Curriculum Vitae
Peter Michael SOLAR
Personal Details:
Work address:
Vesalius College
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
B-1050 Brussels
Belgium
Work telephone:
Work fax:
00-32-2-629-2795
00-32-2-629-3637
Email address:
[email protected]
Academic Degrees:
B.A. in economics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA, 1972
Ph.D. in economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, U.S.A., 1987
Academic Positions:
Lecturer, Department of Economics, Denison University, U.S.A., 1974-5
Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of York, U.K., 1979-83
Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Economics, University of York, U.K.,
1983-5
Maître de conference invité, Institut de Recherches Economiques, Université
Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 1984-7
Werkleider, Centrum voor Economische Studiën, Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, Belgium, 1987-91
Assistant Professor (Docent), Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel,
Belgium, 1991-8
Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Irish Studies, 1997
Associate Professor (Hoofd Docent), Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Belgium, 1998-2006
Professor (Hoogleraar), Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium,
2006Professeur invité, Faculté Universitaire St Louis, 2006International Scientific Activities:
Coordinator, Tenth World Congress, International Economic History
Association, Leuven, 19-24 August 1990
Member, Board of Editors, Journal of Economic History, 1995-9
Member and Chair, Ranki Prize Committee, Economic History Association,
1997-2001
Member, Reform Commission, International Economic History Association,
1998-2002
Trustee, European Historical Economics Society, 1995-2005
Member, KNAW/NWO Evaluation Committee, NW Posthumus Institute, 2008
(evaluation of research and PhD training in economic history in the
Netherlands)
Publications:
“A Bicentenary Contribution to the History of the Cost of Living in America” (with
Paul A. David), Research in Economic History, 2 (1977), 1-80
“The Agricultural Trade Statistics in the Irish Railway Commissioners’ Report”,
Irish Economic and Social History, 6 (1979), 24-40
“Agricultural Productivity and Economic Development in Ireland and Scotland in
the Early Nineteenth Century”, in T.M. Devine and D. Dickson, eds.,
Ireland and Scotland 1600-1900 (Edinburgh, 1983), 70-88
“Why Ireland Starved: A Critical Review of the Econometric Results”, Irish
Economic and Social History, 11 (1984), 107-15
“The Reconstruction of Irish External Trade Statistics for the Nineteenth
Century”, Irish Economic and Social History, 12 (1985), 63-78
“The Scottish and Irish Linen Industries Compared, 1780-1860” (with Alastair
Durie), in R.M. Mitchison and P. Roebuck, eds., Scotland and Ireland in
Historical Perspective (Edinburgh, 1988),
“A Belgian View of the Ulster Linen Industry in the 1840s”, Ulster Folklife, 34
(1988), 16-25
“Harvest Fluctuations in Pre-Famine Ireland: Evidence from Belfast and
Waterford Newspapers”, Agricultural History Review, 37 (1989), 157-65
The Great Famine was No Ordinary Subsistence Crisis”, in E.M. Crawford, ed.,
Famine: the Irish Experience, 900-1900 (Edinburgh, 1989), 112-33
“The Construction of Historical Price Indices, with an Illustration from Interwar
Belgium” (with Chris Schroeven), in P. Scholliers, ed., Real Wages in 19th
and 20th Century Europe: Historical and Comparative Perspectives
(Oxford, 1989), 149-75
“The Irish Linen Trade, 1820-1852”, Textile History, 21 (1990), 57-85
“Wages and Labour Productivity in Belgium, 1920-1960” (with Isabelle
Cassiers), Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 52 (1990), 437-49
“The Irish Butter Trade in the Nineteenth Century: New Estimates and Their
Implications”, Studia Hibernica, 25 (198-90), 134-61
“Agricultural Productivity in Belgium and Ireland in the Early Nineteenth
Century” (with Martine Goossens), in B.M.S. Campbell and M. Overton,
eds., Agricultural Productivity in the Past (Mancester, 1991), 364-84
“The Agricultural Trade of the Port of Waterford, 1809-1909”, in W. Nolan and
T.P. Power, eds., Waterford History & Society (Dublin, 1992), 495-518
“Die belgische Leinenindustrie im 19. Jahrhundert”, in K. Ditt and S. Pollard,
eds., Von der Heimarbeit in die Fabrik (Paderborn, 1992), 78-105
“The Growth of Belgian Flax Spinning Capacity in the Nineteenth Century”, in E.
