Welcome to Queen's University Centre for Economic History

Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH) is an interdisciplinary research centre based at Queen's University Belfast. Hosted by Queen's University Management School (QUMS), the centre brings together faculty and graduate students working on the economic study of the past from across the university and elsewhere. QUCEH's mission is to support its members by coordinating research projects, providing a forum for interdisciplinary discussion, hosting regular research workshops with invited speakers, and providing graduate training to the next generation of economic historians.  

Announcements

Job Openings at Queen's

Queen's University Management School is looking to hire at all levels and in all fields in economics and finance. Please see job advertisement for more information.

Call for Papers

QUCEH is hosting a New Scholars Workshop on 16 April 2014 in conjunction with the European Association for Banking and Financial History. The full call for papers is found here. 

ESHSI Annual Conference

The programme for this year's ESHSI annual conference, to be held in Galway, is available online. 

Recent research by QUCEH members

  • Why did imitations of Raiffeisen’s rural cooperative savings and loans associations work well in some European countries, but fail in others? Chris Colvin and Eoin McLaughlin answer this question with a comparative study of Ireland and the Netherlands, available in Early View at the Economic History Review.
  • In a new article to be published in the Journal of Economic History in September 2013, Christopher Coyle and John Turner examine the role of creditor protection in the development of the UK corporate bond market and find that law does not explain the variation in the size of this market over time.
  • How can interlocking directorates cause financial instability for universal banks? A detailed history of the Rotterdamsche Bankvereeninging in the 1920s by Chris Colvin, published in the journal Business History in June 2013, answers this question in a case study.
  • Matthias Beck's new monograph, The Elusive Search for Job Security: A Historical Inquiry into Dismissals in the United States Workplace, explains the historical reasons for American exceptionalism with regards to the legal protection of workers. The book, which is a mixture of business, legal and economic history, looks at the linkages between disorganised labour and the long-run success of American capitalism.
  • John Turner's new article introducing a special issue of Business History on the law and finance hypothesis in history, co-edited with Aldo Musacchio (HBS), is available on Early View.
  • Gareth Campbell's study of the 1840s railway mania, 'Deriving the Railway Mania', is now available on Early View in the Financial History Review. Gareth explains how derivative-like assets allowed investors to take highly leveraged positions in the shares of new railway companies. This increased investor returns in the upswing, and put additional negative pressure on prices in the downturn, amplifying the mania.
  • 'Predicting the Past: Understanding the Causes of Bank Distress in the Netherlands in the 1920s', a working paper co-authored by Chris Colvin, analyses the consequences of the Dutch financial crisis of the 1920s for 143 banks, of which 37 failed. The paper finds that banks which chose to adopt shareholder liability regimes with unpaid capital were more likely to experience distress, but could mitigate this risk by keeping higher portions of their equity unpaid.
  • 'Why Do Firms Pay Dividends?: Evidence from an Early and Unregulated Capital Market', a new article by John Turner, Qing Ye and Wenwen Zhan available on Early View in the Review of Finance, explains why firms paid dividends to shareholders in the mid-nineteenth century London, when tax rates were effectively zero, the capital market was unregulated, and there were no institutional stockholders.
  • Ulster Since 1600, a new book co-edited by Liam Kennedy and published by OUP, has a chapter on industry and labour in Northern Ireland since 1945 written by Graham Brownlow, in which he argues that Northern Ireland's poor post-war performance cannot be blamed solely on the Troubles.

More research by QUCEH members