This research area is one of the research areas of the History @ Erasmus research community. It focuses on processes of regional economic integration and trans-national relations. While focusing on political as well as on economic interests it also investigates the tension between national politics and trans-national economic relations, and the continuity and change in the history of economic and political integration and disintegration. It combines applied economic theory, theories of international relations with qualitative and quantitative historical methods, quantitative history and geographical information systems. The main research question is why certain economic spaces are urbanized, modernized, became dominant centres of economic activity and remained so, despite political wars, crises and changes in technology.
Closely related to this research is the Business History @ Erasmus initiative, a cooperation with the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), in which modern business history is combined with theories on management, corporate strategy and finance (www.erim.eur.nl/business-history/).
In the Rotterdam Centre of Modern Maritime History, an intense relation with the Maritime Museum is realized, resulting in research on the Port of Rotterdam, modern (i.e. iron) Dutch shipbuilding and the off-shore industry (www.eur.nl/en/eshcc/research/rcmmh). The group further focuses on the history of the Transnational Rhine Economy, Multinationals and the Nation State, War Economies, Taxation and Tax Havens, and the Global Fashion Industry (www.eur.nl/en/eshcc/research/erasmus-centre-history-rhine).