The Politics of Economics - 21 March 2018 - Populism and Central Bank Independence

The Politics of Economics - 25 June 2020 - Performing Social Science? Disciplines, Expertise, and the Corona Crisis The Politics of Economics in the Time of COVID-19 Jana Bacevic will intervene on 'Performing social science? Disciplines, expertise, and the Corona crisis'. Co-hosted by Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche and Jack Wright. The politics of economics is a research network exploring how economics impacts the world. The seminar series brings different perspectives together to discuss tensions and contestations of economic knowledge in the context of policy, expertise and political movements. We will host one-hour webinars consisting of a conversation with one of our moderators followed by questions from our online audience. This is not about presenting research results but rather sharing our latest thoughts and asking scholars whose expertise we trust to help us think through these strange times. #crassh #universityofcambridge #covid19

The politics of economics is a research network exploring how economics impacts the world. The seminar series brings different perspectives together to discuss tensions and contestations of economic knowledge in the context of policy, expertise and political movements. In this session Jens van t'Klooster (KU Leuve) will be speaking about 'The EU's technocratic crisis management' in conversation with Raf Danna (Cambridge). In this rapidly changing context, how are economists’ positions as experts changing? Will the COVID-19 pandemic upend economic orthodoxy? How does the lockdown affect politics and existing inequalities within the economics profession? How are these changes affecting the way economics engages public debate? How are they affecting the practice of economic policy? Due to the lockdown, we are moving our seminars online for the coming term, and changing the format of our research network. In a series of webinars, we will explore the ways in which the politics of economics is changing as well as how it is reshaping our world. In each episode scholars will have an informal discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis. We will invite them to share their thoughts both on the basis of their expertise and from the perspective of their current location. We will host one-hour webinars consisting of a conversation with one of our moderators followed by questions from our online audience. This is not about presenting research results but rather sharing our latest thoughts and asking scholars whose expertise we trust to help us think through these strange times.

The politics of economics is a research network exploring how economics impacts the world. About this Event The politics of economics is a research network exploring how economics impacts the world. The seminar series brings different perspectives together to discuss tensions and contestations of economic knowledge in the context of policy, expertise and political movements. In this session Erik Angner (Stockholm) will be speaking about 'Epistemic Humility' in conversation with Anna Alexandrova (Cambridge) at 2pm BST. In this rapidly changing context, how are economists’ positions as experts changing? Will the COVID-19 pandemic upend economic orthodoxy? How does the lockdown affect politics and existing inequalities within the economics profession? How are these changes affecting the way economics engages public debate? How are they affecting the practice of economic policy? Due to the lockdown, we are moving our seminars online for the coming term, and changing the format of our research network. In a series of webinars, we will explore the ways in which the politics of economics is changing as well as how it is reshaping our world. In each episode scholars will have an informal discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis. We will invite them to share their thoughts both on the basis of their expertise and from the perspective of their current location. We will host one-hour webinars consisting of a conversation with one of our moderators followed by questions from our online audience. This is not about presenting research results but rather sharing our latest thoughts and asking scholars whose expertise we trust to help us think through these strange times.

The politics of economics is a research network exploring how economics impacts the world. The seminar series brings different perspectives together to discuss tensions and contestations of economic knowledge in the context of policy, expertise and political movements. About this Event Elizabeth Popp-Berman (University of Michigan) will be speaking about 'Valuing life: statistics and the health/economy tradeoff?' in conversation with Mike Kenny (Cambridge) In this rapidly changing context, how are economists’ positions as experts changing? Will the COVID-19 pandemic upend economic orthodoxy? How does the lockdown affect politics and existing inequalities within the economics profession? How are these changes affecting the way economics engages public debate? How are they affecting the practice of economic policy? In a series of webinars, we will explore the ways in which the politics of economics is changing as well as how it is reshaping our world. In each episode scholars will have an informal discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis. We will invite them to share their thoughts both on the basis of their expertise and from the perspective of their current location. We will host one-hour webinars consisting of a conversation with one of our moderators followed by questions from our online audience. This is not about presenting research results but rather sharing our latest thoughts and asking scholars whose expertise we trust to help us think through these strange times.

David Gindis (University of Hertfordshire) will present current research on the history of the Manne seminars and the role of conservative think-tanks in shaping the Law & Economics movement in the US since the 1970s. Steven Medema (Duke University, Senior Visiting Scholar Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge) will present on the history of the different perspectives within Law & Economics. The discussion will be introduced by Ann Sofie Clouts from Cambridge University. David Gindin’s paper (Law & Economics under the Palms: Henry Manne at the University of Miami, 1974-1980) is available upon request (please email Cléo cc2006@cam.ac.uk).

