Teaching philosophy
I trained as both an economist and a historian because connecting the present with the past helps us understand the context in which economic decisions are made.
I teach economics as a policy science: a way of thinking about how and why the world works as it does, and how it can be improved. The long view helps students appreciate how society has changed and what has remained the same.
In the Economic History Podcast episode Why Economic History?, I speak with Seán Kenny about how research and teaching reinforce one another, how economic history can be integrated into the economics curriculum, and how historical evidence helps students think critically about economic change.
Pedagogical reform
Economists need economic history, but typically receive little of it in their university training. Working in collaboration with the Economics Network and the Economic History Society, I lead a pedagogical research project developing teaching and learning material intended to address this problem.
Economic history can be taught as a stand-alone module or embedded in other economics courses. An Economist’s Guide to Economic History (2018), co-edited with Matthias Blum, contains material designed for both approaches.
With Graham Brownlow, I have an article in Advances in Economics Education (2025) examining how economic history can be incorporated into economics teaching in the UK.
Communicating economics
Economists need to do more than construct models: they must explain their reasoning clearly and persuade audiences who do not share their technical vocabulary. I designed the first-year Communicating Economics module at Queen’s to make these skills an explicit part of the economics curriculum, rather than something students are expected to acquire incidentally.
The course (now taught by David Jordan) examines how economists construct and communicate arguments, with particular attention to narrative, rhetoric, and context. I explain the course design, including its use of storytelling and science fiction, in "More Talk, Less Chalk: Communicating Economics in the Modern Classroom" (2022).
Teaching policymakers
I teach economic history to civil service economists through an interactive policymaking workshop run through CEPH. Participants take part in a historically grounded simulation that places them in the position of policymakers working with incomplete evidence, competing priorities, and institutional constraints. They must assess evidence, defend trade-offs, consider counterfactuals, and revise their advice as new information emerges.
The workshop uses the past not as a source of simple lessons, but as a way to sharpen judgement. It encourages participants to question historical analogies, recognise the importance of context, and think carefully about the assumptions and constraints that shape policy choices. The approach is developed in our 2026 working paper (with Andrew Dorman, David Jordan and Duncan Needham), "Applied Economic History as Practical Historicism: Encouraging Policymakers to Reason with the Past".