2026 Meeting Program
Program Overview
Friday, September 18, 2026
9:00am-12:30pm: Tours
8am-12pm: EHA Board of Trustees Meeting
10am: Poster Session Setup
10am-12pm: Job Market Workshop
12:45-5:00pm: Poster Session
1-2:30pm: Sessions 1-3
2:30-3pm: Coffee Break
3-4:30pm: Sessions 4-6
4:45-6:15pm: Plenary Session
6:30-8:00pm: Reception
7:30-9:30pm: Graduate Student Dinner
Saturday, September 19, 2026
6:45-8am: Historians and Teachers Breakfasts
8:30am-5:15pm: Poster Session
8:30-10am: Sessions 7-10
10-10:30am: Coffee Break
10:30-12pm: Sessions 11-14
12-1:30pm: Women’s Lunch
1:30-2:30pm: Business Meeting
2:45-4:45pm: Dissertation Session
4:45pm-5:15pm: Coffee Break
5:15pm-6:30pm: Presidential Address
6:30-7:30pm: Cocktail Reception
7:30-9:30pm: Banquet and Awards
10:00pm-Midnight: President’s Party
Sunday, September 20, 2026
7-8:30am: Full Buffet Breakfast (Sponsored by Finaeon)
8:30-10am: Sessions 15-17
10-10:30am: Coffee Break
10:30-12pm: Sessions 18-20
Noon: Conference Ends
Detailed Schedule
Friday, September 18
9:00am-12:00pm:
Tour 1 – Gateway Arch
This tour will meet in the lobby of the Chase Park Plaza Hotel at 9:00am and will meet the bus driver and chaperone to be taken to the Arch. The Botanical Gardens tour will be dropped off first, then you be taken to the Arch from there. Please be done and ready to be picked up by the bus at the same spot as where you were dropped off by 12pm. All will return back to the hotel by 12:30pm.
Tour 2 – St. Louis Botanical Gardens
This tour will meet in the lobby of the Chase Park Plaza Hotel at 9:00am where you will meet the bus driver and chaperone. The Gardens attendees will be dropped off first. You will then need to be back at the pickup location at the Gardens by 11:30am where you will then go with the bus to pick up the Arch attendees. All will return to the hotel by 12:30pm.
10:00am-12:00pm:
Job Market Workshop
Conveners: Chenzi Xu (University of California, Berkeley) and Cory Smith (University of Maryland)
Location: Maryland A
12:45-5:00pm:
Poster Session
Location: Khorassan Lobby
1:00-2:30pm:
Session 1: Public Health
Room: Maryland A
Chair: Caroyln Moehling (Rutgers University)
Tamar Matiashvili (Stanford University), “Talent, Trust, and Health: The Effects of the First Female Physicians”
Discussant: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Chris de Mena (University of California, Davis), “Relative Responsibility: Compulsory Support of Elderly Parents”
Discussant: Laura Salisbury (University of York)
Martin Saavedra (Rutgers University), “Legislating Longevity: State Public Health Laws and Mortality in the Early Twentieth Century”
Discussant: Jian Qi Tan (Hamilton College)
Session 2: Migration
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick)
Steven Smith (Colorado School of Mines), Eric Alston (University of Colorado Boulder), Bryan Leonard (University of Wyoming) and Joseph Price (Brigham Young University), “Ownership in the Land of Opportunity: Land Rights and Economic Mobility in American History”
Discussant: Dustin Frye (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Latika Chaudhary (Naval Postgraduate School), James Fenske (University of Warwick) and Yannick Dupraz (French National Center for Scientific Research), “A Century of Language Barriers to Migration in India”
Discussant: Mohamed Saleh (London School of Economics)
Yi-Ju Hung (National Chung Cheng University), Jack Chapel (University of Southern California), “The Great Migration and Southern Inequality”
Discussant: Kush Jenkins (Northern Virginia Community College)
Session 3: Conflict and Development
Room: Waterman
Chair: Ann Carlos (University of Colorado Boulder)
Gabriel Leon-Ablan (King’s College London), “Slave Revolts and Emancipation: Evidence from the British Empire”
Discussant: Kara Dimitruk (Hamilton College)
Kaiqi Liu (Maastricht University), Hannes Rusch (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law), “Slave Raiding”
Discussant: Phil Hoffman (California Institute of Technology)
