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Introduction to Economic History
University of California, Berkeley
<
https://www.icloud.com/pages/0c8aFBnxIqwiaF-Fiax-Lzudg
>
Economics 210A
Spring 2020
Wednesday 1:10-3:00 p.m.
U.C. Berkeley
648 Evans Hall
1/12/21
Introduction to Economic History
Economics 210A
Spring 2021
Wednesday 1:00-3:00pm
Ellora Derenoncourt
&
Brad DeLong
University of California, Berkeley
ellora.derenoncourt@berkely.edu
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
Zoom Room: <
https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/97240285431?
pwd=VldmeGdtNmR6eklqSGUwMGgza3hIUT09
>
Economics 210a is required of students in the fi rst year of the Ph.D. program. The course
introduce
s
select
ed
themes from the economic history literature
. It does
not present a
narrative account of world economic history). The goal of the course is to get you excited
about empirical work in historical contexts and
show
you the insights history can provide to
the practicing economist. We will read some of
what we regard
the
“
best hits
”
in economic
history. We will identify some of the key remaining open questions in the literature.
We will
also
feature a number of guest lecturers presenting recent work, with the goal of inspiring
students as they launch their research careers.
Class meetings consist of a mixture of lecture and discussion. Because discussion will focus
on issues raised by the assigned readings,
READINGS SHOULD BE COMPLETED
BEFORE CLASS
.
Your grade will be based 50 percent on weekly memos due
the evening before
the beginning
of each class
at 5:00 PM Pacifi c time on Tuesday
, and 50 percent on
a
research paper. Extra
credit will be given for informed classroom discussion.
Weekly Memos
After the fi rst week, a memo on each week
’
s readings is due, submitted on the course
’
s
bCourses website, at 5pm on Tuesday, the day before the readings
will be
discussed.
We will
1
post
the memo questions on the bCourses site. Typically, the week
’
s question will be posted
on Thursday, fi ve days before the class when your memo is due.
Your memos should be about 300 words, and certainly no more than 600 words. They
cannot be exhaustive
. They cannot
provide defi nitive answers. But they can explain why a
question is important, and they can draw on assigned readings to answer it.
Research Paper
Papers are due on Friday, May 14 by 5 pm.
Please upload your paper as a pdf fi le to the
Economics 210a bCourses page. The paper should not exceed 5000 words.
The
paper-writing
process
has
three benchmarks
:
1.
D
iscuss your paper topic
with at least one of the instructors
during offi ce hours during
the fi rst month of the semester, before March 1.
2.
S
ubmit a brief paper prospectus before spring break: 5:00 PM Friday, March 19: again,
upload your prospectus and paper to the Economics 210a bCourses page
. T
he prospectus
should explain why the topic is important, present your hypothesis, describe the materials,
and detail the approach that will be used to analyze it.
3.
G
ive a short presentation on your paper-in-progress to the class during one of the April
class meetings.
Your paper should provide new evidence and analysis of a topic in economic history.
You
should use the tools of economics to pose and answer as best you can a historical question.
The paper should have historical substance. This is not a requirement in applied economics
or econometrics that can be satisfi ed by relabeling the variables in theoretical models taught
elsewhere or just by applying new statistical techniques to heavily-worked data.
Topic:
The paper can cover any topic in economic history. The only requirement is that the
topic must genuinely involve the past. What is the economic past?
One answer is a period
when the economic environment was signifi cantly different from today. You must make the
case.
Comparisons of past and current events are fi ne, but heavy focus on current events is
likely to be problematic.
Historical Evidence:
Historical evidence comes in many forms. The evidence could be
geographic, including the use of historical boundaries, locations of rivers, crop suitability;
complete count census data and linked data across Censuses; newly digitized data from
historical reports on government fi nances, wages, or traded goods; or historical survey data.
