Economic History

Overview

This module covers various topics in the economic history of the world across the last 500 years. It is intended to complement other final year modules; accordingly it emphasises the application of microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, and qualitative and quantitative methods, to solve historical puzzles. On completion, students should be able to consider how economic reasoning can be used to explain both major historical events and long-run historical processes. Applied economics which uses historical data is also considered in this module. Tutorials concentrate on the in-depth discussion of landmark papers, especially in the New Economic History tradition, and on country-specific material, especially on Britain and Ireland.

Topics may include: population dynamics and the Demographic Transition; the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence; the origins of financial capitalism; famine and migration in Ireland; slavery, discrimination and American capitalism; command economies and the Soviet Union; macroeconomic policy and the Great Depression; European integration, British decline, and Irish divergence.

Learning Objectives

Module Aims

1. To acquaint students at an advanced undergraduate level with the fields of economic history and historical economics.
2. To help students to appreciate the usefulness of historical enquiry within economics and the broader social sciences.
3. To develop students' understanding of important themes within economics, such as demographic transition, industrialisation, competing economic systems, and economic crises.
4. To provide students with an awareness of current academic debates in the field of economic history, including its major sub-fields business history and financial history.
5. To develop students' ability to critically read academic articles, interpret data, weigh evidence and draw conclusions from a range of sources, both quantitative and qualitative.
6. To provide students with the requisite skills to identify and frame independent research.

Skills

Intellectual Skills:
Students should understand the relationship between historical evidence and economic/quantitative reasoning. They should be able to use objective arguments, to weigh evidence and draw up conclusions based on narrative and empirical analyses.

Practical Skills:
Besides gaining an awareness of how economics can be used practically to better understand of the wealth and poverty of nations, students will also develop their oral and written communication skills. The skillset acquired by students in this module is particularly useful for those intending to pursue undergraduate research (e.g. a dissertation) or postgraduate study in economics or related disciplines, for those wishing to work as a consultant or civil servant, or more widely for those intending to pursue careers that require problem-solving and independent research skills.

Assessment

Students must achieve an overall mark of 40% in the module to pass