A Bibliometric Analysis of the Possible Convergence of Heterodox Associations

Abstract

This article is a study on the possible common theoretical approaches shared by three heterodox associations-Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE), and Association for Social Economics (ASE). We analyze their closeness and potentially common approaches as reported in papers published by the associations’ main journals from 2010 to 2019. Using bibliometrics, the papers are analyzed in terms of convergent issues shared by these heterodox associations. Our article concludes, first, that building alternative approaches based on a criticism of both mainstream and New Institutional Economics is a possible point of convergence for AFEE, URPE, and ASE. Second, criticism of capitalism and studies on economic development could act as a convergence point for AFEE and URPE. Third, ASE seems to be more open to heterodox approaches than AFEE and URPE, and can make room for other convergence points. However, the ASE-AFEE and ASE-URPE dyads have not yet explored such opportunities for convergence.

Keywords:

• Association for Evolutionary Economics
• Union for Radical Political Economics
• Association for Social Economics
• Heterodox Economics
• Bibliometrics

JEL Classification Codes:

• B50
• B51
• B52
• B55

Notes

1 From 1865 to 1909, the association was called the Allied Social Science Association. In the 1930s, at the time of its revival, its name changed to Allied Social Science Associations—plural—to denote its change to “an association of associations.”

2 We retrieved information regarding the Association for Social Economics’s renaming from its website https://socialeconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Buckley-ASE-history-essay.pdf (Buckley 1984) on October 25, 2020.

3 It should be noted that some kind of pre- or post-conference meetings were important for heterodox initiatives in the past as well. The group that founded the AFEE organized “rump sessions” after the ASSA conference. The same is true in relation to the organization of the Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT)—an offspring of the AFEE. During the 1970s, Original Institutionalists were dissatisfied with the rump sessions organized by the AFEE at the Western Social Science Association (WSSA), which supported the creation of the AFIT (Almeida 2016).

4 We have assumed that papers published in a journal sponsored by a heterodox association reflect the economics favored by the association’s membership.

5 The ASE also publishes the Forum for Social Economics. However, as we are comparing heterodox journals, we confined our analysis to journals that started with the foundation of the association. In the case of the ASE, this is ROSE (Review of Social Economy).

6 By common references, we mean the economics viewpoint promoted by the journals that published the papers, and not the papers themselves.

7 Percentages in table 1 do not refer to the entire universe of journals that published papers cited by JEI, RRPE, and ROSE. Percentages indicate exclusively the representativeness of the top twenty journals whose papers were cited by JEI, RRPE, and ROSE. Hence, the percentages refer only to data from the top twenty journals.

8 For example, two of AFEE’s founding members, Clarence Ayres and Allan Gruchy, had papers published in the AER—see Ayres (1951 and 1953) and Gruchy (1939 and 1958).

9 Wrenn (2007) is a study on the consistency among historians of economic thought about what constitutes heterodox economics. Mearman (2011) is an empirical exercise on the nature of heterodox economics. Indeed, the definition and nature of heterodox thought is not clear, and there is no single definition for the term “heterodox” (Wrenn 2007). Nevertheless, there has been some degree of convergence in the literature, according to which one of the defining features of heterodoxy is to provide a critical perspective to mainstream economics. Roger Backhouse (2000 and 2004), David Colander, Richard Holt, and Barkley Rosser, Jr. (2004), and David Dequech (2007) have established a sociological way to identify heterodox studies: heterodoxy is that which diverges from mainstream economics, which comprises the ideas that the profession’s elite considers acceptable and dominant in the main academic institutions, organizations and scientific journals. Tony Lawson (2004 and 2006) and John Davis (2008), alternatively, use a more ontological perspective to define the nature of heterodox economics. Lawson (2004 and 2006) argues that the antagonism of heterodox economics to contributions from the mainstream manifests itself through a rejection of the deductivist method. Davis’s (2008) perspective has been stated at the beginning of this paragraph.

