Prof Dimitrios Vayanos and Dr Jean-Pierre Zigrand

This course is compulsory on the BSc in Finance. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

This course will cover the historical development of financial markets and institutions. The topics include the historical evolution of banks, central banks, and bank regulation, the evolution of financial exchanges and their regulation, financial crises, and the role of finance in long-run economic development. Economic theory and models will be used to explain key concepts of the course.

33 hours of seminars in the MT.

This course is taught in the interactive lecturing format. There is no distinction between lectures and classes/seminars; there are “sessions” only, and the pedagogical approach in each session is interactive.

Students will be expected to produce a number of problem sets in the MT.

1. Unsettled Account, by Richard Grossman

2. Manias, Panics and Crashes, by Charles Kindleberger

3. A Financial History of Western Europe, by Charles Kindleberger

In class assessment (100%) in the MT.

Two in-class assessments (30% and 70%) in the MT; one in Week 6 and one at the end of term.