Seminars: Economic History

Seminar in Economic History Organized by: Professors Claudia Goldin, FAS Economics; James Feigenbaum and Martin Fiszbein, Boston University Economics; with help from Marco Tabellini and Marlous van Waijenburg, HBS BGIE Faculty Assistant: Eliza Rakaseder erakaseder@fas.harvard.edu
Term: Spring 2026
Location: Littauer 301 (Hansen-Mason Lounge) & Zoom (link to be sent to the mailing list)
Meeting Time: Friday 1:15 PM - 2:45pm
Description: For faculty and students with interests in economic history, broadly construed. Discusses research papers presented by scholars at Harvard and elsewhere. To Join the Mailing List: Click Here To learn about our past, view our previous seminar schedules at the bottom of the page.

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
January 30	Oded Galor (Brown)	"Roots of Inequality"
February 6	Martin Fiszbein (Boston University)	“Directed Technical Change: Insights from Rural Electrification in the U.S.” (with J. Lafortune, J. Lavandero, E. Lewis, and J. Tessada)
February 13	Suresh Naidu (Columbia)	“The Economic Geography of American Slavery” (with Treb Allen and Winston Chen)
February 20	David Cutler & Edward Glaeser (Harvard)	“Why Have Universities Survived for Nearly a Millennium?”
February 27	Shariq Mohammed (Northeastern)	“Persistence in Season of Birth: A New Linkage-Free Measure of Black Intergenerational Mobility“ (with Mindy Marks)
March 6	Marlous van Waijenburg (HBS)	Book in Progress: Financing the African Colonial State: Fiscal Capacity and Forced Labor
March 13	Shari Eli (University of Toronto)	"The Long-Run Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families: New Estimates using Larger Samples” (with A. Aizer, S. Cho, J. Ferrie, and A. Lleras-Muney)
March 20	No seminar - Harvard Spring Break	Happy Spring!
March 27	Sarah Quincy (Vanderbilt University)	"Junior Colleges and Local Development" (with Zachary Bleemer)
April 3	Emil Verner (MIT)	"Bank Runs With and Without Bank Failure" (with Sergio Correia and Stephan Luck)
April 10	David Weinstein (Columbia, visiting MIT)	"Codification, Technology Absorption, and the Globalization of the Industrial Revolution" (with Réka Juhász and Shogo Sakabe)
April 17	Richard Hornbeck (UChicago Booth)	"The Social Construction of Race during Reconstruction" (with Anjali Adukia, Daniel Keniston, and Benjamin Lualdi)
April 24	Nicholas Reynolds (University of Essex)	“Three Regimes of Human Development in Twentieth-Century America: Biological Growth, Health, and Human Capital”
May 1	David Yang (Harvard)	Book in progress: From Bronze to Algorithm: The Story of China in Ten Technologies

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
January 30	Oded Galor (Brown)	"Roots of Inequality"
February 6	Martin Fiszbein (Boston University)	“Directed Technical Change: Insights from Rural Electrification in the U.S.” (with J. Lafortune, J. Lavandero, E. Lewis, and J. Tessada)
February 13	Suresh Naidu (Columbia)	“The Economic Geography of American Slavery” (with Treb Allen and Winston Chen)
February 20	David Cutler & Edward Glaeser (Harvard)	“Why Have Universities Survived for Nearly a Millennium?”
February 27	Shariq Mohammed (Northeastern)	“Persistence in Season of Birth: A New Linkage-Free Measure of Black Intergenerational Mobility“ (with Mindy Marks)
March 6	Marlous van Waijenburg (HBS)	Book in Progress: Financing the African Colonial State: Fiscal Capacity and Forced Labor
March 13	Shari Eli (University of Toronto)	"The Long-Run Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families: New Estimates using Larger Samples” (with A. Aizer, S. Cho, J. Ferrie, and A. Lleras-Muney)
March 20	No seminar - Harvard Spring Break	Happy Spring!
March 27	Sarah Quincy (Vanderbilt University)	"Junior Colleges and Local Development" (with Zachary Bleemer)
April 3	Emil Verner (MIT)	"Bank Runs With and Without Bank Failure" (with Sergio Correia and Stephan Luck)
April 10	David Weinstein (Columbia, visiting MIT)	"Codification, Technology Absorption, and the Globalization of the Industrial Revolution" (with Réka Juhász and Shogo Sakabe)
April 17	Richard Hornbeck (UChicago Booth)	"The Social Construction of Race during Reconstruction" (with Anjali Adukia, Daniel Keniston, and Benjamin Lualdi)
April 24	Nicholas Reynolds (University of Essex)	“Three Regimes of Human Development in Twentieth-Century America: Biological Growth, Health, and Human Capital”
May 1	David Yang (Harvard)	Book in progress: From Bronze to Algorithm: The Story of China in Ten Technologies

