Sessions - Economic History Society

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The Reichsmark and the Nazi New Order: results from the Bundesbank project

The contours of the Nazi New Order first took shape after the 1931 financial ceisis, and were only overcome with the formation of the European Payments Union and the London agreement on German debt. This session presents key findings of a collaborative project on the history of German central banking in the age of Hjalmar Schacht. Our results suggest that economic exploitation not monetary integration of Europe was the key driver of German policy, New Order propaganda notwithstanding.

Regional Economic Growth and Inequality in the European Periphery since 1900

Research on the long-run development of regional GDP has made substantial progress, but with substantial gaps. For one, the countries east or the former Iron Curtain had been neglected in contributions such as Roses and Wolf (2019). Second, there are still large gaps in other parts, with limited knowledge about the regional developments in the UK and Ireland. This session brings together new research that adds evidence on Ireland and several Central Eastern European countries on regional economic activity since 1900. This is an important steps towards completing our picture of Europe’s regional development over the 20^th century.

Retailing Reputation. Location-Specific Foodstuff and Rew Materials in Spain and Italy, 1380-1500

This session explores the urban retail networks in the late medieval Western Mediterranean. Beyond tracing circulation and market structures, the papers examine how goods acquired reputation and geographical typicality, qualities that made them distinctive and desirable across regional and international markets. Drawing primarily on quantitative evidence - gathered from merchants’ account-books, customs registers, and guild records among other primary sources - the session reconstructs flows, sales practices, and consumers’ preferences. In doing so, it shows how retail not only structured economic organization but also contributed to the cultural value of highly sought-after agricultural products.

Water, sanitation and health in the first industrial society: Britain 1780 – 1930

This session will present major findings from the ESRC-funded project 'Water, sanitation and health in the first industrial society: Britain 1780 – 1930' (https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/wash/). The project provides the first long-run account of the relationships between urbanisation and mortality in Britain during the transition to modern levels of urbanisation, and challenges long-standing and influential narratives regarding the 'Sanitary Revolution'. The papers cover The proposed papers are all unpublished.

Material Culture and Economic Change in North-West Europe, 15th-18th Centuries

This panel goes beyond the probate inventory to explore alternative ways of documenting the relationship between material culture and the early modern economy. New methods and less-used sources provide evidence which challenges conventional chronologies and offers fresh perspectives on the place of goods in economic change. Each paper arises from a different project, but all are concerned with tracking changes in consumer goods and attitudes to material culture well before the reputed ‘consumer revolution’ of the eighteenth century.

Census Linking in Economic History: methodological and analytical progresses – PART 2

The session will showcase the best research using linked census data, featuring both recent methodological innovations in linking and studies that apply linked census data to address a wide range of questions in economic and demographic history. We aim to bring together work on British, European, and American censuses to build on the rapid progress achieved over the past 5–10 years.

Census Linking in Economic History: methodological and analytical progresses – PART 1

Tariffs, Bilateralism and National Power

Bilateralism, protectionism, and the consolidation of rival trading blocs characterized the inter-war period, but were also features of the previous era of free-trade and em-pire-building. This panel examines the use of tariffs, quotas, and exchange controls as instruments of trade policy and national power from the 1870s to the 1940s and countervailing attempts to institutionalize a multi-lateral framework for international trade. It also seeks to assess the political and economic impacts of these policies at the regional, national and global levels.

Intellectual Property between law and economy: On Frictions, Consensus and Dissensus

Intellectual property law regulates the production and use of cultural artifacts (copyright), marketing and consumerism (trademark), and innovation (patent). Nowadays, the dominant legal justification for IP law is economic theory. The session will explore case studies relating to the development of IP laws, highlighting the role of economic thought in the legal trajectory as well as the effects on the studied economies. Papers will discuss legislative trajectories and debates about the nature of evidence, the uses of history, and the means of regulating knowledge, science, and culture. Fittingly, LSE was the first University to introduce IP in its curriculum.

Commodities in Global Economic History

This session brings together four papers that approach global economic history through commodities: salt, ivory, raw cotton, and finished cotton cloth. The papers trace how these goods linked different regions and influenced institutional, technological, and commercial change. They examine the role of the colonial state in regulating production and trade, the movement of skills and practices across unfamiliar contexts, and the role of merchants in coordinating knowledge and markets across continents. Together, the papers show how commodity studies can illuminate wider processes of economic transformation and integration.