“Prices and Standards of Living”

Call for papers: The focus of the seminar are prices and their influence on standards of living in past economies and societies. Its aim is to investigate the influence of prices on living conditions. Attention will be devoted to the influence of prices on incomes, inequality, poverty and then everyday living standards both in the short and long run; without any chronological constraint.

List of participants

  1. Luis Almenar Fernández (València), Essential objects and the household economy Price evidence from the late medieval Crown of Aragon
  2. Sam Geens (Antwerp), Builders’ wages in Flanders and the Black Death: new data from Coastal Flanders before 1350
  3. Eric Hupin (Montreal), The Inflation Rate of the Crusading Era
  4. Michail Moatsos (Utrecht), Global Absolute Poverty: Behind the Veil of Money
  5. Joan Montoro I Maltas (Lleida), Foodstuff prices in Catalonia during the first half of 14th-century
  6. Anne Kucab (Paris), Prices and standards of living in Rouen (15th century)
  7. Aina Palarea Marimon (Girona),  Standards of living in Late Medieval Catalonia: the example of the small town of Amer
  8. Cheng Yang (Cambridge), Long run regional standard of living, Population Density and Food Price in Late Imperial China 1776-1910
  9. Mattia Viale (Verona), Economic growth and material living standards in a transition economy (Venice, 1600-1800)
  10. Irina Yányshev Nésterova (Las Palmas), Soviet welfare, prices and proteins’ consumption: 1955-1991
  11. Ada Di Nucci (Chieti-Pescara), Development of prices of goods traded in international fairs of Lanciano in the modern age
  12. Ernesto Lopez-Losa (Basque Country), After Hamilton: prices, wages and the cost of living in early-modern Spain
  13. Francesco Cebreiro Ares (Santiago de Compostela), The great transformation of Porto meat markets 1780-180

Experts

  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Paolo Malanima (UMG University Catanzaro)
  • Giovanni Muto (Napoli University)
  • Phillip Roessner (Manchester University)
  • Antal Szantay (Budapest University)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Leiden University)

“Natural Resources and Environment”

Call for papers: The focus of the 2017 seminar is the exploitation of Natural Resources and Environment in past and modern economies and societies. Its aim is to investigate the influence of natural resources and environmental changes on the economy of past and present societies. Attention was devoted to the exploitation of land, mineral resources, energy carriers, water and to climatic changes both in the short and long run.

List of participants

  1. Eva Bodovics (Budapest), Water management and flood control practices in Miskolc (Hungary) in the late 19th century
  2. Lisa FitzGerald (Galway), Urban Ecology: Envisioning and Aestheticizing Modernity in Samuel Beckett’s Not I
  3. Sarah Claire (Paris), Energy mix, crises and transition in Central Europe in the Middle Ages. The Kingdom of Bohemia, 14th-16th century
  4. Ellen Janssens (Antwerp), The last urban common? Practices of water use and management in Antwerp (Belgium) during the late 16th and early 17th centur
  5. Andreaia Lopes Fidalgo (Lisbon), The «Restoration» Plan of the Kingdom of Algarve: economic reform between 1773 and 1820
  6. Soran Mohtadi (Barcelona), An empirical analysis on the relationship between resource rents and human capital: the Role of institutional quality thresholds
  7. Wout Saelens (Antwerp),  Energy consumption before and during the early Industrial Revolution: the Northern and Southern Netherlands compared (c. 1650-1850)
  8. Harm Zwarts (Wageningen), The development of innovation in Dutch agriculture, c. 1880-1970
  9. Clavel Damian (Geneva), “Enemy Mine”: Poyais, mahogany extraction, and the Miskito King 1820-1824

Experts

  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Guido Alfani (Università Bocconi Milano)
    Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Paolo Malanima (UMG University Catanzaro)
  • Giovanni Muto (Napoli University)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Leiden University)

“Global Exchanges and Maritime Trades”

Call for papers: The focus of the 2018 seminar is the formation and development of maritime exchanges. Its aim is to investigate the influence of trades and connections by sea on the integration of past and present economies, societies and cultures. Attention will be devoted to the exchanges, their techniques, institutions, periods of growth and decline and their geography. Papers could cover any period from Antiquity till today.

