Young Scholars Initiative and Figuerola Institute invite you to the Economic History Workshop of Developing Regions at Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M). There has been recent growth in the economic history literature on developing countries, backed by quantified evidence. However, this expansion lags significantly behind the well-established corpus of literature centered on the core European and North American contexts. Bridging this gap in the literature is crucial to comprehensively addressing the major questions in economic history. Indeed, we still lack comparable historical datasets of markets, land ownership, human capital, and tax records in developing regions due to limited access to primary sources and insufficient funding opportunities.

We invite your participation in “Climate and Business/The Business Climate,” a conference sponsored by the Canadian Business History Association – l’association Canadienne pour l’histoire des affaires, to be held in Banff, Alberta, 19-21 September, 2024 at the Banff Centre. The planning committee welcomes proposals for papers and roundtables relating to business history within a Canadian or international context.  

L’objet précieux, et plus particulièrement le bijou, suscitent, au fil des siècles et des espaces, des réactions qui se réitèrent et se répondent, malgré la variation des contextes, des époques et des lieux. En effet, si la réprobation pour les notions de dissipation et de luxe – souvent ostentatoires – est récurrente depuis l’Antiquité déjà (Pline l’Ancien), l’action bénéfique de l’objet précieux est également revendiquée, sur la base de plusieurs raisons : esthétiques, symboliques, religieuses et économiques. L’objet précieux est à la fois un agalma resplendissant et digne d’admiration ; une offrande pour les dieux ou pour les morts, dont la valeur doit être proportionnelle à la dignité des destinataires ; un symbole de statut, de pouvoir, d’alliance et de fidélité, dans lequel des valeurs culturelles sont condensées ; un héritage social ou familial, à la fois véhicule et gage de la transmission et de la tradition ; un inspirateur de la création artistique et du développement des techniques ; enfin l’un des éléments d’échange privilégiés dans l'économie du don, voire un moteur de l’économie, comme il est souligné par plusieurs auteurs tout au long de la réflexion occidentale sur le luxe, de Bernard de Mandeville à Jean-Baptiste Say, à Werner Sombart et bien d’autres.

The 20th World Economic History Congress will convene from 28 July to 1 August 2025 in Lund, Sweden. The theme for the Congress is Equality and Sustainability Challenges, which highlights some of the central issues facing humanity today and also connects to a broad and diverse range of historical problems. To address both the challenges and to find insights from the historical record for that endeavor, a range of perspectives will be necessary.

The Centre of Maritime History in the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Rethymnon announces the Sixth International Conference of the Mediterranean Maritime History Network (MMHN), which will take place at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Rethymno from the 27th to the 31st of May 2024.

The ELHN Labour and Family Economy Working Group invites papers for the session:
Elsewhere. The Migration of Families in the Past from a Labour History and Family Economy Perspective (18th-19th Century)

Organizers:

• Mario Grassi (Yale University & University of Padua) mariograssi992[at]gmail.com
• Céline Mutos-Xicola (University of Girona) celine.mutos[at]udg.edu

Discussant:

• Beatrice Zucca Micheletto (University of Padua)

Deadline to receive papers: 10 September 2023

The ELHN Labour and Family Economy Working Group invites papers for the session "Labour, gender and social mobility during the industrialization"

Organizers: Llorenç FERRER ALOS (Universitat de Barcelona), llferrer[at]ub.edu and Cinzia LORANDINI (Università di Trento), cinzia.lorandini[at]unitn.it

Discussant: Manuela MARTINI (Université de Lyon)

Deadline to receive proposals: 10 September 2023

The Programme Committee appointed by the International Maritime History Association (IMHA) invites proposals for panels, papers and roundtables to be presented at IMHA’s 9th International Congress of Maritime History in Busan, Korea. The congress will be hosted by the IMA (Institute of International Maritime Affairs), affiliated with the  Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Korea Maritime & Ocean University, on August 19 – 24, 2024, in cooperation with the Korean Association of Maritime History, KASPS (Korean Association of Shipping and Ports Studies) and WCMCI (World Committee of Maritime Culture Institutes).

The main theme is Oceans: Local Mobility, Global Connectivity, and the aim is to address multiple aspects of the relationship between humans and the oceans. Oceans were regarded by humans as barriers in ancient times, although, in modern times, they became routes for exploring, travelling and connecting peoples and worlds separated by spatial and cultural distance. 

