Professor Susan Wolcott

Office: 1007 Library Tower

swolcott@binghamton.edu
Office Hours: 3:00-4:00 pm TTh

TA: John Pederson. jpeders1@binghamton.edu

Syllabus Econ 485 Historical Perspectives on Economic Growth – Spring 2018

Textbooks.
Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University
Press. 2007. (Available as an ebook on the library website.)
Allen, Robert. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
2009. (On reserve in the library.)
I will also use chapters from several other books, and various journal articles. The books are available on
reserve, and the articles are available on the library website.
Goals of the course.
Economic growth is the key phenomenon for improving the wellbeing of humanity. Understanding the
underlying causes of growth is a chief motivation of economic inquiry. An argument for studying very
long run growth is that the perspective of centuries allows us to evaluate the importance of hypothesized
causal factors of growth. Thus, studying very long run growth should inform our evaluation of modern
policies to promote growth.
Prerequisites: Grade of C or better in ECON 362; also grade of C or better in college level statistics
and calculus.
Assignments:
Midterm (20%) and Final (35%). Chapter summaries from Clark, Allen, and others (15% total,
approximately 8 assignments- you may skip one). Term papers (30% total). The first two term papers
will be approximately three pages, and will be evaluations of articles on historical growth drawn from the
academic literature, but not covered in the course. Each student will do a different article. The final term
paper will be 4 pages, and will be on a question I assign. That assignment will be turned in through
TurnItIn to guard against plagiarism.
Course Topics.
Before the Industrial Revolution. Characterizing the Pre-industrial World.
The long run view of history and the Malthusian trap. (3 weeks)

 Clark, chapters 1-6

 Allen, chapter 2
Links between proto-industrial growth and agricultural growth
(1 week)

 Allen, chapter 3
Relative supplies and prices in pre-industrial England. (3 weeks)

 Allen, chapters 4, 5
 Clark, chapter 9
 DeVries, Jan, “The Industrious Revolution and Economic Growth”
 Article on cities
 O’Brien, “Agriculture and the Home Market for English Industry”

MIDTERM

The Industrial Revolution (2 weeks)

 Clark. Chapters 10-12.

 Allen. Chapters. 6-10.
 Mokyr. Presidential Address
 Kelly, O’Grada, “Adam Smith, Watch Prices and the Industrial Revolution”
 O’Brien. Parliament paper
Institutional Explanations for Differential Growth. (2 weeks)

 Acemoglu & Robinson, Why Nations Fail

 Clark. Chapter 8, 13
 Kingston, “Governance and Institutional Change”
A Comparison with China (3 weeks)

 Mokyr (Lever), chapter 9

 Lin, “The Needham Puzzle”
 Grand, Ma & Rawski, “From Divergence to Convergence”
 De Vries & van der Woude. The First Modern Economy. 4.2, 12.5, 13
 Hoffman

Full citations for articles and books:

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Fail
Brandt, Loren, Debin Ma and Thomas G. Rawski, “From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the
History Behind China’s Economic Boom,” Journal of Economic Literature 52, no. 1 (March 2014), pp.
45-123.
De Vries, Jan, “The Industrious Revolution and Economic Growth,” in Paul A. David and Mark Thomas
(ed.), The Economic Future in Historical Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003).

De Vries, Jan and Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure and Perseverance of
the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1997).
Hoffman, Phillip, Why Did Europe Conquor the World?, Princeton: Princeton University Press (2015).

Kelly, Morgan, Cormac O’Grada, “Adam Smith, Watch Prices and the Industrial Revolution,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics 131, no. 4 (Nov. 2016), pp. 1727-1752.

Kingston, Christopher, “Governance and Institutional Change in Marine Insurance, 1350-1850,”

European Review of Economic History 18 (Feb. 2014), pp. 1-18.

Lin, Justin Yifu, “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China,”
Economic Development and Cultural Change 43, no. 2 (Jan. 1995), pp. 269-292.

Mokyr, Joel, The Enlightened Economy. An Economic History of Britain 1700 to 1850, New Haven:
Yale University Press (2009).

Mokyr, Joel, The Lever of Riches, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1990).

North, Douglass C., Structure and Change in Economic History, London: W.W. Norton (1981).

North, Douglass C. and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (1973).

O’Brien, Patrick, “Agriculture and the Home Market for English Industry, 1660-1820,” The English
Historical Review 100, no. 397 (Oct. 1985), pp. 773-800.

