Handbook of Cliometrics

Claude Diebolt • Michael HaupertEditors

Handbook of Cliometrics

With 59 Figures and 20 Tables

EditorsClaude DieboltBETA/CNRS, University of StrasbourgInstitute for Advanced StudyStrasbourg, France

Michael HaupertUniversity of Wisconsin – La CrosseLa Crosse, WI, USA

ISBN 978-3-642-40405-4 ISBN 978-3-642-40406-1 (eBook)ISBN 978-3-642-40407-8 (print and electronic bundle)DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-40406-1

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An Introduction to the Handbookof Cliometrics

Aims and Scope

The New Economic History (a term proposed by Jonathan Hughes) or Cliometrics

(coined by Stan Reiter), meaning literally the measurement of history, is of veryrecent origin. Its first practitioners are considered to be Alfred Conrad and John

Meyer, who published “Economic Theory, Statistical Inference, and Economic

History” in the Journal of Economic History in 1957 after its presentation earlier

that year at the joint meetings of the Economic History Association and the NBER

Conference on Research in Income and Wealth. They followed that up in 1958 with

a paper demonstrating the cliometric methodology as it applied to slavery in

antebellum America. Robert Fogel’s seminal research work on the impact of the

railroad on American economic growth is in extension a true revolution in the

history of economics, even a complete break with the tradition. It reestablished a

role for history in economics by expressing it in the language of the discipline.

Today, one can even say that it is an expanding domain in economics, contributing

to new debates and challenging conventional wisdom. The use of econometric

techniques and economic theory has contributed to the rejuvenation of economic

history debates, made quantitative arguments unavoidable, and contributed to the

emergence of a new historical awareness among economists.

Cliometrics does not concern economic history in the limited, technical meaning

of the term. It modifies historical research in general. It represents the quantitative

projection of social sciences in the past. The question of knowing whether slavery

benefited the United States before the Civil War or if railways had substantial

effects on the development of the US economy is as important for general history as

for economic history and will necessarily weigh on any interpretation or appraisal

(anthropological, legal, political, sociological, psychological, etc.) of the course of

American history.

Furthermore, cliometrics challenges one of the basic hypotheses of the idealistic

school: that history can never provide scientific proof because it is impossible to

subject unique historical events to experimental analysis. On the contrary, cliomet-

ricians have shown that such experimentation is possible by construction of a

counterfactual that can be used to measure the deviation between what actually

happened and what could have happened under different circumstances.

v

Robert Fogel famously used a counterfactual to measure the impact of the railroad

on American economic growth. This methodological principle is perhaps, along

with historical time series econometrics, the most important contribution of clio-

metrics for researchers in social science in general and historians in particular.

The Methodological Features

Fogel defined the methodological features of cliometrics. He considered it funda-

mental that cliometrics should stress measurement while recognizing the existence

of close links between measurement and theory. Indeed, unless it is accompanied by

statistical and/or econometric processing and systematic quantitative analysis,

measurement is just another form of narrative history. It is true that it replaces

words with figures, but it does not bring in any new factors. In contrast, cliometrics

is innovative when it is used to attempt to model all the explanations of past

economic development. In other words, the main characteristic of cliometrics is

the use of hypotheticodeductive models that call on the closest econometric tech-

niques with the aim of establishing the interaction between variables in a given

situation in mathematical form.

This generally consists of constructing a model – of general or partial equilib-

rium – that represents the various components of the economic evolution in

question and showing the way in which they interact. Correlations and/or causal-

ities can thus be established to measure the relative importance of each over a given

period of time.

The final ingredient of the cliometric approach concerns the concepts of a market

and price. Even in areas where there is no explicit market, the cliometric approach

will often study the subject by analogy with the market concepts of supply, demand,

and price.

So far, hypotheticodeductive models have mainly been used to determine the

effects of innovations, institutions, and industrial processes on growth and eco-

nomic development. As there are no records saying what would have happened if

the innovations in question had not occurred or if the factors involved had not been

present, this can only be found out by drawing up a hypothetical model used for

deducing a hypothesized alternative situation – i.e., the counterfactual. It is true that

the use of propositions contrasting with the facts is not new in itself. Such propo-

sitions are implicitly involved in a whole series of judgments, some economic and

others not.

