| Call for Papers for Accepted Session Proposals |
| Session 10: Diaspora Entrepreneurial networks, C.
1000 to 2000 Organizers: Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou (Greece),Gelina Harlaftis (Greece);  Frank Broeze (Australia); William Gervase Clarence-Smith (UK).During the last
millennium a succession of regional and long-distance trading networks, at first in Asia
and Europe but later also stretching across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, lay at the
heart of the gradual integration of the world into one global system. The study of such
networks, which often took the form of ethnic diasporas, is becoming a vibrant field for
economic, maritime and social historians. The purpose of this session is to take stock of
the current state of the art and to lay the foundations for new directions in the study of
diaspora entrepreneurial networks by soliciting a broad range of case studies from varying
regions and periods. Those interested in presenting a paper at the session should submit a
250-400 word abstract by June 15 2000 to Ioanna Minoglou at the following e-mail address: iminoglou@aueb.gr. Session 12: The Formation and Efficiency of Fiscal States in Europe and Asia Circa 1500 to Circa 1914 Organizers of the session, "The Formation and Efficiency of Fiscal States in Europe and Asia Circa 1500 to Circa 1914," at the Buenos Aires Congress are issuing a call for papers. To be accepted by the session organizers, the papers must adhere to the following objectives and approaches. The aim of the session is to make comparisons of states in the international sphere over the very long term and by taking previous established research as a starting point. Papers must cover the 16th to 19th centuries. Studies of local tax or city taxes - papers not located in comparative framework will not be accepted. The papers should deal with the role of fiscal systems, their connections to formation of states and their effect on economic development in different countries. Papers which focus on specific taxes over short periods are unacceptable. Top priority will be given to those papers which deal with the process of institutional change from the ancien rgime to the liberal system and which allowed for the modernization of fiscal systems. The goal of the session is to discuss general issues rather than deal with new research and the details of fiscal history. Session 15: Global Monies and Price Histories, 16th - 18th Centuries Session 15 is intended to flow logically from work presented and discussed in Session B6: Monetary History in Global Perspective at the 12th IEHA Madrid Congress in 1998. Organizers of that B6 session consciously excluded discussion of the "price revolution" and other price history topics. Price history was intentionally excluded in order to encourage monetary historians to concentrate first on the production and movements of individual monetary substances - for example, gold, silver, copper, and cowries - around the globe. The idea was to establishment basic facts about global production and transshipment of monetary substances. And indeed, several leading scholars remarked at Madrid in 1998 about the necessity for monetary historians (including themselves) to make a greater effort to place their research in the context of global marketplace trends. Too often, even the best authorities have simply been unaware of the global context within which their specific regions functioned. Having progressed in Madrid in terms of the "globalization of thinking" about monetary history prior to the 19th century, it now seems appropriate to extend the discussion to the connections between specific global monies and particular price histories around the world. One school of thought maintains that the Price Revolution and other price histories were intimately connected to global monies; in other words, each region's price history was determined by global monetary conditions. Others reject such interpretations of global price histories, claiming instead that particular country (or regional) price histories were unrelated to price histories in other countries (or regions) around the globe. Throughout the 16th through the 18th centuries, episodes of price inflation/price deflation either were - or were not - related to global monetary and price forces. This is the central debate proposed for this session. The purpose of Session 15 is to reinvigorate age-old price history debates (a) by couching such debates in global terms, (b) by confronting specialists with recent empirical evidence from all regions of the world, and (c) by reconsidering theoretical constructs that relate specific monies, specific price histories, and global markets. Call for Papers: Session organizers seek paper proposals dealing with price histories of all regions of the world. All 16th- to 18th-century price inflation/deflation episodes are included. Individual papers may focus on any country or region. In other words, authors are not required or expected to write global price histories. Rather, authors are asked to place particular subject matters in a global context: was - or was not - a particular episode of price inflation/deflation caused or influenced by global forces? Evidence and theoretical connections must be specified. Some will argue that global forces determined national/regional price histories. Others will argue that local forces alone determined national/regional price histories. Session 15 welcomes diverse points of view in this debate, of course, but all papers should at least address the central question about the extent to which global forces influenced the specific price histories investigated. Please submit a one- or two-page proposal to the organizers, including an explicit explanation of how your paper addresses the central debate of this session: Did or did not global forces cause the specific price history experience you consider? Contact: Professor Dennis O. Flynn, Department of Economics, University of the Pacific Stockton, CA 95211, United States. Ph/Fax: (209) 946-2913. Email: doflynn@uop.edudoflynn@uop.edu Session 16: La laine: les produits et les marchés (XIIIe-XXe siècles)
Dans le cadre du XIIIe Congrès International d'Histoire Économique, qui aura lieu à Buenos Aires au mois de juillet 2002, une session sur le sujet "Wool: products and markets (XIIIth - XXth centuries)" à été approuvée par le Comité exécutif de l'Association internationale d'histoire économique. Responsables: Prof. Giovanni Luigi Fontana (Université de Padoue - Italie) Prof. Gérard Gayot (Université "Charles De Gaulle" - Lille 3 - France) Préparatoire aux travaux de cette session, une première Euroconférence s'est déjà tenue à Verviers (5-7 avril 2001) sur le sujet: "L'industrie de la laine. Les territoires de production - XIIIe - XXe siècle." Schio, Valdagno, Follina (Vénétie) et Biella (Piémont) le 24 - 27 octobre 2001 sur "La laine: produits et marchés (XIIIe - XXe siècle)" Voici une liste des points qui pourront constituer le sujet ou les sujets des communications et des débats. Cela ne signifie pas que les participants devront se conformer rigoureusement à ces propositions qui veulent seulement tracer la voie vers les questions que nous croyons fondamentales. Les propositions des papers seront examinées par le Comité Scientifique. 1. Le marché des matières premières:
