Congratulations to Chris Colvin, lecturer in economics at Queen's, who has just won the biennial PhD dissertation prize at the European Business History Association conference. Chris completed his PhD at LSE, and I had the privilege of being one of his examiners. Queen's has been well represented in this competition in recent years, with Gareth Campbell being a finalist on the previous occasion.
My colleague and former PhD student Gareth Campbell has created a website about the British Railway Mania - click here . This episode has been described by the Economist as probably the greatest bubble in human history. Gareth's website provides background on the Mania and posits some explanations for the 'bubble'. In his explanation of why the bubble happened, Gareth places a lot of emphasis on investor myopia regarding future dividends and uncalled capital. His study of investors during the episode does not support the view that this episode was fuelled by naive and irrational investors.