Meta-Economic History

T he Eleventh International Economic History Congress, the latest of a series which began in Stockholm in i960, was held in Milan, Italy, from I2 to i6 September I994. As a member of the organizing committee, I acquired a large body of data on the participants, their geographical, age, and sex distributions, and on the papers given. If we accept that the congress provides a good snapshot of the field-there were more than I,ooo economic historians from around the world-this unique database provides a statistical foundation for exploring the state of the discipline. This survey presents and analyses these data to bring out current trends and new developments in economic history, as well as possible future directions, and so has different aims from a traditional congress survey. The congress data show that economic history is dominated by British and North American scholars and that the North American activity is growing; perhaps a result of English being the most common language. This trend may be further confirmed by the fact that the other region with a clearly increased presence was Australasia, although it may also reflect factors such as funding and the selectors' criteria. On the other hand, there was a noticeable decrease in attendance from eastern Europe, presumably because of difficult local circumstances. The period most studied was the modern, especially the nineteenth century, while the most common approach was a blend of economic theory with attention to non-economic factors. Scholars applying economic models and sophisticated quantitative methods, on the other hand, were in the minority. The survey is organized as follows: first, I look at the geographical, age and sex distributions of congress participants. Secondly, I consider the main schools of research that can be seen in the congress programme, and then

Economic history · Economics · Eleventh · Political science · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Economic Theory and Institutions · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Italy: Economic History and Contemporary Issues

• Economic History

  Open Access•Herman Van Der Wee•European Review•2007

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