Assoc. Prof. Stephan Heblich

Historical Paintings Provide Insights into the Past

Stephan Heblich’s recent work analyzes historical paintings to extract information about their socioeconomic context. He and his collaborators have developed an algorithm to classify the emotions conveyed in historical paintings, projecting these emotions onto their specific context, such as a location within a country at a given time, considering painting style, medium, and artist characteristics. This approach allows the researchers to understand spatial and temporal variations in emotions like fear or enjoyment, providing insights into the past through the perspectives of artists from the 15th century onward. Their findings explain fluctuations during significant economic transformations such as the Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution. Interestingly, they also uncover significant uncertainty during periods of economic growth, which may suggest a perception of rising inequality.

Stephan Heblich’s research looks at spatial disparities in the distribution of consumptive or productive amenities that attract individuals or firms. This helps explain spatial variation in house prices, the share of high-skilled workers, environmental (dis)amenities, innovative activities, political outcomes, or economic development. Sometimes, the best way to understand present-day outcomes is to study the past and the legacies of historic developments. This explains his interest in economic history.
During his visit, Mr. Heblich looks forward to engaging with researchers in these areas and beyond. He plans to collaborate with Oliver Falck on studying mobility patterns within cities using cellphone data. Tracking cellphones across urban areas provides comprehensive travel diaries with detailed information about mode choices, trip chains, and leisure destinations, which can enhance our understanding of the internal organization of cities. As part of this research agenda, Stephan Heblich and Oliver Falck will organize a Workshop on Big Data in Urban and Regional Economics in September.

Stephan Heblich is Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. Previously, he held the Munk Chair of Economics at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and worked at the University of Bristol and the University of Stirling as well as at Entrepreneurship, Growth, and Public Policy Group at the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Jena. He studied Economics at the University of Passau and the University of Lund. He was a research assistant at University of Passau from 2004 until 2007 when he received his PhD. In 2009 he was a visiting researcher at the University of Toronto. Mr. Heblich is a CESifo Research Network Fellow.