The use of such counterfactual analysis has not escaped criticism. Many

researchers still believe that the use of hypotheses that cannot be verified generates

quasihistory rather than history proper. Furthermore, the results obtained by the

most elaborate cliometric applications have been less decisive than many cliomet-

ricians had hoped for. Critics are doubtless right to conclude that economic analysis

in itself, with the use of econometric tools, is unable to provide causal explanations

for the process and structure of change and development. There appear to be

nonsystematic breaks in normal economic life (wars, bad harvests, collective

vi An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics

hysteria during market crashes, etc.) that require overall analysis but that are too

frequently considered as extrinsic and abandoned to the benefit of an a priori

formulation of theoretical suppositions.

Nevertheless, in spite of the disappointments resulting from some of its more

extreme demonstrations, cliometrics also has its successes, together with continu-

ous theoretical progress. The risk would obviously be that of allowing economic

theory to neglect a whole body of empirical documentation that can enrich our

knowledge about the reality of economic life. Conversely, theory can help to bring

out certain constants, and only mastery of theory makes it possible to distinguish

between the regular and the irregular and the foreseeable and the unforeseeable.

The Main Achievements

To date, the main achievements of cliometrics have been to slowly but surely

establish, in the Fogel tradition, a solid set of economic analyses of historical

evolution by means of measurement and theory and, following the path blazed by

Douglass North, to recognize the limits of neoclassical theory and bring into

economic models the important role of institutions. Indeed, this latter focus ulti-

mately spawned a new branch of economics altogether, the new institutional

economics. Nothing can now replace rigorous statistical and econometric analysis

based on systematically ordered data. Impressionistic judgments supported by

doubtful figures and fallacious methods and whose inadequacies are padded by

subjective impressions have now lost all credibility. Economic history in particular

should cease to be a “simple” story, illustrating with facts the material life during

different periods, and become a systematic attempt to provide answers to specific

questions. The ambition should be to move from the verstehen, or understanding, tothe erklaren, or explanation epistemology.

By extension, the more the quest for facts is dominated by the conception of the

problems, the more research will address what forms the true function of economic

history in the social sciences. This change of intellectual orientation, of cliometric

reformulation, can thus reach other human and social science disciplines (law,

sociology, political science, geography, etc.) and engender similar changes.

Indeed, the most vigorous new trend in the social sciences is without a doubt the

preoccupation with quantitative and theoretical aspects. It is the feature that best

distinguishes the concepts of the current generation of scholars from its forbears.

Even the most literary of our colleagues is ready to agree to this. There is nothing

surprising about this interest. One of the characteristic features of today’s younger

generation of scholars is most certainly that their intellectual training is much more

deeply marked by science and the scientific spirit than that of the generations that

preceded them. It is, therefore, not surprising that young scientists should have lost

patience with regard to the tentative approach of traditional historiography and have

sought to build their work on foundations that are less “artisanal.”

Human and social sciences are thus becoming much more elaborate in the

technical respect, and it is difficult to believe that a reversal of the trend is likely

An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics vii

to occur. However, it is also clear that a significant proportion of human and social

scientists have not yet accepted the new trends aimed at using more elaborate

methodology and clear concepts conforming to new norms in order to develop, in

a Fogelian tradition, a truly scientific human and social science.

A Branch of History?

For many authors – and many of its protagonists – cliometrics appears to be first of

all a branch of history. Using economic tools, techniques, and theories, it provides

answers to historical, rather than economic, debates per se.

The meaning of the word “empirical” for (American) economic historians has

varied considerably with the passing of time. One can observe a shift from a

concept of empirical fact as understood by the “classical historian” (for whom

anything, as opposed to only quantitative data, retrieved from archives can be used

in his demonstration) to one as understood by (applied) economists (the empirical

aspect consists of analyzing numerical time series) and a convergence of theoretical

viewpoints of historians and economists thanks to a common interest in the building

of theories of development.

