A History of the Founding and Early Years of AFEE

Abstract:

During the late 1950s, institutionalists started organizing themselves amid the decline of institutional economics, leading to the 1965 founding of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE). We analyze the history of the movement to found AFEE and its early years. We use archival evidence, much of it previously unpublished, to provide a detailed history of these early years. We also present an account of AFEE that highlights the role of different interpretations of institutional economics in building the association. In addition, we provide a brief history of the early years of the Journal of Economic Issues (JEI).

Keywords::

• AFEE
• Allan Gruchy
• Clarence Ayres
• dissent economics
• institutional economics
• John Gambs

JEL Classification Codes::

• B25
• B52
• A14

Notes

¹ Even though the literature and oral tradition refer to this early group as the Wardman group, this name was adopted as the group’s official title only in 1963. Before that, they experimented with other names. “Wardman” comes from the Wardman Park Hotel, which is the former name of the hotel where the 1959 AEA meeting took place. In 1959, the hotel was renamed the Sheraton-Park Hotel (Allied Social Sciences Associations 1959, Bush 1991, Gambs 1980, Rutherford 2015).

² The late Fred Lee was a professor of economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Malcolm Rutherford is an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (Canada).

³ The lists are the following. From the literature on the history of institutionalism we took Rutherford (2015, 109–110) and Dale Bush’s (1991, 342–343) listings. We also used “Gruchy’s eleven,” or the list compiled by Gruchy that contains the names of the eleven economists who attended the first meeting. Then we took the presidents, vice-presidents, executive board members, and editors of JEI for 1968, 1969, and 1970. After eliminating the repeated names, we removed from the resulting list four names for which we could find no relevant information and without any further important participation in the early arrangements of AFEE. Our ultimate list contains 42 names: Bushrod Allin, Clarence Ayres, A.A. Baylor, John Blair, Kendall Cochran, Dudley Dillard, Joseph Dorfman, Douglas Dowd, J. Fagg Foster, Daniel Fusfeld, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Gambs, Meredith Givens, Washington Glade, Carter Goodrich, Wendell Gordon, Allan Gruchy, David Hamilton, Robert Heilbroner, William Hewitt, Forest Hill, Louis Junker, William Kapp, Gardiner Means, Walter Neale, William Pardridge, Robert Patton, James Reese, Julius Rubin, Louis Salkever, Warren Samuels, David Schwartz, Arthur Schweitzer, Harvey Segal, Ben Seligman, W. Paul Strassman, Marc Tool, Harry Trebing, Colston Warne, Murray Weidenbaum, Theresa Wolfson, and George Zinke. We researched individuals’ backgrounds mainly in the AEA directories (AEA 1948, 1957, 1970, 1974). We supplemented the little information we did not find in the AEA documents with research on the internet.

⁴ It is noteworthy that Gruchy’s critique of Keynesianism resulted, in large part, from the fact that, in the post-war period, Keynesian macroeconomic planning displaced a broader conception of national planning — that advocated by such inter-war institutionalists and economists as Gardiner Means and Adolph Berle. Marcia L. Balisciano (1998) presents a good study of the history of Keynesian macroeconomic planning that drives out broader inter-war era conceptions of planning from the main economic discourse. Along with the displacement of the broader conceptions of national planning, Keynesianism also crowded out institutionalist macroeconomic theories from economics textbooks.

⁵ James Sturgeon (1981) includes individuals from the following institutions under the “cactus branch”: the University of New Mexico, North Texas State University, the University of Missouri - Kansas City, the University of Denver, and the University of Oklahoma. According to David Hamilton (2004, 169), we could add to the above list Texas Tech, Sam Houston State University, and the University of Tennessee.

⁶ In fact, besides the Southwestern Social Science Association, the people from the “cactus branch” tried to organize meetings for institutional economists since the late 1940s and early 1950s (Abe Melton to Ayres, 19 March 1947, 4 February 1950, Ayres Papers).

⁷ However, Gambs recognized Commons’s group as an important group of dissenters (Report on Interviews with American Economists, 1963, Gambs and Gruchy Papers).

⁸ For example, Paul Dale Bush (1991), Philip O’Hara (1995), and Malcolm Rutherford (2015) cited the 1963 report by Gambs.

⁹ Later, Ayres recognized the important role that the inclusion of the word “evolutionary” in the association’s name had in attracting good JEI articles from different heterodox perspectives (Ayres to Seligman, 18 October 1970, Ayres Papers).

¹⁰ In a 1953 letter, Ayres informed Gruchy that he (Ayres) considered him (Gruchy) the “leading interpreter of institutionalism” at the time (Ayres to Gruchy, 16 September 1953, Ayres Papers).

¹¹ J. Fagg Foster confirmed to Ayres that it was the early members’ intention to remain a small group (Foster to Ayres, 18 October 1967, Ayres Papers).

¹² Other early AFEE members defended views very similar to Gambs’s. For instance, Junker and Patton always advocated a greater political commitment on the part of AFEE (Junker to Ayres, 6 April 1972, Ayres Papers; Patton to Gambs, 1 July 1964, Gambs Papers).

¹³ In personal communication with Gruchy, Ayres made remarks very similar to those in Seligman’s memorandum concerning Hill’s editorship (Ayres to Gruchy, 20 July 1969, Gruchy Papers).

¹⁴ Seligman passed away on October 23, 1970 (Trebing to Ayres, 28 October 1970, Ayres Papers).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marco Cavalieri

Marco Cavalieri is a professor of the history of economic thought and Felipe Almeida is a professor of economics, both at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). The authors are grateful to Jim Sturgeon, F. Gregory Hayden, and John Henry for their very constructive comments. We are also extremely grateful to Malcolm Rutherford and the late Fred Lee for the archival materials they kindly provided to us. Any remaining mistakes are the authors’ own. This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.

Felipe Almeida

Marco Cavalieri is a professor of the history of economic thought and Felipe Almeida is a professor of economics, both at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). The authors are grateful to Jim Sturgeon, F. Gregory Hayden, and John Henry for their very constructive comments. We are also extremely grateful to Malcolm Rutherford and the late Fred Lee for the archival materials they kindly provided to us. Any remaining mistakes are the authors’ own. This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.