Economic History
Economic history studies the economic past — long-run growth, the development of markets and institutions, and major transformations such as the Industrial Revolution — using economic theory and quantitative methods.
Scope
JEL category N covers the economic history of growth, markets, money and finance, labour, and institutions across regions and eras, including the cliometric (quantitative) analysis of historical data.
Sub-topics
- General
- Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics • Industrial Structure • Growth • Fluctuations
- Financial Markets and Institutions
- Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
- Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
- Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries
- Manufacturing and Construction
- Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services
- Micro-Business History
- Regional and Urban History
Core questions
- How and why did sustained economic growth begin?
- How did markets and economic institutions develop?
- What caused major transformations like the Industrial Revolution?
- How did institutions shape long-run performance?
- What can history teach about present-day economies?
Key concepts
- Cliometrics
- Institutions and property rights
- Path dependence
- The Industrial Revolution
- Long-run growth
- Transaction costs
- Economic transitions
Key theories
- Institutions and long-run growth
- North and Thomas, and later North alone, argued that institutions — especially secure property rights and low transaction costs — are the fundamental drivers of long-run economic performance.
- Cliometrics
- Fogel and Engerman exemplified the quantitative ('cliometric') revolution, applying economic theory and statistics to historical questions, sometimes controversially.
History
Economic history was transformed in the 1960s-70s by cliometrics (Fogel, Engerman, North), which applied formal economics and quantitative methods to the past. North's institutional economic history reoriented the field toward institutions and long-run development, and the 'Great Divergence' debate and historical data projects define its current frontier.
Debates
- Why did the West grow rich first?
- Institutional, geographic, cultural, and colonial-exploitation explanations of the 'Great Divergence' are actively debated.
- How far can economics quantify the past?
- Cliometrics' counterfactual and quantitative methods (e.g., Time on the Cross) provoked debate over evidence and interpretation.
Key figures
- Douglass North
- Robert Fogel
- Stanley Engerman
- Robert Paul Thomas
Related topics
Seminal works
- north-thomas-1973
- fogel-engerman-1974
- north-1990
Frequently asked questions
- What is cliometrics?
- The application of economic theory and quantitative methods to history — 'the new economic history'.
- Why do economists study history?
- Long-run historical variation provides evidence on growth, institutions, and policy that short modern data series cannot, and clarifies how present economies came to be.