The financialisation of the world economy during the 20th century is a relatively new topic in the discipline of historical research. Adopting a historical perspective sheds valuable new light on the methods used by economists and sociologists, adding a temporal dimension and contributing new archives that provide useful context for events. The term “glocal”, a contraction of the words “global” and “local”, is particularly fitting when it comes to describing the history of finance. Financial stakeholders act at local level, but their strategies often have global implications. Launched by Benoît Majerus, these “Glocal histories of financialisation in the 20th century”, especially their impact in Europe and Luxembourg, are the focus of several projects led by researchers at the C²DH.
The development of financial centres is closely linked to tax systems at national and supranational level. The FILUX/FISCOLUX research project, which began in March 2018, involves a comparative historical analysis of the development of direct and indirect taxation in Luxembourg and the Benelux countries. The analysis will look at the second half of the 20th century in a regional, European and global context. “The historical perspective is very important, since it enables us to understand the twofold system of direct taxation (the prerogative of Member States) and indirect taxation (subject to international regulation), and the tensions and sometimes seemingly insuperable contradictions between these two levels,” says Elena Danescu, leader of this project that will draw on several archives from Luxembourg, its neighbour countries and various international organisations.
It is useful to examine how the international press has reported on the Luxembourg financial centre, often portrayed as a “tax haven”. The project “Images of the financial centre”, led by Victoria Mouton, is also a historical project that looks at the period from the 1950s to the 1990s. “What particularly interests us is how these often stereotypical media representations developed alongside the growth in the financial centre,” explains the researcher. Given the vast corpus of available articles, the first stage of the methodological approach will be to carry out a quantitative analysis.
As the financial centre has developed, a number of supervisory and regulatory instruments have been introduced. With his PhD thesis entitled “Walking the Line between Supervision and Promotion? Financial Regulation in Luxembourg, 1930s-1990s”, Benjamin Zenner is aiming to piece together the history of state banking control. “It has often been claimed that regulators contributed to the success of the financial centre, so it is interesting to see how the legal framework was established and developed over time,” says the PhD student. He is exploring the archives of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), especially the period from the 1940s to the 1980s.
Another PhD thesis, which began in September 2018, is looking at the computerisation and digitisation of banking activities. “I am examining the topic from a European perspective, and the angle that particularly interests me is how the general public have responded to the introduction of digital technologies, for example cash machines, credit cards and online services,” explains PhD student Florian Vetter. He is drawing on a variety of sources: annual reports, press articles, oral history interviews, Web archives, etc.
Other C²DH projects are investigating the history of financial players in Luxembourg, including BGL BNP Paribas and the insurance company La Luxembourgeoise (a project led by Paul Zahlen), two companies celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2019 and 2020 respectively. The scandal involving the Investment Overseas Services (IOS) investment fund and its significant repercussions is the focus of another research project led by Benoît Majerus. In June 2018, an exploratory workshop was also held to explore the relationship between new technologies and financial crises.
The C²DH’s “Contemporary History of Luxembourg” research unit has set itself the objective of studying questions with varying temporal, spatial and theoretical contexts, with the aim of producing new scientific knowledge about the phenomena and processes that have had a major impact on Luxembourg and whose comparative value goes beyond the national perspective: the history of the formation of the nation state, the history of the two world wars, periods of occupation and their legacy, antisemitism and the Holocaust, collaboration and resistance, attempts at authoritarianism, democratisation, the history of trade unions and the welfare state, the history of migration, and the history of societal and cultural transformations since the 1970s.
→ read more
The C²DH Public History Department has begun working on the compilation of an image database on Luxembourg’s industrial heritage.
→ read more
Luxembourg, a land of migration
Luxembourg is and always has been a country characterised by migration, with waves of emigration in the 19th century and immigration since the early 20th century.
→ read more
The activities of the C²DH’s “Digital History” (DH) unit can be broken down into three overlapping categories: 1) research and development in digital methods; 2) university teaching for the Bachelor’s in European Cultures and the Master’s in European History, as well as in-house skills training; 3) outreach – disseminating research through public events and websites.
→ read more
A framework for young researchers
One of the original features of the C²DH, like the University of Luxembourg as a whole, is the international dimension of its research and the multicultural approach to academic study.
→ read more