Frederic S. Lee

Research Selectivity, Managerialism, and the Academic Labor Process: The Future of Nonmainstream Economics in U.K. Universities

This paper reports the results of empirical research designed to explore the impact of research selectivity on the work and employment of academic economists in U.K. universities. Research selectivity is seen as part of the general trend toward managerialism in higher education in both the U.K. and abroad. Managerialism based on performance indicators and hierarchical control has been contrasted with collegiate control-based or informal peer review. However, analysis of the academic labor process has idealized collegiate relations at the expense of professional hierarchies and intellectual authority relations. We argue that in the U.K., there has evolved a mainstream economics which is located within a well-defined neoclassical core. We find that the existence of lists of core mainstream journals which are believed to count most in the periodic ranking exercise poses a serious threat to academic freedom and diversity within the profession, institutionalizing the control which representatives of the mainstream exercise over both the academic labor process and job market. In this way, managerialism combines with peer review to outflank resistance to new forms of controlling academic labor at the same time as reinforcing disciplinary boundaries through centralized systems of bureaucratic standardization and control.

Peer Review, the Research Assessment Exercise and the Demise of Non-Mainstream Economics

This article argues that the theoretical and methodological divisions within economics combined with the institutional arrangement of the Research Assessment Exercise and peer review has produced a state affairs which poses a serious risk to the future existence of non-mainstream economics. The conclusion of the article is that, due to the peer review-led Research Assessment Exercise which governs the disbursement of research monies for British universities, non-mainstream economics will be eliminated from British economic departments within ten years.

From post-Keynesian to historical price theory, part I: facts, theory and empirically grounded pricing model ∗

The paper develops an empirically grounded pricing model by first examining the business enterprise pricing equation and its empirical features, and then secondly examining the empirical properties of the prices set by the pricing equations. The third part of the paper is devoted to laying out the empirically grounded pricing model and then delineating its empirical and theoretical properties. The paper concludes that, since the pricing model is embedded in an empirical, historical context, it provides the basis for developing a historical theory of prices.

Oxford economics and Oxford economists

Acknowledgements Preface Prologue PART 1: FROM OXFORD POLITICAL ECONOMY TO OXFORD ECONOMICS, 1922-39 The Changing of the Guard, 1921-22 to 1926-27 Crisis and the Rise to Dominance of Oxford Economics, 1927-28 to 1932-33 Becoming Entrenched: Oxford Economics, 1933-34 to 1938-39 The PPE Idea and the Cole Group PART 2: OXFORD PEDAGOGY, 1922 TO 1939: TUTORIALS AND LECTURES Tutorials and Tutors Revision and Discussion Classes Student Evaluation of Tutorials and Tutors Lectures and Seminars Evaluation of Lectures and Lecturers PART 3: OXFORD PEDAGOGY, 1922 TO 1939: PPE AND NEW KNOWLEDGE Lectures and Seminars: One Students Notes Examinations, 1923 to 1939 Candidates, Examiners and Class Results The PPEs Adaptation to New Knowledge in a Comparative Perspective PART 4: HIGH THEORY, 1924 TO 1939: HARROD, MEADE AND THE CROSS-FERTILISATION OF IDEAS IN OXFORD Cross-fertilisation of Ideas: Oxbridge and the LSE Harrod, Edgeworth, Ramsey, Robertson, Allen, Kaldor and Marschak, 1924 to 1939 PART 5: GROUNDED EMPIRICISM, 1931 TO 1939 Formation and Activities of the Oxford Institute of Statistics Formation and Activities of the Oxford Economists Research Group PART 6: WARTIME ACTIVITIES AND POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION, 1940-1947 Research During the War Undergraduate Lectures 1940 to 1947 and the Development of Graduate Classes and Seminars after the War PART 7: REFORMATION AND REVIVAL, RETROSPECTION AND REVISION, 1948 ONWARDS Academic Politics, Personalities and the Professionalisation of Oxford Economics, 1948 to 1952 Harrod and Meade on Economic Policy, Growth and Keynesian Dynamics, 1948 to 1953 and 1959 to 1963 Hicks on the Trade Cycle, Capital and Keynesian Economics, 1948 Onwards PART 8: CONTRIBUTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES, 1922 TO 1990 Growth, Trade Cycle, Interest, Capital, Money and Development: Mainstream Issues and Contributions Price Theory and Competition: Normal Cost and Mark-up Prices Doctrines Cranks, Radicals and Rational Expectations: Heterodox Issues and Non-Mainstream Contributions Notes Bibliography Index

Conference of Socialist Economists and the emergence of heterodox economics in post-war Britain

