Without economic history, economics runs the risk of being too abstract or parochial, of failing to notice precedents, trends and cycles, of overlooking the long-run and thus misunderstanding ‘how we got here’. Recent financial and economic crises illustrate spectacularly how the economics...

Chapter 1 Reinsurance in America Regulatory Regimes and Markets -- Chapter 2 Dutch reinsurance and the first wave of globalization -- Chapter 3 Swedish Reinsurers in the Non-Life Sector -- Chapter 4 The ups and downs of French reinsurance in the 20th century -- Chapter 5 The ups and downs of...

1 Introduction -- 2 An Overview of Pandemics -- 3 The Spanish Flu in the News -- 4 Unequal Mortality during the Spanish Flu -- 5 The Spanish Flu and the Labor Market -- 6 The Spanish Flu and the Housing Market -- 7 Taking Stock: The Aggregate Effects of the Spanish Flu.

Part 1 Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Change of Time and the Formation of the Westernization Thought -- Chapter 2. The Guiding Principle of Westernization Movement.-Chapter 3. The Development Strategies of the Self-Strengthening Modernization -- Chapter 4. Social Reformative Thought of...

Chapter 1: Perceptions -- Chapter 2: Making Decisions: Lessons from Behavioural Economics -- Chapter 3: Establishing the Socialist Workplace: Labour, Norms and the Introduction of Piecework -- Chapter 4: Learning from the Soviet Union Means Learning to Win: Group Technology and the Mitrofanov...

With the life story of Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931), one of the most important financiers and industrialists in modern Japanese history, as its narrative focal point, this book explores the challenges of importing modern business enterprises to Japan, where the pursuit of profit was considered...

This book rejects the idea that natural resource industries are doomed to slow growth. Rather, it examines the case of Norway to demonstrate that such industries can prove highly innovative and dynamic. Here, the case is compellingly made that a key empirical problem with the popular ‘resource...

This book traces regional income inequality in Spain during the transition from a pre-industrial society to a modern economy, using the Spanish case to shed further light on the challenges that emerging economies are facing today. Regional inequality is currently one of the most pressing...

The 1930s, characterised by repercussions from World War I and the Great Depression, was an era of populism, nationalism, protectionism, government intervention and attempts to create planned economies. The perceived need for economic planning emerged in Sweden in part due to the increasing...

The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of historical enquiry, and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these judgments are based?...