Heterodox Economics Newsletter-28, By: Frederic S. Lee


	Issue-28, May 22, 2006 From the Editor Recently I was talking with my editor at the University of Michigan Press and he told me the following: (1) manuscripts that do not have the potential to sell 750 copies in the first two years have a chance of not being accepted (unless there was a subsidy forthcoming to help with the costs); and (2) book sellers are reluctant to send representatives (and books) to conferences with less than 200 participants. What this implies for the former is that heterodox economists need to buy heterodox books to ensure that a market exists when they want their book published. As for the latter, because many heterodox conferences have less than 200 participants, it is necessary to think of ways to increase attendance, such as EAEPE developing an umbrella conference for all European heterodox economists and heterodox economic associations or that heterodox economic conferences team up with say history of thought conferences to generate the needed number of participants. In the end, the size of the conferences has to grow so that the books we write get displayed/advertised and bought. In the Newsletter you will find some interesting call for papers, one being a conference on Rethinking Popper and another on Jobs and Justice. There are also a number of notices regarding upcoming conferences and inviting heterodox economists to participate: my favorite is the AHE Conference in London, but there is also the Progressive Economics Forum meetings in a couple of weeks. Keeping with my hobby horse regarding research assessment exercises, Donald Gillies has an interesting article in the recent PAER. For those who are not familiar with the Review of Social Economy as a potential outlet for your research, check out the info about the journal. Finally in the Newsletter there is info on new books for heterodox economists, the graduate program at the University of Siena, and the Tufts Institute award of its annual economics prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor. Fred Lee In this issue: - Call for Papers - JSPE 54th Annual Conference, 2006 - Rethinking Popper - Jobs & Justice - Conferences, Seminars and Lectures - The Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference - World Poverty and the Duty of Assistance - Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) Events - Second Malthus Lecture at the University of Hertfordshire - Causality and Probability in the Sciences - Institutions and the Economy: Historical Perspectives - "Which financing for which development ?" Group of economic and social research (GRES) - Job Posting s for Heterodox Economists - The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) - Heterodox Journals and Newsletters - Review of Social Economy - Post-autistic economics review - Revue de la Régulation - The Talking Economics Bulletin- May 06 - Heterodox Books and Book Series - Money and Exchange: Folktales and Reality- Sasan Fayazmanesh - Field Guide to the U.S. Economy - Specters of the Atlantic - Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships - University of Siena, Italy - Heterodox Websites - Brecht Forum - For Your Information - Tufts Institute Awards Annual Economics Prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach - "Is NAFTA Working for Mexico?" - Talking Class on Campus Call for Papers JSPE 54th Annual Conference, 2006 Transfigurations　and Pathology of Contemporary Corporate Capital To be held on October 21-22, 2006, at Aichi University (Kurumadori Campus, Nagoya) The 54th annual conference of the JAPAN SOCIETY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY (JSPE) will be held on October 21 (Saturday) and 22 (Sunday), 2006, at the Kurumadori Campus of Aichi University, Nagoya. As stated above, the theme of the plenary session in this conference will be: Transfigurations and Pathology of Contemporary Corporate Capital. Under this theme, we intend to seek analyses of the new pathological trends stemming from financial strategies that contemporary corporations and investors increasingly tend to adopt. Indeed, the financial sector has grown hugely in recent years relative to the real economy, exerting on it influences that have not been sufficiently accounted for in theoretical terms. We are made to observe, among other things, uncontrolled speculations leading to bubbles and busts in securitized financial markets in the progressing information age. Elevated share prices are sought as supreme virtues. Financial management of firms are undergoing radical changes, especially in view of the rapidly growing combinations of internet-related firms via mergers and acquisitions, and of the institutional and private investors, investment funds, etc., which, as owners, now increasingly interfere with firms’ management decisions, including their labor relations. Such trends affect organizational mechanisms that may lend themselves to distortions and decay in sound economic activities. What is the nature of these changes? Are the classical concepts of finance and monopoly capital in Marxian economics adequate to grasp these novel phenomena? Or must we develop new approaches to satisfactorily elucidate them? We surely need to thrash out all our theoretical potentialities so as to come to grips with the state of affairs that now stands against us and challenges us. We are also concerned with the impact of new corporate and financial capitalist behaviours on the ethical aspects of our social lives. Corporate and financial capitalist strategies abet speculation, parasitism, dysfunctions and ruin in business. The gap between the winners and the losers is increasingly widening. Under such pressures, people are led to engage in complicities, so that deceptions and disloyalties replace solidarity with mutual suspicion in society. Thus what happens in financial markets cannot stay aloof from ethical life in society; it has pernicious and even pathological effects on human beings. We call for papers from JSPE members and from others interested in taking part in this conference, which is based on the aforementioned theme. We are interested in participants with a wide range of interests and methodological approaches. While the main conference language is Japanese, we will organize English-language sessions on December 21, especially aimed at those from overseas who are willing to participate in the following two categories: English Sessions 1: Topics relating to the general theme of the conference. This sessions are designated to the topics relating to the conference generral theme : Transfigurations　and Pathology of Contemporary　Corporate　Capital. English Sessions 2: Other specific topics These sessions will be organized focusing on such other specific topics as environment, gender, the critique of new liberalism, and regional economies (including China and others), while remaining completely open to suggestions and proposals. Submission Procedures and the Deadline All those wanting to present a paper at the conference, please send by no later than May 31, 2006 in a abstract of their paper [in 200 words] with (1)your name, (2)address (E-mail and mailing address), (3)affiliation and other relevant data to: Dr. Shinjiro HAGIWARA or Dr. Tomohiko SEKINE E-mail: Jspecice@mml.gssm.musashi.ac.jp Postal Mailing address: Prof. Shinjiro HAGIWARA Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University Tokiwadai 79-3, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken, 240-8501, Japan TEL: + 81-45-339-3575 (Prof. HAGIWARA’s Office), Fax: +81-45-339-3504 Notification of acceptance will be sent by June. 21. Attendants will pay their conference fee (5000 yen including the conference buffet), as well as their own transportation, accommodation and other personal expenses. Dr. Tetsuji Kawamura, Hosei University Chairman of the JSPE Committee for International Communication and Exchange JSPE URL: http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jspe/en/index.html Rethinking Popper Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republicis pleased to announce a conference RETHINKING POPPER September 12th –15th 2007 Prague, Czech Republic This conference aims to review Karl Popper‘s philosophy and evaluate its relevance to current philosophical debates and today’s world. Topics covered will include his views on rationality, scientific methodology,the evolution of knowledge and democracy. One-page abstracts should be submitted in electronic form to the address bellow. For details see: www.flu.cas.cz/rethinkingpopper The Chair of the Organizing Committee: Dr Zuzana Parusniková Department for Analytic Philosophy Institute of Philosophy Jilská 1, 110 00 Prague 1 rethinkingpopper@gmail.com The Organizing Committee: Robert Cohen (Boston), Yehuda Elkana (Budapest), Donald Gillies (London), Petr Koťátko (Prague), Táňa Sedová (Bratislava), Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), Joanna Swann (Brighton) Jobs & Justice The accompanying attachment contains information and a call for papers for what promises to be an interesting and important conference on Jobs & Justice. The conference will be held March 29-31, 2007 in Vancouver. Please note that the deadline for submissions is September 15. 2006. Top Conferences, Seminars and Lectures* The Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference Economics, Pluralism, and the Social Sciences London July 14 – 16, 2006 The conference will have both a thematic part and an open part. The thematic part, Economic, Pluralism, and the Social Sciences, will feature papers on topics dealing with economics and its relation to the social sciences as a whole and with respect to its various branches, such as anthropology, development studies, gender and race studies, history, literary studies, management, philosophy, politics, psychology, and sociology, from both economists and non-economists and from a plurality of perspectives. Other sessions will be: 1.Apply heterodox economic thought to policy-related issues 2.Examine economic theory from the standpoint of another discipline or disciplines in the social sciences or the humanities 3.Critically assess the existing and potential relation, deleterious or positive, between economics and other branches of the social sciences 4.Examine issues or deploy approaches neglected by current economic orthodoxy 5.Critically examine either neoclassical economic orthodoxy, or – in the spirit of pluralism – its heterodox critics 6.Assess the contributions of various heterodox approaches towards opening up economics 7.Contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in economics from a heterodox or pluralist perspective See the attachments for further information regarding: Conference Locations Registration and Payment Forms Conference Dinner: If you want to come to the conference dinner be particularly sure to book as soon as possible: spaces are limited. Access Requirements Accommodation – further information on accommodations is below: Conference participants must make their own arrangements for accommodation. For guidance, the LSE offers single studios at its new Grosvenor House Studios off Drury Lane at £40 a night (its nearest accommodation to its campus), and single rooms at £30 a night at its Carr-Saunders Hall in Fitzrovia (near the British Telecom tower). University College London also offers accommodation: for example, single rooms at Astor College in Charlotte Street (also near the BT tower) at £23 a night. The University of London's Inter-Collegiate halls of residence also offer accommodation. Full details and booking at the following links: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/vacations/ http://www.ucl.ac.uk/residences/ http://www.london.ac.uk/halls.html There are also many reasonably-priced hotels and bed and breakfast establishments in the WC1 area. For example there is the group of hotels known as the Imperial London Hotels in and nearby by Tavistock Square (about 300 yards from the UCL venue) and offer single rooms starting at £41 a night including breakfast: http://www.imperialhotels.co.uk/index.htm. Commercial accommodation in WC2 is likely to be more expensive; for example, the Travelodge London Covent Garden in Drury Lane was offering rooms at £90 a night at the time of going to press. Full details -- including maps -- of the venues for the conference and the conference dinner will be sent with confirmation of your booking. If you have any questions, please contact Julian Wells at j.wells@kingston.ac.uk World Poverty and the Duty of Assistance Forum for European Philosophy Tuesday 27 June 2006, 9.30am - 6.00 pm Free event, no registration required Old Theatre, Old Building, Houghton Street, LSE in cooperation with the Department of Philosophy at the LSE, UNESCO, Social and Human Sciences Section and the Institute of Philosophy at The School of Advanced Study. Conference programme: http://www.philosophy-forum.org/Povertyconference.htm Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) Events At the Canadian Economics Association Meeting Concordia University, Montreal, May 26-28, 2006 Please join us at the CEA conference for our annual general meeting and wine & cheese party: Friday May 26, 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm (Location: Au Bistro Gourmet, 2100 rue Saint-Mathieu, at Maisonneuve, 2 blocks east of Henry Hall Building, Concordia U.) Guest Speaker: Prof. Gilles Distaler (UQAM) “Keynes and his Battles: What They Mean for Canada” 2006 marks the 70th Anniversary of the publication of the General Theory. Hear Prof. Dostaler (a leading global expert on Keynes) discuss its continuing significance. For detailed information: Montreal2006.pdf Second Malthus Lecture at the University of Hertfordshire Professor Oliver Williamson - the leading pioneer of modern transaction cost economics and the most highly cited economist of all time - will give the Second Malthus Lecture at 6pm on Thursday 19th October at the University of Hertfordshire, in the Fielder Centre in Hatfield, UK. The topic of Professor Williamson's lecture will be: "Corporate Governance and Economic Organization: A Contractual and Organizational Perspective" All are welcome. Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture. Hatfield is on the London to Cambridge main railway line, and there is easy access to all London airports. The First Malthus Lecture - commemorating the Hertfordshire economist Thomas Robert Malthus - was given by Nobel Laureate Douglass North in May 2005. Causality and Probability in the Sciences http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/jw/2006/capits.htm 14-16 June 2006 Keynes College Lecture Room 5, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK 15th May: deadline for receipt of early-bird registration to attend the conference. Register by posting the conference fee of £20 sterling with the registration form (available on the conference web site) to: Department of Philosophy, attn. Miriam Waters, Cornwallis Building NW, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK For detailed information: Causality and Probability.doc Institutions and the Economy: Historical Perspectives 5th June 2006, British Academy (London) Organised by: Timothy Besley (IFS and LSE), Richard Blundell (IFS and UCL) and Nicholas Crafts (University of Warwick) The theme of the meeting is institutions and the economy. There has been a great deal of interest in these issues catalyzed by Douglas North’s Nobel prize winning work. The debate has been re-ignited in recent years and is influencing both economics, political science and economic history. The research programme involves bring new data sources to bear as well as benefiting from insights from game theory and contract theory. This forum will include presentations by four of the leading figures in the area and will provide an excellent opportunity for those who are interested to catch up with recent developments. We have four distinguished speakers, one political scientist, one economist and two economic historians: Speakers: James Robinson (Harvard University), "Fundamental Determinants of Prosperity" Guido Tabellini (IGIER, Bocconi University), "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe" Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University), "The Market for Ideas and the Origins of Economic Growth in Eighteenth Century Europe" Avner Grief (Stanford University), "Corporations, Institutions, and the Particularities of European History" Places at this conference are strictly limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To reserve your place, please contact Bonnie Brimstone at bonnie_b@ifs.org.uk. This conference is free of charge. In addition, some funding is available to assist members of the Royal Economic Society and the Economic History Society with travel expenses and a conference dinner on 5th June 2006 (first come first served and a maximum of £50 per person travel expenses) Please state your membership number when applying for a place if you wish to claim expenses or attend the evening meal. Sponsors: Royal Economic Society, British Academy and Economic History Society "Which financing for which development ?" Group of Economic and Social Research (GRES) Informations sur 2 colloques ADEK, le premier organis par le professeur ALAIN PARGUEZ, le second par l'quipe de BORDEAUX autour d'ERIC BERR 1. COLLOQUE organis par ALAIN PARGUEZ (ADEK) au Snat -PARIS juin 2006 Quel modle de croissance pour la France : la leon des expriences trangres Veuillez trouver ci-joint le trs intressant programme et une fiche d'inscription ce colloque. Notons notamment la prsence de Thomas Ferguson (Professeur Dr University of Massachusset ) James Galbraith (Universit du Texas, Etats-Unis), Augusto Graziani ( Universit La Sapienza, Italie), Julio Lopez (UNAM-Mexique), Albert Marouani (Prsident de lUniversit de Nice), Henri Sader (Dr Professeur au Canadian Labor College ) Mario Seccareccia (Universit dOttawa,Canada) Otto Steiger Professeur (emeritus Dr Universit de Brme Allemagne) Marc Humbert(Dr Universit de Rennes I) 2. RAPPEL:COLLOQUE ADEK et GRES de NOVEMBRE 2006 BORDEAUX:"Quel financement pour quel dveloppement ?" Nous vous rappelons que le Groupement de recherches conomiques et sociales (GRES), organisme regroupant l'IFReDE de l'Universit Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV et le LEREPS de l'Universit Toulouse 1, organise, en partenariat avec l'Association pour le dveloppement des tudes keynsiennes (ADEK) et avec le soutien de l'Observatoire international de la dette (OID), ses 2mes journes du dveloppement. Celles-ci se drouleront Bordeaux les 23 et 24 novembre 2006. Le thme retenu est: "Quel financement pour quel dveloppement ?" We remind you that the Group of economic and social research (GRES), which is composed by the IFReDE of the University of Bordeaux and the LEREPS of the University of Toulouse, co-organizes, with the Association for the development of keynesian studies (ADEK) and with the support of the International debt observatory (IDO), its second development conference. This conference will take place in Bordeaux on november 23-24, 2006. The general theme is: "Which financing for which development ?" Nous vous invitons consulter le site du colloque http://beagle.u-bordeaux4.fr/jourdev/ qui vous fournira toutes les informations ncessaires. We invite you to visit the conference website http://beagle.u-bordeaux4.fr/jourdev/ where you will find all useful informations. Veuillez noter que la date limite d'envoi des propositions de communication est fixe au 15 juin 2006. Please note that the deadline for submission is june 15, 2006. N'hsitez pas diffuser largement cette information. Nous vous prions d'excuser d'ventuels envois multiples. Cordialement. Do not hesitate to diffuse widely this information around you and please apologize for possible cross-posting. Best regards. Pour le comit d'organisation, for the steering Committee, Eric Berr Registration Form: Bulletin d'inscription-06.doc Top Job Postings for Heterodox Economists The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) seeks applications for a part-time Office Manager. Founded in 1968, URPE is a membership organization of academics and activists who share an interest in a radical analysis of political and economic topics. URPE's members use their analysis to advance various progressive political and social agendas. Applicants should have the experience necessary to: a. Manage the URPE office (located at U. Mass/Amherst). Some bookkeeping required; web skills an advantage. b. Make use of the URPE office to build URPE's presence in the area. c. Attend and help organize conferences, including URPE's August Summer Conference. d. Work with the URPE Steering Committee to promote the goals of the organization. Starting date: August 1. Salary, benefits, and hours negotiable. URPE encourages applications from women and people of color. Send applications to: P. Parmalee 35 Aumick Road Wallkill NY 12589 For questions regarding the position, please email Al Campbell (mailto:Al@mill.econ.utah.edu), Laurie Nisonoff (lnisonoff@hampshire.edu) , Patty Lee Parmalee (plparmalee@earthlink.net) or Paddy Quick (paddyquick@aol.com ). Heterodox Journals and Newsletters Review of Social Economy For over 60 years, the Review of Social Economy (RoSE) has published high quality peer-reviewed papers on the many relationships between social values and economics. Among the subjects featured in the journal are: •inequalities in access to economic opportunities by race, gender, ethnicity, class •changing patterns of income distribution •poverty and policies and programs to address it •health-care policies and institutions, problems of health-care costs and equitable access •theories and conceptual views of economic justice •workplace policies •fair housing, fair lending •sustainable growth and the environment, globalization •consumerism and value systems in market economies •development strategies and policies that favor poor and low-income households •innovations in economic theory and methodology RoSE authors represent a range of perspectives, including mainstream, institutionalist, feminist, Post-Keynesian, behavioral, etc. -- what they have in common is shared interest in questions of economics and social values. RoSE encourages discussions about relationships between economics and other disciplines (e.g. economic sociology, economic geography, ecological economics, and ethical studies); indeed it is an obvious platform for interdisciplinary research to be staged. High-quality empirical work intended to help inform social policy is especially welcome. RoSE recently acquired a new editorial team consisting of: Wilfred Dolfsma, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) -- wdolfsma@rsm.nl Deborah M. Figart, Richard Stockton College (USA) -- Deb.Figart@stockton.edu Robert McMaster, University of Aberdeen (Scotland) -- r.mcmaster@abdn.ac.uk Martha Starr, American University (USA) –- mstarr@american.edu In the interest of maintaining and improving the journal’s strong quality, the editors hope to encourage you to consider RoSE as a potential outlet for your research, and to recommend to your colleagues and promising graduate students that they do the same. More information on RoSE (including instructions for authors) can be found at: http://www.socialeconomics.org/review.htm A listing of books you might wish to review for RoSE can be found at: http://www.socialeconomics.org/BookReview.htm The Review is associated with the Association for Social Economics, one of the founding members of the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA). Selected articles from the Review of Social Economy, 2000-2005 “Selecting Among Anti-Poverty Policies: Can an Economist be Both Critical and Caring?” (Rebecca Blank) “Blowing the Whistle on Poverty Policy” (Nancy Folbre) “The Immunisation Status of Poor Children: An Analysis of Parental Altruism and Child Well-Being” (John Hisnanick and Dale Coddington) “Was Shock Therapy Consistent with Democracy?” (John Marangos) “Globalization, Neoliberalism and the attack on social security” (Christopher Niggle) “Neoliberalism and economic justice in South Africa: revisiting the debate on economic apartheid” (Geoffrey Schneider) “National Identity and the Challenge of Health Reform in Canada” (Evelyn Forget) “Do Detailed Work Histories Help to Explain Gender and Race/Ethnic Wage Differentials?” (Carole Green and Marianne Ferber) “Gender as more than a dummy variable: Feminist approaches to discrimination” (Deb Figart) “Does Married Women's Market Work Affect Marital Stability Adversely? An Intercohort Analysis Using NLS Data” (Bisakha Sen) “Race, Gender and Regional Labor Market Inequalities in Brazil” (Peggy Lovell) “Male and Female Recoveries in Medical Malpractice Cases” (Walter Simmons and Rosemarie Emanuele) “Happiness Research: State and Prospects” (Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer) “The Scope and Promising Future of Social Economics” (Jon Wisman) “Consumer Rationality and Consumer Sovereignty” (William Redmond) “Religious Identity and Consumption” (Metin Cosgel and Lanse Minkler) “Consumption, Identity, and the Socio-cultural Constitution of "Preferences": Reading Women's Magazines” (Martha Starr) “You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food Movement” (Bruce Pietrykowski) “Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: A Critical Analysis of the U.K. Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production” (Gill Seyfang) New for the Review of Social Economy Now you can submit articles online with Manuscript Central Manuscript Central is the publishing industry's number one online tool for managing manuscripts through the scholarly journal peer review process, also making submissions quick and easy. For further information or to submit a paper please visit: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rrse. Post-autistic economics review an email-delivered economics journal Subscribers: 8,571 from over 150 countries Subscribe now for free and receive Click here to subscribe issue no. 37 28 April 2006 - Why Research Assessment Exercises Are a Bad Thing Donald Gillies ……………………...………………. 2 - Rethinking Foreign Investment for Development Kevin P.Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky ……….……10 - The Political Economy of Peer Production Michel Bauwens ………………………………….....33 - Can a Heterodox Economist Use Cross-country Growth Regressions? Matthew McCartney ………………………………...45 - Prying Open American Political ‘Science’ Bruce Cumings and Kurt Jacobsen …………….…55 - Comment on “Economics Is Structured Like a Language” Revue de la Régulation Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs Vous trouverez ci-joint une présentation des grandes lignes de la politique éditoriale guidant cette démarche. La Revue de la Régulation entend publier différents types de textes, non seulement des articles théoriques, mais aussi des points de vue sur l'actualité, notes de recherche, notes de lecture et comptes rendus pour nourrir le débat. Toutes les propositions d'articles sont les bienvenues, les contributions scientifiques seront soumises à comité de lecture selon la procédure habituelle. En espérant que vous porterez intérêt à cette initiative, nous comptons sur votre collaboration. Bien cordialement, Le comité de rédaction de la revue de la régulation. PS: Une seconde vague de mail est envoyée, car il manquait de nombreux contacts dans la précédente, navré pour la pollution électronique occasionnée. Si vous souhaitez ne plus recevoir de mail, n'hésitez à nous l'indiquer. Un lien est désomais disponible à partir du site de l'Association de la régulation: http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/regulation/revue_online/ The Talking Economics Bulletin- May 06 The Talking Economics Bulletin consists of news and views on associative economics, including short extracts from Associative Economics Monthly (which is available electronically for £1 an issue at www.cfae.biz/aem or in a hard copy format - tel (UK) 01227 738207). 1) Associative Economics Monthly May 06, Editorial 2) Event Details - in London, Stroud, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Norway 3) Time for a world currency? 4) The Art and Science of Economics For detailed information: The Talking Economics Bulletin.doc Top Heterodox Books and Book Series Money and Exchange: Folktales and Reality- Sasan Fayazmanesh (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, 2006). It has just become available in the bookstores (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415299748/102-8634105-8294557?v=glance&n=283155). The table of content appears at routledge-ny. Field Guide to the U.S. Economy Jonathan Teller-Elsberg, James Heintz, and Nancy Folbre $16.95, ISBN: 978-1-59558-048-1 http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1374 Newly expanded and updated, Field Guide to the U.S. Economy has become a classic in the field. Field Guide is a user-friendly and accessible text that explains how to interpret and use economic statistics. It offers explanations of price indices, GDP, the poverty line, and other economic concepts, with a glossary that provides clear, simple explanations of technical terms. Different chapters explore the concepts of owners, workers, women, people of color, government spending, welfare and education, health, the environment, macroeconomics, and the global economy. Highly illustrated with charts and graphs, Field Guide is an engaging reference for students of economics, sociology, political economy, globalization, labor studies, government and political science. The new edition will be available June 2006. To request an EXAM COPY of FIELD GUIDE TO THE US ECONOMY, please respond to academic@thenewpress.com, listing your University and Department affiliation, the courses you teach, the likelihood of course adoption for this text, and a complete mailing address (No P.O. Boxes please). PLEASE PROVIDE A SUMMER MAILING ADRESS, AS FINISHED BOOKS WILL BE MAILED IN JUNE AND JULY. JONATHAN TELLER-ELSBERG is a staff economist with the Center for Popular Economics and lives in Burlington, VT. NANCY FOLBRE, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is a MacArthur Fellow and lives in Montague, MA. JAMES HEINTZ, assistant research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, is a member of the Center for Popular Economics and lives in Northampton, MA. “Readers will learn that when the economy is doing fine but the people in it are not, something needs to change.” —Jared Bernstein, Director Living Standards Program, Economic Policy Institute “A treasure trove of information.. Essential for teachers, students, and just about anyone who cares to know how the U.S. economy really operates.” —Juliet Schor, author of The New Consumer Culture 38 Greene Street New York, NY. 10013 www.thenewpress.com FOR EXAM COPY OF FIELD GUIDE TO THE U.S. ECONOMY PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO: academic@thenewpress.com Specters of the Atlantic Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History Ian Baucom “Specters of the Atlantic is quite possibly the most provocative scholarly work I have read in a decade. I really cannot praise this book enough.”-Mary Poovey, author of A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society “A fantastically stimulating read, Specters of the Atlantic will be an extremely significant book. Its core strength is that it deals in such detail and in such an imaginative way with the primary texts associated with the case of the Zong. Nobody has read those texts in such a careful and stimulating way before, and nobody has used the case to construct such an ambitious historical schema.”—Peter Hulme, author of Remnants of Conquest: The Island Caribs and Their Visitors, 1877-1998 In September 1781, the captain of the British slave ship Zong ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard, enabling the ship's owners to file an insurance claim for their lost “cargo.” Accounts of this horrific event quickly became a staple of abolitionist discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Ian Baucom revisits, in unprecedented detail, the Zong atrocity, the ensuing court cases, reactions to the event and trials, and the business and social dealings of the Liverpool merchants who owned the ship. Drawing on the work of an astonishing array of literary and social theorists including Walter Benjamin, Giovanni Arrighi, Jacques Derrida, and many others, he argues that the tragedy is central not only to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the political and cultural archives of the black Atlantic but also to the history of modern capital and ethics. To apprehend the Zong tragedy, Baucom suggests, is not to come to terms with an isolated atrocity but to encounter a logic of violence key to the unfolding history of Atlantic modernity. Baucom contends that the massacre and the trials that followed it bring to light an Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation based on speculative finance, an economic cycle that has not yet run its course. The extraordinarily abstract nature of today's finance capital is the late-eighteenth-century system intensified. Yet, as Baucom highlights, since the late 1700s, this rapacious speculative culture has had detractors. He traces the emergence and development of a counter-discourse he calls melancholy realism through abolitionist and human rights texts, British romantic poetry, Scottish moral philosophy, and the work of late-twentieth-century literary theorists. In revealing how the Zong tragedy resonates within contemporary financial systems and human-rights discourses, Baucom puts forth a deeply compelling, utterly original theory of history: one that insists that an eighteenth-century atrocity is not past but present within the future we now inhabit. Ian Baucom is Associate Professor of English at Duke University. He is the author of Out of Place: Englishness, Empire, and the Locations of Identity and a coeditor of Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, also published by Duke University Press. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Part One: “Now Being”:Slavery, Speculation, and the Measure of our Time 1. Liverpool, a Capital of the Long Twentieth Century 2. “Subject $”; or, the “Type” of the Modern 3. “Madam Death! Madam Death!”:Credit, Insurance, and the Atlantic Cycle of Capital Accumulation 4.”Signum Rememorativum, Demonstrativum, Prognostikon”: Modernity and the Truth Event 5.”Please decide”: The Singular and the Speculative Part Two: Specters of the Atlantic: Slavery and the Witness 6.Frontispiece: Testimony, Rights, and the State of Exception 7. The View from the Window: Sympathy, Melancholy, and the Problem of “Humanity” 8. The Fact of History: On Cosmopolitan Interestedness 9. The Imaginary Resentment of the Dead: A Theory of Melancholy Sentiment 10. “To Tumble into It, and Gasp for Breath as We Go Down”: The Idea of Suffering and the Case of Liberal Cosmopolitanism 11. This/Such, for Instance: The Witness against “History” Part Three: “The Sea is HIstory” 12. “The Sea is History”: On Temporal Accumulation Notes Index DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS February 2006 400 pages ISBN 0-8223-3596-4 Paperback - £15.95 SPECIAL DISCOUNTED PRICE OF £11.00 to C18-STUDIES Subscribers Postage and Packing £2.75 To order a copy please contact Marston on 44(0)1235 465500 or email direct.orders@marston.co.uk or visit our website www.combinedacademic.demon.co.uk (Please quote reference C18S56SA). Top Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships University of Siena, Italy Ph.D in Economics Application for Academic Year 2006-07 Deadline 31 May 2006 General information • Admission 2006 Fees, Lodging, Financial Support • International Links Norme, Regolamenti, Verbali (ital.) Courses and Calendar 2005-2006 Students • Theses Discussed • Faculty For further information: http://www.econ-pol.unisi.it/dottorato/welcome.html To contact us: phd.economics@unisi.it Secretary: Giovanni Forconi - Tel. +39 0577 232619 Professor Ugo Pagano Director of the Ph.D. Economics Program Dipartimento di Economia Politica, Piazza S. Francesco, 7, 53100 Siena, Italy Tel: direct (+577) 232614. E-mail: Pagano@unisi.it Top Heterodox Websites Brecht Forum The BRECHT FORUM is a place for people who are working for social justice, equality and a new culture that puts human needs first. Through its programs and events, the Brecht Forum brings people together across social and cultural boundaries and artistic and academic disciplines to promote critical analysis, creative thinking, collaborative projects and networking in an independent community-level environment. Throughout the year, the Brecht Forum offers a wide-ranging program of classes, public lectures and seminars, art exhibitions, performances, popular education workshops, and language classes. These activities are developed in collaboration with the many social movements and the diverse communities of this most cosmopolitan of cities, and our programs bring together leading