Nomination for EHS Presidency
Stephen Broadberry
Vision for the Society
The Economic History Society plays a crucial role in promoting economic and social history within both
academia and the wider community, providing a high profile for the discipline in the academic community,
particularly through the work of the Economic History Review and the Annual Conference, and through the
financial support that it offers to students and early career researchers. I believe that the Review and the
Conference have been thriving in recent years as a result of a dual strategy of increasing the Society’s
international profile, whilst continuing to retain particular strengths in British economic and social history.
If elected, I would continue to promote this “British and international” strategy. The Society is an inclusive
organisation, covering historical periods from ancient and medieval to modern, both qualitative and
quantitative methodologies, and social as well as economic topics. This makes it stand out compared with
other economic and social history organisations anywhere in the world, and I believe places the Society in
a uniquely advantageous position to secure both its academic and financial standing as it continues to
foster its international connections.
The provision of financial support for students is one of the most important aspects of the Society’s work,
which I see as an essential investment in the future of the discipline. This support ranges from grants for
undergraduates to fellowships for graduate students and post-doctoral fellowships, which provide
particularly helpful support for young academics at the beginning of their careers. I also see the financial
support provided to academics through the conferences and initiatives fund and the small grant scheme as
vitally important aspects of the Society’s work. In addition, the Society’s profile in the wider community
has been raised in recent years through its website and media strategy. The Society also promotes
economic and social history in schools and has funded a number of internships in museums and other
organisations. Again, I would be keen to support initiatives in all of these areas.
All of these activities require a reliable flow of income, and if elected, I would give a high priority to
working with the other officers of the Society to secure that income. A particular concern over the coming
years is the threat to our main source of income from the Economic History Review, as a result of the
cavalier way that the UK government has pressed ahead of other countries in accelerating the move to
open access publishing, without thinking through the implications for the sustainability of the work of
Britain’s vibrant community of learned societies. If elected, I would work closely with other learned
societies, such as the Academy of Social Sciences, as well as Wiley-Blackwell, the publishers of the Review,
to ensure that open access is implemented in such a way as not to undermine the work of the Society.
Equally important in securing the income stream of the Society is the maintenance of the high quality of
the Economic History Review and the Annual Conference, which are the most obvious aspects of the
Society’s public face. I believe that this is best done by combining the Society’s long standing high
reputation in the area of British economic and social history, with particular strengths in the medieval and
early modern periods as well as in the modern era, with its growing reputation in international and
comparative economic and social history, as demonstrated by the widening international participation in
both the annual conference and submissions to the Review.
Finally, the Society has led the field in promoting wider participation by women in economic history. It
would be good to build on this success by increasing the participation of other under-represented groups,
which I believe will be helped by the growing adoption of an outward looking international approach to
economic and social history.
Service to the Economic History Society
I joined the Society in 1980 and became a regular Conference attendee whilst a graduate student. In 2004,
I was elected a Council Member and served as a member of Conference Committee at a time when the
number of paper submissions from both new researchers and international scholars was increasing. I
shared the view taken at the time by other members of the committee that it was important for the
Society to expand the number of sessions so as to be open and encouraging to both groups. I continued to
pursue these policies when I was Chair of the Conference Committee between 2008 and 2010, and served
as a Member of Executive. As an Editor of the Economic History Review from 2010 to 2015, and Managing
Editor (and Executive Member) between 2011 and 2014, I pursued a policy of encouraging excellence
across the full range of periods, regions and methodologies, and in 2014 the Review had the highest impact
factor of all economic and social history journals.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN BROADBERRY
Curriculum vitae, June 2015
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
Undergraduate: University of Warwick, 1975-78
B.A. (Hons.) First Class, Economics and Economic History, 1978
Postgraduate: Nuffield College, Oxford, 1978-81
M.Phil. Economics, 1980, (Option and Thesis in Economic History)
D.Phil. 1982, “Unemployment in Interwar Britain: A Disequilibrium Approach”
FULL-TIME ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
The Queen's College, Oxford: Junior Research Fellow, 1981-83
University College, Cardiff: Lecturer, Department of Economics, 1983-86
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada: Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, 1986-87
University of Warwick: Lecturer, Department of Economics, 1987-92
Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, 1992-95
Professor of Economic History, Department of Economics, 1995-2011
London School of Economics: Professor of Economic History, 2011-15
Nuffield College, Oxford: Professor of Economic History, from September 2015
SELECTED EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
University of Manchester: Hallsworth Senior Research Fellow, 1995-96
University of California, Berkeley: Academic Visitor, 2001
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Academic Visitor, 2003 and 2005
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona: Academic Visitor, 2007
University of Southern Denmark: Han Christian Andersen Professor, 2013-16
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo: Academic Visitor, 2014
Centre for Economic Policy Research: Research Fellow 1989- ; Economic History Initiative Co-ordinator,
2004-2012; Economic History |Programme Director, 2014SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
1. The British Economy Between the Wars: A Macroeconomic Survey, Oxford: Blackwell (1986), pp.180+vii.
2. The Productivity Race: British Manufacturing in International Perspective, 1850-1990, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press (1997), pp.451 + xxv. Also available in Chinese translation, China
Economics Publishing House (2001).
