On the pretty good state of the history of economics

Updated April 15.

Tyler Cowen had a list up of some underexplored topics in the history of economic thought. Some in the History of Economic Thought (HET) community felt that it did not do sufficient justice to recent work. I thought some of the suggestions were really interesting, but others indeed seemed fairly well-covered. So whether one feels that more is to be done, or a lot has already been done, below is a list with some starting points in the topics mentioned by Tyler (topics that I knew nothing about are at the bottom, please do enlighten me on great works in these areas!).

Rise of econometrics in the 19th century

This one surprised me a little because the history of quantification was a major theme in the 1990s and 2000s, following books like ‘Trust in Numbers’ by Ted Porter, various more recent contributions have followed Fourcade’s (Economists and Societies) lead in exploring national pathways. Work on the history of GDP and business cycle statistics frequently reaches back into the (late) nineteenth century.

The last 50 years of economics are in general very poorly covered.

Tyler has blogged before about Andrej Svorencik’s excellent dissertation on experimental economics, so he is aware of that one (Andrej has also edited a great oral history of the field). But I think this is the sub-field where the quantitative turn has been most useful, see for instance Catherine Herfeld and Francois Claveau’s introduction to network analysis in HET.  History of recent economics is notoriously tricky, but the amount of oral history that has been produced has been impressive, and archives such as those at the Economists Papers at Duke add the papers of recently deceased economists all the time. Personally I love the way that John Davis and co-authors keep on documenting changes in the field (one of their more recent updates).

Works in any foreign language you might read.

I agree that translation has proven a serious obstacle in our field. Having worked on a Dutch economist (Jan Tinbergen), various German schools of thought, as well as American economics, I know that this continues to be a challenge. This is not unique to our field, I know colleagues in applied fields often complain that empirical findings from outside the U.S. don’t get the same recognition. I think that historically HET has had a little more of a Britain, than a U.S. problem, but it still means that non-English work as well as research on non-English speaking economists is underrated.

Economic thought in India

This is one of the fields that the HET-community has broken into recently. There is an earlier book by Dasgupta which provides an overview, Maria Bach has completed a dissertation on Indian economic thought around 1900, some of it is already out. And let’s not overlook that recently an Indian History of Economic Thought Society (ISHET) was formed.

The funding of economics, and economists, through the ages (very underdone)

I agree that this is underdone, the volume by Mirowski and Sent Science Bought and Sold has not had much follow-up. When it is done, it is still too frequently done with suspicion of private funding, and mostly a neglect of public funding. But to bridge to the next one, work on the institutional history of the League of Nations has shed great light on the role of institutional funders like the Rockefeller Foundation. And there is extensive work on the influence of the RAND Corporation on the development of economics, again Mirowski has really put that on the agenda.

The institutionalization of economics

This should not be on the list. The Fourcade book above is relevant, Keith Tribe’s recent Constructing Economic Science does it for Britain, his earlier work did it for Germany, Grimmer Solem focused on the big institutionalization in Germany around the Verein für Socialpolitik. Broadly speaking, I would say that there is relatively too much interest in the history of our field and its institutions, relative to economic thought in other places (journalism, movies, novels, government reports/committees). Great work which connects to the history of more recent work is being done on central banks, most of the researchers collaborated on this big recent article.  

History of women in economics, especially recently

This is another one where the field is playing catch-up. But to say it’s doing that too slowly would be odd. Edith Kuiper recently published a Herstory of Economics, there is a 2018 handbook, Evelyn Forget has a long history of publishing on the subject going back to the 1990s, both HOPE and Oeconomia had recent special issues (I contributed an article to the latter). We are also getting more specialized work such as this great open-access book by Giandomenica Becchio on the history of the two spheres (private and public)

History of prizes and awards in economics

If I can guess some of my colleagues took offence to this one, given that the history of prizes has been the focus of various recent projects, such as the J.B. Clark Medal, and this one on hierarchy, power and influence within the AEA. Can we have more, undoubtedly.

Economic ideas and fascism, in various eras

Was Pinochet a fascist? Lots of ink has been spilled on the (supposed) influence of economists in Chile. Also lots of great book on the ordoliberals recently, who were certainly not fascist, but did their most important work under fascism. Also let’s not forget this great book by Manuela Mosca on the period just before Italian fascism, which also deals with power extensively.

Economic thoughts on the arts, starting with Hume

This HOPE volume is indeed from too long ago, I tried my hand at a brief history of justifying state support for the arts. But my best pick for this is an overview by Crauford Goodwin from 2006.

