Economic historian Joshua Hausman has received the Journal of Economic History’s Arthur H. Cole Prize for best article, a top recognition in the field of economic history. His winning article “The Model T,” co-authored with Shari Eli and Paul W. Rhode, investigates how the success of the Model T contributed to the United States’ rapid adoption of the automobile in the early 20th century.
“By the 1920s, the United States had twice as many cars per capita as Canada, and ten times more than Europe,” said Hausman. “In Los Angeles County alone there were more cars than in Germany and Italy combined. How the Model T was produced was a decisive factor in that gap.”
During that time, the Ford Motor Company was producing cars in the United States at a scale unmatched by the rest of the world until after World War II. Innovations in mass production along with tariffs on trade made the Model T more affordable to U.S. consumers as compared to those in other countries and limited widespread adoption.
“It’s interesting in its own right to understand why cars spread so quickly in the United States,” explained Hausman. “But it also raises questions about how new technologies, like electric vehicles or driverless cars, take hold and why adoption happens faster in some places than others.”
Hausman teaches PubPol 495: World Economic History and PubPol 750: Japanese Economy at the Ford School and emphasizes to his students why contextualizing history matters for future policymakers. Limited modern data on issues like technology adoption, tariffs, or financial crises often push scholars to look to the past.
“Economic history broadens the scope of possible outcomes,” said Hausman. “It helps us figure out which problems are genuinely new and which ones aren’t, and the history often ends up becoming relevant in ways you might not expect.”
About the Arthur H. Cole Prize
The Arthur H. Cole Prize is awarded annually by the Editorial Board of the Journal of Economic History for the best article in the previous year’s volume of the Journal.
