Economics 210a: Introduction to Economic History: U.C. Berkeley: Spring 2008

Memo Question for May 7: Divergence, Bigtime

May 7: The economic history of the world both in the post-WWII period 1945-1990 and, in broader perspective, over the past two centuries has been one in which the world has shrunken enormously in distance along every conceivable measurement, and yet in which income and productivity differences between societies have grown enormously. What, in your judgment, are the possible big-picture theories for explaining this phenomenon that are worth investigating?

Memo Question for April 30: "Thirty Glorious Years"

Memo Question for April 30: "Thirty Glorious Years": A growing literature develops explanations for 'Europe's golden age' (the European economy's fast growth in the third quarter of the 20th century). Is this effort misguided? In other words, do we really need fancy explanations for a straightforward phenomenon that is easily explained in terms of convergence and delayed structural change?

Memo Question for April 23: The Great Depression

Memo Question for April 23: The Great Depression: What do our readings tell us about the answers to the following two questions?

• Why was the Great Depression so great?
• Why has there been only one Great Depression in the long span between the commercial revolution and today?

Memo Question for April 16: The Gold Standard

Memo Question for April 16: The Gold Standard: Would the world economy have been better off if it had adopted some other form of international monetary arrangements besides the gold standard late in the nineteenth century? What other form of international monetary arrangements do you have in mind--or why were there no plausible superior alternatives?

Memo Question for April 9

Memo Question for April 9: The economies settled from northwestern Europe--the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand--were all resource rich. So why did they industrialize? Why didn't they simply become gigantic Denmarks, shipping agricultural and other resource-based products to the European industral powers in return for manufactures?

Memo Question for April 2: Imperialism, Colonialism, Globalization

Memo Question for April 2: Imperialism, Colonialism, Globalization: If the 1870-1914 period was a time of imperialism and colonialism, how could it also be an era of globaliztion? Your answer should be clear abou the definitions of these terms...

Memo Question for March 19: Econ 210a

What relevance and use does a work like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848), "Manifesto of the Communist Party" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ have to twenty-first century economists today?

Memo Question for March 12: Technology, Investment, and the Industrial Revolution

Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson write that the "historiography of the industrial revolution in England has moved away from viewing the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a unique turning point in economic and social development." Do you agree with their conclusion that the literature has moved too far in this direction? Why or why not?

Memo Question for March 5

Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson state that "It is undoubtedly true that colonial relations with the New World and Asia contributed to European growth." They go on to acknowledge that profits from these trades directly could not have accounted for much growth. How, then, can they, or anyone (i.e. the other readings), so confidently assert that the intercontinental trades caused "European growth." Does the answer depend on the definition of growth, or on a more complex model of the relationship of trade to growth?

Memo Question for February 27: Colonialism

"The treasure captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into capital." -- Marx, Capital, Vol. 1 Ch. 32.

Do the other assigned readings provide any basis for assessing the general truth of this passage from Marx? In what sense did colonial trade in the 1497-1800 period contribute to capital formation in Europe?

Memo Question for February 13: Industrious Revolution

Memo Question for February 13: Industrious Revolution: In his article Voth cites the elegant dictum of D. N. McCloskey that "ingenuity rather than abstention governed the Industrial Revolution." By this McCloskey meant that technological change was more important than a rise in investment (and a corresponding decline in current consumption) in driving economic growth during the Industrial Revolution.

Voth concludes his article as follows: "Abstention seems to have been more important than invention [in bringing about the Industrial Revolution]but it was abstention from leisure ... that was at the core of economic growth."

Does Voth provide the evidence needed to persuade you that he is correct? Is his evidence convincing to Clark? What evidence would you deem necessary to make this case?

Memo Question for February 20: Institutions

Memo Question for February 20: Institutions: Judging by the readings, how much of a difference does "good government"--that is, a government that cares about commerce and enforces contracts more-or-less honestly--appear to have made in the centuries before the industrial revolution in Britain?

February 6: Malthus and the Malthusian Economy

Clark claims that "the real income in Malthusian economies [ all World economies before 1800] was determined from the birth rate and death rate schedules alone." (p. 28) Does this mean that mankind was powerless to improve its material conditions via factors such as technology, social organization, population control, etc.?

January 30: Diamond

Pre-Class Memo Topic for January 30: Was it in fact the case--as UCLA's Jared Diamond maintains--that the invention of agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of the human race? What can we say about the causes of the fact that in some human societies technological and organizational progress appears relatively slow and in others relatively fast? And is there a relationship between these two questions?