University Seminar in Economic History

University Economic History Seminar Schedule

Fall 2019

Oct 4	Kara Dimitruk,  Stellenbosch University and LEAP	The Development of Coercive Labor Laws in the British Cape Colony
Nov 7	Wright Kennedy, Columbia University	Separate but Dead: Measuring the Mortality Burdens of Jim Crow
Dec 5	Sean Vanatta,  NYU	The Frail Bonds of Liberalism: Pensions, Schools, and the Unraveling of Fiscal Mutualism in Midcentury New York

Spring 2020

Feb 6	Paul Rhode,  University of Michigan	Slave Productivity in Cotton Picking (joint with Alan Olmstead)
Mar 5	David Weiman,  Barnard College	A “Public Utility” of the “Greatest Importance?” The Rise and Fall of the Second Bank of the United States
Apr 2	Dan Bogart,  UC Irvine	TBA
May 7	Guido Alfani, Bocconi University	Preindustrial inequality and the rise of the fiscal-military state.

Meetings take place at the Columbia University Faculty House 7:30-9:00 pm. Before the seminar, we assemble at the Faculty House for drinks (5:45-6:30pm) and dinner (6:30-7:30).  RSVP is required for dinner.

The concerns of this seminar are wide ranging in time, place, and method. Emphasis is on the logic of European and American economic growth from feudal times forward with regular, but less frequent, contributions on Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Topics range from microeconomic studies of firms undergoing rapid technical change and households changing their interaction between home and market to more macroeconomic topics concerned with national and regional economic growth performance, the economics of imperialism, and the political economy of the Great Depression. Given the breadth of the seminar’s membership and interests, comparative economic history is often a central element in seminar discussions. Pre-circulation of papers permits vigorous discussion.

University Seminars Page 

University Seminars in Economic History