Mary S. Morgan

Title and contact details 

Professor of History and Philosophy  of Economics
Room C222
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 7081
Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7730
m.morgan@lse.ac.uk

Research and Teaching Interests

History, philosophy and sociology of .economics and statistics.
Models, measurements, observations and facts in history and philosophy of science.

Current Research Projects

1. British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship project: Re-Thinking Case Studies Across the Social Sciences
2. Leverhulme Trust / ESRC project:  "How well do 'facts' travel?" (a group project of the Department of Economic History)
3. Observation in economics: joint work with the University of Amsterdam's History and Philosophy of Economics Research Group and the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin. 

Working Papers and Forthcoming Publications

• The World in the Model.  (Forthcoming CUP, 2010, under final revision) Chapter 1: "Modelling as a Method of Enquiry" link here
• How Well Do Facts Travel? (Edited with W.P. Howlett, CUP, 2010) Chapter 1: Travelling Facts link here
• “Seeking Parts, Looking for Wholes” 2009. History of Observation Working Paper, 1, University of Amsterdam (forthcoming in A History of Scientific Observation, edited L. J. Daston and E. Lunbeck, currently under review at publisher)
• "Models and Modelling in Economics"( forthcoming) With Tarja Knuuttila in U. Mäki (ed) Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics (a volume of Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, general editors: Dov Gabbay, Paul Thargard and John Woods)
• “‘On a Mission’ with Mutable Mobiles” 2008, Working Paper 34, The Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel? project, Department of Economic History, LSE
• “‘Voice’ and the Facts and Observations of Experience” 2008, Working Paper 31, The Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel? project, Department of Economic History, LSE; forthcoming in New Methodological Directions in Experiment (ed W. Gonzales)
• “Experimental Farming and Ricardo’s Political Arithmetic of Distribution” 2005, Working Paper 3, The Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel? project, Department of Economic History, LSE (forthcoming as Chapter 2, The World in the Model, see above.)

Selected Recent Publications

• “Models” (2008) in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, eds: S.N. Durlauf and L.E. Blume (Palgrave Macmillan), online.
• “An Analytical History of Measuring Practices: The Case of Velocities of Money” in Measurement in Economics: A Handbook, ed M. Boumans (Elsevier), 2007, pp 105-132. Working Paper 13, "The Nature of Evidence: How well do 'Facts' Travel?" project, Department of Economic History, LSE
• “The Curious Case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Model Situation? Exemplary Narrative?” (2007) in A. Creager, M. Norton Wise, and E. Lunbeck Science Without Laws: Model Systems, Cases, Exemplary Narratives, (Duke University Press) pp 157-85.
• “Economic Man as Model Man: Ideal Types, Idealization and Caricatures” (2006) Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28:1, March, pp 1-27.
• “Experiments Versus Models: New Phenomena, Inference and Surprise” (2005) Journal of Economic Methodology, 12:2, 317-29.
• “Simulation: The Birth of a Technology to Create “Evidence” in Economics” (2004) Revue d’Histoire des Sciences, 57:2, 341-77.
• “Imagination and Imaging in Economic Model-building” (2004) Philosophy of Science, 71:5, 753-66.
• “The Secrets Hidden by Two-Dimensionality: The Economy as a Hydraulic Machine” (2004) with Marcel Boumans in Models: The Third Dimension of Science eds: S. de Chadarevian and N. Hopwood, Stanford University Press) pp 369-401. [Originally, 1998, University of Amsterdam, Research Memorandum No 98.2]
• “Economics” (2003) in The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences, editors: T. Porter and D. Ross (Cambridge University Press, pp275-305)
• “Experiments Without Material Intervention: Model Experiments, Virtual Experiments and Virtually Experiments” (2003) [University of Amsterdam Research Memorandum (2000)] in The Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation ed H. Radder, University of Pittsburgh Press, pp 261-35.
• “Timing History: The Introduction of Graphical Analysis in 19th Century British Economics” (2002) with Harro Maas, Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 7, 97-127
• “Model Experiments and Models in Experiments” (2002) in Model-Based Reasoning: Science, Technology, Values eds L. Magnani and N.J. Nersessian (Kluwer Academic/Plenum, pp. 41-58
• “Models, Stories and the Economic World” (2001) Journal of Economic Methodology 8:3, 361-84; Reprinted in Fact and Fiction in Economics (2002) ed U. Mäki (Cambridge University Press, pp 178-201) [Research Memorandum in History and Methodology of Economics, University of Amsterdam, 1999].

Curriculum Vitae

• CV (PDF)

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