Matthew Curtis

Matthew Curtis

@mjdcurtis.bsky.social

Economic historian, AP at University of Southern Denmark. I work with big data from parish records and genealogies. Interested in historical demography, social mobility, and human capital.

697 Followers 567 Following 34 Posts Joined Jul 2023
5 months ago
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From a new paper by @mjdcurtis.bsky.social, David de la Croix, et al. The Little Divergence in 'academic human capital' (kind of publications index) btw northern & southern Europe started ca 1500. Northern Germany diverged from central & southern German areas after the Thirty Years' War.

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5 months ago
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Academic Human Capital in European Countries and Regions, 1200-1793 - Marginal REVOLUTION We present new annual time-series data on academic human capital across Europe from 1200 to 1793, constructed by aggregating individual-level measures at three geographic scales: cities, present-day countries (as of 2025), and historically informed macro-regions. Individual human capital is derived from a composite index of publication outcomes, based on data from the Repertorium Eruditorum Totius […]

Academic Human Capital in European Countries and Regions, 1200-1793 - Marginal REVOLUTION

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5 months ago

Isn’t unionized labor like 10% of the labor force? Still important for sure, but big mass?

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6 months ago

content.amtrak.com/content/time...

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6 months ago

For Day 2 of our celebration of work using the Census Tree we highlight @lukestein.com & co's work on the gendered impacts of perceived skin tone. They find that among African Amer. sisters, women perceived to be darker-skinned were disadvantaged.

*They also cite a great QJE pub by Lisa Cook et al*

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6 months ago
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There are several recent papers which could fall under the heading ‘Economic History of the Scientific Revolution’ but this network analysis tracing how scientific ideas diffused amongst scholars in the period 1084-1793 is a real milestone, an ‘epidemiological’ model of how ideas spread like disease

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7 months ago
The Political Economy of Maize in East Africa, 1900-2020: How cheap food turned expensive – African Economic History Network

New working paper from me & some colleagues on East Africa's maize markets from c. 1900 to today, based on a major data collection effort to fill in the long-run history of food prices in one of the world's poorest regions: www.aehnetwork.org/working-pape...

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7 months ago

Civil servant / politician?

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7 months ago
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Bonus panel here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-6

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8 months ago
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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Teaching Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Teaching

Feel like I need to update this comic to add that both professor and student are using chatgpt www.smbc-comics.com/comic/teaching

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8 months ago
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<em>The Economic History Review</em> | EHS Journal | Wiley Online Library The reason for malaria's disappearance from northwestern Europe in the early twentieth century has long been discussed but remains an unresolved conundrum. This is partially due to a previous focus o...

Now on Early View:
'The disappearance of malaria from Denmark, 1862–1900'.
By Mathias Mølbak Ingholt, Maarten van Wijhe, Lone Simonsen & Daniel Weinberger.
@camunicampop.bsky.social @roskildeuni.bsky.social ‪@yaleemd.bsky.social‬
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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8 months ago
Credible Answers to Hard Questions: Differences-in-Differences for Natural Experiments <div> The purpose of this book is to introduce applied researchers to </div> <div> modern Differences-in-Differences (DID) estimators, tailored to potentially

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🚨 We have finalized our DID textbook!
You’ve run out of excuses for sketchy pre-trends and mysterious TWFE coefficients.

📘 Credible Answers to Hard Questions: Differences-in-Differences for Natural Experiments
By Chaisemartin & D’Haultfœuille.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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8 months ago
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🚨Only 10 days left to sign-up to our summer school in Odense on historical economics. Highlights: Keynote lectures by Christopher Meissner on the global economy in the past. Further expect courses on project design, ML methods for data processing, and the recent DiD literature

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8 months ago
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Like Great-Grandparent, Like Great-Grandchild? Multigenerational Mobility in American History Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

New @nber.org working paper from our colleague Kasey Buckles @kaseybuckles.bsky.social (along with Joe Price and Zach Ward), "Grandchild? Multigenerational Mobility in American History." Check it out:

www.nber.org/papers/w33923

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9 months ago
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Re-upping my advice about how to write a good title and abstract for an academic paper, appropriately called:

"How to Write a Title and Abstract"

Feel free to share this thread, which will focus on titles.

