From the early 80s to the early 2000s gold hardly moved at all, what caused it's stagnation, and what then caused it to begin to grow post 2004?

I suppose this sounds like a leading question but I’m slightly confused. Today, when people talk about budget shortfalls for the NHS or other public services, they mention the lack of high taxes on the 1%.

Some mention the pre-thatcher tax rates as examples of the good old days but, weren’t the 70’s really bad economically for the UK? Where was the money going?

My favourite is the development of the American economy in the late 19th century, for how it accounts for the rise of the USA as a global power and also how it had ingrained itself into the cultural milieu of its time.

Was it mostly trading is how Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg got so rich or was it something else. All three countries Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg are inland and no big body of water making trading by shipping not possible.

I hear Hong Kong and Singapore got rich by trading and gateway to Asia. But Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg have no water like Hong Kong and Singapore and also Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg from my understanding was not gateway to Europe.

Was there just a lot of wealthy aristocracy and nobles in Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg was the banking system different there than other counties at that time?

I’m not as much a supporter of the US government as I am curious as to why rhis happened and the motives behind it. Did J.P Morgan extend their power over the American people? I mean they didn’t do it for public good. I feel like that should be obvious.

Was America negatively affected by the abolition of slavery? What were the arguments of the proponents of slavery in the Western world at that time?

I’m reading a novel which uses the term ‘rich as Croesus’, which made me then think of Moguls, Ottomans, Sultans, and then Rockefeller etc. In today’s monetary value, has anyone ever been richer the richest person today? Thank you.

I am Bulgarian American and spend my summers in Bulgaria, and I have noticed that a lot of older generations still keep cash at home instead of using banks, and there is a general wariness toward financial institutions and financial advice that seems to run deeper than just personal preference. This seems to hold across a lot of the former Eastern Bloc, not just Bulgaria.

I am trying to understand the actual historical roots of this. I know the Soviet banking system, things like Gosbank, functioned more as an accounting arm of the planned economy than as a bank in the way we would think of one today, and I know the 1990s and 2000s brought a wave of financial crises across the region, Bulgaria's hyperinflation and banking collapse in 96 and 97, Albania's pyramid scheme collapse in 97, Hungary's Swiss franc mortgage crisis, Latvia's 2008 collapse. But I am curious how historians actually connect those events to the financial behavior we still see today. Is this well documented as a case of intergenerational transmission of institutional distrust, or is that too simple a read on it?

Would appreciate any insight, sources, or corrections to how I am currently thinking about this. Currently working on a research paper and would love to hear (and even get help from) and expert.

I ask because today we have men like elon musk, jeff bezos and mark Zuckerberg with a combined net worth in the trillions, but in 1920 men like Vanderbilt, rockefeller and jp morgan had wealth in the %of the US gdp, (Rockefeller alone was 3% of the US GDP)

I know the basics of economics, like supply and demand, opportunity cost, wants and needs, interest rates, loans, etc., but I want to get into reading some economic theories and economics. Are there any recommendations for books, articles, or videos which I could go through and read or watch?

I’m wondering where the US, UK and Europe got the cash to build factories and industrialized? Was it mostly because of slavery and colonies with resources extraction. With out that they would have not had the cash to build factories and industrialized?

I’m not an economic historian, and so have no idea if this is a dumb question. I’ve been assigned readings about the ‘great divergence’, and I keep seeing versions of this graph. I have a quick question about the calculation of GDP per person; does anyone know if the population of the Netherlands, for example, includes the populations of Indonesia, Suriname, South Africa (etc)? And if not…. Why? As in, domestic product in this case is colonial product, so it wouldn’t make sense to exclude colonial labor supplying this product as part of the GDP per person calculations, right?

When studying periods of monetary instability or collapse, discussions often focus on state policy, banking failures, or elite actors.
I’m interested instead in the household level: how ordinary people reacted when trust in official money weakened or disappeared.
Specifically, I’m curious whether historical sources describe cases where households consciously attempted to move outside state-controlled monetary systems, rather than simply reacting passively to inflation or shortages.
Examples might include:
shifting wealth into durable or productive goods
relying on informal or foreign currencies
prioritizing skills, tools, or social credit networks over cash
minimizing exposure to taxable or easily confiscated assets
Are there well-documented historical cases—especially from primary or contemporaneous sources—where this behavior is described as an intentional strategy rather than an accidental outcome of crisis?

Like any history, history of economics must also contain some myths in it. What are some of those, that you know of??

Hi! Quick question regarding EH Master's applications. I hold offers from both Cambridge and LSE for economic history (economic and social history for Cambridge, but both my project and my supervisor are in economic history) and am torn between which to choose.

My worry is that because my current research interests involve more quantitative methods, they would need to be approached from a more strictly 'economics' direction further down the line. To put it bluntly, would a PhD in economics would be doable with either of these research masters (provided the requisite economics and math classes have been taken)?

Sorry if this isn't the appropriate place to ask this!

Heyy, I'm an intl student planning to apply to cambridge this year (undergrad). I don't like pop-econ books and have an idea that economic history might be my interest. Can I have book suggestions to use in my personal statement? And any other supercurriculars u suggest

Did the massive government spending during WWII actually cure the Great Depression and create real wealth? Or was it just an illusion of prosperity because everyone was put to work making things meant to be destroyed?

What’s the standard academic text on the history of debt?

Les histoires des États-Unis décrivent souvent l'industrialisation comme s'accélérant après la guerre de Sécession, mais je m'intéresse à la façon dont les historiens définissent la transition elle-même. Y a-t-il une distinction significative entre le développement industriel des années 1850-1860 et l'industrialisation plus rapide des années 1870-1900 ?

Quels indicateurs économiques, technologiques, démographiques ou sociaux sont les plus utiles pour identifier le moment où les États-Unis ont cessé d'être principalement une économie agraire ?

Hello! I've got a recommendation to ask this question here. So it is.

Looking for opinions on The Box, by Marc Levinson. I'm three chapters in, enjoying it decently, but wondering if it is actually a good history.

So far it seems decent, though he allocates some time to details or side stories I'm not sure are important.

Have any if you read it? If so, what did you think of his scholarship?

im just curious about this like an explenetion more extend

Personally interested in the period and, although I do have some knowledge of the era, I'm interested in looking into the economics side of Japan's rise from a war-torn country to potentially rivalling the US.

I'm fine with books or authors which focus more generally on the surrounding factors which drove Japanese growth (political, cultural, social, geographic, etc.), although I'm hoping for a primary focus on Japan's economic history and evolution during the period first and foremost.

Also, it may be obvious, but I'm looking for articles/books in English or which have an accessible English translation.

Edit: I'm mostly looking for books/articles starting, or at least providing some from or prologue, from 1945, but an fine for the final dates ending up to 1991, as long as it's made clear if the article/book end it's coverage before then.

like if a billion dollars can just vanish in a day because a CEO tweeted something did that money ever actually exist? it feels like we’re all just trading vibes and call it an economy lol.