St Hilda's College
The Trinity Term Research Seminar in Economic and Social History hosted by St. Hilda’s College was extremely successful, attracting c. 40 participants each week to the Vernon Harcourt Room to discuss a range of topics from various approaches to understanding financial markets to intergenerational social mobility and legal innovation. The papers stretched from early modern to late 20th century topics in economic and social history and were presented by speakers from the USA and the UK. Particular highlights included: Helene Rey’s (Member of the Haut Conseil de Stabilité Financière) hugely ambitious paper seeking to use novel computational methods with historical data to predict financial crises and Niall Fergusson (since knighted in the dissolution honours list) who returned to Oxford to present his work on central bank balance sheets over the long term. He was particularly pleased to see some of his former tutors in the audience.
The seminar’s participants included seasoned Oxford Emeritus academics, senior members from across the University, affiliated academics from London and the Oxford area, as well as Oxford undergraduate and postgraduate students, who all appreciated the opportunity to discuss the papers informally after the seminar with refreshments. In early May the seminar was treated to a diversion to the Tower Suite and were impressed by the extraordinary views from the College. St. Hilda’s also provided space for early career researchers and graduate students to meet one-on-one with the speaker in scheduled sessions before the seminar. The dinners arranged after the seminar were stimulating and the menus were highly praised by our visitors. Each dinner included a mixture of senior and junior members of the University (including from St. Hilda’s) who had a further opportunity to present their own research ideas and discuss with our visiting speakers. This is a unique format for the Economic and Social History Research Seminar, which is not offered at other colleges who host the seminar in the other terms (Nuffield and All Souls). The dinner has become a very popular and valued part of the weekly meetings and naturally demonstrates the collegial intellectual spirit of St. Hilda’s.
Particular thanks go out to the Events Team and Catering for showing off the college so well, and to Dr. Manuel Bautista-Gonzalez for his extremely able assistance in the weekly organization. We look forward to welcoming the economic and social history community back to St. Hilda’s next year and to suggestions for speakers from the St. Hilda’s community.
Professorial Fellow, St. Hilda’s College
Timetable:
Trinity Term: Vernon Harcourt Room, St. Hilda’s College
Tuesdays 5pm – 7pm (in person only)
30 April Katherine Erickson (University of California, Davis)
Marriage and the Intergenerational Mobility of Women: Evidence from Marriage Certificates 1850-1920
7 May: Helene Rey (London Business School)
Is this Time Different? Financial Follies across Centuries (with Jeremy Fouliard and Vania Stavrakeva)
14 May: Sean Vanatta (University of Glasgow)
Imperial Bonding: The Growth, Demise, and Reformulation of Financial Networks in the Interwar Atlantic
21 May: Niall Fergusson (Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
The Safety Net: central bank balance sheets and financial crisis 1587-2020 (with Martin Kornejew, Paul Schmelzing, Moritz Schularick)
28 May: Eric Hilt (Wellesley College)
The Value of Ratings: Evidence from their Introduction in Securities Markets (with Asaf Bernstein, Carola Frydman)
4 June: Peter Murrell (University of Maryland)
Recombinant novelty in early-modern English caselaw (with Peter Grajzl)
11 June: Patrick Wallis (London School of Economics)
How many jobs? Division of labour in early modern England and Wales (with David Chilosi, Giampaolo Lecce)