The Missing Link: Prosopography in the History of Economics

Prosopography, or less accurately collective biography, is a historiographical method that identifies and draws relationships between various people within a specific, well-defined historical or social context by collecting and analyzing relevant biographical data. Although it is a well-established method, it is novel to the history of economics. In this paper I argue that prosopography provides an interpretative framework for understanding academic communities and with the help of a number of examples I show where its potential lies.