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The centre of excellence in policy-relevant
historical research in Ireland

The multidisciplinary field of economic history combines theories and methods from economics to answer historical questions about the long-run development of society. 

The Centre for Economics, Policy and History combines economics with history to address global challenges, building a durable research and teaching infrastructure, and engaging in targeted outreach activities. We aim to play a leading role in contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

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News feed

CEPH's comments on proposed changes to Leaving Certificate economics curriculum in Ireland
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) advises the Minister for Education and Youth on curriculum and assessment for early childhood education, for primary and post-primary schools. As part of the broader redevelopment of senior cycle, it is envisaged that a revised specification for...
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CEPH Job Market Candidates
CEPH is excited to bring you our new database of Postdoctoral Research Fellows and PhD Candidates who are entering the job market. Capacity building and fostering a pipeline of new economic historians is one of the central objectives of the Centre, and these new researchers represent the cutting edge...
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Bringing learnings from Ireland to Cyprus
On Friday, October 3, CEPH Associate Director of Research Dr. Marvin Suesse participated in a panel discussion as part of the Cyprus Forum 2025, an annual discussion of Cypriot issues featuring diplomats, policymakers, academics and politicians. The panel, titled “Bridging the divide: The future...
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CEPH Hosts "The CEO: Examining Executive Impact on Business Performance"
On September 18th 2025, CEPH, in association with the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, hosted CEPH Director John Turner and CEPH Associate Michael Aldous as they presented a public talk titled The CEO: Examining Executive Impact on Business Performance. This talk was based on their new book...
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Marvin Suesse wins prestigious Peter Lindert-Jeffrey Williamson Prize
CEPH Associate Director of Research, Prof. Marvin Suesse, has been awarded the Peter Lindert-Jeffrey Williamson Prize for his 2023 book The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism, 1776–Present. The Peter Lindert-Jeffrey Williamson Prize is awarded by the Economic History Association...
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New teaching resource uses economic history to provide critical thinking skills to students
Political conflict is high on the world news agenda with rising participation in protests against government policy and unethical practices. A new series of video resources for schools produced by Discover Economics, the Centre for Economics, Policy and History (CEPH), and the CAGE Research Centre, show...
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Upcoming Events

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17/02/2026

17/02/2026 David Cuberes – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

David Cuberes
Maynooth University
Details

19/02/2026

19/02/2026 Kevin O’Rourke – The Alice Murray Distinguished Scholar Lecture

Kevin O'Rourke
Science Po
Details

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20/02/2026

20/02/2026 Kevin O’Rourke – QUCEH Seminar Series

Kevin O'Rourke
Sciences Po
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27/02/2026

27/02/2026 Lars Boerner – QUCEH Seminar Series

Lars Boerner
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
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,

10/03/2026

10/03/2026 Antoine Bertheau – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

Antoine Bertheau
Banque de France & Sciences Po
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13/03/2026

13/03/2026 Marlous van Waijenburg – QUCEH Seminar Series

Marlous van Waijenburg
Harvard Business School
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24/03/2026

24/03/2026 Victoria Gierok – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

Victoria Gierok
University of Oxford
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31/03/2026

31/03/2026 Cédric Chambru – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

Cédric Chambru
École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon)
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07/04/2026

07/04/2026 Nikita Sangwan – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

Nikita Sangwan
Queen's University Belfast
Details

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12/05/2026

12/05/2026 Marc Flandreau – TCD Department of Economics Seminar Series

Marc Flandreau
University of Pennsylvania
Details
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Latest research

Public good or public bad? Nation-building and Indigenous institutions
Abstract: While existing evidence shows that nation-building policies unify societies, little is known about how and what makes some societal groups to resist them. We examine this in the context of the post-Mexican Revolution (1920s–1950s), when the new state implemented a nation-building policy to...
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Devaluation, Exports, and Recovery from the Great Depression
Abstract: This paper evaluates how a major policy shift—the suspension of the gold standard in September 1931—affected employment outcomes in interwar Britain. We use a new high-frequency industry-level dataset and difference-in-differences techniques to isolate the impact of devaluation on exporters....
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Histories That Matter: The Case for Applied Economic History
Abstract: We define applied economic history as the systematic use of historical reasoning to address economic policy problems. Building on work in applied history, we argue that economic history contributes to policy not by offering ready-made lessons, but by disciplining the narratives and analogies...
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The Aftermath of Sovereign Debt Crises: A Narrative Approach
Abstract: This paper investigates the causal effects of sovereign debt crises in a sample of 50 defaulting economies between 1870 and 2010. As default is potentially endogenous, we use the narrative approach to identify plausibly exogenous episodes. We find economically and statistically significant...
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Applied Economic History as Practical Historicism: Encouraging Policymakers to Reason with the Past
Abstract: This paper examines how applied history can contribute to policymaking when understood as a way of structuring judgement under uncertainty rather than as a source of policy lessons or predictions. It argues that economic history is particularly well suited to facilitating this role because...
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Crowd-sourced Chinese genealogies as data for demographic and economic history
Abstract: This paper evaluates the usefulness of crowd-sourced Chinese genealogical data for quantitative research in demography and economic history. I first examine whether genealogies — despite well-known selection biases — produce demographic patterns consistent with established historical knowledge...
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Financing Late Industrialization: Evidence from the State Bank of the Russian Empire
Abstract: Gerschenkron (1962) argued that public institutions such as the State Bank of the Russian Empire spurred the country’s industrialization. We test this assertion by exploiting plant-level variation in access to State Bank branches using a unique geocoded factory data set. Employing an identification...
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On the persistence of persistence: Lessons from long-term trends in African Institutions
Abstract: An influential strand of literature within economics and economic history called ‘persistence studies’ argues that low material living standards in African countries today were determined by institutional choices made in the past. However, the lack of consistent annual data on GDP per capita...
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Urban Accounting and Welfare in Spain
Abstract: This paper uses a novel dataset and the general equilibrium model in Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg (2013) to analyze the Spanish city size distribution, which is driven by three city-specific characteristics: productivity, amenities, and frictions. Counterfactual simulations show that removing...
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Life, death, and Irish statistics: Recovering Ireland’s civil registration statistics, 1864-1920
Abstract: Civil registration of vital statistics was introduced in Ireland in 1864, yet historians have often viewed the resulting data as unreliable due to weak incentives for compliance and uneven administrative capacity. This paper reassesses the performance of Ireland’s vital registration system...
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