The EHA recognizes excellence in research, publication, and teaching of economic history by awarding several annual and biennial prizes at the President’s Awards Banquet during the annual meetings. Each fall the Announcements page on this web site and the EHA newsletter include Calls for Nominations and submission information.

Dissertation Awards

Dissertations chosen for presentation at the annual meetings are finalists for these annual awards.

Allan Nevins Prize for the Best Dissertation in U.S. or Canadian Economic History

2021 Winner: Brian Marein, University of Toronto for his dissertation “The Economic Development of Puerto Rico after United States Annexation”, completed at University of Colorado.

2020 Winner: Sarah Quincy, Vanderbilt University, for the Best Dissertation in U.S. or Canadian Economic History, for her dissertation “Back to Good Times: The Real Effects of Credit in Great-Depression California, completed at University of California, Davis. (This prize is awarded on behalf of Columbia University Press.)

2019 Winner: Ellora Derenoncourt, Princeton University, for the Best Dissertation in U.S. or Canadian Economic History, for her dissertation “Long-run determinants of US racial inequality: Evidence from the Great Migration and the FLSA”, completed at Harvard University. Advisors: Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin (This prize is awarded on behalf of Columbia University Press.)

2018 Winner: Gillian Brunet for her dissertation “Understanding The Effects of Fiscal Policy: Measurement, Mechanisms, and Lessons from History”, completed at the University of California_Berkeley. Advisors: Christina Romer (chair), Barry Eichengreen, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Noam Yuchtman. (This prize is awarded on behalf of Columbia University Press.)

2017 Winner: Vellore Arthi for her dissertation “Human Capital Formation and the American Dust Bowl”, completed at the University of Oxford. Advisors: James Fenske, Jane Humphries (This prize is awarded on behalf of Columbia University Press.)

2016 Winner: James Feigenbaum for his dissertation “Essays on Intergenerational Mobility and Inequality in Economic History”, completed at the Harvard University.

2015 Winner: Andrew Goodman-Bacon, for his dissertation “Three Essays in Health Policy Evaluation”, completed at the University of Michigan.
Advisor: Martha J. Bailey

2014 Winner: Joshua Lewis, for his dissertation ” The Impact of Technological Change Withing the Home”, completed at the University of Toronto.
Advisors: Dwayne Benjamin, Robert McMillan, Aloysius Siow, and Mark Stabile

2013 Winner: Joshua Hausman, for his dissertation “New Deal Policies and Recovery from the Great Depression”, completed at the University of California at Berkeley.
Advisors: Barry Eichengreen, J. Bradford DeLong, Christina Romer, Maurice Obstfeld, and Noam Yuchtman

2012 Winner: Daniel Immerwahr, for his dissertation “The United States, Community Development, and the World, 1935-1965”, completed at the University of California at Berkeley.
Advisors:  David Hollinger, Robin Einhorn, and Peter Evans.

2011 Winner: Katherine Shester, Washington and Lee University
“American Public Housing’s Origins and Effects”
Advisor: William Collins.

2010 Winner: Daniel Fetter, Wellesley College
“Federal Policy and the Mid-Century Transformation in U.S. Housing Markets.”.
Advisors: Edward Glaeser and Claudia Goldin

2009 Winner: Melinda Miller, United States Naval Academy
“Essays on Race and the Persistence of Economic Inequality.”
Advisors: Warren Whatley and Ben Chabot.

2008 Winner: Marco Sunder, Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen
“Passports and Economic Development: An Anthropometric History of the U.S. Elite in the Nineteenth Century”. Advisors: John Komlos and Claude Hillinger.

2007 Winner: Mark Geiger, University of Missouri
“Missouri’s Hidden Civil War: Financial Conspiracy and the End of the Planter Elite”.
Advisor: LeeAnn Whites.

2006 Winner: Leah Platt Boustan, Harvard University
“The Effect of Black Migration on Northern Cities and Labor Markets, 1940-1970”.
Advisor: Claudia Goldin.

