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Our people

Professor Catherine Schenk

BA MA Toronto, MA Oxf, PhD LSE

Biography

After my undergraduate and Masters degrees at University of Toronto in Economics, International Relations and Chinese Studies, I went to the London School of Economics to complete my PhD in Economic History.  Since then I have held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Glasgow.  I have also been visiting professor at Nankai University, China, and Hong Kong University.  Outside academia I have spent time as a visiting researcher at the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, the Bank of England and at the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. I am a Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and Visiting Academic at the Bank of England.

Professor Schenk teaches students in the MSc/MPhil Economic and Social History.

My research focuses on the development of the international economy since 1945 with particular emphasis on the evolution of international banking and finance and the international monetary system.  My current ERC funded-project is GloCoBank, which is charting the development of global correspondent banking from 1870-2000. Follow the project on Twitter @GloCoBank.

My other research focuses on the transitions between international currencies, proposals for reform of the international monetary system in the 1970s and 1980s and the development of international banking and financial regulation.  Finally, I have a special interest in the history of China’s international economic relations through Hong Kong.

Books:

C.R. Schenk, International Economic Relations since 1945, Routledge, 2021.

W. Plumpe, A. Neutzenadel, C.R. Schenk, Deutsche Bank: the Global Hausbank 1870-2020, Bloomsbury, 2020.

C.R. Schenk, Y. Cassis and R. Grossman, eds., Oxford Handbook of Banking and Financial History, Oxford, 2016.

C.R. Schenk, International Economic Relations since 1945, Routledge, 2011.

C.R. Schenk, The Decline of Sterling; managing the retreat of an international currency 1945-1992, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

C.R. Schenk, ed., Hong Kong SAR’s Monetary and Exchange Rate Challenges; historical perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

C.R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: emergence and development 1945-65, London: Routledge, 2001.

C.R. Schenk, Britain and the Sterling Area: From Devaluation to Convertibility, London: Routledge, 1994.

Recent Journal Articles:

C.R. Schenk, 'The global financial crisis and banking regulation: Another turn of the wheel?', Journal of Modern European History, 19(1), 2021.

C.R. Schenk, 'Regulatory foundations of financialisation: May Day, Big Bang and international banking, 1975-1990', Financial History Review, 27(3), 2020.

C.R. Schenk, 'The origins of the Asia dollar market 1968-1986: Regulatory competition and complementarity in Singapore and Hong Kong', Financial History Review, 27(1), 2020.

C.R. Schenk, 'The City and Financial Services: Historical Perspectives on the Brexit Debate', Political Quarterly, 90(52), 2019.

C.R. Schenk, ‘Rogue trading at Lloyds Bank International, 1974: operational risk in volatile markets’, Business History Review, 2017, 91(1), pp. 105-128.

C.R. Schenk, ‘Negotiating Positive Non-Interventionism: Regulating Hong Kong’s Finance Companies 1976-86’, China Quarterly, 230, 2017, pp. 348-370

Positions

  • Professorial Fellow in Economic and Social History

Subjects

  • History

Associations