Narrative historical evidence can also be used to bolster econometric arguments, especially in
contexts where data are sparse. Check the
“
Historical data resources
”
page
on the website
for more information on data sources and methodologies.
Successful Topics from Previous Years:
Your graduate career (indeed your entire career) will
depend on your success at identifying interesting questions. For this reason, we will not give
you a list of topics. Instead, we mention here, by way of illustration, examples of topics and
suggestions of ways of fi nding similarly successful topics.
2
The easiest paper to write is a critique of an existing paper.
Is there selection bias? Has the
author omitted a key variable? One student noticed a footnote in a paper that said one
observation had been left out of the fi gure because it was large relative to the others, but
that this same extreme observation was included in the empirical analysis. The student got
the data and showed that the published results depended crucially on this one observation.
Few events have no historical antecedents. If there is a modern development you are
interested in, you could look for its historical roots or counterparts. For example, much has
been written about the advent of the Internet. How do its development and impact compare
to those of the telegraph? The telephone? Radio? Television?
Have you come across an unusual source in the library? Is there an interesting question that
this source could be used to answer? One student came across the catalogs for the 1851
World
’
s Fair. She had the idea that these descriptions of what each country exhibited could
be used as a measure of innovation. She wrote a paper looking at the industrial composition
of innovation across countries. Another student was browsing newspapers from San
Francisco in the 1870s. He found classifi ed ads that read something like: "Wanted
—
man to
work in store and loan store $1000." This student wondered why companies would tie
employment and loans. He wrote a paper investigating whether ads such as these were a sign
of credit market imperfections or a way of ensuring worker loyalty and honesty.
You might take a hypothesis in the historical literature and suggest a new way of testing it.
An example of this type of paper involves the debate over how business cycles have
changed over time. One researcher suggested that instead of attempting to parse the
implications of very imperfect estimates of real GDP, one could look at stock prices as an
indicator of the volatility of the macroeconomy.
History is full of natural experiments: borders are redrawn, a war is fought, new regulation is
imposed. Often such experiments can be used to answer important questions in economics--
for example, what the changing speed with which liberty ships were built during World War
II tells us about the extent of learning by doing.
Some very good papers from past years can be found here: <
https://delong.typepad.com/
teaching_economics/model-economic-history-papers.html
>.
Readings
Required readings are available on the course website.
We also recommend the following references on econometric methods:
Cunningham, S. (2020). Causal Inference.
The Mixtape
,
1
.
(Links to an external site.)
Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J. S. (2008).
Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist's
companion
. Princeton university press.
Jan. 20: Introductions & Course Overview; Frontier and Indigenous Economic
History Part I (Derenoncourt)
No required readings this week.
3
Jan. 27: Frontier and Indigenous Economic History Part II
Bazzi, S., Fiszbein, M., & Gebresilasse, M. (2020). Frontier culture: The roots and
persistence of “rugged individualism” in the United States.
Econometrica
,
88
(6),
2329-2368.
Carlos, A., Feir, D., & Redish, A. (2021). Indigenous Nations and the Development of the
US Economy. Working Paper.
Hornbeck, R. (2010). Barbed wire: Property rights and agricultural development. The
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125(2), 767-810.
Feb. 3: Slavery, Reconstruction, & Jim Crow Part I – Guest lecture Abhay Aneja
(Derenoncourt)
Cook, L. D. (2014). Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American
patents, 1870–1940.
Journal of Economic Growth
,
19
(2), 221-257.
(Links to an external site.)
Listen to
Story of a Paper
(Links to an external site.)
(9 minutes) – NPR’s Planet Money Interview with Dr. Lisa Cook.
Logan, T. D. (2020). Do Black Politicians Matter? Evidence from Reconstruction.
The
Journal of Economic History
,
80
(1), 1-37.
Aneja, A., & Xu, G. (2020).
