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Published by EH.NET (March 2004) 
 
John Black, _A Dictionary of Economics_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, second
edition. vi + 501 pp. $16.95 (paperback), ISBN: 0-19-0860767-9.
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Robert Whaples, Department of Economics, Wake Forest University. 
 
Economic History in a 'Mainstream' Reference Work 
 
Oxford's _Dictionary of Economics_ would make an excellent gift -- perhaps as a prize to
the top student in an introductory economics class. It's a fairly good buy, especially
after noting that Amazon.com lists it at over $5 off the publisher's price. The
_Dictionary_ "aims to provide for the needs of students of economics at A-level and in the
'mainstream' part of first degree courses, and of lay readers of journals such as _The
Economist_," and will generally serve these audiences well. It includes about 2500
definitions of concepts that are used in standard economics texts and terms connected with
personal finances. The definitions are unusually clear and often include editorial
comments about the broader importance of a concept or the controversies surrounding a
theory or issue. I learned a lot just thumbing through its pages and will keep the volume
close at hand.
 
I wouldn't be reviewing the dictionary for EH.NET, however, unless more needed to be said
about its treatment of economic history. I first flipped to the appendix, where there is a
list of Nobel Prize winners in economics. Tellingly, Douglass North's first name is
misspelled. By chance, within minutes of beginning to browse the dictionary itself I came
across the term "cliometrics." The text offers this definition: "the application of
quantitative methods in economic history. The main problem with applying econometrics to
any but very recent economic history is the poor quality of the available data." The first
sentence has room for improvement. I would prefer something closer to "the application of
_economic theory_ and quantitative techniques to the study history," and it would be
informative to add something about the etymology of the term, but the tragedy of this
definition and, perhaps, of the recent fate of the field of economic history, is that the
author felt compelled to add his blunt, ill-informed aside. The thickness and richness of
historical data sets has always amazed me and I assume this is true of almost anyone with
even a passing familiarity with what is available to researchers. Thus, I can only
attribute Black's comment to gross ignorance. Is he representative of the vast body of
ahistorical economists who flip right past the economic history articles that still appear
in the leading mainstream journals and wouldn't even consider picking up a journal or book
with the word "history" in the title?
 
What can be done to solve the problem of the deafness of mainstream economists toward
economic history? My preferred solution has always been to make the cost of obtaining
economic history lower and lower -- hence the existence of EH.NET, our database
collection, our book reviews, our abstracts service, and especially _How Much Is That?_
and the online _Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History_. These resources get a lot
of traffic, but it is interesting and informative to see what types of economic history
sell. The ten most frequently accessed articles in EH.NET's encyclopedia last year are
listed below (note that most of these articles have significant cliometric content):
 
1. "The Economics of the Civil War" by Roger Ransom 
2. "Alcohol Prohibition" by Jeffrey Miron 
3. "The Smoot-Hawley Tariff" by Anthony O'Brien 
4. "Slavery in the United States" by Jenny Wahl 
5. "The Economic History of Tractors in the U.S." by William White 
6. "Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution" by Carolyn Tuttle 
7. "The Depression of 1893" by David Whitten 
8. "The Works Progress Administration" by Jim Couch 
9. "Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution" by Joyce Burnette 
10. "The Gold Standard" by Lawrence Officer 
 
My conclusion is that the buying public (in this case probably mostly students) looks to
economic history mainly for a recurrent trio of intriguing topics -- human conflict
(slavery and the Civil War), economic depression (Smoot-Hawley, 1893, the WPA), and the
industrial revolution. Also, near the top of the list is another "sexy" topic -- booze.
 
However, giving the product away for free has only limited success, because the demand
curve for most economic history doesn't seem to be very elastic. Is there some way to
force feed this stuff to our colleagues and the public? Can we sugar coat it, so that they
don't know they're getting it? The Economic History Association has recently shifted to
subsidizing new producers -- granting funds to budding economic historians in graduate
school.
 
Interestingly, the _Dictionary_ generally exudes a confidence about economic growth. For
example, several figures discussing hypothetical economic trends (natural vs. logarithmic
scales, trade cycles, and time trends) all depict strong upward trends in GDP -- growth
triumphant, as Richard Easterlin might say. Perhaps this is one of the discontents of
growth -- as the future looks brighter and brighter there is less of a compelling reason
to look to the past?
 
Finally, there are a few errors and omissions in the _Dictionary_ worth mentioning. For
example, AFDC is identified as the U.S. federal welfare program -- despite its replacement
by TANF in 1997, and the ICC's entry states that "its jurisdiction _has since been
extended_ to include transport by inland waterways, roads, and pipelines" belying the fact
that it was terminated in 1996. "Black Monday" (October 19, 1987) is identified, but not
"Black Tuesday," (October 29, 1929). (Likewise, the entry titled "stock market crash"
surprisingly refers only to October 19, 1987!) Perhaps due to its British origin several
entities one would regularly see discussed in the business press, such as Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, have no entries. A "chartist" is defined as "a person who believes there are
recurring patterns in the behaviour of market variables over time, so that study of past
variations assists in predicting the future." There is no mention of William Lovett, the
People's Charter and the political economy of Britain in the 1830s and 1840s. The
definition of exploitation doesn't explain the neoclassical version of the term. The
discussion of "globalization" gives the impression that "the process by which the whole
world becomes a single market" has had a pretty uniform trend -- leaving out the
retrogression in the era from World War I to World War II. The space given to the Great
Depression is woefully small -- shorter even than the discussion given to nearby terms
such as "gravity model," "greenfield development," and "greenhouse gases." Likewise the
slender discussion of "mercantilism" is shorter than discussions of "median," "merit
good," and "migrants' remittances." The definition of public choice -- "the choice of the
kind, quantity, and quality of public goods to provide, and how to pay for them" -- seems
unduly restrictive. I would have preferred Dennis Mueller's definition: "the economic
study of nonmarket decision making, or simply the application of economics to political
science." Based on the evid!
ence I've seen, the caveats about the quantity theory of money seem overly cautious:
"maybe the quantity theory would work in the very long run, but it would be ages before
this could be checked." The paragraph about the "ratchet effect" neglects to mention
arguments about the growth of government. The discussion of the "rustbelt" is
inappropriately written in the present tense -- "the rustbelt _suffers_ from high
obsolescence." The entry on slavery appears to be uninformed by the intense debates
triggered by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's findings. It unblinkingly states that
while slavery has a long history, it is no longer generally practiced on humanitarian
grounds and "because it is believed to be inefficient at providing incentives for work."
Other terms missing include "comparable worth," "prime rate," "social savings rate" and
perhaps worst of all -- "institution."
 
Robert Whaples is the editor of EH.NET's _Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History_
at http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia.
 
Copyright (c) 2004 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit
educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other
permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([log in to unmask]; Telephone: 513-
529-2229). Published by EH.Net (March 2004). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
 
 
 
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