Founded in 1989, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) is an international, inter-disciplinary organization with members in over 50 countries on five continents. The academic disciplines represented in SASE include economics, sociology, political science, management, psychology, law, history, and philosophy. The membership of SASE also includes business people and policy makers in government and international organizations.

SASE (Society for Socio Economic Studies) est une organisation académique internationale (des membres dans plus de 50 pays) créée en 1989 pour mobiliser les chercheurs en sciences sociales et des élites politiques et administratives sur l’économie, le capitalisme et ses transformations, l’étude des comportements économiques. L’approche de socio-économie n’analyse pas l’économie en circuit fermé mais au contraire dans ses interactions, enracinements et complémentarité avec le monde social et politique, les institutions, la culture. Interdisciplinaire, l’association regroupe des sociologues de l’économie, des gestionnaires, des political economists, des économistes, des politistes, des anthropologues, des philosophes, des psychologues, des géographes, des historiens, etc, qui proviennent notamment des meilleurs universités américaines, européennes, asiatiques et de plus en plus d’Amérique Latine et d’Afrique. Elle anime la revue de référence du domaine Socio Economic Review, publiée par Oxford University Press.

The purpose of SASE is

• to advance the understanding of economic behavior across a broad range of academic disciplines;
• to support the intellectual exploration of economic behavior and its policy implications within the context of societal, institutional, historical, philosophical, psychological, and ethical factors; and
• to balance inductive and deductive approaches to the study of economic behavior at both micro and macro levels of analysis.

For all questions concerning SASE including the annual meetings contact Martha Zuber (Executive Director):

As an emerging meta-discipline, socio-economics begins with the assumption that economics is not a self-contained system, but is embedded in society, polity, and culture. Socio-economics regards competition as a subsystem encapsulated within a societal context that contains values, power relations, and social networks. The societal context both enables and constrains competition. Socio-economics assumes that interests are not necessarily or automatically complementary and harmonious, and that societal sources of order are necessary for markets to function efficiently.

Socio-economics further assumes that individual choices are shaped by values, emotions, social bonds, and moral judgments rather than by narrow self-interest. There is no a priori assumption that people act rationally or that they only pursue self-interest or pleasure.

Methodologically, socio-economics regards inductive studies as co-equal in standing with deductive ones. For example, a study of how firms actually behave has the same basic merit as treating the firm as an analytic concept in a mathematical model. Inductive inputs and deductive derivations are assumed to correct and thus balance each other. Socio-economics is both a positive and a normative science. That is, it openly recognizes its policy relevance and seeks to be self-aware of its normative implications rather than maintain the mantle of an exclusively positive science.

SASE has little interest in criticizing neoclassical economics per se, and seeks to develop alternative approaches that are predictive, exemplary, and morally sound. Socio-economics does not entail a commitment to any one ideological position, but is open to a range of positions that share a view of treating economic behavior as involving the whole person and all facets of society.

SASE is now organized by research networks. The network organizers are responsible for putting together sessions and panels for the annual meetings. More about the Research Networks can be found on the Research Networks Page.

The By-Laws of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) are here...

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