intellectuals, activists and artists from New York, across the U.S., and internationally. Its website is http://www.brechtforum.org. Top For Your Information Tufts Institute Awards Annual Economics Prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor October Lectures to Honor the Late John Kenneth Galbraith May 14, 2006 Download the PDF announcement at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/2006AnnouncementMay06.pdf Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute announced today that it will award its annual economics prize to Samuel Bowles of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Juliet Schor of Boston College. The award ceremony will take place October 5, 2006 at Tufts University. In recognition of the recent passing of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the winner of one of the Institute’s inaugural Leontief Prizes, this year’s lectures, by Dr. Bowles and Dr. Schor, will focus on the theme, “Economics for an Imperfect World: Building on the Galbraith Legacy.” “For three-quarters of a century Ken Galbraith kept open a space in which economists could make robust connections between our profession and the things that most matter in the world,” said GDAE co-director Neva Goodwin. “Many of us will work hard to maintain the traditions of which he was an outstanding – often a unique – champion.” The Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE), which is jointly affiliated with Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, inaugurated its economics award in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and Institute advisory board member Wassily Leontief, who had passed away the previous year. The Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought recognizes economists whose work, like that of the institute and Leontief himself, combines theoretical and empirical research that can promote a more comprehensive understanding of social and environmental processes. The inaugural prizes were awarded to John Kenneth Galbraith and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. Subsequent Leontief Prize recipients have included Paul Streeten, Herman Daly, Alice Amsden, Dani Rodrik, Nancy Folbre, Robert Frank, Richard Nelson, and Ha-Joon Chang. On this year’s recipients Goodwin comments, “We are proud to recognize two individuals who address today’s realities through their creative combinations of empirical and conceptual work. Sam Bowles has inspired generations of economists – including an impressive array of his own students – to expand the frontiers of research and teaching in economics. Juliet Schor’s scholarly and popular writings have changed perceptions of American society, and especially the costs of its high-consumption lifestyle.” The 2006 prizes honor two economists whose work has opened new paths for economic theory and policy. In awarding the Leontief Prize to Dr. Bowles, GDAE cited his groundbreaking work as an innovator in microeconomics over the last 40 years. His work on the structure of labor and capital markets and the organization of work has led to the theory of “contested exchange,” demonstrating how markets naturally create persistent inequalities of wealth and power. His current research focuses on the evolution of institutions, behavior, and preferences, and on the causes and consequences of inequality. Dr. Bowles combines empirical and theoretical work in economics and many related disciplines, along with sophisticated mathematical tools, to address questions of broad social and political importance. Now nominally retired from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he divides his time between U-Mass, the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico (where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program), and the University of Siena in Italy. Dr. Juliet Schor has become well known for her work on trends in labor and leisure, consumption, the economics of families, and economic justice. Her first well-known book, The Overworked American, described the time pressures, competition, and consumerism of late 20th-century America. This was followed by The Overspent American, and most recently by Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. Her current research interests include the commercialization of childhood, and the environmental sustainability of American lifestyles. Dr. Schor directed the Women Studies Program at Harvard University and taught in the Harvard economics department before becoming a Professor of Sociology at Boston College. The Global Development and Environment Institute was founded in 1993 with the goal of promoting a better understanding of how societies can pursue their economic and community goals in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The Institute develops textbooks and course materials that incorporate a broad understanding of social, financial and environmental sustainability. The Institute also carries out policy-relevant research on globalization and sustainable development, the role of the market in environmental policy, recycling and material use, and climate change. Its six-volume book series, Frontier Issues in Economic Thought, identified and summarized nearly 500 academic articles on topics often given little attention in the field of economics. The awards ceremony and Leontief Prize lectures are scheduled for October 5, 2006. They will take place on Tufts University’s Medford Campus. Read more about the Leontief Prize on the GDAE web site at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/leontief.html For further information, please contact: Minona Heaviland, minona.heaviland@tufts.edu or Josh Berkowitz, joshua.berkowitz@tufts.edu 617-627-3530 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach With the furor about high gas prices in the news, and politicians falling over themselves to propose foolish and counterproductive policy responses, now is an excellent “teachable moment”. The semester is nearly over, but useful support materials for final papers and take-home exams on this topic (or for summer session use) can be found at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/ENREupdate.html Three updates to Harris’s ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS textbook are available for free download: GASOLINE PRICES AND ENERGY SUPPLIES FORMULATING EFFECTIVE ENERGY POLICY ** GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING These updates include information on: supply and demand factors in the oil market; the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and alternative policy approaches; a graph showing the relatively tiny potential contribution of the Arctic National Wildlife refuge to oil supplies; energy efficiency, fuel economy standards, and revenue-neutral carbon tax/rebate policies. (please refresh your web page to be able to download the new updates) Instructor and Student Support Materials for the Second Edition and text examination copies can also be obtained on the website at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/env_nat_res_economics.html The second edition of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach has been updated in response both to developments in environmental theory and policy, and to comments and suggestions based on classroom use. New material in the second edition includes: - Expanded treatment of economic valuation techniques - More on “green” national income accounting, including green GDP in China - New material on the impact of AIDS and declining fertility rates - Topic boxes on agricultural pollution and organic agriculture - New data on mineral price trends and energy subsidies - More on fisheries policies, “Clear Skies” debate, and toxic waste management - New data and policy developments on global climate change - Updated data series and new appendices on basic economic theory Updates and exam copies available at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/env_nat_res_economics.html "Is NAFTA Working for Mexico?" Kevin P. Gallagher, The Environmental Forum, May/June 2006. In the twelve years since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Mexico’s environment has worsened. GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher shows, however, that without NAFTA’s environmental side accord, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the degradation would have been even worse. Rather than building on the limited success of the NAAEC, the Bush Administration has weaken the environmental provisions in subsequent trade agreements, including the Central America Free Trade Agreement and various agreements with Andean nations, that are still being negotiated. http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/EnvForumNAFTAMay06.pdf For more about The Environmental Forum, a publication of the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, visit: http://www.elistore.org/member.asp#envforum Talking Class on Campus Class differences frequently appear on college campuses, yet there are few venues to discuss their impact on students and faculty. Class Action speakers and facilitators introduce class and classism through lively, thought-provoking lectures and workshops designed to open dialogue and discussion. Colleges recently featuring Class Action speakers and/or workshops include: • Arizona State University, Tempe • Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire • Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts • Lane Community College, Eugene • Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts • University of Massachusetts, Amherst • University of Arizona, Tucson • University of Oregon, Eugene One of Class Action's engaging speakers is co-director Felice Yeskel. Yeskel's speaking style incorporates group participation through open dialogue, encourages discussion, critical analysis and reflection. She has toured the country speaking to more than 50,000 people in 25 states. She has presented hundreds of workshops about economic inequality and about healing the divisions among Americans of different class backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations. Felice Yeskel recently lectured at Smith College. Her talk is featured in the college’s alumnae magazine: " …she used her personal story to show Smith students how pervasive class difference is and how early people become aware of it. 'Class is the last great taboo,” she said. 'These days it’s more socially acceptable to talk about sex than it is about your class.' … Yeskel traced what she called the growing cultural gap between the haves and have-nots in this country, noting that the hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast last summer didn’t cause economic inequality. Rather, 'it pulled back the veil so we got a peek at this country’s dirty little secret,' she said.” This article is featured on Class Action's homepage. Read more ... STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS RESPOND TO CLASS ACTION Class Action combines a trenchant class analysis with opportunities for people to discuss experiences and feelings about class. Judith Plaskow Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College “[Class Action’s] Ms. Yeskel was an engaging, dynamic speaker…. She spoke what she felt, she spoke with passion and compassion. Throughout her talk, it was clear her heart and mind were in her voice and words. She spoke of truths and personal experience ... and weaved a web that could not leave a person asking 'What?' 'So what?' or 'What now?' without answers.” Mark Fitzgerald, UMass student Class Action is breaking new ground with every meeting it holds. Bringing a dialogue around class in the U.S. to an acceptable status is going to be one of the biggest social issues in the next few decades. Ruth Trimarchi, Educator Amherst High School Class is much more than economics: clearly, cultural attitudes account for a good deal of rationalizations about why things are the way they are. Karen Cordoza-Kane Adjunct Professor Contact Class Action to schedule speakers or workshops for the coming school year. E-mail Felice Yeskel or call (413) 585-9709, ext. 202. PLEASE CONNECT US WITH OTHERS Class Action also consults with organizations and individuals. Are there people you know who we should know or who should, know about Class Action? If so, please forward this email and ask them to be in touch with us directly! Top

