This is a fascinating resource for those of us like to rummage around with the ideas of dead economists.
Malcolm Rutherford writes to the HES listserve: "I have just completed an update of my Famous Economists' Grave Sites web pages. I have included many more links and found that every
person on my list had a Wikipedia entry--some good some not so good. Take a look. Feedback and new sites always welcome." You can enter his collection here.
Goncalo Fonseca tells the HES below that Terence W. Hutchison has died. I came to know his work through that of Sam Hollander. I failed initially to understand the significance of his assessment of Jevons on experimental legislation. This was my own shortcoming; I soon came to appreciate the significance of all he wrote. He attended the first professional presentation I made, as a young assistant professor at William and Mary, a paper in which I criticized his characterization of Jevons on policy. I like to think that kindness (not lack of interest) prevented him from publicly taking me down a notch -- the paper wasn't particularly good and I'm sure he could have done so. He was a tremendous source of ideas and knowledge for all of us.
_______________
Dear HESers,
I have just received news that Terence W. Hutchison died, aged 95, at 1300
hours today, 5 October 2007 in Winchester, UK.
As everyone here knows, Prof. Hutchison was particularly highly regarded
among historians of economics and his passing will be received with much
sorrow. A great loss.
Goncalo Fonseca
I'm taking the paper on Galton down until David and I sort out the argument better. James Surowiecki is has pointed to a key error in the original sketch -- since, as he notes, Galton did in fact compute the mean. At this point we're considering what part of the argument to hold onto and what will need to change. We've emphasized the importance of entry and competition to ensure that work of experts is checked; now we're in the midst of this ourselves. Our apologies to Surowiecki.
One paragraph we'll add to the next version is:
Here’s
what we are prepared to defend :
The majority-rule context of Galton’s publications is lost when the sample median, upon which Galton put such stress, is no longer reported.
Robin Hanson's Overcoming Bias has more comments by Surowiecki and Levy and Peart.
David Levy and I have sketched out a paper in which we check the expertise of the past. We can do that since the data that were used by Francis Galton -- people's guesses about the weight of an ox -- have been preserved. The paper first talks about Galton's use of the data (he chose the median guess as the best estimate of the ox weight) and then about how Galton's results were re-told, and changed over time. Here are a couple of paragraphs from the paper, which looks at this as a case study of the role of expertise:
The question of expertise enters into this because, if experts pass along false information (wittingly or unwittingly), they become part of a process by which errors are diffused. If experts are trusted (and if they trust the experts whose work they cite), mistakes are diffused and remain uncorrected. If, by contrast, expert results are not accepted automatically, then their results are more often subject to the scrutiny associated with replication. Knowing this, an expert whose work might be scrutinized will check the work carefully. An expert who expects deference, acceptance of results without checking, will check the work less carefully. Paradoxically, such trust increases the probability of mistakes being made or passed along. Thus, we expect that the errors made by experts will tend to be systematic because they will be repeated by those who trust them.
Our examination begins with Galton’s contribution on voting as estimation as a way to bound influence. But this is only the beginning of our story. Even more interesting, perhaps, than Galton’s contribution itself, is the “retelling” that has occurred since. Though Galton was defended the median as the estimator for the ox weight, the tale of Galton’s median was changed soon after. In addition to the median location of central tendency, Pearson suggested the mean. Along the way in the historical retelling, embellishments were added so that Galton’s original procedure was entirely misconstrued. Our story recounts the misconstruing. As we do so, a key question is whether the tale was changed deliberately (falsified) or whether, not knowing the truth, the retold (and different) tale was passed on unwittingly.
A pdf of the paper will be available when we fix it.
Here's a scan of some of Galton's data:
The program for the ECHE conference, to be held at the Certosa di Pontignano, Siena
(Italy), on 4-6 October, is below.
