New EHES Working paper by Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia and Julio Martínez-Galarraga Societies that enter on the path of ‘modern economic growth’ undergo profound transformations. Although most of the changes that accompany this process favour the achievement of higher living standards in the long run, it can also generate some social tensions, especially during the first stages. […]
National income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland in a global perspective.
This blog post was written by Mikolaj Malinowski, doctoral candidate atUtrecht University Why are some people and countries rich whereas other remain poor? What affects the relationship between average per capita income and income inequality? These questions have always been at heart of economics and economic history. According to Kuznets, due to differences in productivity, […]
Agricultural Risk and the Spread of Religious Communities
New EHES working paper Is the spread of religious communities related to economic risk? Historically, religious communities have often been the only source of support beyond the family. The social support provided by religious communities appears to be a type of informal mutual insurance especially valuable in historical agricultural societies exposed to much economic risk […]
Participative Political Institutions and City Development 800–1800
New EHES working paper Does contemporary economic development have medieval roots? Fabian Wahl is a PhD studentat University of Hohenheim Numerous studies suggest that the institutional, educational and technical innovations connected with the commercial revolution in the late medieval laid the ground for the later European Industrial Revolution. However, the late middle ages also saw […]
A Re-interpretation of UK Corporate Law and Corporate Governance before 1914
A new EHES Working paper by James Foreman-Peck and Leslie Hannah Companies were the principal institution through which investment was channelled into the nineteenth and early twentieth century economy. The close cross-country correlation of company numbers and GDP around 1910 is therefore no surprise (figure 1). In the top right of the figure are the […]
Beyond GDP: A Long-Term View on Human Wellbeing and Inequality
EHES Summer school – apply now How much better is life today than it was in the past? And do we always need income growth to improve welfare? This summer school is devoted to exploring a new research avenue that uses broad indicators of human welfare and the standard of living to measure levels and […]
Contracts and cooperation: The relative failure of the Irish dairy industry in the late nineteenth century reconsidered
New EHES working paper Eoin McLaughlin is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at University of St. Andrews Ireland was one of the major dairying exporters on the London market in the early nineteenth century but lost its position of pre-eminence to Denmark by the close of the century. The question Henriksen, McLaughlin and Sharp seek to address is why the establishment of […]
The Heavy Plough and the Agricultural Revolution in Medieval Europe.
New EHES working paper Did the heavy plough – as suggested by Lynn White Jr. and many others – lead to economic development during the Middle Ages? This question is investigated in a new EHES working paper by Andersen, Jensen and Skovsgaard, University of Southern Denmark. Fig 1: (a) the old plough, the ard, and (b) the heavy […]
Origins of Political Change—The Case of Late Medieval Guild Revolts
New EHES working paper Fabian Wahl is a PhD student at the Universityof Hohenheim In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in the role of institutional innovations in the late medieval and early modern period for the “Rise of the West” and the “Great Divergence” between the Western countries and the rest of […]
FRESH: Economic Geography in Historical Perspective IIIS, Trinity College Dublin
This blog post was written by Ronan C Lyons, Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin and a Research Affiliate at the Spatial Economics Research Centre in LSE. A FRESH meeting was organized in Trinity College Dublin on November 7, with the aim of bringing together researchers involved in work that combines both economic […]