Modern behavioral experiments are not economic history.

It is ironic that an article titled ‘‘Recordkeeping alters economic history by promoting reciprocity’’ (1) contains no evidence at all from economic history. ‘‘Economic history’’ is typically defined as the empirical record of past economic practices and processes. The fact that recordkeeping by modern subjects alters the result of a game is not directly informative about past economies; a crucial inferential step is left out. These results may indeed help us understand the origins of recordkeeping and accounting. But descriptions of what modern subjects do in an experimental setting do not constitute historical data. Historians and archaeologists actually have considerable empirical information on the origins of recordkeeping in various parts of the world (2–5), but economists typically ignore historical and archaeological data, preferring instead to theorize about the way ancient economies may have operated. Researchers will welcome this study as an addition to our array of analogical data that can contribute to the study of past economies. But the title of this article is incorrect and misleading because the article presents no data on economic history.