Faculty of Economics

Why understanding the economy is important for everyone

Faculty’s Victoria Bateman and Diane Coyle, the Bennett Professor of Public Policy have taken part in the BBC Radio 4 economics series “Understand: the economy”, which looks to explain basic issues within the economy to a much wider audience.

Published on - Monday 13th March 2023

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The history of inflation

The Faculty's Victoria Bateman takes part in a new BBC Radio 4 economics series on “Understand: the economy”, presented by Tim Harford. Read More>>

Published on - Monday 7th November 2022

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Keynes Lecture 2022 - Is this Time Different? Financial Follies across Centuries

Professor Hélène Rey (Lord Bagri Professor of Economics at the London Business School) delivered the annual Faculty of Economics Keynes Lecture, focusing on whether it is possible to predict a macroeconomic financial crisis.

Published on - Tuesday 22nd March 2022

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Newnham's 150th Anniversary Lecture Series - Prof Jane Humphries

Professor Jane Humphries CBE (NC 1967) will deliver the third of Newnham's four special 150th Anniversary Lectures, examining women’s unpaid work and the cost of living in England 1260-1860. In today’s age of rising living costs and scrutiny of gender parity, divisions of labour and the burden of caring and domestic work, much of it done by women without remuneration, looking to the past can help us begin to calculate the value of unpaid labour and radically reinvigorate historical estimates of women’s contributions to economic growth and human wellbeing. See the Newnham event page for further information and booking.

Event Date - Friday 22nd October 2021

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Economics Undergraduate Wins the Ellen McArthur Prize

Natasha May from Emmanuel College has won the prize for best dissertation in Economic History. The selectors judged Natasha’s dissertation on ‘Investment and the Nazi economic recovery’ to be the best contribution to economic history submitted this year.

Published on - Thursday 22nd July 2021

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Ellen McArthur Prize for Best Dissertation in Economic History

The Faculty is delighted to announce that Emma Taylor from Pembroke College has won the Ellen McArthur prize for best dissertation in Economic History. Emma’s dissertation on ‘Spatial autocorrelation and its impact on the validity of persistence studies’ was selected as the best contribution to economic history submitted this year, in either the Faculty of Economics or the Faculty of History.

Published on - Monday 27th July 2020

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COVID-19 is Not World War II - William H. Janeway

Dr. William H. Janeway's article titled "Covid 19 is not World War II" which discusses how the COVID-19 era has little in common with the US mobilization for war in the 1940s has appeared in Project Syndicate. Read More>>

Published on - Tuesday 28th April 2020

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COVID-19

Hopes for Economics in the 2020s – British Academy Blog

The British Academy blog has published an essay by nine Fellows of the Academy on how the humanities and social sciences could shape the 2020s. Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie writes of her hopes for economics and economic history.

Published on - Wednesday 29th January 2020

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Economics

Growth: Cautionary Tales from History - Cabinet Office Blog

The Cabinet Office blog has published an essay by Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie on her 2019 Thought Experiment Lecture at the Treasury. Prof. Ogilvie's Open Innovation essay presents highlights of her lecture, with accompanying video interview on working with policymakers, and a link to a full-length summary of her lecture.

Published on - Friday 24th January 2020

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Ogilvie Public Lecture in Amsterdam

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will give a public lecture on 19 November 2019 on “How Do Bad Institutions Survive? European Guilds, c. 1000 – c. 1880”. The lecture is hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for Urban History and will be held at Oost Indisch Huis, the seventeenth-century headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. Read More>>

Published on - Tuesday 12th November 2019

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Video - What Should Policy Makers Take From Prof. Ogilvie’s Research?

In this video, Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie explains what she would like policy makers to take from her research. The video was recorded alongside the Thought Experiment Lecture that Professor Ogilvie delivered to officials from the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, and other government departments on 18 October 2019. Read More>>

Published on - Wednesday 30th October 2019

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Video - What Policymakers Can Learn From Economic History

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie gave the Thought Experiment Lecture at the Cabinet Office on 18 October to officials from the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, and other government departments. The lecture emphasized, on the basis of European economic history, that policymakers should regard institutions as an integrated system rather than a menu from which one or two items can be chosen. Read More>>

Published on - Wednesday 23rd October 2019

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Policy

Thought Experiment Lecture at the Cabinet Office

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will give the Thought Experiment Lecture at the Cabinet Office on Friday 18 October. Sheilagh will lecture to officials from Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, and Number 10 on the theme of “Institutions and Economic Growth: Cautionary Tales from History”. Read More>>

Published on - Monday 14th October 2019

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Guilds and Inclusiveness Keynote

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will give the opening keynote lecture on 19th September 2019 at the annual conference of the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR). The theme of the conference is "Institutions for Inclusive Societies". Sheilagh's lecture is on "Guilds and Inclusiveness", drawing on the findings of her recent book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis. Read More>>

Published on - Wednesday 18th September 2019

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The European Guilds - Tides of History Podcast

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie has recorded a podcast on her book, The European Guilds, for Tides of History, an online documentary program dedicated to exploring how history helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is. You can listen to Sheilagh’s podcast here.

