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I have some evidence on this, from a survey of British HET, in a paper in the forthcoming
(2002) HOPE supplement on the future of HET, edited by Roy Weintraub.
 
For my sample, almost half became interested in the subject before age 25, and 86% by age
35. The proportion developing an interest in HET after the age of 55 was around 6%.
 
Also, if you look at when people started writing with a view to publication, you get 55%
doing this by age 35, and 19% at age 45+.
 
On the other hand, the survey suggests that it is common for economists to turn to HET
after working in other fields. It becomes a major field for economists only late in their
careers. The sample was split almost 50/50 between those who had PhDs in HET (as defined
by the respondent) and those with PhDs in other fields. I expected to find differences
between cohorts, but it was hard to find much (perhaps a small sample problem).
 
Roger Backhouse 
 
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