Abstract
There has been no progress in the modest interest in economic history in the top five economics journals since the 1970s. This is despite an apparent newfound enthusiasm for the field among economists. This chapter explains this contradiction by highlighting the differences between research in economic history and economics that exploits historical data. In so doing, the author defines what, in his view, constitutes good economic history research.
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Notes
- 1.
A related exercise carried out by Ran Abramitzky (2015) for the “top three” economics journals finds an increase in economic history representation over time. Abramitzky’s result appear to be driven by contributions to just one journal: The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Taken together with my own results, this suggests that while the total quantity of economic history appearing in top general interest journals has remained constant over time, there has been a shift in interest between the editors of these top journals.
- 2.
These examples would include the World Top Income Database, the Global Price and Income History Group, the Maddison Project, the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database and the Measuring Worth Project.
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Geloso, V.J. (2018). Economics, Economic History and Historical Data. In: Blum, M., Colvin, C. (eds) An Economist’s Guide to Economic History. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96568-0_3
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