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Sept. 5	No Seminar	First week of classes
Sept. 12*	Danielle Graves Williamson (Boston University) Avi Moorthy (Harvard University)	"Segregation Academies: The Effect of “Whites Only” Private Education" "The Defender on the Move: Black Newspapers and the Great Migration"
Sept. 19	No Seminar	N/A
Sept. 26*	John Fallon (Boston University) Grant Goehring (Boston University)	"Competitive Occupational Licensure: Doctors Versus Chiropractors" "Trade and Health Externalities: Live Animal Imports in Nineteenth-Century Britain"
Oct. 3	Jon Denton-Schneider (Clark University)	“Rags to Rags: The Effects of Ending Cash Transfers Across Three Generations in Victorian Britain”
Oct. 10	Ambra Seck (Harvard Business School)	"Broadcasting Activism: Television and the Civil Rights Movement"
Oct. 17	Felipe Valencia Caicedo (Brown University)	"Religion and Conflict: Evidence from China, 1860-1911"
Oct. 24	Daniel Fetter (Dartmouth College)	"The Introduction of Social Security and Elderly Mortality" (with Lee Lockwood, Paul Mohnen, and Joseph Price)
Oct. 31	Melanie Xue (London School of Economics; visiting Yale)	"British Industrialization and Cultural Change: Evidence from the Use of Proverbs" (with Elliot Ash)
Nov. 7	Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School)	"Extractive Taxation and the French Revolution" (with Tommaso Giommoni and Gabriel Loumeau)
Nov. 14	Anke Becker (Harvard Business School)	"Engines of Change: Networks and Identity in the Second Industrial Revolution" (with Gustav Agneman and Anne Sofie Beck Knudsen)
Nov. 21	Seminar cancelled	N/A
Nov. 28	No Seminar	Thanksgiving Break
Dec. 5	Seminar cancelled	N/A

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Jan. 31	No seminar this week.	Job Market Talks
Feb. 7	Stephan Heblich (University of Toronto)	"State of the Art: Economic Development Through the Lens of Paintings"
Feb. 14*	Giovanni Facchini (University of Nottingham; visiting Harvard)	"The Consequences of a Trade Collapse: Economics and Politics in Weimar Germany"
Feb. 21	Claudia Goldin (Harvard)	“Babies and the Macroeconomy"
Feb. 28	Diego Ramos-Toro (Dartmouth College)	"Historical Narratives and Political Behavior in the US"
Mar. 7	Quan Le (Harvard Business School)	"Network Competition and Exclusive Contracts:Evidence from News Agencies"
Mar. 14	Edson Severnini (Boston College), with Karen Clay, Akshaya Jha, and Joshua Lewis	"Carbon Rollercoaster: A Historical Analysis of Decarbonization in the US"
Mar. 21	No seminar this week.	Spring Break
Mar. 28	Scott Fulford & Fabio Schiantarelli (Boston College)	"Still Growing Together? The Spatial Distribution and Industrial Composition of U.S. County GDP since 1870"
Apr. 4	Allison Shertzer (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)	"The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890-2006"
Apr. 11	Hans-Joachim Voth (University of Zurich)	"Image(s)"
Apr. 18	Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim)	"Liberation Technology? The Impact of the Sewing Machine on Women”
Apr. 25	No seminar this week.	N/A
May 2	Petra Moser (New York University)	Book-in-Progress Talk: Pirates and Patents: The Role of Patents in the Industrialization of the Western World

