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Reveals how global trade shaped early modern economic, social and political development, and inaugurated the first era of globalization.
A major feat of research and synthesis, this book presents the first comprehensive history of the Dutch economy in the nineteenth century--an important but poorly understood piece of European economic history. Based on a detailed reconstruction of extensive economic data, the authors account for demise of the Dutch economy's golden age. After showing how institutional factors combined to make the Dutch economy a victim of its own success, the book traces its subsequent emergence as a modern industrial economy. Between 1780 and 1914, the Netherlands went through a double transition. Its economy--which, in the words of Adam Smith, was approaching a "stationary state" in the eighteenth century-...
Overview of the financial history of the Netherlands from the sixteenth century onwards.
This book argues that the position of women in late medieval and early modern Europe was relatively strong. This, van Zanden, De Moor, and Carmichael argue, is evident from the fact that marriage was usually based on consensus, implying that women had a clear say in their marriage. The authors analyze the medieval roots of this European Marriage Pattern, demonstrating that it was much stronger in northwestern Europe than in the Mediterranean. That women had considerable agency was one of the factors behind the rise of Europe in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. This had huge consequences for the average age of marriage (which was very high), fertility (which was restricted by t...
Recently, a growing body of work on "law and finance" and "legal origins" has highlighted the role of formal legal institutions in shaping financial institutions. However, these writings have focused largely on Europe, neglecting important non-Western traditions that prevail in a large part of the world. Law and Long-Term Economic Change brings together a group of leading scholars from economics, economic history, law, and area studies to develop a unique, global and, long-term perspective on the linkage between law and economic change. Covering the regions of Western Europe, East and South Asia, and the Middle East, the chapters explore major themes regarding the nature and evolution of dif...
This exciting new volume examines the development of market performance from Antiquity until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Efficient market structures are agreed by most economists to serve as evidence of economic prosperity, and to be prerequisites for further economic growth. However, this is the first study to examine market performance as a whole, over such a large time period. Presenting a hitherto unknown and inaccessible corpus of data from ancient Babylonia, this international set of contributors are for the first time able to offer an in-depth study of market performance over a period of 2,500 years. The contributions focus on the market of staple crops, as they were crucia...
How medieval Dutch society laid the foundations for modern capitalism The Netherlands was one of the pioneers of capitalism in the Middle Ages, giving rise to the spectacular Dutch Golden Age while ushering in an era of unprecedented, long-term economic growth. Pioneers of Capitalism examines the formal and informal institutions in the Netherlands that made this economic miracle possible, providing a groundbreaking new history of the emergence and early development of capitalism. Drawing on the latest quantitative theories in economic research, Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden show how Dutch cities, corporations, guilds, commons, and other private and semipublic organizations provided ...
How was life in 1820 and how has it improved since then? What are the long-term trends in global well-being? Trends in real GDP per capita may not fully reflect changes in other dimensions of well-being, such as life expectancy, educational attainment, personal security, and gender inequality. The product of collaboration between the OECD, the OECD Development Centre, and the CLIOINFRA project, this report represents the work of a group of economic historians to systematically chart long-term changes in the dimensions of global wellbeing and inequality, making use of the best sources and expertise currently available and the most recent research carried out within the discipline. The historical evidence reviewed in the report is organized on ten different dimensions of well-being that mirror those used by the OECD in its report, How's Life? (www.oecd.org/howslife): per capita GDP, real wages, educational attainment, life expectancy, height, personal security, political institutions, environmental quality, income inequality, and gender inequality
Using recent approaches in economic, social, labour and institutional history, this volume analyses guilds in the period 500-1700 AD.