Money – Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Money – Interdisciplinary Perspectives – Freie Universität Berlin, June 25-28, 2009

Purpose: There is a broad consensus in the social sciences that money is not well understood, neither in any one of the disciplines nor as the joint result of the division of labor between economics, sociology, political science, history, anthropology, geography, philosophy, and so on. Recently, there has been a revival of interest in monetary theory, not least because the impacts of globalizing markets and of new communication and information technologies have changed the forms of money and seem to have further enhanced the importance of money in everyday life. This renewed interest in money has led to significant contributions in various fields, but one still cannot escape the impression that no social science discipline on its own is sufficiently equipped to explain the basic workings of monetary systems, their rapid innovation and their effects on social, economic and political structures. This situation not only calls for interdisciplinary, synthetic efforts but also promises relevant results because innovative contributions have been combined with a new openness and propensity to look beyond disciplinary boundaries.

The workshop will assemble researchers who have not only produced significant contributions to the theory of money, but also have a manifest interest in interdisciplinary cooperation. The hope is that controversial positions can be discussed in an atmosphere of mutual respect and a common interest in advancing the theory of money.

Starting with a keynote opening address, the workshop will focus on the following issues in the theory of money:

1. The social construction and evolution of monetary systems: design or invisible hand

2. The monetary process: How do societies maintain the “working fiction of a monetary invariant”?

3. Monetary theory of credit vs. credit theory of money: Is the Schumpeterian alternative plausible?

4. Money and authority: Is all money a “creature of the state”? How creative are states in monetary matters?

5. Money and crisis: What do monetary crises reveal about the nature of money?

6. Globalization and the international monetary system: Is there a need and a possibility for supra-national controls?

Heiner Ganßmann is the  organizer of this workshop. Visit the conference site for more information.

INEM Conference – Mexico

As you probably know, the seventh INEM conference will be hosted by the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz, México (2-4 July, 2009). To get the latest information concerning the conference (and about health conditions) be sure to check the conference web site.

The Invisible Hand Hoax?

Kennedy-Klein exchange on Adam Smith’s invisible hand(s) gets covered by Brad DeLong and Freakonomics Blog.

Freakonomics says: “One scholar believes that Smith’s use of the phrase was a “mildly ironic joke”". (Is that ironic note, or what?)

In fact that one scholar is Emma Rothschild. Here is where she argues that Adam Smith’s use of the invisible hand is somewhat ironic and the idea of the invisible hand is un-Smithian:

• Rothschild, E. (1994) “Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand”, American Economic Review, 84 (2): 319 – 322.
• Rothschild, E. (2001) Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Rothschild may be right in arguing that the use of the invisible hand is somewhat ironic. However, it is not true that the idea is un-Smithian. See this short note, or check out The Invisible Hand in Economics (Chapters 2 & 5) for an extended discussion.

New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Here is a good offer from Palgrave:

Access All Areas allows you free, completely unrestricted access to The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online during May. Access All Areas also includes other reference works and online journals, which include a substantial economics list.

Access the Dictionary and all Palgrave Macmillan online reference resources at www.palgrave.com/accessallareas

Access all Palgrave Macmillan journals online at www.palgrave-journals.com

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand

Econ Journal Watch has two interesting and thought provoking pieces on Adam Smith and the invisible hand(s). Gavin Kennedy finds all the mesmerizing concerning the invisible hand somewhat strange because he thinks “Adam Smith did not credit the invisible hand metaphor with the importance that authors, from the mid-20th century onwards, give to it” (p. 239). The final paragraph of Kennedy’s piece summarized what the article is really about:

“But modern economists took an isolated metaphor, used rarely by Adam Smith, and in his name invented a wholly misleading belief of how commercial markets function and how people in them necessarily and unintentionally work for public benefit, independent of the consequences of their actions. And they introduced a selfcontradictory concept into economics, described as an ‘invisible hand explanation’, yet it does not explain anything close to the explanatory value offered by economics as a science, even where Smith left it. If anything, it obfuscates everything to which it is applied.” (p. 259)

Daniel Klein dissents. Both articles could be found here, or you could download them by clicking on the links below:

• Kennedy, Gavin (2009) “Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth“, Econ Journal Watch, 6 (2): 239-263.
• Klein, Daniel B. (2009) “In Adam Smith’s Invisible Hands: Comment on Gavin Kennedy“, Econ Journal Watch, 6 (2): 264-279.

The debate finds coverage also in James R. Otteson’s blog. which can be reached by clicking here!

I’ll probably comment on the debate later on.