Summer Institute in History of Economic Thought

Director, David Levy

Will the competence in the history of economics become lost to the discipline of economics? Extrapolating the trend gives an easy answer: the future serious history of economics will be conducted in literature departments. The benefit/cost explanation is trivial: a history of economics thought dissertation is professional suicide in economics. And if a student were sufficiently perverse to take the risk, to whom would one talk?

The Summer Institute is an attempt to reserve this decline by offering a forum for students to present a history of thought chapter in their dissertation to a competent audience. The thought is that a history of thought chapter can be disguised as a "literature review" without raising professional eye-brows. Simultaneously, the Summer Institute will offer a forum for professional discussion of on-going work for those who find current trends unpleasant.

Information on the 2004 Summer Institute will be available on the website this spring. Be sure to check back!

NOW AVAILABLE AT THE LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS AND LIBERTY:

The Secret History of the Dismal Science:
Economics, Religion and Race in the 19th Century