List of participants

  1. Daniele Dibello (San Marino – Ghent), «Armari debeant pro anno futuro ad viagium Flandrie sex galee»: Venetian merchants in Flanders during the XIVth century
  2. Gijs Dreijer (Exeter-Brussels), General average and the development of legal institutions in the Southern Netherlands (15th-16th centuries)
  3. Jake Dyble (Exeter) The development of maritime Law in the Livornese portofranco
  4. Marina Inì (Cambridge) The network of Lazzaretti in the Mediterranean region: architecture, trade
  5. Germán Jiménez Montes (Groningen) Flemish contractors in the organization of the Hispanic navy in Andalusia (1570s-1580s)
  6. Fredrik Kämpe (Stockholm ) Convoys, Tributes and Consuls – The Swedish Convoy Office and Swedish Shipping in the Mediterranean, 1724–1867
  7. Jurre Knoest (Leiden ) Moderating networks and managing globalization. Nagasaki and Japan’s maritime connections to the outside world, c. 1600-1800
  8. Víctor Muñoz Gómez (La Laguna) From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic: ports, navigation and sailing knowledge in Andalusia during the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern Age (14th-16th centuries)
  9.  Daniele Ognibene (Geneva) Seismography of consumptions: the trading registers of Bologna in the international commercial networks between 14th and 15th century
  10. Franzisca Scheiner (Duisburg-Essen ) You have to speculate to accumulate – Investing strategies in Mediterranean long-distance trade in the Middle Ages
  11. Josh Ivinson (Cambridge) Transnational institutions and networks in the English Newfoundland trade, 1550-1650
  12. Tommaso Stefini (Yale) An open-access institution in Ottoman Istanbul? The Venetian consular court in early seventeenth-century Istanbul and its role in regulating cross-cultural trade
  13. Timo Tiainen (Jväskylä)  Long distance international trade of Finland in 1634–1853 – some time series analyses
  14. Elisa Tirindelli (Dublin) The futility of merchants wars. A case study of France and Hamburg between 1713 and 1820
  15. Lewis Wade (Exeter ) Maritime trade and State regulation: maritime averages in France during the Seventeenth century
  16. Maarten Draper (Firenze IUE) Italian merchants in Amsterdam, 1650-1800

Experts

  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Paolo Malanima (UMG University Catanzaro)
  • Giovanni Muto (Napoli University)
  • Jari Ojala (Jyväskylä University)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Leiden University)

“Income, Wealth, Inequality”

Call for papers: The focus of the 2019 seminar is the level, structure, evolution of income and wealth and their distribution among social classes, families, individuals and among nations. Its aim is to investigate the structure of income and wealth in past and present societies and the inequalities both within and between countries. Attention is be devoted to the forms of income (wages, interests, profits, rents) and wealth (both real and financial assets), their changes in time and the influence of the institutions on their distribution.

