Study the History of Political Economy Young Aspiring Economists

|Peter Boettke|

Jacob Viner as early as 1950 presented "A Modest Proposal for Some Stress on Scholarship in Graduate Training" at the Brown University Graduate Convocation.  Rather than training technicians, the PhD process in economics would do well to acquaint students with knowledge of the "history of the working of the human mind" in that discipline as revealed in the published record.

Needless to say, graduate programs did not follow Viner's proposal.  Instead, graduate training moved in the diametrically opposed direction and focused on training economists as technicians.  Viner just wants young economists to be not only competent teachers, skilled technicians, and prudent practitioners, but also scholars.

There has been some backlash against the exclusive emphasis on training technicians through the years.  David Colander and Arjo Klamer's The Making of An Economist as well as Anne Krueger et al "Report on the Commission on Graduate Education in Economics," JEL (1991).  And, of course, Deirdre McCloskey has led an almost one person campaign to try to right what is wrong about the way we teach and do economics since the 1980s.  Sensitive individuals within the profession may lament, but the practice of graduate education in economics did not bend in the direction desired by those who want to see a broader educational focus in graduate training and in particular a modest return to some emphasis on scholarship in the training of PhDs.

I was on the faculty at NYU, and in fact the teacher of the course, when History of Economic Thought was killed as a requirement.  The pivotal figure in the faculty vote was none other than William Baumol, who himself had made significant contributions to that field.  His argument was straightforward --- the opportunity cost of learning history of economic thought had simply become too high for young economists to justify the trade-off in the curriculum.  That happened about 15 years ago, and NYU was late to the process.  I joined the faculty at GMU, and within a few years the same decision was made about the history of thought requirement.  But given our student population at GMU, the decision did not eliminate the demand for the courses for history of political economy.

And over the past 15 years, the History of Economics Society has continued to grow as a vibrant academic society.  International societies have grown in membership, and new journals have been established.  At GMU, e.g., the opportunities to study history of economic thought/history of political economy has grown as in addition to our two course offerings in history of thought, students can also take courses in Smithian political economy, courses in constitutional political economy, and of course, Austrian economics.  None of these are part of the required core, but they represent part of the wide variety and diversity of elective course offerings.  Students can also participate in the Summer Institute that David Levy and Sandra Peart run, which for many years was held at GMU and now at the U of Richmond.

Outside of GMU, opportunities to study history of political economy have expanded as well both in programs in the US and even more so overseas.

Bruce Caldwell has helped establish the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University a few years ago, and last summer ran a program in history of thought for college teachers and graduate students.  Duke has long been the established intellectual center for the study of history of economic thought --- both the home of the main journal in the field, History of Political Economy, and the economists' papers project which provides primary source material in the library archives.  CHOPE is located in the right place, at the right time, and lead by the right person.

So it is with great excitement that I read the announcement from Duke University the other day, that CHOPE was awarded a $750,000 grant from the Soros funded Institute for New Economic Thinking.  As reported, Caldwell will also join the board of INET, as the CHOPE program is one of only 4 initial center's internationally for the INET initiative in graduate education and research in economics.

“There’s much to be learned from the history of economics,” says Bruce Caldwell, an economics researcher at Duke and founder-director of the center, which was established in 2008 with a mission of promoting and supporting the teaching of, and research in, the history of economic thought.

“While a better understanding of history provides no silver bullets, it does provide perspective and insight.”

The teachers trained through programs at the Duke center “will be key assets in restoring the history of economics as a fundamental part of economic training and academia,” Robert Johnson, executive director of INET, said in a statement.

Congratulations to Bruce, to Duke, to the history of economics/political economy faculty at Duke, to INET for making the wise decision to support a "modest proposal for some stress on scholarship", and I want to wish you all much success in your endeavor.

 

Comments

[Daniel Kuehn]

I like the switch from "technician" to "engineer" - I think it gets to the heart of the issue much better.

