83rd Annual Economic History Association Meeting
September 8-10, 2023
Love and Toil, Care and Work
Doubletree by Hilton Downtown
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Program Overview
NOTE: Program is subject to change!
CLICK HERE FOR FULL PDF PROGRAM
Thursday, September 7, 2023
6:30-8:30pm: Ghost Tour of Pittsburgh
Friday, September 8, 2023
10am-12:30pm: Tours
8am-12pm: EHA Board of Trustees Meeting
10am: Poster Session Setup
10am-12pm: Job Market Workshop
12:45-5:00pm: Poster Session (Sponsored by Brill)
1-2:30pm: Sessions 1-3
2:30-3pm: Coffee Break
3-4:30pm: Sessions 4-6
5-6:30pm: Plenary Session
7-8:30pm: Reception
8-9:30pm: Graduate Student Dinner
Saturday, September 9, 2023
6:45-8am: Historians and Teachers Breakfasts
8:30am-5:15pm: Poster Session (Sponsored by Brill)
8:30-10am: Sessions 7-9
10-10:30am: Coffee Break
10:30-12pm: Sessions 10-12
12-1:30pm: Women’s Lunch
1:30-2:30pm: Business Meeting
2:45-4:45pm: Dissertation Session
4:45pm-5:15pm: Coffee Break
5:15pm-6:30pm: Presidential Address
6:30-7:30pm: Cocktail Reception
7:30-9:30pm: Banquet and Awards
9:45-Midnight: Presidential Reception
Sunday, September 10, 2023
7-8:30am: Full Buffet Breakfast (sponsored by Global Financial Data)
8:30-10am: Sessions 13-14
10-10:30am: Coffee Break
10:30-12pm: Sessions 15-17
Noon: Conference Ends
Detailed Schedule
Thursday, September 7
6:30-8:30pm: Tour 1 – Ghost Tour of Pittsburgh
This is a walking tour which will begin at the Doubletree Hotel. Please meet in the lobby approximately five minutes before the tour begins.
Friday, September 8
9:30am-11:30am: Tour 2 – Best of the Burgh Walking Tour
The tour will begin at 9:30am, so please arrive at the hotel lobby approximately five minutes before the tour begins.
10:00am-12:30pm: Tour 3 – The Strip District Food Tour
Attendees should meet in the lobby of the hotel approximately ten minutes as the bus will leave exactly at 10am. The tour will then be largely a walking tour with a bus to return back to the hotel in time for the beginning of the sessions.
10:00am-12:00pm:
Job Market Workshop
Conveners: Andy Ferrara (University of Pittsburgh) and Amanda Gregg (Middlebury College)
Location: Monongahela
12:45-5:00pm:
Poster Session
Location: Ballroom Foyer
1:00-2:30pm:
Session 1: Women’s Work
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Melissa Thomasson (Miami University)
Joyce Burnette (Wabash College), “Mismeasuring Women’s Work”
Discussant: Brian Beach (Vanderbilt University)
Madison Kurr Arnsbarger (University of Pittsburgh), “The Political Economy of Women’s Suffrage and World War I”
Discussant: Carolyn Moehling (Rutgers University)
John Parman (College of William and Mary), “The Great Migration and the Labor Force Participation of Females”
Discussant: Shari Eli (University of Toronto)
Session 2: European Political Economy
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Jari Eloranta (University of Helsinki)
Julia Zimmerman (Freie Universität Berlin) and Theocharis Grigoriadis (Freie Universität Berlin), “Surveillance and Political Development”
Discussant: Amanda Gregg (Middlebury College)
Erik Hornung (University of Cologne), Stefan Bauernschuster (University of Passau), Matthias Blum (German Medical Association), and Christoph Koenig (University of Romer Tor Vergata), “The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Germany”
Discussant: James Fenske (University of Warwick)
Lukas Rosenberger (Northwestern University) and Sebastian Ottinger (CERGE-EI Prague), “The American Origins of the French Revolution”
Discussant: Mallory Hope (Harvard University)
Session 3: Macro/Finance
Room: Ohio
Chair: Eric Hilt (Wellesley College)
Noah Matthew MacDonald (Emory University) and Caroline Fohlin (Emory University), “Market Efficiency before the SEC: Evidence from the Teapot Dome Scandal”
Discussant: Gabriel Mesevage (King’s College London)
Kris Mitchener (Santa Clara University) and Angela Vossmeyer (Claremont McKenna College), “How do Financial Crises Redistribute Risk?”