List of participants

  1. Rebeca Riella (Montevideo), Wealth distribution in Hispanic America during colonial times: new evidence from Montevideo since 1760 to 1815
  2. Federico Gálvez Gambero (Málaga), Did public debt shape personal and regional inequality in late medieval Castile?
  3. Felix Schaff (London), When ‘war made the state’, what happened to economic inequality? Military conflicts and the beginning of the inequality rise in premodern Germany (c. 1400 – 1648)
  4. Sascha Klocke (Lund), Skill or Race? Inequality in the Wage Labour Sector in British Tanganyika
  5. Alexander Shipilov (Moscow), The role of ethnic disparities in the escalation towards the Liberian (1989-2003) and Ivorian (2002-2011) civil wars
  6. Gabriel Brea-Martínez (Bellaterra-Barcelona), Sociodemographic mechanisms of socioeconomic inequality. A case study in the Barcelona area (18th-19th centuries)
  7. Cristina Victoria Radu (Odense), The impact of border changes and protectionism on real wages in early modern Scania
  8. Ana Avino de Pablo (Ghent), Economic growth and Inequality in pre-industrial England: the case of Kingston Lacy manor (Dorset)
  9. Giacomo Gabbuti (Oxford), Sources and methods for the history of Intergenerational mobility in Italy
  10. Esther Beeckaert (Ghent) Private and common land access compared. The distribution of land rights and wealth inequality in the Belgian Ardennes in the second half of the eighteenth century
  11. Marcello Valente (Torino), Economic inequality between self-employed and wage workers in classical Athens
  12. Benjamin Schneider (Oxford), Road construction wages and labor market integration in England, 1719–1800
  13. Albert Reixach Sala (Girona), Economic inequality, political power and social mobility in Catalonia in the long run (1350-1700): the case of the city of Girona
  14. Michail Moatsos (Utrecht), Global income inequality: concepts, estimates and a first ballpark

Experts

  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Guido Alfani (Università Bocconi Milano)
  • Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Paolo Malanima (UMG University Catanzaro)
  • Wouter Ryckbosch (Brussels University)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Leiden University)

“Consumption”

Call for papers: The focus of the 2020 seminar is consumption. The aims are: consumption by households, its share in total income, its structure and the role of fashion and cultures in shaping it; in addition, the commercial strategies employed to sell luxury products and how these stimulated demand; so as Taste, distinction, habit, and peer pressure as these provide an opportunity to discuss ideas about personal and social capital in history. Finally questions about the importance of durable and non-durable goods addressed together with geographical differences in consumption and the underlying causes.

CALL FOR PAPERS 2025: “Finance in History”

Datini – ESTER
Advanced Seminar 2025
“Finance in History”

deadline abstracts 15 October 2024

Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini” and the European School for Training in Economic and Social Historical Research (ESTER) will organise their tenth jointly-organized Datini-ESTER Advanced Seminar for economic and social historians on 11th-17th May 2025, in Prato (Italy) on the theme of

“Finance in History”

The organisers

ESTER, established in 1991, is an international postgraduate network incorporating more than 60 European Universities. ESTER organizes research training in the form of both the annual Research Design Course for starting PhD-students and a series of Ad-vanced Seminars on special themes within economic and social history.

“F. Datini” International Institute of Economic History was founded in 1968 by Federigo Melis and Fernand Braudel. The aim of the Institute is the study of pre-industrial economic history (thirteenth-eighteenth centuries) and the creation on the topic of a space for historical culture, making comparison between different methodologies and schools of research easier and supporting young scholars during their formative years.

Theme

The topic of the Datini-Ester seminar is closely related to the theme of the congress yearly organized by the “F. Datini” International Institute of Economic History and devoted in 2025 to Risk Management, Insolvency, and Bankruptcy in the Pre-Modern World (13th-18th Centuries). The 2024 Datini-Ester seminar will deal with Finance. We particularly welcome papers on the development of financial institutions, risk and control of risk, financial practises and financial behaviour in different historical contexts. Papers may cover topics such as sovereign and public debt, money lending, banking, and insurance, relations between private creditors and debtors, exchange(s) and capital market(s), etc. We welcome scholars working on both the macro and micro level. Papers can cover any relevant aspect and any period, from Antiquity until today, but must have an economic-historical or historical character.

Participants in the Datini-ESTER advanced seminar can receive 4 ECTS credits.


DATINI-ESTER: CALL FOR PAPERS 2025


Description and organization of the Advanced Datini-ESTER Seminar

The seminar is jointly organized by the members of the board of the Datini-Ester Seminar: Guido Alfani (Fondazione “F. Datini”), Ben Gales (ESTER), Jaco Zuijderduijn (ESTER), Francesco Ammannati (Fondazione “F. Datini”). The members of the board, together with other colleagues, specialist in the field, will participate in the seminar as instructors.