The costs of employment segregation: Evidence from the
federal government under Wilson
(No. w27798). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Actions
Feb. 10: Slavery, Reconstruction, & Jim Crow Part II – Guest Lecture Suresh Naidu
(Derenoncourt)
Naidu, S. (2020). American slavery and labour market power.
Economic History of
Developing Regions
,
35
(1), 3-22.
González, F., Marshall, G., & Naidu, S. (2017). Start-up nation? Slave wealth and
entrepreneurship in Civil War Maryland.
The Journal of Economic History
,
77
(2),
373-405.
Ager, P., Boustan, L. P., & Eriksson, K. (2019).
The intergenerational effects of a large
wealth shock: White southerners after the civil war
(No. w25700). National Bureau of
Economic Research.
Feb. 17: Inequality in the 20th Century: Crises and Institutions Part I
(Derenoncourt)
4
Bayer, P., & Charles, K. K. (2018). Divergent paths: A new perspective on earnings
differences between black and white men since 1940.
The Quarterly Journal of
Economics
,
133
(3), 1459-1501.
Farber, H. S., Herbst, D., Kuziemko, I., & Naidu, S. (2020).
Unions and inequality over
the twentieth century: New evidence from survey data.
Working Paper.
Feb. 24: Inequality in the 20th Century: Crises and Institutions Part II – Guest
Lecture Claire Montialoux (Derenoncourt)
Clemens, M. A., Lewis, E. G., & Postel, H. M. (2018). Immigration restrictions as active
labor market policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero exclusion.
American Economic
Review
,
108
(6), 1468-87.
Derenoncourt, E., & Montialoux, C. (2021). Minimum wages and racial inequality.
The
Quarterly Journal of Economics
,
136
(1), 169-228.
Mar. 3: Expansions and Contractions of Economic Rights: Gender Equality & Civil
Rights (Derenoncourt)
Aneja, A. P., & Avenancio-Leon, C. F. (2019). The effect of political power on labor
market inequality: Evidence from the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Working paper.
Goldin, C., & Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of" blind"
auditions on female musicians.
American Economic Review
,
90
(4), 715-741.
March 10. Huddled Masses
Ran Abramitzky,
Leah Platt Boustan
, &
Katherine Eriksson
(2012):
Europe's Tired,
Poor, Huddled Masses: Self-Selection and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass
Migration
<
https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1500790/fi les?preview=79849622
>
W. Arthur Lewis
(1978):
Evolution of the International Economic Order
<
https://
bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1500790/fi les?preview=79849941
>
Jeffrey G. Williamson
(2002):
Land, Labor, and Globalization in the Third World,
1870-1940
<
https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1500790/fi les?preview=79850054
>
M
arch 17. M
althusian Econom
ies
Jared Diamond
(1987)
:
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
<
http://
discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-
race
>
Richard Steckel
(2008)
:
Biological Measures of the Standard of Living
<
http://
www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.22.1.129
>
Gregory Clark
(2005)
:
The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209–2004
<
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/ .pdf
>
5
March 31
.
Technology & Organization: The Very Long Run
Moses Finley
(1965)
:
Technical Innovation
&
Economic Progress in the Ancient World
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2591872
>
Michael Kremer
(1993)
:
Population Growth
&
Technological Change: One Million B.C.
to 1990
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118405
>
Charles Jones
(1995):
R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth
<
https://
delong.typepad.com/fi les/jones-r--d.pdf
>
William D. Nordhaus
(1997)
:
Do Real-Output
&
Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality?
The History of Lighting Suggests Not
<
http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6064
>
April 7
.
Anti
freedom
Nathan Nunn
(2008)
:
The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades
<
http://
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/25098896.pdf
>
Stanley Engerman
&
Kenneth Sokoloff
(1994):
Factor Endowments, Institutions
&
Differential Paths of Development among New World Economies
<
http://papers.nber.org/
papers/h0066
>
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, & James Robinson
():
Colonial Origins of
Comparative Development
Karl Marx
&
Friedrich Engels
(1848):
Manifesto of the Communist Party
<
http://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
>
April 14. The British
Industrial Revolution
Robert C. Allen
(2011)
:
Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced
Invention
&
the Scientifi c Revolution
<
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.
