Information for Offer Holders 2024/25

LSE offers a number of scholarships and funding opportunities to its graduate students. 

The Graduate Support Scheme is open to all applicants to all MSc programmes in the Department of Economic History, including double-degree students. The GSS award is means tested and intended to supplement funding already secured.  Values of GSS awards ranges from £5000 to £15,000 depending on financial need.The deadline for application is 25 April 2024, 17:00 (UK time).

The LSE also offers a number of scholarships based on more specific criteria such as programme-related funding or country-based awards. The deadlines for scholarships is also 25 April 2024, 17:00 (UK time) unless otherwise stated.

Further details on fees and funding, including external funding opportunities, are available on the above link.

Many of you will be moving to London in September ahead of commencing your studies. Accomodation can be secured at the halls of residence provided by LSE (or intercollegiate) or private housing.

You have a variety of options to consider so it is worth reviewing accomodation information early on and contacting the dedicated support team for any specific questions.

For international students who require a student visa, it is imperative that you apply and recieve your visa before travelling to join your programme at LSE. To be elligible to apply for a student visa, you must first recieve a CAS number issued to your email automatically by the School from May onwards. This will only be issued once your offer has been made unconditional and you have submitted the Financial Undertaking Form. Please consult the CAS Issuing Policy for further guidance. 

The Student Advice and Engagement Team have created a handbook to guide you through applying for a student visa. 

If you require specialist advice not covered in either of the above documents, you should contact the Student Advice and Engagement Team for support.

You will recieve an email notification when your programme is available for Pre-Enrolment. This is likely to be from mid-August 2024. It is important to complete this step as soon as you can as this will provide you with access to online resources, including your LSE email address, and allow you to download a pre-enrolment pass that permits you temporary access on campus when you first arrive. Consult the Pre-Enrolment FAQ for more information.

Over the Summer, you will be contacted by the Department and asked to complete a short form to indicate your research and study interests. The answers you give on this form will be used to help us allocate you to a member of faculty in the Department who will act as your Academic Mentor and Dissertation Supervisor for the year. 

Their role is to provide you with any academic advice you might need throughout your time in the Department,as well as function as your Dissertation Supervisor. 

You are not expected to have a fully developed dissertation proposal on arrival and we understand that your research interests or intial dissertation ideas may change as you progress through your studies. While this isn't uncommon, we do strongly encourage you to think about your research interests and undertake some preliminary reading sooner rather than later. While we do try to allign student allocation with faculty expertise, please note this is not always possible. 

You will be informed of your Academic Mentor / Dissertation Supervisor in Welcome and they will contact you to introduce themselves for the purposes of arranging an initial meeting in early Autumn Term. 

You will be able to meet with your Acdemic Mentor / Dissertation Supervisor, or any member of faculty at a mutually conveninent time buy arranging an office hours meeting via email or StudentHub.

The programme handbooks for academic year 2024/25 are available below: 

MSc Economic History

MSc Economic History (Research)

MSc Financial History

MSc Global Economic History (Leipzig x LSE Double Degree)

MSc Political Economy of Late Development

Listed below are a number of books which serve as a general introduction to the discipline of Economic History. They may not appear on the reading lists of the courses you actually take but are presented as a starting point.

• Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, London: Profile.
• Allen, R.C. (2009), The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Austin, Gareth M. & Kaoru Sugihara (eds.) Labour-intensive industrialisation in Global History (London: Routledge 2013).
• Baten, Joerg (2016), A History of the Global Economy. Cambridge.
• Broadberry, S. and O’Rourke, K. (eds.) (2010), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Crafts, N.F.R. and Fearon, P. (2013), The Great Depression of the 1930s: Lessons for Today, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Darwin, J. (2007), After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000, London: Allen Lane.
• Engerman, Stanley L. & Kenneth L. Sokoloff Economic Development in the Americas since 1500: endowments and institutions (Cambridge: CUP/NBER 2012).
• Findlay, R. and O’Rourke, K. (2009), Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton Economic History of the Western World), Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Floud, Roderick, Fogel, Robert, Harris, Bernard, and Hong, Sok Chul (2011), The Changing Body: health, nutrition, and human development in the western world since 1700. Cambridge.
• Greif, A. (2006) Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hatcher, J. and Bailey, M (2001), Modelling the Middle Ages: The History and Theory of England’s Economic Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Herschman, Albert O. (2013), The Passions and the Interests: political arguments for capitalism before its triumph. Princeton.
• Hobson, John M. (2021) Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy, Beyond the Western-Centric Frontier. CUP.
• King, Mervyn (2016), The End of Alchemy: money, banking and the future.  Little, Brown.
• Livi-Bacci, Massimo (2012), A Concise History of World Population.  Wiley Blackwell.
• Mackenzie, D (2006), An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
• Morgan, Mary S. (2012), The World in the Model: How Economists Work and Think, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• North, D.C., Wallis, J.J. and Weingast, B. (2009), Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
• Parthasarathi, P. (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Divergence, 1600-1850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Pomeranz, K. (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Reinhart, C.M. and Rogoff, K.S. (2009), This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Rosenthal, J-L and Wong, R. Bin (2011), Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe, Harvard University Press.
• Roy, T. (2012), India in the World Economy: From Antiquity to the Present (New Approaches to Asian History), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Von Glahn, Richard (2016), The Economic History of China from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (CUP)
• Yun-Casalilla, B. and O’Brien, P. (2011), The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History, 1500-1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

For students on the MSc Political Economy of Late Development programme, you are advised to read the following two books prior to starting DV400:

Chang, Ha-joon (2014), Economics: The User's Guide (Penguin)

Kohli, A (2004), State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialisation in the Global Periphery (CUP)

Once you have completed online pre-enrolment, you will be able to complete on-campus registration. Each programme is allocated a slot in Welcome for registration and this will be communicated to you via email in the weeks preceeding arrival. The Registration Team will check your official documents, including passport and visa, if applicable. Please note that documents must be originals. Once you have completed campus enrolment, you will be issued your LSE student card giving you full access to campus teaching and services.

