Dr Matthew Bailey is one of Australia’s leading retail historians. His book, Managing the Marketplace: Reinventing Shopping Centres in Post-War Australia (Routledge, 2020) is the first book on the subject, and one of the few to comprehensively examine Australian retail history. Dr Bailey has published widely on retail and retail property history, including in leading international and Australian journals such as Urban History, Enterprise & Society, Australian Economic History Review, Journal of Australian Studies, History Australia, and the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing.

Dr Bailey is available for media commentary on retailing, department stores, shopping and shopping centres. He is an experienced oral history interviewer, has undertaken consumer research consultancy for firms in the retail property sector, and is available to work on corporate histories and public history projects. He is also available to supervise projects on a diverse range of business history subjects, social and cultural histories of retailing and consumerism, as well as studies of the built environment and historical actors' engagement with it.

Dr Bailey is currently working on a number of archival and oral history projects, including a study on the development of supermarketing in Australia, and a history of global retail innovations.