Karine van der Beek is currently working as a PostDoc Researcher at the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute, Florence.
Born 1973 in Jerusalem, Israel, she studied ¸£Àûµ¼º½s at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she developed her main fields of interest: ¸£Àûµ¼º½ History, Institutional ¸£Àûµ¼º½s and ¸£Àûµ¼º½ Growth. She is particularly interested in European growth and in the effects of political structures on institutional formation, market organization and productivity.
In her thesis, entitled: “Political Fragmentation and the Expansion in Watermill Construction in Medieval Europe: A Case Study from Ponthieu, France” she analyses the distinctive phenomenon of European economic expansion during the middle ages using both historical data and economic theory.