From the Editor

Recently I was talking with my editor at the University of Michigan Press and he told me the following: (1) manuscripts that do not have the potential to sell 750 copies in the first two years have a chance of not being accepted (unless there was a subsidy forthcoming to help with the costs); and (2) book sellers are reluctant to send representatives (and books) to conferences with less than 200 participants. What this implies for the former is that heterodox economists need to buy heterodox books to ensure that a market exists when they want their book published. As for the latter, because many heterodox conferences have less than 200 participants, it is necessary to think of ways to increase attendance, such as EAEPE developing an umbrella conference for all European heterodox economists and heterodox economic associations or that heterodox economic conferences team up with say history of thought conferences to generate the needed number of participants. In the end, the size of the conferences has to grow so that the books we write get displayed/advertised and bought.

In the Newsletter you will find some interesting call for papers, one being a conference on Rethinking Popper and another on Jobs and Justice. There are also a number of notices regarding upcoming conferences and inviting heterodox economists to participate: my favorite is the AHE Conference in London, but there is also the Progressive Economics Forum meetings in a couple of weeks. Keeping with my hobby horse regarding research assessment exercises, Donald Gillies has an interesting article in the recent PAER. For those who are not familiar with the Review of Social Economy as a potential outlet for your research, check out the info about the journal. Finally in the Newsletter there is info on new books for heterodox economists, the graduate program at the University of Siena, and the Tufts Institute award of its annual economics prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor.

Fred Lee

In this issue:

          - JSPE 54th Annual Conference, 2006
          - Rethinking Popper
          - Jobs & Justice


  - Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

          - The Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference
          - World Poverty and the Duty of Assistance
          - Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) Events
          - Second Malthus Lecture at the University of Hertfordshire
          - Causality and Probability in the Sciences
          - Institutions and the Economy: Historical Perspectives
          - "Which financing for which development ?" Group of economic and social research (GRES)

         - Review of Social Economy
         - Post-autistic economics review
         - Revue de la Régulation
         - The Talking Economics Bulletin- May 06

          - Money and Exchange: Folktales and Reality- Sasan Fayazmanesh
          - Field Guide to the U.S. Economy
          - Specters of the Atlantic

         - Tufts Institute Awards Annual Economics Prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor
         - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach
         - "Is NAFTA Working for Mexico?"
         - Talking Class on Campus

JSPE 54th Annual Conference, 2006

Transfigurations　and Pathology of Contemporary Corporate Capital
To be held on October 21-22, 2006, at Aichi University (Kurumadori Campus, Nagoya)

The 54th annual conference of the JAPAN SOCIETY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY (JSPE) will be held on October 21 (Saturday) and 22 (Sunday), 2006, at the Kurumadori Campus of Aichi University, Nagoya. As stated above, the theme of the plenary session in this conference will be: Transfigurations and Pathology of Contemporary Corporate Capital. Under this theme, we intend to seek analyses of the new pathological trends stemming from financial strategies that contemporary corporations and investors increasingly tend to adopt.

Indeed, the financial sector has grown hugely in recent years relative to the real economy, exerting on it influences that have not been sufficiently accounted for in theoretical terms. We are made to observe, among other things, uncontrolled speculations leading to bubbles and busts in securitized financial markets in the progressing information age. Elevated share prices are sought as supreme virtues. Financial management of firms are undergoing radical changes, especially in view of the rapidly growing combinations of internet-related firms via mergers and acquisitions, and of the institutional and private investors, investment funds, etc., which, as owners, now increasingly interfere with firms’ management decisions, including their labor relations. Such trends affect organizational mechanisms that may lend themselves to distortions and decay in sound economic activities.

What is the nature of these changes? Are the classical concepts of finance and monopoly capital in Marxian economics adequate to grasp these novel phenomena? Or must we develop new approaches to satisfactorily elucidate them? We surely need to thrash out all our theoretical potentialities so as to come to grips with the state of affairs that now stands against us and challenges us. We are also concerned with the impact of new corporate and financial capitalist behaviours on the ethical aspects of our social lives. Corporate and financial capitalist strategies abet speculation, parasitism, dysfunctions and ruin in business. The gap between the winners and the losers is increasingly widening. Under such pressures, people are led to engage in complicities, so that deceptions and disloyalties replace solidarity with mutual suspicion in society. Thus what happens in financial markets cannot stay aloof from ethical life in society; it has pernicious and even pathological effects on human beings.

We call for papers from JSPE members and from others interested in taking part in this conference, which is based on the aforementioned theme. We are interested in participants with a wide range of interests and methodological approaches. While the main conference language is Japanese, we will organize English-language sessions on December 21, especially aimed at those from overseas who are willing to participate in the following two categories:

English Sessions 1: Topics relating to the general theme of the conference.
This sessions are designated to the topics relating to the conference generral theme : Transfigurations　and Pathology of Contemporary　Corporate　Capital.
English Sessions 2: Other specific topics
These sessions will be organized focusing on such other specific topics as environment, gender, the critique of new liberalism, and regional economies (including China and others), while remaining completely open to suggestions and proposals.

Submission Procedures and the Deadline
All those wanting to present a paper at the conference, please send by no later than May 31, 2006 in a abstract of their paper [in 200 words] with (1)your name, (2)address (E-mail and mailing address), (3)affiliation and other relevant data to:

Dr. Shinjiro HAGIWARA or Dr. Tomohiko SEKINE
E-mail: Jspecice@mml.gssm.musashi.ac.jp
Postal Mailing address:
Prof. Shinjiro HAGIWARA
Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University
Tokiwadai 79-3, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken, 240-8501, Japan
TEL: + 81-45-339-3575 (Prof. HAGIWARA’s Office), Fax: +81-45-339-3504

*Notification of acceptance will be sent by June. 21. Attendants will pay their conference fee (5000 yen including the conference buffet), as well as their own transportation, accommodation and other personal expenses.

Dr. Tetsuji Kawamura, Hosei University
Chairman of the JSPE Committee for International Communication and Exchange
JSPE URL: http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jspe/en/index.html

Rethinking Popper

Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republicis pleased to announce a conference
RETHINKING POPPER
September 12th –15th 2007
Prague, Czech Republic

This conference aims to review Karl Popper‘s philosophy and evaluate its relevance to current philosophical debates and today’s world. Topics covered will include his views on rationality, scientific methodology,the evolution of knowledge and democracy.

One-page abstracts should be submitted in electronic form to the address bellow.
For details see: www.flu.cas.cz/rethinkingpopper

The Chair of the Organizing Committee:
Dr Zuzana Parusniková
Department for Analytic Philosophy
Institute of Philosophy
Jilská 1, 110 00 Prague 1
rethinkingpopper@gmail.com

The Organizing Committee:
Robert Cohen (Boston), Yehuda Elkana (Budapest), Donald Gillies (London), Petr Koťátko (Prague), Táňa Sedová (Bratislava), Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), Joanna Swann (Brighton)

The accompanying attachment contains information and a call for papers for what promises to be an interesting and important conference on Jobs & Justice. The conference will be held March 29-31, 2007 in Vancouver. Please note that the deadline for submissions is September 15. 2006.

The Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference

Economics, Pluralism, and the Social Sciences
London
July 14 – 16, 2006

The conference will have both a thematic part and an open part. The thematic part, Economic, Pluralism, and the Social Sciences, will feature papers on topics dealing with economics and its relation to the social sciences as a whole and with respect to its various branches, such as anthropology, development studies, gender and race studies, history, literary studies, management, philosophy, politics, psychology, and sociology, from both economists and non-economists and from a plurality of perspectives. Other sessions will be:

1.Apply heterodox economic thought to policy-related issues
2.Examine economic theory from the standpoint of another discipline or disciplines in the social sciences or the humanities
3.Critically assess the existing and potential relation, deleterious or positive, between economics and other branches of the social sciences
4.Examine issues or deploy approaches neglected by current economic orthodoxy
5.Critically examine either neoclassical economic orthodoxy, or – in the spirit of pluralism – its heterodox critics
6.Assess the contributions of various heterodox approaches towards opening up economics
7.Contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in economics from a heterodox or pluralist perspective

See the attachments for further information regarding:

Conference Locations
Registration and Payment Forms

Conference Dinner: If you want to come to the conference dinner be particularly sure to book as soon as possible: spaces are limited.
Access Requirements
Accommodation – further information on accommodations is below:
Conference participants must make their own arrangements for accommodation.
For guidance, the LSE offers single studios at its new Grosvenor House Studios off Drury Lane at £40 a night (its nearest accommodation to its campus), and single rooms at £30 a night at its Carr-Saunders Hall in Fitzrovia (near the British Telecom tower).

University College London also offers accommodation: for example, single rooms at Astor College in Charlotte Street (also near the BT tower) at £23 a night. The University of London's Inter-Collegiate halls of residence also offer accommodation. Full details and booking at the following links:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/vacations/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/residences/
http://www.london.ac.uk/halls.html

There are also many reasonably-priced hotels and bed and breakfast establishments in the WC1 area. For example there is the group of hotels known as the Imperial London Hotels in and nearby by Tavistock Square (about 300 yards from the UCL venue) and offer single rooms starting at £41 a night including breakfast: http://www.imperialhotels.co.uk/index.htm.

Commercial accommodation in WC2 is likely to be more expensive; for example, the Travelodge London Covent Garden in Drury Lane was offering rooms at £90 a night at the time of going to press.

Full details -- including maps -- of the venues for the conference and the conference dinner will be sent with confirmation of your booking.
If you have any questions, please contact Julian Wells at j.wells@kingston.ac.uk

World Poverty and the Duty of Assistance

Forum for European Philosophy
Tuesday 27 June 2006, 9.30am - 6.00 pm
Free event, no registration required
Old Theatre, Old Building, Houghton Street, LSE in cooperation with the Department of Philosophy at the LSE, UNESCO, Social and Human Sciences Section and the Institute of Philosophy at The School of Advanced Study.

