In this essay I review Sylvia Nasar’s long awaited new history of economics, Grand Pursuit. Idescribe how the book is an economic history of the period from 1850-1950, withdistinguished economists’ stories inserted in appropriate places. Nasar’s goal is to show howeconomists work, but also...

Der vorliegende Beitrag ist Dieter Schneeloch gewidmet, mit dem mich eine nunbald 30-jährige fachliche Zusammenarbeit und eine daraus entstandene persönlicheFreundschaft verbinden. Als ich die ehrenvolle Einladung erhielt, an einerFestschrift zu seinen Ehren mitzuwirken, habe ich daher sofort...

In this paper, the influence of information costs on the integration of Northern European financial markets between ca. 1350 and 1560 is explored. The approach is based on splitting information costs into their constitutive components and on measuring one of these, i.e. the costs of transmitting...

Eyam is an epicentre of Europe’s plague heritage. Every year, tens of thousands of people visit the Derbyshire village, drawn by stories of its catastrophic plague and the heroic response it elicited. The story they are told - of a self-imposed quarantine preventing disease spreading to the...

The role of technology in the transition from premodern to modern economies in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe is among the major questions in economic history, but it is still poorly understood. A plausible explanation of premodern European technological development must account...

Organisational ambidexterity is the difficult act of balancing two diametrically opposedorganisational qualities – adaptability and alignment. Adaptability is about focusing onthe future. It is the ability to respond to change, to be nimble, to progress. Alignmentis about maximising the...

In the absence of a broad international agreement, national climate policiesare less efficient, due to carbon leakage, and more costly, due to causingunemployment and a loss of competitiveness on international markets. As,in many countries, a substantial fraction of emissions results from the...