American and French Experience in the Mid 20Th Century
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ECONOMISTS WRITING HISTORY: American and French Experience in the mid 20th Century Cristel Anne de Rouvray London School of Economics and Political Science Candidate, Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Economics 2005 1 ABSTRACT If one considers the fortunes of economic history in the 20th century U.S., the 1940s, 50s and 60s stand out as a particularly vibrant time for the field and economists’ contributions to it. These decades saw the creation of the main association and journals - the Economic History Association, the Journal of Economic History for example – and the launching of large research programs – Harvard’s history of entrepreneurship, Simon Kuznets’ retrospective accounts, cliometrics for example. Why did American economists write so much history in the decades immediately following WWII, and why and how did this change with cliometrics? To answer these questions I use interviews with scholars who were active in the mid 20th century, their publications and archival material. The bulk of the analysis focuses on the U.S., yet it relies in part on a comparison with France where economic history also experienced a golden period at this time, though it involved few economists. Instead it was the domain of Annales historians. This comparison sheds light on the ways in which the labels “economist” and “historian” changed meaning throughout the period of study. Economists’ general interest for history is best understood as a part of an ongoing debate on scientific method, specifically about whether and how to observe and what constitutes reliable empirical evidence. These debates contributed both to draw social scientists to history, and change the way they wrote history. In the U.S. the mid 20th century surge in economist-history was principally due to the post-war demand for knowledge about growth and development. The sense of urgency that came with this task increased scholars’ willingness to work with estimated (as opposed to found) data. This was reinforced by American economists’ experience in war planning and ensuing spread of an operations research mentality among graduate students. The issue of whether or not to estimate became a new demarcation line between “historians” and “economists”. By the late 1960s, scholars who wanted to turn to the past to observe economies evolve over several decades, and let these facts “speak for themselves” had largely been replaced by researchers who used modern economic theory to frame historical investigation, and relied on quantification and estimation as their main empirical inputs. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank teachers and students at the London School of Economics for their wisdom, encouragement and passion. Among them both Mary Morgan, my advisor, and Tiago Mata, my friend and colleague, provided the critical distance, the conversations and the motivation to get things done, while retaining a sense of discovery and relevance. The excitement of engaging in research was also kept alive by the scholars I met in the past four years, at conferences, seminars, in archives, or as I interviewed them in their living rooms. Paul David and Malcolm Rutherford were the most precious of these acquaintances, and their willingness to hear regular updates of my work provided great encouragement. Yet many others threw sparks to my fire with their questions, their curiosity, or their generous sharing of time, documents and recollections – in particular I wish to thank the men and women who responded to my request for interviews and gave me the benefit of the doubt. While I did do some thinking, this thesis was also an exercise in logistics and coordination –more so than I could have imagined when I first set out. Without the help of archivists in France and the U.S., the LSE’s willingness to subsidize travel to conferences, generous scholarships from the Rockefeller Archive Center and the Hagley Library, and precious help from Philippe Fontaine and Eric Brousseau in France, I would have had access to much less information than our digital world would suppose. None of this would have been possible without the love and support of friends and family. I am blessed with parents and siblings for whom curiosity is a way of life and my friends are a constant source of laughter and inspiration. I give special thanks to Shelley Lawrence de Rouvray, Amy de Rouvray and Jonathan Bruck for their unconditional support. Paris, March 2005 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank teachers and students at the London School of Economics for their wisdom, encouragement and passion. Among them both Mary Morgan, my advisor, and Tiago Mata, my friend and colleague, provided the critical distance, the conversations and the motivation to get things done, while retaining a sense of discovery and