Dr Aidan Kane is a lecturer in economics at the University of Galway. His BA and PhD are from the University of Dublin, Trinity College. His research interests are principally in Irish economic history, and in particular, the construction of historical datasets, mainly related to Irish public finance, from the 18th century to the present, and on Ireland's 18th century international trade, using a range of web, programming, and relational database technologies. He is currently also working on maritime economic history, including on databases of 19th steamships built in Britain and Ireland, on the analysis of technological and industry change in shipping through a database of Lloyd's Register from the 1780s to the 1860s, and on a separate project on the evolution of cotton spinning machinery in 19th century Britain. He also has an interest in the political economy of innovation policy in Ireland, having served as director of the University's Centre for Innovation and Structural Change (CISC) from 2002 to 2006.

He teaches Irish economic history, financial economics, and macroeconomics at undergraduate and postgrad level, and he supervises students in respect of final year projects, theses and placements in taught postgraduate programmes, and at PhD level. Dr Kane was previously programme director of the Higher Diploma in Economic Science at the University of Galway, previously director of undergraduate studies in economics, and head of economics from November 2016 to May 2019 at the University of Galway. See also his Duanaire research project (in progress).

Keywords: economic history, Irish economic history, fiscal history, data management.

My research interests are principally in Irish economic history, and in particular, the construction of historical datasets, mainly related to Irish public finance, from the 18th century to the present, using a range of web, programming, and relational database technologies. These include R, and MySQL, as well as the use of machine learning technologies for data capture, including maps. 

I teach a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules, including a module on financial economics mainly for 2nd year arts/business and economics students, an Irish economic history module mainly taken by second year arts undergraduates, a module on the contemporary Irish economy in a global context mainly taken by final year undergraduates, and a new postgrad module on financial and economic history,along with continuing supervision of final year projects, masters thesis, and PhD theses.