Association for Evolutionary Economics

Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE)

Call for Papers

Annual Meeting, AFEE at ASSA; New Orleans, USA
January 6-8, 2023

World at the Crossroads: Finding institutionalist pathways to
social, economic and ecological co-existence

The world is at a crossroads. Human societies across the globe are in catastrophic motion. Promises to achieve ‘sustainable development goals’ remain unfulfilled. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic doubles down on that of the global financial crisis in widening gaps between the prosperous and the marginalized. War, eco-system exhaustion, and economic crises are driving people from their home communities and nations. More and more nations’ policy space is shrinking, as leaders unwilling or unable to confront unaccountable wealthy elites govern by divide-and-rule and fear. Reversing the death of our planet requires redistributing resources and rights whose current imbalances reflect legacies of slavery, imperialism, and patriarchy. Efforts in this direction must confront the divisions of race, gender, class, religion, and nation that provide the currency of contemporary politics. There is no ready formula, and we are running out of time. 

So what is the task of institutionalist economics now? Our history provides some guidance. Over the years, institutionalists have defended the public interest in shared prosperity and shown how periods of epochal change and system failure require compensating policy action. To landmark works such as Berle and Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) and John Kenneth Galbraith’s American Capitalism (1952) can be added newer contributions, such as Hyman Minsky’s 1996 Journal of Economic Issues prophetic dissection of money-manager capitalism and James K. Galbraith’s warning that we have reached The End of Normal (2014).   

This brings us to our 2023 conference theme: finding institutionalist pathways to social, economic, and ecological co-existence. Our institutions for social reproduction, market exchange, and governance co-exist with a world spiraling into conflict, dislocation, and resource depletion. By revitalizing approaches historically advanced by institutionalist scholars, and making contact with new issues and approaches, we can hope to discover workable paths to a sustainable future.

What are we looking for in this call for papers for the January 2023 meetings? Our conference theme is purposely broad. That said, several overarching criteria will guide the selection process:

• Creativity, especially when used to cross interdisciplinarity and or thematic lines
• Paper proposals by early-career scholars and by women and members of racial/ethnic minorities are especially welcome
• Panels of up to 5 papers related to the program theme will be lovingly received; panels consisting solely of white men will be unenthusiastically received.

Here is a list of substantive suggestions, linked to the conference theme, to stimulate ideas:

• The ‘crossroads’ of human and ecological sustainability: explorations of degrowth, planetary limits, and of ‘doughnut’ and circular economy, especially when these are brought into contact with the ideas of development and of centre and periphery at the global, national, or local levels
• The new stratification meets the old: New Orleans, 2023 ASSA host city, as the future of racialized urban policy
• The causes and implications of ‘natural’ disasters, epidemics, and pandemics: their intersection with intersectional and global divides; their effects on political economic dynamics and policy
• A return to empiricism: What real-world questions can new and emerging sources of data help to answer? Innovative uses of existing data; limits and uses of ‘big data’ as a window on the world
• Reviving institutionalist ideas: Renewing attention to ideas suggested by institutionalists, such as investment and flow of funds analysis, that have been lost or overlooked in micro or macro theory
• Money and wealth: The tension between power in finance and the possibilities of greater local control over money or credit, in the face of historically unprecedential wealth differentials
• Escape from speculative, overleveraged global banking: how to finance ecological and social sustainability goals in developing economies; the IMF of the future?
• De-emphasizing consumption, rethinking ‘growth’: new drivers of aggregate demand and employment?
• Transition paths for reducing dependence on scarce-earth elements and minerals, and fossil fuels
• Sourcing, pricing, and distributing fossil and renewable energys: how Covid- and war-related supply-chain and geopolitical dynamics affecting price inflation, macroeconomic growth, and inequality
• Reconsidering Keynes’ 1933 ‘national self-sufficiency’ and Melman’s 1970 ‘permanent war economy’
• Quo vadis, the geo-political economy? Strident nationalism, democratic decline, East-West decoupling, global militarization, war in Ukraine
• Sanctions in a world of hegemonic transition, globalized finance, and shadow-banking
• The state and stateless money? the political economy of cryptocurrencies and digital money

Overall: Every effort will be made to assure program participation for all who seek it. Using our available sessions to reach this goal may require adjusting session assignments.

Deadlines, membership criteria, and submission procedures appear on the following page.

AFEE at ICAPE:
Papers and panels that cannot be included on the AFEE at ASSA program will automatically be considered for the ICAPE (International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics) conference that immediately precedes the ASSA conference on January 5, 2023 from 8 AM to 6 PM at Loyola University of New Orleans, within an easy cab ride of the ASSA conference hotels.

Papers presented at the AFEE-sponsored ICAPE sessions will be eligible for publication in the June issue of the JEI. AFEE sponsored sessions must be approved by the Committee on Regional and International Conferences (CRIC).
Submission Requirements and Procedures

Deadline:
The submission deadline is June 1, 2022; no late proposals considered. Acceptance or rejection notices will be issued by by mid-July 2022.

Membership requirement:
At least one of the authors of any paper must be an AFEE member. You can check and renew your membership or join AFEE at https://afee.net/?page=membership; or contact Eric Hake (AFEE Secretary-Treasurer, Log into your account to view the email address. or Teresa Rowell (AFEE Coordinator, Log into your account to view the email address.).  Conference registration and hotel information can be found at https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/.

 

June JEI:
Papers presented at the AFEE meeting in New Orleans are eligible for consideration of publication in the June issue of the JEI. To be considered for publication:

• Text of your paper cannot exceed 2,850 words
• No more than four pages (total) of double-spaced endnotes, references, tables, and figures.
• Deadline for submission:  December 12, 2022

Papers should be sent as an email attachment to William Waller, Editor of the JEI: Log into your account to view the email address..

Gary Dymski
University of Leeds

Questions or concerns? Email me: Log into your account to view the email address.