Lecturer in Modern Economic HistoryEmail: K.E.Watson@bham.ac.uk |
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Katherine Watson is a lecturer in the Department of Modern History, specialising in modern Economic History.
My main interests lie in the economic development of Britain since the mid-nineteenth century, focusing primarily on institutional constraints to economic progress. I also have an interest in issues relating to distribution and social justice.
I have worked on the development of capital markets in Britain and sought to analyse the constraints financial services have placed on economic growth via individual industry case-studies (such as the brewing and iron and steel industries).
More recently I have focused on issues relating to education in Britain, including an assessment of the motivations for policy change, the determination of policy objectives, and an attempt to analyse the effectiveness of education policy from an economic and social perspective.
My teaching interests have varied widely over the years and have included courses in the history of economic thought, labour economic history, industrial finance, industrialisation, international economic development, quantitative, statistical and research methods for historians, as well as modules in economics and philosophy, and in economic theory at an introductory level. More recently, my teaching has focused on the following areas:
Undergraduate
Level 1
Economic History of Modern Britain c. 1870s-1990s.
Research Seminars: ‘Bog Standard Britain’: the challenges facing British education since 1944
Poverty and Progress
Level 2
Optional Unit: Economic Transformation of America
Group Research: The General Strike in Birmingham
Slavery and Economic Development
Level 3
Special Subject: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: Welfare policy in Britain since the1830s.
Reviewing History: Slavery and Emancipation
Economic Decline
Postgraduate
Contributions to historical methodologies module.
I’m happy to supervise post-graduates keen to work in the area of British industrial finance and economic development since 1870 specifically, but also those interested in more modern institutional constraints in Britain related to public policy questions more generally.
I am currently a member of the Economic History Society Council and have been a member of the Society’s Schools and Colleges Committee for some years. I also represent the Economic History Society on the History management committee of the Higher Education Academy’s History, Archaeology and Classics subject centre and on the ESRC data archive advisory committee.
‘Britain’s Financial Services Sector Since 1945’ in P. Johnson and R. Floud (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, volume 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
‘Funding Enterprise: the finance of British industry during the nineteenth century’, Enterprise et Histoire (22), 1999, pp.31-54 [ISSN 1161-27701]
‘Economic Evaluation of Health Care’, ch.8 in C. Jenkinson (ed.), Assessment and Evaluation of Health and Medical Care, Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997, pp. 129-150. [ISBN 0-335-19705-1]
‘Banks and Industrial Finance: the Experience of Brewers, 1770-1913' Economic History Review (XLIX, 1), 1996, pp.58-81 [ISSN 0013-0017]
‘The New Issue Market as a Source of Finance for the U.K. Brewing and Iron and Steel Industries, 1870-1913’, ch.10 in Y. Cassis, G. Feldman and U. Olsson (eds.), The Evolution of Financial Institutions and Markets in Twentieth-Century Europe London: Scolar Press, 1995, pp.209-48. [ISBN 1-85928-127-3]
Charles Feinstein and K. Watson, ‘Private International Capital Flows in Europe in the Interwar Period’, ch.3 in C.H. Feinstein (ed.) Banking, Currency and Finance in Europe between the Wars Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp.94-130. {ISBN 0-19-828803-4]
