Economic History and Political Economy

Most of our projects overlap multiple disciplines and sub-disciplines and address important societal issues. Members currently span the Departments of Economics, Political Science, Social Policy and Sociology and the Centre for Health Economics.

Prominent themes in our work include

Political economy of institutions, the quality and size of government, fiscal policies, trade, inequality, elections, crime, conflict, and collective action. 
We investigate these topics in both contemporaneous as well as historic settings.

Economic history of European countries and regions since Roman times as well as European and global monetary history since the mid-19th century.

Activities

We run bi-weekly seminar series and meet up regularly for lunch to speak formally and informally about research. Additionally, we periodically organise workshops.

Recent published projects

Our work is regularly published in leading journals such as: Economic Inquiry, Economic Journal, European Economic Review,  European Review of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Financial History Review, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Public Choice, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Review of Economic Studies. Recent examples include:

• Polarization and corruption in America, A. Pickering (with M. Melki), European Economic Review (2020)
• The fetters of inheritance? Equal partition and regional economic development T. Huning (with F. Wahl), European Economic Review (2021)
• Kompromat:  A theory of blackmail as a system of governance, J. Choy,  Journal of Development Economics (2020)
• Taming the global financial cycle. Central banks as shock absorbers in the first era of globalization,  M. Morys (with G. Bazot and E. Monnet), Journal of Economic History (2022).
• The Uncovered Set and the Core: Cox's Result Revisited A. Bhattacharya (with V. Brosi and  F. Ciardiello), Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design (2018)
• Fiscal space and the procyclicality of fiscal policy: The case for making hay while the sun shines, A. Ahmad (with R. McManus and G. Ozkan), Economic Inquiry (2021)
• Roman Transport Network Connectivity and Economic Integration, M. Flückiger (with E. Hornung, M. Larch, M. Ludwig and A. Mees), Review of Economic Studies (2022)

People