2. La qualité et la diversification des produits:
3. Le patrimoine de l'industrie lainière.
Parallèlement au colloque aura lieu l'exhibition " Villes lainières
en Europe " qui sera inaugurée mardi 23 octobre 2001 à 17,30. Le congrès
aura lieu chaque jour dans les bâtiments symboliques de quatre "villes
lainières" historiques. Afin de faire connaître et pouvoir comparer
le patrimoine industriel des différentes villes, à la fin de chaque
session scientifique ( 9h- 13,30h) auront lieu des visites des sites
du patrimoine industriel à Schio, Valdagno, Follina et Biella. L'organisation
s'occupera des déplacements des participants au congrès. À la conclusion
des travaux, à Biella, il y aura la présentation du projet "Pour un
itinéraire européen de la laine." Organisée par: Giovanni Luigi FONTANA Gérard GAYOT Secrétariat:
Walter PANCIERA Elisabetta NOVELLO Giorgio RIELLO Susy PASLEAU Session 26:
Commerce, capital marchand et bien-être: les villes portuaires
et la santé publique, XVIe-XXe siècles Port Cities have played a critical role in international development
and urbanization. Even in the pre-industrial period, marketing and
trade were important factors which affected the pattern of urban expansion
or decline, and ports, after capital cities, frequently registered
the greatest growth. Maritime commerce, therefore, was a powerful
factor behind urbanization, and port cities served as the nexus of
the growing world market. As a consequence of this function, port
cities were invariably prone to an increased risk of exposure, particularly
to infectious diseases. Many of the dominant epidemic diseases, such
as plague, cholera, typhoid and yellow fever, were imported via port
cities which, in turn, accelerated disease diffusion in coastal areas
and dependent hinterlands. The individual demographic regimes of large
ports were moulded by similar factors and extending trading networks,
together with high levels of in-migration, aggravated the latent exposure
risks of the indigenous population. At the same time, many ports were
characterized by flexible labour markets, a strong reliance on casual
work, extensive in-migration and a broad ethnic mix. Moreover, the
dominance of merchant capital directly affected the contemporary response
to public health issues and had a profound impact on the selection
and implementation of specific strategies. On the one hand the need
to confront health risks was initially apparent in port cities, on
the other hand there was an unusually high dependency on charity and
philanthropy, and a general absence of collective commitment to social
welfare provision. Considerable work has been undertaken in the last
few years to create a meaningful typology for analysing port development
from the 16th century onwards. This has involved considerable interdisciplinary
research, drawing explicitly on work in economic, demographic, maritime,
medical, social and urban history. The aim of the session is to bring
together a series of contributions covering the long-run development
of port economies in the period from the 16th century onwards. It
will analyse the selection and implementation of various public health
strategies in different port cities in Europe and Asia, as well as
in both North and Latin America, and examine the international relationship
between overseas trade, urban development, and public health policy.
Proposals should include a 1-2 page abstract and a short curriculum
vitae. Proposals should be submitted until 31.12.2001 at the latest.
Contact: W.R. Lee Joerg Voegele
The Central Theme: The phenomenon of modern economic growth
as described by Kuznets goes together with an increasing complexity
in patterns of distribution. Firstly, economic growth is accompanied
by important structural changes, as resources move from low to high
productivity sectors under the influence of technological change and
difference in output and input growth between sectors. Secondly, the
share of labour and capital compensation in value added changes under
the influence of growth. Thirdly, economic growth changes the expenditure
pattern as expenditures on food decline in favour of expenditures
on durable goods and investment goods. And fourthly there are important
changes in personal income distribution. In this respect the ?inverse
U-hypothesis?, which outlines the rise in income inequality in early
phases of modern economic growth followed by a subsequent decline,
has been widely tested and debated.
Background: Most studies on the relationship between growth
and distribution have concentrated on a limited number of advanced
countries, and the small number of studies which include low income
countries either lack a historical dimension, or measure the relation
between growth and inequality along only one of the lines outlined
above. What is still missing in most developing countries is an integrated
historical national accounts framework, which allows comprehensive
comparisons of distributional and growth issues simultaneously from
the income, expenditure and output perspectives. Fortunately, partly
under the influence of recent leaps forward in historical national
accounting in Europe, North America and Japan, some progress is now
being made in reconstructing historical national accounts in Asia,
Latin America and the European periphery.
This session is a follow-up on sessions held at the two previous
IEHA conferences. During the 11th Congress in Milan (1994), a session
was held on ?Economic growth and structural change? (Maddison and
van der Wee, 1994). This included few papers on low income countries.
The same was true of the follow-up session at the 12th Congress in
Madrid (1998) on ?Historical Benchmark Studies of Income and Productivity?
