World Economic History Conference, 28 July – 1 August 2025, Lund, Sweden

Concern about more frequent extreme environmental events with climate change have spurred a flurry of research on their impact in modern time, and their likely effect in the future. While environmental disasters (tropical storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, agricultural plagues, etc.) have been recognised as having also had an important economic impact in the greater past, there is only a handful of quantitative studies on the subject. With the greater availability of digitalized economic data, climate reanalysis or reconstructed data, and easier access to historical records, there is now a unique opportunity for researchers to make important contributions in this area. This session will bring together researchers working specifically on the analysis of any economic aspect of environemntal disasters, inlcuding welfare impacts, adaptation and mitigation, resilience, government intervention, household behaviour, political economy, just to name a few. The broader aim of the session is to provide greater insight into how economies, governments, and economic agents dealt with these large environmental shocks in the past and draw lessons for today and the future.

One-page paper proposals should be submitted to Eric Strobl at eastrobl13@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is 10th of November 2024. Proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee, and authors will be notified of the decision by 1st of December 2024.

Scientific Committee

Robert Elliott (University of Birmingham)

Eric Strobl (University of Bern)