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Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Philip T. Hoffman

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Philip T. Hoffman

Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics and History, Emeritus
A.B., Harvard College, 1969; M.A., University of California, 1971; Ph.D., Yale University, 1979. Lecturer in History, Caltech, 1980-81; Instructor, 1981-82; Assistant Professor, 1982-84; Associate Professor of History and Social Science, 1984-95; Professor, 1995-2003; Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of History and Social Science, 2003-08; Axline Professor, 2008-22; Axline Professor Emeritus, 2023-. Executive Officer for the Humanities, 1995-2000.

Profile

Philip T. Hoffman combines economic theory and historical evidence to explain long-term changes in politics, society, and the economy—in particular, economic growth and political development. He has worked on why the West grew rich before other parts of the world, why it became a dominant military power, how financial and political institutions develop, and how to establish causality with historical data.

Hoffman was president of the Economic History Association in 2013–2014 and president of the Social Science History Association in 2019-2020. He has been a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France, a visiting researcher at the Paris School of Economics (2011), and a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2013). In addition to numerous articles, he has written six books, edited two, and won numerous prizes for his publications.

Research Summary
Economic History; Social Science History; Economic Growth; Institutional Change
Selected Awards
  • Economic History Association Fellow, 2019
  • Cliometric Society Fellow, 2013
  • John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 2001
  • John Addison Porter Prize, Yale University, 1980

Selected Publications


Books
Why Europe? The Great Divergence and the West's Rise to Global Predominance
Cambridge University Press, coming August 2026

Dark Matter Credit: The Development of Peer-to-Peer Lending and Banking in France
Princeton University Press, 2019
Interview published by Caltech magazine
Book Review

Why Did Europe Conquer the World?
Princeton University Press, 2015
Interview published by Princeton University Press
Book Review
Korean Educational TV Documentary, January 2022

Growth in a Traditional Society
Princeton University Press, 1996
Gyorgy Ranki Prize, Economic History Association, 1997
Allan Sharlin Prize, Social Science History Association, 1997

Articles

  • Guinnane and Hoffman (2025) "Medieval Anti-Semitism, Weimar Social Capital, and the Rise of the Nazi Party: A Reconsideration," Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 112, (3), 359-390. Download
  • Hoffman, Philip T. (2015) What Do States Do? Politics and Economic History. Journal of Economic History, 75 (2). pp. 303-332. ISSN 0022-0507. Download
  • Hoffman, Philip T. and Postel-Vinay, Gilles and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent (2015) Entry, information, and financial development: A century of competition between French banks and notaries. Explorations in Economic History, 55 . pp. 39-57. ISSN 0014-4983. Download
  • Hoffman, Philip T. (2012) Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World? Journal of Economic History, 72 (3). pp. 601-633. ISSN 0022-0507. Download
  • Hoffman, Philip T. (2011) Prices, the military revolution, and western Europe's comparative advantage in violence. Economic History Review, 64 (S1). pp. 39-59. ISSN 0013-0117. Download

Working Papers

Click here to view Professor Hoffman's working papers.