3. The Economics of World War I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2005), pp.345 + xvi, (edited with
Harrison, M.).
4. Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850-2000: Britain in International Perspective, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press (2006, pp.409 + xix).
5. The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, (2 volumes), Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press (2010), (edited with Kevin O’Rourke).
6. British Economic Growth, 1270-1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2015), (with Bruce
Campbell, Alexander Klein, Mark Overton and Bas van Leeuwen).
7. (in preparation), The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World, Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press, (edited with Kyoji Fukao).
Selected Journal Articles
1. “Aggregate Supply in Interwar Britain”, Economic Journal, 96 (1986): 467-481.
2. “Britain's Productivity Gap in the 1930s: Some Neglected Factors”, Journal of Economic History, 52
(1992): 531-558, (with Crafts, N.F.R.).
3. “Manufacturing and the Convergence Hypothesis: What the Long Run Data Show”, Journal of Economic
History, 53 (1993): 772-795.
4. “How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative
Productivity Levels, 1870-1990”, Journal of Economic History, 58 (1998): 375-407.
5. “External Economies of Scale in the Lancashire Cotton Industry, 1900-1939”, Economic History Review,
55 (2002): 51-77, (with Marrison, A.)
6. “UK Productivity Performance from 1950 to 1979: A Restatement of the Broadberry-Crafts View”,
Economic History Review, 56 (2003): 718-735, (with Crafts, N.F.R.).
7. “The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices and Economic Development in Europe and Asia,
1500-1800”, Economic History Review, 59 (2006), 2-31, (with Bishnupriya Gupta).
8. “Lancashire, India and Shifting Competitive Advantage in Cotton Textiles, 1700-1850: The Neglected Role
of Factor Prices”, Economic History Review, 62 (2009), 279-305 (with Bishnupriya Gupta).
9. “When Did Britain Industrialise? The Sectoral Distribution of the Labour Force and Labour Productivity in
Britain, 1381-1851”, Explorations in Economic History, 50 (2013), 16-27 (with Bruce Campbell and
Bas van Leeuwen).
10. “India and the Great Divergence: An Anglo-Indian Comparison of GDP per capita, 1600-1871”,
Explorations in Economic History, 56 (2015), 58-75 (with Johann Custodis and Bishnupriya Gupta).
SELECTED GRANTS
1. Team leader in successful Research Training Network proposal, FP6-512439, “Unifying the European
Experience: Historical Lessons of Pan-European Development”. The proposal was made on behalf of
the Economic History Initiative at the CEPR, and the grant was for over €1.7 million during the
period 2004-2008.
2. Principal applicant in successful Leverhulme Trust research grant proposal, “Reconstructing the National
Income of Britain and Holland, c.1270/1500 to 1850”. The award was for £333,266 during the
period 2007-2010.
3.Principal investigator in successful FP7 proposal, “Historical Patterns of Development” (HI-POD). The
proposal was made on behalf of the Economic History Initiative at the CEPR, and the grant was for
over €1.4 million during the period 2008-2012.
4.Team leader in successful Initial Training Network proposal, “Macroeconomics and Financial History”
(MACROHIST). The proposal was made on behalf of the Economic History Programme at the CEPR,
and the grant is for over €3.7 million during the period 2013-2017.
JOURNAL EDITING
Editorships
1. European Review of Economic History: 1999- 2002
2. Economic History Review: 2010-2015
Editorial/advisory board membership
1. Explorations in Economic History, 19942. Journal of Economic History, 1996-2001
3. Journal of Industrial History, 1998-2003
4. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 20035. Cliometrica, 20066. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 20117. Essays in Economic and Business History, 2012-
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
Economic History Society: Council Member, 2004-2015; Executive Member 2008-2010, 2011-2014; Chair
of Conference Committee, 2008-2010; Editor, Economic History review, 2010-2015
European Historical Economics Society: Trustee, 1996-2015; President-Elect, 2009-2011; President, 20112013
Economic History Association: Dissertation Session Convenor, 2009; Trustee, 2012-2015; Chair,
Programme Committee, 2013
Asian Historical Economics Society: Secretary, 2010-2012; Trustee, 2012Cliometrics Society: Trustee, 2000-2003 and 2005-2010
International Economic History Association: Executive Committee Member, 2015Academy of Social Sciences: Fellow, 2002-