The Construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics

Abstract

This article relies on an analysis of the institutionalization of economics worldwide during the 20th century to argue that the logic of professional development in this particular field has come to be increasingly defined in global terms. Connections to (mainly) U.S.‐based standards of work and professional practice are routinely used in the local competition whereby different professional segments and groups seek to assert their authority on particular jurisdictions (scientific, corporate, or political). In this process of professional construction (or reconstruction), economies are being transformed through complex transnational mechanisms which, ultimately, feed back into the identity and jurisdictional claims of the economics profession itself, both in the “core” and in the “periphery.”