Chris Colvin

Appointments:
Reader in Economic History, Department of Economics
Research Associate, Centre for Economic History (QUCEH) 
Associate Fellow, Institute of Irish Studies

Leadership roles:
Co-Director, Centre for Economic History (QUCEH)
Director of Outreach, Centre for Economics, Policy and History (CEPH)

Professional service:
Associate, The Economics Network
Co-Editor, Business History 
Editorial board member, Economics Observatory 
Editor, QUCEH Working Paper Series

External links:
Full academic CV
Personal website 
QUB Find an Expert profile

Chris Colvin's research spans the field of economic history, including topics in business history, financial history and demographic history.

His recent publications are about monetary policymaking during the Great Depression, the origins of cooperative banks, and population dynamics following the Great Irish Famine and the Spanish flu pandemic.

He is currently working on explaining the decline in use of the Irish language in the nineteenth century, the financing of innovative firms in Britain in the early twentieth century, and business termination decisions in the Netherlands across the twentieth century. 

Besides his disciplinary research, Chris is also interested in pedagogical scholarship. He explores ways of integrating historical perspectives into economics teaching and continual professional development courses.

• Economics: banking and financial institutions; cooperative enterprises; business failure; patent system design; government policymaking processes; economics of religion; demographic change; anthropometrics
• History: economic history; business history; financial history; demographic history; famines; pandemics; measurement
• Geographic expertise: the Netherlands in the interwar period; post-Famine Ireland
• Pedagogical expertise: curriculum and syllabus design; research-led teaching practices

Chris holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol, and an MSc and PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching at Queen's University Belfast. He is an Associate of the Economics Network, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Before joining Queen's in 2012, Chris was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. He has spent time as a visiting fellow at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of California at Davis, and Utrecht University. In 2019 he was a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Amsterdam.

Current teaching duties:

• ECO3020 Economic History (level-3 undergraduate economics module)

Current PhD students:

• Paudie McKee, as assistant supervisor (supporting Daniel Borbely and David Jordan)
• Malte Hinrichs, as co-supervisor (with Alan Fernihough)
• Yibin Liu, as co-supervisor (with John Turner)
• Kyle Richmond, as primary supervisor (second supervisors: Stephen Billington and Graham Brownlow)
• Pallavi Singh, as second supervisor (primary supervisor: Michael Aldous)