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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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