About the economic history
Research in economic history is designed to be interdisciplinary at the interface of historical, economic and social science perspectives and methods. They have three main areas of focus, which exhibit diverse interdependencies and overlaps. In all three areas, the focus is on Europe in its diverse internal and external connections and interdependencies, in particular European integration. The main focus is on the 19th and 20th centuries, with particular attention paid to contemporary history since 1945.
Our research
Main research areas
- Networking/Infrastructure/Mobility: We investigate the material and regulatory foundations of mobility and exchange. We are interested in processes of standardization of transport and communication infrastructures and their diverse components.
- Changing political, economic and social orders: Economic, political and social orders are subject to permanent change. We examine these plural orders as formal and informal regulatory systems both in their dynamic changes and in their diverse manifestations.
- Historical interdependencies and path dependencies: We are interested in historically evolved (interdependent) lines of development and path dependencies of economy, technology and politics, which may also not be obvious, but are central to understanding persistence, change and transformation.
Current projects
- PhD project in history (working title: Path dependencies and path changes in the railroad sector). Funded by a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, funding since 2025.
- European Infrastructures: Catalyst or Indicator of Change in European Economic Orders in the Single Market Project of the 1980s/90s? DFG project number 530250049, funding since 2023.
- 'Europe reverse' - Sicily as a laboratory for 'hybrid statehood' in Europe. Volkswagen Foundation in the funding program 'Originality Suspicion', funding since 2021.
- Historical foundations of the mobile society: Path (inter-)dependencies in traffic management and information systems. DFG project number 428256654, funding since 2019.