Discussant: Eugene White (Rutgers University)
Mark Christopher Van Orden (University of California, Irvine), Vellore Arthi (University of California, Irvine) and Gary Richardson (University of California, Irvine), “Financial Scarring and the Failure of the Freedman’s Savings Ban”
Discussant: Claire Celerier (University of Toronto)
2:30-3:00pm:
Coffee Break
Location: Foyer
3:00-4:30pm:
Session 4: Institutions and Culture
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Claudia Rei (University of Warwick)
Noel Johnson (George Mason University), Alexander Taylor (George Mason University) and Andrew Thomas (George Mason University), “The Impact of the Black Death on the Adoption of the Printing Press”
Discussant: Dan Bogart (University of California, Irvine)
Jared Rubin (Chapman University), Ali Almelhem (The World Bank), Murat Iyigun (University of Colorado, Boulder), and Austin Kennedy (University of Colorado, Boulder), “Enlightenment Ideals and Belief in Science in the Run-up to the Industrial Revolution: A Textual Analysis”
Discussant: Steve Nafziger (Williams College)
Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick), Mark Dincecco (University of Michigan), James Fenske (University of Warwick) and Anil Menon (Cornell University), “Conflict and Gender Norms: Evidence from India”
Discussant: Melanie Xue (London School of Economics)
Session 5: American Political Economy
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Taylor Jaworski (University of Colorado)
Price V. Fishback (University of Arizona) and Valentina Kachanovskaya (University of Arizona), “Changes in the Cross-State Distribution of Federal Funds When the New Deal Emergency Shifted Control from Congress to the Executive”
Discussant: Andrew Goodman-Bacon (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis)
Jingyi Huang (Brandeis University), “Fence Laws: Liability Rules and Agricultural Development”
Discussant: Martin Fiszbein (Boston University)
Andreas Ferrara (University of Pittsburgh), Samuel Bazzi (University of California, San Diego) and Martin Fiszbein (Boston University), “The Confederate Diaspora”
Discussant: Greg Niemesh (Miami University)
Session 6: Health
Room: Ohio
Chair: Eric Schneider (London School of Economics)
Ralf Meisenzahl (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim) and Stefan Gissler (Federal Reserve Board), “Meat, Meal, and Molasses: How Post-Civil War Farm Tenancy Created Food Deserts”
Discussant: James Feigenbaum (Boston University)
Michael McKelligott (University of Chicago), Kerwin Charles (Yale College of Management), D. Mark Anderson (Montana State University), and Daniel Rees (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), “Safeguarding Consumers through Minimum Quality Standards: Milk Inspections and Urban Mortality, 1880-1910”
Discussant: Joe Ferrie (Northwestern University)
Martin Saavedra (Rutgers University) and Paul Brehm (Oberlin College), “Vaccines, Verdicts, and Vitriol: The Effect of Smallpox Court Decisions on Anti-Vaccine Sentiment”
Discussant: Walker Hanlon (Northwestern University)
5:00-6:30pm:
Plenary Session
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
Chair: Jane Humphries (University of Oxford)
Nancy Folbre (PERI, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Levy Economics Institute, Bard College)
Title: “Unpaid But Not Unproductive: The History and Future of Family Work”
7:00-8:30pm:
Reception
Location: Omni William Penn Hotel
8-9:30pm:
Graduate Student Dinner
Location: TBA
Saturday, September 9
6:45-8:00am:
Historians Breakfast
Room: Harrisburg
Speaker: Lara Putnam (University of Pittsburgh)
Teachers Breakfast
Room: Lancaster
