Oscar Gelderblom, born in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, in 1971. Ph.D. from Utrecht University. Associate Professor of Economic History at Utrecht University.
Fellow (1 February 2013 – 30 June 2013)
The Evolution of Financial Markets in Pre-Industrial Europe: The Case of the Low Countries, 1500-1800
I am an historian working on the interface between economics and history. My research focuses on the history of trade and finance in the early modern period, introducing theoretical depth to this type of research through the use of concepts derived from New Institutional Economics. My past publications deal with European and colonial trade, entrepreneurship, migration, financial institutions and the political economy of early modern Europe. In my book entitled Cities of Commerce. The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250-1650, which will be published by Princeton University Press in 2013, I develop and defend a model of institutional change in European commerce that highlights the role of competitive cities in allowing or encouraging commercial institutions to continuously adapt to the evolving needs of merchants. The book examines the policies of three Low Countries cities that successively functioned as the commercial entrepôts of Northern Europe between 1250 and 1650: Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam.
Selected Publications
(with Joost Jonker), “Public Finance and Economic Growth. The Case of Holland in the Seventeenth Century”, The Journal of Economic History, 71-1 (March 2011), 1-39.
The Political Economy of the Dutch Republic, ed. Oscar Gelderblom. Ashgate: Farnham (2009).
(with Joost Jonker), “Completing a Financial Revolution. The Finance of The Dutch East India Trade and the Rise of the Amsterdam Capital Market, 1595-1612”, The Journal of Economic History, 64-3, September 2004, 641-672.