Pluralism of economic ideas

Come and learn the importance of pluralism in economics, from a historical perspective. Wide and fair debate is the only way for economics to progress and be useful for society.

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CIVIS focus area
Society, culture, heritage
Open to
  • Bachelor's
  • Master's
  • PhD candidates/ students
Field of studies
  • Business and Management
  • Social Science and humanities
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
6 October 2025 - 6 February 2026
Apply by
4 May 2025 Apply now

This blended course will highlight how economic theories have changed over time, and how there has always been a plurality of different views at any point in time. It will provide students with the opportunity to read and discuss key economic texts from the past, as well as to analyse and understand specific topics or concepts from a variety of points of view. 

Our discipline has always been characterized by a plurality of competing perspectives and research paradigms, despite the recent, worrying involution in both teaching and research. A historical view of the development of economics is key to understanding where economics comes from and where it is going.

The course comprises three modules (each with 3 ETCS):

  • Module 1: Reading seminars (online)
  • Module 2: Lectures (online)
  • Module 3: Workshop in Rome (in person)

Students can opt to take part in one or both of the virtual component modules (Modules 1 and Module 2). The physical component module (Module 3) is mandatory for all students. Based on the participation to the virtual components module, students will receive 6 ECTS or 9 ECTS (3 ECTS for each of the modules). 

Main topics addressed

  • Methods of the social sciences and reasons for pluralism
  • The “pre-history” of economic thought (from ancient Greece to the 16th century)
  • Classical political economy (Smith, Ricardo, Marx)
  • The different strands of marginalism (Jevons, Walras, Menger)
  • Neoclassical economics and later developments
  • Keynes, post-Keynesian and anti-Keynesian economics
  • Recent heterodox strands: institutionalism, feminist economics, evolutionary economics, etc.

Learning outcomes

Students taking the course will develop:

  • differentiated knowledge on economic ideas from different perspectives and schools of thought;
  • critical thinking on the creation, evolution, and transmission of economic ideas;
  • skills in participating in debates on economic ideas and policy rationale, and their relationship with concrete social and economic issues.
     
Dates: 1 October 2025 - 28 February 2026 Total workload: 270 hours
Format: Blended ECTS: 9*
Location: Rome, Italy Language: English (B2)
Contact: carlo.dippoliti@uniroma1.it  

*recognition of ECTS depends on your home university

Physical mobility

The pshysical mobility section of the course will take place between 2-6 February 2026, in Rome - Italy.

The group activities foreseen for the physical component will encompass innovative teaching methods (theatrical representations, mock trials) and aim at allowing the students to take stock and put in practice what they have learnt in the online modules. The specific forms of activities chosen highlight and even force students to explicitly consider plurality of ideas and points of views in economics.

During the physical mobility part, the students will attend seminars on specific topics, held by the professors of the organizing universities and/ or guest speakers, they will take part in roundtables, and they will engage in a number of group activities that will have been prepared during the remote course. This will include one or more theatrical representations (depending on the number of students), and two or more mock “trials”. Theatrical performances will be held by the students in the form of dialogues. Students will impersonate previously defined characters, based on a text written by themselves, under the supervision of a professor.

Mock trials will have the students divide into four groups: two will argue respectively for and against a certain thesis (e.g. a certain hard question in the history of economic thought) while the other two groups will compose the jury and the professors will act as judge. Then, the groups will switch roles: the two groups of the jury in the first trial become the attorneys, against pro and against a certain thesis, in a second trial on a different topic, and two groups of previous attorneys become the new jury.

The teaching goal of both kinds of activities is to highlight the presence of different points of views by means of the rhetorical device of debates.

Virtual part

The virtual part will take pace between 6 October - 12 Decembrie 2025.

The virtual part is divided into two separate modules. Students can take part in one or both – but please notice that decisions on how many credits will be recognised rests with the single universities and not with the organizers of the BIP.

In the “reading seminars” module, selected key writings from the recent past of the discipline are assigned to students, who then collectively discuss in class their message and significance. The specific reading list will be adapted to the students’ prior knowledge and interests, but will likely include the following: Veblen T. (1898), Pigou A.C. (1917), Schumpeter J. (1928), Keynes J.M. (1930), Pen J. (1971), Minsky H.P. (1973), Robinson J. (1974), Boserup E. (1975), Hirschman A.O. (1982), Agarwal B. (1992), Sen A. (2000), Folbre N. and Nelson J.A. (2000), Sylos Labini P. (2003).

In the “lectures” module, students will attend weekly seminars on a specific topic, such as the theory of value, the theory of employment, etc. These topics will be analysed and discussed from a historical point of view, considering how different economists approached and explained the relevant facts or concepts over time. The “lectures” module will cover a larger span than the reading seminars, from the ‘pre-history’ of economics (considering ancient Greece) up to the mid-XX century, as well as basic notions and debates on economic methodology and the philosophy of economics.