Speaker: Gregory Clark (University of California, Davis and University of Southern Denmark)
12:45-5:00pm:
Poster Session
Location: Ballroom Foyer
8:30am-10:00am:
Session 7: Care
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Jane Humphries (London School of Economics)
Anthony Bald (Harvard University), “The Professionalization of Nursing: Causes and Consequences”
Discussant: Melissa Thomasson (Miami University)
Mary Eschelbach Hansen (American University), “Care and Work for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the U.S.: Links between Past Policy and Current Outcomes”
Discussant: Peter Lindert (University of California, Davis)
Meredith McDonough Thornburgh (Princeton University), “Efficiency and Dignity in the Unbundled Home”
Discussant: Joyce Burnette (Wabash College)
Session 8: Premodern Living Standards and Labor Markets
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Leticia Arroyo Abad (Queen’s College, CUNY)
Jordan Matthew Claridge (London School of Economics), Vincent Delabastita (Radboud University) and Spike Gibbs (University of Mannheim), “Wages in the Middle Ages: The Implications of In-kind Payments on Living Standards in Late Medieval England”
Discussant: Anne McCants (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Felix Schaff (European University Institute), “The Unequal Spirit of the Protestant Reformation: Particularism and Wealth Distribution in Early Modern Germany”
Discussant: Noel Johnson (George Mason University)
Davis Kedrosky (Northwestern University), Lukas Leucht (University of California, Berkeley) and Chiara Motta (University of California, Berkeley), “Market Structure and Competition for Indigenous Labor”
Discussant: Ann Carlos (University of Colorado)
Session 9: Urban
Room: Ohio
Chair: Carol Heim (University of Massachusetts)
Allison Shertzer (University of Pittsburgh), Ronan Lyons (Trinity College Dublin), Rowena Gray (University of California, Merced) and David Agorastos (University of Pittsburgh), “The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890-2006”
Discussant: Dan Fetter (Stanford University)
Alexa Prettyman (Towson University), Johnny Huyhn (University of California, Los Angeles), and Martha J. Bailey (University of California, Los Angeles), “Washed Away: Lasting Effects of the Ohio Flood of 1913”
Discussant: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Cory Smith (University of Maryland) and Amrita Kulka (University of Warwick), “Agglomeration Over the Long Run: Evidence from County Seat Wars”
Discussant: Hoyt Bleakley (University of Michigan)
10:00-10:30am:
Coffee Break
Location: Foyer
10:30-am-12:00pm:
SPECIAL NOTE: This year, EHA is experimenting with ‘egg timer’ session. In the following egg timer sessions, individuals are given exactly ten minutes to present their research. Three speakers will present their 10-minute papers in a row, followed by 15 minutes of questions for all speakers, and then this pattern will be repeated to fill the 90-minute session.
Session 10: Egg Timer Session – Innovation, Finance and Urban
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Part A: Innovation/Finance
Dario Romero (NYU Abu Dhabi), “An Empire Lost: Spanish Industry and The Effect of Colonial Markets on Peripheral Innovation”
Alexander J. Field (Santa Clara University), “The U.S. Rubber Famine During World War II”
Rui Esteves (Geneve Graduate Institute) and Coskun Tunçer (University College London), “’Dormant securities’: Imperial guarantees for colonial loans, 1840-1940”
Part B: Urban
Ryo Kambayashi (IER, Hitotsubashi University) and Kentaro Asai (Paris School of Economics), “The Consequences of Hometown Regiment What Happened in Hometown When the Soldiers Never Returned?”
