The Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) is an international organization of economists working in the institutionalist and

evolutionary Evolution is change in the heredity, heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the Gene expression, expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to ...

traditions of

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. In his best-known book, ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' ...

John R. Commons John Rogers Commons (October 13, 1862 – May 11, 1945) was an American institutional economist, Georgist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early years John R. Commons was born in Hollansburg, Ohio on ...

and

Wesley Mitchell Wesley Clair Mitchell (August 5, 1874 – October 29, 1948) was an American economist known for his empirical work on business cycles and for guiding the National Bureau of Economic Research in its first decades. Mitchell was referred to as Thor ...

. It is part of the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA), a group of approximately 55 organizations including the American Economics Association (AEA), that holds a three-day meeting each January.

History

AFEE originated in 1959 as an informal group that met in a rump session of the

ASSA Assa may refer to: Places * Assa (Chalcidice), a town of Chalcidice in ancient Macedonia, Greece * Assa, Morocco, a town in Southern Morocco in the Jbel Ouarkziz * Asa River (Kazakhstan), river in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan * Assa (river), river ...

meetings. They called themselves the Wardman Group after the

Wardman Park Hotel The Washington Marriott Wardman Park was a hotel on Connecticut Avenue adjacent to the Woodley Park station of the Washington Metro in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The hotel had 1,152 rooms, of event space, and of exhibit sp ...

in Washington D.C. where the initial 1959 meeting took place. The founding members were economists who found it increasingly difficult to get their papers included on sessions sponsored by the

American Economics Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...

. Although the AEA was founded by the institutionalist economist

Richard T. Ely Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4, 1943) was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especial ...

, by the 1950s it had drifted away from the institutionalist approach and towards abstract mathematical modelling. The members of AFEE are sometimes called "old institutionalists" to distinguish them from the followers of

New Institutional Economics New Institutional Economics (NIE) is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the institutions (that is to say the sociology, social and legal Norm (sociology), norms and rules) that underlie economic activity and ...

. The Wardman Group renamed itself the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) in 1965. Clarence E. Ayres was elected the first president and he presided over presentations at the

meetings in San Francisco in December 1966. In 1967, AFEE began publishing a quarterly academic journal, the

Journal of Economic Issues The ''Journal of Economic Issues'' is an academic journal of economics. The current editor-in-chief is William Waller ( Hobart and William Smith Colleges). It is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Association for Evolutionary Economics ...

. In the 1970s, the "old institutionalists" competed with the

Marxists Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...

and the Post Keynesians for prominence within

heterodox economics Heterodox economics is any economic thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics.Frederic S. Lee, 2008. "heterodox economics," ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics' ...

but by the 1980s they began to be noticed once again. In 1979, some members of AFEE who thought it had deviated too far from its roots, formed a sister organization, the Association for Institutionalist Thought (AFIT). The stature of old, or original, institutional economics was further strengthened by the formation in 1988 of the

European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) is a pluralist forum of social scientists that brings together institutional and evolutionary economists broadly defined. EAEPE members are scholars working on realistic approa ...

Aims and scope

AFEE views itself as running parallel to the AEA in covering all areas of economics. It places less stress on mathematical model building and more on a realistic analysis of economic policy issues. It is open to interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate insights from history, psychology, management science and political science. Moreover, it stresses the importance of broadening the scope of economics to consider questions of economic ends, as well as economic means. Since its founding, AFEE has confronted issues of environmental degradation, inequality, corporate power, the negative effect of advertising and the limitations of economic growth as a measure of economic success.

Awards and scholarships

The Veblen-Commons Award is given annually in recognition of the contributions made by an outstanding scholar in the field of evolutionary institutional economics. Past recipients include

Gunnar Myrdal Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( ; ; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money a ...

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...

Gardiner Means Gardiner Coit Means (June 8, 1896 in Windham, Connecticut – February 15, 1988 in Vienna, Virginia) was an American economist who worked at Harvard University, where he met lawyer-diplomat Adolf A. Berle. Together they wrote the seminal work of ...

, and

Hyman Minsky Hyman Philip Minsky (September 23, 1919 – October 24, 1996) was an American economist, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, and a distinguished scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His research att ...

. The James H. Street Latin American Scholarship is awarded to a person residing in Latin America and working within the tradition of original institutional economics. The James H. Street scholar is awarded round trip transportation and accommodation at the

meetings and given the opportunity to present his or her work. The Clarence E. Ayres Award is awarded to a promising international scholar working within the tradition of original institutional economics. The Ayres scholar is awarded round trip transportation and accommodation at the

meetings and given the opportunity to present his or her work.

References

External links

Association for Evolutionary Economics
{{Authority control Economics societies