-----------------------------
Thursday, 4 October
7.00 pm Registrati=n
8.00 pm Welcome Dinner
Friday, 5 October
9.00 am Welcome
9.15 am Opening Lecture
Hilbert and the Axiomatic Approach: Its Background and Development Leo Corry (Tel-Aviv University)
10.15 am Coffee/tea break
10.45 am
Gerard Debreu: from Nicolas Bourbaki to Adam Smith. A phenomenology of
becoming an economist
Till Duppe (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Discussant: Bruna Ingrao (University of Rome, La Sapienza)
11.45 am
Schelling's non-axiomatics
Alessandro Innocenti (University of Siena)
Discussant: Philippe Fontaine (ENS Cachan)
1.00 pm Lunch
2.30 pm
On Robert Remak's Superposed Price Systems: Before Axiomatization<=r>
Harald Hageman (Univ. of Hohenheim) and Lionello F. Punzo (Univ. of Siena)
Discussant: Ivan Moscati (Bocconi University, Milan)
3.30 pm Ragnar Frisch's Axiomatic Approach in Econometrics
Olav Bjerkholt (University of Oslo) and Ariane Dupont (INRETS, Paris)
Discussant: Lionello Punzo (Univers=ty of Siena)
4.30 pm Coffee/tea break
5.00 pm
Dynamics versus axiomatisation: the case of the Italian Paretian
Mario Pomini (University of Padua) and
Gianfranco Tusset (University of Padua)
Discussant: Massimo Di Matteo (University of Siena)
8.00 pm Conference Dinner
Saturday, 6 October
9.15 am
A Pioneering Argument for the Axiomatic Method Revealed in Whately�s
Economics
Chikakazu Tadakoshi (Yokohama City University)
Discussant: Jose Luis Cardoso (Technical University of Lisbon)
10.15 am
Robbins's Essay and the axiomatisation of economics
Roger Backhouse (Univ. of Birmingham) and Steve Medema (Univ. of Colorado at
Denver)
Discussant: Annalisa Rosselli (University of Rome, Tor Vergata)
11.15 am Coffee/tea break
11.45 am
The significance of modelling in Economics for the development of
Mathematics: The minimax-, the duality-, and the Kuhn-Tucker theorem
Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen (Roskilde University)
Discussant: Nicola Giocoli (University of Pisa)
1.00 pm Lunch
2.30 pm
Axiomatization, Immunization, and Convention in Economics
Arnis Vilks (Leipzig Graduate School of Management)
Discussant: Marco Dardi (University=f Florence)
4.30 pm Visit to Siena
Apparently the ASB has changed its mind. Thanks to all who supported the Australians. Sometimes things do work out. Here's the note I (and others who wrote) received from the authorities:
___________
Thank you for your submission to the Australian Standard Research Classification review.
Your concerns with regard to the proposed treatment of Economic History and
History of Economic Thought have been formally noted by the review team,
and your submission and interest together with others on this issue has
been taken into consideration. On the basis of the information received by
the review team, the proposal with regards to these research fields has
been revised. The revised proposal is to keep Economic History and History
of Economic Thought within Economics. The revised proposal is based on
extensive feedback on this issue and the core reasoning behind this
proposal is as follows:
the techniques used in Economic History research are identical to those
used in other areas of applied economics- the subject matter is
historical economic data;
the History of Economic Thought can be described as being primarily
concerned with the development of economic theory.
The current thinking is therefore to align these categories with the
respective sub-categories of applied and theoretic economics. I appreciate
your input to this process and the classification in its entirety is not
due to be finalised until November 2007. Publication of the new
classification is expected early in 2008.
I hope that this addresses your concerns and thank you again for your
submission. If you have any further concerns please contact Dr David Brett
- david.brett@abs.gov.au .
ABS appreciates such feedback in informing its deliberations for this
review.
Regards
Glyn Prichard
Director
Innovation and Technology National Statistical Centre
ABS
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>I am writing in response to the announcement that the Australian Bureau of
>Statistics is planning to remove the areas of history of economic thought
>and economic history from its calculations of levels of economic research.
