Rome FRESH Meeting 2026

On 28 and 29 September 2026, the Department of Economics and Finance at the  University of Rome Tor Vergata will host a FRESH meeting on Transport, Infrastructure, and Long-Run Development: Historical Evidence.

The program is available here.

The purpose is to create the opportunity for graduate students and early-stage researchers to present and discuss their work in an environment especially focused on
constructive feedback and support. The keynote speaker for this meeting will be James
Fenske, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick.

Meeting Overview

Economic historians have long studied transport and infrastructure as drivers of longrun development, while the frontiers of data, measurement, and causal identification in
this field continue to expand. This workshop brings together recent, yet unpublished
research at the intersection of economic history and quantitative methods, covering
new data sources, the simulation of historical transport costs, and the link between
infrastructure and outcomes beyond trade. Papers on any period or region are eligible.
The meeting includes the presentation of approximately 10 papers. Accepted papers
will receive 45 minutes each (30 minutes for presentation and 15 for discussion). Lunch
on both days and dinner on the 28th will be provided by the local hosts; invited speakers
should cover travel and accommodation themselves and are strongly encouraged to
arrive on September 27th.

This meeting is organized by Roberto Chimento, Carlo Ciccarelli, and Enzo
Pozza, in association with the Frontier Research in Economic and Social History
series (FRESH) (FRESH organizer: Anna Missiaia). For more information about FRESH meetings, please see https:
//ehes.org/fresh-meetings/. This meeting is made possible thanks to funding
made available by DEF Tor Vergata and the European Historical Economics Society
(EHES).