CV

Academic CV of Christian Vedel. Use the button above to download the full PDF version.

Contact Information

Name Christian Vedel
Email christian-vs@sam.sdu.dk
Website https://christianvedels.github.io

Experience

  • 2023 - 2027
    Assistant Professor
    University of Southern Denmark
    Fixed-term, non-tenure-track appointment. Department of Economics, Historical Economics and Development Group (HEDG).
  • 2024 -
    External Lecturer
    University of Copenhagen
    Summer School in European Economic History, Department of Economics.
  • 2018 - 2019
    Student Research Assistant
    University of Southern Denmark
    Department of Economics.
  • 2017 - 2017
    Teaching Assistant
    University of Southern Denmark
    Department of Economics.

Research Interests

Education

  • 2020 - 2023
    PhD
    University of Southern Denmark
    Economics
    • Thesis: Natural Experiments in Geography and Institutions — Essays in the Economic History of Denmark
    • Main advisor: Paul Sharp
    • Co-advisors: Christian Møller Dahl, Casper Worm Hansen
  • 2022 - 2022
    London School of Economics
    Economic History
    • Visiting Research Student (Jan 17 – May 31, 2022)
    • Host: Prof. Max Schulze
  • 2015 - 2021
    BSc and MSc
    University of Southern Denmark
    Economics
  • 2010 - 2013
    Nyborg Gymnasium
    International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP)

Publications

Working Papers

  • Vedel, C. (2024; latest version 2026). A Perfect Storm: First-Nature Geography and Economic Development. EHES Working Paper 262. Under review, Journal of the European Economic Association. arxiv.org/abs/2408.00885. Winner of the Economic History Society’s 2023 New Researcher Prize. (Job Market Paper)
  • Johansen, T., Koschnick, J., & Vedel, C. (2026). How to deal with machine learning bias in economic history. arxiv.org/abs/2606.28063.
  • Dahl, C. M., Johansen, T., & Vedel, C. (2024; latest version 2026). Breaking the HISCO Barrier: Automatic Occupational Standardization with OccCANINE. EHES Working Paper 255. Revise and resubmit, Explorations in Economic History. arxiv.org/abs/2402.13604.
  • Görges, T., Rove, M. Ø., Sharp, P., & Vedel, C. (2025; latest version 2026). Tracks to Modernity: Railroads, Growth, and Social Movements in Denmark. Revise and resubmit, European Review of Economic History. arxiv.org/abs/2502.21141.
  • Aaskoven, L., & Vedel, C. (2026). Physical Memories of the Past and Support for the Far-Right: Evidence from Inter-War Denmark. EHES Working Paper 295. ehes.org/wp/EHES_295.pdf.
  • McLaughlin, E., Sharp, P., Skovsgaard, C. V., & Vedel, C. (2024). Milk Wars: Cooperation, Contestation, Conflict and the Irish War of Independence. EHES Working Paper 272. ehes.org/wp/EHES_272.pdf.
  • Bentzen, J. S., Boberg-Fazlić, N., Sharp, P., Skovsgaard, C. V., & Vedel, C. (2024). Assimilate for God: The Impact of Religious Divisions on Danish American Communities. EHES Working Paper 253. ehes.org/wp/EHES_253.pdf.

Other Publications

  • Vedel, C. (2023). Natural Experiments in Geography and Institutions: Essays in the Economic History of Denmark. [Ph.D. thesis, University of Southern Denmark]. doi.org/10.21996/jt34-zc23.
  • Vedel, C. (2025). Review of Danish Capitalism in the 20th Century: A Business History of an Innovistic Mixed Economy, by Stefan Kirkegaard Sløk-Madsen. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 73(2), 160–162.
  • Vedel, C. (2022). A very natural experiment: using nature to measure how infrastructure produces growth. LSE Economic History Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/economichistory.

Funding & Prizes

  • 2027–2030 — Danish Independent Research Fund (DFF-Forskningsprojekt2): 6,114,741 DKK. Denmark’s Path to Economic Development: Structural Transformation, Free-Market Trade, and Migration from 1790 to Today. PI: Casper Worm Hansen. Named project participant.
  • 2023 — EHS Best New Researcher Prize. Awarded at the Economic History Society’s Annual Conference.
  • 2022 — Augustinusfonden: 15,000 DKK (€2,016). Towards research stay at the London School of Economics.

