The 9th SOUND Economic History Workshop

The 9th SOUND Economic History Workshop (21^st-22^nd May) is now over but has been an inspiring workshop with a wide range of interesting presentations. The workshop, which has been organized by Alfred Reckendrees and Jacob Weisdorf, took place in the modern facilities of Copenhagen Business School surrounded by the lovely parks and neighborhoods of central Copenhagen.

 

The organizers, Alfred Reckendrees and Jacob Weisdorf

Kevin O’Rourke (All Souls College, University of Oxford) has initiated the workshop with his Wednesday keynote lecture named ‘Coal, colonies and the industrial revolution’ which addresses two largely debated topics of economic history, the role of coal and foreign trade during the industrial revolution. Kevin’s presentation provided an extensive discussion of the current debate on the role of coal in industrial development followed by quantitative evidence which showed a significant impact of coal location on urbanization in Europe. In the second part of his lecture, Kevin then focused on the British continent and the role of foreign trade during the 19^th century industrialization. After the debate following Kevin’s speech, the participants could enjoy a nice lunch and walk in the nearby facilities of Copenhagen Business School.

Kevin O'Rourke

The afternoon session offered then a wide range of topics from economic history. Hana Nielsen (Lund University) built on Kevin’s lecture and presented a country-specific study on the role of coal during the Czech industrialization by drawing on spatial analysis of coal and steam data. Åsa Malmström Rognes (Uppsala University) presented one of articles from her upcoming PhD dissertation focusing on family business groups in South-East Asia. In her presentation, Åsa discussed in more detail the role of capital markets for family business groups and how the Asian crisis changed them. Ursula Hård (Stockholm University) also presented a chapter from her coming PhD thesis which analyses the formal and informal institutional possibilities and obstacles that women business owners and entrepreneurs in rural communities face when they through investment in businesses within locally produced foods.

Åsa Malmström Rognes

After a coffee break, Jacob Weisdorf (South Danish University, Odense) presented results of his co-authored working paper (Jane Humphries, University of Oxford) with long-run series of wages of women in England (1260-1850) with a particular focus on the consequences of the Black Death on women’s wages and its implications for the formation of the European Marriage Pattern regime. Last presentation of the first day went then to Eric Bengtsson (University of Gothenburg) in which Eric has provided some comparative analysis of the distribution of income between capital and labor in Denmark and Norway stretching back to 1830 up until now. Following this inspirational day, the participants have then gathered together for an official conference dinner which took place in a close vicinity of Copenhagen Business School.

The second and last day of the SOUND workshop was again initiated by an interesting lecture of keynote speaker, this time Marc Flandreau from the University of Geneva. Marc then gave an inspirational lecture on the rise of rating agencies in the US and provided also with a comparative perspective on the differences between the US and UK in particular. Thor Berger, another speaker from the Lund University, presented results of his joint working paper (with Kerstin Enflo, Lund University) on another classical topic of economic history – the impact of railroads on the regional growth. In the paper, the authors analyze and provide quantitative evidence on the short- and long-run impacts of railroad on city-growth in Sweden for the past 150 years. 

Karol Jan Borowiecki

Karol Jan Borowiecki (South Danish University, Odense) presented his paper on the well-being and creativity of three famous composers and provided quantitative evidence on the existence of a causal impact of negative emotions on the composers’ creativity.

Again, after a refreshing lunch at Copenhagen Business School, the participants gathered for the last session of the SOUND workshop which started with a presentation by Alfred Reckendrees (Copenhagen Business School). In his presentation, Alfred addressed the proposals of industrialist from the district of Aachen to introduce mandatory pension system and minimum wages in a search to prevent future labor conflicts.  

Hana Nielsen

Kerstin Enflo (Lund University) presented a paper on business cycles in the Nordic countries (1834-1945), a joint work together with Mathias Morys (University of York) where the authors utilize new data sets in the frameworks of the Dynamic Factor Model to construct indices for four Scandinavian countries. Last speaker from Uppsala University, Henric Häggvist, closed up the session with an extraction from his PhD research which analyses development in trade tariffs in Sweden. In his presentation, Henric offered a comparative analysis of trade tariffs in the period of 1780-1830 for Sweden and Denmark.