> I do this in my capacity as editor of the next edition of the New
>Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Having spent the last four years
>overseeing the updating of the Dictionary to reflect the current state of
>economics, I can state unequivocally that both areas are of fundamental
>importance to the field as a whole. I can also state that is the opinion
>of the advisory editors of the dictionary, which include a number of the
>world's leading economists.
>
>Not only is research in economic history and the history of thought of
>intrinsic importance, it is of enormous value to researchers whose work
>does not lie in these areas. For example, the renaissance of growth
>theory has been very heavily influenced by the reconsideration of ideas
>that lie in the domain of history of thought; examples include Smithian
>ideas concerning division of labor, Malthusian ideas on population
>dynamics and Marshallian ideas on externalities. And much of modern
>growth research has employed economic istory both as motivation for new
>theories and as the basis for their empirical evaluation.
>
>The decision to delegitimize these two areas of economics cannot be
>justified by the current state of the discipline as a whole. I urge you
>to reverse this decision. It both constitutes an injustice to scholars in
>these areas and represents a desiccated and inaccurate portrayal of the
>intellectual content of economics as a field of inquiry.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Steven N. Durlauf
>
>Arrow Professor of Economics
>University of Wisconsin at Madison
From Sumitra Shah
About the 'unhappy' marriage between heterodoxy and HET which has finally
come to the surface for a discussion:
If mainstream scholars from elite schools have a disdain for alternative
perspectives, it is based on more than just a dislike of its critics. Others
have written about when the slow demise of HET started. TPM cafe ran an a
blog on an article from the Nation magazine on "Hip Heterodoxy" not long ago
and the picture that emerged was one of a science that is rigid and unforgiving.
Here is a an excerpt:
Chris Hayes wrote: "I spent a weekend at the annual American Economics
Association conference, and hours with nearly two dozen heterodox economists
(as well as several mainstream economists) talking to them about their views
of their discipline. By and large they made two main points. First, the
sociology of the economics profession, the networks of graduate students,
the politics, outlook and worldview of those attracted to pursuing PhD's in
econ and the perception that economists have of their role in the pubic debate
(as defenders of markets in the face of their enemies and skeptics) tended to
mark off certain areas of inquiry and enforce certain boundaries about what
ideas warranted inquiry and what ideas were or were not on their face
interesting. This sense of taboo operates in different ways, but it's most
striking in the David Card interview which I quote in the article, in which
he essentially admits to dropping his study of the minimum wage because his
colleagues thought he was being a traitor to the profession. In response to
the article, other economists, the esteemed Dani Rodrik
<http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/05/is_neoclassical.html> and George Borjas
<http://borjas.typepad.com/the_borjas_blog/2007/05/herd_mentality_.html>
have reported experiencing very similar experiences. I'm curious to see if
other economists in the discussion can relate."
Now I know there are far too many members of this list who hate the idea of
minimum wage, but I hope their dispassionate selves will not shun legitimate
research if it leads to different conclusions. The designation of HET as
heterodoxy is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. And we know that is
an all-powerful priesthood. So instead of shunning heterodoxy, why not find
common cause with those passionate about both their particular field and HET?
I am with Evelyn Forget and all others who want to form alliances where they
can. Anyway, now I am emboldened to send to the list my letter in support of
our Aussie colleagues. I will do so separately, lest the length of this message
becomes unbearable.
Cheers,
Sumitra Shah
Pete Boetkke answers
Roy,
Don't you think the HET was disregarded by economists long before it came to be associated with heterodox thinkers?
I mean Stigler wrote his essay saying that we had little to learn from
the study of the history of economics long before HES was a society
that gave intellectual space to a variety of heterodox voices. Kenneth
Boulding tried to counter the dominant Whig interpretation of Samuelson
already in 1971.
So lets do a thought experiment, imagine no heterodox voices found
their way into the subdiscipline of HET, what would be the status of
HET today within the economics profession?