#EconSky #AcademicSky

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9 months ago

Congrats!!

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9 months ago
It happened before. The key question is if it makes non-wealthy people more efficient at their job, or if it replaces them.
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9 months ago

The deadline for the Predoc and AP positions @sdueconhist.bsky.social has been extended! Apply by June 1.

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10 months ago
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Almost perfect inequality: long-run evidence on wealth distribution from the Danish West Indies 1760–1914 - Cliometrica It has been proposed that slave societies were the most unequal societies in recorded human history. What little previous evidence there is shows an ambiguous picture, with levels of wealth inequality...

🧵How does perfect inequality look like?

🔎 Zoom on the sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean, and you will find inequality levels so close to perfect inequality and so persistent as it have never been estimated before.

doi.org/10.1007/s116...

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10 months ago
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a cartoon character without a face is floating in the water . ALT: a cartoon character without a face is floating in the water .

Professor life

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10 months ago

Maybe a combination of the slow recovery since '08 reducing total unemployment and recessions hitting non-college grads harder?

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10 months ago
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PhD Candidate in History (279729) | NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology Job title: PhD Candidate in History (279729), Employer: NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Deadline: Sunday, June 1, 2025

Looking for a PhD candidate to study how first names provided information about parental values and beliefs in historical Europe (circa 1750-1950). More info on the position here:
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

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10 months ago

👀 Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join our wonderful unit in beautiful
Göteborg, Sweden!

2-3 fully funded doctoral position in Economic/Business history

✌️Join a young and supportive bunch of researchers with the unique opportunity to develop your own research agenda!

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11 months ago
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Golddiggermyten Ægteskab. Det er en indgroet forestilling i samfundet, at kvinder i højere grad end mænd gifter sig til status og velstand. Men det er en myte, viser nyt studie.

🚨📢 Gregory Clark in the media! 🚨📢

The “golddigger” myth gets a reality check! 💰📉 HEDG professor Gregory Clark is featured in Weekendavisen on social mobility and economic history.

👉 Read the article here: www.weekendavisen.dk/2025-15/idee...

#EconHist #SocialMobility

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11 months ago

If you have questions about these vacancies, I'm happy to chat 😊
bsky.app/profile/ingr...

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11 months ago

Leto's popularity was in the Laandstrad. Too much Great House cooperation would be a threat.

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11 months ago
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Hi folks!

Will we see you in Copenhagen this September?

Call for ASREC conference is out!

Preceded by grad student workshop.

Relevant for all scholars interested in culture and religion.

Calls and submission (closes June 1): asrec.org

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11 months ago
2-3 PhD students in Economic History 2-3 PhD students in Economic History The Department of Economy and Society at the School of

🚨We are recruiting!

If you consider a PhD in Economic/Business History this is for you!

🎯 Fully funded incl. social security
🎯 2 position in Economic History, 1 in Business History
🎯 Friendly and supportive environment

Check out our research if you’d like to know more about us.

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11 months ago
A student asking himself whether he should adopt the ideas of a traditional teacher or one working on the Scientific Revolution

I’m happy to announce that my JMP🚨🚨Teacher-directed change: The case of the English Scientific Revolution” is now out as a working paper. Finalising the draft has been a lot of work. So, very happy to share this. For lots of history, new micro-data &natural experiments, read on ->->->

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1 year ago
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Thursday and Friday was the 14th annual workshop on Growth, History and Development. But this year was different. This year marks the 150 year anniversary of women's access to university in Denmark. And what an obvious theme for a workshop on economic history. (1/x)
@sdueconhist.bsky.social

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