2005 Winner: William H. Bergmann, University of Cincinnati
“Commerce and Arms: The Federal Government, Native Americans, and the Economy of the Old Northwest, 1783-1807”

2004 Winner: Rebecca Ann Holmes, University of Arizona
“The impact of State Labor Regulations on Manufacturing Input Demand during the Progressive Era”

2003 Winner: Claire Priest, Northwestern University School of Law
“Currency Policies and the Nature of Litigation in Colonial New England”

2002 Winner: Joseph Davis, Duke University
“A Quantity Based Index of U.S. Industrial Production, 1790-1915”

2001 Winner: Daniel A. Schiffman, Bar Ilan University
“Shattered Rails, Ruined Credit: Financial Fragility and Railroad operations in the Great Depression”

2000 Winner: William White, Ohio State University
“An Unsung Hero: The Farm Tractor’s Contribution to Twentieth Century United States Economic Growth”

1999 Winner: Ian E.M. Keay, University of British Columbia
“Assessing the Performance of Canada’s Manufacturers: Firm Level Evidence from 1902-1990”

1998 Winner: William Collins, Harvard University
“Labor Mobility in American and Indian Economic History”

Nevins Prize Winners 1971 – 1997

Alexander Gerschenkron Prize for the Best Dissertation in non-US or Canadian Economic History

2021 Winner: Emiliano Travieso Barris, Carlos III University of Madrid, for his dissertation “Resources, Environment, and the Rural Development in Uruguay, 1779-1993”, completed at the University of Cambridge.

2020 Winner: Robin John Charles Adams, Queen’s University Belfast,  for the Best Dissertation in non-US or Canadian Economic History, for his dissertation “Shadow of a Taxman: How and by whom was the Republican Government financed in
the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), completed at the Oxford University

2019 Winner: Yuzuru Kumon, University of Bocconi,   for his dissertation “Rich Europe, Poor Asia: How Wealth Inequality, Demography and Crop Risks Explain the Poverty of Pre-Industrial East Asia, 1300-1800″, completed at the University of California_Davis. Advisors: Gregory Clark (chair), Christopher Meissner, Michael Carter, Peter Lindert, and Katherine Eriksson.

2018 Winner: Eric Prawitz for his dissertation “On the Move: Essays on the Economic and Political Development of Sweden”, completed at Stockholm University. Advisors: Jakob Svensson

2017 Winner: Michela Giorcelli for her dissertation “Economic Recovery and the Determinants of Production and Innovation: Evidence from Post-WWII Italy”, completed at Stanford University. Advisors: Ran Abramitzky (chair), Nick Bloom, Pascaline Dupas, and Melanie Morten

2016 Winner: Reka Juhasz  for her dissertation “Temporary Protection, Technology Adoption and Economic Development”, completed at London School of Economics. Advisor: Silvana Tenreyro

2015 Winner: Jose-Antonio Espin-Sanchez for his dissertation “The Illiquidity of Water Markets”, completed at Northwestern University.
Advisors: Joel Mokyr, Joesph Ferrie, Regina Grafe, Robert Porter

2014 Winner: Tyler Beck Goodspeed for his dissertation “Essays in British Financial History”, completed at Harvard University. Advisor: Richard Hornbeck

2013 Winner: Eric Monnet, for his dissertation “French Monetary Policy and Credit Control, 1945-1975”, completed at the Paris School of Economics and EHESS.  Supervised by Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur.

2012 Winner: Christian Dippel, for his dissertation “Essays in International Political Economy”, completed at the University of Toronto. Advisors: Dan Trelfer, Gustavo Bobonis, Gilles Duranton, and Dwayne Benjamin.

2011 Winner: Olivier Accominotti, for the dissertation, “Foreign Exchange Reserves, Financial  Instability and Contagion: Three Essays on the Great Depression“, completed at Institut Politiques de Paris.
Advisor: Marc Flandreau.

2009 Winner: Roman Studer, for the dissertation, “Market Integration and Economic Development: A Comparative Study of India and Europe, 1700-1800,” completed at Oxford University. Advisor:  Robert Allen.

2008 Winner: Amilcar Eduardo Challu, for the dissertation, “Grain Markets, Food Supply Policies, and Living Standards in late Colonial Mexico” completed at Harvard University. Advisor: John Coatsworth.

2007 Winner: Steven Nafziger, for the dissertation, “Communal Institutions, Resource Allocation, and Russian Economic Development: 1861-1905” completed at Yale University.
Advisor: Timothy Guinnane.

2006 Winner: Ran Abramitsky, for the dissertation, “The Limits of Equality: An Economics Analysis of the Israeli Kibbutz,” completed at Northwestern University.
Advisor: Joel Mokyr.

2005 Winner: Drew Keeling, for the dissertation, “The Business of Transatlantic Migration between Europe and the USA, 1900-1914,” completed at the University of California, Berkeley.

