Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution

Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution*

As measured by the pace of city growth in western Europe from 1000 to 1800, absolutist monarchs stunted the growth of commerce and industry. A region ruled by an absolutist prince saw its total urban population shrink by one hundred thousand people per century relative to a region without absolutist government. This might be explained by higher rates of taxation under revenue-maximizing absolut...

Why Was the Industrial Revolution a European Phenomenon?

Introduction Introduction The new growth economics has restored technological progress to the center of the debate about why economic growth occurs. There is no question that in some way new technology can bring about a period of rapid economic growth, whether measured in terms of productivity growth or in the more subtle improvements in the quality of life that occur through improvements in pr...

Why England? Demand, Growth and Inequality During the Industrial Revolution

Why was England first? And why Europe? We present a probabilistic model that builds on big-push models by Murphy, Shleifer and Vishny (1989), combined with hierarchical preferences. The interaction of exogenous demographic factors (in particular the English low-pressure variant of the European marriage pattern) and redistributive institutions – such as the “old Poor Law” – combined to make an I...

Knowledge, Technology, and Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution

and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and to Steve Nafziger for research assistance. 1 " It is clear from the preceding that every " art " [technique] has its speculative and its practical side. Its speculation is the theoretical knowledge of the principles of the technique; its practice is but the habitual and instinctive application of these principles. It is difficult if not impossib...

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective: How Commerce Created The Industrial Revolution and Modern Economic Growth by