Dr Marianna Astore

marianna astore
Postdoctoral Researcher in Global Correspondent Banking 1870-2000 - European Networks
University of Oxford History Faculty
Member of Nuffield College
marianna.astore@history.ox.ac.uk

I am a Post-Doctoral Researcher on the ERC-funded project Global Correspondent Banking 1870-2000 (GloCoBank) where I am responsible for the European network work package. My research approach seeks to illustrate how increased integration between history and economics can yield fruitful results and inform current policy debates. In the framework of GloCoBank, I will analyze the link between cross-border banking correspondents and migrant remittances, focusing on European migration to North and South America during the first globalization.

 

Research Interests

  • International economic relations
  • The history of payment systems and credit markets
  • Central banking history and its intersection with business history
  • Economic history of Fascist Italy

I have strong expertise in European contemporary financial history. My Ph.D. thesis reconstructed Italian currency controls during the interwar period, focusing particularly on the role of the “Istituto Nazionale per i Cambi con l’Estero,” the first Italian foreign exchange office. Afterwards, I broadened the focus of my research—which previously mainly focused on Italy—to include comparisons with other European countries. From 2021 to 2023, I held a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship at PSE (Paris School of Economics), working as the principal investigator of the project “Europe and Its Central Banks: Lessons from History (EUROCBH)”. The aim of EUROCBH was to focus on the role of central banks in the formation of national credit markets and industrial policies. I also held a post-doctoral position at Bocconi University (Milan), and before joining GloCoBank I was appointed as Jemolo Fellow at Nuffield College (University of Oxford).

 

My main publications include articles in national and international business history and economic journals, such as “We can’t pay”: How Italy Dealt with War Debts after World War I (with Michele Fratianni, Financial History Review, 2019). In the summer of 2024, my paper coauthored with Paolo Di Martino (University of Turin), "Branching vs Correspondents in Cross-Border Banking Expansion: Evidence from Italy, 1880s-1936," was awarded the best paper prize at the European Business History Annual Congress.

 

In 2022, I co-organized the workshop “International Macroeconomics in Historical Perspective,” sponsored by the European Macrohistory Network, the CEPR, and the Banque de France, and the workshop “Where is the Money? Financial Networks and the Geography of Credit Development,” held at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Vienna).

 

I have significant teaching experience in Economic History, Business History, and Financial History.