At the very end of the workshop, Alfred Reckendrees discussed some issues concerning the journal publishing, in particularly focusing on the ‘do’s and don’t’ of academic writing, which was very helpful for many of the workshop participants. The workshop was then officially concluded. 

This blog post was written by Hana Nielsen, PhD student at Lund University

The content and pre-requisites for the ideal economic history course

A homage to my teachers in the distant past

James Foreman-Peck is Professor of
Economics at Cardiff University .
He was the president of EHES 1999-2001

The most exciting course I have ever followed was Peter Lindert and Keith Trace’s final year undergraduate ‘Topics in Economic History’ (I am not certain now that this was the title). It still seems to me to have set out an agenda for many of the themes that are most worthwhile in economic history. Motivated by inspirational teaching, we began by getting our teeth into whether there was a fourteenth century Malthusian crisis and romped through time from there, touching on Hicks’ Theory of Economic History.  We savoured the origins of sixteenth century inflation and surged onwards towards the then present day, with the triggers for the West German post war miracle and Japanese super growth in the nineteen sixties. You could not get more contemporary than this last because the course was taught at the end of the sixties! Apart from the Japanese, and the US (surely the Great Depression as seen by Friedman and Schwartz?) case studies, most of the subject matter was European.

How could such a course be developed if there were suitable customers available today? With almost another half century of economic history behind us since this epochal pedagogic event there must be a wide range of candidate case studies. European de-colonisation is perhaps one. The Russian and/or East European transition is certainly ripe for the mature reflections of members of the European Historical Economics Society and therefore for lively undergraduate study.

Globalisation and shifting centres of economic power have changed Europe’s position in the world. Europe in the last half century is much more likely to be an ‘effect’ than a ‘cause’ – as with OPEC and the oil crises of the 1970s or through the competitive effects of the economic rise of post Mao China.  But the origins and consequences of the European common currency will surely provide many insights for the whole world.
A drawback of such a course on the supply side is that it is unlikely to appeal to the specialised academic country expert. It is much more suitable for an ‘ ideas’ teacher, who in adjacent disciplines with the appropriate technique perhaps might be sought among economists. But would they be found? At the time I was being delighted by the Trace and Lindert course I suspected most of these economics practitioners of being analogous to the glass bead game players of Thomas Mann’s eponymous novel. Either that or they were simply fascinated with ‘intellectual rigour’, which smelled of Freud’s Theory of Money. From these economists’ point of view to teach such a course they would need to find out about history, but this was professionally unnecessary because they could deduce it (and the present) from first principles.

If this is still the case (assuming it was ever) then there may be a gap on the supply side for such a course, always supposing that there is a demand. For the economic history entrepreneur the task is to create such a demand, as well.

Blog post written by: James Foreman-Peck, Professor of Economics at Cardiff University where he does not teach economic history.

Announcement: European Summer School in Economic History

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS 

Humboldt University, Berlin, 1-5 September 2014

The topic of this year’s summer school is Catching up or falling behind? Institutions, geography and economic development of Eastern Europe in the long-run.

Comparative economic development is a dominant topic on the global research agenda and economic history has made important contributions to the debate over the drivers of long-run growth. Why some countries or regions are rich while others are poor is a question that has inspired both economists and historians for a long time. Institutions, geography and resource endowments have all been attributed important roles in the literature explaining diverging trends in the global economy over the last two centuries.

Eastern Europe was heavily affected by the grand transformations of modern history. Old empires had fallen and new ones emerged, and in the twentieth century independent nation states were formed. Not only were the borders in Europe’s eastern periphery redrawn multiple times; formal institutions, the modes and structures of production have been transformed dramatically. Yet, Eastern European economists paid little attention to long-run development, and thus New Economic History that applies social science theory and quantitative analytical tools to studying the past could not make strong inroads into Eastern European scholarship. 

The Summer School, sponsored by the European Historical Economics Society, Humboldt University and the London School of Economics, is dedicated to reversing this trend by bringing together young scholars from different parts of Europe whose research focuses on the economic history of Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) or on comparative development across different European regions.

For more information about how to apply, see the following link:

http://www.ehes.org/EHES_Summer_School_Berlin.pdf

EREH new editor: Joan Rosés

Joan Rosés is professor in Economic
History at London School of Economics and
new editor of the EREH

We continue to present the new editors of the European Review of Economic History with an interview with Joan Rosés:

How did you get interested in Economic history?

