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Special Issue: New Perspectives in Economic History

A supplementary issue, guest edited by Nicholas Dimsdale (Local Editor), Mark Thomas (University of Virginia), and Albrecht Ritschl (University of Berlin), was published in October 2007.

This Special Issue of Oxford Economic Papers contains a collection of papers in economic history. It is entitled New Perspectives in Economic History since it was intended to encourage submissions in new areas of the subject or those which showed new insights into more familiar topics. The resulting collection represents some of the best work being done in the subject with papers ranging from the early 18th century to the mid 20th century.

Some papers use historical data sets to test economic models, others select an economic model and use it to illuminate some aspect of economic history. All of the papers make a contribution to our understanding of past economies and several provide valuable tests of economic models with an historical context.

The lead paper by O’Rourke uses a general equilibrium model to examine the effects of trade restrictions during the Napoleonic Wars. He shows how useful a small economic model can be in reassessing historical issues.

The majority of papers in the Special Issue use state of the art quantitative methods to analyze historical data sets. The paper which illustrates this most conspicuously is that by Shea who uses a version of the Black Scholes model of option pricing in studying the behaviour of share prices in the South Sea bubble. This paper will appeal to both to economic historians with an interest in financial history as well as financial economists. Similarly, students in both disciplines will be interested in the papers by Offer and Stelzer and Frank.

Key papers include:
War and welfare: Britain, France and the United States 1807–14
By Kevin H. O’Rourke

Promotion tournaments and white collar careers: evidence from Williams Deacon’s Bank, 1890 – 1941
By Andrew J. Seltzer and Jeff Frank

Understanding financial derivatives during the South Sea Bubble: the case of the South Sea subscription shares
By Gary S. Shea

The markup for lemons: quality and uncertainty in American and British used-car markets c. 1953–73
By Avner Offer


To view the full table of contents, click here.