Project description
Shifting focus on recent economic history of the Great War
World War I, known as the Great War, began in 1914 and lasted until 1918. During this time, the Habsburg Empire ruled over most of Central Europe. Its collapse in 1918 has been blamed for the economic troubles of Central Europe. However, these economic problems were not sufficiently investigated or distinguished from the economic consequences of the Great War. The EU-funded SpoilsofWAR project aims to fill this knowledge gap by measuring how the war changed the industrial structure, business performance, and living standards in the regions of the Habsburg Empire.
Objective
2018 will be a momentous year in Central Europe. It will mark the centenary of the end of World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. Political disintegration has long been blamed for the economic troubles of the successor states, but these consequences have not been subjected to sufficient examination, nor were they distinguished from the economic consequences of the Great War.
My ambition is to fill this knowledge gap. I will measure systematically how the war changed (i) industrial structure, (ii) business performance, and (iii) living standards in the regions of the Habsburg Empire. I will explain, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the mechanisms that drove these changes. I will compare real wages, the spatial distribution of industry, and the performance of industrial corporations between the prewar and postwar periods. I will directly account for the impact of the war on industrial development, independent from the outcomes of postwar disintegration, using abundant, yet understudied, primary data on war spending in the Habsburg Empire. I will detect how the reallocation of resources during the war affected changes in economic conditions (i-iii) and their regional variation. In addition, my project will prepare case studies on key industries to demonstrate how they perceived these changes and what strategies they developed to address them.
SpoilsofWAR will set a new standard in the economic history of the world wars. It will generate vast volumes of new statistical evidence at the regional and micro level. Methodologically, it will break through traditional boundaries between economic and business history and integrate the analytical tools of both disciplines. It will shift focus in the recent economic history of the wars from the Second to the First World War and will improve our understanding of the economic consequences of the war using newly developed methods from both historical economic geography and comparative business history.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
20136 Milano
Italy