Cliometrics and technological change: a survey

This paper considers the approach to technological change by quantitative economic historians. It suggests that there has been a continuing tension between what economics has to offer economic history by way of technical methods and what economic historians would like to find in economic models. In this area, there has been a danger that use of economic analysis would impoverish historical enquiry. Since the advent of new growth economics the situation has improved in the sense that there is now greater congruence between the hypotheses proposed by cliometricians and the resources that economics has available to them to investigate these ideas rigorously. Unfortunately, however, economists are still reluctant to learn from economic historians.