Graduate Virtual Open Day 

The Department of Economic History will be holding two virtual events for students interested in master's and PhD study.

Master's online session - Tuesday 17 November, 16:00-17:00 (GMT)

PhD online session - Friday 20 November, 16:00-17:00 (GMT)

For more information, and to book your place, go to the Virtual Open Day webpage: LSE Virtual Open Day

PhD Student Yitong Qiu receives £4000 from Economic History Society Bursary Scheme

Congratulations to PhD student Qiu Yitong on being awarded a £4000 bursary, amid strong competition for funding this year. Yitong's well-deserved award will be used to support her research into the political and economic life of elites in the Qing Empire.

More information on Yitong's research is available on her webpage: Yitong (Nora) Qiu

Absent Management in Banking
Review Financial Times, August 17 2020

Read the recent Financial Times' review for 'Absent Management in Banking', a new book on the causes and legacy of recent global banking crisis by department alum and former management consultant Christian Dinesen. Reviewer John Plender calls this a thoughtful analysis concluding with an uncomfortably radical prescription. 

You can read the review here: 

Absent Management in Banking, by Christian Dinesen 

Knowles Review of Economic History

We are pleased to announce the first edition of the Knowles Review of Economic History.

 The journal is committed to publishing the best work produced by undergraduate and postgraduate students across the LSE student body. All articles are peer-reviewed and published in conjunction with the Houghton Street Press.

View the journal here: Knowles Review of Economic History

Dr Anne Ruderman Named 2020 ACLS Fellow

Congratulations to Dr Anne Ruderman, who has just been awarded a fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies for 2020-2021. The fellowship will support her book project, 'Supplying the Slave Trade', which is under contract with Yale University Press. 

Read more about Dr Ruderman’s project here: ACLS Fellowship 2020

April 2020

Eyam Revisited: Lessons from a plague village

1843 magazine, April 2020

Professor Patrick Wallis returns to the tiny village of Eyam, which underwent a lengthy quarantine during the Great Plague of 1665, and lost over three-quarters of its population. The village has become an emblem of heroic individual sacrifice for the greater good, despite the lack of historical evidence about how the quarantine came into being or was enforced. In a time of global epidemic and social distancing, Patrick unpicks fact from fiction to find out how Eyam can still  speak to our times. 

Read the article here: Eyam Revisited

April 2020

2019 Royal Economic Society Prize awarded to Jane Humphries and Jacob Weisdorf

The prize was awarded for their article ‘Unreal Wages? Real Income and Economic Growth in England, 1260-1850,’ which argues that modern economic growth in the late 16th Century, some 200 years earlier than typically thought.

The RES's full media briefing on the prize can be found here: RES Media Briefing

April 2020

Absent Management in Banking, how banks fail and cause financial crisis

Christian Dinesen (Palgrave, 2020)

Christian Dinesen has drawn on his professional experience in banking and academic background as an Economic History alum, for his book on the lack of management in banking. Dinesen's analysis ranges from the Medici of the fifteenth century to the global banking corporations of the twentieth. Having examined the role lack of management played in the financial crises of the 21st century.  He concludes with a warning that the industry's failure to learn from past crises makes further crises inevitable.

Read an interview with Dinesen on the LSE website here: Why a lack of management in banking makes another financial crisis 'almost inevitable'

February 2020

New publication: Apprenticeship in Early Modern Europe

Editors: Maarten Prak, Patrick Wallis

The first comparative and comprehensive account of occupational training before the Industrial Revolution. The essays outline the features of this European-wide system of skills education, and provide essential insights into a key institution of economic and social history.

More information here: Apprenticeship In Early Modern Europe

November 2019

Digital Collaboration with Smithsonian on African Currency Objects

Dr Leigh Gardner, together with Dr.Ellen Feingold of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, have collaborated on the creation of an open-access digital collection of the 880 West African currency objects in the National Numismatic Collection, funded by LSE’s Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund. A curated sample of these can be found on Learning Lab, the Smithsonian’s online education platform . Further curated collections can be tailored for use in classrooms.

Its aim is to provide a template for cooperation between museums and universities in using the digitization of museum collections to help disseminate research to wider audiences.  

Read more here.

 November 2019

LSE Excellence in Education Awards 2019

Olivier Accominotti, Chris Minns, Eric Schneider and Oliver Volkcart were among the winners of an LSE Excellence in Education award for their contribution to teaching and educational leadership in 2018-19.

