The Economic History Podcast Seán Kenny

In this episode, we meet Prof. Eric Schneider to discuss the use of data on heights in economic history as a measure of well-being. Eric discusses his use of the crew records on a British ship (in operation for over a century) and what such sources can reveal about human growth patterns over longer time horizons- are they simply a function of income or is there more to the picture? We also hear about variation across countries and note some dramatic changes in human growth patterns over the last century. Finally, Eric talks about the importance of revisiting old height data with new insights from the medical literature and applies this framework to the existing data on slave children.

Today we meet with and discuss the recent work of Prof. Leandro Prados de la Escosura. We speak about the concept of economic liberty and discuss whether improvements in measures of health and education map on to GDP per capita over time.....it's not that simple. With new metrics developed by Leandro, we reconsider the standard narratives with examples from different periods where well-being and GDP per capita appear to diverge. Using his newly developed data, Leandro joins the economic inequality debate and considers whether global equity in well-being has followed a similar path to the distribution of income story.

In this episode, Prof. Robert Gordon walks us through the U.S. growth record since the Civil War. We discuss some key takeaways from his monumental 2016 book (which lends its name to this episode). We cover some key drivers of changes in standard of living, not all of which are captured in economic statistics. We contrast the technological breakthroughs in the period 1870-1940 with 1940-2010 and consider the varying productivity impacts of each. Finally, we review the major headwinds facing the US economy in the coming decades.

In this episode, we sit down with Assoc. Prof. Kirsten Wandschneider to talk about the monetary disintegration that plagued the interwar period. How did countries choose to go back on the Interwar Gold Standard? How did this constrain policy choices? Why did countries eventually leave and why was the interwar standard so shortlived? We also review the performance of countries who remained on gold compared with those who imposed various types of capital controls based on Kirsten's work. We finish by considering her recent efforts to quantify the effects of the 1930s currency wars on international trade.

Prof. Peter Lindert discusses the evidence on social spending and the economy since the nineteenth century summarized in his new book- 'Making Social Spending Work'. Why did it take so long? What are the effects of social spending on growth? What are the threats to the welfare state?  We finish by covering the reformers and non-reformers in tackling the looming pension crisis, as population ageing  appears in many of the world's economies.

In this episode, we chat with Prof. Tamás Vonyó about the long run variation in the impact of World War II across a range of European economies. We begin with discussing the comparative wartime destruction across regions (using Tamás' "5 D's") and then move on to contrast the growth experiences of Western Europe and Eastern Europe with these initial starting points in mind. We also revisit the 1980s collapse of the Eastern Bloc and reconsider the role of factor inputs as a cause of socialism's failure, as an alternative to the traditional narrative, which places the blame on productivity/innovation deficiencies.