Economists distinguish between two kinds of growth, extensive and intensive. Extensive growth raises a nation’s total output, but doesn’t make the populace better off and can easily make it worse off. Intensive growth, on the other hand, raises the average person’s standard of living…
Category: economic institutions
Malthus on Population and Human Welfare
A continuously rising standard of living would have been an alien concept to anyone living in Europe (or anywhere else) before 1500. People lived and worked much as their parents and grandparents had, and most of them produced food…
Property Rights and Growth
North and Thomas argue that the establishment and enforcement of property rights has been a major cause of economic growth. A person who has property rights over a particular resource has the right to control it and use it as he pleases. Property rights are determined in part by law and in part by social conventions…
The Intellectual History of Property Rights
The classical economists strongly supported the idea of private property. The idea was less well received in the nineteenth century: John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall were skeptical of it, and Karl Marx rejected it entirely. The twentieth century saw another reversal of opinion…
Feudalism
Feudalism was the economic and political system of Europe during the Middle Ages. One might be tempted to dismiss it as a primitive system, discarded when something better came along, but to do so would be to misunderstand human institutions…
The End of Feudalism
Custom played such a large role in governing feudal institutions that they were resistant to change. Feudalism could only be shaken by substantial changes to the external environment, and those changes finally came…
Economic Ideology and the Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution changed the way that the English thought about their economy. The proponents of an economic ideology that justified the power of the landowners became less influential. The proponents of an ideology that emphasized the value of labour, and the role of manufacturing and trade in realizing this value, became more influential…
Voltaire’s England
Voltaire was exiled to England from 1726 to 1729. His English letters reveal his admiration for England’s religious tolerance, the empiricism of its science, and the vitality of its commerce…
The Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was influenced by both the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment…
Why Nations Fail: Extractive and Inclusive Institutions
Acemoglu and Robinson’s goal is to explain why some nations are rich and others are poor. They present a theory based on the interaction between political and economic institutions. Casual empiricism suggests that its explanatory power is quite strong…