2004 Winner: Tracy K. Dennison, for the dissertation, “Economy and Society in Rural Russia: The Serf Estate of Voshchazhnikovo,” completed at the University of Cambridge.

2003 Winner: Petra Moser, for the dissertation, “Determinants of Innovation: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs,” completed at the University of California, Berkeley.

2002 Winner: Graciela Márquez, for the dissertation, “The Political Economy of Mexican Protectionism, 1868-1911,” completed at Harvard University.

2001 Winner: Eona Karakacili, for the dissertation, “Peasants, Productivity and Profit in the Open Fields of England: A Study of Economic and Social Development,” completed at the University of Torontounder.

2000 Winner: Aurora Gomez-Galvarriato Freer, for the dissertation, “The Impact of Revolution: Business and Labor in the Mexican Textile Industry, Orizaba, Veracruz, 1900-1930,” completed at Harvard University.

1999 Winner: Chiaki Moriguchi, for the dissertation, “The Evolution of Employment Systems in the United States and Japan, 1900-1960: A Comparative Historical and Institutional Analysis,” completed at Stanford University.

1998 Winner: Hal Hansen, University of Wisconsin, for the dissertation, Caps and Gowns: Historical Reflections on the Institutions that Shaped Learning for Work in Germany and the United States, 1800-1945

Teaching Award

Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History

The annual Jonathan Hughes Prize is awarded to recognize excellence in teaching economic history. Jonathan Hughes was an outstanding scholar and a committed and influential teacher of economic history. The prize includes a $1,200 cash award. The winner is selected by the EHA Committee on Education and Teaching.

2021 Winner: Jari Eloranta, University of Helsinki

2020 Winner: Anne McCants, MIT

2019 Winner: Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University

2018 Winner: Howard Bodenhorn, Clemson University

2017 Winner: Nicholas Crafts, University of Warwick

2016: Frank Lewis, Queen’s University

2015: Price Fishback, University of Arizona

2014: David Weiman, Barnard College_Columbia University

2013: Stephen Haber:  Stanford University.

2012: Eugene White, Professor of Economics, Rutgers University.

2011: Ann Carlos:  University of Colorado.

2010: Colleen Callahan: American University

2009: Kenneth Sokoloff, University of California, Los Angeles (awarded posthumously)

2008: Pamela Nickless, University of North Carolina, Asheville

2007: Peter Lindert, University of California, Davis

2006: Kerry Odell, Scripps College

2005: Larry Neal, University of Illinois

2004: Daniel Barbezat, Amherst College

2003: Charles Feinstein, All Souls College, Oxford University

2002: Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley

2001: Carolyn Tuttle, Lake Forest College

2000: Jeffrey Williamson, Harvard University

1999: Robert Whaples, Wake Forest University

1998: Robert Gallman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

1997: Martha Olney,  University of California, Berkeley

1996: Henry Gemery, Colby College

1995: William Parker, Yale University

1994: Douglass North, Washington University

Publications Awards

Cole Prize:

2021 Winner: Neil Cummins for his article “Where is the Middle Class? Evidence from 60 million English Death and Probate Records, 1892-1992” Journal of Economic History, 81(2): 359-404.

2020 Winner: Felipe González, Mounu Prem, and Francisco Urzúa for their article “The Privatization Origins of Political Corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet Regime”, Journal of Economic History, 80(2):417-456, 2020

2019 Winner: Alexander Persaud, University of Richmond, for his article “Escaping Local Risk by Entering Indentureship: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Indian Migration”, published in the  Journal of Economic History 79 (2).

2018 Winner: Mohamed Saleh, Toulouse School of Economics, for his article “On the Road to Heaven: Taxation, Conversion, and the Coptic-Muslim Socioeconomic Gap in Medieval Egypt”, published in the June 2018 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2017 Winner: Trevon Logan and John Parman for their article “The National Rise in Segregation”, published in the March 2017 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2016 Winner: Werner Troesken, Brian Beach, Joe Ferrie, and Martin Saavedrawere for their article “Typhoid Fever, Water Quality, and Human Capital Formation.”, published in the March 2016 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2015 Winner: Price Fishback, University of Arizona, and Valentina Kachanovskaya, University of Arizona, for their article “The Multiplier for the States in the Great Depression.”, published in the March 2015 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2014 Winners: Martha Bailey, University of Michigan, and Nicolas Duquette, University of Southern California, for their article “How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Politics and Economics of Funding at the
Office of Economic Opportunity”, published in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2013 Winners: Dan Bogart, UC-Irvine and Latika Chaudhary, Scripps College, for their article “Engines of Growth:  The Productivity Advance of Indian Railways, 1874-1912.”, published in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

Marlous van Waijenburg, Northwestern  and Ewout Frankema, Wageningen University,  for their article “Structural Impediments to African Growth?  New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880-1965.”, published in the December 2012 issue of the Journal of Economic History.

