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Barry Eichengreen – Why Economics Needs History

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By Barry Ritholtz - July 22nd, 2011, 7:39AM

What challenges will China have to surmount in order to make its currency a true international currency? To answer this question and others, Barry Eichengreen studies history. In the old days, he says, historians and theorists worked smoothly together and saw one another as serious scholars. But those days are gone, and nowadays the profession largely neglects historical and institutional research. That’s why Barry Eichengreen is running the Berkeley Economic History Lab to educate a future generation of scholars — a generation that is historically literate and does policy-relevant research. These are the seeds of new economic thinking.


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5 Responses to “Barry Eichengreen – Why Economics Needs History”

  1. Winston Says:
    July 22nd, 2011 at 8:48 am

    This is great. I spoke with a professor of mine yesterday in which he expressed his view that economic historians are a dying breed -and unjustly so. Of course, I sent him a link to this page to assuage any concerns that no one is pursuing this discipline.

    Eichengreen touches on so many relevant issues that demonstrate what a thorough and sifting historical analysis can provide for today’s economic policy makers.

    Thank you for finding this, Mr. Ritholtz.

  2. FT Alphaville » Further further reading Says:
    July 22nd, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    [...] – Why economics needs history. [...]

  3. Saturday links: checks and balances | Abnormal Returns Says:
    July 23rd, 2011 at 7:28 am

    [...] Why economics needs history.  (Big Picture) [...]

  4. TripleSigma Says:
    July 23rd, 2011 at 1:03 pm

    You mean like 5,000 years of history of fiat currency failure?

  5. David Merkel Says:
    July 23rd, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    I met Carmen Reinhart at the Cato Institute. I suggested to her that the economics profession needs more historians, and fewer mathematicians, and she heartily agreed.

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