Teaching

  • S = Spring semester, F = Fall semester.
  • 2024–2026 — The Economic History of Europe. Summer school, University of Copenhagen.
  • 2024–2026 — Historical Perspectives on Current Economics Issues: Big Data and Applications. HEDG PhD Summer School. Two-lecture module on machine learning for economic history, taught with Torben Johansen. Slides: github.com/TorbenSDJohansen/hedg-summer-school.
  • 2025S — Statistics. Lecturer. Introductory statistics for undergraduate Business Administration and European Studies students.
  • 2023F–2024S — Microeconomics. Lecturer. Introductory microeconomics for business students.
  • 2022F — Business History. Lecturer with Elena Korchmina.
  • 2020–2022 — Tietgen talent track. Coordinated the programme and taught everything from basic economic theory to the latest research and basic statistics for high-school students.
  • 2020F — Introduction to Business and Economic History (undergraduate). Teaching assistant (partly online due to COVID).
  • 2020–2021 — Regression Analysis (undergraduate). Guest lecturer for one week in both years; taught an introduction to the R programming language.
  • 2020S — Econometrics II (undergraduate). Teaching assistant (partly online due to COVID).
  • 2017F — Macroeconomics (undergraduate). Teaching assistant.

Supervision

  • PhD students: Co-supervisor of Maret Anne Grapengeter (2024–2027, University of Oslo).
  • Master thesis (Economics), 2025: Lea Lundberg Yssing, Sharmin Ather Keya.
  • Master thesis (Mathematical Economics), 2026: Katrine Enghoff Olsen, Lajza Prekazi.
  • Master thesis (Data Science): Frederikke Buchsti Hermansen, Christoffer Johan Meilby Nobel, Rune Dissing Bjerring (2026); Lukas Rask Svendsen (2025).

Presentations

  • 2026: Social Science History Association (Atlanta); Danish Society for Economic and Social History (SDU); Computational Economic History workshop (CSH Vienna); Big Data and Machine Learning in Economic History (Uppsala); Economic History Society Centenary Conference (London); CEPR Workshop (Copenhagen); Public Lecture, Society of Transport Economics (Copenhagen).
  • 2025: Social Science History Association (Chicago); Applied Economic Seminar Series (UCPH); LEAP Workshop on Economic History in the Age of AI (Stellenbosch); Swedish Economic History Meeting / SSEHS Conference (Umeå); ENCHOS (Cracow); European Society of Historical Demography Conference (Bologna).
  • 2024: 2nd Norwegian Winter Games (Oslo); Machine Learning workshop, Dept. of Economic History (Lund); 13th Annual Growth Workshop, HEDG (Odense); Economic History Society Annual Conference (Newcastle); 3rd Danish Historical Political Economy Workshop (Odense); CITP Conference (Nottingham); Advanced Methods Workshop (Lyon); Danish Econometrics Society (Sandbjerg).
  • 2023: Seminar, Dept. of Economic History (Lund); 12th Annual Growth Workshop, HEDG (Odense); Economic History Society Annual Conference (Warwick); PhD seminar (Odense); End-of-semester workshop (Copenhagen); 9th World Cliometrics Conference; 4th SSEHS Conference (Lund); ENCHOS Conference (Linz); 9th Danish Society of Economic and Social History (Copenhagen).
  • 2022: XIX World Economic History Congress (Paris); EHES Conference (Groningen); LSE Graduate Economic History Seminar (London); 11th Annual Growth Workshop, HEDG (Odense); 3rd Scandinavian Meeting for Economic and Social History (Odense); HEDG Miniworkshop for Young Scholars (Odense).
  • 2020–2021: Agricliometrics IV (UC3M Madrid); HEDG Miniworkshop for Young Scholars; DGPE Annual Meeting; PhD seminars, Dept. of Economics (SDU, Odense).

Academic Service

  • Refereeing: Review of Economics and Statistics; Scandinavian Economic History Review; Demographic Research; Digital Scholarship in the Humanities; Historical Methods; Programme Committee of the International Conference on Natural Language and Speech Processing (ICNLSP).
  • Community: Editor, EHES Working Paper Series (European Historical Economics Society); Board member, Danish Society for Economic and Social History.
  • Organisation: Co-organiser, Annual Workshop on Growth, History and Development (HEDG); co-organiser of the Policy Event (2025, 2026).

Non-academic Employment

  • 2019–2020 — Number Crunch, Odense. My own small data consulting firm.
  • 2018–2019 — Municipality of Copenhagen. Student assistant, data and analysis, health and care administration.

Languages

Danish : Fluent (native)
English : Fluent
Norwegian : Basic
Swedish : Basic