The Centre for Global Economic History (CGEH) is the platform for pioneering research into the long term evolution of the world economy and its components at Utrecht University. The key themes of research are institutions, economic growth and inequality – and one of the main objectives is to attempt to quantify the long term changes in the world economy in order to more carefully test theories from social sciences about the causes behind the wealth and poverty of nations. (click here for our mission statement)
Its activities include:
- weekly seminars on global economic history (programme);
- conferences on important new themes in this field, including the XVth World Economic History Congress (2009), involvement in the XVIth WEHC (2012) Stellenbosch and the upcoming WEHC in Kyoto (2015);
- various project on the collection and standardization of large datasets on global economic development, amongst others the research-infrastructure project CLIO INFRA;
- exchange of students and scholars working in this field;
- the Brill series on Global Economic History, edited by Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden;
- a series of working papers on global economic history;
This website also acts as a host for a number of project hubs: Early Economies, Human Capital, Eastern European Economic History, Corporate Networks and Institutions
The CGEH is linked to the Global Economic History Network (GEHN) organized by Patrick O’Brien (LSE). The organizing committee consists of: Bas van Bavel, Sarah Carmichael, Tine De Moor, Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden (chair).