Here, Simon Kuznets seems to have played a key role by emphasizing the

importance of performing at the onset a serious macroeconomic analysis of the

major quantitative macrochanges in the past economic history before possibly

identifying certain sectors that are deemed central for economic development.

One should note that even in his concern to combine history with economic

analysis, he thought of a theory of development that remained inductively based

upon the observation of the major past evolution enlightened by the analysis of

long-run time series patiently accumulated by the economic historian.

This (inductive) view is therefore intimately linked with the historical current in

economics, the German Historical School, despite the use of more sophisticated

techniques. It could be said that the two disciplines became closer but probably

within the frame of “inductive” economics. On top of that, despite those early

interests in building a kind of historically (i.e., inductively) grounded development

economics, cliometrics mainly tried to provide answers to historiographical ques-tions – and therefore spoke more to the historian than to the standard economist.

Econometric techniques may be used with the reconstitution of time series and

identification of missing figures by interpolation or extrapolation – something, by

the way, that annoys professional historians. But these cliometric procedures have

nonetheless a historical vocation – that of shedding light on historical questions –

considering economic theory or econometrics as auxiliary disciplines of history.

And when the cliometric approach was mobilized to build a development theory

based upon clearly measured facts, it developed an economics more akin to the

objectives of the German Historical School than one participating in the movement

toward highly abstract and deductive theory that characterized the development of

the neoclassical school of the time.

viii An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics

The conflict between Kuznets and Walt Rostow regarding the stages in eco-

nomic development was actually based upon the empirical foundations of Rostow’stheory and not at all on a debate concerning the shortcomings of a very inductive

and aggregate perspective lacking formal rigor (no use of growth theories) or

microfoundations, which would doubtless be the main subject of criticism today.

In short, either cliometrics is still a (modernized) branch of (economic) history – in

the same way as the modernization of methods in archaeology (from carbon-14

measurement to the use of statistical techniques such as discriminant analysis) does

not turn the discipline into a branch of natural science – or the cliometric approach

is mobilized to obtain theoretical results grounded more on induction from col-

lected time series than from a deductive explicit modeling exercise, i.e., economic

theory that must be primarily founded on facts and a generalization of empirical

evidence. In this way, it contributes to an economic science that is more related to

the German Historical School than to the neoclassical perspective.

An Auxiliary Discipline of Economics?

But this is not the end of the story. Some recent work in cliometrics performed by

economists (stricto sensu) reveals the possibility of a cliometrics that could also be

an auxiliary discipline of economics per se. As such, it should be part of the toolkit

and competencies of all economists. However, as the term auxiliary disciplineindicates, it could only fulfill its proper role for economics if it remains slightly

(not too much) outside the realm of standard neoclassical economics. It must be a

compound of the application of the newest econometric techniques and economic

theory with the old institutional and factual culture characterizing the old economic

history.

History is indeed always a discipline of synthesis. It should also be the case for

cliometrics. If not, if cliometrics were to be deprived of all its “historical dimen-

sions,” it would simply cease to exist (it would only be economics applied to the

past or mere retrospective econometric exercises). To be helpful for the economics

profession at large, its main job should be to mobilize all the relevant information

that can be gathered from history to enrich or even challenge economic theory

(or theories). And this relevant information should also include cultural or institu-

tional development, provided that they can be properly presented as useful for the

profession.

A conventional belief among economists (in fact that of Lord Kelvin) is that

“qualitative is poor quantitative.” But could it not be possible that “quantitative is

poor qualitative” might also sometimes be true? A big difference between econo-

mists and historians is the sense of so-called historical criticism and the desire to

avoid any anachronism. In addition to close examination of the historical sources,

this involves the close examination of the institutional, social, and cultural context

that forms the framework constraining the players’ behavior. It is true that the (new)

economic history will not build a general theory – it shares too strongly the belief in

the necessity of examining economic phenomena in their context – but it could

An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics ix

suggest a few useful ideas and insights, based upon solid investigations and

correctly estimated stylized facts, to economists who are attempting to develop

laws of economic behavior (unlike history, economics is still a nomological sci-

ence). Economists and cliometricians can also cooperate and jointly author

research. This is a view shared by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, James

Robinson, and Oded Galor, among others, trying to use the material derived from

traditional history to build new ideas useful for economic theorists.

