** Probabilistic Political Economy: "Laws of Chaos" in the 21st Century **

     www.probabilisticpoliticaleconomy.net

     July 14 -- 17, 2008
     Kingston University, UK


Call for participants
=====================

Registration is now open for this conference, organised to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication in 1983 of "Laws of Chaos: a probabilistic approach to political economy" by Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshé Machover.

The conference will open at 11.30 a.m. on Monday, July 14 and will continue through to a reception and gala dinner on the evening of Wednesday, July 16.


Keynote speakers
====================

Emmanuel Farjoun, Professor of Mathematics, Einstein Institute of Mathematics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Moshé Machover, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, King's College London


Invited speakers
====================

Masanao Aoki, Professor Emeritus of Economics, UCLA

Paul Cockshott, Reader in Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, University of Glasgow 

Allin Cottrell, Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University

Jurgen Essletzbichler, Lecturer, Department of Geography, UCL

Alan Freeman, Visiting Lecturer in Economics, School of Business and the Humanities, University of Greenwich

Mauro Gallegati, Professor of Economics, University of Ancona

Hardy Hanappi, Jean Monnet Professor of Political Economy of European Integration, Technical University of Vienna

Steve Keen,  Associate Professor of Economics and Finance, University of Western Sydney

Andrew Kliman, Professor of Economics, Pace University

Paul Plummer, Professor of Geography, University of Calgary

David Rigby, Professor of Geography, UCLA

Michael Webber, Professor of Geography, University of Melbrourne 

Victor Yakovenko, Professor of Physics, University of Maryland 


Papers
====================

Abstracts of proposed papers can be found at

    http://iwright.googlepages.com/acceptedabstracts

from where they can also be downloaded as a zip file.

Registration is open until 14 March 2008, and booking forms can be found here:

     http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/conferences/probabilistic_political_economy/
 
or directly at

    http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/downloads/PPEregformA.doc (Word format)

or

    http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/downloads/PPEregformA.pdf (PDF format)


Registration
====================

The core option includes all meals and refreshments during the conference, including the concluding reception and dinner, and three nights' accommodation (Monday, July 14 to Wednesday, July 16) together with breakfast on the morning of departure (Thursday, July 17).

There will also be a daily registration rate for participants wishing to attend particular sessions.

Information about the Kingston Hill campus, including the residential accommodation, is available here:

     http://www.kingston.ac.uk/conferencing/srcKH.htm

Information about Dorich House, Kingston University's own "stately home" and the venue for the closing dinner, is available here:

     http://www.kingston.ac.uk/conferencing/dhHome.htm



Further details
====================

Conference web-site:

     www.probabilisticpoliticaleconomy.net

The publication of "Laws of Chaos" was an event of genuine theoretical innovation in the field of political economy. The book was a response to the impasse reached by the input-output method of representing an economy, in particular when applied to the theory of economic value.

Farjoun and Machover's innovations include the systematic introduction of probabilistic modelling, statistical mechanics, and probabilistic laws to the field of political economy. They rejected the adequacy of deterministic models to capture essential features of a dynamic and distributed market economy, which they viewed as a complex system characterised by a huge number of degrees of freedom.

Employing probabilistic arguments, Farjoun and Machover developed a broad model of the capitalist economy that, in contrast to deterministic approaches, had a more immediate connection to empirical reality and yielded important and theoretically distinct, macroeconomic conclusions, including probabilistic laws governing the relationship between price and labour-content, the distribution of the profit rate, and the tendency of labour productivity to increase.

The conference will concentrate on four main themes: 

(i) "Laws of Chaos", a reflection on the reception and subsequent impact of Farjoun and Machover's book, 

(ii) "Theory and methods", an exploration of the concept of statistical equilibrium in political economy, 

(iii) "Models and empirical reality", investigations of specific non-deterministic, economic models and their relationship to empirical data, and 

(iv) "Disequilibrium and out-of-equilibrium dynamics", examining the disequilibrium properties and empirical plausibility of non-deterministic models of capitalism.

Our aim is to reflect on the past and stimulate the next 25 years of the research programme of probabilistic political economy.



Important Dates
====================

Deadline for registration: 14th March 2008.
Conference opens: 14th July 2008.


Organising committee
====================

Julian Wells
Senior Lecturer in Economics at Kingston University, UK

Eric Sheppard
Professor of Economic Geography, University of Minnesota, USA

Ian Wright
Research Student, Department of Economics, Open University, UK






===================================

Dr Julian Wells

Senior lecturer
School of Economics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Kingston University
Penrhyn Road
Kingston-upon-Thames
KT1 2EE


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