EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Achievements of the Cliometric School

Donald N. McCloskey

The Journal of Economic History, 1978, vol. 38, issue 1, 13-28

Abstract: The members of the Association must be sick to death of “The Achievements of the Cliometric School.” The health of a field, it is said, is inversely proportional to the percentage of essays on method, by which standard cliometrics itself was sick to death in childhood and is only just now recovering. The few essays on method appearing nowadays are usually commissioned, lack revolutionary fervor, and have become as predictable as sportswriting: gee whiz, how extraordinary has been the growth of cliometrics; cliometrics, of course, is gravely limited by its attachment to neoclassical economics; do not be alarmed by counterfactuals. Essays on method, like articles on the sportspage, irritate the players (nobody loves a critic), flatter the owners (in whose pay he sometimes labors), and hearten the loyal fen (with the written equivalent of the chant “We're number one”). They foreshadow the post-season banquets and their awards: Most Valuable Scholar, Best Book Reviewer (Golden Glove), or, in another mode, Best Historian in a Supporting Role, and Farce of the Year.

Date: 1978
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:38:y:1978:i:01:p:13-28_08

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:38:y:1978:i:01:p:13-28_08