eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors
The latest volume in the series Research of Economic History contains articles on the economic history of Europe and the U.S.
This collection represents a modest attempt to chart a new course for the intellectual discipline known as economic history. (The book is not about productivity growth in the 1990s, lest the title give rise to any confusion.) As a group, these essays suggest new and potentially fruitful areas or approaches for research and at the same time address weaknesses in past efforts. One important audience will be graduate students attempting to decide whether to write a dissertation in economic history, or trying to select or refine dissertation topics in the area, and determine how to approach them. Some of the essays will most certainly be appropriate additions to the or semester courses in economic history that remain a fixture in quarter graduate economics training programs. A second audience should be established scholars who are now or have in the past done research in economic history and are interested in the perspectives of a relatively younger group of scholars. The term "younger" is used here advisedly to describe a group of scholars born between 1943 and 1954. Nevertheless, the authors of these essays can on at least one dimension be distinguished from the pathbreaking new economic his torians who established their academic reputations in the early 1960s. Indeed, the contributors to this volume include students of such pioneers as Richard Easterlin, Albert Fishlow, William Parker, and Jeffrey Williamson.
Research in Economic History is a well-established publication presenting influential work by leading researchers in the field of economic history, including economists, historians, and demographers.
Amongst other European and US focussed topics, this volume addresses: the macroeconomic aggregates for England, 1209-2004; capital accumulation in Spain, 1850-2000; British Estate Acts, 1600 to 1830. It also discusses historical trends in food consumption in the United States.
The study of economic phenomena over time is a well-established and flourishing area of research and study, and this new four-volume collection in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Economics, meets the need for an authoritative, up-to-date, and comprehensive reference work synthesizing the voluminous literature from twentieth-century economic historians. Indeed, the sheer scale of the research outputâe"and the breadth of the fieldâe"makes this collection especially welcome. It answers the need for a comprehensive collection of classic and contemporary contributions to facilitate ready access to the most influential and important scholarship from a wide range of theoretical and practical perspectives. The collection is organized into ten principal parts. Part 1 explores theory and methodology and the role of economic history as either an alternative to mainstream economics, or as a âe~help disciplineâe(tm). Part 2 gathers the key research on growth in economic history. The third and fourth parts cover the causes and social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, while Part 5 brings together the best and most influential work on the feudal and early modern economy. Part 6 deals with free trade, mercantilism, and imperialism. Part 7 focuses on the Great Depression, while Part 8 collects research on world economic history and the slave economy. The final part collects a fascinating miscellany of crucial issues, including taxation and gender. Twentieth-Century Economic History is edited by Lars Magnusson, a leading scholar in the field. The collection is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the material in its intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource.
Combining theoretical work with careful historical description and analysis of new data sources, History Matters makes a strong case for a more historical approach to economics, both by argument and by example. Seventeen original essays, written by distinguished economists and economic historians, use economic theory and historical cases to explore how and why "history matters." The chapters, which range in subject matter from the economic theory of irreversible investment to the nineteenth-century decline in U.S. rural fertility to the English poor law reform, are unified by three themes. The first explores the significance, causes, and consequences of path dependence in the evolution of technology and institutions. The second relates to the ways in which economic and political behavior are profoundly shaped and constrained by the cultural and political context inherited from history at a particular point in time. The final theme demonstrates the importance of integrating economic theory into historical research in the gathering and interpretation of data.
‘Big data’ is now readily available to economic historians, thanks to the digitisation of primary sources, collaborative research linking different data sets, and the publication of databases on the internet. Key economic indicators, such as the consumer price index, can be tracked over long periods, and qualitative information, such as land use, can be converted to a quantitative form. In order to fully exploit these innovations it is necessary to use sophisticated statistical techniques to reveal the patterns hidden in datasets, and this book shows how this can be done. A distinguished group of economic historians have teamed up with younger researchers to pilot the application of new techniques to ‘big data’. Topics addressed in this volume include prices and the standard of living, money supply, credit markets, land values and land use, transport, technological innovation, and business networks. The research spans the medieval, early modern and modern periods. Research methods include simultaneous equation systems, stochastic trends and discrete choice modelling. This book is essential reading for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in business, economic and social history. The case studies will also appeal to historical geographers and applied econometricians.
The essays in this book use the analytical tools and theoretical framework of economics to interpret quantitative historical evidence, offering new ways to approach historical issues and suggesting entirely new types of evidence outside conventional archives. Rosenbloom has gathered together seven essays from leading quantitative economic historians, illustrating the breadth of scope and continued importance of quantitative economic history. All of the chapters explore in one way or another the economic and social transformations associated with the emergence of an industrial and post-industrial economy, with most focusing on the transformations of the US economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the technological innovations that factored into this transformation and the relationship between industrialization and rising wealth inequality.
