Headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands, the IEHA promotes the study of and facilitates collaboration on a variety of projects, publications, and initiatives.
While the IEHA has origins in European historiographies (especially those of France and the United Kingdom), it has since expanded its scope and membership to include economies and scholars outside of traditional areas of research.
[1] Attendees of the conference include economists, historians, policymakers, heads of states, government ministers, and scholars of economic history.
[6] At the same time, the founding of the IEHA originally stemmed from the work of Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein on economic growth in early modern Europe.
Around 750 attendees from 55 countries attended the World Economic History Congress in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
[14] Academics have noted that the hosting of the Congress in Stellenbosch positioned the country to become one of the leading cenrtres of economic history on the African continent.
[15] The opening address, delivered by Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan, recognized the economic and political potential that the conference had for the South African economy.
[21] At the congress, held in Boston, Massachusetts French economist Thomas Piketty (École des hautes études en sciences sociales) and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century described the World Economic History Congress as "one of the few places in the world where economists and historians talk to each other, and we truly need this interdisciplinary approach.