Cleo Chassonnery-Zaigouche

This course is available on the MA in Modern History, MRes/PhD in Accounting (AOI) (Accounting, Organisations and Institutions Track), MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Financial History, MSc in Global Economic History, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia), MSc in Philosophy of Economics and the Social Sciences and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: All Economic History courses are controlled access and capped.  Priority will be given to students for whom the course is within their programme regulations.

All course choices submitted before the deadline will be considered. It is advisable that students submit a statement in support of their course choices as these will be used to allocate places where a course is oversubscribed.Deadline for application is Monday 5 October 2026. First round offers will be sent on Tuesday 6 October 2026. Students who submit their course choices after the deadline and students wishing to take an Economic History course as an outside option will be waitlisted initially and informed by Thursday 8 October 2026 whether they have been successful.

Once an offer has been sent, you have 48 hours to accept it before it times out.  Once an offer has timed out, it will be re-allocated to someone on the waitlist.   In all cases, it is strongly advised that you have an alternative course choice as a back-up in case you are unable to secure your first choice.  

For queries contact: If you have any questions, please contact the MSc Programmes Officer (o.harrison1@lse.ac.uk). A list of all taught master's courses in this Department are listed on LSE's course guide webpages. Guidance on how to apply to individual controlled access courses can also be found on LSE for You.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access).  In previous years we have not been able to provide places for all students that apply. Students will be asked to submit a short statement of their reasoning to support their course choice. 

The aim of this course aim is to explore how economics has been used to change the world. It provides a historical overview of the role and influence of economists and economic ideas in public policy since the late 19th century.

The course covers three broad periods:

1) The emergence of economics as a reform-minded discipline in the late 19th century

2) The growing institutionalisation of economic expertise within government, including the development of welfare states, planned and mixed economies

3) The later shift towards deregulation, evidence-based policy, and private advocacy through think tanks and NGOs and consultancy.

The course will trace how economic ideas have been deployed across a wide range of institutional settings and geographical contexts — including state and local authorities, transitions to and out of socialist systems, colonial and post-colonial administrations, courtrooms, international organisations, and private policy institutes.

11 hours of lectures and 11 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course includes an archive visit in Week 6 of Winter Term

Students will be expected to work in groups and produce one written document based on the group’s work during the archival session. Students will also have to produce an individual policy brief, set in the historical context of their choice.

For an introduction to the history of economics, students can read Roger E. Backhouse, The Penguin History of Economics, new and revised ed. (London: Penguin Books, 2023).

A key text for the course is Daniel Hirschman and Elizabeth Popp Berman, “Do economists make policies? On the political effects of economics,” Socio-Economic Review (2014), 1—33. 

Exam (80%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period.

Policy brief (20%).