Ec 764B Topics in economic history
Second half of Ec 764.
The content and style of the second half will remain different from that of the first half: more public finance, macroeconomics with some finance, with a focus on contingencies, institutions and causality.
- Readings
- As announced the time schedule of all classes has been set on Wednesday, 5:30pm
- There is a make-up class on Monday, April 22, 9:15pm
Wednesday, April 24, 5:30 pm
- Continuation of "Interest Reductions".
- Slides
Monday, April 22, 9:15 am
- Chamley, Christophe (2011). “Interest Reductions in the Politico-Financial Nexus of 18th Century England,” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 71, 555-589.
- Quinn, Stephen (2008). "Securitization of Sovereign Debt: Corporations as a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism in Britain, 1694 to 1750," mimeo.
- Slides 1
- Slides 2
Wednesday, April 17
- Slides
- Alvarez-Nogal, C. and C. Chamley (2014). “Debt policy under constraints between Philip II, the Cortes and Genoese bankers,” The Economic History Review, 192-213.
- Van Zanden, Jan Luiten, Eltjo Buringh and Maarten Bosker (2012). “The rise and decline of European parliaments, 1188—1789,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 65 (3), 835-861.
Climate, conflicts and economics
The subject will be treated in two sessions:
- 04/08: Climate and economics in the high Middle-Age and in the small Ice Age
- Waldinger, Maria (2022). "The Economic Effects of Long-Term Climate Change: Evidence from the Little Ice Age," Journal of Political Economy, 130(9).
- Slides
- 04/10: we are fortunate to have as a guest lecturer Joe Manning (Yale) who is a top specialist on climate in the ancient world. To prepare for his presentation,
- see Assignment 3 (due Tueday 04/09, end of day).
- See the presentation by Joe Manning at the Collège de France, 03/14/24. (At the very beginning, the person in white at the extreme right is your instructor for this course...)
3. Serfdom (04/03)
Slides (selection). Glance the section on the Acemoglu-Wolitsky model.
- Domar, Evsey (1970). "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis,
"The Journal of Economic History, 30(1),18-32.
- Acemoglu, D. and A. Wolitzky (2011). "`The Economics of Labor Coercion," Econometrica, 79(2), 555-600.
- Exercise: a reduced version of the AW model.
- Klein, Alexander and Sheilagh Ogilvie (2017).
"Was Domar Right? Serfdom and Factor Endowments in Bohemia,"mimeo.
- Raster, Tom (2023). ``Contagious coercion: The effect of plagues on serfdom in the Baltics,'' PSE.
- Markevich, A. and Zhuravskaya, E. (2018). "The Economic Effects of the Abolition of Serfdom: Evidence from the Russian Empire," American Economic Review, 108(4-5), 1074-1117.
(03/27) Ancient states
Notes on Egypt
- Allen, Robert C. (1997). “Agriculture and the Origins of the State in Ancient Egypt.” Explorations in Economic History 34 (2): 135–54.
- Allen, Robert, C., Mattia C. Bertazzini, and Leander Heldring (2023). “The Economic Origins of Governments,” American Economic Review, 113(10): 2507-2545.
- Mayshar, J., O Moav and L. Pascali (2022). “The origin of the state: Land productivity or appropriability,” Journal of Political Economy, 130(4), 1091-1144.
- Additional Readings