Joost Jonker, born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1955. Ph.D. from Utrecht University, NEHA Professor of Business History, University of Amsterdam, Associate Professor of Economic History, Utrecht University.
Fellow (1 September 2012 – 30 June 2013)
The Evolution of Financial Markets in Pre-Industrial Europe: The Case of the Low Countries, 1500-1800
I am an economic historian whose research interests centre on processes of economic and social change and the way in which the interaction between private individuals, businesses, and government institutions shapes this change. My publications include studies of large business concerns such as Royal Dutch Shell and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), structural analyses of the financial sector over time, and biographical work on the business people who shaped these firms and sectors. From my work it becomes clear that understanding social and economic change requires both constant comparisons between countries and taking a long-term view, as economic and social structures become visible only when examined over time. Even so, the long-term view should not preclude devoting attention to the human dimension, to the personalities and coincidences that make up the past.
Selected Publications
(with Oscar Gelderblom), “Public Finance and Economic Growth. The Case of Holland in the Seventeenth Century”, The Journal of Economic History, 71-1 (March 2011), 1-39.
(with Stephen Howarth, Keetie Sluyterman, and Jan Luiten van Zanden), A history of Royal Dutch Shell (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007)
(with Oscar Gelderblom), “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.