This workshop aimed to gather together a broad range of scholars in order to address issues relating to the intersection of economics and semiotics. Our purpose was to open up a new space for reflection on economics and the economy through the use of tools and concepts developed in semiotics. Lately there has been a rekindling of interest in the way semiotics relate to economics and, more precisely, in discovering the way economics and semiotics share common concepts or means in order to interpret social and cultural activity. This workshop aimed to investigate how a dialogue between semiotics and economics is capable of throwing new light into a better understanding of today’s changing world.

More specifically, despite the fact that economists use empirical evidence in the form of numerical data to answer theory and policy questions, what most economists do not customarily reflect on is the fact that they pre-impose interpretation patterns and broad conceptual frameworks to form policy or theory related questions at the very start of any policy or research process. Semiotics is the study of signs within which processes of interpretation play key-roles in coding and decoding meanings. In both fields, interpretation as a social process is a central element that leads to recognised theoretical results, estimates, and conclusions. From economic concepts to semiotic value(s), everything in our world can be regarded as a sign capable of meaning, through the process of interpretation. How, then, do we proceed from semantics to pragmatics, from theory to practise and vice versa? What is the nature of the relation between interpretation, results and reality? How can we define the hermeneutics of economic discourse and the economy behind semiotic interpretations both in our abstractions and in practice? The application of the semiotics approach to the economics discourse is vital in helping us unpack the various meanings of loaded terms in common use in economics.

The workshop was organised around key concepts that have special weight both in semiotics and in economics, these are: value – discourse – narrative – sign – framework. The workshop focused on an effort to understand what we mean with these and related concepts. It also aimed to start a broad discussion not only on how terms/constructs are used in the economics discourse, but also on the performative relationship between discourse and reality. The sessions intended to use this discussion as a foundation for a tentative understanding of the nature of the economy – and the type of ontological statements that well-grounded economic analysis may develop. This allowed participants to speculate on future avenues of research that build on a dialogic relationship between economics and semiotics, and therefore attempt to re-orient the way discourse construction is performed in economics.