Announcement
How
important have experiments been in the history of economics? Most
obviously, perhaps, recent decades have seen the rise of an 'experimental
economics', featuring controlled experiments in laboratory conditions:
the laboratory has become a legitimate site for the production of
economic knowledge. However, the concept of the experiment has been
used in economic discourse in a host of other, perhaps less obvious,
ways. For example, what role have 'social experiments' played in
the history of economics? Can the work of reformers such as Robert
Owen be regarded as 'experimental' and, if so how has experimentation
here had a meaning different from, say, that of the laboratory?
Might Bentham's Panopticon be regarded as an experiment of relevance
to economics? Or what do we mean when we refer to a 'thought experiment'?
Was Hume's discussion of the price-specie flow mechanism, for instance,
an example of such? Have there been others? Where does the boundary
lie between theory and thought experiment? Yet again, some contemporary
macroeconomists describe their work in simulation and calibration
as a form of experimentation, a sense that is quite different from
any of the those mentioned above. Might one speak of the emergence
in economics of an experimental form of life underpinned by computing
technology? More generally, how have the various meanings of experimentation
in economics been tied to meanings in other disciplines?
Far
from constituting a complete list, the above are offered as mere
stimulants, designed to provoke reflections on the theme of the
'experiment', in all its multifarious forms, in the history of economics.
Once again, the aim of the ECHE will be to feature a relatively
small number of papers, written with an eye to originality, richness,
and detail.
Programme
THURSDAY,
April 22nd
|
4:00-7:00
pm
Registration (Villa Modigliani***)
|
8:00
pm
Welcome Dinner (Restaurant 'Le Bal Bullier') |
FRIDAY,
April 23rd
10:00-10:30
am
Welcome Reception (D'Alembert building) |
|
10.30
am-12 pm
Plenary Session (Condorcet Room)
10.30-10.45
am
Introduction to the Conference by Philippe Fontaine
10.45
am-12.00 pm
Invited Lecture by Nancy CARTWRIGHT
Theoretical Models and Galilean Experiments
|
12:00-2:00
pm
Lunch (L'Encyclopédie) |
|
10:30-12:30
am
Sessions 1A and 1B
Session
1A: Laboratory Experiments and Economics
Chair: Philip MIROWSKI
1.
Rui Pedro ESTEVES: Game Theory or the Historical Laboratory
of Economics.
Discussant: Robert DIMAND
2.
Terry McDONOUGH: An Economist's Tale, or Economists Don White
Coats and Replay the Irish Famine with Rats.
Discussant: Michalis PSALIDOPOULOS
Session
1B: Experiments and Decision Theory
Chair: Gérard JORLAND
1.
Sophie JALLAIS and Pierre Charles PRADIER: Changes in Expected
Utility Theory and the Allais Experiment.
Discussant: Marcello BASILI
2.
Francesco GUALA: Changes in the Problem of Rationality Under
Risk.
Discussant: Guido ERREYGERS
|
4:00-4:30
pm
Coffee break (D'Alembert building) |
|
4:30-6:30
pm
Sessions 2A and 2B
Session
2A: Monetary Experiments
Chair: Maria Cristina MARCUZZO
1.
Jérôme BLANC: Silvio Gesell's Theory and the
Accelerated Money Experiments.
Discussant: Michael OLIVER
2.
Mauro BOIANOVSKY and Guido ERREYGERS: Social Comptabilism
and Pure Credit Systems: Solvay and Wicksell on Monetary Reform.
Discussant: Flavio COMIM
Session
2B: J. S. Mill and Jevons on Experiments
Chair: Patrick RAINES
Albert
JOLINK: Mill: Any Humbug? On Economics, Experiments and Ethology.
Discussant: Francesco GUALA
Harro
MAAS: Of Clouds and Statistics: Inferring Causal Structures
from the Data.
Discussant: Judy L. KLEIN
|
8.00
pm
Conference dinner (Café Loli) |
SATURDAY,
April 24th
9:30-10:00
am
Coffee and Tea (D'Alembert building) |
|
10:00-12:00
am
Sessions 3A and 3B
Session
3A: Game Theory Meets Experimentation
Chair: Robert LEONARD
1.
Robert DIMAND: Experimental Economic Games: The Early Years.
Discussant: Alessandro INNOCENTI
2.
S. Abu Turab RIZVI: Two Episodes of Experimentation and Game
Theory.
Discussant: Esther-Mirjam SENT
Session
2B: Performing Experiments
Chair: Carlo ZAPPIA
1.