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Sep. 6	First Week of Classes	No seminar this week.
Sep. 13	Anne McCants (MIT) & Dan Seligson (Melvillean Press)	"Global Development, 1870 to the Present: Evidence and Theory"
Sep. 20	Elijah Locke (Boston University; Job Market Talk)	"Ethnic-Occupational Niches: Evidence from the Age of Mass Migration"
Sep. 27	Ross Mattheis (Harvard; Job Market Talk)	"Spurious Mobility in Imperfectly Linked Historical Data"
Oct. 4	Lydia Assouad (LSE; visiting Harvard)	"Leadership and Nation-Building"
Oct. 11	No Seminar	N/A
Oct. 18	Enrico Spolaore (Tufts)	"Cultural Remittances and Modern Fertility"
*Oct. 21 (M)	Lucia Corno (Cattolica University; visiting Harvard)	"Female Genital Cutting and the Slave Trade" (with ElianaLa Ferrara and Alessandra Voena)
Oct. 25	David Lagakos (BU)	"American Life Histories" (with Joachim Voth and Stelios Michalopoulos)
Nov. 1	Chenzi Xu (Berkeley)	“The Great Depression Bank Deregulation Wave”
Nov. 8	Irene Soto Marin (Harvard)	A Thirst for Metals: Money and the Global Economy of Late Roman Egypt
Nov. 15	Lauren Hoehn-Velasco (Georgia State)	"When Policies Overlap: The Fragility of Effects Amidst Multiple Treatments"
Nov. 22	Ariell Zimran (Vanderbilt)	"The Effects of Immigration in a Developing Country: Brazil in the Age of Mass Migration”
Nov. 27	Thanksgiving Recess	No seminar this week.
Dec. 6	Walker Hanlon (Northwestern)	Book Event: The Laissez Faire Experiment

*On Oct. 21st (M), the Economic History Seminar group is invited to join the Seminar in Economic Development.

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Jan. 26th (F)	First Week of Classes	No seminar this week.
Feb. 2nd (F)	David Yang (Harvard)	"Emigration During Turbulent Times"
Feb. 9th (F)	José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez (Yale)	"Women and the Econometrics of Family Trees"
Feb. 16th (F)	Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)	"Medical School Closures, Market Adjustment, and Mortality in the Flexner Report Era"
Feb. 23rd (F)	Charles Taylor (Harvard)	“Homeward Bound: How Migrants Seek Out Familiar Climates”
March 1st (F)	Alexandra Cirone (Cornell University; visiting Yale)	“When Widows Win: Land Lotteries and Individual Prospects in Georgia”
March 8th (F)	Sevket Pamuk (Bogaziçi University; visiting Havard)	"Evolution of Regional Inequalities in a Developing Country: Turkey since the 19th Century"
March 15th (F)	Spring Break	No seminar this week.
March22nd(F)	Gillian Brunet (Smith College)	"Patriotism and Prudence: Assessing the Effects of the WWII Bond Drives on Household Savings"
*March 29th(F)	Ursina Schaede (Tufts)	"The Long Run Effects of Funding for Public Education”
April 5th(F)	No seminar this week.	N/A
April 12th (F)	Wolfgang Keller(University of Colorado Boulder)	"Human Capital Strategies for Big Shocks: The Case of the Fall of the Ming" (with Carol Shiue)
April 19th (F)	John Wallis (University of Maryland)	Book-in-Progress: Leviathan Denied
April 26th (F)	Marcella Alsan (Harvard)	"Interest Groups, Ideology and Indirect Lobbying: The Rise of Private Health Insurance in the United States"

