Abstract
This chapter surveys research on political economy in economic history. It discusses the integration of the public choice/political economy approaches with economic history by providing a highly selective thematic overview. Topics discussed include the origins of the state, different regime types, labor coercion, warfare, religion, and state capacity. The chapter also provides detailed illustrations of how economic historians have investigated specific historical episodes such as the Glorious Revolution, French Revolution, the consequences of European empires, and the rise of Democracies.
This was originally completed while I was the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell Fellowship at the Hoover Institution and updated in February 2023. I am grateful for comments on the original version from Mike Haupert, Thilo Huning, Noel Johnson, Pseudoeramus, and proofreading from Kashiff Thompson.
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Notes
- 1.
The Nobel Prize was awarded to Fogel and North for pioneering cliometrics, specifically, “research that combines economic theory, quantitative methods, hypothesis testing, counterfactual alternatives, and traditional techniques of economic history, to explain economic growth and decline” (The Prize in Economics 1993 – Press Release, 1993).
- 2.
The political economy label is particularly associated with the work of Persson and Tabellini (2000), Alberto Alesina, and Dani Rodrik.
- 3.
See discussion in Diebolt and Haupert (2018) of the impact of Fogel and North on economic history.
- 4.
The current state of the field is influenced by Acemoglu et al. (2001, 2005a), who took Northian arguments and tested them econometrically using innovative empirical methods. Following the success of Acemoglu et al. (2001), this approach has bloomed both within economic history and in the related fields of growth economics, development, and political economy. Other important publications by Acemoglu and Robinson and their coauthors include Acemoglu et al. (2005a, b), Acemoglu (2006).
- 5.
Though this specific research design has come under recent criticism, see Arroyo Abad and Maurer (2021).
- 6.
Fleck and Andrew Hanssen (2013) discuss how the institution of tyranny – stable autocratic rule – helped to pave the way for democratization.
- 7.
Economic historians have criticized the coding and the depiction of Spain and France as governed by overly powerful absolutist monarchs as out of date. But this research showed what was possible with historical data.
- 8.
- 9.
For example, Greif (2006) studied Jewish traders based in North Africa in the eleventh century. He argued that they relied on markers of a shared identity i.e., identifying rules to support the cooperation which made long-distance trade possible. But these rules were limited in scope. Outsiders could not benefit from the Maghribi network, and the network itself was limited in scale.
- 10.
For a survey of investment in legal capacity, see Koyama (2023).
- 11.
Note, that the most recent research on the Spanish economy, for instance, points to domestic factors such as the absence of integrated markets, or a standardized fiscal system (Grafe 2012; Álvarez Nogal and de la Escosura 2013). Many of the bolder claims made on the behalf of the importance of empire to the origins of growth in Europe are ably dismissed by McCloskey (2010).
- 12.
A recent paper does make case that the profits from slave plantations helped fund manufacturing within England (Heblich et al. 2022).
- 13.
See also Koyama and Rubin (2022, Chapter 6).
- 14.
This leads one to ask what determines patterns of pre-colonial state development in Africa. According to Fenske (2014), pre-colonial African states emerged in more ecologically diverse environments, where the returns to trade were greater.
- 15.
These articles have come under criticism for taking into account the full cost of empire (see Coyne and Davies 2007).
- 16.
Dower et al. (2018) address the relationship between the threat of revolution and the emergence of representative institutions using data from Russia during the Great Reforms that abolished serfdom. They find that peasants received less representation in local assemblies (zemstvo) in districts that experienced more frequent peasant unrest in the years preceding 1864. This result is consistent with Acemoglu and Robinson (2000), who predict that political reforms are most likely to be offered when the poor posed only a temporary threat to the established order. When the poor pose a permanent threat, however, democraticization is no longer the sole way the elite can credibly commit to future redistribution.
- 17.
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Koyama, M. (2023). Political Economy. In: Diebolt, C., Haupert, M. (eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-2
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Latest
Political Economy- Published:
- 27 October 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-2
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Original
Political Economy- Published:
- 05 March 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-1