1468-0289.2010.00532.x/pdf
>
Stephen Nicholas
&
Richard H. Steckel
(1991)
:
Heights
&
Living Standards of English
Workers during the Early Years of Industrialization, 1770–1815
<
http://www.jstor.org/
stable/pdfplus/2123399.pdf
>
Peter Temin
(
1997
):
Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution
<
http://
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2951107.pdf
>
Judy Stephenson
(2016):
Real
Contracts & Mistaken Wages: The Organisation of Work
& Pay in London Building Trades
, 1650-1800
<
https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/
1500790/fi les?preview=79850266
>
April 21.
Macro
Inequality
Branko Milanovic,
Peter H. Lindert,
&
Jeffrey G. Williamson
(2010)
:
Pre-Industrial
Inequality
<
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02403.x/
abstract
>
Thomas Piketty
&
Gabriel Zucman
(2014)
:
Capital Is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in
6
Rich Countries 1700–2010
<
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/3/1255.full.pdf
>
April 28.
T
he Great Depression
Gary Richardson
&
William Troost
(2009)
:
Monetary Intervention Mitigated Banking
Panics during the Great Depression: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Federal
Reserve District Border in Mississippi, 1929 to 1933
<
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/
doi/abs/10.1086/649603
>
Ben Bernanke
(1995)
:
The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative
Approach
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/i336266
>
Gauti Eggertsson
(2008)
:
Great Expectations
&
the End of the Great Depression
<
http://
www.jstor.org/stable/29730131
>
Joshua Hausman
(2016)
:
Fiscal Policy
&
Economic Recovery: The Case of the 1936
Veterans’ Bonus
<
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20130957
>
May 5. Convergence & Its Absence
Lant Pritchett
(1997)
:
Divergence, Big Time
<
http://tinyurl.com/dl20090112o
>
Dev Pate
l
, Justin Sandefur
,
&
Arvind Subramanian
(2018)
:
Everything You Know
about Cross-Country Convergence Is (Now) Wrong
<
https://www.piie.com/blogs/
realtime-economic-issues-watch/everything-you-know-about-cross-country-convergence-
now-wrong
>
Paul Johnson
&
Chris Papageorgiou
:
What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence
?
<
https://delong.typepad.com/fi les/johnson-papageorgiou.pdf
>
Michael Kremer
Peter J. Klenow
&
Andres Rodriguez-Clare
(1997):
The Neoclassical Revival in
Growth Economics: Has It Gone too Far?
<
https://delong.typepad.com/klenow-
rodriguez-clare.pdf
>
<
https://www.icloud.com/pages/0igzaygXMck2kKm8do7yvaV4Q
>
Some very good papers from past years can be found here: <
https://delong.typepad.com/
teaching_economics/model-economic-history-papers.html
>
.
7
Readings Week-by-Week
Week #1:
January
22 A
. The
Usefulness[?] of Economic History
Robert M. Solow (1985)
:
Economic History and Economics
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/
1805620
>
Kenneth J. Arrow (1985)
:
Maine and Texas
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1805618
>
Paul Krugman (2011):
Mr. Keynes and the Modern
s <
https://voxeu.org/article/mr-keynes-
and-moderns
>
Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian (1999):
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network
Economy
, selections <
https://delong.typepad.com/fi les/shapiro-variation-rules-
selections.pdf
>
January
22 B
. Malthusian Econom
ies
Jared Diamond (1987)
:
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
<
http://
discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-
race
>
Richard Steckel (2008)
:
Biological Measures of the Standard of Living
<
http://
www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.22.1.129
>
Gregory Clark (2005)
:
The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209–2004
<
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/ .pdf
>
Week #2:
January
29
.