Published on - Monday 27th May 2019

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The Economic Consequences of the Peace Blog

To celebrate the centenary of "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" by John Maynard Keynes, the Marshall Library has been publishing a series of blogs about the publication, reception and reaction to Keynes's famous book. The latest post "Standing Room Only" discusses how Keynes gave themed lectures on the topic of the Peace shortly after writing the book. Read More>>

Published on - Wednesday 4th September 2019

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The Centenary Conference on Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace

Cambridge-INET is proud to announce a major conference on Keynes’s 1919 book. The book is celebrated as a brilliant piece of advocacy by one of the 20th century’s pre-eminent economists. This distinguished event will take place at King’s College, Cambridge, on September 9th-10th 2019. See the event website for more details.

Event Date - Monday 9th September 2019 - Tuesday 10th September 2019

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Posthumus Annual Conference - Ogilvie Keynote lecture

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie gives the keynote lecture to launch the Annual N. W. Posthumus Conference in Ghent on 28 May 2019. The theme of this year’s conference is “Institutions and Innovation”. Read More>>

Published on - Monday 27th May 2019

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Centre for the Study of Governance and Society - Podcast and Book Event

The Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King’s College London has organized a podcast and accompanying event on Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie’s book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis. The event takes place on 9 May 2019 in the Department of Political Economy, King's College London, Bush House. Register here to attend.

Published on - Tuesday 7th May 2019

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Ancient History and Economics

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie is in dialogue with Professor Walter Scheidel (Stanford) on “What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?” at the Newell Classics Event. This event is Cambridge’s most prestigious occasion for public-facing classical scholarship, and takes place on the 2nd May 2019 in the Palmerston Room, Fisher Building, St John’s College. Read More>>

Published on - Friday 26th April 2019

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Guilds and Innovation

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will give a Plenary Lecture on “Guilds and Innovation” at the CEPR / Danish Institute for Advanced Study Conference on “Accounting For The Wealth Of Nations: History And Theory”. This event is being hosted by the University of Southern Denmark in Odense on 25-26 April 2019. The full programme can be found here.

Published on - Tuesday 23rd April 2019

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The European Guilds Book Launch

Princeton University Press, the Faculty of Economics and the Cambridge-INET Institute held an event to celebrate the publication of Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie's The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis book. The event took place on 14th March 2019 in the Old Combination Room, Trinity College. See a selection of photographs from the evening.

Published on - Thursday 28th March 2019

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Podcast on The European Guilds

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie has made a podcast on her book, The European Guilds, for the New Books Network, an initiative dedicated to raising the level of public discourse by introducing serious authors to a wide public. You can listen to Sheilagh’ podcast here

Published on - Thursday 21st March 2019

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How Do Bad Institutions Survive? - Public Lecture

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will deliver a public lecture at the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy at the University of Warwick on 28 February 2019. Her lecture addresses a question of concern to economists, historians and legal scholars: “How Do Bad Institutions Survive?”, and presents findings from her new book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis, published on 14 Feb 2019.

Published on - Sunday 10th February 2019

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How Did Pre-Modern Merchants Solve Conflicts?

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie will deliver a public lecture in Frankfurt at the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History on 30 January 2019. Her lecture addresses a question of concern to economists, historians and legal scholars: “How Did Pre-Modern Merchants Solve Conflicts? Public-Order versus Private-Order Institutions”. Read More>>

Published on - Friday 4th January 2019

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European History

Book Launch - The European Guilds, by Sheilagh Ogilvie

Cambridge-INET is holding a launch event for Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie’s book, “The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis”. The launch takes place on 14 March 2019, 5.30-7.00 pm, in the Old Combination Room, Trinity College, Cambridge. Please register your interest here.

Event Date - Thursday 14th March 2019

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The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis

Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie gave the Faculty Research Seminar, presenting the research in her 2019 Princeton University Press book, where she uses economic methods to analyze an institution central to almost every economy in history – the occupational guild. Her talk was entitled ‘The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis’ and was delivered on 1 October 2018.

Published on - Monday 19th November 2018

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Democratic Purges in Post-World War II France Grant

Dr. Toke Aidt in collaboration with colleagues at the Université libre de Bruxelles wins British Academy/ Leverhulme grant to study democratic purges in post-World War II France.

Published on - Wednesday 17th October 2018

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Post-war

International Economic History Association Dissertation Prize

Faculty supervisor and examiner, Charles Read has been awarded a prize by the International Economic History Association (IEHA) for the best dissertation in nineteenth-century economic history Read More>>

Published on - Monday 6th August 2018

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Research Horizons

Prof. Sheilagh Ogilvie's research is featured in the latest University's Research Horizons magazine. Read the article "How 9,000 lists written over 300 years are helping to test theories of economic growth" or download the latest issue of Research Horizons.

Published on - Wednesday 4th July 2018

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Podcast of Professor Gareth Austin's inaugural lecture

In the lectures, Professor Austin describes three 'revolutions' in the study of economic history since 1950 and argues that Economic History needs to re-affirm its position as the intersection set of the disciplines of History and Economics. Podcast of lecture available here.

Published on - Monday 29th January 2018

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Jane Humphries awarded a CBE

Jane Humphries, Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford and former Reader at the Faculty of Economics has been awarded a CBE.

Published on - Thursday 4th January 2018

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CBE