An Economist’s Guide to Economic History was officially launched at Riddel Hall, Queen's University Belfast, on Friday 18 January 2019.

The launch coincided with a roundtable discussion on the past, present and future of economics as a discipline, with a particular focus on how it is taught at university and understood by the general public.

Panellists included:

• Professor Wendy Carlin CBE (University College London), economist and director of the CORE Econ project, which aims to overhaul the way introductory economics is taught at university
• Professor Nicholas Crafts CBE (University of Warwick), economic historian and expert on UK productivity across the past two centuries
• Paul Winfree (Heritage Foundation, Washington DC), economist and President Trump's former senior advisor on budgetary policy.

The roundtable was introduced by Dr Chris Colvin (Queen's University Belfast) and moderated by Dr Matthias Blum (Queen's Univresity Belfast), the book's editors. The second half of the workshop was moderated by Romesh Vaitilingam CBE (Communicating Economics)

The discussion on the day centered around answering five questions:

1. What is/should be the functions of economists in enterprise and society?
2. What training do economists need to achieve their various functions?
3. Are current undergraduate economics curricula and postgraduate research training programmes fit for purpose?
4. What should be the role of economic history in economics departments and business schools today?
5. How should teaching and learning in economic history be embedded within economics programmes in higher education?

The workshop, which was attended by academic and professional economists and the general public, was filmed by Econ Films. A video of the event will be posted here soon.

​A short press release for the book launch event (in MS Word format) can be downloaded here.

Chris.
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Textbooks are extremely expensive. As former students ourselves, we are conscious of the fact that this expense may prevent, or at the very least restrict, access to necessary teaching materials.

For this reason, we have made sure An Economist’s Guide to Economic History went "straight to paperback" and is therefore affordably priced. We hope that this enables students to purchase their own personal copies.

The paperback version of the book is now available for purchase directly from the publisher, through major online retailers, and from all good bookshops. We will also be selling copies at the book launch event in Belfast on 18 January (at the discounted price of £20).

Chris.