My teaching is focused around basic questions on the origins of modern affluence. I start with the origins of times with the first year undergraduates, providing them with some overarching theories that help to structure human history. One of my emphasises are the medieval origins of the divergence of Europe, where I bring students to the frontier of economic theory, quantitative approaches, and causal identification. I also teach more modern factors of divergence after World War II, as well as development economics on all world regions.

My undergraduate teaching is based on a structured approach towards writing clearer essays and supporting student presentations. To PhD students, I draw on my background in Information Systems to teach our PhD students a wide range of soft skills to organize their work in a project-oriented way, as well as Geographic Information Systems and Python.

Departmental Roles

I am the programme leader of our Development Economics and Emerging Markets M.Sc. I am also responsible for the graduate teaching assistants at the department in my role as the GTA coordinator.

As a Technology Champion, I provide internal advice on how IT can make us more efficient researchers, administrators, and teachers to the department. I am a member of the department's teaching committee, and I am also the department's library representative.

Teaching

Prizes

2022 Four Aronzon Teaching Prizes, Department of Economics at the University of York

Two personal prizes for the most engaging lecturer in the first and second year categories, as well as two module prizes for the two economic history & growth modules in these two years (joint).

2021 Four Aronzon Teaching Prizes, Department of Economics at the University of York

Two personal prizes for the most engaging lecturer in the first and second year categories, as well as two module prizes for our economic history & growth modules in these two years (joint).

2017 Best module at the School of Business and Economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

For "The Economic History of the State", joint with Nikolaus Wolf

Spring term 2021

I am giving the second part of the second year Economic History, and cover aspects from the economics of WWII to the Brexit referendum, all with an eye on narrative as well as causal identification. I am repeating International Economic Growth and Development project for our third years, and take over the empirical part of Development Economics: Theory and Evidence, a M.Sc. course. I also introduce our PhD students to GIS.

Autumn term 2020

Coinciding with the move to online teaching, I am now teaching the long-run arm of our first year Historical Perspectives in Economic Growth (my part: beginning of time to 1815). This part has been completely restructured and emphasizes the European Middle Ages as well as premodern factors for the escape from the Malthusian Trap.

Spring term 2020

I taught first and second year Economic History again. I redesigned International Economic Growth and Development as a project to cater to a less exam-based assesment. I also taught Python for Economists to our PhD students.

Spring term 2019

This term I am teaching to all undergraduate years. Economic history in the first and second year again, and for the first time "International Economic Growth and Development" for our third years.

Autumn term 2018

This term, I will be giving seminars on "Historical Perspectives on Economic Growth", our 1st year undergraduate course, and "Bubbles, Crashes & Panics", an advanced undergradate history of economic crisis. I will also give a GIS course for our PhD students.

Spring term 2018

I started as a lecturer in York, with a first year undergraduate module in "Historical Perspectives on Economic Growth" and the second year undergraduate module "Economic Growth and Development: A twentieth century European Perspective", as well as some lectures of "Economic Data Analysis", also to first year undergraduates,

Summer semester 2017

I am giving a seminar on political economics in the very long run "The Economic History of the State", joint with Nikolaus Wolf, where we will provide some theory on Growth in a Malthusian society and the emergence of political institutions from the Neolithic Revolution to the day, and I am also giving the tutorial for Advanced International Trade.

We got the price for the best seminar at the department for this course. Thank you very much!

Winter semester 2016/17

I will give the course "Agglomeration Economics" again, as many students from the first course also wrote excellent master thesises using GIS.

Summer semester 2016

I am giving a seminar on Applied Growth Theory which is losely based upon Acemoglu: “Introduction to Modern Economic Growth”, Galor: “Unified Growth Theory” and Romer: “Advanced Macroeconomics (4th ed.)”. I am also tutoring for Economic History II (1918 to today) joint with Felix Mihram.

Winter semester 2015/16

As I am visiting Berkeley for a semester, I will not be teaching.

Summer semester 2015

I am giving two seminars this summer. "The Economic History of the German Empire 1881-1914" is also open to bachelor students and is based on papers. "Agglomeration Economics" is master only and will prepare to write a seminar paper using QGIS and/or spatial statistics. It will also feature papers with central ideas on why the world isn't flat.

Winter semester 2014/15

This winter I will give "The Economic History of Prussia", which will feature papers on the New Economic Geography and the instituional development of this important adopter of the Industrial Revolution. I advice reading "The Iron Kingdom" by Christopher Clarke along with the course, as we will not cover history during class.

Summer semester 2014

This semester I will tutor both for "Advanced International Trade" based on Feensta's book and "Methods in Economic History" based on papers you will find on the Moodle page of the course.

Winter semester 2013/14

I will be doing a paper seminar on "Spatial Economics" joint with my advisor Nikolaus Wolf, and also give "European Historical Statistics", which is open to bachelor students and will include an empirical seminar paper.

Summer semester 2013

In "Data Management and Empirical Economics", I will combine insights from Information Systems and the needs of empirical researchers.

Winter semester 2012/13

Big data has been a `buzz word' for empirical research for years. In "Large Datasets and Economic History", I will provide some background, applications, theoretical foundations, and software solutions to deal with large amounts of data. Software includes SQL, QGIS, and R. Students will write an empirical seminar paper.