Workshop “Transforming Homo Economicus: The Use of Other Social Sciences in US Economics, 1918–2018”

Transforming Homo Economicus: The Use of Other Social Sciences in US Economics, 1918–2018

Workshop at the Ecole normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, 10th June, 2022

This workshop is part of a five-year series spanning the year 2022 through 2026. Some fifteen workshops will be held at Ecole normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, the Université of Paris 8, Cy Cergy Université, the London School of Economics, Duke University and the University of Chicago. The project is funded by CNRS and the partner universities under the “International Research Network” scheme

This project studies the relationships between economics and other social sciences from 1918 to the present. Concerning the changing nature of these relationships, our working hypothesis is that the image of economics as estranging itself from other social sciences from WWII on obscures its actual transformation over the past hundred years. The gradual shift away from interwar pluralism to postwar neoclassicism is well-established. What is less known, however, is that economists continued to draw on other social sciences even as their discipline became less pluralistic. Throughout the period, the use of findings and approaches from other social sciences remained inextricably linked with the critique and amendment of economics’ behavioral assumptions. In other words, the use of other social sciences in economics provides a window for considering its transformation throughout the twentieth century and in the first two decades of the next.

If you wish to contribute or need further information on the project and its forthcoming workshops, please write to Philippe Fontaine