(Buyst, van Ark and van Zanden, 1998). In contrast, this session concentrates
on papers from countries and regions in Asia, Latin America, the European
periphery and other developing regions, even though comparisons with
advanced countries are encouraged. Commentators from Europe, North
America and Japan are invited as experts.
In a pre-conference of this session recently held in Tokyo (March
2001), 14 papers covering the three regions were discussed (8 on Asia,
3 on Latin America and 3 on Europe). These papers showed the significant
advances achieved in HNA in medium and low income countries in the
recent years, as well as the limits that still exist for such an approach
to the discussion of growth and distributional issues (the papers
are downloadable from the following website: http://www.eco.rug.nl/GGDC/tokyohna2.html.)
Thus, following the criteria defined for this pre-conference, many
papers presented advances on limited aspects of the HNA approach and
the discussion of the relation between growth, structural change and
distributional issues was only preliminary.
Towards the Buenos Aires Session: At the end of the pre-conference
some criteria were agreed, which were to guide the works and the presentation
of proposals towards the Buenos Aires session:
1. Papers are encouraged to be comparative in character. Even if
based on long-run national studies, where institutional aspects play
a decisive role, the session searches for debate and analysis which
may enlighten general development issues. If concentrated on one country,
the papers might include comparative aspects in the conclusions. Cooperation
between researchers working on or coming from different countries
is strongly encouraged in order to write comparative papers. The Organisers:
Prof. Luis Bértola Session 32:
Technology and Human Capital in Historical Perspective
At the XIII World Congress we will organize a session on the role
of technological change and human capital formation in the process
of long-term economic growth. Recent developments, both in economic
theory and quantitative historical research, open a promising avenue
in that respect. It is our aim to select a number of papers which
deal with the subject of technology and/or human capital and in which
new empirical evidence is presented. Furthermore, we prefer papers
in which the subject is studied in an international comparative framework.
Key words may be: Technological change, human capital, education,
technology-skills complementarity, productivity, relative prices.
Hereby we would like to invite those who are interested to participate
in this session to send us a proposal before May 2001. We prefer draft
versions which consists of 5-10 pages, with a rough outline including
some of the most important tables and/or graphs on which the paper
will be based. More or less complete papers are of course also welcome.
Comments and proposals for the shaping of the papers will be distributed
to the contributors before July 2001. If the prospects of a successful
session then seem encouraging, the organizers will take steps for
the publication of an anthology volume.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us by e-mail:
Jonas Ljungberg,
Lund University, Sweden
Jan-Pieter Smits, University
of Groningen, The Netherlands
Please send your proposals as well as questions by e-mail to: Jonas.Ljungberg@ekh.lu.se;
J.P.Smits@eco.rug.nl
Session 33:
Les montagnes dans le développement urbain 2002 is the United Nation's Year of the Mountains in consideration
of the fact that mountain regions cover one-fifth of the earth, encompass
about a tenth of mankind, and are of general ecological significance.
In Europe, historians pay more and more attention to the alpine area
and have created during the last decades improved conditions for comparative
research across political, cultural and linguistic borders. The XIII
World Congress of the International Economic History Association appears
to be the right occasion to start an intercontinental dialogue among
historians of the Andes, the Himalayas, the Alps and other upland
areas. Our session deals with a particularly promising topic for that
dialogue: the relation between mountains and urban development in
the period from 1000 to 2000 A.D. Two themes are of special interest:
(1) urban growth and political power structures, (2) the role of towns
in interregional exchange systems. In both cases it is useful to go
beyond a selected mountain area, taking into account the wider highland-lowland
interactions.
The session is planned to include a dozen contributions. Proposals
for a paper with title and abstract should be submitted in English
to the organizer till July 31, 2001. Notification on the acceptance
of the papers will be given a month later. Some participants from
Latin America and Asia will be invited right after the congress to
give a few follow-up seminars in Europe.
Please adress your proposal to: If using the postal service please add the remark "Buenos Aires 2002"
on the envelope. For further information you may contact us anytime.
Session 36: Pre-Industrial
Living Standards Since the 13th Century. The organizers want the 2002 Buenos Aires IEHA Congress to offer
an opportunity for scholars to present comparative long run evidence
on pre-industrial standard of living performance the world round,
especially from both the European periphery and from what we now call
the Third World. We want papers that use evidence that is easy to
compare with other times and places, as well as evidence that makes
it possible to speak to the determinants of relative factor prices,
living standards, and thus to the sources of economic change in pre-industrial
times. Although single authorship will certainly not be grounds for exclusion
from the session, it is fair to say that collaboration between scholars
with knowledge of different times and places will be favored by the
organizers, since by doing so we think more good comparative history
might bestimulated. Session Time Allocation The IEHA Executive Committee has allocated two time blocks (105 minutes)
to our session, equivalent to one and three quarter hours. Your organizers
will insist that every participant in our session submit a draft of
their paper to Peter Lindert as an email attachment, at least one
month beforethe Buenos Aires Congress. Indeed, we will strongly encourage
participants to submit early drafts of their papers for placement
on the Congress website as much as a year before the Congress meeting,
thus encouraging interaction between the participants and the revision
of papers to incorporate the work of others. The web site may also
have an editorial commentary on the session, the papers, the agenda
they suggest, and the lively issues they raise. The potential audience
can also read up on the debate prior to the Congress meeting itself.