10 Table 1 also highlights the fact that JEI, RRPE, and ROSE have specific references to each journal. JEI’s ranking points to journals associated with Original Institutionalism (Journal of Institutional Economics, tenth position, 2.67%) and evolutionism (Journal of Evolutionary Economics twelfth position, 1.87%). RRPE’s ranking refers to journals related to radicalism, such as Capital (fourth position, 4.68%) and New Left Review (fifth position, 2.52%). ROSE’s ranking includes journals about ethics (Journal of Business Ethics, eleventh position, 4.09%) and sociological issues (American Sociological Review, thirteenth position, 3.05%; American Journal of Sociology, fifteenth position, 2.72%). Additionally, ROSE is an interdisciplinary journal that shows a more eclectic top twenty of most cited journals per field.

11 The keyword “commons” among the RRPE’s traditional themes has no relation with the Original Institutionalist John R. Commons, but with common resources.

12 The software and the package used to create the co-citation networks, R-Studio and bibliometrix, respectively (see Aria and Cuccurullo 2017), provide the reference by last name of the first author and year. For example, in the JEI network, Nelson R. R. 1982-2 refers to Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter (1982). The “-2” in 1982-2 means that at least one other study published by Nelson in 1982 (1982-1) was cited in the JEI. Thus, the years of reference appear differently in the figures and in the text. In the JEI network, for instance, Veblen’s “Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?” is referred to as Veblen T. 1898-1, while in the text it appears as Veblen (1898a).

13 Veblen T. 1898-1 and Veblen T. 1898-2 in figure 2 refer to Veblen (1898a) and Veblen (1898b), respectively.

14 Nelson R. R. 1982-2 in figure 2 refers to Nelson and Winter (1982).

15 Demsetz (1967) is a seminal mainstream paper about property rights, an economic issue deeply related to transactions—a Commonsian concern. Knight’s (1921) position in the cluster seems to be associated with the JEI papers that deal with comparisons between Original and New Institutional Economics and those that refer to Knight (1921)—such as Antoon Spithoven (2019) and Bernard Baudry and Virgile Chassagnon (2019). We believe that Nelson and Winter (1982) is justifiably a part of this cluster because of the JEI papers that (1) criticize their approach—such as Tae-Hee Jo’s (2019) and, (2) offer an encompassing evolutionary approach embracing both the Nelson and Winter and the Commonsian perspectives—as in Wolfram Elsner, Gero Hocker, and Henning Schwardt (2010). Furthermore, Rutherford (2001) is excellent for his history of Institutional Economics from 1918 to 1947. Chapter 7, which deals with Wisconsin Institutionalism, is a very good source of information on Commons, his colleagues, and students.

16 To note, Dugger (1990) has been included here because he is a part of the references in this cluster, not because Dugger was published by JEI. Dugger (1990) is not part of our sample, which only deals with papers published from 2010 to 2019. However, the papers in our sample cite Dugger (1990), in addition to the other studies in the same cluster.

17 Hodgson (2006), Lawson (1997), and Rutherford (2001) are also part of the “development” cluster, but they comprise the supporting literature. Hodgson (2006) discusses concepts of organization and institutions as defined by North, including e-mails exchanged between Hodgson and North; Hodgson (2006) provides an institutional conceptualization according to New Institutional Economics. Rutherford (2001) seems to be in line with Hodgson (2006): Rutherford’s paper deals with the history of Original Institutionalism and its difference from the new perspective. Lawson (1997) also deals with the history of economic ideas, but his description is more encompassing than Rutherford’s (2001), as Lawson (1997) is more about the evolution of economics in a general sense.

18 Cactus Branchers were in close and continuous contact. The Southwestern Social Science Association and the Southwestern Social Science Quarterly acted as forums for the exchange and dissemination of their ideas. Later, several Cactus Branchers were central to the foundation of the AFEE and the JEI (see Sturgeon 1981; Cavalieri and Almeida 2017).

19 In order to avoid underestimating the role of Marx’s Das Kapital the network—a book that has multiple volumes published over a number of years—we categorized them all as Marx (1867). Accordingly, Marx (1867) represents all the references to Marx’s magnum opus, regardless of the specific volume referenced.

20 For example, Genna Miller (2012), Bruno Jossa (2014 and 2016) and Angel Errasti, Ignacio Bretos, and Aitziber Nunez (2017) quote Vanek (1970) to explain the cooperatives managed by workers in a capitalist system. Financialization and the rentier economy problems addressed by Arrighi (1994) are considered by Rodrigo Teixeira and Tomas Rotta (2012), Matias Vernengo and David Fields (2012), Ann Davis (2017 and 2018) and Victor Fernández, Matthias Ebenau, and Alcides Bazza (2017) as near-Marxist theories.