Jeff Chan (Wilfrid Laurier University), “The Local Effects of the First Golden Age of Globalization: Evidence from American Ports, 1870-1900”
Michael Huberman (Université de Montréal), Michael Hoedl (University of Vienna) and Mario Holzner (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies), “There Goes the Neighborhood: The Contrary Example of Social Housing in Red Vienna, 1923-1933”
Session 11: Egg Timer Session – Education, Institutions and Political Economy
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Martin Fiszbein (Boston University)
Part A: Education/Political Economy
Richard Uhrig (Bureau of Labor Statistics), “Low Fees, Large Barriers to Education: Evidence from Rate Bill Abolition in the United States”
James Siodla (Colby College) and Tate Twinam, (College of William & Mary), “Municipal Socialism in the United States, 1900–1940”
Eric Melander (University of Birmingham), “Brexit and the Blitz: Conflict, Collective Memory and Euroscepticism”
Part B: Institutions/Political Economy
Robert Venyige (Corvinus University of Budapest), “The Road from Serfdom: Property Rights and the End of the Feudal Economic System”
Fernando Arteaga (University of Pennsylvania) and E. Andre L’huillier (Harrisburg University), “The Borders of Christendom: Protestant-Catholic Fault Lines in Western Europe”
Session 12: Egg Timer Session – Mortality, Land Reform and Inequality
Room: Ohio
Chair: Allison Shertzer (University of Pittsburgh)
Part A: Mortality/Land Reform
Dana Bazarkulova (Nazarbayev University), Charles M. Becker (Duke University), and Galiya Sagyndykova (Nazarbayev University), “The Long Reach of Catastrophic Policy: Kazakhstan’s Collectivization-Induced Famine, 1931–1933”
Sijie Hu (Renmin University of China) and Runzhuo Zhai (University of Oxford), “Where Were the Missing Girls: Re-Estimating Daughters’ Survival in Chinese Lineages, 1350–1900”
Giampaolo Lecce (University of Groningen), Riccardo Bianchi-Vimercati (Northwestern University), and Matteo Magnaricotte (University of Chicago), “Persistent Specialization and Growth: The Italian Land Reform”
Part B: Inequality
Justin Bucciferro (SUNY Cortland), “Historical Resource Booms and Inequality: Pennsylvania Anthracite Country in the 19th Century”
Maria Stanfors (Lund University), and Martin Dribe (Lund University), “Were All the Good Men Married? Investigating the Marriage Premium in Sweden 1947–67”
Ahmed Rahman (Lehigh University), Darrell Glaser (United States Naval Academy), and Alex McQuoid (United States Naval Academy), “Learning about Personnel Economics from United States Naval History”
12-1:30pm:
Women’s Lunch
Location: Keystone Suite
1:30-2:30pm:
Business Meeting
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
2:45-4:45pm:
Dissertation Session
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
Gerschenkron Prize
The Alexander Gerschenkron Prize is awarded for the best dissertation in the economic history of an area outside of the United States or Canada completed during the preceding year.
Chair and Convener: Patrick Wallis (London School of Economics)
Vincent Delabastita (PhD: KU Leuven, Current: Radboud University)
Drivers of Labor Market Inequalities Throughout Economic History
Vinzent Leon Ostermeyer (PhD and Current: Lund University)
Why Firms Grow: The Roles of Institutions, Trade, and Technology during Swedish Industrialization
Lukas Rosenberger (PhD and Current: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and the Knowledge Economy: Essays in (Macro-)Economic History
Nevins Prize
The Allan Nevins Prize in American Economic History is awarded annually by the Economic History Association on behalf of Columbia University Press for the best dissertation in U.S. or Canadian economic history completed during the previous year.
Chair and Convener: Vellore Arthi (University of California, Irvine)
Hannah Postel (PhD: Princeton University, Current: Stanford University)
Records of Exclusion: Chinese Immigration in Historical Perspective
Lillian Trotter (PhD: Vanderbilt University, Current: Wofford College)
Essays in U.S. Financial History
Lukas Althoff (PhD: Princeton University, Current: Stanford University)
The Modern and Historical Roots of Inequality
4:45pm-5:15pm:
Coffee Break
Location: Foyer
5:15pm-6:30pm:
Presidential Address
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
Convener: Sara Horrell (London School of Economics)
EHA President: Jane Humphries (University of Oxford)
Careworn: Towards an Economic History of Caring Labour
6:30-7:30pm:
Cocktail Reception
Location: Ballroom Foyer
7:30-9:30pm:
Banquet and Awards
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
9:45-Midnight:
President’s Reception
Room: The Vue
Sunday, September 10
7:00-8:30am:
Full Buffet Breakfast (Sponsored by Global Financial Data)
Room: Pennsylvania Ballroom
8:30-10:00am:
Session 13: Slavery
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Carl Kitchens (Florida State University)
