BSc Economics with History

A proper understanding of economics requires historical perspective. The rationalist structure of modern economic theory is a powerful explanatory tool and is of universal significance – but the importance of the institutional context is often overlooked. If the reality of scarcity, the exercise of choice and the inescapable nature of opportunity cost are timeless and universal, the social mechanisms, laws, conventions and institutions within which individual and collective choices are made evolve continuously. In his book Structure and Change in Economic History (1981) the recent Nobel Prize winner in economics (Douglas North) wrote that ‘for long enough periods of time to be crucial to the historian, human culture produces diverse, conflicting, and inefficient solutions’ (p.7).The degree programme in Economics with History enables students to develop a fuller appreciation of the forces of economic change. It balances the ‘universalist’ assumptions of the economist with the ‘particularist’ approach of the historian and helps those who have had little previous acquaintance with economics to understand economic theories through the study of historical examples. Thus, students will be better able to use economic theory and to assess economic policy in ways that take into consideration the differing time paths of legal, political and cultural inheritance. It will be of particular interest to those wishing to pursue careers in public policy, international agencies, journalism or education.