2025 World Economic History Congress : Our session "Collective action in local common pool resources" has been accepted

We are happy to inform you that our session on water crises was accepted for the World Economic History Congress in Lund in july 2025. The session theme is collective exploitation of common pool resources tends to result in a social dilemma (Ostrom, 1990). Groundwater faces an even greater challenge as the propensity for overexploitation is compounded by its invisibility. The majority of studies on these types of resources tend to be modern case studies, leaving little room to explore long term historical processes (De Moor, 2015; Haller et al, 2019). Furthermore, groundwater tends to be overlooked in economic history in comparison to land and enclosures, the favorite topic of many economic historians (Allen, 1982; McCloskey, 1989, Shaw Taylor, 2001). The session places the nexus between water and economic development at the centre (see Roy 2021, for India). Yet the analysis of groundwater requires a transnational and interdisciplinary approach as the level of water in one location are often determined by the actions elsewhere. We hope you would join us in this journey and be attentive to our call for papers in autumn 2024.