Professor Ali Coşkun Tunçer
Professor in Economic History
Coşkun Tunçer is an economic historian with a focus on the history of financial markets and the Middle East. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2011, after completing his BA, MSc and MPhil degrees in Turkey and Greece. Before joining UCL in 2013, he taught and conducted research at the London School of Economics and the European University Institute.
Coşkun is currently working on a funded project investigating the urban wealth and religious segregation in the Ottoman Empire from 1600-1914. His other ongoing projects are on the stock exchange development in the Middle East and the history of domestic debt in emerging markets.
PhD supervision
Coşkun is interested in receiving PhD proposals from prospective students on any aspect of economic and financial history. He particularly welcomes projects informed by social science methods.
Completed:
- Johannes Hartmann, ‘The German Notgeld, 1914-1924’ (UCL, 2022).
- Yasin Arslantas, ‘Confiscation by the ruler: A study of the Ottoman practise of Müsadere, 1700s-1839’ (LSE, 2017)
- Tehreem Husain, ‘Railway mergers in the early twentieth century: An exploratory study’ (UCL, 2023).
Grants/projects
Current projects:
Coşkun is currently involved in two collaborative funded projects:
- “Domestic public debt in emerging markets from the first financial globalisation to the interwar: 1880-1945”. This is a collaborative project with Rui Esteves (IHEID, Geneva) and Leo Weller (FGV, São Paulo) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2023-26).
- Urban wealth inequality in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1914. This project with Dr Gürer Karagedikli (METU, Ankara) is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (2021-24). The project also received initial financial support from UCL Global Engagement Fund in 2020: Housing and urban inequality in the Ottoman Empire, c.1500-1914.
Recently completed:
- Democracy, autocracy and sovereign debt: How polity shaped government-creditor relations in the first age of globalisation. This research project with Leo Weller (FGV, São Paulo) is supported by the British Academy Newton Fund (2016-2021).
Selected Publications
- Tunçer, C., & Weller, L. (2022). Democracy, Autocracy, and Sovereign Debt: How Polity Influenced Country Risk on the Peripheries of the Global Economy, 1870-1913. Explorations in Economic History, 101449. doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2022.101449
- Karagedikli, G. and C. Tuncer. 2020. House prices in the Ottoman Empire: evidence from eighteenth-century Edirne. Economic History Review, 74 (1), 6-33.
- Esteves, R. P. and C. Tuncer. 2016. Feeling the blues: moral hazard and debt dilution in Eurobonds before 1914. Journal of International Money and Finance, 65, 46-68.
- Tuncer, C. 2015. Sovereign Debt and International Financial Control: The Middle East and the Balkans, 1870-1914. Palgrave Macmillan.
For a full list of publications, see Coskun’s Iris profile.
Teaching
- History that Counts: Methods and Cases in Quantitative History (Second Year Research Seminar)
- Environment, State and Economy (MA core course)
- The Global Economy since 1700 (UG Survey)
- The Ottoman Middle East in the Long Nineteenth Century (UG Advanced Seminar)
Contact information
Email: a.tuncer@ucl.ac.uk
LinkedIn: Ali Coskun Tuncer
Telephone: 020 7679 7846
Office: 309, 25 Gordon Square
Student support & feedback hours: Wednesdays 9-10am (online via Teams), book via email. Wednesdays 10-11am (in-person), drop in.
Student support & feedback hours are an opportunity for students to chat with their module tutors about their ideas, any support they might need with the module, and to go through feedback from their assessments.
Departmental roles
Undergraduate Admissions Tutor
External roles
Honorary Treasurer, Economic History Society
Editorial Board Member, Economic History of Developing Regions
Convenor, Economic and Social History of the Early Modern World Seminar, IHR
Research Fellow in Economic History, Center for Economic Policy Research
Qualifications
PhD LSE, 2011