Read more about the awards and the full list of winners here: LSE Excellence in Education Awards

Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps
Thames and Hudson November 2019

Professor Mary Morgan is part of the LSE team behind 'Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps', a publication of Booth's ground breaking social survey of 19th century Londoners' social, working and living conditions. The book reproduces all the colour-coded maps, annotated with a rich selections of records and notes made by Booth and his researchers. Booth's achievement and contribution to the founding of modern social sciences is analysed in a magisterial selection of essays on topics such as morality, migration, leisure and housing, by writers including Professor Morgan, LSE curator Indy Bhullar,  Professor Anne Power, and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair.

Read more about the book here.

Read a review here

November 2019

Congratulations to Dr Leigh Gardner, who has been elected as the next Secretary General of the International Economic History Association.

LSE Economic History student is future Yenching Academy Scholar

Economic History master's graduate Mathias Schoener will be joining the selective Yenching Academy to study on its interdisciplinary master's programme in China Studies. You can read about his plans for study and tips for successful application. Mathias Schoener, future Yenching Scholar

Leslie Hannah elected Fellow of the British Academy

Leslie Hannah is distinguished economic historian and business economist with a long standing relationship with the department. More information about his career and publications is available on his profile page: Leslie Hannah profile

A brief interview with Leslie following his election is available on the British Academy website here: New British Academy Fellows

Dr Joe Lane awarded Coleman Prize 2019

Dr Joe Lane has won the Coleman Prize 2019 for his PhD dissertation, Networks, innovation and knowledge: the North Staffordshire Potteries, 1750-1851 (Supervisors Profesor Mary Morgan and Dr gerben Bakker).

The Coleman Prize is the biggest British prize in business history, awarded by the Association of Business Historians.

The dissertation is available to read here: Dissertation.

LSESU Economic History Society Journal 2019

Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural Leunig Prize: Joseph Miller, Edward Smith and Olamide Duyile.  

Read more about the journal and prizewinners, and download the journal here: LSESU Economic History Journal 2019

New Book: The English East India Company's Silk Enterprise in Bengal, 1750-1850: Economy, Empire and Business
Karolina Hutková (Boydell and Brewer, 2019)

The book examines the silk-processing activities of the English East India Company in Bengal and presents the Company as a manufacturer rather than a trading body or political agent. 

Read more about the book here: The English East India Company's Silk Enterprise in Bengal, 1750-1850

Sowing the Seeds VI: A Workshop for Early-Career Medieval Economic and Social Historians

LSE, 15 June 2019

Full details of the programme and abstracts are on our 'Workshops' page: Link to 'Workshops' page. 

New Book: Professor Tirthankar Roy
How British Rule Changed India's Economy; The Paradox of the Raj (Palgrave, 2019) 

In his latest book Tirthankar Roy revisits the topic of the effects and legacy of British colonialism on life and work in India, and its  kind of legacy it left behind. 

Read more information about the book here. How British Rule Changed India' Economy

STICERD grants awarded to Economic History faculty

Two faculty members have just been awarded STICERD funding for their research projects. Dr Jordan Claridge receives a grant towards his project 'Real Wages in the Middle Ages.' Dr Olivier Accominotti's grant will support his project 'British acceptance houses and the production of safe assets 1875-1914.'

Dr Anne Ruderman awarded Arthur H. Cole Grant

Congratulations to Dr Anne Ruderman who has just been awarded Arthur H Cole grant of $5000 by the Economic History Association. The grant is for continuing work on her forthcoming book, 'Supplying the Slave Trade',  which is under contract with Yale University Press. 

'The Lessons of Economic History'
Conference, European Parliament, Brussels
18 February 2019

Conference organiser and master's student Max Rangeley reports on the department's visit to the European Parliament in February. You can also view recordings and photos.

Read more here ...

New article: Dr Debin Ma
Financial Revolution in Republican China During 1900–37: A Survey and a New Interpretation

Read the article in the Australian Economic History Review.

March 2019

LSE Research Festival 2019 Prize Winners

Congratulations to PhD student Alka Raman and master's student Francesco Giacomini, both awarded prizes at the LSE Research Festival on 28 February 2019.

Alka was awarded Best Poster prize for From Muse to Machines: how Indian cottons steered the technological trajectory of the British cotton industry.

Francesco won the Popular Prize for his written pitch: Bitcoin:  new order or libertarian utopia? An answer from the past: Scotland 1727-1845. The Popular Prize was voted for by the public on the online gallery.

Read more about all the prize winners on the webpage: LSE Research Festival Winners 2019

Economic History Department Awards 2019

Winners of our photo and investment brief competitions and 2017-18 exam prizes collected their awards at our first ceremony. 

See all the prizes, winners and runners up. Economic History Awards Ceremony 2018-19

Rebecca Simson's writes on 'how 'newly assembled data on public expenditure and employment in three East African countries since 1960 sheds light on external constraints to fiscal space, and suggests that employment growth was short-lived and to a large extent ‘financed’ through a reduction in real wages.' 