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Sept 8th (F)	Economic History Meetings in Pittsburgh PA.	No seminar this week.
Sept. 15th (F)	No seminar this week.	NIA
Sept. 22nd (F)	Bishnupriya Gupta (Warwick University)	“Conflict and Gender Norms: Evidence from India”
Sept. 29th (F)	Ross Mattheis (Harvard G-6; Job Market Practice Talk)	"Spurious Mobility in Imperfectly Linked Data"
Oct. 6th (F)	Jiwon Choi (Brandeis)	"The Effect of Deindustrialization on Local Economies: Evidence from New England Textile Towns"
Oct. 20th (F)	Eric Hilt (Wellesley College) & Gillian Brunet (Smith College) (with Matt Jaremski)	"Inflation, War Bonds, and the Rise of Republicans in the 1950s"
Oct. 27th (F)	Victor Gay (Toulouse School of Economics; visiting University of Michigan)	"Revolutionary Transition: Inheritance Change and Fertility Decline"
Nov. 3rd (F)	Michele Tertilt (University of Mannheim)	"The Political Economy of Protective Legislation"
Nov. 10th (F)	Jeffry Frieden (Harvard, Government)	"Was Freedom Road a Dead End? Political and Socio-economic Effects of Reconstruction in the American South"
Nov. 17th (F)	Jingyi Huang (Brandeis)	"Fence Laws, Liability Rules, and Agricultural Productivity"
Nov. 26th (F)	Thanksgiving Break	No seminar this week.
Dec. 1st (F)	Devesh Rustagi (Warwick; visiting MIT and Harvard)	“Market Exposure, Civic Values, and Rules”

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE
Feb 3rd (F)	Sara Lowes (University of California San Diego; visiting MIT)	"Fallow Lengths and the Structure of Property Rights"
# Feb 10th (F)	Stefanie Stantcheva (Harvard)	"Wealth and Property Taxation in the US"
Feb 17th(F)	Luigi Pascali (Pompeu Fabra University; visiting Princeton)	“The Dawn of Civilization: Metal Trade and the Urban Revolution”
* Feb 24th (F)	Mara Squicciarini (Bocconi University; visiting Harvard)	"Dealing with Adversity: Religiosity or Science? Evidence from the Great Influenza Pandemic"
Mar 3rd (F)	Deirdre Bloome (Harvard Kennedy School)	"Family Tree Branches and Southern Roots: Contemporary Racial Differences in Marriage in Intergenerational and Contextual Perspective"
Mar 10th (F)	Luke Stein (Babson College)	“The Gendered Impacts of Perceived Skin Tone: Evidence from African American Siblings in 1870–1940”
Mar 24th (F)	James Feigenbaum (Boston University)	"Germ Theory at Home: The Role of Private Action in Reducing Child Mortality during the Epidemiological Transition"
Mar 30th (Th)	Leah Boustan (Princeton): Department of Economics Seminar	“Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success”
Apr 7th (F)	Rick Hornbeck (University of Chicago)	"Identifying Agglomeration Shadows: Long-run Evidence from Ancient Ports"
Apr 14th (F)	Huiren Tan (National University of Singapore)	“After Amazing Grace: Britain's Campaign to End the Slave Trade”
# Apr 21st (F)	Claudia Goldin (Harvard)	"Why Women Won"
† Apr 28th (F)	Alice Evans (King's College London; visiting Yale)	Book-in-Progress Event: The Great Gender Divergence

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE
Sept. 9th (F)	Casey Petroff (G-6; Harvard); Job Market Practice Talk	"Conflict Technology as a Catalyst of State Formation"
Sept.16th (F)	EHA Meetings, La Crosse, WI	No Harvard Economic History seminar
Sept.23rd (F)	Daniela Vidart (UConn)	"Human Capital, Female Employment and Electricity Evidence from the Early 20th-Century US"
Sept.30th (F)	Felipe Valencia Caicedo (UBC; Visiting Harvard)	"Bourbon Reforms and State Capacity in the Spanish Empire"
Oct. 7th (F)	Ambra Seck (G-6; Harvard); Job Market Practice Talk	"En Route: Colonial Origins of Francophone Africa's Emigration"
Oct. 14th (F)*. Joint w/ Labor	Elizabeth Cascio and Ethan Lewis (Dartmouth)	"Legal Activism, State Policy, and Racial Inequality in Teacher Salaries and Educational Attainment in the Mid-Century American South"
Oct. 21st (F)	Amanda Gregg (Middlebury)	"Shareholder Democracy under Autocracy: Voting Rights and Corporate Performance in Imperial Russia"
Oct. 28th (F)	Martin Fiszbein (BU)	"Frontier Gender Norms: History and Legacy"
Nov. 4th (F)	David Weil (Brown)	"Contraception in the European and American Demographic Transitions"
Nov. 11th (F). Remote	Sevket Pamuk (Bogaziçi University)	"Market Integration in the Ottoman Empire and the Great Divergence, 1550-1914"
Nov. 18th (F)	Martin Rotemberg (NYU)	"The Transition from Water to Steam Power"