Economics and demographic thought, throughout the ages, for instance the 1920s

If we’re talking 1920s it’s hard not to immediately scream eugenics. Another field where I think recent work has been quite good, Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers is the place to start, Luca Fiorito has been chipping away at a history of the Progressives often directly related to population. But I agree that this topic is understudied, when I did research on the history of development economics for my Tinbergen biography, population was a missing factor in the literature (despite the fact that he always pushed to have it on the agenda).  

The very early history of law and economics

What’s very early? German socio-economics of the late 19th century? Adam Smith in the late 18th century? The management of the commons from Grotius to Ostrom? The go-to researcher on the twentieth century is Steve Medema. I think the history we should tell here is how 20th century economics came to forget the law, not how law and economics ever came together.

Economics and 19th century psychology

One of my former teachers Harro Maas wrote on Jevons and experimental psychology. What questions should we ask here? Scientific methods, or maybe again how two fields which were quite close together in some ways, parted ways during the neoclassical era when ‘utility’ was believed to be all the psychology we needed.

History of experimental economics

See above where I reference Andrej’s work, one of his great paper discusses the divergence between behavioral and experimental economics. My paper with Blaz Remic has quite a bit on rival experimental traditions (and is also about psychology and economics).

History of RCTs

The work I’m aware of is mostly methodological in orientation, given that the method is still in flux.

History of what has been taught in economics classes, over the generations
To the HET-nerds there is a simple answer to this question: Irwin Collier. His blog deserves a book.

History of textbooks

First textbook author that comes to mind is Samuelson, Yann Giraud has you covered. Keith Tribe's book mentioned above is also text-book oriented. I remember that there was a great article which chronicled the leading German textbooks in the 19th century, help me out! Not sure how well other countries are covered.

History of economists in government

This one is dear to my heart. Economists have been close to government since the Physiocrats at the court of Louis XV, and probably before if we agree to call them economists. The German tradition of Kameral-, Polizei- and Staatwissenschaften out of which economics grew is all public administration. I like to think that my Tinbergen biography offers a novel perspective on the life of an economic expert in government, last year’s winner of the ESHET book prize was on Robbert Triffin by Ivo Maes and Ilaria Passotti. There is good work on money doctors. Mitchell’s book Rule by Experts on Egypt and colonialism was ground-breaking, but economists in colonial governments are somewhat neglected I believe. I would also highlight the work on the history of the field of public finance, that's currently underway, see for instance this EJHET special issue.

History of economists in multi-lateral institutions

See League of Nations above, Bretton-Woods is covered again and again, Slobodian’s book The Globalists did little else. Can we really claim this is under-appreciated?

History of economists working in central banks

See the entry above on the institutionalization of economics.

History of how various economic databases have been built.

Does he mean this history by Cherrier on JEL codes? Not quite sure what databases TC has in mind here. Maybe related is this work on early agricultural statistics, are statistics databases? Does big data make us think differently about all of this, maybe worthy of serious reconsideration? Or possibly just the next step in the Porter research mentioned above.

History of economists doing journalism (both Menger and Walras were first journalists)

I remember this WP on Newsweek (Friedman and Samuelson), here is a chapter on Rudolf Hilferding as journalist. There are probably plenty of other examples.

Early history of “environmental economics”

We have two recent books, one more disciplinary by Spencer Banzhaf, one more intent on exploring unique starting points which did not lead to institutionalization by Missemer and Franco.

History of economists holding public office, J.S. Mill, Einaudi, many others, or as central bankers.

This sounds like a variant of economists in government. See above.

Economic “dissidents” of various kinds

More economists in government, maybe, but this recent volume covers economic knowledge in socialism edited by Ivan Boldyrev and Till Düppe. Lots of coverage of dissidents within oppressive regimes. There was a special issue on Janos Kornai recently at Public Choice. This is one of those entries, where I assume there is much work on particular individuals, but little in terms of systematic treatment.   

History of economists working with the military and national security

There is the recent book by Bollard Economists at War, my colleagues Chris Coyne and Matthew Owens just have a two part article out on liberals and war. See also the work on RAND above. I think this is a classic on rationality during the Cold War. Otto Neurath was a journalist in the Balkans during WWI, how many of the boxes above does that tick?
 
That leaves:
Montesquieu,
Economics in the Talmud,
The Irish economists, including Cairnes and Longfield,
Chinese economic thought,
History of finance and financial economics, considerably understudied,
Economic thought in various religions,
History of economics and education, as a topic,
Early history of economics/water supply issues, (ED: Is Vincent Ostrom early?)
Earlier writings on the economics of slavery,
The Henry George movement over the generations.