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The aim of this paper is to review Fred Lee's book A History of Heterodox Economics.

The paper provides a context for Lee's research within the current debates over the financial crisis, then reviews and evaluates his analysis.

Lee has provided valuable and almost overwhelmingly meticulous documentation of the struggle to maintain space for heterodox economics within the discipline of economics, beginning before the turn of the twentieth century and continuing into the present. He is most concerned to use this research to formulate strategies to build community among heterodox economists, to provide a strong alternative to mainstream economics.

The author was less than convinced by Lee's suggestion that heterodox economics should emulate a professional model based on publications and citations that bears a striking resemblance to the methods of mainstream economics. That said, the author shares his belief that heterodox economics has important insights to offer economic theory and policy. In all, Lee has provided an important service in his documentation of the rise of heterodox economics as well as the attempts of mainstream economics to marginalize other schools of thought.

The purpose of the “Introduction” is to provide the motivation and context for the articles of this special issue and an overview and summary of the contributions that follow.

The paper provides an overview and summary of the contributions in the special issue.

It is argued that heterodoxies had gained a considerable and growing influence on research orientations, methodologies, and critical reflections, also on the mainstream publishing practices, even in the mainstream. This has been widely acknowledged as “hip heterodoxy” recently. Thus, many heterodox economists have developed optimistic expectations for the future of the profession. However, that influence has left the main mechanisms of reproduction of the mainstream untouched. These are mass teaching, public advising, journal policies, and faculty recruitment. Above that, the last decade has seen something like a “counterattack” to safeguard these mainstream reproduction mechanisms. The means used for this seem to be journal (and publisher) rankings based on purely quantitative citation measures and “impact factors”. These have an obvious cumulative “economies‐of‐scale” effect which triggers a tendency towards reinforcement and collective monopolization of the dominating orientation. Department rankings and individual faculty evaluations are then based on journals rankings. As a result, there are observable tendencies towards the cleansing of economics departments in a number of countries.

The paper also discusses potential reasons and methods for alternative approaches to measure citation interrelations, networks, cooperation, and rankings among heterodoxies (journals and departments), and for alternatives of publishing and the future of heterodoxies in general. Finally, it draws the picture of the present situation and the foreseeable future of heterodoxies as it emerges from the 11 contributions of the special issue.

This paper aims to review the undergraduate curricular structure of 36 self‐identified heterodox economic programs in the USA, Australia, UK and Canada.

The author gathers, summarizes, compares and contrasts the structure of 36 undergraduate heterodox departments. Departments are classified into traditional, plausibly pluralistic, and demonstrably heterodox programs. Specific examples illustrate each classification.

With notable exceptions described here, most heterodox economics programs are structured as traditional mainstream departments with a few pluralist or political economy electives available. However, 20 departments exist that require at least one heterodox course; eight require two or more.

A few programs have created imitable curricular structures that one would expect to significantly influence the depth and breadth of heterodox perspectives presented in the undergraduate economics major.

This is the first published analysis of undergraduate heterodox economics curricula. It highlights the creative structures characterizing some of the English‐speaking world's best programs and demonstrates that the curricula in most programs lack required courses in heterodox economics. The paper also provides examples of intentionally heterodox programs that may serve as models for others to emulate.

The purpose of this paper is to present, for the first time, a case for ranking heterodox journals and departments.

The first section of the article briefly delineates the intellectual and social organization of heterodox economics as a social system of scientific activity. This background is then used to argue the case for ranking heterodox journals (section two) and heterodox departments (section three). An example of ranking journals that promote the development of heterodox theory, is not a zero‐sum game, and does not invite invidious comparisons is delineated in the fourth section. The final section summarizes the case for rankings.

There are two central issues facing heterodox economics: one is the development of a coherent, integrated economic theory that explains the social provisioning process; and the second is the making of economic departments that contribute to the development of heterodox theory and policy, and the training of heterodox economists. A case can be made for ranking journals and departments that deal with the two issues.

An example of ranking journals that promote the development of heterodox theory, is not a zero‐sum game, and does not invite invidious comparisons is delineated.

This paper seeks to study how the democratization of the diffusion of research through the internet could have helped non‐traditional fields of research.

The specific case the authors approach is heterodox economics as its pre‐prints are disseminated through NEP, the e‐mail alert service of RePEc.

Comparing heterodox and mainstream papers, the authors find that the heterodox are quite systematically more downloaded, and particularly so when considering downloads per subscriber.

The authors conclude that the internet definitely helps heterodox research, also because other researchers get exposed to it. But there is still room for more participation by heterodox researchers.

