Kate Frederick

Kate Frederick is a post-doctoral researcher and teacher with the Economic and Social History group within the Department of History and Art History at Utrecht University. Kate completed her PhD in Economic History at Wageningen University. Her research interests lay in processes of social and economic transformation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the world became increasingly integrated. She is particularly interested in how local characteristics influence diverse regional responses to global developments.

Kate works for the Race to the bottom? project focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, she investigates differing producer strategies among handicraft manufacturers, who have long continued to thrive and supplement household incomes, particularly in West Africa, while large-scale machine-based manufacturing has struggled to achieve sustained growth.