Convocatorias

Papers and proposals for sessions are invited for the 2008 APEBH conference. The conference theme is 'Responses to Environmental Change', around which we expect to organise a number of sessions. As at past conferences, we also welcome contributions on other topics in economic, social, and business history. Early career researchers are encouraged to participate. Researchers across a range of disciplines are warmly welcomed including economists and historians of economic thought, business, society, and management, as well as archivists. The conference organisers are particularly interested in attracting papers that examine developments within the Asia-Pacific region broadly defined and/or papers that provide an international comparative perspective.

The conference theme provides ample opportunities to explore and discuss historical research that has implications for ongoing discussion on current topical issues. Arguably, current discussions on environmental change are insufficiently informed by the lessons from history. For example, while historical data on climate change inform predictions of future climate change, the general debate on the consequences of climate change has hardly assessed the abating economic responses that past episodes of climate changes triggered. Still, the past must hold a wide array of cases that help to understand how short- and long-term environmental changes are likely to have triggered responses at different levels: in economic systems at large, in specific sections of the economy, in economic institutions, or among economic entities such as firms. Such responses may have led to the assessment, absorption and possibly the abatement of the consequences of negative externalities of environmental change.

Current discussions about environmental change are strongly focused on changes in the natural environment only. But to foster a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that environmental change triggers, it would be relevant to compare a wider range of environmental changes that in the past led to responses aimed at mitigating the consequence of such changes. Hence, the conference organisers are interested in attracting papers that discuss a range of short and long-term changes in different environments, including for example the natural (such as pollution, deforestation, drought and floods) and demographic environments (birth and mortality rates, diseases, migration), but also the technological, social and business environments, and of course interactions between these different environments.

Paper abstracts of one page may be submitted at any time up to 30th November 2007. A decision on proposals will be made within a month of submission. Session proposals of one page may be submitted up to the same date, outlining the main objectives of the session. Written papers must be submitted by 15 January 2008. There will be a refereed paper section for those interested. A conference paper prize will be awarded, and a selection of papers (subject to review) will be published in the Australian Economic History Review.

Further details about the conference can be found at the web page of the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand: http://www.uow.edu.au/commerce/econ/ehsanz/

Please send abstracts to Dr John Singleton, School of Economics & Finance, Faculty of Commerce & Administration, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND. John.Singleton@vuw.ac.nz