Economy

Radical changes in the form and location of economic activity, income and wealth have occurred in Britain and Europe in various phases from Medieval times up to the present. These affected personal economic opportunity, the occupational choices of the population, their welfare, mobility, skills, consumption and demographic structures. These in turn influenced the development of business growth and innovation, and the economies of localities, regions and nations.

CAMPOP has made numerous contributions to understanding the development of economic, social and demographic interactions, and all aspects of production and the labour force, agrarian and industrial, throughout history. This theme currently focuses primarily on the British economy, but set in the context of European and global developments. Key current projects include:

Employment status as business proprietors and entrepreneurs
Gender and household structures of employers, self-employed own-account, compared to waged labour
Firm size distribution of the business population
The distribution of land ownership and wealth
Rural housing
Changes from an 'organic' to industrial and services economy

This research is generally focused on large scale data, GIS and quantitative analysis.

Research projects

	Drivers of entrepreneurship and small business How did business ownership, entrepreneur choices and spatial patterns evolve 1851-1911, and subsequently?
	The Land Tax in England and Wales 1798 and landownership and tenancy distribution What do the earliest accurate figures for the distribution of landownership in Britain show, using the Land Tax assessments for 1798?
	English rural housing c. 1450 - c. 1950 How have the design and amenities of rural housing been affected by local and national political and welfare considerations the late middle ages?
	Malthus and welfare revisited Did poor relief in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when payments were increased according to family size, encourage early and improvident marriage and thereby undermine the preventive check and lead to excessive population growth? Were there regional contrasts in population growth rates between areas that paid outdoor relief and those where welfare was provided in workhouses?