My interest in History began relatively earlier, during the last years of the primary school. Later, when I was about 16 years old, I discovered economics by chance. I was enthusiastic about two TV series: "Free to Choose" of Milton Friedman and “The Age of Uncertainty” of John Kenneth Galbraith. During my bachelor in History, my favorite subject was, indeed, economic history. Then, it was obvious for me to try to pursue an academic career in the discipline.

Could you describe your carrier briefly?

I finished my bachelor in History and Geography in 1990 at the University of Barcelona. Then, I spent four years as assistant in the Department of Economics at Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, while I studied a two-year master in Economic History at University of Barcelona. In 1995-96, I moved to the European University Institute, in Florence, where I finished my dissertation in 1998. My supervisor was Jaime Reis. In the same 1998, I published my first article at EREH. After a short stage at UC Berkeley, I came back to Spain and get a post at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid. I was at Carlos III for about 15 years (until September 2013). Since then, I’m professor of Economic History at LSE. From mid-1990s, I published many articles in all major economic history journals. My research interest covers many topics but now I’m most interested in historical economic geography. Typically, I work with a myriad of co-authors and I’m engaged in several projects at the same time.

In general, what do you look for in a submission and why?

It is difficult to say because each submission is special and unique. Broadly speaking, a good submission in economic history should contain good ideas and substantial evidence. Economic history is an applied discipline and we need historical evidence to sustain our arguments. However, we cannot write economic history in isolation. We should know what other disciplines (particularly Economics and History) have already said about our research topic. We cannot accept ahistorical articles or research which ignores the basics of economics or statistics.      

How would you describe the perfect EREH article?

This is certainly a harsh question and I haven’t the definitive answer. From the point of view of the Review, the perfect article is an article that gets many citations. Unfortunately, editors cannot predict ex-ante the amount of citations of any article. Then, the perfect article is an article that combines an original contribution with good scholarship.  Typically, these articles open new avenues for research.

What important changes do you see happening in Economic History research right now? How do you think this will influence future contributions in the journal? 

It seems that the Cliometric Revolution has been firmly established in the profession. Also, in the last five years, a new generation of economists seems increasingly interested in the field and economic history is expanding in many economics departments. Obviously, this opens a new window of opportunity for the profession but also represents a new challenge for us. We need to make the discipline more interdisciplinary and relevant. I expect that the field will interact, even more, with other fields particularly Development Economics and Economic Geography.

If you ask me for the hot topics over the next years I expect to receive more submissions in Historical Economic Geography, inequality and financial-monetary history (particularly articles about crises and failed/successful monetary experiments). Another area which should expand rapidly is economic history of developing countries. We need urgently more research in Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean countries.  

EREH new editor: Dan Bogart

The European Review of Economic History will soon have two new editors – Dan Bogart (UC-Irvine) and Joan Rosés (LSE). They will work together with Nikoulas Wolf (Univ. Humboldt) who will remain in office. We managed to get quick interviews both with Dan Bogart and Joan Rosés. First one out is Dan Bogart:

 

Dan Bogart is Associate Professor in Economic History
at UC-Irvine and new editor of the EREH.

How did you get interested in Economic history?

As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, I read two books that peaked my interest in economic history. The first was Robert Fogel's Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History, and the second was Doug North's Structure and Change in Economic History. I thought Fogel's methodology of counter-factual history was very innovative and gave a shocking answer to a big question. I wanted to imitate Fogel's work. North's books was inspiring in that it provided a perspective on the long-run and stimulated my thinking on the role of the state. I have been grappling with this issue ever since. 

As new editor of the EREH, what role will you play in the journal?

My role as editor is three-fold. The first and most important is to ensure that the best papers get published. My second role is to encourage high quality submissions to EREH. Third, is to promote research in economic history more generally.

In general, what do you look for in a submission and how would you describe the perfect EREH article?

In my view the best papers tell us something new about economic history and are well executed. Novelty is important because the field of economic history needs to continually advance. Good execution is also important as we would like the results of published papers to be regarded as credible or believable long into the future.  I should add that in terms of methodology, I don't believe there is any 'right' approach to economic history. I am regularly surprised by new and informative approaches to research. 

