17th Annual STOREP (Online) Conference – 1-2 October 2020
17th STOREP CONFERENCE
Online Conference (Università di Roma Tor Vergata), 1-2 October 2020
“The Power of Economic Ideas”
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ΙΙ Invited Speakers ΙΙ Raffaelli Lecture ΙΙ Young Scholars ΙΙ
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The 17th Annual STOREP Conference should have taken place at the Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Facoltà di Economia, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Via Columbia 2, 00133 Roma, on October 1-2, 2020. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, as announced, the conference will be held online. The title is “The Power of Economic Ideas”.
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else”. These words by Keynes invite us to reflect on the role of economic theory in shaping the economy and to go beyond conventional wisdom, which sees theory as neutral with respect to the world it describes. Reflection on the power of economic ideas will take us to explore three paths, policies, institutions and individuals, which together shape the economic system and its connections with society.
From the debate on free trade, at the time of Ricardo, to different views on fiscal policy and its contribution to stabilization and growth, examples abound regarding the role of ideas in shaping economic policies and institutions. Independent central banks, privatization of services formerly provided by the Welfare State, from pensions to health services and education, new markets to trade CO2 and electricity are all examples of institutions, designed to be consistent with the precepts of orthodox economic theory and its confidence in markets and their allocative function. A similar attitude pervades those who believe that rational individuals respond to economic incentives in a way, which can be empirically documented and exploited to improve institutional and policy design.
In distant and recent years, economists and historians of economic thought have expressed doubts about the possibility of improving society by relying exclusively on individual incentives and markets. These doubts echo recent debates on the limits of homo oeconomicus, representative-agent modelling and the idea that there is no such thing as society, but only individual men and women. Researchers who believe in the need to go beyond the representative agent explore different issues, including financialization, inequality, economic, environmental and urban issues, social dynamics, cooperation and social norms. The 2020 STOREP Annual Conference in Rome invites contributions that explore the power of economic ideas from a variety of perspectives: history of economics, economic history, a plurality of theoretical approaches and cooperation with other disciplines. Possible topics for the conference sessions include, but are not limited to:
- Macroeconomic policies and their theoretical underpinnings
- Europe and competing approaches to its consolidation
- Globalization and economic development between myth and reality
- Economic theory between defence and critique of capitalism
- Performativity and its relevance for market and policy design
- Wage and employment issues and their gender and distributive implications
- Incentive-based policies and their influence on health and the environment
- Financialization and challenges to the efficient market hypothesis
- Experimental investigations of market and social interaction
- The failures of economics as “social” science and the need for interdisciplinary cooperation
Proposals of papers in all fields adopting a historical perspective and/or comparing different approaches to economic issues are also welcome.
STOREP welcomes special sessions jointly organized with other scientific associations, and invites these latter to submit proposals.
We are pleased to announce that distinguished colleague Professor Amos Witztum (London School of Economics and Political Science and Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, CPNSS) will join the conference as keynote speaker.
Professor Sheila Dow (University of Stirling, UK, and University of Victoria, Canada) will deliver the fourth “Raffaelli lecture”.
The 2020 STOREP Conference will jointly organize initiatives and special sessions with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (and the “Young Scholars Initiative”) as well as with students and researchers of the international network “Rethinking Economics”.
Selected papers on the main topic of the conference will be considered for publication in the Review of Political Economy and Economia & Lavoro.
Proposals submission
The deadline for abstract and session proposals is July 15, 2020. Notification of accepted and rejected abstracts and sessions will be sent by July 30, 2020.
Proposals must be uploaded on the Submission website of the conference – i.e. via web-based software “Conference maker“. To submit, please create an account, by providing basic contact info and choosing a user ID/password. If you signed up for a previous conference using Conference Maker, you can login with your existing user ID and password.
Abstract proposals (with keywords, JEL codes, and affiliation) must not exceed 400 words. Session proposals should include the abstract of the three scheduled papers.
Registration
August 31, 2020: Deadline for submitting full papers and for becoming Members.
There are no registration fees. All participants must become STOREP members or renew their membership within September 28 (instructions here).
Young Scholars STOREP Awards
STOREP provides two Awards (of 1000 € each) for the best articles presented at the Annual Conference by young scholars under 40 years of age. All applications, with CV and the final version of the papers, should be sent to segretario@storep.org no later than December 15, 2020. Only papers co-authored by no more than 3 researchers, who all meet the requirements for belonging to the “Young” scholars, are eligible for the Award. Winning recipients of the award in one of the three preceding rounds cannot apply.
17th Annual STOREP Conference
Organizing Committee
Angela Ambrosino (Università di Torino)
Mario Cedrini (Università di Torino)
Maria Cristina Marcuzzo (Università di Roma La Sapienza)
Paolo Paesani (Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
Annalisa Rosselli (Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
Giulia Zacchia (Università di Roma La Sapienza)
Scientific Committee
Carlo D’Ippoliti (Università di Roma La Sapienza)
Maria Cristina Marcuzzo (Università di Roma La Sapienza)
Paolo Paesani (Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
Antonella Palumbo (Università Roma Tre)
Annalisa Rosselli (Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
Antonella Stirati (Università Roma Tre)