Michelangelo Vasta

The main idea of this course is to present a broad introduction to different fields of research – both on macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective – which actually are at the frontier of Economic History. The course focuses on four different broad topics. Another aim of the course is to introduce students to the discussion of virtues and limitations of different historical sources and methodologies.

Wednesday 20^th April 2016: 16-18
Francesco Cinnirella – The Cost of Decentralization: Linguistic Polarization and the Provision of Education

Topic: Human capital

Thursday 5^th May 2016: 11-13
Michelangelo Vasta – The geography of innovation in Italy, 1861-1913: evidence from patent data

Topic: Innovation

Monday 9^th May 2016: 16-18
Giovanni Federico – A tale of two globalizations: openness and gains from trade

Topic: Trade

Monday 16^th May 2016: 11-13
Alessandro Nuvolari (Sant’Anna  School of Advanced Studies, Pisa) –  “Uniting Souls” and counting skills: age heaping in the first Italian national censuses, 1861-1881

Topic: Human capital

Monday 23^th May 2016: 16-18
Giovanni Federico – The agricultural roots of the gender gap: evidence from Italy

Topic: Trade

Thursday 26^th May 2016: 11-13

Michelangelo Vasta – What makes a successful entrepreneur? Historical evidence from Italy (XIX-XX centuries)

Topic: Entrepreneurship

The “rules of the game” of the course are the following. First of all the course requires your active role in the discussion of the seminars. What I mean is that you make direct questions to the speakers during the seminars. Moreover, each student must write one extended Review Report (RR) for one of the paper presented. The RR should be articulated as follow: i) discuss context and research questions; ii) assess source, historical material and data; iii) provide a discussion of approach and methods; iv) suggest improvements and refinements for the analysis. Finally, all students have to organize themselves in groups (2 students, max 3) and prepare an Economic History Research Project (RP) which must contain: i) a well-defined research question; ii) sources to be used; iii) methods; iv) conclusions.

Final evaluation will be based on class participation (25%) and on the quality of RRs (25%) and RP (50%).