INTRODUCTION

The contributions herewith published result from a symposium held during the 5th International Summer School of History of Economic Thought, Lucca, Italy, 5–8 September 2007. The symposium was entitled to the memory of Bob Coats, whose approach to the history of economics many of the scholars gathered there had followed in their research on the institutionalization, professionalization, and spread of economics.

Alfred William Coats was born in Southall, west London, on 1 September 1924.Footnote ¹ He studied economics at the University College of the South and West (now Exeter University). During World War II he served in the RAF, and it was only after the demobilization that he could graduate. He obtained his BSc in 1948 and MSc in 1950 at London University. Meanwhile, in 1945 he had married Sonia Whitehouse. In 1953 he completed his PhD thesis at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on “Methodological Controversy as an Approach to the History of American Economic Thought, 1885–1930.” Returning to England, Bob Coats obtained a lectureship in economic history at Nottingham University. After two years spent at the newly founded University of York, he went back to Nottingham, where he got a professorship in 1964. It was at this time that, fascinated by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), he created the discipline that is still associated with his name: the sociology of economics. In 1968 he was one of the founders of the British History of Economic Thought Conferences and the first editor of the connected newsletter. In 1982 he took an early retirement and in 1985 he joined Duke University, where he had previously been an associated member to the History of Political Economy group. Although he was not directly involved in the management of that journal edited by Craufurd Goodwin, he had been one of its inspirers since its foundation in 1969. He died at Middleton-on-Sea, Sussex on 9 April 2007. Two volumes of Coats's collected papers appeared in 1992 and 1993, and a third is currently being prepared.

Bob's studies on “the sociology and professionalisation of economics” (Coats Reference Coats1993) and his staunch activity as a promoter of research projects (Coats Reference Coats1981; Reference Coats1986; Reference Coats1996a; Reference Coats2000) have inspired the following generation of scholars and encouraged entire national and international research teams to study the evolution of the institutions and social contexts in which economists actively operated as researchers, educators, preachers, club members, organizers of associations, authors, editors, opinion leaders, advisors, politicians and intellectuals. A new area of research has gradually emerged from his leadership, and our understanding of the historical evolution of the economists' identity and of the aims and scope of economics has been greatly improved.Footnote ²

The title of the symposium was “Bob Coats Memorial Workshop. Research Priorities in the History of Economics Forty Years Later.” The original idea was to gather around the same table the editors of the leading journals of our discipline, asking them to take inspiration from Bob Coats's Reference Coats1969 article on “Research Priorities in the History of Economics,” to examine the recent trend of studies in the history of economics. Four journals answered our call:

• • History of Political Economy was represented by its managing editor, Paul Dudenhefer;

• • The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought by one of its editors, José Luis Cardoso;

• • Journal of the History of Economic Thought by its editor, Steve Medema; and finally

• • History of Economic Ideas by its editor, Riccardo Faucci.

The opportunity provided by such a qualified parterre was unique: the experience those colleagues had accumulated allowed them to develop a wealth of interesting considerations on two questions: on the one hand, they were solicited to examine the past issues of the journal they represented—and especially those published under their supervision—and discuss from this vantage point to what extent the main trends of research in the history of economics had followed Coats's agenda. On the other hand, they were asked to voice their perception of the “research priorities” for the next future.

Along both lines, the subject of this debate differs from many recent—and at times mournful—discussions on the future of the history of economic thought. It focuses more on the positive contents of research than on the (declining) place of this discipline in economic studies, or its (limited) credit among economists and other social scientists, or the (almost nonexistent) role of the history of economics in present economics training programs. By examining what historians of economics do and what they are planning to do, the present debate conveys a message of optimism. After all, we do this job because we enjoy it and we think we are discovering something. Even in hard times. In the words Dante put in the mouth of Ulysses when trying to convince his crew to cross the Columnae Herculis,

The four papers that follow are ranked in authors' alphabetical order, with the exception of Paul Dudenhefer's opening the series. Dudenhefer takes the lead as he reconstructs the early years of the journal—History of Political Economy—in which Coats's paper on “Research Priorities” originally appeared.

In a short conclusion, we try to draw some lessons from this inspiring debate.

—M. M. Augello and M. E. L. Guidi