Seminar 1

1
Seminar 1

• Jeffrey Sachs The end of poverty
• Read the whole book
• Write a small reflection (no more than 150 words)
  for each of the three issues

2
Seminar 1

• No more than one page for all three issues
• Hand in on 15th of September
• Graded with Pass or Fail
• If you cannot attend the seminar, write an
  additional page.

3
North Institutionalism

• Rules of the game
• Increase efficiency of the economy
• Not static but changes with time
• Factor prices
• Transaction costs

4
The rise and decline of feudalism

• Feudalism 500-1500 AD
• Western Europe rose out of the ashes of the Roman
  Empire
• Had its institutional foundation in the Roman
  empire
• The manor
• serfs
• slavery

5
Feudal Europe

• Land was granted to knights by the king in return
  for military services
• The Ruler fighter/class had
• serfs and freemen
• Worked the lands of the ruler
• Worked land granted by the ruler

6
Feudal Europe

• Farmer worked for the right to use lands
• Farmers stayed under the protection of the lord
• The lord had military might

7
Feudal Europe

• Land only valuable with labour
• Labour needed to be protected
• High transaction costs to both farmer and
  landlord
• Trade low level and very high transaction costs

8
The decline of Fedualism

• Safety
• Population increase
• Crowding
• Diminishing returns
• Colonisation of Western Europe
• Towns
• Specialisation

9
The decline of Fedualism

• Factor prices changed
• New land regulations
• The position of the farmer weaken
• Trade increases
• Lords protect the traders
• Granted privileges
• Still on a low level
• Diminishing real wages
• Food consumption down
• The plague

10
The decline of Feudalism

• Relative factor price of labour increase
• Strengthening the farmers
• Escaping the manorial lands
• Competition over the labour force

11
The decline of Feudalism

• The town guilds strengthen their control
• Tenants get stronger rights
• Manorial courts lose jurisdiction
• The king gains influence

12
Europe 1500

• Many small kingdoms
• Great rivalry
• Little trade
• Luxury consumtion
• Great wealth and great inequality

13
The birth of modern Europe

• England the glorious revolution
• France the french revolution 1789
• But what happened in the 300 years leading up to
  this?

14

• Cycles of growth and decline over this time
• The decline of the Iberians
• The rice of Northwestern Europe

15
Iberians

• Output slower than population growth
• Luxury consumption
• Wars
• Metals from Latin America

16
England

• Arguably the most successful of the of the
  western powers
• Went from a small kingdom to the most powerful
  country in the world between 1500 and 1700
• A pressing need for the King to find revenue

17
England

• The Tudors
• Grants and priviliges
• Confiscating monastic land
• Allied with merchants and the parliament
• The wool conflict
• King kept tax revenues
• Parliament decided tax levels
• Merchants recieved a monopoly

18
England

• Wooltrade declined but the right to tax remained
  with parliament
• The control of property rights to the parliament
• Weak nobility
• Weak King
• Strong merchant class

19

• The Industrial revolution
• Dramatically increased standards of living
• Industry and services dominate
• Urbanisation
• Continous technological change

20
England

• The Industrial revolution
• Textile industry
• Refining wool
• Northern England

21
England

• The enclosure movement
• Value of land increased
• Land was transformed to pasture
• Small investments in new technology
• Putting out system -gtFarmers became
• Weavers
• Spinners
• Supplementary income
• Hard to control

22
England

• Second enclosure movement
• Sources of income removed from the farmers
• The commons privatised
• Productivity increases
• Landless farmers became workers
• Markets expanded -gt need to increase production
• High transaction costs
• Factories

23
England

• From wool to cotton
• Result of the competition with Holland
• Import of cotton from
• India
• America
• Landowners lost power to the merchants

24
England

• Industries needed resources
• Cotton
• Rubber
• Iron
• Coal
• Products from the world refined in England
• The workshop of the world

25
England

• Trade
• New cheap transportation
• Steam engines
• Cheaper transportation
• Comparative advantages used by the English
  capitalists

26
England

• The second Industrial revolution
• Technology and science to sustain the growth
• The decline of the Churchs monopoly of education
• Managerial development
• Replacing man with machine
• Property rights

27
Rest of Europe

• Industrialisation spread across Europe
• Core nations
• Levels of backwardness
• English capital spreading to other countries
• Funding the railroads of Europe