In both cases, online sessions will run from the beginning of October to mid December. If necessary, one or two sessions could take place in January.

Assessment

Each module will assess the students’ skills and learning separately.

  • For the “reading seminars” online module, assessment will be based on the students’ active participation to class debates, which will demonstrate that they have completed the assigned readings.
  • For the “lectures” online module, students will take a short test at the end of the module.
  • For the physical mobility module, the students will participate in several group activities and roundtables, and their performance will be assessed by the teaching staff.

This course is open to advanced Bachelor's, Master's and PhD' students at CIVIS member universities. enrolled in Economics or other social sciences. Participants should have an intermediate knowledge of economics, and a good level of spoken English (B2).

Critical thinking, historical and methodological awareness, digital humanities and economic philosophy knowledge are also needed.

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) - a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. 

This course is also open to students with the same academic profile, who are enrolled at a CIVIS strategic partner university in Africa. Please check here, if you can apply and this particular course is open to applications from your university. Successful applicants will receive an Erasmus+ grant covering travel and subsistence costs during their stay. Applicants should be willing to extend their stay at the host university for 1-3 weeks for additional research and/or training purposes.

Partner universities

  • National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece)
  • Sapienza Università di Roma (Italia)
  • Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
  • Université de Lausanne (Switzerland)
  • University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Professors

François Allisson is a historian of economic thought at the University of Lausanne, affiliated with the Institute of Political Studies and the Centre Walras-Pareto, where he teaches and conducts research. He is also a member of the REHPERE team. In 2015, he published Value and Prices in Russian Economic Thought with Routledge, a work that synthesizes Russian economic thought from 1890 to 1920 and which earned him the Best Book Award from the European Society for the History of Economic Thought.

Maria Bach is a historian of economics serving as a première assistante at the University of Lausanne’s Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. She is affiliated with both the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) and the Centre Walras-Pareto for Interdisciplinary Studies in Economic and Political Thought. Her academic journey includes a PhD in International Political Economy from King’s College London, where her dissertation on the first generation of modern Indian economists earned the Joseph Dorfman Award for Best Dissertation in the History of Economic Thought in 2020. 

Javier Baquero Pérez is Profesor Ayudante Doctor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). His research focuses on labor market dynamics, with a particular emphasis on their relationship with education, collective bargaining and their socioeconomic impacts. Javier has extensive experience in researching the employment integration of university students in the European Union. He is a member of the Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomics (SASE).

Marcella Corsi is Professor of Economics at  Sapienza Università di Roma, where she coordinates "Minerva - Laboratory on Diversity and Gender Inequality". She is among the founders of the web-magazine inGenere, is chief editor of the "International Review of Sociology", and a member of the board of the International Association for Feminist Economics.

Julimar da Silva Bichara is Associate Professor of Economics at the Department of Economic Structure and Development Economics of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He has been a member of the Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomics (SASE) since 2006 and a member of its Executive Council since 2018. Julimar has recently published on Cepal Review, the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Metroeconomica and World Economy, and is the current coordinator of UAM’s Master's on Economic Development and Public Policy. 

Carlo D’Ippoliti is a professor of political economy at Sapienza Università di Roma and editor of open-access economics journals “PSL Quarterly Review” and “Moneta e Credito”. His research interests include science policy and the history and sociology of economics.

Nobantu Mbeki is a lecturer in economics at the School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, and her research focuses on Post-Keynesian pricing theory and the Post-Keynesian theory of the firm. In 2023, Dr. Mbeki published Post-Keynesian Theories of the Firm: Kalecki and Radical Uncertainty, which explores the influence of radical uncertainty on firm behavior through the lens of Michał Kalecki’s theories. She co-authored A Manifesto for Social Change: How to Save South Africa with former South African President Thabo Mbeki, addressing strategies for economic and social reform in South Africa. 

Nicholas J. Theocarakis is Professor of Political Economy and History of Economic Thought at the Dept of Economics of The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He is the Director of the MPhil Economics Program and Head of the Doctoral Studies Committee. He has served as a Secretary General for Fiscal Policy of the Ministry of Finance and Greece's representative in the Eurogroup Working Group. He has served as Chairman and Scientific Director of the Centre of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) and Chairman of Megaron-The Athens Concert Hall. He has written three books on Political economy and the History of economic thought.

Giulia Zacchia is an associate professor of economics at Sapienza Università di Roma. She holds a PhD in History of Economic Thought, she was a founder of the Working Group on Gender Economics for the Young Scholars Initiative of the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) and is a member of the executive committee of STOREP - Italian Association for the History of Political Economy. Her research interests extend to social and financial inclusion, gender economics and gender gaps in labor markets and in academia, including the identification of the contribution of women to the development of economic thought.

 

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 4 May 2025, and including:

  • CV,
  • motivation letter,
  • level of english (According to CEFR)

Applications will be evaluated mainly based on the motivation letter, provided that the level of English satisfies a minimum requirement. Only if too many applications will be received, the CV will be considered too.

Apply now

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