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President Richard H. Steckel and the Program Committee - Michael Haines, Colgate University (Chair); Jeremy Atack, Vanderbilt University; Brooks Kaiser, Gettysburg College; and Trevon Logan, Ohio State University - welcomes you all to the 69th Economic History Association annual meeting, with 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.
Completed papers should be submitted by August 11, 2009. By vote of the Board of Trustees, the corresponding author must be a current member of the Association (to join the Association, please go to eh.net/eha). Papers should in all cases be work in progress rather than accepted or published work; submitters have a responsibility to let the program committee know if the paper has been submitted for publication.
Graduate students are encouraged to attend and the Association offers subsidies for travel, hotel, registration, and meals, including a special graduate student dinner. Contact the Meetings Coordinator for further details.
For further information, keep checking the meetings website (ehameeting.com), or contact Meetings Coordinator Jari Eloranta at elorantaj@appstate.edu.