What important changes do you see happening in Economic History research right now? How do you think this will influence future contributions in the journal?

For the last decade, there has been a trend in economic history towards greater theoretical rigor and improved identification in econometrics.  I see this trend as continuing for the foreseeable future. However, I would hope that scholars don't focus exclusively on identification when choosing their research questions.  Economic history has always focused on the big questions, like the sources of the Great Divergence, even if a precise answer cannot be given with current data or techniques. There will always be room in the field for more exploratory research. 

Announcement: Call for papers Esbjerg FRESH Meeting

Topic: Ancient Economy and Early Economic Developments

Date: October 1-2, 2014

Hosting Institution: Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg

Keynote Speakers: Erwin Bulte, Wageningen UR; Carl Hampus Lyttkens, Lund University

Local Organizer: Brooks Kaiser

FRESH Organizers: Rowena Gray, Paul Sharp and Martin Uebele

For this meeting we particularly encourage papers on all aspects of ancient economy and early economic developments, but submissions from scholars working in other areas may be considered. 

 Prospective speakers should submit a one-page abstract and a short CV via the link on the FRESH website by May 31.

Notification of acceptance will be given by July 1.

For more information about FRESH meetings, please visit the FRESH website at http://www.sdu.dk/en/ivoe/fresh

please see also the EHES website

http://www.ehes.org

and the HEDG website

http://www.sdu.dk/en/ivoe/hedg

Economic Liberty in the Long Run: Evidence from OECD Countries

 Leandro Prados de la Escosura is professor in

Economic history at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

How has freedom evolved over time? A distinction has been made between ‘negative’ freedom, defined as lack of interference or coercion by others (freedom from), and ‘positive’ freedom, that is, the guarantee of access to markets that allow people to control their own existence (freedom to) (Berlin, 1958). An example of negative freedom is economic liberty. A country will be economically free in so far privately owned property is securely protected, contracts enforced, prices stable, barriers to trade small, and resources mainly allocated through the market (Friedman, 1962).

Empirical research on economic liberty has been restricted to the last decades (de Haan et al., 2006). The resulting indices of economic freedom exhibit wide spatial coverage but their time dimension is limited and, in the most comprehensive measure of economic liberty, the Fraser Institute’s index, only goes back to 1970 (Gwartney et al., 2013). The lack of a long-run perspective reduces the value of its lessons and policy implications, with the risk of identifying what it is specific to the recent past, with empirical regularities that apply across space and time.

A new Historical Index of Economic Liberty (HIEL) provides a long-run view of economic freedom and its main dimensions for today’s advanced nations, more specifically, those included in the OECD prior to its enlargement since 1994 (Prados de la Escosura, 2014).


Given the bounded nature of any index of economic freedom, the use of its percentage change or rate of growth would be misleading as increases achieved at low levels cannot be matched at high levels. It is preferable, then, to look at the absolute shortfall of economic freedom from its upper bound at the initial point and, then, compute its relative decline over a given period. Thus, the improvement is measured as the proportion of the maximum possible (that is, the reduction in its shortfall).

The Historical index of Economic Liberty, HIEL.
(click on image to enlarge)

Economic liberty is higher nowadays in the OECD than at any time over the last one and a half centuries and, probably, in history. Over 1850-2007, the shortfall declined by nearly three-fourths. However, its evolution has been far from linear. Different phases can be established. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War I steady advancement of economic liberty took place across the board, peaking in 1913, although it is up to early 1880s when most of the action happened. Over three-fourths of the overall progress in economic liberty in the OECD up to 2007 had been achieved before World War I.

During the first half of the twentieth century economic freedom suffered a severe reversal. After a dramatic decline during the war and its aftermath, the recovery was fast and peaked by 1929, but at the level of the late 1890s. The Great Depression pushed down economic freedom again and the post-Depression recovery did not imply a rebound of economic liberty so, by the eve of World War II, it had shrunk to the level of the early 1850s.

Economic freedom expanded in the second half of the twentieth century and peaked by 2007. However, in between two expansionary phases: a quick recovery in the 1950s and a post-1980 expansion, economic freedom came to a halt, stabilising during the 1960s around the late 1920s level, and declining in the early 1970s. From the early 1980s to the eve of the current recession, a sustained expansion took place, overcoming the 1913 peak after 1989 and reducing the early 1980s shortfall to half by the mid-2000s. In the last two decades the highest levels of economic freedom have been reached.

