Category Archives: Uncategorized

Labour relations & textiles: addenda

Posted on 2017-09-27 by

This post contains related topics and disjointed observations as addenda to “Labour repression & the Indo-Japanese divergence” in cotton textiles. (Lack of) Japanese industrial policy in cotton textiles, with a note on Sven Beckert Bargaining & capital-labour substitution in cotton … Continue reading →

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Economic History Papers, Articles & Blogs

Posted on 2017-03-22 by

As a companion to my Economic History books page, which stresses economic history by region or country, I have created a new Economic History Papers page. It collects surveys, papers, and blogs which cover topics in global economic history and comparative historical development. But it’s … Continue reading →

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The 25 most stimulating economic history books since 2000

Posted on 2017-01-12 by

Inspired by Vincent Geloso, here is a list of the 25 books in economic history published since 2000 which I have found most stimulating or provocative. Not the best, nor the most ‘correct’, nor the most balanced, but those things which influenced, stimulated, … Continue reading →

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¿De donde vienen las instituciones prosociales?

Posted on 2015-10-03 by

[19 October 2015] Jesús Alfaro of the Autonomous University of Madrid has translated my previous post into Spanish: ¿De dónde vienen las instituciones prosociales?

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Anachronism & Relevance in History: a comment on Steve Pincus

Posted on 2015-05-25 by

Anachronism and relevance are in tension. Historians (often) rail against the former and (often) pine for the latter. They can easily manage a bit of relevance by intervening in today’s political and economic debates and offering ‘lessons’ from the past — but at high risk of … Continue reading →

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The Little Divergence

Posted on 2014-06-12 by

Summary : A “great divergence” between the economies of Western Europe and East Asia had unambiguously occurred by 1800. However, there’s a growing body of opinion that this was preceded by a “little divergence” (or “lesser divergence”?) which might have started … Continue reading →

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Angus Maddison

Posted on 2014-06-12 by

This blogpost examines the dubious assumptions behind Angus Maddison’s pre-1200 income data.

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Don’t keep saying he didn’t explain England

Posted on 2014-06-02 by

Too many readers have believed Gregory Clark in A Farewell to Alms did not really address why England experienced the Industrial Revolution first. Right or wrong, Clark did offer an explanation.

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Proto et al., “Higher Intelligence Groups Have Higher Cooperation Rates in the Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma”

Posted on 2014-05-27 by

This is a description of Proto, Rustichini & Sofianos, “Higher Intelligence Groups Have Higher Cooperation Rates in the Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma”. The text was originally embedded in the longer post, “Where do pro-social institutions come from?“, but several people asked me to make … Continue reading →

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The Creativity of Civilisations

Posted on 2014-05-15 by

There are idiots in this world who babble about the rise and fall of the Islamic Golden Age in terms of rising and falling mean intelligence!!! Amazing. Here is a simple illustration of “more people, more ideas”.

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments