On the Supposed Decline and Fall of Economic History

Much like the West, the field of economic history has experienced endless lamentations of its imminent decline and fall. Whaples's basic argument that economic historians as a group are disrespected by economists and feared and despised by historians is typical of this kind of premature eulogy. The Cliometric Revolution had all been so promising back in the 1970s, and now all we are good for is telling a few stories about past economic crises to entertain our fellow economists or supply them with a telling historical anecdote to decorate the first paragraph of some technical paper. How bad are things, really?

It has never been easy to be an economic historian. Much like Jews in their diaspora, they belong simultaneously in many places and nowhere at all. They are perennial minorities, often persecuted, exiled, accustomed to niche existences, surviving by their wits and by (usually) showing solidarity to one another. They must work harder, and know more. They must know both math and foreign languages, and be familiar with MATLAB and archives. They are specialized "economic historians" in one forum, full-time economists (or, more rarely, historians or political scientists) in another. "Be a Jew in your house, a Goy in the street"—this sage advice could just as well be given to economic historians. It is easy for Whaples to find anecdotal evidence of anti-economic history sentiments among economists and historians. Yet again, much like the history of the Jews, while there is plenty of injustice and suffering, and the consequent hand wringing, it is hard to speak of "failure" on an aggregate scale—economic history, by most reasonable criteria, is alive and well.¹ It is true that tenure-track jobs are hard to get, but economic historians are still being hired, including at top universities. The annual dissertation session at the Economic History Association meeting, which features six of the best doctoral theses completed that year, is typically oversupplied at a ratio of 1:3. This may be good or bad news, depending on which side of the market you are on, but it shows that young scholars from both economics and history departments are still electing to join the field. Young people voting with their feet are still the best indicator of the health of a subdiscipline. To be sure, the Messiah of economic history has not yet appeared, and may never. But we survive.

That does not mean that the intellectual and sociological parameters of economic history are fixed. "Joining the field" no longer means what it used to mean. Cliometrics was never a guild with power to exclude. Even in the early days of cliometrics, while the important work was done by scholars who had declared themselves to be economic historians, other scholars dipped in and out of economic history.² Today, more so than in the past, scholars whose fame is based on work in other areas are publishing work in economic history, at times relying on data assembled by card-carrying members of the cliometric guild, at other times generating their own. This may be bad news for cliometricians (who face more competition) but good news for the field, which has received a revitalizing intellectual shot in the arm from scholars who look at historical problems from fresh perspectives and with powerful tools. These scholars may not always have the time and patience to spend many years in dusty archives, but they often control research budgets that allow them to hire research assistants who can.

In fact, many areas in economic history have been invaded by scholars who are not card-carrying economic historians, and their influence has been substantial. Perhaps the most remarkable case is that of Daron Acemoglu, the winner of the coveted John Bates Clark medal for the best economist under 40 in 2007. Acemoglu was invited to give a keynote address at the Economic History Association's annual convention in New Haven in 2008, as well as one at the World Economic History Congress in Utrecht in August 2009. His work, much of it coauthored with James Robinson and Simon Johnson...