ECONOMICS
210A – WORLD ECONOMIC HISTORY
Professor
Gregory Clark
Fall
2008
1137
Social Science and Humanities
M,
W 8:00-9:30
752-9242
(gclark@ucdavis.edu)
Hart
1140
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/210a/210ahome.html
Office
Hours: M, Tu, W 10:30-11:45
Description
Economics 210A covers World Economic History from the Stone Age to the
twentieth century. The big issues we examine are the long
persistence of the Malthusian economy to around 1800, the Industrial
Revolution,
and the subsequent Great Divergence in world incomes per capita.
Requirements
There will be a final exam, in class, Thursday Dec 11, 3:30-5:30.
The
grade will be 70% for the final and 30% for a research project.
For
students doing the course for the economics field exam it will be a
research
paper on a topic determined in consultation with the instructor. For first year students doing the course in
satisfaction of the history course requirement the research project
will be to
write a critique of a book or article in economic history (such as a
paper
presented at this quarter’s economic history workshop).
Readings
The background text for this course is my book, A Farewell to Alms:
A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton
University Press, 2007). This is available from the bookstore
(under ECN
210A or ECN 110A) (price $29.95), or more cheaply from Amazon. My web
site has links to a bunch of reviews of the book, with some
responses by
me.
This book is written at a fairly intuitive level. The syllabus
below thus
lists more technical readings also on each topic. Required
readings are
indicated with a *. The material is available online though links
on the
syllabus to either JSTOR or to PDF versions of the articles.
The following abbreviations are used for journals, working paper series
AER
- American
Economic
Review
EEH
-
Explorations in
Economic History
EHR
- Economic
History
Review
JEH
- Journal
of
Economic History
JPE
- Journal
of
Political Economy
QJE
-
Quarterly Journal of Economics
NBER -
National
Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org)
OUTLINE
AND READINGS
I The
Malthusian Economy – the world to 1800
1. The
Logic of the Malthusian Model
*FTA,
Chapters 1-2.
*Symposium on A Farewell to Alms,
European Review of Economic History, August 2008.
Maddison,
Angus. 2002. The World Economy: Historical Statistics.
Malthus,
Thomas Robert.
1830. A Summary View of the Principle of Population.
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Penguin Books,
1970.
2.
Testing the Malthusian
Model – Material Living Standards
*FTA,
Chapter 3
Allen,
Robert
C. 2001. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices
from
the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic
History, 38(4): 411-448.
Bassino,
Jean-Pascal and Debin
Ma. 2005.
“Japanese Wages in
International Perspective, 1741-1913.” Research in Economic
History,
23: 229-48.
*Gregory
Clark, 2006 “The Long
March of
History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869,” Economic
History Review.
*Gregory
Clark, “The
Condition of
the Working-Class in England, 1209-2004” Journal
of Political Economy, 113(6) (December, 2005): 1307-1340.
Voth,
Hans-Joachim.
2001. “The Longest
Years: New Estimates of Labor Input in England, 1760-1830.” Journal
of
Economic History, 61(4): 1065-82.
3.
Testing the Malthusian
Model – Fertility and Mortality
*FTA,
Chapters 4-5
Jones,
Larry E. and Michele Tertilt. 2006. “An
Economic
History of Fertility in the
Macfarlane,
Alan. 2003. The Savage Wars of
Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap. Basingstoke,
Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Wrigley, E.
A.,
R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen, and R. S.
Schofield.
1997. English Population History from Family
Reconstruction: 1580-1837. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge
University
Press.
Lee, James
Z. and
Wang Feng.
1999. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and
Chinese
Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
4.
Survival of the Richest
*FTA,
Chapter 6
*Gregory
Clark, “The
Indicted and the Wealthy: Surnames, Reproductive Success, Genetic
Selection,
and Social Class in Pre-Industrial England.”
*Chagnon, Napoleon.
1988. "Life
Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal
Population," Science
239:985-92.
*Gregory
Clark and Gillian Hamilton, “Survival of
the
Richest. The Malthusian Mechanism in
Pre-Industrial
England.” JEH, 66(3)
(September, 2006).
Hadeishi,
Hajime. 2003. “Economic Well-Being and
Fertility in France: Nuits,
1744-1792.” JEH,
63(2): 489-505.
Carol Shiue. 2008. Human
Capital and Fertility in Chinese Clans.
Diego
Comin, William Easterly, Erick Gong. 2008. Was
the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 BC?”
5.
Economic Change Within the Malthusian Era
*FTA,
Chapters 7
Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches
(1990)
Kremer,
Michael. 1993. “Population
Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990.”
Quarterly
Journal of Economics 108 : 681-716.
6. Institutions and Economic Growth
*FTA,
Chapter
8.
*Bill
Easterly.
2008. Institutions,
Top Down or Bottom Up? AER, May.
(1) *North, Douglass
and R. P. Thomas. 1973. The
Rise of the Western World,
1-8.
*Clark,
Gregory. 1998. “Commons
Sense: Property Rights, Efficiency and Institutional Change,” JEH,
1998.
Kantor,
Shawn. 1990. "Razorbacks,
Ticky Cows, and the Closing of the Georgia
Open
Range: The Dynamics of Institutional Change Uncovered," JEH,
v. 51, n. 4, (Dec): 861-86
(2)*North,
Douglass and Barry Weingast
(1989), "Constitutions
and Commitment," JEH,
pp. 803-832.
*Clark,
Gregory. 1996. “The
Political Foundations of Modern Economic Growth: England, 1540-1800,” Journal
of Interdisciplinary History, 26 (Spring).
*Acemoglu,
Daron, Simon Johnson and James A.
Robinson.
