertown, MA 02172-2652 tel: 617-926-8253 email: [log in to unmask] 9 Oct 1996 Kress seminar participants, Our next seminar is Thursday, 17 Oct, 7:40-10 pm, in Littauer M16 on the Harvard University campus. We feature one paper and discussion panel: Joshua Cohen (U Amsterdam and Harvard U) "Experiential Utility from Bentham to QALYs" [Quality-Adjusted Life Years] Discussants: Howard Raiffa (Harvard U) Agnes Miklos-Illes (Yale U) Shira Batya Lewin (Harvard U) JOSH COHEN is completing a PhD in Economics at U Amsterdam, contributing to the history of quantification in economics with a study that focuses on economic theory and health care assessment. He is visiting the History of Science dept. at Harvard this Fall, as last Fall. His Kress seminar last December was cancelled by snow, too late in his visit to be rescheduled. The QUALITY-ADJUSTED LIFE YEAR is an aptly-named concept for quantifying welfare, typically for evaluating environmental or health policy. It can be executed in different ways, tied more or less closely to economics, psychology, medicine, or demands of practical measurement. In both respects it is a "fellow concept" with Cost-Benefit. Here Josh assesses the element of psychological experience in "utility" --from Bentham to QALYs, as advertised! He presented a version of this paper in Edinburgh this summer. The CURRENT VERSION IS AVAILABLE pending your arrangement with him <[log in to unmask]>. Howard Raiffa (Harvard Business School) has been a prominent participant in the quantification of economic and policy analysis. Some would call him "the man introduced economists to decision theory"; others "the man who invented QALYs." Agnes Miklos-Illes is working on Otto Neurath and utilitarianism. Shira Batya Lewin is the author of an article on utility in economics and psychology in the current __J of Economic Literature__. Dinner Anyone interested in dinner and conversation before the seminar is invited to gather at the Singha House Thai restaurant (1105 Mass. Ave) at 6:00. The food is great, matched only by the company. The Singha House is prepared to handle late additions to a party (to about 6:30 for dinner or 7:00 for appetizer or drink, given our time constraint). I hope to see you Thursday, ----Paul [imagine my signature here: P/\/\/\/\t ]