Master
Doctoral program
All doctoral students at the Paris School of Economics or/and EHESS are invited to follow the activities of the Simiand Centre (seminars, courses, workshops, conferences), to present their work and to publish working papers. This applies regardless of the discipline of the thesis (history, economics, sociology, demography, etc.)
If you wish to specialise in economic history in the Simiand Centre programme, there are two options:
1) If you are a student in the Master’s programme in history at EHESS, you can follow the specialisation in economic history in the second year, which includes some of the courses below.
2) If you are a student in economics at the Paris School of Economics (master PPD or APE), you can also take all or part of the courses below (obligatory, core, elective) in the economic history program in M1 or M2.
If you are in a master’s programme in another discipline at EHESS (sociology, political studies, etc.), you may also take some of the courses and seminars below (see Neobab) and be supervised by a member of the Simiand Center.
Master 2 students coming from these different masters and doing a dissertation in economic history are invited to follow the same seminar of collective supervision of dissertations.
Unless otherwise stated, courses are taught in English.
Readings in economic history
André Orléan, Gilles Postel-Vinay, Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur, Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, Claire Zalc, Facundo Alvaredo, Lionel Kesztenbaum, Jean-Yves Grenier, François Lerouxel, Jérôme Bourdieu
At each session, students and professors discuss a classic book in economic history. This reading group is open to all doctoral students interested in economic history.
Introduction to economic history : capital, inequality, growth
Thomas Piketty
"Introduction to Economic History" is a compulsory first-year master course and can also be attended as an optional second-year master course. The objective is to present a general introduction to economic history, with special emphasis on the interaction between capital accumulation, inequality regimes and growth.
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/fr/teaching/10/17
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/fr/teaching/10/17
Advanced Economic History
Facundo Alvaredo, Jérôme Bourdieu, Denis Cogneau, Lionel Kesztenbaum, Eric Monnet, Thomas Piketty
"Advanced economic history" is an optional second-year master course that is highly recommended for students wishing to specialize in economic history and related subjects. This is a collective course designed by the members of the Centre d'histoire économique et sociale François-Simiand. The objective is to present a broad introduction to various research areas in economic history.
Advanced economic history
Mathieu Arnoux, Jérôme Bourdieu, Jean-Yves Grenier, Gilles Postel-Vinay
"Advanced economic history" is an optional second-year master course that is highly recommended for students wishing to specialize in economic history and related subjects. This is a collective course designed by the members of the Centre d'histoire économique et sociale François-Simiand. The objective is to present a broad introduction to various research areas in economic history.
L’histoire et l’historien·ne face au quantitatif
Claire Lemercier, Claire Zalc
Cet atelier, ouvert à tou·te·s, se propose d’accompagner les étudiant·e·s – et chercheur·se·s intéressé·e·s – dans l’utilisation des techniques quantitatives en histoire. L’objectif de cet atelier d’initiation est de discuter ensemble des différents usages possibles de la quantification dans la pratique historique, des atouts et des limites de ces approches mais également de présenter les possibilités heuristiques offertes par l’analyse statistique dans l’écriture historienne. Nous aimerions y susciter une réflexion sur la place du quantitatif dans les différents champs de l’histoire.
À cette fin, l’atelier évoquera à la fois les problèmes généraux (choix de corpus, échantillonnage, saisie, codage, représentations graphiques...) et des techniques de quantification (analyses textuelles, factorielles, régressions, analyses de réseaux, event history analysis...), à partir d’exemples concrets tirés des travaux en cours des participant·e·s.
À cette fin, l’atelier évoquera à la fois les problèmes généraux (choix de corpus, échantillonnage, saisie, codage, représentations graphiques...) et des techniques de quantification (analyses textuelles, factorielles, régressions, analyses de réseaux, event history analysis...), à partir d’exemples concrets tirés des travaux en cours des participant·e·s.
Historical demography
Lionel Kesztenbaum
This course deals with the relationship between population and economic development. It will present the basic concepts of demography and illustrate them by the most recent works in historical demography and economic history. The aim is to give a broad perspective on the industrial revolution and the subsequent emergence of the modern economy but also to discuss how this historical analysis may help to understand present issues in population studies.
Economic History of Development in the colonial and postcolonial eras
Denis Cogneau
The seminar discusses ongoing research efforts and new frontiers in the economic history of developing countries and the role of long-term factors in development, with also a stance on inequality and distributive justice. Methodological questions and econometric issues are given an important room.
Monetary and financial history
Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur, Eric Monnet
This class aims at introducing to the history of money, banking and finance both at the micro and macroeconomic levels. It will present the development of monetary and financial instruments and institutions from early modern period, focusing mostly on the 19th and 20th century. It will emphasize both the need to properly understand a particular historical context in its socio-historical depth and the usefulness of economic theory and statistics when trying to understand what happened then.
Democracy and capitalism in the United States
Nicolas Barreyre
The seminar explores, over the course of the past two centuries, the ways in which the question of political regime and the economic issues that shape American life have been intertwined on numerous occasions. Drawing in particular on two reviving historiographies - the history of the state and the history of capitalism - we will study the changing place of the state in the construction, transformation, and regulation of economic space; and the centrality of political struggles to control, limit, or even escape its role.
The Challenges of Contemporary Capitalism and the Political Economy Project
Facundo Alvaredo
This seminar is not about a chronological description of doctrines, anchored in the past, as canonically presented in the textbooks on the history of economic thought. On the contrary, it seeks to contribute to our understanding of contemporary capitalism, for which, we propose, it is necessary to study the historical development of the central economic concepts: commodity, money and capital. We argue that only the continuation of the living yet dormant Political Economy project offers the keys to understand the challenges of our historical present, where the main conflict is who plans whom.
La discipline au travail. Salaire, technique et société salariale
Mathieu Arnoux, Jérôme Bourdieu, Jean-Yves Grenier, Gilles Postel-Vinay
Le séminaire de l’année 2022-2023 se donne pour objectif de définir ce que sont le salaire et la société salariale et le rôle de la technique dans la construction de la relation salariale. Ces notions sont-elles à usage exclusivement contemporain, ou peut-on les mobiliser pour des économies du passé ? Doit-on les voir comme une construction progressive à travers les siècles ou comme une forme économique qui apparaît seulement dans les sociétés industrielles développées ? Appartiennent-elle aux seules économies capitalistes ou les repère-t-on également, au XXe siècle, dans les pays de type socialiste ?