Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie
Chichele Professor of Economic History
All Souls College
sheilagh.ogilvie@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
I grew up in the western Canadian city of Calgary, and have since lived in Scotland, Germany, England, the USA and the Czech Republic. I studied at the Universities of St Andrews, Cambridge, and Chicago, and was a Research Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge. I then taught for 31 years in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge, before moving to the Chichele Professorship of Economic History at All Souls College Oxford in 2020.
Research Interests
I explore the lives of ordinary people in the past and try to explain how poor economies get richer and improve human well-being. I’m particularly interested in how social institutions – the formal and informal constraints on economic activity – shaped economic development in Europe between the Middle Ages and the present day. In recent years my publications have analysed guilds, serfdom, communities, the family, gender, human capital investment, consumption, and state capacity.
X handle: @SheilaghOgilvie
Bluesky handle: @sheilaghogilvie.bsky.social
Publications
Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid
How do societies tackle epidemic disease? In Controlling Contagion, Sheilagh Ogilvie answers this question by exploring seven centuries of pandemics, from the Black Death to Covid-19. For most of history, infectious diseases have killed many more people than famine or war, and in 2019 they still caused one death in four. Today, we deal with epidemics more successfully than our ancestors managed plague, smallpox, cholera or influenza. But we use many of the same approaches. Long before scientific medicine, human societies coordinated and innovated in response to biological shocks—sometimes well, sometimes badly.
DPhil Students
I would like to hear from potential DPhil students who are interested in doing research on pre-modern economies and institutions.
In the Media
- Oct 2026 - Eli Heckscher Lecture - Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm
- Jul 2026 - Thinker’s Series Lecture - Renmin University of China, Beijing
- Jul 2026 - Global Masters Lecture - Renmin University of China, Beijing
- Oct 2025 - Keynote Lecture - Italian Economic History Association Annual Meeting, Venice
- Aug 2025 - Keynote Lecture, Conference on “How Did We Lift the Burden? Infectious Disease Mortality in the Western and Non-Western World (1800-now)” - Nijmegen
- Jun 2025 - Adam Smith Lecture - Panmure House, Heriott-Watt University, Edinburgh
- Jun 2024 - Max Weber Lecture - European University Institute, Florence
- June 2024 - Max Weber Interview - European University Institute, Florence
- 1 February 2024 - In our Time: The Hanseatic League, in discussion with Melvyn Bragg - BBC Radio 4
- 25 November 2021 - 2021 Prais Lecture - National Institution for Economic and Social Research
- 18 October 2019 - Video Interview, Thought Experiment Lecture - HM Treasury
- 20 August 2019 - "The European Guilds" with Patrick Wyman - Tides of History Podcast
- 9 May 2019 - The European Guilds: A Lecture - Centre for the Study of Governance and Society, King’s College London
- 9 May 2019- “The Dark Side of Human Institutions: A Conversation” with Mark Penningon - The Governance Podcast
- 8 March 2019 - “The European Guilds” with Mark Klobas - New Books Network Podcast
- 5 January 2018 - “Consumer Protectors or Greedy Monopolists?”, Interview with Paul Seabright - Conflict and Co-operation, Ep. 5, BBC Radio 4
- 13 December 2013 - Human Capital and Economic Outcomes in a European Developing Economy - British Academy Wolfson Professorship Lecture
- 27 March 2012 - “What a 16th Century Guild Teaches Us About Competition”, Planet Money interview with Adam Davidson - National Public Radio Episode
- 12 January 2012 - Sheilagh Ogilvie discusses consumption regulations in early modern Germany - BBC History Magazine Podcast
- 24 May 2011 - Sheilagh Ogilvie on consumption and regulation of women’s activities in early modern Germany - Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4