Sheilagh Ogilvie

Sheilagh Ogilvie grew up in the western Canadian city of Calgary, and has since lived in Scotland, Germany, England, the USA and the Czech Republic. She is now the Chichele Professor of Economic History at All Souls College, Oxford. She explores the lives of ordinary people in the past and tries to explain how poor economies get richer and improve human well-being. She is 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. She has published books and articles on guilds, serfdom, communities, the family, gender, human capital investment, consumption, and state capacity.