American Economic Association

The American Economic Association, or AEA, is the oldest and most important professional organization in the field of economics. It was established in 1885 by religious and social reformer Richard T. Ely and others who had been trained in Germany under Gustav Schmoller and other members of the "younger" German Historical School, as an association of "economists who repudiate laissez-faire as a scientific doctrine." The constitution of the AEA still contains references to the "positive role of the church, the state and science in the solution of social problems by the 'development of legislative policy.'" Its current president is Thomas J. Sargent of New York University.
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