Teaching philosophy

I trained as both an economist and a historian because I think it is important to connect the present with the past in order to understand the context in which economic decisions are made.

I teach economics to my students as a policy science, as a means of getting them to think about how and why the world around them works in the way it does, and how it can be improved. This involves providing them with the long view, so they can better appreciate in which ways society has change over time, and in which ways it has remained the same.​

Listen to my podcast interview with ‪Seán Kenny, where I discuss my views on the purpose of economic history for economists.

Pedagogical reform

Economists need economic history, but they aren't typically getting much of it in their university training. This is because their professors were themselves never taught it. I lead a pedagogical research project to develop new teaching and learning material aimed at solving this problem. Find out more about the project in an op-ed I wrote for QPol, and a podcast interview for Palgrave Macmillan.

Economic history can be taught as a stand-alone module, or by embedding it within other economics field courses. The latter is the way "non-economic historians" can more easily engage with my field. An Economist's Guide to Economic History (Palgrave Macmillan, Dec. 2018) contains our specially-developed economic history teaching material, and can be used in both pedagogical approaches.  

With Graham Brownlow, I have an article in Advances in Economics Education (December 2025) that looks at how economic history can be incorporated into economics teaching in the UK context.

Promotional video for An Economist's Guide to Economic History produced by Econ Films.
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