Energy Economics : An Early Modern History

This work presents an early modern history of Energy Economics, by concentrating on the beginning of the field, mainly with how it came to be formally established. Focusing mainly with the period from the start of the 1950s to the end of the 1980s, in this paper I argue that the development of Energy Economics has been, since its beginning, largely driven by events external to economics. However, contrary to prevalent intuition, the institutionalization of Energy Economics did not start with the oil crisis in 1973. Indeed, it started much before the first oil crisis, which is evident by the three institutions dedicated to Energy Economics that were founded before that event, as well as a dedicated journal