T uf768uf765 uf765uf76duf765uf772uf767uf765uf76euf763uf765 of heterodox economics, that is a community of heterodox economists, in postwar Britain is the focus of this article. Thus it is concerned with those factors that lead individual economists to see themselves as supporting a body of theory that was antithetical to neoclassical economic theory and to partaking in social networks and institutions that were outside those which made up the community of neoclassical economists. The end result of the many personal journeys was the creation in uf731uf739uf737uf730 of the Conference of Socialist Economists (uf763uf773uf765), Britain’s first post-war community of heterodox economists. The use of the term community is important in that it brings together both the body of ideas accepted by heterodox economists with the fact that the ideas are embedded in a social milieu. Thus members of the community both advocate the ideas and engage in social activities to ensure that they continue to be advocated independently of any individual member. The social milieu that supports and promotes a body of ideas consists of two social structures—social network1 and institutions2 —which have to be consciously constructed and maintained. In particular, the social network glues together the heterodox theory with its supporting institutions. Thus, the economists who are part of the social Conference of Socialist Economists and the emergence of heterodox economics in post-war Britain

The Economics of Competitive Enterprise: Selected Essays of P. W. S. Andrews.

Report from the accountancy side of the pilot inquiry into the relative efficiency of small and large scale businesses a reconsideration of the theory of the individual business industrial analysis in economics - with especial reference to Marshallian doctrine the legacy of the 1930s in economics the Netherlands lectures some aspects of competition in retail trade competition in retail trade some aspects of capital development competition in the modern economy business profits and the quiet life industrial economics as a specialist subject industrial uses of economic theory epilogue - whatever happened to P.W.S Andrewss industrial economics?, Peter E. Earl.

Wartime Activities and Post-War Reconstruction, 1940 to 1947

With the outbreak of war in September 1939, economic research at Oxford quickly transformed itself into war-related research.1 This transformation took place under the watchful eyes of the SSRC at first, and then it established a smaller body, the Wartime Research Committee, whose members came primarily from the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey Committee and the sub-committee appointed to oversee the OIS. The task of the Wartime Research Committee was to coordinate the economic research being undertaken by the OIS, the Nuffield College Survey, the Joint International Committee, and the Courtauld Inquiry, of which more below.2

Epilogue: The ‘New Generation’ of Oxford Economists and the ‘New’ Oxford Economics

What we have described above as a distinctly Oxford style of economic inquiry, that is an eclectic approach to theory grounded in empiricism did not fade away with the retirement of Hicks from the Drummond Professorship in 1965 and Harrod from the Nuffield Readership in 1967, for both remained quite active, as can be seen in their respective books and articles. Moreover, a ‘new generation’ of Oxford economists had emerged to take on the task of continuing the theoretical and empirical research programmes developed by their predecessors, and even expanded their activities into new areas of economic inquiry. Indeed, it may be said that the path set by Harrod, Hicks and Meade in the 1930s not only influenced many economists outside Oxford, but the wide scope of their activities from the 1930s onward enabled the ‘new generation’ of Oxford economists to both refine and expand their respective theoretical approaches and the empirical research their work stimulated.

Grounded Empiricism, 1931 to 1939

Up to the early 1930s, the development of economics teaching had been the outcome of the Oxford college’s response to the rising number of students reading for the PPE examinations. Things began to change when, in February 1931, the Hebdomadal Council decided to conduct a review of the future financial needs of the University. The various faculties of the University were asked to submit a list of the developments, arranged in order of importance, necessary for the progress of the areas of study for which they were responsible. In this context, the Social Studies Board undertook a survey of the needs of the Honour School of PPE, including the needs of those faculty members lecturing in economics. The outcome of this was the Board’s recommendation that a Readership in Statistics and a Chair in Finance and Currency be established immediately, and that a Chair in Economic Organisation would also be needed. The Board also noted that the proper development of economic studies at Oxford required the establishment of a Department or Institute of Economics furnished with equipment and apparatus for statistical research. The Council considered these recommendations and made a report to the Congregation during June 1931, in which it recommended the immediate establishment of the Readership in Statistics and the future establishment of a Chair of Finance and Currency. The Council also noted in the same report that facilities for research in economics could be obtained by utilising vacant rooms in the new building of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute.1

Reformulation and Revival, Retrospection and Revision, 1948 Onwards

The years 1948 to 1965 marked the renewal of interest in areas of economic theory and empirical investigation dealt with by Oxford economists in the prewar period, and the reformulation and revival of these theories and studies. The decade from 1966 to 1975, for its part, was marked by reevaluation and retrospection with regard to both pre and early post-war Oxford economics. Finally, the period from 1976 up to the present has been distinguished by revision of previously held views regarding the contributions of Oxford economists and the development of Oxford economics — both on their own account and by new efforts in tracing the origins of their ideas and the developmental process that affected them.