| Abstract: |
Taking as good the famous definition of economics attributed to Viner,
“Economics is what economists do”, it is surprising to see how little the
history of economics has addressed the matter of what economists actually do,
above all outside the USA. The vast mass of data on research output which has
recently become readily accessible and arrangeable are allowed in this
contribution to put into focus (to sharpen) the Italian “representative”
economist, at the first rung of the academic ladder, the “Researcher”
(ricercatore), in three subsequent periods over last 30 years, 1984 – 2005.
With the aim, on the one hand, to trace out the evolution of the scientific
profile from the beginning of the 1980s until the end of the period; on the
other hand, to verify whether the progressive internationalisation of the
profession, the increasing influence of the Anglo-Saxon way of organising
research with the introduction of evaluation criteria taking into account the
prominence achieved by publications have effectively modified the subjects and
methods of research. An extensive database of publications of three cohorts of
young economists at the first step of the academic career has been construded.
The publications has been classified on the basis of the research structure in
economics prevailing at the edge of the 1980s, thus to outline from the inside
the evolution of our research model. The outcome: that research model has lost
the most part of his pluralistic peculiarities to close in significantly the
monistic Anglo-Saxon model. Not a result unexpected; the novelty to emphasize
is that the change appeared not step by step but all of a sudden at the
transition from the 1980s to the1990s. The publications of the last cohort
don’t do anything but conferm that change. Even whitin this metamorphosis,
however, the research model that young researchers currently carry out, shows
a specificity of the old one: the prominently role, even in the international
comparison, of the History of economic analysis that, just about lone,
supports the fleg of the pluralism. Other research areas that were typical of
and characterized the Italian research model, also in the international
research market, such as, for instance, the critical theories (Sraffian and
Post-keynesian) coming from the Cambridge (Uk) tradition, have, almost
completely, got out from the hunt territory crossed by the young Italian
economists; because, perhaps, they are inclined to believe that an academic
carrier as economist cannot be developed smoothly if based on research themes
outside the nowadays mainstream. |