These drafts will be placed on the IEHA 2002 Buenos Aires Congress
website so that interested scholars can, as already mentioned, explore
the papers prior to the session meeting at the Congress. This will
maximize the quality of the discussion at Buenos Aires, eliminate
the need for assigned discussants, reduce the time needed for the
author(s) presentation, and might even encourage collaboration. In
any case, we will squeeze 5 papers into the 105 minutes: each author
will have no more than 10 minutes to present, leaving at least 10
minutes for floor debate for each paper.
Application Procedure The organizers are making every effort to post this call for papers
where all scholars -- young and old, and in every corner of the academic
world -- can see it. We will contact leading scholars in the field
to learn about possible candidates that we have missed. Where possible,
we will post this call for papers in our journals. And, as noted at
length above, we will place it on the net. We urge all scholars with
interests in the topic to contact by email Peter Lindert with their
proposals as soon as possible, or at least with a statement of intent
to submit a proposal. We also urge all scholars who learn about this
session to pass this information on to others who might have missed
the advertisement. Session 38: Global
Electrification: Financing and Managing Networks of Power from the
1880s to the 1970s.
Professors Mira Wilkins, Peter Hertner, and William
Hausman, organizers of Session 38 of the XIIIth International Economic
History Congress on "Global Electrification: Financing and Managing
Networks of Power from the 1880s to the 1970s" are calling for proposals
to enhance the geographical coverage of the session. We are particularly
interested in submissions of interest for the following areas: China,
Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and the United Kingdom. We are interested
in papers that take a broad look at the timing of electrification (using
as much quantification as possible) and focus sharply on the role of
financing electrification and the role of multinational enterprise.
Some basic questions are of particular interest: Was financing internal
to the country or area, external at first and then internal, completely
external, etc? Was there any outward movement of funds to support electrification
in other areas of the globe? In the end our aim is not so much comparative
history as international history; we strive to identify the sources
and conduits of capital for this important industry on a global scale.
Please send expressions of interest to: Session 39: Conflict
Potentials in Monetary Unions. Lars Jonung and Jürgen Nautz are organizing a session (two time
slots) for the 13th World Congress of the International Economic History
Association to be held in Buenos Aires, July 22nd – July 26th,
2002, on the subject of: CONFLICT POTENTIALS IN MONETARY UNIONS The creation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has awarded a high
topicality to issues dealing with monetary unification. There are
many cases of monetary integration and disintegration in the past.
Economic history can offer insights to the analysis of the conditions
for success and failure of monetary integration. Session 42: Evolution
des incitations au travail en Europe de l'Est, XIXe et XXe siècles. Contact information:
Prof. Leonid Borodkin Dr. Jan Lucassen Other organizers:
Dr. Marcel van der Linden Prof. Andrey Sokolov Description of the session
The session is aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the
crisis of employee work motivation in contemporary East European countries,
including the former USSR republics. Through a detailed comparative
longitudinal study of work incentive systems in different branches
of industries in the East Europe countries the session will try to
reconstruct the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of specific incentive
systems under given and changing conditions.
The economic crisis in New Independent States perpetuated in part
by social norms governing human cooperation and civic order, such
as strong patron-client-relationships and a lack of social trust.
Understanding the origins of the social norms is therefore crucial.
Are current social norms entirely the product of the years of the
bureaucratic planned economy, as many experts believe, or was the
planned economy the continuation of other, still older behavioural
patterns?
Labour norms will be in the center of the session papers. Which incentives
appeal to workers? What motivates or discourages them in their performance?
These questions seem crucial. Many companies in Eastern Europe today
are struggling with incentive- related problems. Such issues already
existed during the "Soviet era". Here, like in the broader field of
social norms, the question arises as to whether the planned economy
may have perpetuated still older behavioural patterns among the subordinate
strata.
These observations lead to the following main questions in the session
research programme: The session papers are expected to expand existing approaches in
two ways: (i) through comparison of incentive systems adopted in different
countries of East Europe; and (ii) through developing a longer view,
stretching from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth century.
This longer period includes periods of serfdom, the introduction of
capitalism and industrialisation, communism and the return to capitalism,
thus enabling to analyse the continuity and discontinuity of work
patterns and other economic institutions through major societal transformations.
Provisional list of participants:
Dr. Sergey Afontsev (Institute of World Economy, Moscow, Russia) We are still looking for additional proposals.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
no later than by Sept. 30, 2001.
Contact information
Prof. Yuri Petrov Other organizers
Prof. Albert Broder Description, structure of the session
The structure of the session will include two parts (time blocks).
Part 1. Economic relations between western countries and Russia in
the19th century and the beginning of 20th century (before 1914): integration
process.
The discussion of the economic relations between Russia and its major
economic partners during this period (Belgium, France, Germany and
the United Kingdom) will be focused on the following questions:
Part II. The problem of restoration and development of economic
relations between Russia/USSR and western countries (including USA)
in 1920s.
The discussion in this part of the session will be focused on the
following questions:
Provisional list of participants
Prof. Boris Ananich (Russian Academy of Sciences, St.-Petersburg) The organizers are still looking for additional proposals.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
no later than by Sept.30, 2001.
Session 45: Craintes
de déflation dans le passé et à l'heure actuelle. Much of the economics profession has, in recent decades, focused
on the problems of inflation. One of the products of policy makers'
and researchers' concern over the costs of inflation has been the
formal or informal adoption of inflation control targets. While
interest in the problem of inflation has tended to concentrate on
developments in consumer prices, more recently some central banks
have expressed concern over the consequences of asset price inflation.
