
I am a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. I am an economic historian and a historical economist, and have research interests in financial institutions and markets, the economics of religion, the process of invention and the economics of crime.
I completed a PhD in Economic History at the London School of Economics in 2011. I graduated from the University of Bristol with a BSc in Economics in 2005, and earned an MSc in Economic History with distinction and a prize from the London School of Economics in 2006. I have worked as an economist at the Office of Fair Trading, and have been a visiting student at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universiteit Utrecht.
Entitled 'Religion, competition and liability: The Dutch cooperative banking sector in crisis, 1919-1927', my PhD uses quasi-natural experiments in early twentieth century Dutch financial history to explore: (1) how religious attitudes and institutions shape bank managers' risk-taking behaviour; (2) how interbank competition affects financial stability; and (3) how banks' ability to survive a crisis is influenced by the degree to which shareholders choose to limit their liability.
Dr. Christopher L. Colvin
Max Weber Programme
European University Institute
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