Dr Erin Hengel (University of Liverpool) Dr Anja Prummer (Queen Mary) Respondent: Carolina Alves (University of Cambridge) Abstract Recent studies by economists have highlighted multiple challenges that women face in the discipline. Drawing on this work, this seminar will focus on processes of collaboration, citation, peer-review, mentoring and networking to consider the inequalities that emerge in the modalities of the academy. While we will be examining these questions primarily by referring to the discipline of economics, many of these dynamics relate to wider issues in academia, as well as other workplaces. We also intend to explore how these dynamics might both reflect and intersect with other forms of diversity in the discipline, such as with scholars from the global south. As such, we hope to connect with questions of both diversity in other arenas and other forms of diversity in economics. In turn, we will also consider the possibilities and challenges in using the tools of economists to illuminate this problem, particularly network analysis and modes of quantification. While the seminar foregrounds gender in the economics profession rather than in economic models, there is also space to consider relationships between theory and practice in the discipline.

'Revenge of the Commons: Property, Debt and Collateral in the Evolution of African Financial Capitalism' Professor Keith Breckenridge (WiSER, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) This paper examines the history and economics of property forms on the African continent, and, especially, the long term effects of the colonial state's endorsement of informal communal land allocations at the start of the 20th century. Much of the work associated with the registration of land on the African continent has been motivated by a critique of the political project associated with Hernando de Soto's Mystery of Capital. This has led many scholars to emphasize the political dangers of formal titling and to downplay the economic and institutional effects of off-register land (and other asset) allocations - perhaps the most important of which is that, as Malikane has pointed out, African firms cannot raise formal capital. The paper shows that another - less visible - effect of the absence of paper-based forms of collateral on the frican continent has been the widespread turn to automated systems of high-interest, unsecured individualised debts.

Daniel Souleles (Copenhagen Business School) Abstract Private equity emerged in the late 1970s as a vanguard of financial capitalism; and private equity investment firms pioneered a number of the processes and logics that allowed companies, businesses, and people to be treated like fungible investments and according to a portfolio logic. This paper takes one case, the serial buyouts of Hostess bakeries and the humble American snack cake, the Twinkie, and catalogues how the financial management of a company can lead to a number of value conflicts between various social actors and groups in the context of American society. The paper will further suggest that some theories form the anthropology of value and exchange are useful for parsing this societal maelstrom, and identifying the repetitive social dynamics at play in a corporate buy-out.

Will Davies (Goldsmiths) Anna Alexandrova (Cambridge) Abstract This seminar will bring together William Davies and Anna Alexandrova to triangulate between three themes they have both worked on: a) tensions between well-being and economic indicators in the rise of happiness economics, b) the particularity (and ambiguity) of emerging conceptions of ‘well-being’ and c) contemporary challenges to expertise. Within this, the speakers will focus on particular strands. Anna will discuss how well-being science takes many forms, but that promoted by Clark et al in their recent report and book ‘Origins of Happiness’ is striking for its simplistic definition of well-being and implausible mechanical vision of causality. Meanwhile, William will consider how emerging digital methods of happiness science seem to have a bias towards positivity. Feedback is increasingly in terms of whether or not someone expressed positive affect, and not about quantities of hedonia or negative affect. However, this is tied up with the problem of how to capture affect in real-time, and what kind of knowledge is being produced in these processes. Will Davies is a Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths. His work explores the way in which economics influences our understanding of politics, society and ourselves. He is author of three monographs: The Happiness Industry: How the government & big business sold us wellbeing (2015), The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, sovereignty & the logic of competition (2014) and Nervous States: How feeling took over the world (2018). Anna Alexandrova is a Reader in Philosophy of Science in Cambridge and Principle Investigator of the Expertise Under Pressure project at CRASSH. She has written extensively on the philosophy of wellbeing and of economics, and is author of the monograph A Philosophy for the Science of Well-being (2017).

Poornima Paidipaty (Cambridge) Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths) Abstract In this seminar, Dr Jason Hickel and Dr Poornima Paidipaty will critically discuss the dominant economic measurements used to gauge global poverty and inequality. Based on his new book, The Divide, Jason will present arguments at odds with the dominant narrative of global poverty and inequality reduction, and unpack the political motivations behind this narrative. He will argue that the story of progress towards shared prosperity that institutions like the Work Bank likes to portray, is highly problematic. Poornima will focus on historical shifts in framing, measuring, and understanding inequality. Her historical investigation will invite us to critically examine our notions of equity and justice, as incomes have become the dominant lens for understanding disparity.