Read the full post here: Africa’s Clientelist Budget Policies Revisited: Public Expenditure and Employment in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, 1960–2010

26 February 2019

LSE News showcased findings from Dr Neil Cummins in his latest Working Paper, Where is the Middle Class? Inequality, Gender and the Share of the Upper Tail from 60 million English Death and Probate Records, 1892-2016. The feature focused on the startling finding that for the last 60 years most middle to lower class people pass on little to nothing in terms of generational wealth, dying virtually penniless. Most generational wealth is still  shuffled around the richest top 20-30 per cent.

You can read the full feature here: Most of us die virtually penniless says new LSE research 

25 February 2019

On 19 February a group of faculty and students travelled to the European Parliament in Brussels to take part in a panel discussion, ‘Lessons of Economic History for Today’s Policies’. The panel also included MEP Professor Joachim Starbatty.  

Policy Paper: Hard Brexit ahead: breaking the deadlock

Gabriel J. Felbermayr, Clemens Fuest, Hans Gersbach, Albrecht O. Ritschl, Marcel Thum, and Martin T. Braml

This paper proposes a model for post-Brexit UK and EU in EconPol Policy Brief.

Available here: Hard Brexit ahead

Epstein Lecture 2019
'The Historical Roots of Racial Health Inequality in the United States'
Dr Marcella Alsan, Stanford
14 February 2019, 6pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, NAB

Dr Marcella Alsan's research focuses on the causes and consequences of infectious disease for health and productivity, using historical public health natural experiments to explore the interaction between infectious disease, human capital and economic outcomes.

Read more about how to attend the Epstein Lecture: Epstein Lecture 2019

2017-18 Economic History Master's Dissertation Prize Winner

Josh Banerjee, MPhil/PhD in Economic History, hs been awarded the 2017-18 Economic History master's dissertation prize. Josh's dissertation is entitled 'Is There Evidence of Relative Quality Failure in the British Export Sector? A Cross-Country Estimation, 1962-1979' and explores the possibility that  failure in UK product quality caused British economic decline in the post-war Golden Age. Our congratulations to Josh and best wishes for his future studies.

Economic History students wins Middle East Centre’s inaugural Master’s Dissertation prize

William Bullock Jenkins, MSc Global Economic History student, is the winner of the Middle East Centre’s inaugural Master’s Dissertation prize for his dissertation, 'Tariffs, Treaties, Trade: Integrating Tsarist Russian and Qajar Persian Markets under the Nineteenth Century Global Condition'. Dr Michael Mason, Director of the Middle East Centre, called it  ‘an outstanding study of Russo-Persian economic relations in the nineteenth century.’

The Middle East Centre launched the prize to encourage and celebrate outstanding research on the Middle East and North Africa. 

More information available here: Middle East Centre Master's Dissertation 2018

Article: Tim Leunig, Jelle Lottum, Bo Poulsen Surprisingly gentle confinement: British treatment of Danish and Norwegian prisoners of war during the napoleonic wars

Read the article in the journal Scandinavian Economic History Review

December 2018

New publication: An Economist's Guide to Economic History
eds Matthis Blum, Christopher Colvin

Palgrave, November 2018

This book introducing the field of economic history to economists contains chapters by Economic History department faculty and alumni, including Dr Gerben Bakker on innovation and technical change, Tirthankar Roy on South Asia, Tim Leunig on policy making, Judy Z. Stephenson on impact and communication, and Michael Aldous on business ownership and organisation. 

Find out more here: An Economist's Guide to Economic History

New article: Dr Spike Gibbs

Felony Forfeiture at the Manor of Worfield, C.1370–c.1600

Read the article in the Journal of Legal History.

Recent article: Dr Rebecca Simson

Ethnic (in)equality in the public services of Kenya and Uganda

Read Dr Simson's article on the African Affairs website.

New blog post: ''Wages in the Middle Ages'

On the EHS blog Dr Jordan Claridge writes about the critical importance of an accurate picture of medieval wages for conceptions of historic economic development, and how his new method connecting precise cash and ‘in kind’  data will allow more precise calculations to be made.

Read Dr Claridge's article on the EHS blog. Wages in the Middle Ages

The Economic History Department, LSE hosted a screening of 'The Enemy Within', a short documentary exploring the effects and legacy of the 1980s Miners Strike on one of the lesser-known mining communities in Kent. The film was made by sixth formers from  Oakwood Park Grammar School in collaboration with The Independent Film Trust and LSE. The students interviewed former miners and other key protagonists at the time, and also featured Dudley Baines, who set the strike in its economic and historical context. 

23 November 2018

How do stories help us understand the world?
LSE IQ podcast Episode 18

'Even in chemistry you have narratives [...] a beginning a middle and an end.' Professor Mary Morgan talks about the place of stories in science in this month's LSE IQ podcast.