Conference programme: http://www.philosophy-forum.org/Povertyconference.htm

Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) Events

At the Canadian Economics Association Meeting
Concordia University, Montreal, May 26-28, 2006

Please join us at the CEA conference for our annual general meeting and wine & cheese party:

Friday May 26, 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm
(Location: Au Bistro Gourmet, 2100 rue Saint-Mathieu, at Maisonneuve,
2 blocks east of Henry Hall Building, Concordia U.)

Guest Speaker: Prof. Gilles Distaler (UQAM)
“Keynes and his Battles: What They Mean for Canada”
2006 marks the 70th Anniversary of the publication of the General Theory.
Hear Prof. Dostaler (a leading global expert on Keynes) discuss its continuing significance.

Second Malthus Lecture at the University of Hertfordshire

Professor Oliver Williamson - the leading pioneer of modern transaction cost economics and the most highly cited economist of all time - will give the Second Malthus Lecture at 6pm on Thursday 19th October at the University of Hertfordshire, in the Fielder Centre in Hatfield, UK.

The topic of Professor Williamson's lecture will be: "Corporate Governance and Economic Organization: A Contractual and Organizational Perspective"

All are welcome. Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture. Hatfield is on the London to Cambridge main railway line, and there is easy access to all London airports.

The First Malthus Lecture - commemorating the Hertfordshire economist Thomas Robert Malthus - was given by Nobel Laureate Douglass North in May 2005.

Causality and Probability in the Sciences

http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/jw/2006/capits.htm
14-16 June 2006
Keynes College Lecture Room 5, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
15th May: deadline for receipt of early-bird registration to attend the conference.
Register by posting the conference fee of £20 sterling with the registration form (available on the conference web site) to: Department of Philosophy, attn. Miriam Waters, Cornwallis Building NW, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK
For detailed information: Causality and Probability.doc

Institutions and the Economy: Historical Perspectives

5th June 2006, British Academy (London)

Organised by: Timothy Besley (IFS and LSE), Richard Blundell (IFS and UCL) and Nicholas Crafts (University of Warwick)

The theme of the meeting is institutions and the economy. There has been a great deal of interest in these issues catalyzed by Douglas North’s Nobel prize winning work. The debate has been re-ignited in recent years and is influencing both economics, political science and economic history. The research programme involves bring new data sources to bear as well as benefiting from insights from game theory and contract theory. This forum will include presentations by four of the leading figures in the area and will provide an excellent opportunity for those who are interested to catch up with recent developments. We have four distinguished speakers, one political scientist, one economist and two economic historians:

Speakers:

James Robinson (Harvard University), "Fundamental Determinants of Prosperity"
Guido Tabellini (IGIER, Bocconi University), "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe"
Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University), "The Market for Ideas and the Origins of Economic Growth in Eighteenth Century Europe"
Avner Grief (Stanford University), "Corporations, Institutions, and the Particularities of European History"

Places at this conference are strictly limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To reserve your place, please contact Bonnie Brimstone at bonnie_b@ifs.org.uk.

This conference is free of charge. In addition, some funding is available to assist members of the Royal Economic Society and the Economic History Society with travel expenses and a conference dinner on 5th June 2006 (first come first served and a maximum of £50 per person travel expenses) Please state your membership number when applying for a place if you wish to claim expenses or attend the evening meal.

Sponsors: Royal Economic Society, British Academy and Economic History Society

"Which financing for which development ?" Group of Economic and Social Research (GRES)

Informations sur 2 colloques ADEK, le premier organis par le professeur ALAIN PARGUEZ, le second par l'quipe de BORDEAUX autour d'ERIC BERR

1. COLLOQUE organis par ALAIN PARGUEZ (ADEK) au Snat -PARIS juin 2006

Quel modle de croissance pour la France : la leon des expriences trangres
Veuillez trouver ci-joint le trs intressant programme et une fiche d'inscription ce colloque.

Notons notamment la prsence de

Thomas Ferguson (Professeur Dr University of Massachusset )
James Galbraith (Universit du Texas, Etats-Unis),
Augusto Graziani ( Universit La Sapienza, Italie),
Julio Lopez (UNAM-Mexique),
Albert Marouani (Prsident de lUniversit de Nice),
Henri Sader (Dr Professeur au Canadian Labor College )
Mario Seccareccia (Universit dOttawa,Canada)
Otto Steiger Professeur (emeritus Dr Universit de Brme Allemagne)
Marc Humbert(Dr Universit de Rennes I)

2. RAPPEL:COLLOQUE ADEK et GRES de NOVEMBRE 2006 BORDEAUX:"Quel financement pour quel dveloppement ?"

Nous vous rappelons que le Groupement de recherches conomiques et sociales (GRES), organisme regroupant l'IFReDE de l'Universit Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV et le LEREPS de l'Universit Toulouse 1, organise, en partenariat avec l'Association pour le dveloppement des tudes keynsiennes (ADEK) et avec le soutien de l'Observatoire international de la dette (OID), ses 2mes journes du dveloppement. Celles-ci se drouleront Bordeaux les 23 et 24 novembre 2006. Le thme retenu est:
"Quel financement pour quel dveloppement ?"

We remind you that the Group of economic and social research (GRES), which is composed by the IFReDE of the University of Bordeaux and the LEREPS of the University of Toulouse, co-organizes, with the Association for the development of keynesian studies (ADEK) and with the support of the International debt observatory (IDO), its second development conference. This conference will take place in Bordeaux on november 23-24, 2006. The general theme is: "Which financing for which development ?"

Nous vous invitons consulter le site du colloque http://beagle.u-bordeaux4.fr/jourdev/ qui vous fournira toutes les informations ncessaires.

We invite you to visit the conference website http://beagle.u-bordeaux4.fr/jourdev/ where you will find all useful informations.

Veuillez noter que la date limite d'envoi des propositions de communication est fixe au 15 juin 2006.
Please note that the deadline for submission is june 15, 2006.

N'hsitez pas diffuser largement cette information. Nous vous prions d'excuser d'ventuels envois multiples. Cordialement.

Do not hesitate to diffuse widely this information around you and please apologize for possible cross-posting.

Best regards.
Pour le comit d'organisation, for the steering Committee,
Eric Berr

Registration Form: Bulletin d'inscription-06.doc

The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE)

The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) seeks applications for a part-time Office Manager. Founded in 1968, URPE is a membership organization of academics and activists who share an interest in a radical analysis of political and economic topics. URPE's members use their analysis to advance various progressive political and social agendas.

Applicants should have the experience necessary to:
a. Manage the URPE office (located at U. Mass/Amherst). Some bookkeeping required; web skills an advantage.
b. Make use of the URPE office to build URPE's presence in the area.
c. Attend and help organize conferences, including URPE's August Summer Conference.
d. Work with the URPE Steering Committee to promote the goals of the organization.

Starting date: August 1.
Salary, benefits, and hours negotiable.

URPE encourages applications from women and people of color.

Send applications to:
P. Parmalee
35 Aumick Road
Wallkill NY 12589

For questions regarding the position, please email Al Campbell (mailto:Al@mill.econ.utah.edu), Laurie Nisonoff (lnisonoff@hampshire.edu) , Patty Lee Parmalee (plparmalee@earthlink.net) or Paddy Quick (paddyquick@aol.com ).

Review of Social Economy

For over 60 years, the Review of Social Economy (RoSE) has published high quality peer-reviewed papers on the many relationships between social values and economics. Among the subjects featured in the journal are:
•inequalities in access to economic opportunities by race, gender, ethnicity, class
•changing patterns of income distribution
•poverty and policies and programs to address it
•health-care policies and institutions, problems of health-care costs and equitable access
•theories and conceptual views of economic justice
•workplace policies
•fair housing, fair lending
•sustainable growth and the environment, globalization
•consumerism and value systems in market economies
•development strategies and policies that favor poor and low-income households
•innovations in economic theory and methodology
RoSE authors represent a range of perspectives, including mainstream, institutionalist, feminist, Post-Keynesian, behavioral, etc. -- what they have in common is shared interest in questions of economics and social values. RoSE encourages discussions about relationships between economics and other disciplines (e.g. economic sociology, economic geography, ecological economics, and ethical studies); indeed it is an obvious platform for interdisciplinary research to be staged. High-quality empirical work intended to help inform social policy is especially welcome.
RoSE recently acquired a new editorial team consisting of:
Wilfred Dolfsma, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) -- wdolfsma@rsm.nl
Deborah M. Figart, Richard Stockton College (USA) -- Deb.Figart@stockton.edu
Robert McMaster, University of Aberdeen (Scotland) -- r.mcmaster@abdn.ac.uk
Martha Starr, American University (USA) –- mstarr@american.edu
In the interest of maintaining and improving the journal’s strong quality, the editors hope to encourage you to consider RoSE as a potential outlet for your research, and to recommend to your colleagues and promising graduate students that they do the same. More information on RoSE (including instructions for authors) can be found at:
http://www.socialeconomics.org/review.htm
A listing of books you might wish to review for RoSE can be found at:
http://www.socialeconomics.org/BookReview.htm
The Review is associated with the Association for Social Economics, one of the founding members of the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA).
Selected articles from the Review of Social Economy, 2000-2005

“Selecting Among Anti-Poverty Policies: Can an Economist be Both Critical and Caring?” (Rebecca Blank)
“Blowing the Whistle on Poverty Policy” (Nancy Folbre)
“The Immunisation Status of Poor Children: An Analysis of Parental Altruism and Child Well-Being” (John Hisnanick and Dale Coddington)
“Was Shock Therapy Consistent with Democracy?” (John Marangos)
“Globalization, Neoliberalism and the attack on social security” (Christopher Niggle)
“Neoliberalism and economic justice in South Africa: revisiting the debate on economic apartheid” (Geoffrey Schneider)
“National Identity and the Challenge of Health Reform in Canada” (Evelyn Forget)
“Do Detailed Work Histories Help to Explain Gender and Race/Ethnic Wage Differentials?” (Carole Green and Marianne Ferber)