Aerts, B. Henau, P. Janssens, and R. Van Uytven, eds., Studia Historica
Oeconomica (Leuven, 1993), 355-370
“Poor Relief and English Economic Development before the Industrial
Revolution”, Economic History Review, 48 (1995), 1-22
“Economic Growth in Belgium” (with Isabelle Cassiers and Philippe De Villé), in
N. Crafts and G. Toniolo, eds., Economic Growth in Europe since 1945
(Cambridge, 1996), 173-209
“The Potato Famine in Europe”, in C. O Grada, ed., Famine 150 (Dublin, 1997),
113-28
“Poor Relief and English Economic Development: a Renewed Plea for
Comparative History”, Economic History Review, 50 (1997), 369-74
“The Benelux Countries” (with Herman de Jong), in B.J. Foley, ed., European
Economies since the Second World War (London, 1998), 102-23
“The Pitfalls of Estimating Irish Agricultural Output in Post-Famine Ireland”, Irish
Economic and Social History, 25 (1998), 152-156
“The Benelux Countries”, in M.S. Schulze, ed., Western Europe: Economic and
Social Change since 1945 (Harlow, 1999), 255-69
“Belgium: Liberalism by Default” (with Luc Hens), in J. Foreman-Peck and G.
Federico, eds., European Industrial Policy: The Twentieth-Century
Experience (Oxford, 1999), 194-214
“Irish Trade in the Nineteenth Century”, in D. Dickson and C. O Grada, eds.,
Refiguring Ireland (Dublin, 2003), 277-89
“The Birth and Death of European Flax, Hemp and Jute Spinning Firms: the
Irish and Belgian Cases”, in B. Collins and P. Ollerenshaw, eds., The
European Linen Industry in Historical Perspective (Oxford, 2003), 245-58
“The Linen Industry in the Nineteenth Century”, in D.T. Jenkins, ed., The
Cambridge History of Western Textiles (Cambridge, 2003), II, 809-824
“Fiber Crops”, “Linen Industry: Technological Change”, and “Potato”, in J.
Mokyr, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (Oxford, 2003),
II, 303-4, III, 333-4, IV, 241-3
“An Old Poor Law for the New Europe?” (with Richard Smith), in P. David and
M. Thomas, eds., The Economic Future in Historical Perspective (2003),
463-77
“The Irish Linen Trade, 1852-1914”, Textile History, 36 (2005), 46-68
“Shipping and Irish Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century”,
Economic History Review, 61 (2006), 717-742
“The Crisis of the Late 1840s: What Can We Learn from Prices”, forthcoming in
C. O Grada, R. Papping and E. Vanhaute, eds., When the Potato Failed:
Causes and Effects of the Last European Subsistence Crisis, 1845-1850
(Turnhout, 2007), 79-94.
“The Irish Cotton Industry from the Industrial Revolution to Partition” (with Andy
Bielenberg), Irish Economic and Social History, 34 (2007), 1-28.
Irish Agriculture: A Price History (with Liam Kennedy) (Dublin, 2007).
“European Industry, 1700-1870” (with Stephen Broadberry and Rainer
Fremdling), Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte (2008), 2, 141-171.
“Background Migration: The Irish (and other Strangers) in Mid-Victorian
Hertfordshire” (with Malcolm T Smith), Local Population Studies, 82
(Spring 2009), 44-62.
“The Early English Cotton Spinning Industry as Revealed in the London
Gazette” (with John Lyons), forthcoming in Business History
“London Agricultural Prices, 1770-1913 (with Jan Tore Klovland), forthcoming in
Economic History Review
Book reviews in Economic Journal, Journal of Economic History, Economic
History Review, Agricultural History Review, Irish Economic and Social
History
Current Research in Progress:
“Public Monopsony and Rationing” (with Kris De Jaegher)
“The Irish Cotton Spinning Industry, 1780-1914” (with John Cockerill)
“Anglo-Irish Price Convergence” (with Liam Kennedy)
“The Irish Bacon Curing Industry” (with John Hearne)
“Land Values, Rents, Tenures and the Distribution of Income in English
Agriculture during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”
“The Impact of the Corn Laws on Ireland”
“The European Flax, Hemp and Jute Spinning Industry”
“Nominal Wage Rigidity in Pre-Industrial Labour Markets”
“Lancashire and the Rest: Spatial Dispersion and Concentration in Cotton
Spinning, 1780-1840” (with John Lyons)
“Rural Economy in Ulster” (with Liam Kennedy)