Listen to the episode here: LSE IQ podcast Ep 18 

21 November 2018

Article: Janet Hunter, Kota Ogasawara

Price shocks in regional markets: Japan’s Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923

Read the article in the Economic History Review.

November 2018

Royal African Company Networks 

Dr Anne Ruderman launched her project website on Royal African Company Networks at the LSE Research Showcase, Tuesday 13 November. Visitors were able to view a range of maps and graphics and learn about the progress of the project.

The event was LSE’s first ever research showcase for the School community, featuring film and photography, hands-on activities and games from a wide range of projects. Staff and students were able to engage directly with the researchers and discover the transformative aspects of the social sciences.

Find out more about Dr Ruderman's research on the project website here: Royal African Company Networks

Read more about the event: LSE Research Showcase

13 November 2018

Global Economic History
Editors: Tirthankar Roy, Giorgio Riello
Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

This new selection of essays by leading academics focuses on the questions, debates, methodologies and issues addressed by the growing field of global economic history.

Chapters are organized both thematically  and geographically, covering topics from 'The Great Divergence', the New World and the rise of global silver economy.  Contributors include Kenneth Pomeranz, John McNeill,  and Prasannan Parthasarathi, plus authors from or associated with our own department, Patrick O'Brien, including Patrick O'Brien, Alejandra Irigoin, Debin Ma, and Gareth Austin.

Find out more on the Bloomsbury page: Global Economic History

November 2018

Dr Debin Ma guest edits a special edition of Frontier of Economics in China (Sept. 2018, Volume 13 Issue 3) focusing on Chinese Economic History. Subjects range from urban and rural economies to the monetary system and financial institutions in China, with particular focus on the primary importance of institutions and ideology, the employment of comparative perspectives and the systematic application of quantitative analyses based on new archives and data.

You can get free online access to the journal for a limited period only) at: http://journal.hep.com.cn/fec/EN/article/showSpecialIssues.do

October 2018

'Do the Migrations of the Past have Lessons for Today?'
Professor Chris Minns Inaugural Lecture

6.30-8pm, 22 October 2018, Wolfson Theatre LSE

Migration has always been part of the human experience. But can the study of past population movements help us to understand present-day markets and societies? This lecture draws on a range of historical evidence to explore the possibilities.

Find out more about Chris's lecture on the LSE Events page.

September 2018

'Eyam' - The Globe Theatre draws on departmental expertise

Professor Patrick Wallis was consulted by theatre director Adele Thomas in preparation for a new play 'Eyam' staged at the Globe Theatre in September and October.  Professor Wallis wrote a 2006 paper on the 1666 outbreak of plague in the small Derbyshire village, unpicking the many ways in which it has been remade over the last four centuries. 

You can read Professor Wallis's paper here: Dreadful Heritage: Interpreting Epidemic Disease at Eyam, 1666–2000

October 2018

New article: David Chilosi, Max Schulze, Oliver Volckart

Benefits of Empire? Capital Market Integration North and South of the Alps, 1350–1800

Read the article on the Journal of Economic History website.

Welcome to Dr Anne Ruderman, Assistant Professor in Economic History

Dr Ruderman joins our department from Harvard, where she completed her PhD. She is an economic historian of Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World with a particular focus on the transatlantic slave trade. Her current book project, Supplying the Slave Trade, looks at how European slave-ship outfitters tried to figure out African consumer demand for their products and re-exports in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Read more about Dr Ruderman's research and teaching on her LSE webpage.

Welcome to new Assistant Professor, Dr Jordan Claridge

Dr Claridge joined the department in September 2018 as Assistant Professor after two years as Teaching Fellow. His research focuses on how individuals, societies, markets and industries adjusted to changing economic and social circumstances in the Middle Ages. 

Read more about his work, teaching and current projects on his LSE webpage

September 2018

New article: Patrick Wallis, Justin Colson, David Chilosi 
Structural Change and Economic Growth in the British Economy before the Industrial Revolution, 1500–1800

Read the article in the Journal of Economic History.

August 2018

The decline of northern England'
Voxeu podcast featuring Dr Neil Cummins, Dept of Economic History, LSE

Neil talks with Tim Phillips about how the lag between the north of England and Wales and the south in output per person, educational attainment, and even life expectancy can be explained entirely by a 200-year 'Big Sort - the migration south of talented people, replaced by less-able southerners who move north. https://bit.ly/2LjEXUQ

24 August 2018

Article: Eric B Schneider, Kota Ogasawara

Disease and child growth in industrialising Japan: Critical windows and the growth pattern, 1917–39

Read the article in Explorations in Economic History

July 2018