The 1996 Charles Homer Haskins Lecture

The Haskins lecturer in 1996 was Robert William Fogel, Director of the Center for Population Economics in the Graduate School of Business, and Charles R. Walgren Distinguished Service Professor of American Institutions at the University of Chicago. Professor Fogel has been a pioneer in the development of cliometrics, the movement to bring modern analytical and statistical techniques into the study of history. Over the course of his professional life, he has worked on three very large, important issues: the impact of technological change on economic growth, the economics of slavery, and the economics of mortality. His address illuminates not only his own career, but also the sources of support for the new field of cliometrics and its reception by a wider scholarly community.