Founded in 1922, Western Economic Association International (WEAI) is a non-profit academic society dedicated to the encouragement and dissemination of economic research and analysis. WEAI's principal activities include the publishing of two quarterly journals, and the staging of conferences.

Purpose

From WEAI's 2009 Bylaws: "The purposes and objectives for which the Western Economic Association International is formed shall be: (a) the encouragement of economic research and discussion; (b) the encouragement of freedom in economic discussion; and (c) the issuance of publications for the purpose of disseminating knowledge on economic subjects. The corporation shall take no partisan attitude, nor will it commit its Members to any position on theoretical or practical economic questions."WEAI Bylaws
2009 revision.

Journals

Economic Inquiry

Published since 1962, (formerly Western Economic Journal), EI is a highly regarded scholarly journal in economics, publishing articles of general interest across the profession.Fullbrook, E. (2011), Digital Impact Factors and Rankings of English Economics Journals 2011. Real-World Economics Review Blog. http://www.paecon.net
/ref> Besides containing research on all economics topic areas, a principal objective is to make each article understandable to economists who are not necessarily specialists in the article's topic area. EI was one of the first journals to publish humor papers (now called Miscellany) with the still highly downloaded article "Life Among the Econ" by

Axel Leijonhufvud Axel Leijonhufvud (6 September 1933 – 2 May 2022)
of the original. was a Swedi ...

, and more recently "The Theory of Interstellar Trade: by

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...

. In 2007, then editor R. Preston McAfee introduced the innovative No Revisions policyNo Revisions Policy
introduced by R. Preston McAfee for submitted manuscripts. Published in cooperation with

Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

, EI's worldwide circulation is approximately 15,800. Tim Salmon, Southern Methodist University, is the current editor.

Contemporary Economic Policy

First published in 1982 as Contemporary Policy Issues, Contemporary Economic Policy publishes scholarly research and analysis on important policy issues facing society. CEP publishes essays analyzing specific policy issues, surveys of important general subject areas, and research articles devoted to developing new methods for policy analysis. Published in cooperation with

, CEP's worldwide circulation is approximately 15,400. Brad Humphreys, West Virginia University, is the current editor.

Conferences

Annual Conferences

Held each summer between mid-June and mid-July, WEAI Annual Conferences provide the opportunity for more than 1,000 economists from around the world to meet and exchange ideas. An average of 300 concurrent sessions are held with participants presenting individual research papers, serving as discussants for papers, chairing sessions, and also organizing entire sessions on the topics of their choice. Other academic societies with similar objectives to WEAI participate as Allied Societies regularly holding sessions and sometimes their own annual meetingsNAASE Bylaws
Article IV, Section 3. in conjunction with WEAI conferences. Conference highlights include the Annual WEAI Presidential Address as well as the Association's newest member-sponsored program, the Graduate Student Dissertation Workshop.

International Conferences

Held since 1994 in cities like Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, Sydney, Beijing, Kyoto, Brisbane, Santiago, Singapore, Newcastle, and Tokyo, the International Conferences have become a highly successful marketplace of ideas for economists from around the world. Partnerships have been established in the organizing of these conferences with universities and organizations such as

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endowmen ...

, University of Newcastle,

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities i ...

, Queensland University of Technology School of Business,

Ryukoku University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as a school for Buddhist priests of the Nishi Hongan-ji denomination in 1639, and became a secularized university in 1876. The university's professors and students founded the literary ...

Guanghua School of Management The Guanghua School of Management () is the business school of Peking University in Beijing, China. The school offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs, with a total enrollment of more than 3,000 students. In addition to full-time ac ...

Peking University,

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

, an
Hong Kong Economic Association
A smaller format than the Annual Conference, the International Conference program generally consists of 80 to 100 sessions including 300 to 600 economists serving as paper presenters, discussants, chairs, and session organizers. Keynote speakers include Nobel Laureates such as

James Heckman James Joseph Heckman (born April 19, 1944) is a Nobel Prize-winning American economist at the University of Chicago, where he is The Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College; Professor at the Harris School of Pub ...

, Ken Arrow,

Robert Engle Robert Fry Engle III (born November 10, 1942) is an American economist and statistician. He won the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, sharing the award with Clive Granger, "for methods of analyzing economic time series with time-var ...

Daniel McFadden Daniel Little McFadden (born July 29, 1937) is an American econometrician who shared the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with James Heckman. McFadden's share of the prize was "for his development of theory and methods for analyzing ...

, and

Peter Diamond Peter Arthur Diamond (born , 1940) is an American economist known for his analysis of U.S. Social Security policy and his work as an advisor to the Advisory Council on Social Security in the late 1980s and 1990s. He was awarded the Nobel Memori ...