In summary, it could be contended that a good cliometric practice is not an easy

exercise. Becoming too narrowly “economic,” it would not be possible for clio-

metrics to answer certain questions that would require, for example, more infor-

mation about the microstructure of financial markets or the actual functioning of

stock exchanges during the period under scrutiny – it would only measure phe-

nomena that it cannot explain. It would require the specific approach (and extrane-

ous information) of the historian to describe the reasons for the lack of relevance

(or understand the shortcoming) of such an economic theory in a given context

(precise place and period). It is perhaps only in this regard that cliometrics can

provide something for economists by suggesting lines of research. However, if it

became too “historical,” cliometrics would cease to appeal to the economics

profession. Economists need new economic historians aware of their debates and

their interests.

A Full-Fledged Field of Economic Theory?

Last, but not least, cliometrics could one day be more than just an ancillary

discipline of economics and instead become a full-fledged field of economic theory.

There is indeed another possibility: viewing cliometrics as the science of the

emergence of institutional and organizational structures, and that of path depen-

dence. Economic history would use the old techniques of the discipline coupled

with the state-of-the-art arsenal of econometrics in order to reveal stylized facts

about the efficiency of various institutional arrangements as well as the causes and

consequences of institutional change. It would help the theorist in developing a true

theory of institutional change, i.e., one that at the same time would be general

(serving the needs of policymakers today, for example) and theoretically solid

(grounded on economic principles) while solidly grounded on empirical regularities

as put forward by a joint economic and historical analysis. This analysis of

institutional morphogenesis would be the true theoretical part of a cliometric

science that would emancipate itself from its apparently purely empirical fate –

being the playing ground of long-run econometricians. It is clear that economists’

desire for generality and their fascination for the mathematical science do not

encourage them to pay too much attention to contextualization. However, neoinsti-

tutionalist economists like North warn us to seriously consider institutional (includ-

ing cultural) contexts.

Our ambition for the Handbook of Cliometrics was thus also aimed at encour-

aging economists to examine more systematically these theories grounded upon

x An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics

history and nevertheless aiming at the determining general laws on the creation of

institutions or of institutional changes. Beyond the study of long-run quantitative

data sets, a branch of cliometrics is more and more focused on the role and

evolution of institutions by aiming at combining the economist’s desire for gener-

ality with the concern for the precise context in which economic players act that

characterizes historians and other social scientists. This middle road between pure

empiricism and disincarnate theory might perhaps open the door to a better eco-

nomic theory. This will enable economists to interpret current economic issues in

the light of the past and, in so doing, understand more deeply the historical working

of economies and societies. This is the path to offering better policy advice for

today.

The Contents

When putting together a handbook such as this one, the most difficult question is

what to include. The possibilities were endless, but the space was limited. Topics

that are not included are not by any means considered to be lacking in importance or

historical significance. We simply had to make difficult choices, and in the end, we

decided that variety over time, topic, and geography would be our goal. The final

selection of chapters represents a sampling of the topics that cliometrics has helped

to transform over the past half century. It ranges from those that have long been at

the center of cliometric analysis, such as Greg Clark’s chapter on the industrial

revolution and Larry Neal’s chapter on financial markets, to chapters on narrower

topics that have been developed largely as a result of the cliometric approach, such

as the age heaping work discussed by Franziska Tollnek and Joerg Baten and

Thomas Rahlf’s contribution on statistical inference. In between, we have included

articles by Peter Temin and Stanley Engerman, who began plying their trade when

cliometrics really was the “new” way of studying economic history, and young

scholars who represent the next generation of cliometicians, like Matt Jaremski and

Emanuele Felice. The common link in the chapters is the focus on the contributions

of cliometrics.

