Socioeconomics Research Seminar and the WU Economic and Social History Research Seminar, joint seminar with the Univ. of Vienna (Web)

Time: Tue., 16.06.2026, 17.00
Venue: WU Vienna, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Building D4, Room D4.3.106, 3rd floor

This paper engages with a longstanding debate about what age heaping actually measures by examining local and gendered variation in numeracy within the eighteenth-century Prince-Bishopric of Münster. Since A’Hearn et al., scholars have frequently treated numeracy and literacy as broadly interchangeable indicators of human capital. More recent work by De Moor and collaborators on the Low Countries, however, has shown that female and male numeracy levels could be remarkably similar despite substantial gender gaps in literacy, suggesting that numeracy and literacy may have been shaped by different mechanisms, particularly across genders.
Existing early modern age-heaping datasets remain comparatively sparse and are often constructed from observations widely separated across both time and space. In contrast, this paper relies on an unusually fine-grained source base, presenting village-level numeracy estimates for both men and women across approximately 140 rural localities. Furthermore, it explores a range of potential explanatory factors, including schools, parish-centre status, and proto-industrial activity. Preliminary results point toward substantial intra-regional variation and complex, gendered patterns of association, but no single explanatory model proves fully satisfactory. The paper is therefore presented explicitly as work in progress and seeks discussion on how local historical context and quantitative analysis can be better integrated in future research on premodern human capital formation.
So, if education, literacy and numeracy, how to measure them, what they mean and how to explain them interests you, or if you are just into interesting research in progress and like to learn and discuss, this seminar is for you.

Esther Sahle is (tenure-tack) assistant professor in the history research area at the SAXO Institute at the Univ. of Copenhagen. She holds a PhD in Economic History and an MSc in Global History, both from LSE, and a BA in World History and Religion from the Univ. of Erfurt. Before joining the SAXO institute, she held, among others, positions at Hertfortshire, Bremen, Oldenburg, and Münster. Her PhD research addressed the relationship between religion and economic activity in early modern times, with a special focus on Quakers, their institutions and business networks, e.g., in her monograph on Quakers in the British Atlantic World (Boydell and Brewer, 2021), and related papers in the Economic History Review („Quakers, coercion, and pre-modern growth: why Friends‘ formal institutions for contract enforcement did not matter for early modern trade expansion“, 2018) and Continuity and Change („Law and Gospel Order“, 2020). Recently, she has published „Training as a club good: Merchant apprenticeship in sixteenth‐century Europe“ (Economic History Review, 2026) and „Free ports, political economy, and early globalization: Evidence from 1750s Hamburg“ (Journal of Global History, 2026). (Web)

Room D4.03.106 is on the third floor of building D4. The main entrance is up the stairs to the left and ahead as you look at restaurant Baschly. On the third floor, room 106 is immediately to the left as you enter.

Fabian Wahl, Wilfried Kisling & Markus Lampe for the Economic and Social History Seminars
Thomas Pluemper & Felix Geisthardt for the Socioeconomics Research Seminar Series

Source: fsp-wirtschaft-gesellschaft mailing list