“Gender as more than a dummy variable: Feminist approaches to discrimination” (Deb Figart)
“Does Married Women's Market Work Affect Marital Stability Adversely? An Intercohort Analysis Using NLS Data” (Bisakha Sen)
“Race, Gender and Regional Labor Market Inequalities in Brazil” (Peggy Lovell)
“Male and Female Recoveries in Medical Malpractice Cases” (Walter Simmons and Rosemarie Emanuele)
“Happiness Research: State and Prospects” (Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer)
“The Scope and Promising Future of Social Economics” (Jon Wisman)
“Consumer Rationality and Consumer Sovereignty” (William Redmond)
“Religious Identity and Consumption” (Metin Cosgel and Lanse Minkler)
“Consumption, Identity, and the Socio-cultural Constitution of "Preferences": Reading Women's Magazines” (Martha Starr)
“You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food Movement” (Bruce Pietrykowski)
“Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: A Critical Analysis of the U.K. Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production” (Gill Seyfang)
New for the Review of Social Economy
Now you can submit articles online with Manuscript Central

Manuscript Central is the publishing industry's number one online tool for managing manuscripts through the scholarly journal peer review process, also making submissions quick and easy.

For further information or to submit a paper please visit: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rrse.

Post-autistic economics review

an email-delivered economics journal
Subscribers: 8,571 from over 150 countries

Subscribe now for free and receive Click here to subscribe issue no. 37 28 April 2006

- Why Research Assessment Exercises Are a Bad Thing
Donald Gillies ……………………...………………. 2

- Rethinking Foreign Investment for Development
Kevin P.Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky ……….……10

- The Political Economy of Peer Production
Michel Bauwens ………………………………….....33

- Can a Heterodox Economist Use Cross-country Growth
Regressions?
Matthew McCartney ………………………………...45

- Prying Open American Political ‘Science’
Bruce Cumings and Kurt Jacobsen …………….…55

- Comment on “Economics Is Structured Like a Language”

Revue de la Régulation

Capitalisme, Institutions, Pouvoirs
Vous trouverez ci-joint une présentation des grandes lignes de la politique éditoriale guidant cette démarche.
La Revue de la Régulation entend publier différents types de textes, non seulement des articles théoriques, mais aussi des points de vue sur l'actualité, notes de recherche, notes de lecture et comptes rendus pour nourrir le débat.
Toutes les propositions d'articles sont les bienvenues, les contributions scientifiques seront soumises à comité de lecture selon la procédure habituelle.
En espérant que vous porterez intérêt à cette initiative, nous comptons sur votre collaboration.

Bien cordialement,
Le comité de rédaction de la revue de la régulation.

PS: Une seconde vague de mail est envoyée, car il manquait de nombreux contacts dans la précédente, navré pour la pollution électronique occasionnée. Si vous souhaitez ne plus recevoir de mail, n'hésitez à nous l'indiquer.
Un lien est désomais disponible à partir du site de l'Association de la régulation:
http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/regulation/revue_online/

The Talking Economics Bulletin- May 06

The Talking Economics Bulletin consists of news and views on associative economics, including short extracts from Associative Economics Monthly (which is available electronically for £1 an issue at www.cfae.biz/aem or in a hard copy format - tel (UK) 01227 738207).

1) Associative Economics Monthly May 06, Editorial
2) Event Details - in London, Stroud, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Norway
3) Time for a world currency?
4) The Art and Science of Economics

For detailed information: The Talking Economics Bulletin.doc

Field Guide to the U.S. Economy

Jonathan Teller-Elsberg, James Heintz, and Nancy Folbre

$16.95, ISBN: 978-1-59558-048-1

http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1374

Newly expanded and updated, Field Guide to the U.S. Economy has become a classic in the field. Field Guide is a user-friendly and accessible text that explains how to interpret and use economic statistics. It offers explanations of price indices, GDP, the poverty line, and other economic concepts, with a glossary that provides clear, simple explanations of technical terms. Different chapters explore the concepts of owners, workers, women, people of color, government spending, welfare and education, health, the environment, macroeconomics, and the global economy.

Highly illustrated with charts and graphs, Field Guide is an engaging reference for students of economics, sociology, political economy, globalization, labor studies, government and political science.

The new edition will be available June 2006. To request an EXAM COPY of FIELD GUIDE TO THE US ECONOMY, please respond to academic@thenewpress.com, listing your University and Department affiliation, the courses you teach, the likelihood of course adoption for this text, and a complete mailing address (No P.O. Boxes please).

PLEASE PROVIDE A SUMMER MAILING ADRESS, AS FINISHED BOOKS WILL BE MAILED IN JUNE AND JULY.

JONATHAN TELLER-ELSBERG is a staff economist with the Center for Popular Economics and lives in Burlington, VT. NANCY FOLBRE, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is a MacArthur Fellow and lives in Montague, MA. JAMES HEINTZ, assistant research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, is a member of the Center for Popular Economics and lives in Northampton, MA.

“Readers will learn that when the economy is doing fine but the people in it are not, something needs to change.”

—Jared Bernstein, Director Living Standards Program, Economic Policy Institute

“A treasure trove of information.. Essential for teachers, students, and just about anyone who cares to know how the U.S. economy really operates.”

—Juliet Schor, author of The New Consumer Culture

38 Greene Street
New York, NY. 10013
www.thenewpress.com

FOR EXAM COPY OF FIELD GUIDE TO THE U.S. ECONOMY
PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO:
academic@thenewpress.com

Specters of the Atlantic

Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History
Ian Baucom

“Specters of the Atlantic is quite possibly the most provocative scholarly work I have read in a decade. I really cannot praise this book enough.”-Mary Poovey, author of A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society

“A fantastically stimulating read, Specters of the Atlantic will be an extremely significant book. Its core strength is that it deals in such detail and in such an imaginative way with the primary texts associated with the case of the Zong. Nobody has read those texts in such a careful and stimulating way before, and nobody has used the case to construct such an ambitious historical schema.”—Peter Hulme, author of Remnants of Conquest: The Island Caribs and Their Visitors, 1877-1998

In September 1781, the captain of the British slave ship Zong ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard, enabling the ship's owners to file an insurance claim for their lost “cargo.” Accounts of this horrific event quickly became a staple of abolitionist discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Ian Baucom revisits, in unprecedented detail, the Zong atrocity, the ensuing court cases, reactions to the event and trials, and the business and social dealings of the Liverpool merchants who owned the ship. Drawing on the work of an astonishing array of literary and social theorists including Walter Benjamin, Giovanni Arrighi, Jacques Derrida, and many others, he argues that the tragedy is central not only to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the political and cultural archives of the black Atlantic but also to the history of modern capital and ethics. To apprehend the Zong tragedy, Baucom suggests, is not to come to terms with an isolated atrocity but to encounter a logic of violence key to the unfolding history of Atlantic modernity.

Baucom contends that the massacre and the trials that followed it bring to light an Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation based on speculative finance, an economic cycle that has not yet run its course. The extraordinarily abstract nature of today's finance capital is the late-eighteenth-century system intensified. Yet, as Baucom highlights, since the late 1700s, this rapacious speculative culture has had detractors. He traces the emergence and development of a counter-discourse he calls melancholy realism through abolitionist and human rights texts, British romantic poetry, Scottish moral philosophy, and the work of late-twentieth-century literary theorists. In revealing how the Zong tragedy resonates within contemporary financial systems and human-rights discourses, Baucom puts forth a deeply compelling, utterly original theory of history: one that insists that an eighteenth-century atrocity is not past but present within the future we now inhabit.

Ian Baucom is Associate Professor of English at Duke University. He is the author of Out of Place: Englishness, Empire, and the Locations of Identity and a coeditor of Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Part One: “Now Being”:Slavery, Speculation, and the Measure of our Time
1. Liverpool, a Capital of the Long Twentieth Century
2. “Subject $”; or, the “Type” of the Modern
3. “Madam Death! Madam Death!”:Credit, Insurance, and the Atlantic Cycle of Capital Accumulation
4.”Signum Rememorativum, Demonstrativum, Prognostikon”: Modernity and the Truth Event
5.”Please decide”: The Singular and the Speculative
Part Two: Specters of the Atlantic: Slavery and the Witness
6.Frontispiece: Testimony, Rights, and the State of Exception
7. The View from the Window: Sympathy, Melancholy, and the Problem of “Humanity”
8. The Fact of History: On Cosmopolitan Interestedness
9. The Imaginary Resentment of the Dead: A Theory of Melancholy Sentiment
10. “To Tumble into It, and Gasp for Breath as We Go Down”: The Idea of Suffering and the Case of Liberal Cosmopolitanism
11. This/Such, for Instance: The Witness against “History”
Part Three: “The Sea is HIstory”
12. “The Sea is History”: On Temporal Accumulation
Notes
Index

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
February 2006
400 pages
ISBN 0-8223-3596-4 Paperback - £15.95

SPECIAL DISCOUNTED PRICE OF £11.00 to C18-STUDIES Subscribers
Postage and Packing £2.75
To order a copy please contact Marston on 44(0)1235 465500 or email direct.orders@marston.co.uk or visit our website www.combinedacademic.demon.co.uk
(Please quote reference C18S56SA).

