================== HES POSTING ====================== Announcement of New European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) Research Area Institutional History of Economics Research Area Coordinator: Esther-Mirjam Sent (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands & University of Notre Dame, USA), Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA, Phone: +1-219-631-6979, Fax: +1-219-631-8809, E-mail: [log in to unmask] According to orthodox history of economics, the criteria by which economic knowledge claims are to be judged are universal and ahistorical, and the conclusions of economics are determined by the economic world rather than by the social world. Recently, this view has come under attack for being beset by grave difficulties. In particular, it has been argued that the empirical conclusions of economics must be seen as interpretative constructions, dependent for their meaning upon and limited by the cultural resources available to a particular social group at a particular point in time. Similarly, criteria for assessing economic knowledge claims are always open to varied interpretations and are given meaning in terms of particular economists' specific intellectual commitments, presuppositions, and objectives. Whereas evolutionary political economy offers an alternative approach to the examination of economic agents, institutional history of economics supplies a different perspective on the evaluation of economists. Moreover, it employs the concept of "institutions" to capture the linkages, networks, and processes in which these economists operate. Whereas evolutionary political economy provides an alternative to neoclassical economic theory, therefore, institutional history of economics furnishes an alternative to orthodox history of economics. Following EAEPE's theoretical perspectives, it does so in the following terms: The approach to analysis is based on an evaluation of relevant tendencies and linkages in actual economics - instead of a methodology that sanctifies fictions and diverts attention from the difficult task of analyzing the practice and culture of economics. The analysis is open-ended and interdisciplinary in that it draws upon relevant material in psychology, anthropology, politics, and history - instead of a definition of history of economics in terms of a rigid method that is applied indiscriminately to a wide variety of economic approaches. The conception of economics is of a cumulative and evolutionary process unfolding in historical time in which economists are faced with chronic information problems and radical uncertainty about the future - instead of approaches to theorizing that focus exclusively on the product of this process. The concern is to address and encompass the interactive, social process through which economics is formed and changed - instead of a theoretical framework that takes economists and their interests as given. It is appropriate to regard economics itself as a social institution, necessarily supported by a network of other social institutions - instead of an orientation that takes economics itself as an ideal or natural order and as a mere aggregation of individual economists. It is evaluated how the socio-economic system is embedded in a complex ecological and environmental system - instead of a widespread tendency to ignore ecological and environmental considerations or consequences in the history of economics. The inquiry seeks to contribute not only to history of economics but also to economics - instead of an orthodox outlook that ignores the possibility of such cross-fertilization. Therefore, an institutional history of economics research area fits very well in the EAEPE theoretical perspectives. Furthermore, such a focused historical outlook had been wrongly missing from EAEPE's scientific development plan. The first activities of the research area include organizing a workshop in April 1999 at Erasmus University Rotterdam and sessions in November 1999 at the EAEPE conference. Stay posted for further details! ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]