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'Whatever Is, Is Right'? Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe (Tawney Lecture 2006)
Ogilvie, Sheilagh - 2021
Institutions - the structures of rules and norms governing economic transactions - are widely assigned a central role in economic development. Yet economic history is still dominated by the belief that institutions arise and survive because they are economically efficient. This paper shows that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013316895
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Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth
Anderlini, Luca; Felli, Leonardo; Immordino, Giovanni; … - CESifo - 2011
change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when (lack of) commitment …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009150639
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Broadband Infrastructure and Economic Growth
Czernich, Nina - 2012
We estimate the effect of broadband infrastructure, which enables high-speed internet, on economic growth in the panel of OECD countries in 1996-2007. Our instrumental-variable model derives its non-linear first stage from a logistic diffusion model where pre-existing voice-telephony and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013116573
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The Diffusion of New Institutions : Evidence from Renaissance Venice's Patent System
Comino, Stefano - 2017
that are more effective at preventing outsider's entry and at mitigating price competition lead to less patenting. We test … restrict entry and price competition. We show that guilds which originated from medieval religious confraternities were more … likely to regulate entry and competition, and that the effect on patenting is robust to instrumenting guild statutes with …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012947993
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What Lessons for Economic Development Can We Draw from the Champagne Fairs?
Edwards, Jeremy - 2011
The medieval Champagne fairs are widely used to draw lessons about the institutional basis for long-distance impersonal exchange. This paper re-examines the causes of the outstanding success of the Champagne fairs in mediating international trade, the timing and causes of the fairs' decline, and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013125358
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Institutional Transplant and Cultural Proximity : Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Prussia
Lecce, Giampaolo - 2016
The economic impact of an institutional transplant depends on the underlying cultural environment of the receiving country. This paper provides the first evidence that the positive effect of importing good institutions cancels out when the receiving territories are characterized by cultural...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013000827
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Interest Groups and Government Spending in Italy, 1876-1913
Fiorino, Nadia - 2009
was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013157657
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Nation Building : The Role of Central Spending in Education
Cinnirella, Francesco - 2016
It is generally argued that, in the context of Imperial Germany, public primary education was used to form “loyal citizens” and to build a nation. In this paper we analyze to what extent central spending on primary education affected participation at general elections and votes for...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012979594
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Malthus Meets Luther : The Economics Behind the German Reformation
Curuk, Malik - 2016
The Reformation provided a powerful source of legitimacy for secularization of governance and enabled the regional authorities to change the institutional structure to eliminate the inefficiencies under the prevailing (Catholic) regime. We investigate this idea in a simple model of regime change...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012984569
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Activated History - The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna
Ochsner, Christian - 2017
We study whether long-gone but activated history can shape social attitudes and behavior even after centuries. We exploit the case of the sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683, when Turkish troops pillaged individual municipalities across East Austria. In 2005, Austrian right-wing populists started...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012949322