Do grad schools primarily produce technicians, though? Certainly a higher share of economic phds go outside academia than, say, phds in the humanities. But to a large extent they're still being trained for the academy. That in and of itself doesn't guarantee they're not technicians, but it's suggestive. Is the problem that they are being trained to be technicians, or is the problem that they are being trained to implement a methodology you aren't especially fond of.

History of Economic Thought was one of my favorite courses in college, and today I read, write, and blog an awful lot of history of thought.

btw - I've been reading some of the American pragmatists recently, and as I usually end up doing, I've thought about how they relate to economics. I ended up stumbling on your book chapter from the Dewey and Economic Methodology book - looks interesting, although I'm in the Bryan Caplan "we're subjectivists too" camp.

[Daniel Kuehn]

So the first part of this post is largely about the technician question and the second part is about the history of thought question... let me clarify - I think I might be in disagreement with you on the technician question because I think you may be mistaking a methodology you disapprove of for "technician work". But I fully agree with you on the second part - that history of thought is downplayed and that that is a travesty.

[Roger Koppl]

Congratulations, Bruce!

[Andreas]

It is great what Duke and GMU offer their students! Good work!

[Richard Ebeling]

The shift to "technician" in the economics profession from a more widely read and "balance" analyst and interpreter of the economic and social world was bemoaned, already, in 1951 by Wilhelm Roepke:

"Whereas formerly a good economist was a man who knew how to assess the relation of the actual economic forces and whereas formerly judgment, experience, and a sense of proportion were rated higher than the formal skill in handling certain research techniques introduced illegitimately from the natural sciences into economics -- today, glory goes to him who know how to express more or less hypothetical statements in mathematical symbols and curves."

And a year later, in 1952, Fritz Machlup said:

"For [the] method of imagined introspection, curves and equations are poor substitutes. Sliding down a smooth curve until it intersects another curve is a healthy exercise; and solving a set of simultaneous equations is too; but neither will ensure our understanding of the way a man makes up his mind and when he ponders a business decision."

And also in 1952, and more directly to Pete's point about the value of a knowledge of economic ideas, Lionel Robbins began his lectures on "The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy," by observing:

"When I began to study economics, thirty years ago, the senior generation of economists of this country [Great Britain] -- Marshall, Edgeworth, Foxwell, Cannan -- were all men who, in their different ways, were truly learned in what may be called the scholarship of the subject; and some acquaintance with the history of economic thought was usually deemed to be a desirable part of the equipment of the economist. But, in the years that have passed since then, all that has changed.

"In most centers of study, this kind of knowledge has come to be regarded as a very unimportant embellishment, as inessential to the economist as knowledge of the history of chemistry is said to be inessential to the chemist. This development has always seemed to me to be unfortunate.

"I do not think that, even in the purely analytical field, our knowledge is so far advanced as to justify us in writing off as superseded the propositions of all but our immediate contemporaries; and in the applied field, I do not think that we can hope to understand the problems and policies of our own day if we do not know the problems and policies out of which they grew.

"I suspect that damage has been done, not merely to historical and speculative culture, but also to our practical insight, by this indifference to our intellectual past -- this provincialism in time -- which has become so characteristic of our particular branch of social studies."

And I would mention, as well, Schumpeter's explanation for the value of studying the history of economic thought that he makes in the opening pages of his posthumous "History of Economic Analysis" (1954), that it: (a) saves us from having to "rediscover" what others have already analyzed, and to learn from their successes and failures; (b) that it is valuable to place our mind next to those who have preceded us and compare our thoughts with those of our predecessors, and thereby broaden our "conversation" by "speaking" to those who came before us; and (c) that it teaches us much about the nature and workings of the human mind -- "Any field of human action displays the human mind at work but in no other field do people take so much trouble to report on their mental processes."

And as Schumpeter concluded: "[M]uch more than in physics have results been lost on the way or remained in abeyance for centuries. We shall meet with instances that are little short of appalling. Stimulating suggestions and useful if disconcerting lessons are much more likely to come to the economist who studies the history of his scientist than to the physicist who can, in general, rely on the fact that almost nothing worth while has been lost of the work of his predecessors."