Please try to complete your registration in Welcome as delays to this process can disrupt the start of your studies.

The in-person enrolement schedule for academic year 2024/25 is confirmed below:

MSc Economic History (incl. MSc Global Economic History, LSE-Leipzig Double Degree) (Surnames A-M): Wednesday 25 September, 14:45-15:00, Marshall Building

MSc Economic History (incl. MSc Global Economic History, LSE-Leipzig Double Degree) (Surnames N-Z): Wednesday 25 September, 15:00-15:15, Marshall Building

MSc Economic History (Research): Wednesday 25 September, 15:00-15:15, Marshall Building

MSc Financial History: Wednesday 25 September, 15:15-15:30, Marshall Building

MSc Political Economy of Late Development: Wednesday 25 September, 15:15-15:30, Marshall Building

For full details on registration procedure read the School's Taught Graduate Registration page.

Each MSc programme will have a specific induction meeting in Welcome, led by the Postgraduate Programmes Director, Professor Olivier Accominotti. The inductions will cover the key information about your respective programme and will be followed by a Q&A session. This also gives you the opportunity to meet fellow students on your programme ahead of the start of term.

There will also be a General Induction for all MSc students in the Department of Economic History. This meeting will cover key information relevant to all students on all programmes such as the course selection process, Moodle system, Department events and other information. You will also meet members of faculty as well as representatives from the library, careers, Student Union among others.

Students on the MSc Political Economy of Late Development programme should also attend several induction sessions run by the Department of International Development. Details of these will be communicated via email closer to Welcome Week.

You are expected to attend the induction for your programme and the general induction for all MSc students.

Dates, times and locations for the inductions are detailed below:

MSc Economic History Programme Induction: Wednesday 25 September, 13:00-14:00, CKK 2.04

MSc Economic History (Research) Programme Induction: Wednesday 25 September, 14:00-15:00, CKK 2.09

MSc Financial History Programme Induction: Wednesday 25 September, 10:00-11:00, CKK 2.13

MSc Political Economy of Late Development Programme Induction: Wednesday 25 September, 11:00-12:00, CKK 2.17

MSc Global Economic History Programme Induction: Wedensday 25 September, 15:00-16:00, CKK 2.09

General MSc Induction: Thursday 26 September, 14:00-16:00, CLM 3.02

A campus map can be found here.

Our Departmental Welcome Reception for all new students will take place following the General MSc Induction. We invite you to join faculty and your peers for a fun and informal evening of socialising. Details on this year's event will be communicated closer to the time.

In the weeks preceeding Welcome, you should look at the courses available to your programme and think about which of these you'd like to take as option courses. The amount of option courses you are eligibile to take, and the selection available to you, will differ based on your specific programme. Consult your programme regulations on the LSE Calendar to find out which courses are available to you. 

You can see which courses in the Department of Economic History are available in 2024/25 on the Index of Courses. You can find detailed information on course content, including indicative readings, teaching structure and assessment formats, on the Graduate Course Guides - Please note that the Calendar is for current academic year 2023/24 and will be updated in the Summer for the 2024/25 academic year. Information on the current Calendar applies to 2023/24 year only.

The course selection process is carried out via your LSE For You account, under the 'Graduate Course Choice' option. The system will be switched on for student browsing in early Welcome and available for sign-up from TBC. Please note that different Departments have different course selection deadlines. The Department of Economic History course selection deadline will be confirmed in due course. For students on programmes which require courses outside of our Department, we will confirm these deadlines closer to the time.

Full guidance on the course selection process will be available in the inductions mentioned above.

As an LSE student, you have the opportunity to utilise a number of libraries across London, not just the library on campus!

At the start of the term, the teams at the Senate House and Insitutue of Historical Research libraries will host an induction to introduce you to the resources and services you will have access to during your studies at LSE.

Details will be communicated via email and available here when finalised.

There is no requirement to inform the School about any disabilities you may have, however, informing the Student Wellbeing Team early on will allow us to put reasonable adjustments in place to support you throughout your studies, in-class as well as for assessments. If you'd like more details on support available to students, access the My Adjustments guidance page and make an appointment to meet with a Wellbeing Advisor. 

Outside of the classroom, you will find much of your course content such as reading lists, lecture slides, and assessment submission portals on an online platform called Moodle.

Here you will be able to access Moodle pages for every course you are enrolled on, simply by searching for the course code or title.

You can also access the following:

Economic History MSc Students Information Page

Economic History MSc Dissertations Information Page

Please note that you will need a valid LSE login to access Moodle.

LSE Careers is here to guide and support you throughout your time at LSE. They offer an extensive service to help at every stage of the career process, from thinking about your career options for the first time to applying for jobs and securing offers. They also provide opportunities where you can meet, network, and learn from employers and alumni from different sectors and industries.

As a student at LSE, the Laguage Centre offers you the opportunity to take a non-degree langauge course alongside your programme studies.

These short courses are available in nine different languages and details on how to register can be found on the above link. Should you enrol on one of these courses, the Department of Economic History will reimburse up to 50% of the cost upon proof of succesful completition.

If you are seeking support for your English-language skills, the Language Centre offers numerous free workshops and courses including English for Academic Writing.