University of Siena, Italy

Ph.D in Economics
Application for Academic Year 2006-07
Deadline 31 May 2006

General information • Admission 2006
Fees, Lodging, Financial Support • International Links
Norme, Regolamenti, Verbali (ital.)
Courses and Calendar 2005-2006
Students • Theses Discussed • Faculty

For further information:
http://www.econ-pol.unisi.it/dottorato/welcome.html

To contact us: phd.economics@unisi.it
Secretary: Giovanni Forconi - Tel. +39 0577 232619

Professor Ugo Pagano
Director of the Ph.D. Economics Program
Dipartimento di Economia Politica,
Piazza S. Francesco, 7, 53100 Siena, Italy
Tel: direct (+577) 232614.
E-mail: Pagano@unisi.it

Brecht Forum

The BRECHT FORUM is a place for people who are working for social justice, equality and a new culture that puts human needs first. Through its programs and events, the Brecht Forum brings people together across social and cultural boundaries and artistic and academic disciplines to promote critical analysis, creative thinking, collaborative projects and networking in an independent community-level environment. Throughout the year, the Brecht Forum offers a wide-ranging program of classes, public lectures and seminars, art exhibitions, performances, popular education workshops, and language classes. These activities are developed in collaboration with the many social movements and the diverse communities of this most cosmopolitan of cities, and our programs bring together leading intellectuals, activists and artists from New York, across the U.S., and internationally. Its website is http://www.brechtforum.org.

Tufts Institute Awards Annual Economics Prize to Samuel Bowles and Juliet Schor

October Lectures to Honor the Late John Kenneth Galbraith
May 14, 2006

Download the PDF announcement at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/2006AnnouncementMay06.pdf

Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute announced today that it will award its annual economics prize to Samuel Bowles of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Juliet Schor of Boston College. The award ceremony will take place October 5, 2006 at Tufts University.

In recognition of the recent passing of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the winner of one of the Institute’s inaugural Leontief Prizes, this year’s lectures, by Dr. Bowles and Dr. Schor, will focus on the theme, “Economics for an Imperfect World: Building on the Galbraith Legacy.”

“For three-quarters of a century Ken Galbraith kept open a space in which economists could make robust connections between our profession and the things that most matter in the world,” said GDAE co-director Neva Goodwin. “Many of us will work hard to maintain the traditions of which he was an outstanding – often a unique – champion.”

The Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE), which is jointly affiliated with Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, inaugurated its economics award in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and Institute advisory board member Wassily Leontief, who had passed away the previous year. The Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought recognizes economists whose work, like that of the institute and Leontief himself, combines theoretical and empirical research that can promote a more comprehensive understanding of social and environmental processes.

The inaugural prizes were awarded to John Kenneth Galbraith and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. Subsequent Leontief Prize recipients have included Paul Streeten, Herman Daly, Alice Amsden, Dani Rodrik, Nancy Folbre, Robert Frank, Richard Nelson, and Ha-Joon Chang.

On this year’s recipients Goodwin comments, “We are proud to recognize two individuals who address today’s realities through their creative combinations of empirical and conceptual work. Sam Bowles has inspired generations of economists – including an impressive array of his own students – to expand the frontiers of research and teaching in economics. Juliet Schor’s scholarly and popular writings have changed perceptions of American society, and especially the costs of its high-consumption lifestyle.”

The 2006 prizes honor two economists whose work has opened new paths for economic theory and policy. In awarding the Leontief Prize to Dr. Bowles, GDAE cited his groundbreaking work as an innovator in microeconomics over the last 40 years. His work on the structure of labor and capital markets and the organization of work has led to the theory of “contested exchange,” demonstrating how markets naturally create persistent inequalities of wealth and power. His current research focuses on the evolution of institutions, behavior, and preferences, and on the causes and consequences of inequality. Dr. Bowles combines empirical and theoretical work in economics and many related disciplines, along with sophisticated mathematical tools, to address questions of broad social and political importance. Now nominally retired from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he divides his time between U-Mass, the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico (where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program), and the University of Siena in Italy.

Dr. Juliet Schor has become well known for her work on trends in labor and leisure, consumption, the economics of families, and economic justice. Her first well-known book, The Overworked American, described the time pressures, competition, and consumerism of late 20th-century America. This was followed by The Overspent American, and most recently by Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. Her current research interests include the commercialization of childhood, and the environmental sustainability of American lifestyles. Dr. Schor directed the Women Studies Program at Harvard University and taught in the Harvard economics department before becoming a Professor of Sociology at Boston College.

The Global Development and Environment Institute was founded in 1993 with the goal of promoting a better understanding of how societies can pursue their economic and community goals in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The Institute develops textbooks and course materials that incorporate a broad understanding of social, financial and environmental sustainability. The Institute also carries out policy-relevant research on globalization and sustainable development, the role of the market in environmental policy, recycling and material use, and climate change. Its six-volume book series, Frontier Issues in Economic Thought, identified and summarized nearly 500 academic articles on topics often given little attention in the field of economics.

The awards ceremony and Leontief Prize lectures are scheduled for October 5, 2006. They will take place on Tufts University’s Medford Campus.

Read more about the Leontief Prize on the GDAE web site at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/about_us/leontief.html

For further information, please contact:
Minona Heaviland, minona.heaviland@tufts.edu or
Josh Berkowitz, joshua.berkowitz@tufts.edu
617-627-3530

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach

With the furor about high gas prices in the news, and politicians falling over themselves to propose foolish and counterproductive policy responses, now is an excellent “teachable moment”. The semester is nearly over, but useful support materials for final papers and take-home exams on this topic (or for summer session use) can be found at:

http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/ENREupdate.html

Three updates to Harris’s ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS textbook are available for free download:

** GASOLINE PRICES AND ENERGY SUPPLIES

** FORMULATING EFFECTIVE ENERGY POLICY

** GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

These updates include information on: supply and demand factors in the oil market; the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and alternative policy approaches; a graph showing the relatively tiny potential contribution of the Arctic National Wildlife refuge to oil supplies; energy efficiency, fuel economy standards, and revenue-neutral carbon tax/rebate policies.
(please refresh your web page to be able to download the new updates)
Instructor and Student Support Materials for the Second Edition and text examination copies can also be obtained on the website at:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/env_nat_res_economics.html

The second edition of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach has been updated in response both to developments in environmental theory and policy, and to comments and suggestions based on classroom use. New material in the second edition includes:

- Expanded treatment of economic valuation techniques
- More on “green” national income accounting, including green GDP in China
- New material on the impact of AIDS and declining fertility rates
- Topic boxes on agricultural pollution and organic agriculture
- New data on mineral price trends and energy subsidies
- More on fisheries policies, “Clear Skies” debate, and toxic waste management
- New data and policy developments on global climate change
- Updated data series and new appendices on basic economic theory

Updates and exam copies available at:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/env_nat_res_economics.html

"Is NAFTA Working for Mexico?"

Kevin P. Gallagher, The Environmental Forum, May/June 2006.

In the twelve years since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Mexico’s environment has worsened. GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher shows, however, that without NAFTA’s environmental side accord, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the degradation would have been even worse. Rather than building on the limited success of the NAAEC, the Bush Administration has weaken the environmental provisions in subsequent trade agreements, including the Central America Free Trade Agreement and various agreements with Andean nations, that are still being negotiated.

http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/EnvForumNAFTAMay06.pdf

For more about The Environmental Forum, a publication of the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, visit:
http://www.elistore.org/member.asp#envforum

Talking Class on Campus

Class differences frequently appear on college campuses, yet there are few venues to discuss their impact on students and faculty.
Class Action speakers and facilitators introduce class and classism through lively, thought-provoking lectures and workshops designed to open dialogue and discussion.
Colleges recently featuring Class Action speakers and/or workshops include:
• Arizona State University, Tempe
• Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
• Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Lane Community College, Eugene
• Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
• University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• University of Arizona, Tucson
• University of Oregon, Eugene
One of Class Action's engaging speakers is co-director Felice Yeskel. Yeskel's speaking style incorporates group participation through open dialogue, encourages discussion, critical analysis and reflection. She has toured the country speaking to more than 50,000 people in 25 states. She has presented hundreds of workshops about economic inequality and about healing the divisions among Americans of different class backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations.
Felice Yeskel recently lectured at Smith College. Her talk is featured in the college’s alumnae magazine:
" …she used her personal story to show Smith students how pervasive class difference is and how early people become aware of it. 'Class is the last great taboo,” she said. 'These days it’s more socially acceptable to talk about sex than it is about your class.'
… Yeskel traced what she called the growing cultural gap between the haves and have-nots in this country, noting that the hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast last summer didn’t cause economic inequality. Rather, 'it pulled back the veil so we got a peek at this country’s dirty little secret,' she said.” This article is featured on Class Action's homepage. Read more ...
STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS RESPOND TO CLASS ACTION
Class Action combines a trenchant class analysis with opportunities for people to discuss experiences and feelings
about class.
Judith Plaskow
Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College

“[Class Action’s] Ms. Yeskel was an engaging, dynamic speaker…. She spoke what she felt, she spoke with passion and compassion. Throughout her talk, it was clear her heart and mind were in her voice and words. She spoke of truths and personal experience ... and weaved a web that could not leave a person asking 'What?' 'So what?' or 'What now?' without answers.”
Mark Fitzgerald, UMass student

Class Action is breaking new ground with every meeting it holds. Bringing a dialogue around class in the U.S. to an acceptable status is going to be one of the biggest social issues in the next few decades.
Ruth Trimarchi, Educator
Amherst High School
Class is much more than economics: clearly, cultural attitudes account for a good deal of rationalizations about why things are the way they are.
Karen Cordoza-Kane
Adjunct Professor
Contact Class Action to schedule speakers or workshops for the coming school year. E-mail Felice Yeskel or call (413) 585-9709, ext. 202.

PLEASE CONNECT US WITH OTHERS
Class Action also consults with organizations and individuals. Are there people you know who we should know or who should, know about Class Action? If so, please forward this email and ask them to be in touch with us directly!