Guillaume Daudin (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL), Klas Rönnbäck (University of Gothenburg), Gerhard de Kok (Leiden University), and David Richardson (University of Hull), “The Profitability of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Aggregate Estimates and Explanatory Factors”
Discussant: Warren Whatley (University of Michigan)
Paul Rhode (University of Michigan) and Hoyt Bleakley (University of Michigan), “Was Free Soil Magic Dirt? Endowments versus Institutions”
Discussant: Gary Libecap (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Emiliano Travieso (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), ”A Labour of Freedom: ‘Free Wombs’ and Slave Emancipation in Postcolonial Uruguay”
Discussant: Jonathan Pritchett (Tulane University)
Session 14: Long-Run Growth
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Steve Broadberry (University of Oxford)
Evan Keith Wigton-Jones (Husson University), “Holocene Climate Change and the Origins of Regional Development””
Discussant: Edson Severnini (Carnegie Mellon University)
Dan Bogart (University of California, Irvine), Tim Besley (London School of Economics), Nuno Palma (University of Manchester), and Jonathan Chapman (University of Bologna), “Justices of the Peace: Legal Foundations of the Industrial Revolution”
Discussant: Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University)
David de la Croix (UCLouvain) and Thomas Baudin (IESEG, University of Lille in France), “The Emergence of the Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff—Insights from Early Modern Academics”
Discussant: Ralf Meisenzahl (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)
Session 15: Labor
Room: Ohio
Chair: Simone Wegge (CUNY)
Giuliana Freschi (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), Brian A’Hearn (University of Oxford), and Giacomo Gabbuti (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), “Mobility of the Innocents: Foundlings and Their Descendants in 19th Century-Florence”
Discussant: Gregory Clark (University of Southern Denmark and University of California, Davis)
Joanna Short (Augustana College), “Household Charitable Giving among U.S. Working-Class Families, 1918-1919
Discussant: Sara Horrell (London School of Economics)
Meredith Paker (Grinnell College), “Re-Evaluating British Unemployment between the Wars”
Discussant: George Boyer (Cornell University)
10:00-10:30am:
Coffee Break
Location: Foyer
10:30am-12:00pm:
Session 16: Economic Demography
Room: Monongahela
Chair: Maria Stanfors (Lund University)
Matthew Curtis (ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles), Paula Gobbi (ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles), Marc Goñi (University of Bergen), and Joanne Haddad (ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles), “Inheritance Customs, the European Marriage Pattern and Female Empowerment”
Discussant: Felix Schaff (European University Institute)
Gregory Clark (University of California, Davis and University of Southern Denmark) and Neil Cummins (London School of Economics), “The Myth of Female Hypergamy: Marriage in England, 1837–2021”
Discussant: Laura Salisbury (York University)
Daniela Vidart (University of Connecticut), “Revisiting the Link between Electrification and Fertility: Evidence from the Early 20th Century United States”
Discussant: Joshua Lewis (University of Montreal)
Session 17: Innovation
Room: Allegheny
Chair: Alex Field (Santa Clara University)
Alessandro Nuvolari (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), Marco Martinez (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), and Michelangelo Vasta (University of Siena), “The Impact of Railroads on Innovation: New Evidence from Italy, 1855–1914”
Discussant: Enrico Berkes (University of Maryland Baltimore County)
Davide Maria Coluccia (Northwestern University) and Gaia Dossi (London School of Economics and Political Science), “Return Innovation: Evidence from the British Migration to the United States, 1870–1940”
Discussant: Jose-Antonio Espin-Sanchez (Yale University)
Daniel P. Gross (Duke University) and Bhaven N. Sampat (Columbia University), “America, Jump-Started: World War II R&D and the Takeoff of the U.S. Innovation System”
Discussant: Steve Broadberry (University of Oxford)
Session 18: Education
Room: Ohio
Chair: Bob Margo (Boston University)
Danielle Graves Williamson (Boston University), “Segregation Academies: The Effect of Segregated Private Education on Public School Systems in the Deep South”
Discussant: John Parman (College of William and Mary)
Casper Worm Hansen (University of Copenhagen), Christian Dahl (University of Copenhagen), Martin Karlsson (University of Duisburg-Essen), and Peter Sandholt Jensen (University of Southern Denmark), “Schools and the 1918-Pandemic: Evidence from Half a Million Death Certificates and 1,322 School Closings in Sweden”
Discussant: Melissa Thomasson (Miami University)
Sarah Quincy (Vanderbilt University), and Zachary Bleemer (Princeton University), “College Majors and Economic Mobility over the Twentieth Century”
Discussant: Bob Margo (Boston University)
Conference Ends