Tuan-Hwee Sng (National University of Singapore), “When Peace Made the State: State Capacity in Song China”
Discussant: Peng Peng (Washington University in St. Louis)
2:30-3:00pm:
Coffee Break
Location: Khorassan Lobby
3:00-4:30pm:
Session 4: Institutions and Beliefs
Room: Maryland A
Chair: Steve Broadberry (University of Oxford)
Neil Cummins (London School of Economics), Aurelius Noble (Transkribus), “Quantifying Belief in God. The Long-Run Decline of Sincere Faith in England 1300–1850”
Discussant: Jared Rubin (Chapman University)
Yifan Zhang (Northwestern University), “The Transmission of Son Preference”
Discussant: Tianyi Wang (University of Toronto)
Matthias Weigand (Harvard University), Cathrin Mohr (Kiel Institute and the University of Hamburg) and Davide Cantoni (LMU Munich), “Identity and Institutional Change: Evidence from First Names in Germany, 1700–1850”
Discussant: Mark Koyama (George Mason University)
Session 5: Industrial Policy
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Josh Hausman (University of Michigan)
Anne Schaller (Saint Louis University), John Mayo (Georgetown University), “A Fresh Look at the Origins and Impetus for Antitrust”
Discussant: Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale University)
Alonso Ahumada Paras (University of Edinburgh), “Can Protective Tariffs Induce Industrial Consolidations? Theory and Evidence from the Great Merger Movement”
Discussant: Eric Hilt (Wellesley College)
Christopher Meissner (University of California, Davis), Alex Klein (University of Sussex), “Tariffs and Manufacturing Productivity: New Evidence from the Gilded Age”
Discussant: Amanda Gregg (Middlebury College)
Session 6: Immigration
Room: Waterman
Chair: Elyce Rotella (University of Michigan)
Hannah Postel (Duke University), David Escamilla-Guerrero (University of Saint Andrews), “The Impact of Immigration Restrictions on Third-Country Economies: Evidence from the Chinese Exclusion Act”
Discussant: Rowena Gray (University of California, Merced)
Jose Antonio Espin-Sanchez (Yale University), Leticia Arroyo Abad (City University of New York), Joseph Price (Brigham Young University) and Chris Vickers (Auburn University), “From Immigrants to Emigrants: Puerto Rico in the Age of Mass Migration”
Discussant: Craig Palsson (Utah State University)
Sergio Eduardo Lopez Araiza Bejar (Northwestern University), “Overnight Americans: Economic Assimilation of Mexican Crossed by the Border”
Discussant: Maggie Jones (McGill University)
4:45-6:15pm:
Plenary Session
Room: Khorassan Ballroom
Chair: John Nye (George Mason University)
Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University)
Title: “The Passionate Economic Historian: A Session in Honor of Joel Mokyr”
Speakers:
Joyce Burnette (Wabash College)
Jan de Vries (University of California, Berkeley)
Joseph Ferrie (Northwestern University)
Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University)
6:30-8:00pm:
Reception
Room: Starlight Ballroom (top floor)
7:30-9:30pm:
Graduate Student Dinner
Location: Dressel’s Pub
Saturday, September 19
6:45-8:00am:
Historians Breakfast
Room: Lenox
Speaker: Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez (University of Utah)
Teachers Breakfast
Room: Plaza
Speaker: Carol E. Heim (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
8:30am-5:15pm:
Poster Session
Location: Khorassan Lobby
8:30am-10:00am:
Session 7: Unions
Room: Maryland A
Chair: Mark Dincecco (University of Michigan)
Harrison Chang (University of Toronto), “Economic Depression and Labor Union Formation: Evidence from the Panic of 1873”
Discussant: Sarah Quincy (Vanderbilt University)
Miriam Venturini (University of California, Riverside), “The Imperfect Union: Labor Racketeering, Corruption Exposure, and Its Consequences”
Discussant: Shawn Kantor (Florida State University)
Po-Shyan Wu (Indiana University), “Assault on the Low-Wage Economy: Federal Wage-Hour Law and Southern Industrial Development”
Discussant: Price Fishback (University of Arizona)
Session 8: Finance and Culture
Room: Maryland B