The Handbook of Cliometrics is a milestone in the field of historical economics

and econometric history through its emphasis on the concrete contribution of

cliometrics to our knowledge in economics and history. It is a work of tertiary

literature. As such, it contains digested knowledge in an easily accessible format.

The articles are not original research or review articles but rather an overview of the

contributions of cliometrics to the topic of discussion. The articles stress the

usefulness of cliometrics for economists, historians, and social scientists in general.

The Handbook offers a wide range of topical coverage, with each article providing

an overview of the contributions of cliometrics to a particular topic.

The book is organized into 7 sections, grouping the 22 contributions by general

topic, starting with 2 chapters on the history of economic history and cliometrics.

The first is Michael Haupert’s brief overview of the evolution of economic history,

highlighting the literature in the history of the discipline that begot cliometrics and

An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics xi

shaped its development. Peter Temin also looks at the past to explain the present

state of cliometrics and then goes further, using recent contributions to the literature

to make some predictions about the future of cliometrics as a discipline, highlight-

ing the ways in which economic history and economic development benefit from

their interaction. Both of these articles emphasize the growth of the influence of

cliometrics on the field of economic history.

The second section focuses on human capital, beginning with broad topical

coverage by Claudia Goldin, who focuses on institutions that encourage investment

in human capital. In particular, she looks at two major components of human

capital: education and health. Robert Margo provides an extensive review of

clio’s contributions to historical labor markets, using the United States as his

backdrop. Lee Craig’s essay on standards of living highlights some of the lessons

we have learned from merging cliometrics with the fields of demography, biology,

and nutrition. This is followed by two specific surveys of the role of clio in age

heaping and church book registry. Franziska Tollnek and Joerg Baten show how

age heaping has been used to shed light on topics as diverse as education, gender

gaps, and cross-country differentials in long-run growth. Jacob Weisdorf looks at

how church book registries have been used to look at similar questions.

Section 3 takes the big picture into consideration with five papers on economic

growth. We begin with an essay on growth theories and the contribution of

cliometrics to them by Claude Diebolt and Faustine Perrin, followed by Greg

Clark’s look at the industrial revolution. Clark looks at the change in productivity

growth rates and the impact of institutions and human capital on growth. James

Foreman-Peck surveys the cliometric models used to explain the demographic

transition that led to modern economic growth, and Emanuele Felice discusses

historical estimates of GDP. Finally, Markus Lampe and Paul Sharp look at the

contributions of clio to international trade.

Section 4 focuses on financial markets. Larry Neal enumerates three reasons why

cliometricians study financial markets. These include an increased appreciation for

the role they play in growth and development, the availability of vast data sets, and

improved analytical techniques. John James contributes an essay on payment

systems, noting the similarities between their development and the evolution of

economic institutions. He focuses on the role of cliometrics in building applicable

data sets and analyzing them in novel ways, such as network modeling. Matt

Jaremski provides an exhaustive survey of empirical approaches to the study of

financial panics, while Caroline Fohlin examines the role of financial systems in

economic development.

In Section 5, Jochen Streb and Stanley Engerman and Nathan Rosenberg offer

two takes on the role of clio in our study of the history of innovation. Engerman and

Rosenberg stress that since theoretical models cannot deal with the full complexity

of the process of invention and innovation, some historical study is necessary to

develop a full understanding of these processes. Streb discusses the cliometric

impact on the use of patent statistics to model invention and innovation.

The section on statistics and business cycles has essays by Thomas Rahlf on

statistical inference and Terence Mills on the use of cliometrics to study trends,

xii An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics

cycles, and structural breaks. Rahlf gives a historical overview of the emergence of

concepts of particular interest to cliometricians. Mills looks at the evolution of

methods of calculating trends and growth rates.

Finally, we turn to the role of government. Price Fishback looks at the New Deal

and how its effects on the Depression have been modeled. Jari Eloranta takes a

broader view of the role of government – in scope, time period, and geography –

when he looks at war and the many ways it has been analyzed by economists,

historians, and sociologists, among others.

