Now seems like a good time to take a break from writing for EC, and write a bit about EC.
In the past few years (since I started submitting, at least) EC has been competitive, not necessarily in terms of the acceptance rate, rather in terms of the quality of accepted papers. On the theory side, many people now prefer EC over SODA as an outlet for papers on algorithmic economics (or whatever you want to call it). I know several theory people who even like EC better than STOC/FOCS, although these are admittedly outliers (for the time being). Some of the top AI people in the algorithmic economics community publish some of their best work in EC. Enough said; EC rocks.
Strangely enough though, there is a large gap between the general high regard for EC within the EC community and its almost complete anonymity outside the community. I even had discussions with people who actively work on algorithmic economics but were unaware that EC is considered a great conference, or that it is not strictly about electronic commerce. In many ways, EC is the flagship conference of the algorithmic economics community, but it is often not recognized as such outside the community.
Which brings me to my favorite topic of late: renaming stuff. EC is a young conference and its fame will grow, but I do think the conference’s name plays an important role in its own misperception. Although electronic commerce is still an important part of EC, since 1999 the conference has evolved and it now includes (but is not limited to) all of the work at the intersection of economics and computation. Hmm, how would one call a conference on Economics and Computation? EC! There are actually precedents for changing the name of a conference while keeping the same acronym. For example, AAAI used to be the American Association for AI, and is now the Association for the Advancement of AI.
Rumor has it that the alternative interpretation of EC was discussed recently by the powers that be, but (obviously) was not adopted. Reportedly one concern was that “economics and computation” is not general enough. Be that as it may, the fact that economics and computation has the same acronym as electronic commerce is too cool an opportunity to pass up on and, seriously, such a change may do a great deal to correct some of the misperceptions of EC.
Turing's Invisible Hand 
Thank you for bringing this up! Couldn’t agree more. As far as new names, “Economics and Computation” certainly seems to have a lot going for it. The critique that it is not “general enough” is defensible. However, it certainly seems more general, and more representative, than the current name.
second up, nice idea!
Great topic for the blog! I strongly support the suggested change. I have been thinking about the same issue too, and Electronic Commerce really feels like a bit of a misnomer. What’s more, I have been thinking about the exact same change of name, partly influenced by David Parkes’ recent course at Harvard! Not changing the acronym seems important for the conference’s recognition.
“Economics and Computation” is quite broad and has an overlap with “Electronic Commerce”, but naturally, neither contains the other. The relevant factor here is that the former represents the current scope of published papers much, much better than the latter.
What about ACA: Another Conference on Algorithms
Ah, the name question. I agree even though it should be superficial, it’s important to get right. Here’s more discussion on the topic:
http://blog.oddhead.com/2010/03/19/cs-econ-news/
https://agtb.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/cs-%E2%88%A9-econ-algorithmic-economics/
The main objection to “Economics and Computation” is that is seems to rule out a number of application-oriented topics: security, privacy, ratings, recommendations, reputation, user interfaces, etc.
A related proposal is to split the conference into two tracks or two conferences, one called “Economics and Computation” and the other called “Electronic Commerce”.
The current organizers of EC’12 went a step in that direction by creating three different SPC groupings: (1) theory, (2) AI, and (3) Experimental and Applications
http://www.sigecom.org/ec12/callforpapers.html
Finding a name for the field that we can all agree on is also a worthy goal (I just use your “algorithmic economics”), but it’s somewhat distinct from the name of the conference, which is constrained by the existing choice of acronym.
The steps for optimizing the choice of name for EC are arguably:
1. Consider names that can plausibly be abbreviated as EC.
2. Among the options that satisfy 1, optimize for representation of the work that is being published in EC.
If you agree that 1 should be a priority then it’s hard to imagine that “economics and computation” is not the optimal solution.
In my opinion, all that this objection says about “Economics and Computation” is that it is not simultaneously optimal for all members of the EC community. I think we can all agree that no name will be simultaneously optimal for everybody, and therefore the goal should be a “better” name rather than a perfect name. In other words, unless a majority of the community prefers “Electronic Commerce” to “Economics and Computation”, inaction (i.e. not changing the name) is a dominated strategy.
It would line up well with our new ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation… 😉
+1 for renaming EC!
Taking the etymology of “Economics” we see that economics actually means “rules of the house”.
Under this (broad) interpretation, even papers on incentives, reputation, security, and recommendations would be covered by the “Economics and Computation” name. In fact, the economists that are in the “Information Systems” area in business schools study such topics extensively, and nobody questions whether they are studying economics or not. Economists, like physicists tend to be imperialistic in what the term “economics” covers: if we have a system, rules, incentives, and interaction, it is economics 🙂
And if there are systems, rules, incentives, and interaction, all or some done through a computer, and waiting to be designed and analyzed it is computer science, I would add 🙂
The “Economics and Computation” seems pretty broad and quite applicable, imho.
Well said!
+1
Agreed, this would be a great name change.
+1 for re-naming EC.
+1 for “Economics and Computation”. This has been suggested again and again. I remember for example in 2008 business meeting. How do we make it happen?
“Economics and Computation” is a good idea for the conference name, given that we want to stick with the same acronym (and we all do).
The natural candidate for the field name seems to be “Computational Economics”. This has been previously suggested by (but not only) Vince, David Pennock, and Noam, though as noted in previous blog posts, some people are currently using the term in a slightly different context which includes (god forbid) simulations.
If we’re serious about being more inclusive, data-driven work should be included in our definition of the field, and we should feel comfortable calling ourselves Computational Economists.
Another option is to transition into this name, as Computational Biologists have. We can start with something like “Econinformatics”, hate it, and move to “Computational Economics” a few years later.
+1 for “Economics and Computation” for the conference! The field is a more loaded question, for many of the reasons mentioned…
+1 for “Economics and Computation”.
Panos, I think you’re starting to convince me. Still, the people in those fields may not think of your broad definition of economics.
Vahab, to make it happen petition the current ACM SIGecom leaders, David Parkes, Tim Roughgarden, and Yiling Chen.
+1 for “Economics and Computation”.
Epic Conference