Fertility and early-life mortality. Evidence from smallpox vaccination in Sweden What is the causal effect of early-life mortality on fertility? Recent research by Philipp Ager, Casper W. Hansen and Peter S. Jensen sheds new light on this question by testing how the introduction of vaccination in Sweden at the end of 1801 affected early life […]
New EHES Working Paper
The Danish Agricultural Revolution in an Energy Perspective: A Case of Development with Few Domestic Energy Sources Is a lack of domestic energy resources necessarily a limiting factor to growth, as suggested for example by the work of Robert C. Allen? A new EHES Working Paper argues that this does not have to be the […]
Understanding the Economic Development of Eastern Europe
The WEast Economic History Workshop titled “Understanding the Economic Development of Eastern Europe” took place in Belgrade on the 5th and 6th July. The Belgrade WEast Workshop was organised by Jacob Weisdorf, Mikolaj Malinowski, Matthias Morys, Stefan Nikolić and the Belgrade Banking Academy. The purpose of WEast Workshops is to foster knowledge transfer and collaboration between economic […]
New EHES Working paper
Breaking the Unbreakable Union: Nationalism, Trade Disintegration and the Soviet Economic Collapse Why did the Soviet economy collapse so quickly in the late 1980s and early 1990s? A new EHES Working Paper argues that the reason can partly be found in the reemergence of nationalism to the territorial fringes of the Union. Leaders from Ukraine, […]
Gender in Economic History
Scandinavian Economic History Review launches a Gender in Economic History Virtual Special Issue Gender’ is a central category in political and social debates on equal rights and opportunities as well as on inequality, and in broader cultural discussions. It seems widely underused and too narrowly used in economic history where the major focus is still […]
The Kent FRESH meeting
Dinner at Café du Soleil, Canterbury The Kent FRESH meeting took place on June 5, 2014 at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. The day started with a fascinating keynote lecture given byPatrick Wallis from the LSE on the subject of apprenticeship in early modern England. He was followed by nine excellent presentations, and […]
New EHES Working paper:
Just Add Milk: A Productivity Analysis of the Revolutionary Changes in Nineteenth Century Danish Dairying “Cows on Saltholm” (Theodor Philippsen, 1892), Danish National Gallery What is it that makes agricultural producers more productive? In this paper, Markus Lampe and Paul Sharp examine the Danish agricultural revolution, a period when first large and then small farmers caught up quickly with […]
The 9th SOUND Economic History Workshop
The 9th SOUND Economic History Workshop (21st-22nd 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]