We enjoyed the process of putting the handbook together. What began as an

innocent query (Why isn’t there a handbook of cliometrics?) grew into a final

project that we are excited to share with you. The process was long and exhausting

but worthwhile. The result is an assemblage of top scholars analyzing the role that

cliometrics has played in the advancement of knowledge across a wide array of

topics.

Shortly before the final touches were put on the handbook, we were deeply

saddened by the sudden and unexpected loss of one of our contributors. John James

was one of the first to finish a chapter, enthusiastically agreeing to our request and

delivering his essay on payment systems a few months later. Sadly, he passed away

on November 28, 2014. For all those who knew John, his enthusiasm, scholarship,

and dedication to the project were predictable. His loss will be felt by all of us. In

his memory, we dedicate this handbook to cliometricians everywhere.

Claude Diebolt

Michael Haupert

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Hist 17:524–544

Conrad A, Meyer J (1958) The economics of slavery in the Ante Bellum South. J Polit Econ

66:95–130

Carlos A (2010) Reflection on reflections: review essay on reflections on the cliometric revolution:

conversations with economic historians. Cliometrica 4:97–111

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Crafts N (1987) Cliometrics, 1971–1986: a survey. J Appl Econ 2:171–192

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xiv An Introduction to the Handbook of Cliometrics

Preface

Welcome to the Handbook of Cliometrics, a part of the Springer Reference Library.In order to foster world-class research, the handbook includes economists and

economic historians of the highest caliber from around the world. It is a milestone

in the field of historical economics and econometric history through its emphasis on

the concrete contribution of cliometrics to our knowledge of economics and history.

Cliometrics dates formally to the joint meeting of the Economic History Asso-

ciation and the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (under the purview

of the NBER) in 1957. The concept of cliometrics, the application of economic

theory and quantitative techniques to the study of history, is somewhat older.

Regardless of its precise origin, this focus on the use of theory and formal modeling

that distinguishes cliometrics from “old” economic history has redefined the disci-

pline and made an indelible mark on economics. The works in this handbook

recognize these contributions and highlight them in a variety of subdisciplines.

The handbook is a work of tertiary literature. As such, it contains digested

knowledge in an easily accessible format. The chapters provide an overview of

the contributions of cliometrics to various subdisciplines in the field of economic

history. Each one stresses the usefulness of cliometrics for economists, historians,

and social scientists in general.

A project of this size and scope does not come to a successful conclusion without

the contributions of many people. We want to thank all those who helped to bring

this idea to fruition and see it through to its conclusion. First and foremost, we thank

our authors, who have produced articles of the highest quality under demanding

deadlines and through numerous drafts. Their time and expertise are what elevates

this handbook to the highest level. We also need to thank the editorial and

production team, who turned this work from concept to final printed and online

product: Martina Bihn, who nourished our idea from the beginning and guided us

through the long process from idea to output, and Karin Bartsch, our primary editor,

who kept us on task and provided copious and valuable advice at every turn. Many

thanks also to Michael Hermann and Nicholas Philipson for their unconditional

support. We would also like to thank the Board of Trustees of the Cliometric

Society, who inspired us to carry on with our initial proposal to create a handbook.

xv

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not thank our spouses, Valerie and Mary

Ellen, who put up with late nights over computers, long days at the office, and our

general demeanor as we stared down deadlines, all while working at their careers

while tolerating our obsession.

January 2015 Claude Diebolt

Michael Haupert

xvi Preface

Contents

Part I History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

History of Cliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Michael Haupert

Economic History and Economic Development: New Economic

History in Retrospect and Prospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Peter Temin

Part II Human Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Human Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Claudia Goldin

Labor Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Robert A. Margo

Nutrition, the Biological Standard of Living, and Cliometrics . . . . . . . 113

Lee A. Craig

Age-Heaping-Based Human Capital Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Franziska Tollnek and Joerg Baten

Church Book Registry: A Cliometric View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Jacob Weisdorf

Part III Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Growth Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Claude Diebolt and Faustine Perrin

The Industrial Revolution: A Cliometric Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Gregory Clark

