Suspended in 2025/26
EH204      One Unit
Money and Finance: From the Middle Ages to Modernity

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Mutually exclusive courses:

This course cannot be taken with EH214 or EH215 at any time on the same degree programme.

The course provides an overview of the main developments in monetary and financial history from 800 to the present day, taking the students from the simple beginnings of medieval European monetary history to the complex financial arrangements of the modern world. The first part of the course covers the emergence of money and finance from the medieval ages to the early modern period. The second part examines the main developments in the global financial system since the nineteenth century. Historical developments in major European and non-European countries (England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, USA) will be discussed and compared. The course is designed to introduce students to the main concepts of money and finance (financial development, financial integration, monetary policy, banking crises etc.) and to provide a long run perspective to the current policy debate.

1 hours of lectures and 1 hours of classes in the Spring Term.
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

The students will produce one formative essay in AT, and one outline of their summative essay in WT. The exercise will help them practice academic writing (structuring and presenting arguments, providing explanations, referencing etc.); a skill both necessary for the dissertation they are expected to write in year 3 and helpful for the exam of this course that will take place in summer term. The class presentation has a formative character, too. Students will practice presenting complex arguments to their peers and answering questions from the audience.

1. Barrett, W. (1990): World Bullion Flows, 1450-1800, in: Tracy, J.D., ed., The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World 1350-1750, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), pp. 224-254.

2. Chilosi, D. and Volckart, O. (2011). Money, States and Empire: Financial Integration and Institutional Change in Central Europe, 1400-1520. Journal of Economic History 71, 762-791.

3. Eichengreen, B. (1992), Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939, Oxford (Oxford University Press).

4. Eichengreen, B. (2008), Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Princeton (Princeton University Press).

5. Friedman, M. and A. Schwartz (1963), A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, Princeton (Princeton University Press).

6. Kindleberger, C. P. (2005), Manias, Panics and Crashes. A History of Financial Crises, 5th edition, New York: Macmillan.

7. Reinhart, C. and K. Rogoff (2009), This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton (Princeton University Press).

8. Spufford, P. (1991): Money and its Use in Medieval Europe, Cambridge et al. (Cambridge University Press).

Exam (70%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

Essay (30%, 3000 words)