Chair: Francesca Trivellato (Institute for Advanced Study)
Luisa Bicalho Ritzkat (London School of Economics), “Painted Lemons: Evidence from the Art Market on the Importance of Credibility for Information”
Discussant: Francois Velde (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)
James (Landin) Smith (University of Mississippi), Daria Bakhareva (University of Mississippi), “Credit Without Color Lines: Chinese Grocers and Black Migration in the Mississippi Delta”
Discussant: Matt Jaremski (Utah State University)
Riccardo Di Cato (University of California, San Diego), Jiachen Li (Renmin University of China), “Seeds of Market-Based Capitalism: Christian Missionaries and China’s Modernization”
Discussant: Felipe Valencia Caicedo (Brown University)
Session 9: Race and Inequality
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Hoyt Bleakley (University of Michigan)
John Clegg (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Michael Weaver (The University of British Columbia), “Counterfactual Reparations: The Effects of Federal Wealth Transfers to Black Sailors during the Reconstruction Era”
Discussant: Melinda Miller (Virginia Tech)
Richard Bluhm (University of Stuttgart), Luca Perdoni (ifo Institute; LMU Munich and Julian Wichert (Leibniz University Hannover), “Rethinking Redlining: Environmental Inequality Within and Between U.S. Neighborhoods”
Discussant: James Siodla (Colby College)
Taylan Alpkaya (University of Mannheim), “Legacy of Servitude”
Discussant: Paul Rhode (University of Michigan)
Session 10: Health and Development
Room: Waterman
Chair: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Molly Ball (University of Rochester), “Beyond GDP per Capita and Fertility in São Paulo, Brazil: Birth Outcomes in the Hospital Maternidade, 1915–1970”
Discussant: João Tampellini (Vanderbilt University)
Shizhuo Wang (New York University), “Screwworms”
Discussant: Grant Goehring (Boston University)
10:00-10:30am:
Coffee Break
Location: Khorassan Lobby
10:30am-12:00pm:
Session 11: Trade and Development
Room: Maryland A
Chair: Dan Bogart (University of California, Irvine)
Leigh Gardner (London School of Economics), “From the Outside In: Imperial Preference and American Trade with Colonial Africa”
Discussant: Ahmed S. Rahman (Lehigh University)
Peiyuan Li (Duke Kunshan University), Kang Zhou (Zhejiang University), “Nixon’s Visit to China: Technology Transfer, Fertilizer Plants, and Development in Pre-Reform China”
Discussant: Pier Paolo Creanza (Swarthmore College)
Mark Hup (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Pim de Zwart (Wageningen University), “International Trade, Commodity Production and the Skill Premium: Evidence from Colonial Indonesia”
Discussant: John Tang (Utrecht University)
Session 12: Slavery and Land
Room: Maryland B
Chair: Gavin Wright (Stanford University)
Karine van der Beek (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Tomer Ifergane (Tel Aviv University and London School of Economics), Walker Ray (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, London School of Economics, and Center for Economic and Policy Research) and Lior Farbman (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and The Bank of Israel), “Land Reforms in Developing Financial Markets: Lessons from England’s Land Enclosures, 1750–1830”
Discussant: Joyce Burnette (Wabash College)
Tim Kooijmans (National Taiwan University), Abe de Jong (University of Groningen) and Peter Koudijs (New York University), “Finance and the Slave Trade”
Discussant: Oscar Gelderblom (University of Antwerp)
Adam Tucker (University of Maryland, College Park), “Land of the Free or Home of the Enslaved? Slavery, Institutions, and Wealth Transmission in Colonial Maryland”
Discussant: Hoyt Bleakley (University of Michigan)
Session 13: Labor Markets
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Josh Lewis (University of Montreal)
Huixin Bi (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Nora Traum (HEC Montreal), Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) and Greg Woodward (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), “Worker and Firm Search in the Labor Market: Evidence from Classified Advertisements”
