https://hdl.handle.net/10419/95953 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:46:36 GMT 2026-09-21T09:46:36Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335908 Title: Applied economic history as practical historicism: Encouraging policymakers to reason with the past Authors: Colvin, Christopher L.; Dorman, Andrew; Jordan, David; Needham, Duncan Abstract: This paper examines how applied history can contribute to policymaking when understood as a way of structuring judgement under uncertainty rather than as a source of policy lessons or predictions. It argues that economic history is particularly well suited to facilitating this role because it combines institutional analysis with disciplined comparison of plausible alternatives and close attention to temporal constraints. Distinguishing between micro-pedagogical and macro-institutional applications, the paper analyses two sites of practice: (1) a historically grounded policy simulation used to train early-career civil service economists delivered by the Centre for Economics, Policy and History, a research centre based in Belfast and Dublin; and (2) longer-term engagement between historians and policy advisers in Whitehall organised through History & Policy, an applied history forum. The paper concludes by clarifying the possibilities and limits of applied economic history as a contribution to reflective policy practice. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335908 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335019 Title: Histories that matter: The case for applied economic history Authors: Colvin, Christopher L.; Fourie, Johan Abstract: We define applied economic history as the systematic use of historical reasoning to address economic policy problems. Building on work in applied history, we argue that economic history contributes to policy not by offering ready-made lessons, but by disciplining the narratives and analogies that policymakers and the public use. Unlike conventional economic history, which begins with a past episode and asks explanatory questions, an applied approach starts from a current problem and works backwards to identify relevant historical parallels. Selecting cases, however, is only the first step: their policy relevance depends on the narratives through which they are interpreted and put to use. We synthesise work from narrative economics, organisational history, and media and memory studies to clarify how historical narratives are conceptualised as shaping beliefs and behaviour, but also how they mislead when stripped of context. Applied economic history therefore requires careful narrative construction, standards for comparison, attention to difference as well as similarity, and transparency about uncertainty. We conclude by outlining how changes to training, incentives, and institutions could support engagement by economic historians with policymaking. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335019 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/337473 Title: Transplanting company law: Shareholder protection in the Cape Colony Authors: Fliers, Philip; Maphosa, Lloyd Melusi; Turner, John D. Abstract: In this paper, we examine the transplantation of British company law into the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth century. The Cape Colony Companies Act of 1892 was like its British counterpart in that it provided minimal investor protection. This meant that promoters were free to choose the level and types of shareholder safeguards in their company's articles of association. We analyse the shareholder protection offered in the articles of Cape Colony companies established in the decade after 1892. We find that Cape companies offered higher protection than British ones. They were also much more likely to adopt the gold-standard blueprint articles of association from the Act's appendix. We find that companies adopting these blueprint articles had more diffuse ownership but lower survival rates, suggesting trade-offs between investor protection and corporate longevity in the Cape Colony. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/337473 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/341401 Title: Violence and ethnic identity Authors: Elizalde, Aldo; Hidalgo, Eduardo; Kampanelis, Sotiris Abstract: Can violence erase an ethnic identity? We study this question using the Shining Path insurgency in Peru (1980-1992), which sought to replace competing affiliations with a single class identity and killed roughly 70,000 people, three-quarters of them Indigenous. Combining individual-level data on self-identification and mother tongue with event-level data on Shining Path violence, we implement a difference-in-differences design that exploits variation in exposure across cohorts at different stages of identity formation, within a matched border sample of pre-conflict comparable districts. Individuals exposed during their formative years (ages 0-19) are substantially less likely to identify as Indigenous or to speak an Indigenous language than cohorts whose identity was already formed when violence arrived. The effect is concentrated mostly in early childhood and particularly pronounced for mother tongue; the margin most directly shaped by parental transmission. Violence against non-Indigenous victims has no comparable effect. The mechanism is intra-group violence: because perpetrators were overwhelmingly co-ethnics from the same villages, visible Indigenous identity offered no protection and imposed costs. Consistent with this, the effect is strongest in Indigenous-homogeneous districts. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/341401 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z