Improvements to economic liberty, by dimension and period.
(click on image to enlarge)

Over time improvements in economic liberty derived from different dimensions. Thus, between 1850 and 1914, the improvement in property rights made the main contribution. Then, during the first half of the twentieth century, it was the collapse of freedom to trade internationally the main responsible for the contraction in economic liberty.  Since the mid-20th century, specifically in the 1950s and the post-1980 era, the liberalization of trade and factor flows was the leading force, accounting for more than half of the reduction in the economic freedom shortfall over 1950-2007. During the 1960s and 1970s, increases in regulation and unsound monetary policies offset the gains in freedom to trade and improvements in property rights. Overall, improvements in the legal structure and property rights emerge as the main force behind long-term gains in economic liberty during the last one and a half centuries.

The trends exhibited by the new historical index of economic liberty raise pressing questions. If economic freedom is usually associated to economic growth, how can we reconcile good economic performance in the OECD during the 1960s and early 1970s with stagnant and relatively low levels of economic freedom? Furthermore, are there any trade-offs between economic liberty, as a negative freedom, and other kinds of positive freedom, in particular, human development and democracy? Answering these questions provides an exciting and worth pursuing research agenda.

This blog post was written by:

LeandroPrados de la Escosura (Universidad Carlos III, LSE, CEPR)

The results can also be found in a new working paper by the EHES, no 54

Stating the obvious? Co-authorship and scientific contribution

One particularly controversial issue in recent case of  the Abilitazioni Scientifiche Nazionali in economic history in Italy has been the decision of not considering co-authored publications that did not include an explicit statement in which it was indicated the individual contribution of each author to the different sections of the paper. 

Below, we publish  two letters of editors of the leading journals in the field of Economic History and in the field of History of Economic Though that provide an important clarification concerning the editorial policies of these journals concerning co-authored papers. 

Stating the obvious? Apparently, sometimes it is necessary.

Durham, April 7th, 2014

Professor Paola Pierucci

Presidente di Commissione

Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – settore 13/C1

pieruccip@yahoo.it

cc: dottor Simona Corvaja

Responsabile del procedimento

Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – settore 13/C1

scorvaja@unime.it

cc: dottor Gianluca Cerracchio

MIUR – Direzione Generale Ufficio I

MIUR-DGUS@miur.it

cc: Ministero per l’Istruzione, l’Università e la Ricerca – MIUR

Direzione Generale per l’Università

direzione.universita@miur.it

Re: National Scientific Qualification (ASN – Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) – Economic History/History of Economic Thought/Economic Methodology

Dear professor Pierucci, Dear dottor Corvaja and dottor Cerracchio,

We have been informed by our Italian colleagues that the ASN Commission is developing criteria that will govern academic promotion in Italy. As we understand it, the ASN rules (DM 76/2012, art.4, sec. 2, letter B) state that the Commission must check for “the individual contribution in the case of co-authored works.” We, the undersigned editors of the principal international journals in the history of economic thought and economic methodology, believe that we can contribute important information to the ASN committee for the history of economic thought and economic methodology regarding the nature of the international practices for our specific discipline. In conjunction with our editorial boards and the community of scholars who aid in reviewing scientific articles, we largely determine which papers are published in the peer-reviewed journals in our field. 

Co-authorship of articles in the wider economics discipline is increasingly more common, so that, in many subfields of economics, it is the rule, not the exception. Co-authored articles do not yet dominate the history of economic thought and economic methodology, although they are very frequently encountered. The nature of scholarly collaboration in our field does not typically admit of any neat division of the total credit for a scholarly article into the individual contributions of its co-authors. As a result, we do not encourage – much less require – authors to report their individual contributions in the published versions of their articles. 

