Twentieth-century Economic History Research Articles

Donald Edward Moggridge (1943–2021)

Donald Edward Moggridge (1943–2021)

“Old” Economic History in the United States: 1939–1954

This paper investigates the actions of a small, yet influential group of American economists who sought to claim economic history for themselves and use it as a springboard to launch a wider transformation of economics. Their actions constitute an episode of dissent in the history of twentieth century economics, albeit an unusual one. These dissenters were not a socially or intellectually marginalized group, but rather a set of privileged scholars who were able to leverage their contacts within the profession and amongst its patrons to further their vision. Their actions could almost be described in Kuhnian terms: they consciously sought to trigger a “paradigm shift” to bring about a social science better suited, in their views, to a world in political and economic turmoil (Kuhn 1962). In spite of the Kuhnian allusion to “scientific revolution,” this paper is not about the 1960s “cliometric revolution,” but about the 1940s and '50s and the little known events that led to the creation of the Economic History Association, the Journal of Economic History, and Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (subsequently Explorations in Economic History).

Symposium on Marshall's Tendencies: 1 How models help economists to know

Over the last 40 years or so, economics has become a modelling science: a science in which models have become one of the main epistemological tools both for theoretical and applied work. But providing an account of how models work and what they do for the economist is not easy. For the philosopher of economics like me, struggling with this question, John Sutton's views on the nature and design of economic models and how they work is indeed thought provoking. Because of my own interests, my review of Sutton's book: Marshall's Tendencies: What Can Economists Know? will focus on three related issues that I found especially intriguing in his treatment of the role of models in modern economics. The first is the way that Sutton's account fits with my own reading of the history of twentieth-century economics, namely that the focus of economic explanation has moved during the last century from ‘theories’ and ‘laws’ to ‘models’ and ‘mechanisms’. The second is to understand the epistemological connotations of Sutton's ‘class of models’ view. The third is to explore what Sutton means when he says a model ‘works’. These three questions roughly coincide with the material presented in Chapters 1, 3 and 2 respectively of the book. As we shall see, Sutton gives us a practitioner account of applied economics which can fit within the standard terms used by philosophers of economics on theory-testing, but which reveals a number of novel elements for philosophical analysis.

How and Why should We Write the History of Twentieth-Century Economics?

Most discussions of how one should write the history of economics are conducted at a very abstract level. They debate the merits of alternative approaches without relating them to specific problem-situations or specific periods. The literature uses terms such as “absolutism,” “relativism,” “Whig history,” “thick history,” “historical reconstructions,” “rational reconstructions,” and “presentism,” frequently arguing that one of these approaches is better than one or more of the others. In warning historians of economics against sin, they typically define sin in absolute terms. This is particularly true of those who argue for “relativism,” “thick history,” “historical reconstructions” and the like. There is a simple reason for this. Terms such as “absolutism,” “Whig history,” and “presentism” all carry negative connotations, with the result that their advocates usually feel impelled to qualify them. On the other hand, supporters of “historical reconstruction,” “thick history” and so on feel much less pressure to offer such qualifications—the words used have the sound of “real” history. The terminology itself is value-laden.

How should we write the history of twentieth-century economics?

The modern economist looks at a textbook history of nineteenth-century economics and wonders what, for the twentieth century, will correspond to the chapter titles of 'Malthus', 'Ricardo', 'The Mills', 'Marx', and 'The Rise of Marginalism'. Will monetarism survive editing? Will game theory rate its own section? Will Keynes be a hero or a goat? Economists look to the historian and wonders how the historian decides what is important, and how we go about deciding what will go into a future history book. Eschewing narratives of progress, this paper surveys alternative historiographies for constructing a history of twentieth-century economics, and suggests that the new discipline of science and technology studies provides a number of useful frameworks for telling the story.

The Spanish Economy: From the Civil War to the European Community.

This book presents a concise survey of the Spanish economy from the end of the Civil War of 1936–9 to the present. In it the author analyses the transformation of Spain from a backward agrarian economy - committed by Franco and the country's military rulers to the impossible quest of self-sufficiency - to a modern, rapidly growing, outwardly orientated economy. By analysing demographic developments, changes in agriculture, industrial growth, changes to the financial system and the development of foreign trade, the author shows how Spain has reached a position where it is fully integrated into the international economy and, since January 1986, has been an active member of the European Community. This is a book both for students of twentieth century economic history, and for their teachers.

The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution

The Industrial Revolution as a historical concept has many shortcomings. A new concept—the “industrious revolution”—is proposed to place the Industrial Revolution in a broader historical setting. The industrious revolution was a process of household-based resource reallocation that increased both the supply of marketed commodities and labor and the demand for market-supplied goods. The industrious revolution was a household-level change with important demand-side features that preceded the Industrial Revolution, a supply-side phenomenon. It has implications for nineteenth- and twentieth-century economic history.

Comparative Approaches from Germany: The "New Nation" in Advanced Industrial Capitalism, 1860-1940-Integration, Stabilization and Reform

The history of German historiography on the United States has always been a history of scarcity and want. Its development in West Germany after 1945 is no exception to that rule, even if some of the West German historians may have become a bit more conscious than their predecessors before the end of World War II. Institutes for North American Studies (AmerikaInstitute) at a few universities have been traditionally dominated by the language and literature professors, or occasionally by geographers (e.g., in Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Mainz). Chairs explicitly designated for North American or United States history were established in Cologne only in the 1950s and within the resourceful Institute of North American Studies of the Freie Universitat Berlin in the 1960s (now called the John F. Kennedy Institute). The majority of West German (and West Berlin) scholars since the 1950s have done historical research on the United States outside of the institutional framework. The typical Americanist among German historians, if there ever was such a person, seems to be a loner within his or her surroundings, which have in general not been too favorable to North American Studies. In addition, and at least partly following the established career patterns of German academic life, most of these people have not been solely specialists in American history: the majority started out in German (or at least European) history, some moving completely into U.S. history, others (such as myself) remaining what may be called part-time Americanists. Although this relatively broad and unorthodox approach (at least compared to American standards and traditions) to a certain extent has favored comparative studies from the beginning, most of the work has been monographic or introductory. Apart from an ambitious (and slowly moving) project of a Handbuch der Neueren Geschichte Nordamerikas [Handbook of North American History] (planned for 3 volumes), in the field of comprehensive summaries of U.S. history there has been a history of the U.S., with about 85 percent of its text written by British authors,1 a short history of the U.S. since 1917,2 and a twentieth-century Economic History.3 The monographs basically have fo-