My guess is that heterodoxy has little to do with the status of the
subdiscipline, and instead it is an attitude that the farther a
discipline looks into its own past the less scientific that discipline
actually is in practice. I could be wrong on that, but I would suggest
that the placement record (both in terms of jobs and in terms of
articles within the profession of economics) of the best and the
brightest in the HET field over the past 50 years would reveal the the
problem is far deeper than whether or not the subfield is seen as a
welcoming home for heterodox thinkers of all stripes.
There are costs associated with the close identity with heterodoxy (I
blogged about them briefly in my own report on the HES meetings this
year). But the heterodoxy also brings some huge benefits to the table
that make the HES meetings a more engaging experience than the typical
economics meetings. The participants care about economic arguments in
a way that few economists do. This enthusiasm can be a great source of
stimulation --- even when one finds the arguments presented frustrating
from the perspective of logic/evidence/relevance.
The economic science wars are not over forever --- there are glimmers
of hope. You just have to find the right margin to fight on. The
interest in economic biographies, the interest in some melding of
economic history and history of thought in the context of policy
debates, and the interest in science studies all means that all is not
hopeless that economists will find HET more valuable in the future. I
am an optimist in this regard, and still believe that good work in the
subdiscipline can be rewarded. But it will only be rewarded
appropriately in my mind when the meta-argument about what is progress
in scientific thought is addressed head on.
Peter J. Boettke
_______________
Evelyn Forget answers
Thank you, Peter Boettke, for your statement of optimism about the
future of HET! I see the field flourishing in exactly the spots you
identify: in interdisciplinary, policy-related work. Of course that
doesn't mean everyone needs to do that kind of work. (and of course
"flourishing" is a relative term.)
I find it astonishing that we, as an intellectual society, can be
driven to such soul-searching by a bureaucratic exercise conducted by
a statistical agency. Yes, we needed to respond to them, but we don't
need to be quite so desperate to "fix" one another.
If heterodoxy is responsible for our current status, as Roy
(unconvincingly....) argues, then so be it. Heterodoxy is an
undeniable part of who we are as a field. let's see where it takes us
as a field. If Eric believes the implications of such an argument
"unfitting of a serious intellectual enterprise", good for him.
(Although even he ought to see the humour in making such a statement
as part of a plea for tolerance)
But please someone tell me: when was this golden era when HET was at
its apogee? Did subfields in economics really exist before the 1950s
and 1960s? And haven't we always been a rather small collection of
voices in the wilderness? Isn't that precisely what attracted most of
us to the field in the first place? Don't we relish our eccentricity?
Evelyn L. Forget
______________
Greg Ransom answers
I think Roy has his causation backwards here. Mainsteam
economic "science" is hostile to contextual thinking of most any
kind because it is professionally invested in a scientistic
use of formal models and statistics. History of economic thought
is contextual thinking at its core -- and so economists
have effectively eliminated it from their curriculum. To the
extent that genuine science is dependent for its improvement and
advance on a growing contextual understanding of its problems,
"mainstream" economics was not interested in doing actual science.
So I think you have to begin with the fact that in the first instance
economists are not interested in genuine scientific work, or real science
progress. (If you must, you might argue that mainstream economists are
interested in a sort of fake science, a cargo cult science which tries its
best to imitate some parts of real science -- but this activity should not
be confused with genuine science.)
For the "mainstreamers", the hostility to the contextual thinking embodied in
the history of economic thought came first -- and what followed was a
contempt for any sort of contextual research the mainstream associated with this
field, e.g. all of the various "heterodox" brands of economics. Stuff the
mainstreamers view as just waste-of-time "history of economic thought".
Greg Ransom
___________
Fred Lee answers
Roy's comment is slightly inaccurate on one point--the decline in HET
started at least in the early 1950s before it got associated with
heterodox economics in the 1960s onwards. On a second point, Roy's
comment that HET connection with heterodox economics did and does have
an adverse impact on HET is correct. But to blame the cleansing of HET
from economics on this connection is much like blaming the victims of
ethnic cleansing for their own demise. It is the people who carry out
the cleansing that are responsible for it.