(Of course, Thomas Kuhn and others have said that there are equal benefits from studying the history of the natural sciences.)

If you don't take any interest in the history of economics and the ideas of those who preceded us, you may never even know that there were people -- with reasons and arguments -- who already questioned the decline of the history of economic ideas and the turn to a more austere and abstract formalism.

Richard Ebeling

[Andreas]

@Richard Ebeling: What a nice comment with nice citations!

Still, I think it is useful to study math. Otherwise it is hard to evaluate modern economic research.

[Richard Ebeling]

Andreas,

I did not mean to suggest that studying math is undesirable or not important.

My point, and I would think Pete's as well, is precisely that it often seems that the almost exclusive focus in much of mainstream economics is the mastery of these quantitative techniques, and their applications to a relatively narrow range of topics.

The suggestion is that the "optimal" combination of knowledge in economics might be at a different margin. It too often seems that the mainstream conception of relevant knowledge is more of a "corner solution," with little attention to other type of economics knowledge and background information, including history of economic ideas.

Richard Ebeling

[Nicolas Cachanosky]

I hope this is a sign that the study of history of political economy and economic thought will become more important in the discipline.

[Rafe Champion]

Andreas, can you explain what modern mathematical economics has achieved, using words?

I mean achievements in understanding the way economic systems work, not achievements in applying mathematics to models of economic systems without explaining what happens outside the window.

People who are up to speed in the history of physics can explain what Newton and Einstein achieved, at least in general terms, without us having to understand the mathematics they used.

Can the same be said of mathematical economics?

[Bruce Caldwell]

Pete, thank you for mentioning the programs at the Center here at Duke. We are using a lot of the allocation from INET for this year on an expanded Summer Institute. This is aimed primarily at graduate students in PhD programs in economics who want to learn more about the history of economics. We hope to run one every summer. I encourage interested people to visit our site and, if it looks appealing, to sign up for one, two, or all three of the modules that we will be offering. It is a competitive application procedure and those selected will be paid a stipend to cover their expenses. You can find out more about it at
http://econ.duke.edu/HOPE/summer2011/
The deadline for applying is March 4, but the application process is relatively easy.
Thank you again for highlighting the work of the Center, Pete. Revolution is in the air.
Bruce

[Gene Callahan]

"or is the problem that they are being trained to implement a methodology you aren't especially fond of."

Mario and I have been carrying on Machlup's case for using 'method' and 'methodology' correctly. Of course, our efforts are futile, but it gives us something to do. These people are implementing 'a method' of which Pete isn't especially fond; 'a methodology' would be a study of such methods.

[Bogdan]

I don't think "science" and "scholarship" are exclusive terms in the social sciences, on the contrary. Math it's a tool, among others.

[Bogdan]

BTW, I'm not an economist, or maybe just a fractional economist or something, but Andreas is right. People took some pretty simple theories and dressed them up in so much algebra and fancy statistics that you need to know them in order to be in the game with them. This is no substitute for knowing th theory behind them, but whatever one thinks of the practical return to highly formal economic models you cannot engage these people without talking their language.

[Rafe Champion]

Bogdan, what if they engage with us by explaining the benefits of their approach using ordinary language?

Did Paul Samuelson ever explain how he managed to misread the Soviet economy despite having all the theories and the tools for mathematical analysis at his fingertips?

Nice to see Bruce Caldwell getting the benefit of some Soros money!

[Bogdan Enache]

I agree that Samuelson's opinions on the Soviet economy is, among other things, a case of putting more emphasis on math than on economic theory and insight, but that doesn't mean math is totally useless.

BTW, the above comment is mine, but that's easy to understand, there aren't many Bogdans commenting on this blog.

[Seminar Help]

I'm not much of an economist. Several key points are discussed.http://newtsk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=103 But it would be better to be in simpler terms so that every person visiting this article is able to understand and be beneficent.