relevance. The excitement of engaging in research was also kept alive by the scholars I met in the past four years, at conferences, seminars, in archives, or as I interviewed them in their living rooms. Paul David and Malcolm Rutherford were the most precious of these acquaintances, and their willingness to hear regular updates of my work provided great encouragement. Yet many others threw sparks to my fire with their questions, their curiosity, or their generous sharing of time, documents and recollections – in particular I wish to thank the men and women who responded to my request for interviews and gave me the benefit of the doubt. While I did do some thinking, this thesis was also an exercise in logistics and coordination –more so than I could have imagined when I first set out. Without the help of archivists in France and the U.S., the LSE’s willingness to subsidize travel to conferences, generous scholarships from the Rockefeller Archive Center and the Hagley Library, and precious help from Philippe Fontaine and Eric Brousseau in France, I would have had access to much less information than our digital world would suppose. None of this would have been possible without the love and support of friends and family. I am blessed with parents and siblings for whom curiosity is a way of life and my friends are a constant source of laughter and inspiration. I give special thanks to Shelley Lawrence de Rouvray, Amy de Rouvray and Jonathan Bruck for their unconditional support. Paris, March 2005 3 To my parents and their parents for giving me a “room of my own”. 4 Table of Contents TABLE of CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION: ECONOMIST-HISTORIANS IN THE MID 20th CENTURY 1. Economist- historians 12 2. The French Foil 15 3. The History Foil 17 4. The contingencies of American economist-history 19 2 ECONOMISTS’ RELATIONSHIP TO HISTORY 1. Introduction 24 2. The Methodenstreit and economic history 2.1. The Methodenstreit in mid 19th century Germany and 26 similar movements outside Germany 2.2. Economic history in early 20th century Britain 32 3. Strategic uses of the Methodenstreit view 3.1. Participants’ accounts of the cliometric revolution 34 3.2. A broader approach to the cliometric revolution 42 4. Perennial debates and their temporary resolutions 4.1. Perennial debates 46 4.2. Content and Context 53 4.3. Controversy and Comparison 59 5. Conclusion 64 3 ESTABLISHING INSTITUTIONS FOR ECONOMIC HISTORY IN THE U.S. 1. Introduction 66 2. American economic history before 1941 2.1. Early American economics, historicism and economic 68 history 2.2. Edwin F. Gay (1867-1946) 73 2.3. The International Committee on Price History 77 3. Rockefeller Foundation officers and their priorities for American economics (1939-1954) 3.1. Anne Bezanson and Joseph Willits 83 3.2. The Willits years at RF – moral and philosophical 85 dimensions 3.3. The Willits years at RF – epistemological dimensions 87 3.4. RF 1940 roundtable and subsequent grant 90 3.5. Economic history and good economics 94 5 Table of Contents 4. Economic history: 1941-1950 4.1. Forging institutions for economic history in the U.S. 97 4.2. The CREH’s activities 102 4.3. RF’s continued support 105 5. Entrepreneurial history 5.1. The switch to entrepreneurial history 107 5.2. Business history at Harvard 111 5.3. Entrepreneurial history = economic history = economics 114 6. Conclusion 118 4 MEASURING THE PAST THROUGH NATIONAL INCOME ACCOUNTS 1. Introduction 120 2. Kuznets and the “old” economic historians 2.1. Kuznets’ reasons for attending the 1940 Rockefeller 123 Foundation roundtable meeting 2.2. Kuznets’ attempts to convince CREH economic historians 127 to adopt his approach to historical study 3. Building the measuring instrument 3.1. The conceptual basis 132 3.2. The organizational basis 138 4. The impact of a national accounting view on economic history 4.1. The perennial debate at work: Rostow v. Kuznets 147 4.2. Kuznets’ legacy to American and worldwide economist- 155 history 4.3. Kuznets’ impact (1): a systemic view of the past 157 4.4. Kuznets’ impact (2): changing the relative value of 162 different types of evidence 5. Conclusion 167 5 ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN ECONOMISTS AND HISTORIANS IN FRANCE: 1950s, 1960s 1. Introduction 168 2. Economists, history and historians before WWII 2.1. Social science and history in early 20th century France 170 2.2. Origins of the Annales movement 175 2.3. Designing a hybrid space 179 3. A new space for social science in France 3.1. The ideological spectrum of post-war France 183 3.2. American foundations show interest 188 3.3. Economic history emerges as a strategic place 195 4. The battles for economic history 4.1. Economics after WWII: Francois Perroux’s unusual 198 position 6 Table of Contents position 4.2. Economists covet the Vie Section: Perroux v. Braudel 202 5. The many meanings of empirical 5.1. Marczewski v. Chaunu and Vilar 213 5.2.