Theory and practice in economic history

• Department of History

Workshop organized byt the Economic History Workgin Group featuring a presentation by Prof Gerardo Serra (University of Manchester)

The 'decade of financial crises', as Adam Tooze describes the years after 2008, has rocked the certainty of much economic orthodoxy developed over the course of the 20th century. The decade following the crash produced extensive scholarship from authors like Melinda Cooper or Quinn Slobodian on the role of neoliberal economic thought in creating the conditions for crisis. Academic research has since brought the relationship between economic theorising and the reality of markets under greater scrutiny. The history of economic ideas plays an important role in this growing critical examination.

We will be discussing the relationship between the history of economic ideas and economic structures with guest speaker Gerardo Serra. He is a Senior Lecturer in Economic Cultures at the University of Manchester and a historian of 20th-century West Africa focusing on the political lives of economic and statistical knowledge. We will focus on two texts, Donald Mackenzie's book 'An Engine, not a camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets' (chapter 1: Performing Theory?) and Mary O'Sullivan's article 'History as heresy: unlearning the lessons of economic orthodoxy.'

Please register to get a seat or to receive the ZOOM link

Image credits: The New York Stock Exchange, Library of Congress LC-HS503- 5530