Economic History PhD

The London School of Economics and Political Science

The MPhil/PhD is an advanced research degree. You will begin on the MPhil, and will need to meet certain requirements to be upgraded to PhD status. The main objective of this programme is the elaboration of a substantial piece of work that is worthy of publication and which makes an original contribution to the field of economic history.

The Department is home to by far the largest group of researchers in economic history in the UK and one of the largest in the world. This is a pluralistic Department which encourages different approaches to the discipline: quantitative economic history; global history; history of economic thought; historical demography; historical economic geography; international economic history; business history; financial and monetary history; and social history. We also offer a wide chronological and geographical coverage of economic history, with specialists in almost every continent and any historical period from the medieval age onwards. For this reason, the Department is able to supervise a wide range of topics, in line with the research interests of the teaching staff.

We particularly value a comparative outlook on research, and the fruits of our research have been used by international agencies, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, government departments and local communities. Our faculty have included among their research commitments the editorship of The European Review of Economic History and Economic History of Developing Regions.

All our students are expected to gain a broad knowledge of the subject from graduate level course-work in the first year which complements the deeper knowledge gained from intense thesis research. In addition, many of our research students take the opportunity to gain valuable teaching experience on undergraduate courses.