In the last months of 2019, the Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity initiative will host three lunch seminars. Academics from various fields of research will speak about interesting and relevant topics related to inclusive prosperity. During the seminar, a free sandwich lunch will be provided by the initiative. In order to have enough sandwiches and keep spillage to a minimum, registration is required. Our first speaker will be economic historian; Professor Oscar Gelderblom.
- Date
- Thursday 7 Nov 2019, 11:45 - 12:45
- Type
- Seminar
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- 1-08
- Building
- Polak Building
- Location
- Campus Woudestein
Oscar Gelderblom (1971) is an economic historian whose main research interest is the history of finance and trade. His publications deal with the organization of long-distance trade, private and public finance, entrepreneurship, migration, political economy, and, last but not least, cleanliness. His current work is on household finance in the twentieth century, the formative years of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and the evolution of financial markets in the Low Countries before the Industrial Revolution.
Together with Joost Jonker, Oscar leads the financial history group of Utrecht University. Besides their ongoing work on preindustrial finance, the group has begun to explore the emergence of the inclusive financial system of the Netherlands in the twentieth century, notably by looking at the funding of small and medium enterprises and the investment behavior of Dutch political elites in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The financial history group teamed up with the Dutch broadcasting company NTR to create a unique citizen science project, Kasboekje van Nederland. The project has mobilized Dutch families to share their financial records with Utrecht’s financial historians, who use the ‘cash books’ to explore the financial history of Dutch households. The project’s website relates this history and provides access to the six episodes of the television series, broadcasted in the Spring of 2018.