Most notably, policy makers worry that some form of "irrational
exuberance" will inevitably lead to significant asset price deflation.
Paralleling this development is the concern that, in several countries
or regions of the world, there are continuing risks of a general
deflation in consumer prices.
Historically, periods of deflation in the United States in the
1930s, and Japan in the 1990s, have been preceded by severe market
declines and - arguably - the bursting of speculative bubbles. There
has, however, been surprisingly little academic research on the
link between market collapses and general price declines. Another
issue is the transmission of deflationary pressures and the role
played by the exchange rate regime. There have recently been fears
that the "competitive devaluations" of the 1930s might re-emerge
in today's world economy.
While the current economic situation differs substantially from
the last widespread experience with deflation in the 1930s, there
are nevertheless sufficient parallels to make analysis of past deflationary
episodes especially timely just now. In addition to the role played
by asset price declines and the international transmission of deflationary
pressures, another area of possible interest is the diversity of
deflationary experiences themselves. While one typically thinks
of prolonged periods of falling prices such as the Great Depression
of the 1930s, we can also find examples of much shorter-lived deflationary
episodes. The latter can emerge in the aftermath of stringent monetary
stabilization measures of the type applied in the Southern Confederacy
of 1864, mainland China in 1950 and, more recently, a number of
countries affected by the Asian crisis. Have similar shifts from
monetary excess to monetary contraction initiated more enduring
boom and bust cycles in the United States and Japan? Can we gain
insights into how to prevent initial deflationary pressures from
turning into an extended period of price decline? Are there institutional
characteristics in the fiscal and monetary spheres that make some
economies more prone to deflation?
The session is intended to be a forum for the presentation and
discussion of case studies, historical and econometric analyses
of deflation. We already have several commitments to present papers.
We will have two 90 minute time slots for this session, and we would
consider other proposals particularly on Central and South America.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
by September 10th to both organizers below. We shall inform all
those who submit proposals in due course of the status of their
submission.
Co-organizers:
Pierre Siklos Session 50: Les
systèmes bancaires en Amérique Latine, 1870-1940:
structure, régulation et crises. We are pleased to invite proposals for papers to be included in
the session at the 13th World Congress of the International Economic
History Association, to be held in Buenos Aires, July 22 - July
26th, 2002,. Proposals should be submitted to either of the organizers
by 1 December 2001.
Organizers: At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries,
a number of Latin American economies organized their banking systems
to open their markets to the globalizing financial system. The major
international financial centers had committed to the gold standard
and were eager to export capital to attractive markets. Latin American
economies responded to the new opportunities presented to them.
Many redesigned the banking and monetary laws to meet the requirements
of the international financial system, while at the same time various
political interests debated the best models to assure domestic economic
growth. The emerging banking and regulatory structures attempted
to balance and satisfy competing economic demands. Once open to
the international markets, increasingly solid banking systems grew
rapidly, but they also faced new challenges and found themselves
more exposed to international and regional crises. The era ended
with the crisis of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression, with
the associated profound disruptions to capital movements. In their
subsequent development, banking systems had to adapt to closed capital
markets without the gold standard.
This session offers a new opportunity to compare the experiences
of Latin American banking systems between 1870 and 1940. It brings
to bear theoretical and methodological approaches that take into
account interdisciplinary perspectives from economics, political
economy and history. Papers could include such topics as the experiences
of individual organizations or events ("crises"), perspectives on
the effects of monetary history and policy, formation of regulatory
systems, the role of banking in economic development, among others.
It is the intention of the organizers to publish the collected
papers of this session. In order to facilitate collection and publication
of the papers, we suggest a framework for the panel that extends
a little beyond the session in Buenos Aires. We would like to make
the papers available to session participants shortly prior to the
Buenos Aires meetings and to meet collectively after our session
(but while still in Buenos Aires) in order to discuss the common
themes that we might wish to highlight in revising our papers. The
session organizers will attend to the publication of the final papers
and write an introductory essay.
The proposal and paper can be in Spanish, English or French. (But
please see note below.) In the paper proposal please include:
a. Author/s and contact information We will notify authors of the composition of the panel at the end
of December 2001.
Note: Papers for the Congress may be in Spanish, English or French.
We anticipate that a collected volume of high quality papers could
have a publication audience in both Spanish and English editions.
Please consider that we may require your paper in translation.
Gail D. Triner It is requested that all interested economic historians on Southern
Africa send proposals for papers in this particular session to the
organiser Professor R.W.Vivian, President of the Economic History
Society of Southern Africa, at the following address:
Department of Business Economics, University of the Witwatersrand,
Private Bag X3, WITS, 2050, South Africa Or to:
Prof. Grietjie Verhoef, Department of Historical Studies, RAU,
P.O.Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, South Africa BACKGROUND:
Economic History of Southern Africa : Economic change in the Southern
African Development Community (SADC), 1980-2000.
