Mag. Mag. Dr. Verena Halsmayer
Mag. Mag. Dr. Verena Halsmayer
Universitätsring 1
1010 Wien
Room: O2.125
u:find - Information about
Teaching and Exams, Consultation hours, Assignments and Affiliations
Member of the Key Research Area History of Science
Curriculum Vitae
Studies of history and economics, University of Vienna (stays abroad: Universitat Autónoma
Barcelona, Københavns Universitet).
2016 PhD in history as part of the program “The sciences in philosophical, historical, and
cultural contexts,” University of Vienna (dissertation: Modeling, Measuring, and Designing
Economic Growth: The Neoclassical Growth Model as a Historical Artifact, 1930s–1960s.)
Several research fellowships, for instance at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and
Social Sciences (London School of Economics), the Center for the History of Political
Economy (Duke University), and the Chair of Global Economic History (University of
Konstanz).
2016 –2024 senior research scholar and lecturer (Oberassistentin) at the Chair for Science
Studies, University of Lucerne; 2020 – 2022 research abroad with a postdoc.mobility funding
by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Since October 2024 University Assistant (postdoc) at the Department of History, University of
Vienna.
Research
Verena Halsmayer’s research concerns the history of economic knowledge and the history of
economics.
For a number of years, she has studied mathematical models as the central means of the
fabrication and circulation of economic knowledge. In particular, she is interested in the
relationships between modeling and narrating, between making ‘the economic’ visible and
manageable, and between models’ active potential and the kinds of questions they exclude.
All of this depends on the concrete situations in which models—supposedly very efficient
tools for both depicting economic phenomena and providing knowledge for intervention—are
built, used, extended, reduced, and dismissed. Publications on the topic include her book,
Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact (Cambridge University Press
2024).
Her current research deals with the ideas and practices of democratic planning in government,
companies, and alternative settings in the 1970s and 1980s.
More recently, she started working on household accounts and the related procedures of
notation and inscription.
Wider research and teaching interests
- history of economic knowledge
- the history of modeling and measuring in the social sciences
- historical and political epistemologies
- theories and practices of planning in the long 20th century
- tools and procedures of administering, managing, and organizing
- everyday economic reasoning
Publications
In: Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 36, No. 3, 09.2013, p. 245-259.
Publications: Contribution to journal › Article › Peer Reviewed
Kulturen des Ökonomischen. Historisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge . ed. / Franz X. Eder; Oliver Kühschelm; Brigitta Schmidt-Lauber; Philipp Ther; Claudia Theune. Wien, 2013. p. 71–97 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie der Universität Wien).
Publications: Contribution to book › Chapter
Wirtschaftswissenschaft als Oikodizee? Diskussionen im Anschluss an Joseph Vogls Gespenst des Kapitals. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2012. p. 27-52.
Publications: Contribution to book › Chapter
In: Frauensolidarität, Vol. 117, No. 3, 2011, p. 28–29.
Publications: Other contribution to periodical › Newspaper/Magazine article
Umverteilung im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Studie des Österreichischen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit, Soziales und Konsumentenschutz. ed. / Alois Guger. 2009. (Sozialpolitische Studienreihe).
Publications: Contribution to book › Chapter