20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Monday November 9th, 2009 represents the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.  Richard Ebeling has a fitting retrospective.

What have we learned from the Fall of the Wall for the discipline of political economy?

Question for Dave.  We both started out as comparative systems economists (in fact passionate practitioners in that field), we both stopped being active in that field in the early 2000s after both publishing a series of books in the field, and several articles staking out our respective positions on real existing socialism in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia respectively, and post-socialism in politics, economics, and culture.  Why? Or is our 'leaving the field' only apparent and not real?  And do you consider yourself still a comparative systems specialist?  Scott do you consider yourself a comparative systems specialist and/or development specialist?

BTW, I am going back to teaching Comparative Systems at the graduate level next academic year.

Comments

[Scott Beaulier]

Pete,

Good question. I'm not a fan of names and labels. I usually find myself saying things like, "I'm an economist. A lot of my research focuses on issues related to transition economies and African development." But, I'd hate to be called a comparative systems specialist or developmental specialist. My research and intellectual interests are too varied for those labels, and I'm not a fan of many of the connotations that come with the fields--especially development econ.

Now, do I feel like my work is addressing issues of development and comparative systems? Absolutely. The Botswana work is quite comparative--how did one country do well while so many others have failed? The answer lies in their economic system. Obviously, it's also an issue of development at the core.

But, I wouldn't call myself a development person--I'm just an eclectic, "meatball economist" (to borrow a Prychitkoism) doing the economics I'm interested in doing.

Much of my research can be understood as letting "the market" take me wherever "it" wants me to go. If people such as you (e.g., the new Art of Not Being Governed) want me to write on a particular topic, I'll write on that topic. If someone wants me to talk about Botswana some more, I'll do so. Thus, demanders partially partially define my research portfolio.

The rest--including a lot of my policy writing, op-ed writing, and blogging--is driven by the things I'm passionate about at a moment in time. Right now, for example, I'm having a lot of fun working with students on some research and playing with a few sports econ projects.

I hope this makes sense. I guess I haven't spent much time thinking about what kind of economist I am, and I've just been busy teaching, maintaining an adequate research agenda, and putting out fires.