The Southern African Development Community is the regional organisation
aimed at the strengthening of economic development initiatives in
the region. This organisation was established in 1980 by the nine
majority rule states in Southern Africa to coordinate development
and reduce the dependence of those countries on South Africa. The
aim of this organisation was to develop a balanced economic development
plan for the region through improved cooperation and mutual self
interest. It was established at a time when Africa was severely
affected by the weakening competitiveness of African economies in
the global environment and the growing debt position of African
states. The states that joined SADC were Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana,
Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
The session on the history of SADC would reflect on the following
issues pertaining to SADC and regional development:
Session 56: Comportement
économique des populations indigènes au cours de la
colonisation du Nouveu Monde. The economic histories of the New World have focused primarily
on the behavior of the Europeans who migrated and colonized the
land, and has ignored almost entirely the economies of the indigenous
peoples. The proposed session will be devoted to exploring the economic
behavior of the indigenous peoples in an attempt to better document
the range of economic tasks in which they engaged, the wide variety
of European goods that they obtained, the extent to which they participated
in market-oriented behavior, the degree of economic success they
may have had in the face of demographic catastrophe, and the impact
of their economic behavior on the colonists. Although much of the
research will include descriptive narrative, efforts will be made
to address formally the questions of how extensive was indigenous
market activity and how large was its effect on the life of the
colonists.
Scholarship about the colonial economies in the New World has focused
on the behavior of the colonists if for no other reason than that
they were the agents who came to dominate the New World economies.
In the process of establishing economic hegemony the colonists are
seen as having driven out, or exterminated, or subjugated the indigenous
peoples. The indigenous people are seen almost entirely as victims;
and justifiably so. There is also no question that indigenous peoples
throughout the New World suffered demographic catastrophes as a
result of European contact, and scholars have provided abundant
evidence for why this took place. But the tragedies need not mean
that indigenous peoples should be regarded simply as victims in
all regards. True they lost much of their land, and the demographic
collapse may make it appear that their economies were not functioning
and sustainable; but these are hardly reasons for ignoring their
economies and excluding indigenous peoples from depictions of colonial
economic development.
It is important that, as historians, we place indigenous peoples
in their proper role as shapers, and not only victims, of the colonial
experience. The unstated , but apparently, consensus view that indigenous
peoples somehow do not fit into prevailing conceptions of economic
development has not emerged from much formal analysis of their economies.
To date, the limited attention to their economic behavior most likely
reflects the fact that they left few documentary records, especially
about economic activities; but historians and economists have long
demonstrated that it is possible to draw meaningful inferences from
even fleeting references and barely intelligible documents. Moreover,
recent work indicates that some data are available, perhaps more
than previously believed, that can enable scholars to measure, with
some reliability, many aspects of the economies of indigenous peoples
and how those economies changed over time.
The session is intended to be a forum for the presentation and
critical discussion of case studies about the economic behavior
of indigenous peoples and their economic interaction with the colonists,
as well as of comparative investigations, based on a broad range
of experiences across the globe.
We have a small number of commitments to present papers, mostly
about case studies in North America. We will have two 90 minute
time slots for this session, so we are looking for additional proposals
particularly on South and Central America and other parts of the
world.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
by Sept.1st, 2001 to one of the co-organizers listed below.
The complete paper should be sent to us, as an e-mail (Word) attachment
and also on a floppy disk, preferably before February 1, 2002 but
in any case not later than June 1, 2002. Any paper that will be
ready in its final form before February 1, 2002, would be included
in the official Congress CD. We shall inform you in due time about
the submission details for inclusion in this CD.
Co-organizers:
Thomas Weiss Frank Lewis Land, a primary factor of production, has not only been a major
component of economic, political, and social aspects of human life
across time and space, but it has also played an important cultural
and religious role. The different mechanisms that have been utilized
to distribute land among people (by custom, authoritative discretion,
sheer force, laws and regulations, and/or market forces) have been
instrumental in shaping human territoriality, and have been important
in the formation of collective identities and the nature of ethno-national
entities.
The close relations between ethno-nationality and territory in
history involve, quite naturally, the nexus between property rights
in land and the exclusiveness of ownership imposed by the state
- the notion of territorial sovereignty. A number of issues are
of interest, among them: the structure and functioning of land markets
in which the participation of "others" (ethno-nationally, religiously,
or otherwise identified) has been effectively restricted (or barred
altogether); the political and economic underpinning of such constraints
and their variety and change over time; and the implications of
ethno-nationally restricted land markets for the allocation of resources,
income distribution, and growth, in the societies concerned.
The history of colonialism and of many of the ethno-nationally
(and/or religiously) divided "old" and "new" states provides a rich
"laboratory" for illuminating these and related issues concerning
the formation, modi operandi, and consequences of ethno-natinally
affected land regimes in history and their relationship to the concept
of territorial sovereignty. These issues will be explored in our
session which is intended to be a forum for the presentation and
critical discussion of case studies, as well as of comparative investigations,
based on a broad range of experiences.
We have already secured a number of commitments to present papers
on Aborigines' landed property rights and sovereignty in North America;
land ownership issues in South Africa, Russia, Fiji and Hawaii;
the land question in Palestine-Israel; and the attempts to change
the ethno-national mix of land ownership and settlement in late
19th century Prussian Poland.