Discussant: Nicolas Ziebarth (University of Missouri)
Amy Cross (University of Alaska Anchorage), “Which Men Didn’t Go ‘Over There’?: WWI Dependency Deferments and Women’s Labor Force Participation”
Discussant: Alice Calder (Dartmouth College)
Yicheng Chen (Boston University), “The G.I. Bill Beyond College: Credit, Training, and the Rise of Veteran Farmers”
Discussant: Daniel Fetter (Dartmouth College)
Session 14: Ideology and State Capacity
Room: Waterman
Chair: Michael Huberman (University of Montreal)
Gerda Asmus-Bluhm (University of Hohenheim), Marvin Suesse (Trinity College Dublin), Andrei Markevich (University of Helsinki) and Julia Zimmermann (Universidad de Carlos III Madrid), “Institutional Reform and Revolutionary Mobilization: Evidence from Late Imperial Russia”
Discussant: Tracy Dennison (California Institute of Technology)
Kexin Feng (Yale University), Elizaveta Brover (Yale University), “Rise of the Red: Ideology and Dissent in Early Republican China”
Discussant: Massimiliano Onorato (University of Bologna)
Eric Robertson (Colgate University), “Economic Ideas and Policy Implementation: Evidence from Malthusian Training in British Indian Bureaucracy”
Discussant: Natalia Naumenko (George Mason University)
12-1:30pm:
Women’s Lunch
Location: Lindell A & B
1:30-2:30pm:
Business Meeting
Room: Khorassan Ballroom
2:45-4:45pm:
Dissertation Session
Room: Khorassan Ballroom
Gerschenkron Prize
The Alexander Gerschenkron Prize is awarded for the best dissertation in the economic history of an area outside of the United States or Canada completed during the preceding year.
Chair and Convener: William Summerhill (University of California, Los Angeles)
William Skoglund (PhD: Uppsala University, Current: Uppsala University)
Power Matters: Essays on Labor Market Power
Tiarnán Heaney (PhD: Queens University Belfast, Current: Queens University Belfast)
Essays in Irish Economic Development
Christoph Hess (PhD: University of Cambridge, Current: University of Cambridge)
Inheritance, Family Structure, and Economic Development in the Lower Yangzi Region, c.1650-1950
Nevins Prize
The Allan Nevins Prize in American Economic History is awarded annually by the Economic History Association on behalf of Columbia University Press for the best dissertation in U.S. or Canadian economic history completed during the previous year.
Chair and Convener: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Danielle Williamson (PhD: Boston University, Current: Stanford University)
Essays on Organized Backlash
Pier Paolo Creanza (PhD: Princeton University, Current: Princeton University)
Essays on the Economics and History of Innovation: Institutions, Migration and Firm Consolidation
Beau Bressler (PhD: University of California, Davis, Current: University of California, Davis)
Essays on Historical and Contemporary Housing Policy
4:45pm-5:15pm:
Coffee Break
Location: Khorassan Lobby
5:15pm-6:30pm:
Presidential Address
Room: Khorassan Ballroom
Convener: Tracy Dennison (California Institute of Technology)
EHA President: Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (California Institute of Technology)
Structure and Change in Economic History
6:30-7:30pm:
Cocktail Reception
Location: Zodiac (top floor)
7:30-9:30pm:
Banquet and Awards
Room: Starlight Ballroom (top floor)
10:00pm-Midnight:
President’s Party
Room: Zodiac (top floor)
Sunday, September 20
7:00-8:30am:
Full Buffet Breakfast (Sponsored by Finaeon)
Room: Starlight Ballroom (top floor)
8:30-10:00am:
Session 15: Political Economy
Room: Maryland A
Chair: John Wallis (University of Maryland)
Netanel Ben Porath (Northwestern University), “Democratizing Education? Schooling as an Elite Strategy in Times of Reform”
Discussant: Jonathan Chapman (University of Bologna)
Giacomo Domini (Utrecht University), Mario Daniele Amore (Bocconi University) and Samuele Murtinu (Utrecht University), “Radical Political Ideology and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Twentieth-Century Italy”
