Jörg Baten

In 2020, Baten analysed, jointly with Thomas Keywood, new evidence on elite human capital formation in Europe over a time period from the 6th to the 20th century. The focus on this study lies on tracing early roots of the Great Divergence of Europe. They find a substantial relationship between elite numeracy and elite violence, and conclude that violence had a detrimental impact on human capital formation. Their study provides evidence that the disparities in violence between Eastern and Western Europe helped shape the divergent movement via the elite numeracy mechanism and had substantial implications for the economic fortunes of each region over the following centuries.

From 2015 to 2017, Baten was appointed president of the European Historical Economics Society, a learned society of European economic historians. Furthermore, he has been co-editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Economics and Human Biology since 2015.

Baten received his doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with his work about the biological standard of living in South Germany, under supervision of John Komlos. Since 2001 he holds the chair of economic history at the University of Tübingen. In 2005 he was invited as a visiting professor at Yale University (Dept. Political Science) and was visiting professor at Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona in 2006/07. Since 2006, Baten has also been the Secretary General of the International Economic History Association.

Jörg Baten (born 24 June 1965 in Hamburg) is a German economic historian. He is the former President of the European Historical Economics Society, current co-Editor-in-chief of Economics and Human Biology and is currently a professor of economic history at the University of Tübingen.