Economic History Association 2012 Annual Meeting

CONFERENCE THEME:

Revisiting the Transportation Revolution

Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Vancouver, British Columbia
September 21-23, 2012

UPDATED: Pre-registration is closed, but you can register on site at the conference. You can download the full Meetings Program booklet at the bottom of the page.

Generations of economic historians have written extensively about the economic impact of the transportation improvements.  Nevertheless, new tools, new data, and new techniques derived from geographic information systems, economic geography, and the like continue to offer better measures of the impact of the improvements in roads, ships, railroads, and planes (and the infrastructure which support them).  They also provide new insights into the short and long term effects of these changes and how they have shaped our world by diminishing the importance of space and place.  Once upon a time, distance in the form of time and money protected producers and isolated communities and cultures.  Improved communications and transportation have eroded these—a process which continues to this day as these technologies evolve. 

The Program Committee (Robert Margo, Boston University (Chair); Ran Abramitzky, Stanford University; Leah Boustan, UCLA; and Eugene White, Rutgers University) has selected papers on all subjects in economic history, though some preference will be given to papers that specifically fit the above theme. 

Papers should in all cases be works in progress rather than accepted or published work and authors should let the program committee know, at the time of application, if the paper they are proposing has already been submitted for publication. Individuals who presented or co-authored a paper at the 2011 meeting are generally not eligible for inclusion in the 2012 program.

The paper and session proposal system is now closed.

Graduate students are encouraged to attend the meeting. The Association offers subsidies for travel (ONLY for paper and poster presenters), hotel, registration, and meals, including a special graduate student dinner. A poster session welcomes work from dissertations in progress. The poster session application window has already passed. The dissertation session convened by Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale University) and Joachim Voth (Pompeu Fabra University) will honor six dissertations completed between June 1, 2011 and May 15, 2012. The submission deadline is May 15, 2012. The Allan Nevins and Alexander Gerschenkron prizes will be awarded to the best dissertations on North American and non-North American topics respectively.

For further information, check the various pages in this website, which will feature information on travel options to Vancouver, Canada shortly; or contact Meetings Coordinator Jari Eloranta at elorantaj@appstate.edu.