My research explores how social institutions – the formal and informal constraints on economic activity – shaped economic development in Europe between the Middle Ages and the present day. In recent years my publications have analysed guilds, serfdom, communities, the family, gender, human capital investment, consumption, and state capacity.
- Chichele Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford (from 2020)
- University Academic Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (from 2020)
- University Assistant Lecturer (1989-1992); University Lecturer (1992-1999); Reader in Economic History (1999-2004); then Professor of Economic History (2004-2020), Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
- Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge (from 1984 to 1988)
- Postgraduate, University of Chicago (1992)
- Postgraduate, University of Cambridge (1985)
- Undergraduate, University of St Andrews (1979)
- Economic history; institutions; economic growth; human capital; state capacity; demography; gender; guilds; serfdom; merchant associations; consumption; central and eastern Europe
- The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019)
- 'Institutions and Growth in Historical Perspective', in Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth, vol. 2A (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2014), 405-514 [with A. W. Carus]
- 'Does the European Marriage Pattern Explain Economic Growth?', Journal of Economic History 74 (2014): 651-693 [with T. K. Dennison]
- 'Contract Enforcement, Institutions and Social Capital: the Maghribi Traders Reappraised', Economic History Review 65 (2012), 421-444 [with J. S. S. Edwards]
- 'What Lessons for Economic Development Can We Draw from the Champagne Fairs?', Explorations in Economic History 49 (2012), 131-148 [with J. S. S. Edwards]
- Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
- Fellow of the British Academy
- Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research
- Fellow of the Collegium Carolinum
- Fellow of CESifo
- Editor, Bohemia
- Editorial board, Research in Economics
- Editorial board, Historická Demografie
- Editorial board, Paginae historiae
- Academic Advisory Board, WINIR
- International Advisory Board, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
- Board of Trustees, Economic History Association
- Scientific Committee, Datini Institute
- Advisory Board, Network for History in the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Advisory Board, CAGE, University of Warwick
- Advisory Board, Gender and Work Project, University of Uppsala
- Convenor of the M.Sc. and M.Phil. degrees in Economic and Social History
- Coordinator of M.Phil. Core Course 'What Happened and Why'
- Advanced Paper on 'Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective'
- I am happy to supervise Ph.D. students working on my research interests
- Gyorgi Ranki Prize for book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (2021)
- British Academy Wolfson Trust Research Professorship: Human Capital and Economic Outcomes in a European Developing Economy, c.1600-c.1900 (from 2013 to 2016).
- ESRC Major Research Grant: Human Well-Being and the 'Industrious Revolution': Consumption, Gender and Social Capital in a German Developing Economy, 1600- 1900 (from 2008 to 2012).
- British Academy Research Grant: Economic Structures in Early Modern Central Europe: The Czech Lands in the Seventeenth Century (from 2010 to 2011).
- Dame Elizabeth Hill Fund: The Czech Lands in the Seventeenth Century (from 2010 to 2011).
- Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship: Social Capital and History (from 2008 to 2010).
- Stanley Z. Pech Prize for article, "'So That Every Subject Knows How to Behave': Social Disciplining in Early Modern Bohemia" (2008).
- Leverhulme Major Research Grant: Economy, Gender and Social Capital in the German Demographic Transition (from 2005 to 2007).
- René Kuczynski Prize for book, A Bitter Living: Women, Markets and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany (2004).
- Anton Gindely Prize for Research Project on "Social Structures in Bohemia, 1500-1800" (2004).
- British Academy Research Readership: Social Structures in Bohemia, 1500-1700 (from 2000 to 2004).
- Gyorgy Ranki Prize for book, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry (1999).
- Volkswagen Foundation Project Grant: Soziale Strukturen im frühmodernen Böhmen (from 1997 to 2000).