Past, Present, and Future WEAI Presidents

Asterisk (*) indicates recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobelhttp://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/
/ref> * 1922 Alfred C. Schmitt * 1923 Eliot Jones * 1924 Rockwell D. Hunt * 1925 Howard T. Lewis * 1926 Edwin C. Robbins * 1927 Theodore H. Boggs * 1928 Ira B. Cross * 1929 Howard S. Nobel * 1930 Thomas A. Beal * 1931 John A. Bexell—Kenneth Duncan (Acting Pres.) * 1932 Shirley J. Coon * 1933 Clement Akerman * 1934 Reid L. McClung * 1935 W. L. Wanlass—Glenn E. Hoover (Acting Pres.) * 1936 Kenneth Duncan * 1937 John B. Canning * 1938 James K. Hall * 1939 Richard B. Heflebower * 1940 Arthur G. Coons * 1941 Robert D. Calkins * 1942 Bernard F. Haley—James H. Gilbert (Acting Pres.) * 1943-5 James H. Gilbert * 1946 John B. Condliffe * 1947 William S. Hopkins * 1948 Robert G. Pettengill * 1949 Glenn E. Hoover * 1950 Dilworth Walker * 1951 John A. Guthrie * 1952 Oliver P. Wheeler * 1953 M. M. Stockwell * 1954 Clifford E. Maser * 1955 Gault W. Lynn * 1956 Kenneth L. Trefftzs * 1957 Floyd A. Bond * 1958 Frank L. Kidner * 1959 Paul L. Kleinsorge * 1960 J. Fred Weston * 1961 Ralph I. Thayer * 1962 William O. Jones * 1963 Wytze Gorter * 1964 Phillip W. Cartwright * 1965 George Cady * 1966 Paul Simpson * 1967 G. N. Rostvold * 1968 Dean A. Worcester * 1969 Walter J. Mead * 1970 Charles B. Friday * 1971 William R. Allen * 1972 Thomas R. Saving * 1973 Earl R. Rolph * 1974 Karl Brunner * 1975

Armen Alchian Armen Albert Alchian (; April 12, 1914February 19, 2013) was an American economist. He spent almost his entire career at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). A major microeconomic theorist, he is known as one of the founders of new i ...

* 1976

Douglass North Douglass Cecil North (November 5, 1920 – November 23, 2015) was an American economist known for his work in economic history. He was the co-recipient (with Robert William Fogel) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. In the wor ...

* * 1977 H. Scott Gordon * 1978

Howard Bowen Howard Rothmann Bowen (October 27, 1908 – December 22, 1989) was an American economist and college president, serving as the president of Grinnell College from 1955 to 1964 and as the fourteenth President of the University of Iowa from 1964 to 19 ...

* 1979 Thomas Mayer * 1980 Donald F. Gordon * 1981 Kenneth J. Arrow* * 1982 M. Bruce Johnson * 1983

Abba P. Lerner Abraham "Abba" Ptachya Lerner (also Abba Psachia Lerner; 28 October 1903 – 27 October 1982) was a Russian-born American-British economist. Biography Born in Novoselytsia, Bessarabia, Russian Empire, Lerner grew up in a Jewish family, which e ...

—

James M. Buchanan James McGill Buchanan Jr. (; October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962, ''The Calculus of Consen ...

* (Acting Pres.) * 1984

* * 1985

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

* * 1986

Allan H. Meltzer Allan H. Meltzer (; February 6, 1928 – May 8, 2017) was an American economist and Allan H. Meltzer Professor of Political Economy at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and Institute for Politics and Strategy in Pittsburgh, ...

* 1987

Robert W. Clower Robert Wayne Clower (February 13, 1926 – May 2, 2011) was an American economist. He is credited with having largely created the field of stocks and flows, stock-flow analysis in economics and with seminal works on the microfoundations of monetary ...

* 1988

Anna Schwartz Anna Jacobson Schwartz (pronounced ; November 11, 1915 – June 21, 2012) was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City and a writer for ''The New York Times''. Paul Krugman has said that Schwar ...

* 1989

Moses Abramovitz Moses Abramovitz (January 1, 1912 – December 1, 2000) was a 20th-century American economist and professor. During his career, he made many contributions to the study of macroeconomic fluctuations and economic growth over time. Biography Born ...

* 1990

Arnold Harberger Arnold Carl Harberger (born July 27, 1924) is an American economist. His approach to the teaching and practice of economics is to emphasize the use of analytical tools that are directly applicable to real-world issues. His influence on academic ec ...

* 1991

Vernon L. Smith Vernon Lomax Smith (born January 1, 1927) is an American economist and professor of business economics and law at Chapman University. He was formerly a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, professor of economics and law at Georg ...

* * 1992 Walter Y. Oi * 1993

Jack Hirshleifer Jack Hirshleifer (August 26, 1925 – July 26, 2005) was an American economist and long-time professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received a B.S. from Harvard University in 1945 and a Ph.D. in 1950. He worked at the RAND C ...