Tα πιο πρόσφατα πορίσματα της ελληνικής ιστοριογραφίας, προκάλεσαν τα τελευταία χρόνια έντονο ενδιαφέρον για την ύπαιθρο, καθώς εστιάζουν σε συγκεκριμένες περιοχές με επίκεντρο μια επαρχία ή ένα δήμο. Οι νεότερες αυτές μελέτες περίπτωσης επιχείρησαν να διεισδύσουν σε πολλαπλά θεματικά επίπεδα όπως, το καθεστώς γαιοκτησίας, η σχέση πόλης-υπαίθρου, η αγροτική εργασία, οι μετακινήσεις των χωρικών, η εισροή προσφύγων, η διανομή των γαιών, τα αγροληπτικά και ζωοληπτικά συστήματα, η φορολογία, οι αγροτικές κινητοποιήσεις, οι πολιτικές σχέσεις, ο τραπεζικός δανεισμός,  η εμπορευματοποίηση των αγροτικών προϊόντων, κ.ά. Ταυτόχρονα, οι αρχειακές πηγές που συνεχώς έρχονται στο προσκήνιο τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, αποτελούν σύμμαχο σε αυτή την προσπάθεια κι ενισχύουν συστηματικά με τεκμηριωτικό υλικό τα νεότερα ιστοριογραφικά ερωτήματα.

Σε αυτή τη σύγχρονη ιστοριογραφική τάση που διεκδικεί την αποκρυπτογράφηση των διεργασιών σε επιμέρους παραδείγματα και στη συνέχεια τη σύνδεσή τους με ευρύτερες  συνθετικές και ερμηνευτικές προσπάθειες, εγγράφεται και η σχεδιαζόμενη ημερίδα.    

Μας ενδιαφέρει ειδικότερα να διερευνήσουμε πως προσδιορίστηκαν τα κοινωνικά, πολιτικά και οικονομικά χαρακτηριστικά των αγροτικών κοινοτήτων και, εν γένει, της ελληνικής υπαίθρου στο πλαίσιο των μεγάλων μετασχηματισμών με δυναμικά χρονολογικά ορόσημα, τις διαδικασίες κυριαρχίας και κατάρρευσης της σταφιδικής αγοράς στο 19ο αιώνα και την αστικοποίηση των αγροτικών πληθυσμών έπειτα από τη λήξη του Β΄ Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου.

The second globalisation has raised the issue of the cost of labour as a key variable in the competitiveness of economies. Confronted with the extension of value chains and the emergence of new global players in Asia, European governments have chosen to deregulate labour markets, contain wage growth, and lower the cost of labour. More recently, the resurgence of inflation has brought back to the fore the 1970s debates on the Phillips curve and the effects of the labour market on price increases. The emergence of the centrality of labour costs points to the need to examine them as a long-term historical object to understand economic and social policy choices throughout the twentieth century. Wages cannot be reduced to a variable for adjusting supply and demand on the labour market: They are also an instrument for selecting and training the workforce, and a subject of negotiation – and, possibly, contention – between employees and employers, often regulated and supervised by the State. Furthermore, during the twentieth century, wage setting became a matter of social policy. The development of social protection and the construction of social rights required the introduction of social contributions on both employers and employees, as well as steeply progressive taxes on earned income. The cost of labour, understood as both wages and indirect costs (taxes, social contributions, non-monetary benefits), is a fundamental element of public policy in the second half of the twentieth century. Not only does it affect the production process and the distribution of income but it also has an impact on export competitiveness, on the attraction of foreign investment, and on the creation and consolidation of domestic markets.

This two day conference aims to bring together researchers working on various aspects of the economic history of East, Southeast and South Asia territories over the past 200 years. Special emphasis is given to papers dealing with the history of intra-Asian trade or its commercial integration with Europe, but any work studying specific elements of the long term economic performance of this region is welcome. The conference offers its participants the possibility to publish their works as part of an edited volume with an international publishing house.

The "Precarious Labour" Working Group will participate in the Fifth ELHN Conference with thematic sessions. We invite members of the Working Group, and all other interested colleagues, to come up with paper and session proposals under the following open call:

Open Call for Proposals – Deadline: September 1, 2023