The Datini-ESTER Advanced Seminar consists of two complementary parts:

a) the participation in the international Datini congress (LVI Settimana di Studi), devoted in 2025 to “Gestione del rischio, insolvenza e bancarotta nel mondo premoderno (secc. XIII-XVIII) • Risk Management, Insolvency, and Bankruptcy in the Pre-Modern World (13th-18th Centuries)”. The congress will be held in Prato, from May 11 (opening 18.00 [exact time to be confirmed] with the inaugural speech in the municipal building) until May 15 (afternoon) 2025. For information on the congress:
https://www.istitutodatini.it/temi/htm/temi56.htm;

b) a two-day workshop from May 16 (morning) until May 17 (late afternoon) 2025, in a reserved room of the Datini Palace in Prato [place to be confirmed]. The workshop will bring together a number of senior researchers from different countries. Prior to the workshop, students will be asked to prepare a paper. They will have the opportunity of presenting their research project dealing with one or more core problems of their research field and discussing them with both senior researchers and other fellow students. Each paper will be presented by the author during the seminar and then examined and discussed by one of the participating students and by one of the instructors, after which a general discussion among all participants will take place.

The students will be guests of the Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini” from Sunday May 11 (IN) until Sunday May 18 morning (OUT). On May 17, at the end of the seminar, the students will receive diplomas attesting their participation in the Datini congress and Datini-ESTER.

The diplomas will be delivered only to the students who will take part BOTH in the Datini congress AND the seminar.
Besides providing a feedback opportunity for ongoing project on Finance in History, the seminar will provide the opportunity to attend the international Datini congress, and foster cooperation between economic and social historians coming from different countries.
This Advanced Datini-Ester Seminar is open to 15 PhD-students and Post-Docs (who finished their doctorate less than five years prior to the seminar).

Applications and admission

Students should apply online, and present a 800 words abstract of the content of their paper dealing with economic exchanges.
A first selection of students (by ESTER and Datini) will take place on the basis of the abstracts. After this stage, students who are accepted will be asked to draft their research paper.
The final admission to the course depends upon the following points:
• the student must meet the deadline for submission of his/her paper (whose deadline is the 15th of March 2025);
• the paper must be of sufficient academic quality and the level of the English used in the paper must be sufficient.
The language of the papers, such as that of the seminar, will be English.

Dates and location

The Advanced 2025 Seminar will take place in Prato, Italy, from May 11 (Sunday with the inauguration of the congress) to May 17 (Saturday), so the day of arrival will be Sunday May 11 and the departure Sunday morning May 18. Both the students and instructors will meet on Sunday evening (11th of May) at 7 pm o’clock for a dinner together (the place to be defined). The seminar will start on Friday 16 at 8.30 am. Students wishing to participate are requested to send their application no later than the 15th October 2024. To this purpose the students will use the online form. The selection of students will be completed by the end of October 2024. Deadline for submission of papers by accepted students is March 15th 2025. Following that date, the papers will be made available to all participants. Application forms are available on the ESTER website https://posthumusinstitute.org/

Dates: a summary (2024-25):

June 2024 – Call for Applications
15th October 2024 – Deadline for Applications
31st October 2024 – Selection completed, applicants informed
15th March 2025 – Deadline paper submission. The final paper will be due to posthumus@uu.nl
31st March 2025 – Papers online for reading
11th May 2025 (morning or afternoon): arrival in Prato
11th May 2025 (18.00 inaugural speech in the municipal building)
11th-15th May (afternoon) 2025 – International Datini Congress
16th-17th May 2025 (late afternoon) – Advanced Seminar
17th May 2025 (end of the seminar) delivery of diplomas
18th May 2025 (morning) departure

Funding

Costs for accommodation and catering will be covered by the organizers. The organizers will not cover travel costs (possibly covered by students’ home institutions). Travel arrangements to and from Prato have to be organized by the selected participants themselves. The workshop will be funded by the Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini” and by the ESTER Graduate School

.