The paper shows how RePEc and NEP try to pursue democracy and help in the dissemination of research. It also shows how heterodox communities can benefit and have benefited from this system, because they need new ways for disseminating research.

The purpose of this article is to introduce heterodox economics as a viable alternative to market‐fundamentalist economics and to outline the articles of the special issue.

This introductory article provides an overview and summary of the contributions in the special issue.

Market‐fundamentalist economics has failed to adequately explain the economy or to provide guidance to policymakers that lead to widely‐shared prosperity and human well‐being. By contrast, heterodox economics offers social and historical narratives of both market and non‐market activities.

The article helps general readers to get acquainted with visions and approaches that are alternative to market‐fundamentalist economics. This will allow them to imagine more concretely that a better world is possible.

This brief paper seeks to identify three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

The paper provides a case study of three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

The first comes from funding uncertainties, given the fiscal conservatism of the new federal government. The second emanates from attempts by the élite “group of eight” institutions to secure all (or almost all) of the available research funding for themselves. The third relates to the research assessment exercises currently being undertaken both by the federal government and by the management of individual universities. It is concluded that the future is very far from clear.

The paper provides a case study of three potential threats to the future of heterodox economics in Australia.

This paper aims to describe cooperation between public and private market players from different legal and religious orders. The author argues that such public–private partnerships (PPPs) enable the development of a possible convergence between selected areas of mainstream public finance and the Islamic moral economy (IME).

This paper explores the theory of both mainstream finance and the IME, and using deductive reasoning from axioms, develops the assumptions of a theoretical approach to heterodox PPP. The proposed method affects the ability to find common platforms between mainstream public finance and the IME, through the example of public–private investment projects.

This endeavour is subject to trade-offs between profit maximisation and social justice values on the basis of long-term PPP contracts. The author shows the assumptions under which this compromise would be beneficial to public entities, multicultural societies and conventional and Islamic investors. It is proposed to distribute profit to the owners up to a predetermined value, above which the PPPs would finance public services for persons otherwise excluded from them.

The success of this approach must depend on a compromise between profit maximisation as the sole investment objective and investment guided by social justice values. Private investors can achieve a capped level of profit on a long-term contract basis, and public partners can obtain long-term contracts for providing public goods. Both would undertake a project with a strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility, with particularly large opportunities in developing Islamic countries.

This paper aims to describe how to teach economics to adult learners, many of whom are women, immigrants and do not hold college degrees, but who feel the effects of mainstream economics — and the brunt of economic policies and the ensuing lack of services that are provided — in their everyday lives.

The article reviews popular education pedagogy and discusses and illustrates these in teaching lay audiences economics. Because they are lower‐educated adult learners, different pedagogy and curriculum are needed, which involve participatory methods that clearly illustrate how different economic policies affect different economic players and how these have and can affect their lives. Many examples of these principles are discussed. Discussing alternative policies is key, and these are also illustrated. Because they discuss alternative policies, this pedagogy naturally encompasses heterodox approaches, which is also illustrated. Impediments to teaching popular economics and how this differs from traditional classroom teaching are also discussed.

When taught in the manner described, adult learners, even those with low levels of education, can learn about any economic issue or concept, including the intricacies of tax policy, the international economy, the recent financial crisis, and complex financial derivatives. With their new knowledge, participants feel empowered to take action in their communities and advocate for economic change.

This paper reflects on popular education pedagogy in applying and discussing issues and problems in teaching lay learners. The paper draws on the author's 20 years of experience in teaching economics to lay learners.

This paper aims to present the implications of discussing the economic concepts relevant to student projects within the international program Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) and to discuss them as a teaching strategy that provides a simple but effective way to break the hegemony of market fundamentalism.

The paper proposes using opportunities provided by the SIFE program to start the teaching of economics from a novel perspective: start with whatever project the students propose to undertake and support the students in examining the relevant economic concepts, strictly following SIFE's own assessment criterion: “Considering the relevant economic, social and environmental factors, which SIFE team most effectively empowered people in need by applying business and economic concepts and an entrepreneurial approach to improve their quality of life and standard of living?”.

Asking which economic concepts are relevant to a particular project that effectively empowers people in need sidesteps the discussion of restrictive assumptions presented as principles of economics. Asking this question facilitates the introduction of those elements of heterodox traditions that are relevant to the projects in question.

The paper investigates implications of a radical shift in perspective to one grounded in a project of interest to students and one focusing on economic concepts that are relevant to the project. This shift allows students and their teachers to break the hegemony of economic principles in so far as the reality of the students' project is already beyond these restrictive assumptions.