Dr. David Clayton, University of York, is an economic historian who has written on the British Empire in the twentieth century, with a particular focus on Hong Kong. He is interested in how technologies transfer and how rules governing behaviour change.

His pioneering work on radio broadcasting has used a range of innovative qualitative and quantitative techniques to explore the rate at which technologies (wired and wireless) were taken up in the British Empire, c. 1930-1960. His case study on Hong Kong was published in the Economic History Review (2004), and his collaborative work with Sue Bowden and Alvaro Peirera on the British Empire as a whole was published in the European Review of Economic History (2012).

He is currently studying the take up of radio receiving sets (notably the famous Saucepan Special) in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) in the 1940s and 1950s.

David also currently leads a White Rose College of Arts and Humanities network on Electronic Soundscapes, which involves three PhD students investigating the history of sound in early to late twentieth century Britain.