Contact

For inquiries concerning this course, please contact ESTER:
ESTER/N.W. Posthumus Institute
Faculty of Arts
P.O. Box 9103
The Netherlands
E-mail: posthumus@uu.nl
Dr Jaco Zuijderduijn (Lund University).For inquiries concerning the hospitality in Prato, the students have to contact the secretary of the Datini Institute on the dates of their arrival and departure:
Letizia Finocchiaro – Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini” di Prato
E-mail: letizia@istitutodatini.it

“Social and geographic mobility”

Call for papersThe 2024 Datini-Ester seminar deals with Social and geographic mobility. The aims are encourage research on social and socio-economic mobility (both upward and downward) in different historical contexts, as well as on geographic mobility, that is migration (short- or long-distance). As is well known, across human history geographic mobility has often played a major role in shaping patterns of socio-economic mobility. Purpose is to clarify the determinants, the extent and the final consequences of mobility in different periods, across entire societies or regarding specific social groups.

Made with contributions from:

 

List of participants

  1. Renato Amoroso“Italian emigration to Argentina and Luigi Einaudi’s perspective”
  2. Anna Arkhina“Openness of Russian civil elite in 19th century”
  3. Alessandro Brioschi“Social mobility and exits from apprenticeship training: evidence from early modern Genoa”
  4. Alice Dominici“Networks, diversity and migrants’ success: evidence from the Pontine Marshes, 1932-1941”
  5. Giuliana Freschi“Intergenerational mobility in 19th century Italy: A case study approach”
  6. Markus Hansen“The Material Basis of Downwards Social Mobility in 18th-Century Denmark”
  7. Francisco Javier Illana López“Between Palermo and Madrid. Political service, geographical movements and upward mobility in “Spanish Italy” (16th-17th centuries)”
  8. Aurelius Noble“The Persistence of the Aristocracy: Financial and Social Measures, England and Wales (1858-1907)”
  9. Sienna Nordquist“The Marshall Plan as Sanctioner and Protector: The Case of West Berlin, 1949-1953”
  10. Eline Rademakers“Tracing Social Mobility Among Enslaved Workers in 18th Century Suriname”
  11. Francesco Romagnoli“Origin and Developments of Inequality: Evidence from the Pontine Ager colonization scheme in Italy (1932-1943)”
  12. Bas Spliet“From ‘Migrant City’ to ‘City of the Established’? The Social Mobility of Immigrants: Evidence from Amsterdam, 1600-1800”
  13. Noah Werner Sutter“A Testament to Revolution? Two Approaches to Estimating Intergenerational Persistence of Elite Status in France, 1791-1870”
  14. Hillary Vipond“Grandfathered Out: Sheltering from Technological Unemployment in Victorian Britain”
  15. Ziming Zhu“Grim Up North? Regional Intergenerational Mobility across England, 1881-1911”

Experts

  • Guido Alfani (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Francesco Ammannati (Firenze University)
  • Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • Neil Cummins (London School of Economics)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Joana-Maria Pujadas-Mora (Open University of Catalonia)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Lund University)

“Economic Innovations”

Call for papers: The 2022 Datini-Ester seminar deals with Economic Innovations; that is the effects on the productivity and efficiency of the economic system deriving from changes in the mix of the inputs. Our purpose is to clarify the role of technical and institutional changes in different economies and discuss the possibility of measuring their effects on gross product.

