Economic History

Overview

About the programme

The Department is home to by far the largest group of researchers in economic history in the UK and one of the largest in the world. This is a pluralistic Department which encourages different approaches to the discipline: quantitative economic history; global history; history of economic thought; historical demography; historical economic geography; international economic history; business history; financial and monetary history; and social history. We also offer a wide chronological and geographical coverage of economic history, with specialists in almost every continent and any historical period from the medieval age onwards. For this reason, the Department is able to supervise a wide range of topics, in line with the research interests of the teaching staff.

We particularly value a comparative outlook on research, and the fruits of our research have been used by international agencies, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, government departments and local communities. Our faculty have included among their research commitments the editorship of The European Review of Economic History and Economic History of Developing Regions.

All the students in the Economic History programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science are expected to gain a broad knowledge of the subject from graduate level course-work in the first year which complements the deeper knowledge gained from intense thesis research. In addition, many of our research students take the opportunity to gain valuable teaching experience on undergraduate courses.