Dr. Lars Boerner STC.S486

This course is available on the MA Global Studies: A European Perspective, MSc in Accounting, Organisations and Institutions, MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research) and MSc in Global History. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

There are no prerequisites, but an interest in business and economic development are advantageous.

This course explores the evolution and variation of the conditions under which business has operated in different parts of the world. It concentrates on but is not exclusively concerned with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is not an "MBA" course, in that it does not look at the specific decisions of specific firms, but rather looks at the environments in which industries have operated in different periods and places in history.

4 hours of lectures, 6 hours of lectures and 8 hours of seminars in the MT. 2 hours of lectures in the LT.

The course is taught in the autumn term. Students receive 10 hours of lectures, 8 one hour classes, and a two hour revision session. The lectures will consist of two two hour lectures in weeks one and two, and then 6 one hour lectures in weeks three to eight. The eight classes will take place in weeks 3 to 10. The two hour revision session will take place in the middle of the spring term.

Students are expected to produce one essay during the term and to sit a mock examination paper over the Christmas vacation.

Readings include, S Broadberry, Productivity Race; Y Cassis, Big business: European Perspective; J Kay, Foundations of Corporate Success; N Lamoreaux & D Raff (Eds), Co-ordination and Information; M G Blackford, The Rise of Modern Business in GB, US and Japan; R Reich The Work of Nations; O Williamson 'The Modern Corporation: Origins, evolution, attributes' Journal of Economic Literature 1981; Porter, M The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Harvard Business Review 1990, CK Harley 'Substitution for prerequisites: endogenous institutions and comparative economic history' in R Sylla and G Toniolo Patterns of European Industrialisation: the nineteenth century.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.

Survey questions on feedback to students may be non-informative because assessed work comes later in the term than the survey.