“Human Welfare: Measurement, Analysis, and Interpretation”

The Program Committee—Michael Haines, Colgate University (Chair); Jeremy Atack, Vanderbilt University; Brooks Kaiser, Gettysburg College; and Trevon Logan, Ohio State University—welcomes proposals for individual papers, as well as for entire sessions. Papers should in all cases be works in progress rather than accepted or published work. Submitters have a responsibility to let the program committee know if the proposed paper has been submitted for publication. Submissions for entire sessions should include no more than three papers and each proposal should be submitted separately. The committee reserves the right to determine which papers will be included in those sessions that are accepted.

As is the rule, papers on all subjects in economic history are welcome, but a number of sessions will be devoted to the theme “Human Welfare: Measurement, Analysis, and Interpretation.”

The ultimate goal of economic historians is to illuminate the evolution of human welfare. This year's theme promotes efforts to unify and to find common denominators in diverse approaches to understanding this central aspect of our past. Measurement is a central concern, even in modern studies of this complex subject. Among the issues to consider are the variety of approaches and how they compare. What was the contribution of improvements in health? Of emancipation or freedom? Of the right to vote? Of moderating the business cycle, or reducing bank failures? Can we estimate the social cost of inequality or crime, and of war, epidemics, and other calamities? Of consumer surplus from trade? By how much did technological change improve welfare by making home and market production, as well as travel, easier and safer? What was the cost of isolation, or alternatively the benefit of cheap communication? What are the counterfactuals most suitable for addressing these types of questions? Of course, these ideas are merely suggestions, and we have at our disposal a growing array of economic theories and empirical methods to estimate how “progress” translates into human welfare.

Papers and session proposals should be submitted online at: http://eh.net/eha/meetings/prop_09.html. Paper proposals should include a 3–5 page précis and a 150-word abstract suitable for publication in the Journal of Economic History. The due date is January 31, 2009.

Graduate students are encouraged to attend and 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 (application due date April 30, 2009).

The dissertation session convened by John Murray (University of Toledo) and Stephen Broadberry (University of Warwick, UK) will honor six dissertations completed during the 2008–2009 academic year. The submission deadline is May 31, 2009. The Alexander Gerschenkron and Allan Nevins prizes will be awarded to the best dissertation on non-North American and North American topics.

For further information, check http://eh.net/eha/, which also includes information on travel options to Tucson; the EHA meetings page (www.ehameeting.com); or contact Meetings Coordinator Jari Eloranta at elorantaj@appstate.edu.

Dissertation Fellowship Recipients

Leticia Arroyo Abad of University of California, Davis for “Latin American Inequality in the Long Run.” Advisor, Peter Lindert.

Linda Carter of Vanderbilt University for “Essays on the Educational Experiences of Economically Disadvantaged Children and Young Adults, 1870–2005.” Advisor, William Collins.

Exploratory Grant Recipients

Molly Ball of University of California, Los Angeles for “Industrialization in Sao Paul's Old Republic: A Wage Perspective.” Advisor, William Summerhill.

Mike Doron of Texas A&M for “The American Accounting Profession, 1920–1970.” Advisor, Harold Livesay.

Brendan Livingston of University of Arizona for “The New Deal and Poverty.” Advisor, Price Fishback.

Anirban Mukherjee of University of British Columbia for “Movement from Informal to Formal Credit Agreements in Early Modern England.” Advisor, Mauricio Drelichman.

Maritza Paredes of University of Oxford for “Building State Institutions in Resource Abundance in the Andes, the Rise and Evolution of Development Corporations, and the Post-Liberal Challenge: Cases, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.” Advisor, Rosemary Thorp.

Ariel Rubin of Columbia University for “Low-Level Credit Networks in the Early Modern Netherlands.” Advisor, Martha Howell.

Kristin Wintersteen of Duke University for “Fishing for Food and Fodder: The Transnational Environmental History of Fishmeal in Chile and Peru, 1960–1998.” Advisor, John French.

Noam Meir Yuchtman of Harvard University for “An Economic Analysis of Different Educational Institutions: Returns to Education in Late Imperial and Republican China.” Advisor, Claudia Goldin.

Arthur H. Cole Grants-In-Aid

Lisa Cook of James Madison College for “The Anomaly of Private Property in the Soviet Union: Evidence from Soviet Patenting at Home and Abroad, 1921 to 2007.”

Karine van der Beek of Ben-Gurion University, Israel for “Investment in Human Capital on the Eve of the British Industrial Revolution: The Market for Engineering-Related Skills.”

Patrick Van Horn of University of Michigan, Dearborn for “New York City Banks During the Great Depression.”