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Feb. 3 (PE,Th 4:30p)*	Santiago Pèrez (UC Davis; Visiting Brown)	“Who Benefits from Meritocracy?”
Feb. 11 (Fr)**	James Feigenbaum (Boston Univ) et al.	“Who Becomes a Member of Congress?: Evidence from De-Anonymized Census Data”
Feb. 18 (Fr)	Yannay Spitzer (Hebrew Univ)	“Like an Ink Blot on Paper: Testing the Diffusion Hypothesis of Mass Migration, Italy 1876–1920”
Mar 4 (Fr)**	Michela Giorcelli (UCLA; visiting HBS)	“Technology Transfer and Early Industrial Development: Evidence from the Sino-Soviet Alliance”
Mar 11 (Fr)#	Zach Bleemer (Yale SOM; visiting OI), Sarah Quincy (Vanderbilt)	“The Causes and Consequences of College- Going in the Great Depression”
Mar 18 (Fr)	Spring Break: No seminar
Mar 24 (PE, Th, 4:30p)*	Petra Moser (NYU)	“McCarthy and the ‘Red-ucators’: Does Political Persecution Change Science?”
Apr 1 (Fr)	Robert Margo (Boston Univ) et al.	“Mechanization Takes Command”
Apr 8 (Fr)	Charles Angelucci (Sloan MIT) et al.	“Merchant Towns and Parliaments”
Apr 15 (Fr)	Michiel de Haas (Wageningen Univ)	“The Failure of Cotton Imperialism in Africa: Interests, Polities, and Endowments”
Apr 20 (L/PF, We, 4:30p)#	Anna Aizer (Brown Univ) et al.	“The Persistent Effects of Decreasing Labor Market Discrimination”
Book Event 12n Apr 29 (Fr)†	Organizers: Marlous van Waijenburg (HBS) et al.	Special Book Event: Ron Harris (Tel Aviv Unv.) Going the Distance: Trade and the Rise of the Business Corporation, 1400-1700

# Joint with the Labor Economics & Public Economics seminars. * Joint with the Alberto Alesina Political Economy seminar.

