Economics in Other Times
A new center at Duke studies the history of economic theories
Friday, December 5, 2008
The current economic turbulence has prompted news reports filled with terms such as fiscal stimulus, monetary policy and market stabilization. Such concepts are easy to take for granted, but they represent ideas developed and debated about over the last 300 years. A new center at Duke studies the history of these economic theories.
“We have these popular images and sound bites about what famous economists like Adam Smith and Karl Marx thought, but what were they really saying, in the context of the time that they were saying it?” said Bruce Caldwell, the director of the newly created Center for the History of Political Economy (HOPE) at Duke. “Typically, many of the issues that they viewed as important then are issues that are being debated, albeit perhaps in different ways, today.”
For students, Caldwell said the study of the history of economics can be a link between the technical study of economics and a broader liberal arts education.
“It’s one of those areas of study where you connect up with other disciplines, such as politics, moral philosophy, or the philosophy and methodology of science,” he said.
The HOPE Center opened this semester. Its personnel include a core group of five faculty members and a cadre of seven research fellows. The center also will help existing initiatives at Duke, such as the annual conference that is sponsored by the Duke-based journal History of Political Economy, and the Economists’ Papers Project, the largest collection of its kind in the country. The center is funded by a grant from the John William Pope Foundation.
Department of Economics Chair Tom Nechyba said Duke has bucked a trend in the discipline to delegate the history of economics to history, philosophy or other departments.
“The people here take the view that history of economic thought is part of the discipline and should be engaged in a dialogue as to why we’re asking the questions we are now,” Nechyba said. “That often times helps us figure out where the next step in the profession is.
“We now are the top history of economic thought program in the world,” he said.