21 It is possible to assign Lee’s (2009) history of heterodox economics, which encompasses Marxism, to this cluster. Our hypothesis is that Lee (2009) is part of the cluster because his history of dissenting approaches is a great supporting reference for Marxist analyses of capitalism based on history. Our point is that Lee’s (2009) inclusion in the cluster means that RRPE papers included in this cluster deal with the history of capitalism against the history of Marxist ideas.

22 Papers published in RRPE, such as Eren Duzgun’s (2017), criticize Acemoglu and Robinson’s (2012) perspective that capitalist development is the result of strong institutions, specifically property rights. Similarly, Fernando Lopez-Castellano, Roser Manzanera-Ruiz, and Carmen Lizárraga (2019) criticize the mainstream perspective of institutionalist analysis of development with a focus on neoliberalism and institutions, without considering the political environment of individual countries. Fernández, Ebenau, and Bazza (2017) critically analyzes how capitalist diversity between countries is conceived in mainstream institutionalist literature, including the study by Acemoglu and Robinson (2012). Annamària Artner (2018) criticizes the study of Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) for supporting the relationship between democracy and liberal capitalism. Moreover, Vernengo and Fields (2012) cites Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) to indicate the New Institutional Economics perspective on the causes of the rise of Western Europe.

23 For example, Mattheu Clement and Andre Meunie (2010) and Julian Waters-Lynch and Jason Potts (2017) briefly cite Ostrom (1990) to introduce discussions on economic development and governance of co-working spaces, respectively. Clemens Lutz and Getaw Tadesse (2017) derive from Ostrom’s (1990) study some conditions under which the collective actions of cooperatives are successful in the distribution of natural resources. Alle Metzlar (2017), when analyzing the strategic position of small producers, use Ostrom (1990) to reinforce his results, stating that the members of cooperatives do not share the same objectives. Finally, Anders Fremstad (2016) argues that Ostrom’s (1990) neoclassical study disregards the existence of many shareable goods.

24 The ROSE co-citation network comprises three main clusters and two minor clusters. One minor cluster comprises four studies: Jacques Defourny and Marthe Nyssens (2010), Pascal Dey and Chris Steyaert (2010), Muhammad Yunus (2010) and Daniel Hjorth (2013). Social entrepreneurship is the main theme of this cluster. These studies aim at comparing the different concepts and narratives of social entrepreneurship, highlighting the economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of enterprises. The other minor cluster consists of only two articles, Gary Becker (1968) and Sarah Necker (2014), and addresses issues related to unethical or illegal behavior. The article by Becker (1968) refers to economists’ scientific misbehavior (data fabrication or plagiarism) due to the pressure to publish. The argument is that the economic theory of crime, developed by Becker (1968), predicts that competition increases the benefits of cheating.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felipe Almeida

Felipe Almeida, Victor Cruz-e-Silva, and Maríndia Brites are professors at the Federal University of Paraná– Department of Economics, Brazil. The authors want to thank Bill Waller, Susan Evans, Emmanuel Boff, and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. This paper was initially presented at the Brazilian National Conference of Economics in 2021. We want to thank the audience at that meeting for suggestions. This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.

Victor Cruz-e-Silva

Felipe Almeida, Victor Cruz-e-Silva, and Maríndia Brites are professors at the Federal University of Paraná– Department of Economics, Brazil. The authors want to thank Bill Waller, Susan Evans, Emmanuel Boff, and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. This paper was initially presented at the Brazilian National Conference of Economics in 2021. We want to thank the audience at that meeting for suggestions. This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.

Maríndia Brites

Felipe Almeida, Victor Cruz-e-Silva, and Maríndia Brites are professors at the Federal University of Paraná– Department of Economics, Brazil. The authors want to thank Bill Waller, Susan Evans, Emmanuel Boff, and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. This paper was initially presented at the Brazilian National Conference of Economics in 2021. We want to thank the audience at that meeting for suggestions. This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.