List of participants

  1. Diego Castañeda Garza (Uppsala), Energising Mexico: historical energy consumption, transitions and economic growth 1880-2015
  2. Esther Tello (Valencia), Institutional innovations in the Crown of Aragon in the late Middle Ages: long-term account control
  3. 3. Emrah Gülsunar (Lund), Carrying the Leviathan: turnpike roads and the precocious rise of state capacity in Britain, 1700-1832
  4. Milan Balaban (Brno), Economic innovations and transformations of the Bata Company through history
  5. Carla Salvo (Roma), The labour market causes and consequences of technical change: Evidence from the adoption of steam engines in 19th-century France
  6. Aristea Gratsea (Crete), The lettera di cambio in the trade system of Venetian Crete (15th-16th century). A case study
  7. Marco Martinez (Pisa), Innovation and infrastructure in Italian Municipalities during the Liberal Age: evidence from a new historical patent data-set, 1855-1914
  8. Víctor Pérez-Sánchez (London), Not a fiscal story: 17th-century monetary policy as a trade policy to compete in silver
  9. Kyle Richmond (Belfast), Innovation, market power, and firm size: evidence from british manufacturing in the Golden Age
  10. Vinzent Ostermeyer (Lund) Institutional change and the adoption of new technologies: the case of steam
  11. Nick Ford (Lund), Lessons from Oslo: examining social mobility after the establishment of Norway’s first university establishment of Norway’s first university
  12. Mostafa Abdelaal (Cairo), Northern Rhodesia’s industrial development amidst regional competition, 1924-1938

Experts

  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • Salvatore Ciriacono (Padova University)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Paolo Malanima (UMG University Catanzaro)
  • Richard Unger (University of British Columbia)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Lund University)

“Economic Exchanges”

Call for papers: The 2023 Datini-Ester seminar deals with Economic Exchanges. The aims are encourage research on the exchange of goods and services, on the role of markets, monies, trade, transaction costs and institutional contexts, which might foster market integration or, alternatively, constrain economic performance. Purpose is to clarify the role of the economic exchange and market in past economies.

List of participants

  1. Mathias Istrup KarlsmoseInternationalizing the Danish East India Company – Trade, Diplomacy and Warfare in 17th Century Asia
  2. Bram HilkensLiving and Dying with the Land: Land Inequality, Agrarian Capitalism, and Epidemic Mortality
  3. Florian ProbstWas there an Industrious Revolution in Germany? Wages and labour markets on rural estates, c. 1650-1870
  4. Boyu FangThe economic status of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia: trade, social networks, remittances, and entrepreneurship
  5. Carlo Ludovico SevergniniFinancial Administration and Reforms in Burgundy and Savoy (1418-1480)
  6. Tomasso BrolloMoney and Credit in Early Modern Europe. The banco Capponi in Florence and at the fairs of Lyon and Besançon, 1553-1584
  7. Tessa de BoerA Truth Universally Acknowledged. Dutch ventures in the French West Indies, 1717-1792
  8. Elena ShadrinaA Sea of Parchment: Documentary Culture and Social Networks in Venice and Beyond (950- 1220)
  9. Laura Burnett“For change and charitie”: how were 17th century trade tokens used and understood by people at the time?
  10. Patrick van der GeestTrading colonialism for imperialism: How Hope & Co. shaped the advent of European imperial exploitation in Asia and the Atlantic, c.a 1720-1880
  11. Claudio FerriFrom imaginary money to metallic standards
  12. Ramona NegrónAmsterdam Merchants in the Spanish Americas, 1580-1700
  13. Sally Finn-KelcyThe Production and Export of Medieval Ireland’s Wool and Woollen Cloth
  14. Aditi DixitThe ‘Little Asian’ Divergence: A Comparative Study of the Indian and Japanese Textile Industry, ca. 1890-1940
  15. Gustav ÄngebyScandinavian merchant networks in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, c.1750-1815

Experts

  • Guido Alfani (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Francesco Ammannati (Bocconi University Milano)
  • Catia Antunes  (Leiden University)
  • William Caferro (Vanderbilt University – Nashville, USA)
  • Ben Gales (Groningen University)
  • Corinne Maitte (Université Gustave Eiffel, Champs-sur-Marne)
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn (Lund University)