2012 Winner: Nikolaus Wolf, Max-Stephan Schultze, and Hans-Christian Heinemeyer, for their article “On the Economic Consequences of the Peace: Trade and Borders After Versailles”, published in the December 2011 issue of the Journal of Economic History

2011 Winners: Michael Huberman, University of Montreal, and Christopher Meissner, UC Davis, for “Riding the Wave of Trade: The Rise of Labor Regulation in the Golden Age of Globalization,” which appeared in the September 2010 issue.

 2009 Winner: Eric Hilt, Wellesley College, for the article “When did Ownership Separate from Control?  Corporate Governance in the Early Nineteenth Century”, which appeared in the September 2008 issue.

2008 Winner: Aldo Musacchio, Harvard Business School, for the article “Can Civil Law Countries get Good Institutions: Lessons from the History of Creditor Rights and Bond Markets in Brazil”, which appeared in the March 2008 issue. 

2007 Winner: Tim Leunig, London School of Economics, for the article”‘Time is Money: A Re-assessment of the Passenger Social Savings From Victorian British Railways”, which appeared in the September 2006 issue.

2006 Winners: Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, for the article, “The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World,” which appeared in the December 2005 issue.

2005 Winners: Oscar Gelderblom and Joost Jonker, for the article, “Completing a Financial Revolution: The Finance of the Dutch East India Trade and the Rise of the Amsterdam Capital Market, 1595-1612,” which appeared in the September 2004 issue.

2004 Winners: John James and Mark Thomas, University Virginia, for the article, “A Golden Age: Unemployment and the American Labor Market, 1880-1910,” which appeared in the December 2003 issue.

2003 Winners: Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, University of California Davis and the University of North Carolina, for the article, “Hog-Round Marketing, Seed Quality, and Government Policy: Institutional Change in U.S. Cotton Production, 1920-1960,” which appeared in the June 2003 issue.

2002 Winners: Suleyman Ozmucur and Sevket Pamuk, Bogazici University, for the article, “Real Wages and the Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914,” which appeared in the June 2002 issue.

2001 Winner: Lillian Li, Swarthmore College, for the article, “Integration and Disintegration in North China’s Grain Markets, 1738-1911,” which appeared in the September 2000 issue.

2000 Winner: Gerardo Della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor, “Economic Recovery from the Argentine Great Depression:  Institutions, Expectations, and the Change of Macroeconomic Regime,”, which appeared in the September 1999 issue.

1999 Winner: Charles Feinstein, All Souls College, Oxford University, U.K., for “Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution,” which appeared in the September 1998 issue.

1998 Winner: Kevin O’Rourke, ” The European Grain Invasion, 1870-1913″, which appeared in the December 1997 issue.

Ranki Prize

2021 Winner: Sheilagh Ogilvie was awarded for her book “The European Guilds”, (Princeton University Press, 2019) and Philip Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal were awarded for their book “Dark Matter Credit”, (Princeton University Press, 2019).

2019 Winner: Ran Abramitzky for his book “The mystery of the kibbutz: Egalitarian principles in a capitalist world”, Princeton University Press (February 2018)

2017 Winner: Bruce Campbell, Queen’s University_Belfast,  for his book, The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval World, Cambridge University Press 2016.

2015 Winner: Gregory Clark, University of California_Davis, for his book,The Son Also Rises:  Surnames and the History of Social Mobility, published by Princeton University Press, 2014.

2013 Winner: Regina Grafe, Northwestern University/European University Institute, Florence, for her book titled Distant Tyranny:  Markets, Power and Backwardness in Spain, 1650-1800, published by Princeton University Press 2012.

2011 Winner: Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, for her book titled Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution, published by Cambridge University Press, 2010.

2009 Winner: Jan deVries, University of California at Berkeley, for his book titled The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, published by Cambridge University Press, 2008.

