Economics 764 Topics in Economic History

Boston University
Spring 2025
MW 2pm-3:15
Professor James Feigenbaum
jamesf@bu.edu

Introduction

Economics 764 is one of the two courses in the two-semester PhD sequence in economic history at BU. Historically, it was taught in the fall (because we understand that 764 < 765), but in some years (like this year) it is taught in the spring. The primary goal of the economic history sequence is to train graduate students to do serious research in economic history. We will read recent and classic papers in the field, talk about new ideas and questions, hunt for new old data, and learn empirical methods used in economic history research.

New old data has made a huge impact on economic history and many of the papers we will read this semester make use of new data. The cost of data collection has fallen and the availability of big data for historical research has grown. At the individual level in the US, the complete count federal censuses, 1850 to 1940 (and maybe by the time you’re reading this, 1950), allow us to observe the entire population, zooming in on people or locations of interest. The names revealed in the complete count and other sources enable us to (if we are careful) record link people from one historical source to another, creating new historical longitudinal data. Other researchers are turning maps and text and much else into data. As you start thinking about your own future research in economic history, I hope you’ll be inspired or provoked by the work we read this semester.

We will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2pm to 3:15pm in SSW 546 (for now; I am going to try to get us in a better room like 315). Christophe Chamley takes over for the second half of the course which conveniently starts after spring break.

Requirements

  • In class
    • During my half-semester, everyone will present papers from the syllabus (you make the slides). We’ll get papers and classes allocated during the first week of class.
      • Depending on enrollment, everyone will either present once or twice or three times
      • Presentations will be 3 minutes MAXIMUM. My son had a very loud egg-timer-like device that scared him and so now it lives in my office at BU. We’ll use that and when the buzzer goes off, you have to stop talking.
      • Your presentations will cover:
        • The research question and the key finding
        • Why we should care about the paper
    • In addition, regular attendance and class participation will be expected.
    • The reading list is long and mostly for reference. If there is something you have to read before class, I’ll make sure you know about it.
  • Meetings
    • I really like to meet with students to talk about research ideas. In the past, I have done this formally every two weeks but sometimes this class is just too big. So, let me just say that short (15 minute) one-on-one meetings are encouraged.
    • Schedule them here: https://calendly.com/feigenbaum
    • Come ready to pitch one new research idea.
      • You should have a question (or two), an idea on the empirical strategy, and a sense of why we should care about the answer. If you have a guess as to what data would work or might exist, that’s great, but please don’t spend a lot of time on these ideas before the meeting and definitely don’t review the literature! If we workshop the idea a bit and you still like it, then go out and invest more time in the methods, the literature, the data, etc.
      • Don’t worry if these ideas are good or bad or clever or not. One key skill you can learn in grad school is how to generate and kill ideas with maximum velocity. These meetings are meant to help hone that skill.
  • Final Assignment?
    • Writing a complete original research paper during a semester-long course is very hard (and in economic history, with a premium on collecting new old data, it is nearly impossible).
    • In the past, I have had students do research proposals or referee reports but honestly I’m not sure that’s a good assignment either
      • The referee reports are a bit like busy work and research proposals can be useful or a total waste of your time.
    • So, for the past two years, I tried something new and I think it worked:
      • After the class is over, I want you to scour the literature for papers (published or working papers) that should be on the syllabus but aren’t. Find 3 to 5 papers and for each tell me:
        1. Which lecture they should be in
        2. Why?

Suggestions

  1. When your schedule allows it, attend the Economic History Lunch and Workshop at Harvard. Both are on Friday, the lunch is at noon (and includes lunch) and the seminar is at 1:15pm. As of two years ago, the seminar is co-branded Harvard/BU and Martin and I co-coordinate it with Claudia Goldin and Marco Tabellini. The lunch will feature your peers: grad students from BU, Harvard, MIT, BC, and elsewhere presenting work in progress. The seminar invites economic history faculty from all over to present new work. Both are great opportunities to see early stage economic history research in action and you only have to cross the river once a week not twice to see them both. I’ll try to remember to pitch the week’s speakers during class as a reminder.

    • I know that this conflicts with the micro lunch at BU on Fridays…

  2. Subscribe to the NBER DAE working paper series (or the whole NBER WP weekly series). This is a great way to keep up with recent research: http://www.nber.org/new.html

  3. Sign up for the EH.net mailing list: https://eh.net/mailing-lists/

  4. Buy and read The Little Book of Research Writing. Research writing is hard but it isn’t impossible and the advice in this book is excellent. Let me put it this way: if I read your second year paper and you haven’t read this book, I will know.

COVID-19

Someday, I’ll get to take this section off the syllabus. If you are feeling ill, even if you think you just have a mild cold, please don’t come to class. I will be glad to help you catch up on whatever you miss via Zoom.

More generally, we should all be prepared to be flexible, not knowing what is ahead.

Office Hours

I’ll be holding office hours TKTKTK. These can be in person or via Zoom. Make an appointment at calendly.com/feigenbaum. I am always happy to chat, so please reach out if you want to talk and we can find a time outside of office hours if that works better.

New Methods for Old Data

Every class, I’m going to spend ~15 minutes introducing you all to a “new” method in economic history. These will mostly be new methods for data construction method but might vary a bit.

  • I have tried to connect the new data element in each class to the topic, but that wasn’t always possible.
  • We should have some flexibility in the final class to talk about other datasets or methods. If you have ideas, please suggest something.

Recent Job Market Paper(s) of the Week

Almost every class, we’ll read and talk about a job market paper from a student on the market this year. Why? In the not-so-distant future, you will all be writing your own job market papers. Reading fresh JMPs is a great way to get inspired and a great way to demystify the whole JMP process. This is also a good commitment device for me to stay up to date on the latest papers in the literature.

My process for finding new JMPs is imperfect. In the past it was just a combination of who applies for jobs at BU plus twitter/bluesky. This year, I’m just stealing the hard work of Johan Fourie and cutting all the boring finance and macro papers. But if you come across a JMP that looks cool and isn’t on the reading list, let me know.

Note: The JMPs of the week papers are not eligible for student presentations. They are long and if I don’t force myself to lecture on them, there’s a very good chance I won’t read them.

Syllabus

Introduction

January 22

New Methods for Old Data

Education

January 27

Recent Job Market Paper(s) of the Week:

New Methods for Old Data

Intergenerational Mobility and Census Linking

January 29

Recent Job Market Paper(s) of the Week:

New Methods for Old Data

Health

February 3

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Women in the Labor Force

February 5

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Migration

February 10

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Immigration

February 12

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Crime and Violence

February 18 (BU Monday on a Tuesday)

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Marriage and Fertility

February 19

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Race and Political Economy in Economic History

February 24

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Politicians and Economic History

February 26

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

Innovation and Technology

March 3

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

New Methods for Old Data

More New Methods for Old Data

March 5

Recent Job Market Papers(s) of the Week

None. I asked Claude to look at the list of new jmps and find any that might be relevant for this class. Claude’s response:

Interesting to note that while these papers use some computational methods, there seems to be relatively few JMP papers focusing primarily on new methodological approaches to historical data. This might be an area with room for growth in the field.