4999 Economics in Action: World Economic History



Economics in Action: World Economic History

Economics 4999-002

Spring 2006 Tuesday & Thursday 2-3:15 pm, HLMS 251.

Professor Carol H. Shiue, email shiue@colorado.edu, Econ 206, Thursday 3:30-5 and by appt.

Course Outline and Reading List

Introduction

This course focuses on topics in world economic history from the Medieval period to the present century. What happened to the world’s standard of living and modes of economic production over this period, and why? We consider the pre-industrial economy, the turning point of modern growth and industrialization, and the economic developments since 1800.

Prerequisites

3070 Intermediate Microeconomics and 3080 Intermediate Macroeconomics, and junior or senior standing.

Grading

This course will be a combination of lecture material and in-class discussion.

Your grade will have the following components: a midterm exam (20%); a final exam (20%); a proposal (10%); a research paper (40%); and class participation and presentations (10%).

Examinations

There will be two examinations. The midterm exam is open book and is scheduled for March 7, in class. Questions for the final exam will be posted on April 27 and due in Professor Shiue’s office between 6:00 pm -7:00 pm on Saturday, May 6. The final exam must be double-spaced and typed. No makeup examinations for missed exams.

Paper

For the paper, you choose a topic early in the course and prepare a short proposal describing the topic you plan to write about. This proposal should be 5 pages and will count 10% of your grade.

You will then write a 15 page paper on this topic. The professor will comment on this draft, provide suggestions for further work, and you will prepare a substantially revised version of this paper. The 15 page paper will count for 40% of your grade. Late papers will be penalized.

February 23. The 5 page proposal is due. Attach to this proposal a list of references you intend to use in your research.

March 23. A complete draft of your paper is due. The paper you hand in should be complete and have full references. You will receive written comments on your paper the first week of April.

May 4. Use the written comments and input from paper presentation to revise your paper. The final draft of your paper is due on or before this date, in class.

Presentations

Each student will also make two in-class presentations. One will be of an article on the reading list. This presentation will be scheduled a week in advance. Students should provide a handout for the class on the day of the presentation of the assigned article. The other presentation will be of his/her paper during the final weeks of class. Presentations generally take 15-20 minutes.

Policy on academic honesty

Submitted work should reflect the student’s own efforts. Cheating and plagiarism are academic offenses and any student caught cheating or plagiarizing will be sanctioned. If there is any person in the class who is uncertain about what constitutes either cheating or plagiarism, he/she should consult me the University of Colorado Catalog. Obtaining material from “pre-written” sources available on the internet is will result in course failure. Department policy regarding disabilities and religious holidays is given on the first page of the course site

Required Text

A Concise Economic History of the World, From Paleolithic Times to the Present 4th edition, by Rondo Cameron and Larry Neal. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003).

Recommended References (not required)

Atlas of World History Concise Edition, edited by Patrick K. O’Brien. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2005).

Writing History, A Guide for Students, by William Kelleher Storey. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003).

Reading List

Readings can be accessed via the links provided or under E-Journals in the Chinook Catalogue.

1. Introduction: Meaning of Growth, Pattern of World Development, and Definitions

Cameron and Neal, Chapter 1, 2.

Massimo Livi-Bacci (1997). A Concise History of World Population, 1-34.

Fogel, Robert. (2004). The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100, Europe, America and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-65.

Part I (~January 19 - February 7)

2. Pre-industrial Life: Living Standards, Wages, Health

Clark, Gregory (2005), "Living Standards in the Malthusian Era," chapter 3 of The Conquest of Nature

Robert C. Allen, “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War”, Explorations in Economic History, Vol 38, October 2001: 411-47.



Ozmucur, Suleyman and Sevket Pamkut, (2002). “Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914,” Journal of Economic History 62(2): 225-47.

Steckel, Richard. “Health and Nutrition in Pre-Columbian America: The Skeletal Evidence.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36 (Summer 2005), 1-32.

3. Demographic factors: Fertility and Mortality before the Industrial Revolution

Clark, Gregory (2005), "Fertility in the Malthusian Era," chapter 4 of The Conquest of Nature

Wrigley, E.A. (1998). “Explaining the rise in marital fertility in England in the ‘long’ eighteenth century” Economic History Review, 51(3): 435-464.

Clark, Gregory (2005), "Mortality in the Malthusian Era," chapter 5 of The Conquest of Nature

Lavely, William, R. Bin Wong (1998). “Revising the Malthusian Narrative: The Comparative Study of Population Dynamics in Late Imperial China,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 3. (Aug., 1998), pp. 714-748.

Part II (~February 9 - March 2)

4. Determinants of Modern Economic Growth

Cameron and Neal, Chapter 8.

Clark, Gregory (2005), "The Problem of the Industrial Revolution," chapter 9 of The Conquest of Nature

Shiue, Carol H. and Wolfgang Keller. “Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution,” October 2005,

J. Bradford DeLong and Andrei Shleifer (1993), "Princes and Merchants: City Growth

Before the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics 36.

North, Douglass C., and B. R. Weingast. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice.” Journal of Economic History 49(4): 803-32.

5. The Industrial Revolution

Cameron and Neal, Chapter 7, p. 270-276.

Clark, Gregory (2005), "Industrial Revolution in England," chapter 10 of The Conquest of Nature

Nicholas Crafts (2004). “Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution: A New Growth Accounting Perspective” Journal of Economic History, 64(2): 521-535.



Allen, Robert C. (1999). “Tracking the Agricultural Revolution in England”, Economic History Review, May 1999: 209-35.

de Vries, Jan (1994), "The Industrious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Economic History 54(2): 249-70.

Midterm March 7

Part III (~March 9 – April 4)

6. Latin America, China, Ottoman Empire

Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff (2000). “Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Path of Development in the New World” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14(3): 217-232.

Wong, R. Bin (2002), “The Search for European Differences and Domination in the Early Modern World: A View from Asia” American Historical Review 107, 2.



Ozmucur, Suleyman and Sevket Pamkut (2004). “Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 35, 2004, pp. 225-47



7. The Spread of Industrialization after the 19th century

Cameron and Neal, Chapter 13.

Reynolds, Lloyd G. (1983). “The Spread of Economic Growth to the Third World” Journal of Economic Literature 21(3): 941-975.

Pritchett, Lant (1997). “Divergence, Big Time,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11(3): 3-17.

Easterlin, Richard A. (2000). “Worldwide Standard of Living Since 1800,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(1): 7-26.

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