Semi-Daily Journal Archive

The Blogspot archive of the weblog of J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics and Chair of the PEIS major at U.C. Berkeley, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Econ 210a: Fall 2006: Readings for November 8--Catch-Up: Major Discussion Headings

  • Adam Smith (1776), The Wealth of Nations, entire http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWNtoc.html:
    • Who is Smith's audience?
    • What kind of a book is the Wealth of Nations?
    • What does Smith think his game-changing insight is?
      • Is Smith correct? Is it a game-changing insight?
      • Is the insight in fact true?
    • What does Smith leave out of the Wealth of Nations?
      • Self-interest in the narrow and in the extreme...
      • Law and order...
      • Government failure...
      • A theory of the moral sentiments...
  • Jan de Vries (1994), "The Industrious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Economic History 54:2 (June), pp. 249-70 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507%28199406%2954%3A2%3C249%3ATIRATI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8:
    • How does Jan de Vries see the Low Countries in 1800 differing from the Low Countries in 1500?
    • The curious aspect of what did the peasants do in the nighttime in 1500...
    • What did peasants do in the nighttime in 1800?
    • What caused this difference?
      • Change in tastes?
      • Change in law-and-order?
      • Change in transportation costs?
        • A reflection of government policy? Or of technology?
      • Look east to China...
  • Patrick O'Brien (1982), "European Economic Development: the Contribution of the Periphery," Economic History Review, 1-18. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0117%28198202%292%3A35%3A1%3C1%3AEEDTCO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W:
    • Could European industrialization have been fueled by exploitation of the America?
    • Exploitation there was--a hell of a lot of exploitation.
    • But how do you get resources from there to here?
      • Possible channels
  • Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2005), "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth," American Economic Review http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=1181:
    • A possible answer to O'Brien's question:
      • Merchants and political power
      • Bristol
      • Amsterdam
      • But counterexamples:
        • La Rochelle
        • Seville
        • Barcelona
        • Venice

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