Study

Financial History is taught in a number of courses across the undergraduate programme.  These courses are available to all students on the BSc Economic History, BSc Economics and Economic History, and BSc Economic History and Geography programmes. Some of them are available to outside option students and general course students as well. Note that not all courses are taught every year, so you will need to check LSE's course listing (the calendar) to see whether the courses are available in a given academic year.

Key courses:

EH204: Money and Finance: From the Middle Ages to Modernity
This course provides an overview of the main developments in monetary and financial history from 800 to the present day, taking the students from the simple beginnings of medieval European monetary history to the complex financial arrangements of the modern world. 

EH306: Monetary and Financial History Since 1750
This course examines major developments on financial markets from the late 18th century to the most recent financial crises of the 21^st century with a focus on the following questions: What factors drive capital market integration in the long-run? Why do financial crises arise and how should they be solved? How do institutions and policies influence the process of financial globalisation and the outcome of financial crises? 

EH326: Innovation and its Finance in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries
The course explores the relationship between innovation and the financing of it in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the impact on economic growth and how policy makers managed (or failed) to encourage innovation investment and technology adoption. 

EC204: Financial Markets and the Global Economy: the History of Bubbles, Crashes and Inflations
This course introduces students to the long run evolution of financial markets and to the history of monetary policy and financial crises. Covering the two waves of financial globalisation (1880-1914 and 1980-2008), as well as the de-globalisation of finance after the Great Depression, the course unpacks some of the most significant questions in economic and financial history. Looking through the lens of history, this course will develop your critical thinking and analysis skills. By engaging with the material, you will take away a strong understanding of how institutional and political factors shape the process of financial globalisation and of how the structure of the international monetary system affects the conduct of monetary policy and the response to financial crises.

MSc Financial History

This unique dedicated master programme provides students with a historical and interdisciplinary perspective on the main challenges facing the global monetary and financial system and capital markets. The programme allows students from various academic backgrounds (history, finance, economics or any related discipline) to acquire a deep understanding of the functioning of capital markets and of the conduct of monetary affairs through a historical approach.

Key courses:

EH430: Monetary and Financial History
This course offers an opportunity to analyse the evolution of the role of money and finance in Western economies over centuries, from the Middle Ages to the 2000s and addresses the following questions: Where does money come from? How did financial markets first develop and integrate? What has been the impact of financial markets on economic development, growth, and business cycle fluctuations? When did financial crises first arise, and how did they develop in the twentieth century, up to the subprime and Euro crises of 2008-2015? 

EH437: History of Global Finance
This course introduces students to the history of the global monetary and financial system. It examines the main changes in the architecture of global finance and in the governance of international monetary affairs from the very early times to the twenty-first century. The course explores the rise of international finance, the origins of financial globalization and de-globalization, and the causes and consequences of global financial instability for both advanced and emerging market economies. 

EH438: History of Financial Markets
This course explores the historical evolution of financial markets from the early times to the present. It covers the emergence of major stock exchanges in the early modern period, the emergence of markets for sovereign debt from the 18th to the 20th century as well as episodes of bubbles, crises and crashes on these markets. 

EH439: History of Banking Systems
This course introduces students to problematics around the history of banking. It explores the rise of financial intermediaries and how their role evolved over centuries as well as historical episodes of banking failures and panics and their resolution. 

EH443: History of Pre-Modern Money
This course examines European monetary and financial policies up to the early eighteenth centuries. It takes students from the simple beginnings of European monetary history to the more complex arrangements that emerged toward the end of the early modern age and discusses how money and finance influenced the wider economy. 

EH449: History of Corporate Finance and Institutional Investment
This course provides students with an understanding of how some of the major features of modern finance emerged from the 19th century onwards with a particular focus on how firms have used modern capital markets and on the historical development of institutional investors.