IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/qucehw/201907.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Applied history, applied economics, and economic history

Author

Listed:
  • Colvin, Christopher L.
  • Winfree, Paul

Abstract

As a new field of academic enquiry, applied history has a unique opportunity to learn lessons from other applied fields. In this essay, we set out how we think applied historians can learn from the mistakes of applied economists and economic policymakers in their use, and abuse, of economic theory and economic history. What we call the New Applied History has the potential to improve the way policymaking is conducted. But only if its practitioners understand the power, and limitations, of theory. We apply our ideas to the case of budgetary policymaking in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Colvin, Christopher L. & Winfree, Paul, 2019. "Applied history, applied economics, and economic history," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2019-07, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201907
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/204555/1/1678827347.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    2. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    3. David Y. Albouy, 2012. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3059-3076, October.
    4. Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin, 2018. "Introduction, or Why We Started This Project," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin (ed.), An Economist’s Guide to Economic History, chapter 1, pages 1-10, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions Be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990, Volume 5, pages 75-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H., 1976. "The Phillips curve," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, January.
    7. Roger E. Backhouse & Jeff Biddle, 2000. "The Concept of Applied Economics: A History of Ambiguity and Multiple Meanings," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 32(5), pages 1-24, Supplemen.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    9. Olivier J Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt: Fiscal and Welfare Costs in a Time of Low Interest Rates," Policy Briefs PB19-2, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    10. Paul Winfree, 2019. "A History (and Future) of the Budget Process in the United States," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-30959-6, September.
    11. Turnovsky,Stephen J., 2011. "Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth in a Small Open Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521187527, November.
    12. Alberto Alesina & Carlo A. Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2018. "What Do We Know about the Effects of Austerity?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 524-530, May.
    13. Christopher L. Colvin & Homer Wagenaar, 2018. "Economics Versus History," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin (ed.), An Economist’s Guide to Economic History, chapter 2, pages 13-20, Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin (ed.), 2018. "An Economist’s Guide to Economic History," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-3-319-96568-0, June.
    15. Colvin, Christopher L. & Fliers, Philip, 2019. "Going Dutch: The management of monetary policy in the Netherlands during the interwar gold standard," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2019-03, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    16. Robert P. Gilles, 2018. "Economic Theory and Economic History," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin (ed.), An Economist’s Guide to Economic History, chapter 4, pages 31-39, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    18. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer (ed.), 1990. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262521555, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Doran, Áine & Colvin, Christopher L. & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2024. "What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).
    2. Brownlow, Graham & Colvin, Christopher L., 2022. "Economic history and the future of pedagogy in economics," QUCEH Working Paper Series 22-09, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    3. Colvin, Christopher L. & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2021. "Death, demography and the denominator: Age-adjusted Influenza-18 mortality in Ireland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    4. Colvin, Christopher L. & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2020. "Death, demography and the denominator: New Influenza-18 mortality estimates for Ireland," SRERC Working Paper Series SRERCWP2020-2, University College Cork (UCC), Spatial and Regional Economic Research Centre (SRERC).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kose,Ayhan & Ohnsorge,Franziska Lieselotte & Sugawara,Naotaka, 2020. "Benefits and Costs of Debt : The Dose Makes the Poison," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9166, The World Bank.
    2. Barbara Annicchiarico & Fabio Di Dio & Stefano Patrì, 2023. "Optimal correction of the public debt and measures of fiscal soundness," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 138-162, February.
    3. Alogoskoufis, George & Malliaris, A.G. & Stengos, Thanasis, 2023. "The scope and methodology of economic and financial asymmetries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    4. Bardaka, Ioanna & Bournakis, Ioannis & Kaplanoglou, Georgia, 2021. "Total factor productivity (TFP) and fiscal consolidation: How harmful is austerity?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 908-922.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Carlo Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2019. "Effects of Austerity: Expenditure- and Tax-Based Approaches," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 141-162, Spring.
    6. Stefano di Bucchianico, 2019. "A bit of Keynesian debt-to-GDP arithmetic for deficit-capped countries," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 13(1), pages 55-83, June.
    7. Luca Metelli & Kevin Pallara, 2020. "Fiscal space and the size of the fiscal multiplier," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1293, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Yan Carrière‐Swallow & Antonio C. David & Daniel Leigh, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Consolidation in Emerging Economies: New Narrative Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(6), pages 1313-1335, September.
    9. European Fiscal Board (EFB), 2019. "Assessment of EU fiscal rules with a focus on the six and two-pack legislation," Reports 2019, European Fiscal Board.
    10. Gómez-Puig, Marta & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada, 2022. "On the heterogeneous link between public debt and economic growth," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. António Afonso, 2007. "An Avenue for Expansionary Fiscal Contractions," The IUP Journal of Public Finance, IUP Publications, vol. 0(3), pages 7-15, August.
    13. Hendry, David F. & Clements, Michael P., 2003. "Economic forecasting: some lessons from recent research," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-329, March.
    14. Fatih Ozatay, 2008. "Expansionary Fiscal Consolidations: New Evidence from Turkey," Working Papers 0805, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Department of Economics.
    15. Alexander Beames & Mariano Kulish & Nadine Yamout, 2022. "Fiscal Policy and the Slowdown in Trend Growth in an Open Economy," Working Papers 143, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    16. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    17. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. He, Yong, 2018. "Can the visible and invisible hands coexist in land pricing?," MPRA Paper 88770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Chakraborty, Adrij, 2017. "Colonial Origins and Comparative Development: Institutions Matter," MPRA Paper 86320, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2018.
    20. Lozej, Matija & Rannenberg, Ansgar, 2017. "The macroeconomic effects of the regulatory LTV and LTI ratios in the Central Bank of Ireland's DSGE model," Economic Letters 04/EL/17, Central Bank of Ireland.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    applied history; budgetary policy;

    JEL classification:

    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary
    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N41 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201907. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chqubuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.