Discussant: Aldo Musacchio (Brandeis University)
John Zhang (London School of Economics), “Welfare Retrenchment and Social Unrest”
Discussant: Jessica Bean (Denison University)
Session 16: Inequality and Social Mobility
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Timothy Guinnane (Yale University)
Beau Bressler (University of California, Davis), “Building Segregation: The Long-Run Neighborhood Effects of American Public Housing”
Discussant: John Parman (College of William & Mary)
Yu Qiu (University of Pittsburgh), “Fathers in Offices, Sons in Jobs: Intergenerational Returns to Local Political Offices”
Discussant: Santiago Perez (University of California, Davis)
Session 17: Firms and Innovation
Room: Waterman
Chair: Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (California Institute of Technology)
Cihan Artunç (Middlebury College), Seven Agir (Middle East Technical University), “Same Old Business: Legal Forms and Firm Dynamics of Entry, Exit, and Reorganization”
Discussant: Veronica Aoki Santarosa (University of California, Berkeley)
Ashley Wong (Barnard College, Columbia University), Andrew T. Hendrickson (Tilburg University) and Francesca Truffa (University of Michigan), “The Diversity Paradox: Evidence from College Coeducation”
Discussant: Mike Andrews (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Marvin Suesse (Trinity College Dublin), Elena Korchmina (University of Bologna), “Minorities and Industrialisation: Evidence from the Russian Empire”
Discussant: Steve Nafziger (Williams College)
10:00-10:30am:
Coffee Break
Location: Khorassan Lobby
10:30am-12:00pm:
Session 18: Insurance
Room: Maryland A
Chair: Steve Quinn (Texas Christian University)
Andrew Sinclair (California Institute of Technology), Yaohua Li (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics) and Sicheng Zhao (Tsinghua University), “Confucian Clans as Financial Intermediaries: Why Insurance Thrived but Banking Lagged in China”
Discussant: Gary Richardson (University of California, Irvine)
Pawel Janas (California Institute of Technology), “Mobilization Savings, Shaping Regions: The Financial Geography of U.S. Life Insurance”
Discussant: Melissa Thomasson (Miami University)
Mallory Hope (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Guillaume Wegmueller (California Institute of Technology), “Two Shores, One Market? A Test of Insurance Market Integration between Britain and France, 1769–1771”
Discussant: Larry Neal (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Session 19: Human Capital
Room: Forsyth
Chair: Melinda Miller (Virginia Tech)
Taylor Jaworski (University of Colorado Boulder), Carl Kitchens (Florida State University) and Luke Rodgers (Florida State University), “Human Capital Decisions in Resource Booms”
Discussant: Ethan Schmick (Marquette University)
Daniela Vidart (University of Connecticut), “Learning by Mail: The Impact of Correspondence Schools in Early 20th Century America”
Discussant: Chris Vickers (Auburn University)
Fernanda Rojas (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Gabriel Cruz (University of Maryland), “My Mother Was a Suffragist: The Intergenerational Effects of Women’s Right to Vote”
Discussant: Eli Locke (Northwestern University)
Session 20: Culture and Knowledge
Room: Waterman
Chair: Patrick Fitzsimmons (University of Pennsylvania)
Alexander Taylor (University of Evansville), Jacob Hall (The Ohio State University), “The King’s French: The Political Economy of Language”
Discussant: Tomas Cvrcek (University College London)
Chicheng Ma (University of Hong Kong), Maoran Lin (University of Hong Kong), “Distance to Bacon: The Search for the Culture of Growth in Historical China”
Discussant: Melanie Xue (London School of Economics)
Pablo Zarate (University of Mannheim), “Migration, Diffusion of Ideas and the Rise of the American Labor Movement: Evidence from the American Civil War”
Discussant: Andreas Ferrara (University of Pittsburgh)