Leonor Freire Costa - Biography#

Leonor Freire Costa is Professor of Economic History at the Lisbon School of Economics and Management_ISEG, ULisboa and currently a member of the ISEG Scientific Board. She holds a degree in History (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) and a PhD in Economic and Social History (ISEG_ULisboa), pursuing her training at the interface between history and economics, bridging Economics and History. She served as Vice-President of APHES (The Portuguese Association of Economic and Social History).

Costa's main research interest is the long-term impact of early modern colonial systems on the economic take-off of Europe and divergence on a global scale. The influence of Portuguese colonisation on the economic and social development of Portugal and Brazil is a central theme of her work. Recently, she has shifted her focus to financial history and the making of a modern state. Her main focus now is on the intertwining of colonial endeavours, public financing and financial development.

She was principal investigator for two projects funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology ("Money Supply and Credit Market in Pre-Modern Economies" and "Dívida Soberana e crédito privado em Portugal (1668 - 1797)”. The results of her research have been published in prestigious journals in both economics and economic history, such as The Economic History Review, European Review of Economic History. She has disseminated her research to a wider audience through monographs published by Cambridge University Press.

Costa's research interests centre on uncovering the lasting consequences of colonial empires. Her work is guided by three key societal and methodological goals: 1 -Comparative perspectives to identify patterns in historical processes that underlie inequality; 2 - Bridging fields of academic research by drawing on insights from neo-institutionalism and information economics that have significant implications for the re-evaluation of historical narratives; 3 - Actively searching for previously unexplored historical documentary sources to create freely accessible long-term data series on economic variables. These objectives have helped to insert Portugal's case in international studies on four main topics: a) real wage trends and the impact of the colonial past on divergence within European countries; b) productivity changes in maritime sectors; c) entrepreneurship and informal institutions; d) financial development.