Economic history

This article is about the academic field. For historical events, see Economic history of the world. For changes in economic ideas, see History of economic thought.
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Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods, and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions. The topic includes business history, financial history and overlaps with areas of social history such as demographic history and labor history. Quantitative (econometric) economic history is also referred to as Cliometrics.[1]

Development as a separate field

Treating economic history as a discrete academic discipline has been a contentious issue for many years. Academics at the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge had numerous disputes over the separation of economics and economic history in the interwar era. Cambridge economists believed that pure economics involved a component of economic history and that the two were inseparably entangled. Those at the LSE believed that economic history warranted its own courses, research agenda and academic chair separated from mainstream economics.

In the initial period of the subject's development, the LSE position of separating economic history from economics won out. Many universities in the UK developed independent programmes in economic history rooted in the LSE model. Indeed, the Economic History Society had its inauguration at LSE in 1926 and the University of Cambridge eventually established its own economic history programme. However, the past twenty years have witnessed the widespread closure of these separate programmes in the UK and the integration of the discipline into either history or economics departments. Only the LSE and the University of Glasgow retain separate economic history departments and stand-alone undergraduate and graduate programmes in economic history. The LSE, Glasgow and the University of Oxford together train the vast majority of economic historians coming through the British higher education system.

In the US, economic history has for a long time been regarded as a form of applied economics. As a consequence, there are no specialist economic history graduate programs at any mainstream university anywhere in the country. Instead economic history is taught as a special field component of regular economics PhD programs in some places, including at University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, Northwestern University and Yale University.

In recent decades economic historians, following Douglass North, have tended to move away from narrowly quantitative studies toward institutional, social, and cultural history affecting the evolution of economies.[2][a 1] However, this trend has been criticized, most forcefully by Francesco Boldizzoni, as a form of economic imperialism "extending the neoclassical explanatory model to the realm of social relations."[3] Conversely, economists in other specializations have started to write on topics concerning economic history.[a 2]

History of capitalism

Main article: History of capitalism

Since 2000 the new field of "History of Capitalism" has appeared, with courses in history departments. It includes topics such as insurance, banking and regulation, the political dimension, and the impact on the middle classes, the poor and women and minorities.[4]

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Relationship between economics and economic history

Have a very healthy respect for the study of economic history, because that's the raw material out of which any of your conjectures or testings will come.

- Paul Samuelson (2009)[5]

Yale University economist Irving Fisher wrote in 1933 on the relationship between economics and economic history in his "Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions" (Econometrica, Vol. 1, No. 4: 337–338): 'The study of dis-equilibrium may proceed in either of two ways. We may take as our unit for study an actual historical case of great dis-equilibrium, such as, say, the panic of 1873; or we may take as our unit for study any constituent tendency, such as, say, deflation, and discover its general laws, relations to, and combinations with, other tendencies. The former study revolves around events, or facts; the latter, around tendencies. The former is primarily economic history; the latter is primarily economic science. Both sorts of studies are proper and important. Each helps the other. The panic of 1873 can only be understood in light of the various tendencies involved—deflation and other; and deflation can only be understood in the light of various historical manifestations—1873 and other."

There is a school of thought among economic historians that splits economic history—the study of how economic phenomena evolved in the past—from historical economics—testing the generality of economic theory using historical episodes. US economic historian Charles P. Kindleberger explained this position in his 1990 book Historical Economics: Art or Science?.[6] One of the professional societies for economic historians in Europe is also called the European Historical Economics Society to reflect this emphasis.

The new economic history, also known as cliometrics, refers to the systematic use of economic theory and/or econometric techniques to the study of economic history. The term cliometrics was originally coined by Jonathan R. T. Hughes and Stanley Reiter in 1960 and refers to Clio, who was the muse of history and heroic poetry in Greek mythology. Cliometricians argue their approach is necessary because the application of theory is crucial in writing solid economic history, while historians generally oppose this view warning against the risk of generating anachronisms. Early cliometrics was a type of counterfactual history. However, counterfactualism is no longer its distinctive feature. Some have argued that cliometrics had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s and that it is now neglected by economists and historians.[7]

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Nobel Prize winning economic historians

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Notable economic historians

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See also

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Notes

  1. ^ For example:
       • Gregory Clark (2006), A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Description, contents, ch. 1 link, and Google preview.
       • E. Aerts and H. Van der Wee, 2002. "Economic History," International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences pp. 4102-410. Abstract.
  2. ^ For example: Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff (2009), This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton. Description, ch. 1 ("Varieties of Crises and their Dates," pp. 3-20), and chapter-preview links.
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References

  1. ^ Robert Whaples (2008). "Cliometrics" in S. Durlauf and L. Blume, eds. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd ed. Abstract.
  2. ^ Douglass C. North (1965). "The State of Economic History," American Economic Review, 55(1/2), pp. 86-91.
    • _____ (1994)."Economic Performance through Time," American Economic Review, 84(3), p p. 359-368. Also published as Nobel Prize Lecture.
  3. ^ Francesco Boldizzoni (2011), The Poverty of Clio: Resurrecting Economic History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 18 [1]
  4. ^ See Jennifer Schuessler "In History Departments, It’s Up With Capitalism" New York Times April 6, 2013
  5. ^ Clarke, Conor (June 18, 2009). "An Interview With Paul Samuelson, Part Two". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 26, 2011. 
  6. ^ Charles P. Kindleberger (1990), Historical Economics: Art or Science?, University of California Press, Berkeley
  7. ^ Robert Whaples, "Is Economic History a Neglected Field of Study?", Historically Speaking (April 2010) v. 11 #2 pp 17–20, with responses pp 20–27
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Bibliography

  • Baten, Jörg and Julia Muschallik "On the Status and the Future of Economic History in the World", Economic History of Developing Regions 27 (2012), pp. 93–113. Older Version: MPRA Paper 34704
  • Barker, T.C. "The Beginnings of the Economic History Society", Economic History Review Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1977), pp. 1–19 in JSTOR
  • Boldizzoni, Francesco. The Poverty of Clio: Resurrecting Economic History (Princeton University Press; 2011) 216 pages; Attacks how rational-choice theory has been used; proposes renewing the field using Continental traditions.
  • Cameron, Rondo and Larry Neal (2003, 4th ed.) A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present, 480 pp., Oxford. Description and Table of Contents,
  • Dora Costa, Jean-Luc Demeulemeester, and Claude Diebolt (2007). "What is ‘Cliometrica’?" Cliometrica, 1(1) pp. 1–6 (press +).
  • Crafts, N.F.R. (1987). "Economic history", The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 37–42.
  • Field, Alexander J. (2008). "Economic history", The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Abstract.
  • Gras, N. S. B. "The Rise and Development of Economic History", Economic History Review Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 1927), pp. 12–34 in JSTOR
  • Mokyr, Joel, ed. (2003), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 5 vols. Description.
  • Roy, Tirthankar. "Economic History and Modern India: Redefining the Link", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 16#3 August 2002, pp. 109–130
  • Whaples, Robert. "Is Economic History a Neglected Field of Study?", Historically Speaking (April 2010) v. 11#2 pp. 17–20, with responses pp. 20–27
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External links

Journals

Professional societies

Historical statistics

Recent and forthcoming economic history conferences

Economic History Services

Current nations/regions
Former industrialized economies
Historical economies
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Last modified on 17 May 2013, at 21:25