The HetEcon Workshop

["Lee, Frederic" <leefs@xxxxxxxx>]

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Some time ago, I sent an advert around announcing a workshop on
> heterodox economic research methodologies organized by Wendy Olsen and
> Alfredo Saad Filho in conjunction with the Association for Heterodox
> Economics and the Economic and Social Research Council.  The workshop
> did take place on Nov. 23 - 25, 2001 at SOAS in London.  There were 26
> Ph.D. students and 7 lecturers in attendance, as well as the speakers,
> Tony Lawson, Sheila Dow, Alfredo, Wendy, and myself.  The workshop
> started off with some demonstrations of qualitative software for
> analyzing texts and graphics which was followed by Tony giving talks
> on causal explanations and modelling.  The students greatly enjoyed
> the talks and asked lots and lots of questions; and they would still
> be asking questions today if Wendy had not step in and say it is now
> tea/coffee break time.  The next talk was by Sheila on pluralism in
> heterodox economics, which many students found quite interesting
> because they were unaware of the extent and depth of heterodox
> economics.  The next day, I gave a talk on the method of grounded
> theory, Tony talked on what makes heterodox economics heterodox, and
> Wendy spoke on statistical analysis revitalized followed by small
> group seminars on qualitative research, hypothesis-testing, and what
> is heterodox economics.  The following morning Wendy gave an
> illustrative talk of her use of qualitative data to understand banking
> choice in Sri Lanka.
>
> The students at the workshop came from all over the UK--Aberystwyth to
> the west, Dundee to the north, Hull to the east, Bath to the south,
> and many places in between as well as from Germany, Ireland, United
> States, and Canada.  In addition, 6 of the students had attended the
> AFEE summer school that took place this past June at UMKC.  All the
> students were articulate, inquisitive, and simply full of questions
> which kept the speakers busy all the time trying to answer.  Many of
> the students came from departments/programs in which there were no
> heterodox economists and where it was discouraged to examine
> methodologies and ideas outside of mainstream economics; moreover some
> of the Ph.D. advisors of the students tried to discourage them from
> attending the workshop.  However, all the students I talked with said
> that, given the topics of their dissertations, they found mainstream
> economics methodology (i.e. quantitative-econometrics)
> insufficient--hence they were looking for different methodologies to
> help them deal with their topics.  Consequently they found the
> workshop a very positive experience in that it opened new possible
> ways of developing their dissertations.  In this regard, the workshop
> was a complete success--and we have to thank Wendy and Alfredo for
> this.
>
> The workshop was a success in other ways:
>
> (1)	since the location of the workshop was in Bloomsbury, some of
> the students were shown J.M. Keynes's house.
>
> (2)	the students were introduced to the skills needed to organize a
> group of economists for dinner and then herding them to the eating
> place; they were also introduced the extraordinary complicated and
> time-consuming procedures of dividing the dinner check up among
> economists.
>
> (3)	finally, the students were introduced to the important skills of
> sitting around the bar until the wee hours of the morning discussing
> economics and other esoteric topics.
>
> It was point out that these skills were absolutely necessary for
> anybody attending economic conferences.
>
> There will be a second AHE-ESRC heterodox methodology workshop next
> year.  So mark you calendars, prepare your graduate students, and
> spread the word.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Fred Lee