O’Brien, Patrick, Parliament Paper

Supplemental Reading.
Allen, Robert C., “Progress and Poverty in Early Modern Europe,” The Economic History Review 56, no.
3 (Aug. 2003), pp. 403-443. (The article on which chapter 5 of text is based. Includes data.)

Allen, Robert, Jean-Pascal Bassino, Debin Ma, Chrisine Moll-Murata, and Jan Luiten van Zanden,
“Wages, Prices and Living standards in /china, 1738-1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and
India,” The Economic History Review 64, S1 (2011), pp. 8-38.

Allen, Robert, “The Nitrogen Hypothesis and the English Agricultural Revolution: A Biological
Analysis,” Journal of Economic History vol. 68, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 182-210. (Develops a model of
nitrogen increase which explains why the Agricultural “Revolution” actually took several hundred years
to see the full increase in yields following the switch to the new rotations.)

Clark, Gregory, “1381 and the Malthus delusion,” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 1 (January
2013), pp. 4-15. (Discusses degree of urbanization in England in 1381 from poll tax records.)

Clark, Gregory, “The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population, and Economic Growth, England
1209-1869,” Economic History Review vol. 60, no. 1 (February 2007), pp. 97-135. (Explains how Clark
estimates population from the medieval period.)

Clark, Gregory, “The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209-2004,” Journal of Political
Economy vol. 113, No. 6 (December 2005), pp. 1307-1340. (More nuanced view of the argument
presented in Farewell to Alms. Clark had to be restrained as this journal is arguably the best in
economic academic literature.)
Clark, Gregory and Neil Cummins, “Surnames and Social Mobility in England, 1170-2012, Human
Nature (2014), vol. 25, pp. 517-537. (Discusses estimation of persistence of “social status” across
generations using wealth and attendance at Oxbridge by constructing groups with the same surname.
Averaging groups should theoretically attenuate measurement error and yield a more accurate estimate
of persistence.)

Coleman, D. C., “An Innovation and its Diffusion,” The Economic History Review 22, no. 3 (Dec. 1969),
pp. 417-429.

Deane, Phyllis, “The Output of the British Woolen Industry in the Eighteenth Century,” The Journal of
Economic History vol. 17, no. 2 (June, 1957), pp. 207-223. (This is still the best estimate of the size and
growth of the woolen industry from 1695 to 1805. Concentrate on section VI, pp. 219 223. Millions of
pounds consumed went from 40 to 102 pounds, with the value of final product rising almost 4 fold. It
employed approximately 1/10 of the population- including women and children part-time, and may have
been about 6% of national income.)

Ma, Debin, “Why Japan, Not China, Was the First to Develop in East Asia: Lessons from Sericulture,
1850-1937,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (2004), pp. 369-394).

North, Douglass C., Structure and Change in Economic History, London: W.W. Norton (1981).

North, Douglass C. and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (1973).

ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT POLICY REGARDING MAKE-UP FINAL EXAMS

STUDENTS SHOULD NOT MAKE ANY TRAVEL PLANS to return home before the END of the exam period
Friday, May 17, 2019 unless all exams, including make-up exams, have been verified. Those who book travel prior
to the end of their scheduled exams will NOT be accommodated under any circumstances. The desire to leave early
does not qualify you for an early make-up final exam—if you are not present to take the regular final or the
scheduled make-up exam, then the missed final exam will count as an F towards your course grade.

ALL make-up final exams in Economics will be given Friday, May 17, from 8:00 AM to 10:00AM. All
officially scheduled final exams for Spring 2019 will be linked from the BU Brain on February 8. YOU MUST
CHECK FOR CONFLICTS. If a conflict exists you may request a make-up exam from the instructor of ANY of the
conflicting courses. The larger classes typically give make-ups rather than the smaller classes. If you request a
make-up exam for an economics course, a sign-up list and/or a google form to request the make-up exam will be
available in class after the add/drop deadline – ask the instructor. Students MUST make their request for a make-up
exam in economics NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, April 12.

It is the student’s responsibility to learn from the instructor if the request has been approved. Only students who
are approved may take a make-up final exam. Students who have not requested a make-up exam in an economics
course by April 12 will be required to resolve conflicting exams with the instructor in one of their other courses.

Make-up exams are approved ONLY for the following conditions:

 Conflicts with the OFFICIAL final exam schedule such as –
o Two exams at the exact same time or
o More than two exams that begin within a 24 period.
 DOCUMENTED personal illness or family emergency.