History and Political Economy

HES 2011, Paul Samuelson and the Beatles

The 2011 Annual Meeting of the History of Economics Society (HES) took place in South Bend, Indiana, at Notre Dame University, under the auspices of Philip Mirowski, probably with fewer attendees than usual.

This time there were new elements in the way the meeting was organized: there were more plenary sessions, several of them with non-historians of economics (David Kaiser (MIT) on physics and economics; John Cassidy (New Yorker) on "How Markets Fail"; Rakesh Khurana (Harvard Business School) on the professionalization of business education), besides the regular HES Presidential Address, by Jerry Evensky (Syracuse University). There was also a screening of the documentary "Inside Job", followed by discussion led by our buddy Tiago Mata. Read more

Posted by Pedro G Duarte at 4:26 pm

Disdain or paranoia for historians of economics?

The organizers of Duke's Summer Institute on the history of economics were so worried that students might be embarrassed to ask their supervisors for a letter of recommendation, or that the supervisors would say it's a waste of time to study history, so they took a last minute decision to cancel the need for a letter of recommendation. Despite the fact that they offer student stipends of $2,000 and that it is taught by top class academics. In Realpolitik and economic terms, the need for a letter of recommendation is of course a barrier to entry, so maybe it was not an optimal screening mechanism to begin with, but it seems - to me - a little paranoid. Read more

Posted by Benjamin Mitra-Kahn at 8:02 am

The History Project

Project Leader: 
Emma Rothschild

Economic history grew out of the interest of historians and economists in understanding the economic crises of the 1890s and 1930s. The 2010s are a moment of comparable anxiety, excitement, and opportunity. Since the launch of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, there has been increasing recognition that connections between economics and related disciplines -- and connections to history in particular -- are essential to understanding the social, political, and environmental changes now under way. It is this moment of opportunity that the History Project hopes to develop into lasting innovation. The future of economic history requires a reconstitution of the interest, within history departments, in economic change. Read more

Development and Inequality: What Can the Asian Experience Teach Us?

Project Leader: 
Vamsi Vakulabharanam

This study aims to throw light on the relationship between development and inequality by analyzing the Asian experience after 1950s. In the first wave of Asian growth, some Asian economies (such as Japan and the ‘Tiger’economies) experienced a relatively equal early capitalist growth/development process between 1950s and 1980. Subsequent growth however became much more unequal. Read more

Reorienting Fiscal Policy: A Bottom Up Approach

Project Leader: 
Pavlina Tcherneva

Over 70 years of fiscal activism have not been able to address what Keynes called the two outstanding faults of society, namely our failure to produce and maintain a close approximation to full employment and to improve the income distribution in the economy. Indeed, this project argues that fiscal policy, as is currently practiced, largely undermines these two objectives. Read more

Book on Turbulent Dynamics and Hidden Patterns

Project Leader: 
Anwar Shaikh

The book's aim is to demonstrate that a revived form of the "magnificent dynamics" of the classical economists can explain the actual patterns of developed economies involving relative industrial prices, stock prices and interest rates, exchange rates, growth, cycles and inflation. Read more

The Political Economy of the New “Fiscalism”

Project Leader: 
Mario Seccareccia

Fiscal policy has witnessed a double U-turn, or policy pirouette, over the last few years because of the financial crisis. The purpose of our three-year research program is to provide a comprehensive explanation of this new "fiscalism" that has emerged as a result of this crisis. Read more