Originally from “Dribbdebach” Frankfurt, Germany, I studied International Business Administration in Germany and Spain. Interested in the idea of studying economic development in the long run and from historical perspectives, I obtained my PhD in Economic History at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Spain. I worked as a teaching assistant in the History of World Economy and European Economic Integration and I was a research assistant in several projects on economic and political history in Europe and Latin America at the University Carlos III and the University of Barcelona. Before joining the WU Vienna I was an Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford.

My research examines the historical role of financial institutions in economic growth and development. Within this broader research field, I have three main lines of investigation.

Firstly, I study the role of banks in financing trade and their capacity to promote foreign trade by providing financial and informational assistance abroad in the second half of the nineteenth century until World War I. Secondly, I am interested in the question of how the internationalization of banking during the first Globalisation contributed, or not, to financial stability and the spread of financial crises in the world. Finally, I investigate the foreign debt defaults in Latin America and the lending policies and strategies of British banks in financing governments in the second half of the 20th century. In particular, I focus on the question if and how the event of foreign debt defaults influenced banks’ decision to (re-)lend to a country and on what terms.

Selected Publications

• Kisling, W. 2019. “A Microanalysis of Trade Finance: German bank entry and coffee exports in Brazil, 1880-1913” European Review of Economic History, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 356-389, https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez006

• Kisling, W. 2017. “La financiación del comercio: bancos alemanes y británicos en el Brasil del siglo XIX”, in Daniel Diaz Fuentes, Andrés Hoyo Aparicio, and Carlos Marichal (eds.)“Orígenes de la Globalización Bancaria Experiencias de España y América Latina”, pp. 179-204, El Colegio de México, Genueve Ediciones, https://www.editorial.unican.es/libro/origenes-de-la-globalizacion-bancaria-experiencias-de-espana-y-america-latina

Key Research

• Trade History

• Financial (Banking History)

• Financial Crisis

Personal webpages

https://wilfriedkisling.wordpress.com 

https://ocesh.web.ox.ac.uk/people/wilfried-kisling