Aspects of Quantitative Research in Economic History
- 1 December 1960
- journal article
- other
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Journal of Economic History
- Vol. 20 (4) , 539-547
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700109805
Abstract
If we are successfully to relate our work with the main body of Economic History, we must be able to show the fundamental relationship between quantitative analysis and more conventional methods of economic historians. The historian reconstructs events of the past, and with them attempts to understand the institutions and modes of behavior associated with those events. He seeks to construct a consistent story revealing the fundamental nature and meaning to us of the past, thus creating insight into the past and understanding of it—something considerably beyond a mere account of what probably happened. However, this story must be based upon, and be consistent with, the reconstructed events of the past, “what probably happened.”Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- The New England Textile Mills and the Capital Markets: A Study of Industrial Borrowing 1840–1860The Journal of Economic History, 1960
- The First 1,945 British SteamshipsJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1958
- The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum SouthJournal of Political Economy, 1958
- Stock Ownership in the Early New England Textile IndustryBusiness History Review, 1958