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Soviet Mathematical Economists during the Brezhnev Era: Disciplinary Status and Epistemic Culture

Soviet Mathematical Economists during the Brezhnev Era: Disciplinary Status and Epistemic Culture. Ivan Boldyrev , Humboldt University (Berlin) and National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow) iboldyrev@hse.ru

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Soviet Mathematical Economists during the Brezhnev Era: Disciplinary Status and Epistemic Culture

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  1. Soviet Mathematical Economists during the Brezhnev Era: Disciplinary Statusand Epistemic Culture Ivan Boldyrev, Humboldt University (Berlin) and National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow) iboldyrev@hse.ru OlessiaKirtchik, National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow) okirchik@hse.ru

  2. Motivation • Part ofthe larger project – Research Group Socialstudiesofeconomicknowledge(http://igiti.hse.ru/socres/) • The first object of inquiry – general equilibrium theory in a comparative perspective • Subfield of mathematical economics – more comprehensive term covering heterogeneous research domains and practices • Ambiguous status: between technicalities of applied math and ideologically dubious refuge of neoclassicism

  3. Questions • Tentative socio-historical analysis • Institutionalization • Epistemic culture (Knorr Cetina 1991) • Disciplinary identity (Lamont& Molnar 2002) • Comparison East-West

  4. Institutions • Strong tension within a discipline (US: institutionalists and Chicago school, USSR: Marxist political economy) • Delay in institutionalizationin the USSR (CEMI founded in 1963; mathematical methods to develop after 1953) • Unlike US, math econ remained a minor group, with few institutional sites and only limited influence in universities • Like US, math econ was a part of larger planning and cybernetics movement inspired by a Cold war context

  5. Knowledge and Epistemic Culture • Very few developments in economic theorizing, why? • Conjecture: polarization and lack of identity • Math econ reduced to applied math; politicaleconomystayedawayfromthedata; applied economists did not dare theoretical generalizations • Dorfman 1976: technocratic modeling, emphasis on the supply side; balance, optimization.

  6. Anti-Semitism as an important ‘omitted variable’ • Weintraub 2012: academic Anti-Semitism in the US universities explaining the rise of MIT • Soviet case: Anti-Semitism at the math department of Moscow University, special unsolvable problems etc. (Frenkel 2012) • A lot of mathematicians coming into math econ, with a lot of new jobs • The story of one ‘Polterovich’ and two ‘Ivanovs’

  7. Conclusion: parallels and contrasts • Both cases reveal internal tensions within economics profession, state funding(role of the military), anti-Semitism • However: Soviet math econ developed with a delay for ideological reasons (no theoretical backwardness! Cf. the story of Kantorovich) • Soviet math econ lacked autonomous economic(theoretical) discourse beyond Marxist political economy and applied math/operations research

  8. Thank you!

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