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Mapping the Future. A Euro-American History of Business Cycle Forecasting, 1920-1980

Prof. Dr. Alexander Nützenadel, Berlin (Principal Investigator)

Dr. Laetitia Lenel, Berlin

 

The dissertation traces the global history of business cycle forecasting in the twentieth century, focusing on different forecasting tools established by economists and statisticians in the U.S. and Europe. Analyzing the making, the dissemination, the contestation, and, for some cases, the disappearance of these tools, the project investigates the efforts of economists to tackle the problem of future uncertainty throughout the twentieth century. The dissertation argues that the way economists formed expectations about the future changed fundamentally in this period, and that this change was not only an indicator, but also a factor in a fundamental transformation of economics, and, indeed, economic decision-making in the twentieth century.

The dissertation has been awarded the Humboldt Prize (2021), the Johann Gustav Droysen Prize (2022), the Friedrich Lütge Prize (2023), and the Otto Hintze Prize (2023) and will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. 

 

Publications

Lenel, Laetitia. "Kenne doch die Kundschaft. Warum finden Prognosen trotz Falsifizierung Abnehmer? Ökonomische Voraussagen dienen dem informellen Erwartungsaustausch", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 27, 2023, p. N 3.

Lenel, Laetitia. "The Introduction of the Electronic Computer and the End of Business Forecasting at the NBER," in: Œconomia – History / Methodology / Philosophy 13-3 (December 2023), pp. 657-680.

Lenel, Laetitia and Nützenadel, Alexander (eds). "Forum Section on "Economic Narratives," Journal of Modern European History (2023). With contributions by Frank Trentmann, Tiago Mata, Laetitia Lenel, Vanessa Ogle, Alexander Nützenadel, Trevor Jackson, William H. Sewell, Jr.

Lenel, Laetitia. "Economists as Storytellers: Scenario Drafting at the International Monetary Fund", in: History of Political Economy 55.3 (2023), pp. 577-608.

Lenel, Laetitia (2021). The Hopeful Science. A Transatlantic History of Business Forecasting, 1920-1960, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Dissertation. 

Lenel, Laetitia. "Searching for a Tide Table for Business: Interwar Conceptions of Statistical Inference in Business Forecasting," in: History of Political Economy 53.6 (2021), pp. 139–174.

Lenel, Laetitia. Gezeiten der Wirtschaft. Konjunkturprognosen und ihre Inszenierung, in: Geschichte der Gegenwart, 22.11.2020, https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/gezeiten-der-wirtschaft-konjunkturprognosen-und-ihre-inszenierung/.

Lenel, Laetitia. Public and Scientific Uncertainty in the Time of COVID-19, History of Knowledge, May 13 2020, https://historyofknowledge.net/2020/05/13/public-and-scientific-uncertainty/.

Fritsche, Ulrich / Köster, Roman /Lenel, Laetitia (eds.). Futures Past. Economic Forcasting in the 20th and 21st Century, Berlin et al.: Peter Lang 2020.

Lenel, Laetitia (2018). Futurama. Business Forecasting and the Dynamics of Capitalism in the Interwar Period. Working Papers of the Priority Programme 1859 “Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour” No 3 (January), Berlin.

Lenel, Laetitia. Mapping the Future. Business Forecasting and the Dynamics of Capitalism in the Interwar Period, in: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte/Economic History Yearbook 59 (2/2018), pp. 377-413.