Showing 1 - 10 of 15
The medieval Champagne fairs are widely used to draw lessons about the institutional basis for long-distance impersonal exchange. This paper re-examines the causes of the outstanding success of the Champagne fairs in mediating international trade, the timing and causes of the fairs' decline, and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013125358
This is Part 2 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013051272
This is Part 1 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013051273
This paper scrutinizes the recently postulated link between the European Marriage Pattern (EMP) and economic success. A metastudy of the historical demography literature shows that the EMP did not prevail throughout Europe, its three key components did not always coincide, and its more extreme...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013315780
Economists draw important lessons for modern development from the medieval Maghribi traders who, according to Greif, enforced contracts multilaterally through a closed, private-order 'coalition'. We show that this view is untenable. The Maghribis used formal legal mechanisms and entered business...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013316556
Institutions - the structures of rules and norms governing economic transactions - are widely assigned a central role in economic development. Yet economic history is still dominated by the belief that institutions arise and survive because they are economically efficient. This paper shows that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013316895
This is Part 1 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010877698
This is Part 2 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010877727
Voigtländer and Voth argue that the Black Death shifted England towards pastoral agriculture, increasing wages for unmarried women, thereby delaying female marriage, lowering fertility, and unleashing economic growth. We show that this argument does not hold. Its crucial assumption is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012916356
Institutions – the structures of rules and norms governing economic transactions – are widely assigned a central role in economic development. Yet economic history is still dominated by the belief that institutions arise and survive because they are economically efficient. This paper shows...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005765671