Marcel BOUMANS and Mary S. MORGAN : The Secrets Hidden by
Two-Dimensionality: Modelling the Economy as a Hydraulic System.
Discussant: Terry McDONOUGH
2.
Michael OLIVER: The Conservative Economic Strategy 1979-1990:
An Experiment in Monetarist Economics?
Discussant: Mauro BOIANOVSKY
|
12:00-2:00
pm
Lunch (L'Encyclopédie) |
|
2:00-4:00
pm
Sessions 4A and 4B
Session
4A: Hume and Smith on Experiments
Chair: Philippe FONTAINE
1. Margaret SCHABAS: Hume's Economics and Experimental Natural
Philosophy.
Discussant: S. Abu Turab RIZVI
2.
Flavio COMIM: Adam Smith and Isaac Newton: Common Sense and
Aesthetics in the Age of Experiments.
Discussant: José Luís CARDOSO
Session
4B: 'Suppose we considered the war itself as a laboratory?'
Chair: Robert DIMAND
1.
Judy L. KLEIN: An Economics of Experimentation: Investigations
of the US Statistical Research Group in World War II.
Discussant: Albert JOLINK
2.
Philip MIROWSKI: How the Computer Conjured Experimental Economics
at RAND.
Discussant: Gérard JORLAND
|
4pm-4.30
pm
Coffee break (D'Alembert building) |
|
4:30-6:30
pm
Session 5 (Condorcet Room)
Thought
and Simulated Experiments
Chair: S. Abu Turab RIZVI
1.
Alessandro INNOCENTI and Carlo ZAPPIA: Thought and Performed
Experiments in Hayek and Morgenstern.
Discussant: Robert LEONARD
2.
Esther-Mirjam SENT: Simon Simulating Science.
Discussant: Marcel BOUMANS
|
List
of participants
| Albert
JOLINK (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Alessandro
INNOCENTI (University of Siena) |
| Carlo
ZAPPIA (University of Siena) |
| Christine
LE CLAINCHE (Ecole normale supérieure de Cachan) |
| Esther-Mirjam
SENT (University of Notre Dame) |
| Fabian
MUNIESA (Ecole normale supérieure des mines de Paris) |
| Flavio
COMIM (St Edmund's College) |
|
Francesco
GUALA (London School of Economics)
|
| Gérard
JORLAND (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales) |
| Guido
ERREYGERS (University of Antwerp) |
| Harro
MAAS (University of Amsterdam) |
| Ilona
HADERER (University of St Gallen) |
|
Jérôme
BLANC (University of Lyon 2)
|
| John
VINT (Manchester Metropolitan University) |
| José
Luís CARDOSO (Technical University of Lisbon) |
| Judy
L. KLEIN (Mary Baldwin College) |
| Loïc
CHARLES (University of Paris 1) |
| Luc
MARCO (University of Paris 5) |
| Marcel
BOUMANS (University of Amsterdam) |
| Marcello
BASILI (University of Siena) |
| Margaret
SCHABAS (York University) |
| Maria
Cristina MARCUZZO (University of Rome) |
| Mark
GREER (Dowling College) |
| Mauro
BOIANOVSKY (University of Brasilia) |
| Michael
OLIVER (University of Sunderland) |
| Michalis
PSALIDOPOULOS (Panteion University Athens) |
| Nancy
CARTWRIGHT (London School of Economics) |
| Patrick
RAINES (University of Richmond) |
| Philip
MIROWSKI (University of Notre Dame) |
| Philippe
BAZARD (University of Paris 1) |
| Philippe
FONTAINE (Ecole normale supérieure de Cachan) |
| Pierre
Charles PRADIER (Ecole normale supérieure de Cachan) |
| Robert
DIMAND (Brock University) |
| Robert
LEONARD (University of Quebec at Montreal) |
| Rui
Pedro ESTEVES (University of Porto) |
| S.
Abu Turab RIZVI (University of Vermont) |
| Sophie
JALLAIS (University of Paris 1) |
| Terry
McDONOUGH (National University of Ireland) |
Organising
Committee
José
Luis Cardoso (Technical University, Lisbon)
Guido Erreygers (Ufsia, University of Antwerp)
Philippe Fontaine (Université des Antilles, Guyane)
Albert Jolink (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)
Robert Leonard (University of Quebec, Montréal)
Michalis Psalidopoulos (Panteion University, Athens)
|