Our presumption is that the co-authors are each equally responsible for the final product, except in those rare cases in which the co-authors volunteer to apportion the credit in some other way. We also adhere to the common practice in several fields – though we know some other fields may follow a different one – in which co-authors are listed alphabetically, with no implication that the order of listing conveys any information about the importance of an individual co-author’s contribution. Exceptions to this rule are rare and, again, at the discretion of the co-authors themselves. The increasing prevalence of scholarly collaboration and co-authorship represents a vital element in scientific progress in many fields. We hope that the ASN committee for the history of economics/history of economic thought/economic methodology will not adopt rules that in any way discourage such collaboration by penalizing co-authors who fail to apportion their individual scholarly contributions within published articles. It would be particularly invidious to discount those articles completely in assessing the fitness of scholars for promotion. Much of the best work is co-authored; apportionment of scholarly effort into distinct shares is often impossible; and none of the major journals in our field require, nor even encourage nor welcome, such apportionment.

Yours sincerely,

John B. Davis (Marquette University and University of Amsterdam; Co-editor Journal of Economic Methodology)

Riccardo Faucci (University of Pisa; Co-editor, HEI – History of Economic Ideas)

Luca Fiorito (University of Palermo; Co-editor, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology)

Nicola Giocoli (University of Pisa; Co-editor, HEI – History of Economic Ideas)

D. Wade Hands (University of Puget Sound; Co-editor Journal of Economic Methodology)

Kevin D. Hoover (Duke University; Editor, History of Political Economy)

Roberto Marchionatti (University of Turin; Co-editor, HEI – History of Economic Ideas)

Stephen Meardon (Bowdoin College; Editor, Journal of the History of Economic Thought)

Richard Sturn (Institute of Public Economics and Schumpeter Centre, Graz University; Managing Editor, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought)

April 14th, 2014

Professor Paola Pierucci

Presidente di Commissione

Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – settore 13/C1

pieruccip@yahoo.it

cc: dottor Simona Corvaja

Responsabile del procedimento

Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – settore 13/C1

scorvaja@unime.it

cc: dottor Gianluca Cerracchio

MIUR – Direzione Generale Ufficio I MIUR-DGUS@miur.it

cc: Ministero per l’Istruzione, l’Università e la Ricerca – MIUR Direzione Generale per l’Università

direzione.universita@miur.it

Re: National Scientific Qualification (ASN – Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) – Economic History

Dear Professor Pierucci, dottor Corvaja and dottor Cerracchio,

We understand that the recent rules on the Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale state that in co-authored works the Selection Commission must check for “the individual contribution in the case of co-authored works.”

Following the letter of the editors of the history of economic thought and economic methodology journals JEM, HEI, HOPE, JHET, EJHET we would like to state that, in the field of economic history, the international journals we edit operate a similar editorial policy to that expressed in their letter. 

In our journals the majority of articles are co-authored. We rarely publish statements that delineate the specific contribution of each author to the different sections of the paper. The norm is for authors simply to be listed alphabetically, unless there is some desire by the authors to assign more credit to one of their number. Alphabetical listing implies that the authors all made contributions of equivalent value.

We operate with such a convention because, unlike in some fields of physical science, papers in economic history still typically have small numbers of co-authors, and it is the norm to only list as authors people who have contributed substantially, and in broadly equal measure, to the writing of the paper, the research design, and the data collection.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Broadberry, LSE, London. Co-Editor, Economic History Review.

Gregory Clark, University of California, Davis. Co-Editor, European Review of Economic History.

William Collins, Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Co-Editor, Explorations in Economic History. 

Claude Diebolt, Université de Strasbourg. Editor, Cliometrica. 

Şevket Pamuk, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul. Co-Editor, European Review of Economic History.

Paul Rhode, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Co-Editor, Journal of Economic History.

Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Caltech, Pasadena. Co-Editor, Journal of Economic History.

Hans-Joachim Voth, University of Zurich. Co-Editor, Explorations in Economic History.

Nikolaus Wolf, Humboldt University, Berlin. Co-Editor, European Review of Economic History.

Announcement: FRESH incorporated into EHES

The Frontier Research in Economic and Social History (FRESH) organizers are pleased to announce that at the recent European Historical Economics Society (EHES) trustees meeting on March 29, 2014 it was decided to incorporate FRESH within the EHES. FRESH will continue to be supported by and administered from the University of Southern Denmark and the Historical Economics and Development Group (HEDG), but we believe that becoming an initiative of the EHES gives us the solid academic backing we need to continue promoting economic history and the FRESH workshop format around the world. Moreover, the EHES has generously offered to fund each FRESH meeting, so that we can offer some limited financial support to junior scholars who wish to attend, enabling even more to benefit from the high international standards of our workshops.