We are still looking for additional proposals, particularly on
Europe (Yugoslavia for instance), the Dutch empire, Latin America,
Australia, and the Middle East.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
no later than by Sept.1st, 2001. to:
Stanley Engerman or to:
Jacob Metzer Session 62: Les
Banques d'Epargne comme institutions financières: rôle,
performance et impact. Savings banks have performed a wide variety of functions and roles
since they spread across Europe and North America from the late
eighteenth century. Primarily serving as savings vehicles for the
less well off, they complemented the activities of commercial banking
systems by focussing on deposit gathering rather than lending. The
extent to which they could develop this latter aspect of their business
was generally constrained by domestic regulation: in the UK for
example, savings banks made very few personal or business loans
until well into the twentieth century. In other countries, they
acted primarily as mortgage or municipal financing vehicles, or,
as in Germany for example, by bringing together aspects of commercial
banking with savings gathering in a new and innovative manner. In
the process of financial deregulation in the late twentieth century,
these differences within and between countries have been eroded;savings
banks have become in some places fully fledged financial intermediaries,
but in others they have retained some of their special characteristics.
This session seeks to explore these issues: it will take an explicitly
inclusive and comparative approach to the role, performance and
impact of savings banks in the process of economic and financial
development. There are three main principles. First, we will take
a long-term perspective, so that papers on recent (e.g. post deregulation
and merger performance) activities will be as welcome as those dealing
with earlier savings gathering activities in Europe, North America
or elsewhere. It is hoped that this will encourage a range of approaches,
including involvement from scholars in cognate disciplines who are
interested in these institutions. Secondly, the organisers seek
to encourage analysis not only of the institutions, but also of
their customers; that is, we wish to explore savings activity and
the contribution of savings banks to savings behaviour in those
countries in which they developed. Third, we seek to place savings
banks in the context of their host financial system and in this
way be able to say something about the changing nature and identity
of the savings bank as a form of organisation separate and distinct
from commercial banks. The relationship between savings and commercial
banks, the points at which they meet and the arenas in which they
compete, will be explored.
Contributions on all these topics will be welcomed.
Proposals should be sent to:
Dr Duncan M Ross Session 64: Produits
de base: compréhension de léconomie mondiale à
travers l'histoire de ces produits, 1000-2000 EC. The production, trade, and consumption of commodities such as silk,
salt, oil and cotton have woven together different parts of the
world throughout the centuries. This panel will explore the character
of these international links and show how they have changed during
the past 1000 years. Papers will investigate the connections between
agriculture, trade, industry and consumption created by particular
commodities, examine the impact of an increasing global integration
of markets on the way things were produced and ask how we can understand
the particular ways specific places were integrated into the world
economy. Taken together, the papers will inquire into the impact
of states, diverse resource endowments, non-state actors, and the
distribution of social power in particular places on the spatial
structure of the production and consumption of a number of core
commodities. We will pay particular attention to the people who
facilitated these global networks--merchants, diaspora communities,
and migrant workers, among others.
During the past years, historians have increasingly become interested
in understanding processes, identities and networks that transcend
the nation-state. For this panel, we invite paper proposals that
explore more global approaches to understanding the development
of past economies by interrogating the changing relationships between
the economies of different towns, cities, regions and nation-states
to one another through the history of particular commodities. Case
studies are welcome, as are more theoretical explorations of the
themes raised. We are interested in historical, economic, anthropological
and sociological approaches that will allow us to focus on diverse
and seemingly contradictory developments, such as the spread of
free labor and slavery, industrialization and deindustrialization,
markets and states--in short, to think about the unity of the diverse.
If you are interested in participating in the panel, please submit
(by October 15, 2001) a short proposal along with a copy of your
c.v. to:
Sven Beckert This is an international conference and we are actively trying
to recruit participants from outside the United States.
The economic crisis of the 1840’s (1845-1848)
symbolises the transition between two worlds. First of all a supply
crisis lies at the base of what has come to be considered as (Western)
Europe’s last major hunger crisis. Secondly, it is a crisis
of industrial production (overproduction) and of the financial world.
Consequently, studying this 'crise mixte' offers an interesting
point of Papers on the following subjects are welcomed:
a) the impact of this crisis on various ‘national’
economies all over Europe and b) the ‘global’ economic
effects. Following a) A comparative analysis of the impact of the
agrarian crisis starting from a series of b) The long-term effects of the crisis on the
economic relations between Europe and the non-European world. Those interested in participating in this session
should contact:
Eric Vanhaute, Department of Modern History,
Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, B-9000, Gent, Belgium. Ph: 32
9 264 40 08. Fax: 32 9 264 41 89. Email: eric.vanhaute@rug.ac.be
Session 70: Taille,
santé et nutrition dans les régions périphériques
du monde. Recent studies on globalization and convergence have indicated
the important integrating effects that flows in labor, trade, and
finances had in the global economy. Waves of globalization were
accompanied by a convergence in prices, wages, and rents while the
de-globalization backlash moved these variables into the opposite
direction. Thus, in periods of globalization, peripheries tended
to grow faster than the center, generating a process of convergence.
Did a similar process occur in relation to biological welfare? Did
the world diffusion of medical knowledge, public health services,
and the improvement in nutrition help to narrow the gap in biological
welfare between center and periphery? How did the world periphery
respond to industrialization and development in core areas? Did
their biological living standards improve or deteriorate? Are the
existing measurements of health and nutrition comparable across
countries in peripheral regions?
