Short answers, pulled from the story.
Economic history is the study of the past using methodological tools from economics, combining historical methods, statistical methods, and the application of economic theory to historical situations. Scholars use both quantitative data and qualitative sources, drawing on schools of thought including mainstream economics, Austrian economics, Marxian economics, the Chicago school, and Keynesian economics.
Cliometrics, also called the New Economic History, refers to the systematic use of economic theory and econometric techniques in the study of economic history. The term was coined by Jonathan R. T. Hughes and Stanley Reiter and refers to Clio, the muse of history in Greek mythology. It rose to prominence in the United States in the 1960s.
The Economic History Society was founded at the London School of Economics in 1926. Its main publication, The Economic History Review, was established in 1927 and featured work by Professor Sir William Ashley, the first professor of economic history in the English-speaking world.
Robert Fogel and Douglass North won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1993 for renewing research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods. Claudia Goldin won the Nobel in 2023 for advancing understanding of women's labor market outcomes; she began her career studying the history of the US southern economy.
Published in 2013, Piketty's book described the rise in wealth and income inequality since the eighteenth century and became a New York Times best seller. It was praised by economists including Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, and Ben Bernanke, and one economist called it Nobel-Prize worthy. It prompted several direct responses, including After Piketty (2017) and Anti-Piketty (2017).
The overall number of economic historians worldwide is estimated at 10,400. Japan, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States rank highest in numbers. Some less developed countries, including Senegal, Brazil, and Vietnam, remain insufficiently integrated into the global economic history community.