2007 Winner: Avner Greif, Stanford University, for his book titled Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade, published by Cambridge University Press, 2006.

2005 Winners: Robert C. Allen, Nuffield College, Oxford University, for his book titled Farm to Factory : A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, published by Princeton University Press, 2003;

and Peter Lindert, University of California, Davis for his book titled Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century, published by Cambridge University Press, 2004.

2003 Winner: Michael McCormick for his book titled Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce AD 300-900, published by Cambridge University Press in 2002.

2001 Winners: Stephan Epstein of the London School of Economics for Freedom and Growth: Markets and States in Europe, 1300-1750, published by Routledge in 2000;

and Philip T. Hoffman of the California Institute of Technology, Gilles Postel-Vinay of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal of the University of California at Los Angeles for Priceless Markets: The Political Economy of Credit in Paris, 1660-1870, published by the University of Chicago Press, 2000.

1999 Winners: Sheilagh Ogilvie for her book titled State Corporatism and Proto-Industry,

and to Ad M. van der Woude and Jan de Vries for their book titled The First Modern Economy. Both books were published by Cambridge University Press.

Alice Hanson Jones Prize

2020 Winner: Benjamin Sidney Michael Schwantes  his book “The Train and the Telegraph: A Revisionist History”, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

2018 Winner: Leah Platt Boustan  Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets published by Princeton University Press and  Douglas Irwin Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy published by University of Chicago Press.

2016 Winner: Barry Eichengreen,  Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History, Oxford University Press 2015.

2014 Winner: Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Harvard University Press, 2013)

2012 Winner:  Alexander J. Field, A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and US Economic Growth (Yale University Press, 2011)

2010 Winner: Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development. (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

2008 Winner: Carlos Marichal, Bankruptcy of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars between Spain, Britain, and France, 1760-1810. (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

2006 Winners: B. Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention; Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790 – 1920. (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Werner Troesken, Water, Race and Disease. (The MIT Press, 2004)

2004 Winner: Allan H. Meltzer, A History of the Federal Reserve. (University of Chicago Press, 2004)

2002 Winner: Gloria Main, People of a Spacious Land. (Harvard University Press, 2001)

2000 Winner: Dora Costa, The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History, 1880-1990. (Chicago UP, 1998)

1998 Winners: Lance Davis, Robert Gallman, and Karen Gleiter, Pursuit of Leviathan

The Lindert-Williamson Prize

2021 Winner: Ron Harris and Gregg Huff shared the Lindert-Williamson Biennial Prize for Outstanding Book in Global, African, Asian, Australian, and/or South American History. Harris was awarded for his book “Going the Distance: Eurasian Trade and the Rise of the Business Corporation, 1400-1700”: Princeton U Press. Huff was awarded for his book “World War II and Southeast Asia, Economy and Society under Japanese Occupation”, Cambridge Univ Press.

2019 Winner: Jared Rubin, Chapman University,  for his book “Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not”, New York: Cambridge University Press.

 Data Awards

Gallman-Parker Prize

2021 Winner: Steven Ruggles

2019 Winner: Peter Lindert, University of California_Davis, and Jeffrey Williamson, Harvard University

2017 Winner: Michael Haines, Colgate University

Engerman_Goldin Prize

2020 Winner: Sam Williamson, Measuring Worth

2018 Winner: Jeremy Atack, Vanderbilt University

The Library Company Prize

The Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) awards an Annual Prize.

• 2004: Andrew Shankman, “A New Thing on Earth: Alexander Hamilton, Pro-Manufacturing Republicans, and the Democratization of American Political Economy” in the Journal of the Early Republic, 23 (Fall 2003; and Naomi Lamoreaux, “Rethinking the Transition to Capitalism in the Early American Northeast” in the Journal of American History, 90 (September 2003).

• 2001: Simon Middleton, “‘How it came that the bakers bake no bread’: A Struggle for Trade Privileges in Seventeenth-Century New Amsterdam” in the William and Mary Quarterly, April 2001; and Ann Carlos and Frank Lewis, “Trade, Consumption, and the Native Economy: Lessons from York Factory, Hudson Bay” in the Journal of Economic History, December 2001

• 2000: Robert Martello, “Paul Revere’s Last Ride: The Road to Rolling Copper” in the Journal of the Early Republic, Summer, 2000; and David Cowen, “The First Bank of the United States and the Securities Market Crash of 1792” in the Journal of Economic History, December 2000.