Health and nutrition are important elements of the human utility
function. Economic historians have found important examples of countries
and time periods during which health development has not been closely
related to income development. Some regions of the world periphery
enjoyed better nutrition and longer and healthier lives than the
inhabitants of the center, even ceteris paribus. We need to take
these examples into account and examine them in a comparative perspective.
Other regions, in turn, have shown deterioration in their biological
welfare at the moment of their integration into the world economy.
The comparison of these cases may re-open the discussion about standards
of living, industrialization, and convergence shifting the problematique
to the terrain of public health technologies, food regimes, poor
relief, and work intensity. How was the health and nutrition of
peripheral regions before and after they integrated into the world
economy? Bringing together studies which may begin to answer this
question is the goal of this session.
This session aims at broadening the existing database of indicators
of health and nutrition (height, life expectancy, BMI, and related
indicators) by considering countries and regions that were peripheral
to the centers of economic development. It focuses on the analysis
of the development of biological welfare in countries of Africa,
Asia, Latin America, Australia, island nations, the American West
and North before 1900, and periphery regions in South, Central,
and Eastern Europe. Authors are encouraged to problematize the notion
of the "integration" of peripheral countries into the world economy
-in relation to the question of biological welfare-and to present,
whenever possible, valid comparisons across countries and regions.
Those interested in participating in the ession should send an
abstract of their proposed paper by January 15, 2002, to:
Joerg Baten Session 72: L'exploitation
économique des enfants: réalité ou fiction?. This session will examine the use of child labor in the 19th and
early 20th century United States and Western Europe. In particular,
the nature and extent of exploitation of children and their labor
will be a common theme of the papers in this session. The concept
of exploitation will also be examined in detail: is the presence
of child labor sufficient evidence to confirm the existence of exploitation,
or does the relationship between earnings and expropriation need
to be examined more closely?
In response to current political concern over the exploitation
of children in sweatshops in developing countries, economists have
raised the question does child labor hurt children in the long run,
or does their labor raise the family's standard of living sufficiently
to benefit the child as well as his parents? This session will provide
perspective on this current issue by examining how extensive exploitation
was in the past. It will look at the economic conditions under which
child labor was useful, and it will identify factors that resulted
in its disappearance.
This session will examine the exploitation of child labor from
several geographical and cultural viewpoints; therefore, while the
session is currently focused on the experience of the U.S. and Western
Europe, we will consider paper proposals covering non-European areas
as well. We currently have four papers and a discussant scheduled
and are seeking about 2-3 more papers for the session.
Those interested in participating in the session should send an
abstract (hardcopy or Word attachment) of their proposed paper by
December 15, 2001 to:
Jon Moen Session 78: Institutions
de Propriété intellectuelle et activités liées
aux inventions dans une perspective historique. The generation of new technological knowledge is one of the fundamental
processes of economic growth. Despite its importance, however, scholars
have only a very incomplete understanding of how and why the rates
and organization of invention have varied over time, space, and
levels of economic and technological development. Among the important
issues that have been highlighted by recent work are: a) the significance
of economic incentives (and market forces) to inventors in accounting
for the rates and direction of invention; b) the role of intellectual
property institutions, such as patent or copyright systems, and
of government policy generally in stimulating the generation and
diffusion of new knowledge; c) whether and how the organization
of production influences the rate and direction of technological
change; and d) what are the factors that influence the rate and
timing of when new technologies are actually implemented.
The session will focus on these and related issues, with critical
discussion of case studies and explicit comparative analyses. At
present, we have commitments from various scholars to present papers
on the experiences of a number of European countries and the United
States over the 19th and early 20th centuries. We are especially
looking for proposals that deal with other parts of the world and
follower countries.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper
no later than September 10th, 2001 to:
Kenneth Sokoloff Session 84: Transmission
de l'information et intégration des marchés. The emphasis in traditional market integration research has been
on the impact of transport cost reductions and trade policy changes.
This session will focus on the role of information transmission
on market performance. It is meant to be a forum for research into
the evolution of particular modes of information transmission technology,
say the postal system, the telegraph, the specialized commercial
press, the internet etc. Relevant studies might look into the speed,
reliability and cost of diffusion of information. The session organizers
also wish to invite papers which look at the impact of changes in
information technologies, say the introduction of the telegraph,
on market integration and market efficiency.
Those interested in participating in the session should send an
abstract of their proposed paper by January 15, 2002. We shall inform
all those who submit proposals of the status of their submission
in due course.
Please send your proposal to the organizers:
Yrjö Kaukiainen and
Karl Gunnar Persson Session 90:
The State of the Art in the Profession. A Call for Papers has been issued for the Invited Session, "The
State of the Art in the Profession," organized by Professor Vera
Zamagni. Contributions should focus on:
1. The formal organization of the profession in societies, journals,
publications and academic positions. Gender balance and the recruitment
of young scholars. The profession and the use of new technologies
(Internet etc.).
2. Methodological schools and approaches, main themes researched.
The relationships of Economic History with Economics, Business Administration,
Statistics, Econometrics, Demography, Sociology, Political Sciences,
History of Science and Techonology, General History.
3. The impact of the profession within civil society. Visibility
and contribution of Economic History in the national and international
cultural and educational milieus.
The session will have two time blocks and the aim is to accept
around 10 papers, to allow enough time for discussion.
Deadline for presentation of proposals: end of January 2001.
Prof. Vera Zamagni |
|