Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association in Tucson, Arizona, September 10-12, 2021
The theme for EHA 2021 is “Rules, Organizations, and Governments: Institutions and Economic History.” Over the last two and a half centuries the economies of the world have dramatically transformed. Part of these transformations occurred in and resulted from technology, demography, and markets. Part of these transformations occurred in and resulted from institutions. The way societies organize themselves, in both public and private spheres, exhibits marked patterns across the range of developed and developing nations. While we know what the patterns are, as economic historians and social scientists generally, we have struggled to understand how the patterns developed or how we might induce the patterns of developed societies in developing (or undeveloped) societies. The program committee calls for papers that take a more granular approach to questions related to institutions, collective decision making, and rules that originate in organizations. Organizations ranging from families, to businesses, to governments (which are organizations of organizations) all adopt rules, whether they enforce them or not. How these rules and organizations interact determines the institutional structure of all societies. Proposed papers on all areas of economic history are welcome and graduate students are encouraged to attend.
The Program Committee, co-chaired by Howard Bodenhorn (Clemson University) and Eric Hilt (Wellesley), 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 given at the 2020 meeting are not eligible for inclusion in the 2021 program. Papers and session proposals should be submitted online, with the following submission form: https://eh.net/eha/2021-eha-meeting-proposal/. The submission system will be available from November 1, 2020 onward. Paper proposals should include a 3-5 page proposal and a 150–word abstract suitable for publication in the Journal of Economic History. Paper proposals should be submitted by January 31, 2021 to ensure consideration. Please note that at least one of the authors needs to be a member of EHA.
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 May 21, 2021 online on the meetings website. The poster submission system will open on March 1, 2021.
The dissertation session, convened by Martha Olney (University of California, Berkeley) and Steven Nafziger (Williams College) will honor six dissertations completed during the 2020-2021 academic year. The submission deadline is May 15, 2021. The Allan Nevins and Alexander Gerschenkron prizes will be awarded to the best dissertations on North American and non-North American 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: olney@econ.berkeley.edu and the Gerschenkron prize submissions to: snafzige@williams.edu. All submissions will be acknowledged by return email.