Workshop in Stellenbosch, South Africa (3-4 November 2025).

Recent advances in artificial intelligence and the increasing use of digital and ‘big’ data sources have dramatically expanded the empirical toolbox of economic historians. These techniques enable scholars to rigorously analyse vast textual archives, systematically quantify previously intangible historical concepts and robustly test hypotheses. Such methods are especially valuable in developing-country contexts, historically constrained by data scarcity and archival limitations.

This methodological renaissance in economic history has, moreover, important policy implications. AI-augmented historical research can improve our understanding of the long-term causes and consequences of financial crises, historical debates about inequality and wealth distribution, past pandemics, or the implications of technological disruptions, to give just a few examples.

Reflecting this dual emphasis on methodology and policy relevance, the workshop will feature keynotes from Caterina Chiopris (Columbia University) and Emily Aitken (UC San Diego). Chiopris’s research illustrates how increased connectivity through the railroad network in 19th-century Germany fostered specialised knowledge clusters, paradoxically limiting idea diffusion, a dynamic that echoes current debates on knowledge networks and specialisation in the digital age. Aitken, jointly appointed in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, explores how machine learning applied to large-scale digital traces can shape contemporary social protection policies in developing contexts, particularly Africa.

We invite paper submissions for a research workshop from 3 to 4 November in Stellenbosch, South Africa addressing the intersection of economic history and AI methodologies. Submit completed papers or detailed abstracts to leap@sun.ac.za by 31 August 2025. Notifications by 5 September 2025. Accepted presenters will receive accommodation. Non-presenting attendance is possible upon submission of a brief motivation.