Second Joint Summer School of the GLOBALEURONET Research Networking Programme and the Marie Curie Research Training Network ’Unifying the European Experience’

Supported by the European Historical Economics Society

Hosted by the University of Tartù, Estonia
Monday 30 July to Friday 3 August 2007

Academic Organizers:

Stefano Battilossi (University Carlos III and GLOBALEURONET)

Stephen Broadberry (University of Warwick and CEPR)

Herman De Jong (University of Groningen and GLOBALEURONET)

Kevin O'Rourke (Trinity College,CEPR and GLOBALEURONET)

Lecturers:

Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University),

Bart van Ark (University of Groningen)

Stephen Broadberry (University of Warwick)

Herman de Jong (University of Groningen)

Astrid Kander (Lund University)

Chris Meissner (University of Cambridge and NBER)

Chris Minns (LSE)

General Description

This summer school revisits the sources of economic growth in Europe from the Industrial Revolution to present-day ICT-developments. The Industrial Revolution remains above all a technological event, which economists have thus far poorly explained. The summer school will deal with the question how and why technological progress occurs in a society without organized R&D and how innovation was related to science and craftmanship, and the role of intellectual property rights. The significance of ideological and institutional developments will be explored. Joel Mokyr will deliver three lectures on the technological, intellectual and institutional roots of modern economic growth in Europe.

Bart van Ark will compare the impact of the diffusion of technology on 20th century growth with the impact of earlier General Purpose Technologies like steam and electricity. He will address the question why the postwar rise of ICT did not materialize in much faster growth in Europe in comparison to the United States. Complementary factors such as the role of intangible capital will be included in the analysis. The comparative performance of Central and Eastern Europe will also be taken into account. Other topics that will be addressed are:

• International patterns of convergence and divergence
• Comparative energy intensities and the environment
• Institutions and the performance of labour and capital markets
• International technology diffusion versus path-dependency
• Sector productivity growth and structural shifts

Programme

The Summer School has a duration of 5 days. Each day there will be two main lectures by invited speakers in the morning. In the afternoon simultaneous Student Sessions will take place, in which Ph.D. and Post-doc students will present and discuss their research papers with senior scholars.

The lead speaker for this Summer School, Joel Mokyr, is one of the most influential economic historians today, winner of the Heineken Prize for History 2006 and the author of path-breaking monographs, articles and contributions in books on the role of knowledge and technology in the industrial economies. Bart van Ark is professor of Economics and director of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre. He’s specialized in comparative productivity studies for the postwar period, and particularly on the impact of ICT on sectoral performance. All other lecturers have also been actively engaged in the study of comparative performance and institutional developments of European economies since the Industrial Revolution. This summer school will introduce students to the current research frontier in this area.

The Organizers

The school is jointly organized by the Research Training Network Unifying the European Experience: Historical Lessons of Pan-European Development (based at CEPR and funded under the EU Sixth Framework Programme) and the ESF Research Networking Programme GLOBALEURONET. Both networks aim to contribute to the development of a truly European economic history profession by analyzing the economic development of Europe as a whole. The CEPR-based Research Training Network collects pan-European data and stimulates the use of up-to-date economic and historical techniques to provide accounts of European growth, economic integration, economic and social policies, and the changing nature of Europe's economic relationships with the rest of the world. The ESF Programme GLOBALEURONET organizes networking research activities and data collection at European level in areas such as welfare indicators, historical economic geography, business cycles, technological change, human capital and the diffusion of knowledge.

Participants
The school is targeted to doctorate and post-doctorate students in economics, economic history and related disciplines.

• Sorry, CALL FOR APPLICATIONS CLOSED

Download the summer school advertisement:

1. Draft programme: lecturers's; and students sessions

2. Getting to Tartu

3. Bus timetable Tallin-Tartu