For more information about FRESH meetings, please visit the FRESH website at http://www.sdu.dk/en/ivoe/fresh

Would you like to organize a FRESH meeting?

FRESH meetings have no permanent venue but take place at any institution around the world where there is an interest in having the FRESH meeting. Hosting institutions will be asked to provide a venue, including electronic equipment, and lunch and dinner for the meeting participants (usually 10-15). If you would like to organize a FRESH meeting at your institution, please contact the meeting organizers (contact details on the FRESH website: www.sdu.dk/en/ivoe/fresh).

Would you like to keep updated on FRESH activities?

There are two ways to sign up for updates on our activities. You can either ‘like’ FRESH on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/freshmeetings), or you can subscribe to eh.news at eh.net.

From the FRESH organizers: Rowena Gray, Paul Sharp and Martin Uebele

About Italian Economic history: A reply

A reply from the Boards of the Italian Associations of Economic History (SISE) and the History of Economic Thought (AISPE)

To: Profs. Robert C. Allen, Stephen Broadberry, Gregory Clark, Nicholas Crafts, Jane Humphries, Deirdre McCloskey, Joel Mokyr, Douglass North, Kevin O’Rourke, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Jan Luiten Van Zanden, and Jeffrey G. Williamson

April 7, 2014
Re: Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale 2012, Storia Economica (13 C/1)

Dear Colleagues,
As members of the Boards of the Italian Associations of Economic History (SISE) and the History of Economic Thought (AISPE), it was with surprise and dismay that we read the letter you sent to the Prime Minister and other Italian authorities regarding the results of the qualifying examination for the certification of professor of Economic History. 
It is not for us to dispute the choices made by the Commission responsible for the certification procedure, the minutes of which are available online for consultation and which we assume you read carefully prior to sending the letter. Your observations presume that the evaluation criteria adopted were arbitrary and inadequate. However, it must be remembered that Italian university professors are employed by the State and that the selection procedure is regulated by specific Government regulations which, while they may seem anachronistic, must be adhered to. 
Moreover, as representatives of Italian academics of Economic History and the History of Economic Thought, whose reputation has been compromised by your intervention, we feel it is our duty to clarify some points. The summary judgement which you pronounced is based exclusively on the criteria of international visibility as an indicator of the quality of an academic. While this is certainly an important factor, it is not the only one to be taken into consideration when evaluating a researcher. 
Economic Historians in Italy have widely discussed the scientific statute of the discipline and the methods for evaluating research and agree on the fact that only the careful, critical reading of a book, paper or article can allow us to express a valid judgement, in other words “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. It is well-known that the widespread use of bibliometric criteria is a more immediate application tool, but it is also true that these methodologies are subject to severe criticism. The fact that most of our scientific production is in Italian obviously makes an international comparison difficult, but this does not give the right to make superficial judgements on a historiographic tradition such as the Italian one which has contributed to the general progress of Economic History and the History of Economic Thought not only with publications in Italian but also in French, Spanish, German and English.

We are in no doubt that your letter was based on a misunderstanding and that collaboration and mutual respect between Economic Historians in Italy and colleagues in other countries will continue to be fruitful.

Yours sincerely,

Franco M. Amatori, Università Bocconi – Milano
Francesco Asso, Università di Palermo
Massimo Augello, Presidente Associazione Italiana Storici del Pensiero Economico e Rettore
dell’Università di Pisa
Carlo Marco Belfanti, Università di Brescia
Giuseppe Di Taranto, Università LUISS – Roma
Antonio Di Vittorio, Presidente della Società Italiana degli Storici Economici e Professore Emerito
Università di Bari
Paolo Frascani, Università di Napoli L’Orientale
Andrea Leonardi, Università di Trento
Luca Michelini, Università di Pisa
Giampiero Nigro, Università di Firenze
Giovanni Pavanelli, Università di Torino
Rosario Patalano, Università di Napoli Federico II
Mario Taccolini, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Brescia
Carlo M. Travaglini, Università di Roma Tre
Gianfranco Tusset, Università di Padova