Uses of the Past in International Economic Relations
St. Hilda’s College
University of Oxford
9-10 May 2019
How do policymakers and economic actors use the past in their decision-making? One of the many exceptional aspects of the global financial crisis of 2008 was the prominence policymakers and commentators gave to the importance of history in helping to determine their response to the crisis. Comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s were a recurrent feature of assessments of the depth and spread of the global financial crisis and reveal the extent to which policymakers sought to ‘learn’ from the past. But how relevant is the past as a guide to the present, or even the future, and how is it used when policymakers, bankers and the public are faced with difficult economic challenges?
The main objective of the conference is to build an understanding of how policymakers and economic actors have used the past as a foundation for their decisions, how they created and discriminated among different interpretations of the past according to their preconceptions, and how they were conditioned by the experiences of their predecessors.
Examples may include (but are not limited to) the development of regulation, the reaction to economic or financial crises, the opening of overseas branches or subsidiaries, and the assessment of the credit-worthiness of customers. We welcome all proposals related to this theme across the 19thand 20thcenturies.
PhD students, early career researchers, and confirmed researchers are invited to submit proposals. Applications should comprise a 1 page abstract/summary and short CV. We have some limited funds to support travel costs and accommodation of speakers.
Please send to: upier@history.ox.ac.uk
For further information please contact Chloe Colchester: upier@history.ox.ac.uk
Deadline for proposals: 25thJanuary 2019
Conference Committee:
- Catherine Schenk (University of Oxford)
- Mary O’Sullivan (Universite de Geneve)
- Mats Larsson (Uppsala University)
- Stefano Battilossi (Carlos III Madrid)
- Emmanuel Mourlon-Druot (University of Glasgow)
The UPIER project is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme 3 Uses of the Past which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, BMBF via DLR-PT, CAS, CNR, DASTI, ETAg, FWF, F.R.S. – FNRS, FWO, FCT, FNR, HAZU, IRC, LMT, MIZS, MINECO, NWO, NCN, RANNÍS, RCN, SNF, & VIAA.
The UPIER project has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649307
Organizational History Network 