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The introductory essay to the HOPE supplement on "economics as news" argues why journalism is a deserving subject for research in the history of economics. The case rests on three claims. The first is that the study of journalism gives us a view of a distinct epistemological tradition, of news epistemology, that unsettles the standard convictions of academic knowledge ways. Second, the practices of news organizations are key to understanding how these organizations transform contemporary life into news, marketable products of predictable format. The implication is that economics is featured in news when it is aligned with preexisting journalism practices. Third, journalists acknowledge the existence of domains of expertise but do not feel accountable to them. Ideas that economists may think of as their own are appropriated, repurposed, reinterpreted, and then again and again. Taken together, these arguments describe journalism as an exciting new research territory that will help us understand why so often the body of public economic knowledge diverges from the convictions of credentialed economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John D. McDonald was a writer and editor best known for his work at Fortune magazine in the 1950s and 1960s and as the ghostwriter of the memoirs of Alfred P. Sloan. McDonald was also the first person to popularize game theory. In this article I argue that game theory played a key role in McDonald's transition from documentary writer to business journalist. Game theory gave McDonald a journalistic device to discover business stories and to give those stories a driving tension; he called it a "story engine." After decades writing with game theory, it began to serve a different purpose for McDonald. By coding business stories as games, McDonald gained insight into the characters, corporate executives who were often brief in explanations and shallow in self-understanding. McDonald's career gives us a glimpse at an extraordinary transformation of how a set of scholarly ideas can become a literary resource for vividness (of stories) and depth (of characters). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including economic narrative of rise and fall in political battles; journalist John McDonald, who popularised game theory as a tool for business strategy; and power of the economic growth narrative.

"Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950" by Keith Tribe is a book that explores the history of economics as an academic discipline. Tribe challenges the idea that economics developed as a profession, arguing instead that it was driven by the desire to create a science of economics. He examines the role of higher education in shaping the discipline, looking at degree programs, syllabi, and graduation statistics. The book focuses on key figures such as Alfred Marshall and Lionel Robbins, and critiques the work of other prominent economists. Tribe's approach aims to shift the focus of the history of economic ideas towards institutional factors. [Extracted from the article]

The role of oral history interviews and autobiographical statements of heterodox economists in the construction of the history of heterodox economics is discussed.

The article reflects on historian Craufurd D. W. Goodwin as a storyteller. It mentions that Craufurd's storytelling is analogous to his attitude toward the community of historians of economics; with a great capacity for enthusiasm, advocacy, and service. It states that Goodwin discussed his role as vice provost at Duke University facing the trustees' opposition to the arrival of black students on campus, or in managing the student revolts of the late 1960s.

In this essay, I argue that radical economics innovated in the communication of economic ideas, engendering new idioms and print formats to intervene in circuits of progressive activism. The essay mentions the pamphlet work of the Union for Radical Political Economics’ various public engagement projects of the early 1970s but at its heart is the 1974 founding of the mass distribution monthly Dollars & Sense. It looks at the positions taken by the periodical over the years and asks, “What kind of print object was it?” It places the publication within a twentieth century history of left political economy periodicals and compares it with its closest contemporaries in the cultures of print of the American Left, notably Monthly Review and Radical America. The attention to the print ventures of radical economics in the 1970s is a contribution to a new kind of historiography that takes an expanded and extra-curricular outlook of economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on history of economics to be a subject as old as economics and privileged idiom to survey scholarship, and a prized heuristic for economic inquiry. It mentions evolving relationship between historians and the economics discipline and contemporary writings in the history of economics have aligned themselves with approaches from the history of science. It also mentions vintages of Keynesianism and macroeconomics.

The article discusses how businessman Friedrich Engels' experience at his firm Ermen & Engels made an impact on philosopher Karl Marx and his work "Capital". Topics include the company history of Ermen & Engels, the status of Manchester as the hub of the cotton industry and how Engels's unhappy years at Manchester, England led to the development of Marxist political economy.

An introduction is presented that discusses the issue theme of economists as public intellectuals, noting article topics including public comments by economists Gary Becker and Richard Posner, the role of think tanks in public debate, and the work of economist Irving Fisher.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within this special issue arising from 2010 annual conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought on topics of both historical and contemporary practices of economists.

A conference paper on the subject of economic journalism is presented. The author discusses the use of economists as journalists, and comments on journalists' lack of economic expertise. He goes on to distinguish between the political and scientific aspects of economics. A history of economic periodicals is provided as well.

The article discusses the role that American economist Robert Solow's 1957 paper "Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function" play in attempts to integrate business cycle and growth theory. It is argued that the Solow residual approach of increase in output per unit of input was a resource that was considered a catch-all. The work of economist Bruno Latour on the black box as an idea that theoretical and experimental artifacts can attain a status of acceptance exempting them from close examination is noted. The history of fluctuations in growth theory regarding economic model building, of the addition and subtraction of elements to models, is discussed.

The article presents information on the challenge raised by a group of young radical economists on the boundaries of economics. The radicals claim that economic science and politics are represented as overlapping. A brief overview is given on the boundaries and migrations in economics. It discusses the core activities of radical economists at Harvard University. It also explores the formation of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE). It also discusses the boundary work of radicals in social science upon the emergence of radical economics. It explains how radicals reconstruct the cultural map of economics to force a realignment of interests.

Tracks one of the routes that brought dispersed critique into an organized and self-conscious grouping, self-identified as Post Keynesian economics. Construction of identity of Post Keynesians; Importance of theoretical demarcation; Measurement of capital.