Economic-Demographic Interactions in Long-Run Growth . . . . . . . . . 237

James Foreman-Peck

xvii

GDP and Convergence in Modern Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Emanuele Felice

Cliometric Approaches to International Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Markus Lampe and Paul Sharp

Part IV Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Financial Markets and Cliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Larry Neal

Payment Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

John A. James

The Cliometric Study of Financial Panics and Crashes . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Matthew Jaremski

Financial Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Caroline Fohlin

Part V Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Innovation in Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Stanley L. Engerman and Nathan Rosenberg

The Cliometric Study of Innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Jochen Streb

Part VI Statistics and Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Statistical Inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Thomas Rahlf

Trends, Cycles, and Structural Breaks in Cliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Terence C. Mills

Part VII Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Cliometrics and the Great Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Price Fishback

Cliometric Approaches to War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Jari Eloranta

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

xviii Contents

About the Editors

Claude Diebolt is a CNRS research professor of eco-

nomics and a fellow of the University of Strasbourg

Institute for Advanced Study. His research focuses on

the cliometrics of growth and economic cycles. He is

the founder, the publication director, and the managing

editor of the journal Cliometrica. He is also the

founding president of the Association Francaise de

Cliometrie, the chairman of the board of trustees of

the Cliometric Society, and the Economic History

Association representative at the International

Economic History Association. Claude Diebolt’s

research has been published in more than 30 books and in around 125 academic

journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Monetary Eco-nomics, the Journal of Macroeconomics, Explorations in Economic History, theEuropean Journal of the History of Economic Thought, etc. His work has been

translated into Chinese, Czech, English, German, and Spanish.

Michael Haupert is Professor of Economics at the

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Executive

Director of the Cliometric Society. His research inter-

ests are the economic history of the sports and enter-

tainment industries and the history of the economic

history discipline. He previously served as the editor

of the newsletter of the Cliometric Society and

currently edits the newsletter of the Economic History

Association, for which he has begun writing a series of

biographies of past presidents of the Association.

He has authored two books on the history of the enter-

tainment industry in America and has published more

than 100 articles in journals such as Cliometrica, The Journal of Economic History,The Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and The Journal of EconomicEducation.

xix

Contributors

Joerg Baten University of Tuebingen and CESifo, Tuebingen, Germany

Gregory Clark University of California, Davis, CA, USA

Lee A. Craig Department of Economics, North Carolina State University,

Raleigh, NC, USA

Claude Diebolt BETA/CNRS, University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced

Study, Strasbourg, France

Jari Eloranta Appalachian State University and University of Jyvaskyla, Boone,

NC, USA

Stanley L. Engerman Department of Economics, University of Rochester,

Rochester, NY, USA

Emanuele Felice Departament d’Economia i d’Historia Economica, Universitat

Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Valles), Barcelona, Spain

Price Fishback Economics Department, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Caroline Fohlin Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA and Emory

University, Atlanta, GA, USA

James Foreman-Peck Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Claudia Goldin Department of Economics, Harvard University and National

Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, USA

Michael Haupert University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, USA

John A. James Department of Economics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville,

VA, USA

Matthew Jaremski Colgate University and NBER, NY, USA

Markus Lampe Universidad Carlos III Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Robert A. Margo Boston University and National Bureau of Economic Research,

Boston, MA, USA

xxi

Terence C. Mills School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University,

Loughborough, UK

Larry Neal Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Faustine Perrin BETA/CNRS, University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced

Study, Strasbourg, France

Thomas Rahlf German Research Foundation, Bonn, Germany

Nathan Rosenberg Department of Economics, Stanford University, Emeritus,

Stanford, CA, USA

Paul Sharp University of Southern Denmark, Odense M, Denmark

Jochen Streb Abteilung Volkswirtschaftslehre, Lehrstuhl f€ur Wirtschafts-

geschichte, Universitat Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

Peter Temin Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Cambridge, MA, USA

Franziska Tollnek University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Jacob Weisdorf University of Southern Denmark and CEPR, Odense M,

Denmark

xxii Contributors