Technology and Organization in the Very Long Run
Moses Finley (1965)
:
Technical Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2591872
>
Michael Kremer (1993)
:
Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million
B.C. to 1990
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118405
>
Charles Jones (1995):
R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth
<
https://
delong.typepad.com/fi les/jones-r--d.pdf
>
Week #3:
February 5
.
Commercial Revolutions?
Jeremiah E. Dittmar (2011)
:
Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact
of the Printing Press
<
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/126/3/1133.abstract
>
8
J. Bradford DeLong and Andrei Shleifer (1993)
:
Princes and Merchants: European City
Growth before the Industrial Revolution
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/725804
>
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2005):
The Rise of Europe:
Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/
4132729
>
Week #4:
February 12
.
The
Industrial Revolution
Robert C. Allen (2011)
:
Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced
Invention and the Scientifi c Revolution
<
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.
1468-0289.2010.00532.x/pdf
>
Peter Temin
(
1997
):
Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution
<
http://www.jstor.org/
stable/pdfplus/2951107.pdf
>
Stephen Nicholas and Richard H. Steckel (1991)
:
Heights and Living Standards of
English Workers during the Early Years of Industrialization, 1770–1815
<
http://
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2123399.pdf
>
Week #5:
February 19
. Comparative Development and Underdevelopment
Karl Marx (1853)
:
The Future Results of British Rule in India
<
http://tinyurl.com/
dl20090112l
>
W. Arthur Lewis (1978):
Evolution of the International Economic Order
<
https://
delong.typepad.com/fi les/lewis-evolution-a.pdf
> <
https://delong.typepad.com/fi les/lewis-
evolution-b.pdf
>
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2001):
The Colonial Origins
of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation
<
https://economics.mit.edu/
fi les/4123
>
Week #6:
February 26 A.
Modern Economic Growth
William D. Nordhaus (1997)
:
Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality?
The History of Lighting Suggests Not
<
http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6064
>
Robert Gordon (2000):
Interpreting the “One Big Wave” in Long-Term Productivity
Growth
<
https://www.nber.org/papers/w7752.pdf
>
Peter Thompson (2001)
:
How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? New Evidence
9
for an Old Case Study
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/318605.pdf
>
February
26 B
. Unfreedom
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)
:
Manifesto of the Communist Party
<
http://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
>
Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff (1994
):
Factor Endowments, Institutions and
Differential Paths of Development among New World Economies
<
http://papers.nber.org/
papers/h0066
>
Nathan Nunn (2008)
:
The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades
<
http://
www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/25098896.pdf
>
Week #7:
March 4
. Women, Men, and Children
Abigail Smith Adams (1776):
Letter to John Adams
31 March - 5 April 1776
<
https://
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760331aa
>
Martha Bailey (2013)
:
Fifty Years of Family Planning: New Evidence on the Long-Run
Effects of Increasing Access to Contraception
<
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19493
>
Claudia Goldin (1991)
:
The
Rise
of Women’s Employment
<
http://
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/649603
>
Heather Antecol, Kelly Bedard, and Jenna Stearns (2018):
Equal but Inequitable: Who
Benefi ts from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies
<
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/
doi/pdf/10.1257/aer.20160613
>
Week #8: March
18 A
. Capital Markets
Naomi Lamoreaux (1986)
:
Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development: The New
England Case
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2121478
>
Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie (1996)
:
Universal Banks and German
Industrialization: A Reappraisal
<
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2597758
>
March
18 B
. International Money and Finance
Michael Bordo and Hugh Rockoff (1996)
:
The Gold Standard as a ‘Good Housekeeping
Seal of Approval
<
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2123971?seq=1
#
page_scan_tab_contents
>
Warren Weber (2016)
:
A Bitcoin Standard: Lessons from the Gold Standard
<
http://
www.bankofcanada.ca/2016/03/staff-working-paper-2016-14/
>
10