2005. “Institutions
as the fundamental cause of long-run growth.”
In Philippe Aghion
and Steve Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of
Economic
Growth, 385-471.
*Acemoglu, Daron,
James A. Robinson and Simon Johnson. 2001. “The
Colonial Origins of Comparative Economic Development: An Empirical
Investigation,” American Economic Review, 91:
1369-1401.
*Acemoglu, Daron,
James A. Robinson and Simon Johnson. 2002. “Reversal
of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern
World,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 117: 1231-1294.
Acemoglu, Daron,
Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2005. “The Rise of Europe: Atlantic
Trade,
Institutional Change and Economic Growth.” AER
*Clark,
Gregory. 2007. “A
Review of Avner Greif’s, Institutions
and the Path to the Modern Economy.”
Journal of Economic
Literature.
*Greif,
Avner, Paul Milgrom,
and
Barry Weingast. 1994. “Coordination, Commitment and
Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild.” Journal of Political
Economy 102
: 745-776.
7. The Emergence of Modern Man
*FTA,
Chapter 9
*Clark,
Gregory and Ysbrand van der Werf.
1999. “Work
in Progress. The Industrious Revolution?” JEH,
830-843.
Crosby,
Alfred W. The Measure of Reality:
Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600.
*De Vries,
Jan 1994. “The
Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution”
JEH, 249-70.
De Vries, Jan. 2007. The Industrious Revolution
Galor, Oded and
Omer Moav. 2002. “Natural
Selection and
the Origin of Economic Growth.” Quarterly
Journal of
Economics.
*Rogers,
Alan R. 1994. “Evolution
of Time Preference by Natural Selection,” American
Economic Review, 84(3): 460-81.
*Voth,
Joaquim. Time and
Work in England, 1750-1830.
II The
Industrial Revolution
1.
Modern Economic Growth
*FTA,
Chapter 10
Easterlin,
Richard. 1981. "Why Isn't
the Whole World Developed?" JEH,
1-21.
*Lucas,
Robert. 1993. "Making
a Miracle," Econometrica,
61(2), 251-272.
*Delong,
Brad and Larry Summers. 1991. "Equipment
Investment and Economic Growth,"
QJE, 445-502.
Barro, Robert 1991. "Economic
Growth in a Cross-Section of Countries," QJE,
407-444.
2. The
Transition Between Regimes - Theory
*FTA,
Chapter 11
*Becker,
Gary, Kevin Murphy,
and Robert Tamura. 1990. “Human
Capital, Fertility and Economic Growth.”
JPE, 98: S12-37.
*Galor, Oded
and David N. Weil. 2000. “Population,
Technology and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic
Transition
and Beyond.” AER,
90: 806-828.
Jones,
Charles I. 1999. “Was the Industrial
Revolution Inevitable? Economic Growth over
the Very
Long Run.” Working Paper #7375, NBER.
Jones,
Rhys. 1977. “The
Tasmanian Paradox.” In R. V. S. Wright (ed.), Stone Tools as
Cultural
Markers, Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Jones,
Rhys. 1978. “Why
Did the Tasmanians Stop Eating Fish?” In R.
A. Gould
(ed.), Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology.
Santa Fe:-------
Lucas,
Robert E. 2002. “The Industrial
Revolution: Past and Future.” In Robert E. Lucas, Lectures on
Economic
Growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*North,
Douglass and Barry Weingast
(1989), "Constitutions
and Commitment," JEH,
pp. 803-832.
Kremer,
Michael. 1993. “Population
Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990.”
Quarterly
Journal of Economics 108 : 681-716.
3. The
Transition Between Regimes - Facts
*FTA,
Chapter 12-13
*Mokyr,
Joel. 1999, "Introduction" in Joel
Mokyr (ed.), The
Industrial Revolution: An Economic Analysis.
*McCloskey,
Donald. 1981. “1780-1860:
A Survey.” in
Floud, R. and D. N. McCloskey (1981), The
Economic
History of Britain since 1700, Vol. I, 103-127.
McCloskey,
Donald. 1994. "1780-1860: A Survey” in
Floud, R. and D. N. McCloskey (1994), The
Economic
History of Britain since 1700 (2 nd ed), Vol. I,
242-270.
*Temin,
Peter. 1997. “Two
Views of the British Industrial Revolution”
JEH, 63-82.
*Clark,
Gregory. 2007. What
Made Britannia Great?
*Clark, Gregory and Neil Cummins.
2008. Malthus
to Modernity: Income, Fertility and
Economic Growth in England, 1500-1914.
4. The Social Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
*FTA,
chapter 14
Clark,
Gregory
and Marianne Page.
2008. Welfare
Reform, 1834
Van Zanden,
Jan Luiten. 2004. “The
Skill
Premium and the Great Divergence.” Working
Paper,
University of Utrecht.
*Lindert,
Peter. 2004. Growing
Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century, pp. 3-38,
227-263.
III The
Great Divergence
1. The
Spread of the
Industrial Revolution
*FTA,
chapters 15-18
Haber,
Stephen. 1989. Industry and Underdevelopment:
The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890-1940. Chs
2,3
*Clark,
Gregory. 1987. "Why
Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills," JEH, 141-174.
*Wolcott,
Susan and Gregory Clark. 1999. "Why
Nations Fail: Managerial Decisions and Performance in Indian Cotton
Textiles,
1890-1938." JEH, June.
William
Easterly. 2001. The Elusive Quest For
Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the
Tropics.
Kremer,
Michael. 1993a. “The O-Ring
Theory of Development,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 108(3): 551-75.
Sachs,
Jeffrey D. 2003. “Institutions
Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income.”
NBER Working Paper No. 9490.