Awards at the 2018 Economic History Association Meetings

The Economic History Association announced the 2018 prize winners at the Annual Meeting held recently in Montreal, Canada.

Mohamed Saleh, Toulouse School of Economics and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, was awarded the Arthur H. Cole Prize for the outstanding article published in this JOURNAL in the September 2017 to June 2018 issues, for “On the Road to Heaven: Taxation, Conversions, and the Coptic-Muslim Socioeconomic Gap in Medieval Egypt,” published in the June 2018 issue of The Journal of Economic History. The editorial board selected the winner.

Gillian Brunet received the Allan Nevins Prize for the Best Dissertation in U.S. or Canadian Economic History, for her dissertation “Understanding The Effects of Fiscal Policy: Measurement, Mechanisms, and Lessons from History,” completed at the University of California – Berkeley. Advisors: Christina Romer (chair), Barry Eichengreen, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Noam Yuchtman. (This prize is awarded on behalf of Columbia University Press.)

Eric Prawitz received the Alexander Gerschenkron Prize for the Best Dissertation in non-U.S. or Canadian Economic History, for his dissertation “On the Move: Essays on the Economic and Political Development of Sweden,” completed at Stockholm University. Advisor: Jakob Svensson.

Howard Bodenhorn, Clemson University, was awarded the annual Jonathan Hughes Prize honoring excellence in teaching economic history.

The Alice Hanson Jones Prize for outstanding book on North American Economic History was awarded to Leah Platt Boustan, Princeton University, for her book, Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets, published by Princeton University Press and Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth College, for his book, Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy, published by University of Chicago Press.

Sumner La Croix, University of Hawaii, was awarded for Exceptional Service to the Journal of Economic History Editorial Board.

Laura Salisbury, York University, and Walker Hanlon, New York University were awarded for Excellence in Refereeing for the Journal of Economic History.

Jeremy Atack, Vanderbilt University, was awarded the inaugural Engerman-Goldin Prize for creating, compiling, and sharing data and information with scholars.

Also announced was the Larry Neal Prize for the best article published in Explorations in Economic History, awarded to James Siodla, Colby College, for “Clean Slate: Land-Use Changes in San Francisco after the 1906 Disaster,” published in the July 2017 issue.

Awarded for Excellence in Refereeing for Explorations in Economic History were Laura Salisbury, York University, Gonzalo Pina, Santa Clara University, and Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley.

The 2019 Economic History Association Meetings Atlanta, Georgia September 13–15, 2019 Price V. Fishback

The theme for EHA 2019 is “Markets and Governments in Economic History.” The interactions between markets and governments are central issues in the organization of economies. From the beginning of time, groups of people had to decide whether to let their members freely trade resources and the fruits of their efforts or whether to distribute them in alternative ways in which the group set up rules for use and distribution of resources and output. Governments ranged from contractual states to predatory states based on the extent to which the participants negotiated the rules or a subset imposed their rules on others. As societies grew larger, the debates about capitalism, socialism, communism, manorialism, and other “isms” centered on the nexus between markets and governments. Within the last 250 years, more governments have loosened the reins and given people more economic freedom to produce and trade more freely in markets. Even in those countries, the interactions between markets and governments have been fluid as the interest groups in society have worked through the political process to provide more social insurance to protect against risk, establish regulations, adjust defense spending, solve new problems, or establish new rules that favor their position. The theme offers scholars a broad range of options for proposals. Papers on markets alone, governments alone, or other topics are also welcome.

The Program Committee, consisting of Taylor Jaworski (University of Colorado) (chair), together with Kenneth Snowden (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), Steve Nafziger (Williams University), and Doug Irwin (Dartmouth College), welcomes submissions on all subjects in economic history, though some preference will be given to papers that fit the theme of the conference. Papers should be submitted individually, but authors may suggest to the Committee that three particular papers fit well together in a panel. Papers should in all cases be works in progress rather than accepted or published work. Submitters 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 presented at the 2018 meeting are not eligible for inclusion in the 2019 program. Paper proposals should include a 3–5 page proposal and a 150-word abstract suitable for publication in the Journal of Economic History. Please note that at least one of the authors needs to be a member of EHA. Papers and session proposals should be submitted online, with details to follow on the meetings website: http://eh.net/eha/category/meetings/2019-meeting/. The submission system will be available from 1 November 2018 onward.

Graduate students are encouraged to attend the meeting. The Association offers subsidies for travel, hotel, registration, and meals, including a special graduate student dinner. A poster session welcomes work from dissertations in progress. Applications for the poster session are due no later than 21 May 2019 online on the meetings website. The poster submission system will open on 1 March 2019.

The dissertation session, convened by Richard Hornbeck (University of Chicago) and Debin Ma (London School of Economics) will honor six dissertations completed during the 2018–2019 academic year. The submission deadline is 1 June 2019. The Allan Nevins and Alexander Gerschenkron prizes will be awarded to the best dissertations on U.S. or Canadian and non-U.S. or Canadian topics, respectively. Dissertations must be submitted as a single PDF file. Files of less than 5 MB in size may be sent directly to the conveners as an email attachment. To submit a file over 5 MB, please supply a download link in an email message. The Nevins prize submissions should be sent to Richard.Hornbeck@chicagobooth.edu and the Gerschenkron prize submissions to d.ma1@lse.ac.uk. All submissions will be acknowledged by return email.

EHA Grant and Fellowship Awards

The Committee of Research in Economic History (CREH) of the Economic History Association is charged with administrating the Association’s project of assisting young scholars as a way of strengthening the discipline of economic history. The CREH made three types of awards for 2018: fellowships to graduate students writing their dissertations; travel/data grants to graduate students in the early stage of research; and Cole Grants to recent PhDs.