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE
Sep 10	Robert Allen (New York Univ, Abu Dhabi UAE)	"What the Natufians Did for Us: An Economic Analysis of the Neolithic Revolution and the Origins of the State"
Sep 17	Casey Petroff (Harvard Univ)	“Expert Advice and the Formation of Epistemic Communities: Evidence from the History of Pandemic Disease”
Sep 24	Jingyi Huang (Prize Fellow, Harvard Univ; Brandeis Univ)	"Monopsony, Cartels, and Market Manipulation: Evidence from the U.S. Meatpacking Industry"
Oct 1*	Kyle Harper (Univ of Oklahoma)	“Infectious Disease and the Great Divergence"
Oct 8**	Jamein Cunningham (Cornell University)	"The Impact of Affirmative Action Litigation on Police Killings of Civilians”
Oct 15	Shari Eli (Univ of Toronto)	"Do Youth Employment Programs Work? Evidence from the New Deal"
Oct 22	Aldo Musacchio (Brandeis Univ)	"European Migration and Agricultural Productivity in Brazil, 1900-1920"
Oct 29	Economic History Association Meeting	No Seminar
Nov 5	Paul Rhode (with Hoyt Bleakley; Univ of Michigan)	"The Economic Effects of American Slavery, Redux: Tests at the Border"
Nov 12	Dan Fetter (Stanford Univ)	"Long-Term Intergenerational Effects of Social Security"
Nov 19	Vicky Fouka (Stanford Univ)	"Fundamentals as Drivers of Moral Change: The British Abolitionist Movement"
Nov 26	Thanksgiving	No Seminar
Dec 3	Marlous van Waijenburg (HBS) et al.	Book Event: Claudia Goldin, Career & Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE
Jan 29	First Week of Classes	No Seminar
Feb 5	Wellness Day	No Seminar
Feb 12	Leander Heldring (Kellogg School, Northwestern University)	"The Long-Run Impact of the Dissolution of the English Monasteries"
Feb 19	Nathan Nunn (Harvard University)	"Transhumance, Climate Change, and Conflict in Africa"
Feb 26	Pauline Grosjean (University of New South Wales)	"Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Combat Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France"
Mar 5	Marcella Alsan (Harvard University)	"The Rise and Fall of the Know-Nothing Party"
Mar 12	Diana Van Patten (Princeton University and Harvard University)	"Multinationals, Monopsony and Local Development: Evidence from the United Fruit Company"
Mar 19		No Seminar
Mar 26	Kensuke Teshima (Hitotsubashi University)	"From Samurai to Skyscrapers: How Historical Lot Fragmentation Shapes Tokyo"
Apr 2		No Seminar
Apr 9	Marlous van Waijenburg (Harvard Business School)	"The Great Convergence: Skill Premiums in Africa and Asia, c. 1870-2010"
Apr 16	Hans Tung (National Taiwan University)	“Racial Diversity, Electoral Preferences and the Supply of Policy: The Great Migration and Civil Rights”
Apr 23	Elias Papaioannou (London Business School; visiting MIT)	"Colonial Concessions"

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE (some are preliminary)
Sep 11	Economic History Association Meetings	No Seminar
Sep 18	Marco Tabellini (HBS)	“The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States”
Sep 25*	Leah Boustan (Princeton University)	“Streets of Gold: Immigration and the American Dream over Two Centuries” (with Ran Abramitzky, Stanford University)
Oct 2	Desmond Ang (HKS)	“The Birth of a Nation”
Oct 9	Thomas Chaney (Sciences Po, Paris)	“Immigration, Innovation, and Growth”
Oct 16	Jeremiah Dittmar (London School of Economics)	TBA
Oct 23	Guo Xu (UC, Berkeley, Haas)	TBA
Oct 30	Noam Yuchtman (London School of Economics)	TBA
Nov 6	TBA	TBA
Nov 13	Belinda Archibong (Barnard College)	“Prison Labor: The Price of Prisons and the Lasting Effects of Incarceration”
Nov 20	Dan Gross (Duke University, Fuqua)	“Inventing the Endless Frontier: The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Post-war Innovation” (with Bhaven Sampat, Columbia University)
Nov 27	Thanksgiving	No Seminar

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE
Jan 31	Departmental Job Market Talks	No Seminar
Feb 7	Departmental Job Market Talks	No Seminar
Feb 14	Eric Hilt (Wellesley College)	“Andrew Jackson’s Bank War and the Panic of 1837”
Feb 21	Francesco Drago (University of Catania)	“The Rise of the Medici and the Fall of the Florentine Republic”
Feb 28	Eoin McGuirk (Tufts University)	“No Kin in the Game”
Mar 6	Matti Mitrunen (University of Chicago)	“Structural Change and Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from Finnish War Reparations”
Mar 13	Departmental Seminar Week	No Seminar
Mar 20	Spring Break	No Seminar
Mar 27	Leah Boustan (Princeton University)	“Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the US over Two Centuries”
Apr 3	Geoff Clarke (Brandeis University)	"Triple Segregation and Wealth Generation: Virginia's African-American Banks, 1915-28"
Apr 10	Mike Andrews (NBER Post-Doc)	TBA
Apr 17	Vicky Fouka (Stanford University) (with A. Calderon and M. Tabellini)	“Racial Diversity, Electoral Preferences and the Supply of Policy: The Great Migration and Civil Rights”
Apr 24	Elias Papaioannou (London Business School; visiting MIT)	TBA