* 1994 Michael C. Jensen * 1995

Gordon Tullock Gordon Tullock (; February 13, 1922 – November 3, 2014) was an economist and professor of law and Economics at the George Mason University School of Law. He is best known for his work on public choice theory, the application of economic thinking ...

* 1996

Harold Demsetz Harold Demsetz (; May 31, 1930 – January 4, 2019) was an American professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Career Demsetz grew up on the West Side of Chicago, the grandchild of Jewish immigrants from centra ...

* 1997

Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...

* * 1998 Steven N. S. Cheung * 1999

Charles Plott Charles Raymond Plott (born July 8, 1938) is an American economist. He currently is Edward S. Harkness Professor of Economics and Political Science at the California Institute of Technology, Director, Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Polit ...

* 2000

Oliver E. Williamson Oliver Eaton Williamson (September 27, 1932 – May 21, 2020) was an American economist, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which he shared with Elinor Ostro ...

* * 2001 Michael R. Darby * 2002

Yoram Barzel Yoram Barzel (born 1931) is an Israeli economist and a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington. He is interested in property rights, applied price theory, and political economy. Education Barzel graduated with a ...

* 2003

Clive Granger Sir Clive William John Granger (; 4 September 1934 – 27 May 2009) was a British econometrician known for his contributions to nonlinear time series analysis. He taught in Britain, at the University of Nottingham and in the United States, at t ...

* * 2004

Janet Yellen Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Yellen is t ...

* 2005

Robert Barro Robert Joseph Barro (born September 28, 1944) is an American macroeconomist and the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Barro is considered one of the founders of new classical macroeconomics, along with Robert Lucas, Jr ...

* 2006

Gary Libecap Gary Don Libecap (born 1946) is a Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara. Lib ...

* 2007

* * 2008

Paul Milgrom Paul Robert Milgrom (born April 20, 1948) is an American economist. He is the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences at the Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, a position he has held since 1987. He is a ...

* * 2009 Michael D. Intriligator * 2010

Ronald W. Jones Ronald Winthrop Jones (July 5, 1931 – September 27, 2022) was an influential international trade economist and retired Xerox Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. His highly acclaimed book ''Globalization and the Theory of Inp ...

* 2011

Paul A. David Paul Allan David (born May 24, 1935) is an American academic economist who is noted for his work on the economics of scientific progress and technical change. In addition, he is also well known for his work in American economic history and in de ...

* 2012

Richard Easterlin Richard Ainley Easterlin (born 12 January 1926) is a professor of economics at the University of Southern California. He is best known for the economic theory named after him, the Easterlin paradox. Another of his contributions is the Easterlin ...

* 2013 Lucian A. Bebchuk * 2014 George G. Kaufman * 2015 John Pencavel * 2016

David Card David Edward Card (born 1956) is a Canadian-American labour economist and professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded half of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirical contribution ...

* * 2017

* * 2018

Orley Ashenfelter Orley Clark Ashenfelter (born October 18, 1942) is an American economist and the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics at Princeton University. His areas of specialization include labor economics, econometrics, and law and economics. H ...

* 2019

* * 2020

John Shoven John B. Shoven (born May 24, 1947) is the former Trione Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics at Stanford University, the Buzz and Barbara McCoy Senior Fellow at the Hoover ...

* 2021

Alan Auerbach Alan J. Auerbach (born in 1951) is an American economist. He is currently the director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his undergraduate degree in economics and ...

* 2022

Christina Romer Christina Duckworth Romer (née Duckworth; born December 25, 1958) is the Class of 1957 Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administra ...

* 2023 Dora Costa * 2024

Janet Currie Janet Currie is a Canadian-American economist and the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Co-Director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing. Sh ...

* 2025

Nancy Rose Nancy Rose is an American economist, currently the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2014 to 2017, Rose served as the deputy assistant attorney general for ec ...

Historical Timeline

* 1922: First meeting held in Portland, organized by Alfred C. Schmidt as the Pacific Association of Collegiate Schools of Business and Departments of Economics. The association was originally formed to gather institutions together to discuss challenges and ideas for improvement in academia. * 1925: Conference renamed to Pacific Collegiate Economic and Commercial Conference. * 1928: Organization renamed to Pacific Coast Economic Association. * 1930: First conference held that included individual research papers, thus beginning the format used today. * 1933: First bylaws issued establishing individual association memberships. * 1942-45: Conferences suspended due to WWII. * 1962: Western Economic Journal first issued. * 1971: Association name changed to Western Economic Association. * 1977: WEJ name changed to Economic Inquiry. * 1982: Contemporary Policy Issues first issued. * 1994: First Pacific Rim conference held in Hong Kong. * 1994: CPI name changed to Contemporary Economic Policy. * 2019: Largest annual conference to date with 379 sessions. * 2022: First hybrid conference held June 29-July 3 in Portland, Oregon.

References

* * * * {{Authority control Professional associations based in the United States Business and finance professional associations Economics societies