The new issue of Econ Journal Watch is now available and it continues to be one of the most interesting discussion platforms in economics avaiable. Dan Klein's paper "Sense and Sensibilities: Myrdal's Plea for Self-Disclosure and Some Disclosers on AEA Members" is highly recommended.
Questions about the political culture within which the AEA structure has emerged address the broadest frame and reach back to the origins of liberalism. They open up the larger questions of who we are and what we are up to. A broad frame demands that we heed Myrdal’s call to keep the fundamental judgments and sensibilities out in the open. The surest way to achieve genuine discourse is to be upfront about where we are coming from.
The issue includes several noteworthy contributions dealing with the political affiliations of AEA members, the competing explanations for the crisis in Argentina, and a response by Baumol on the issue of entrepreneurship in the textbooks.
The more critical explanation of the absence of the entrepreneur is that in mainstream economics the theory is generally composed of equilibrium models in which structurally nothing is changing. Equilibrium models exclude the entrepreneur by their very nature. She is absent from such a model because she does not belong there.
Finally, the scholarly scandal that is the SSCI is once again exposed in a thoughtful correspondence from E. Roy Weintraub. What SSCI is doing and how its activities will impact departmental rankings and measures of scholarly contribution needs to be understood by everyone in our business.
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