ARTICLES
A reassessment of the Great Divergence debate: towards a reconciliation of apparently distinct determinants
Victor Court
Pages 633–674
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez015
This article looks at the most recent data to define when the Little and Great Divergence occurred. It sorts the deep determinants of economic development into three categories (biogeography, culture-institutions, and contingency-conjuncture) to provides a comprehensive review of these factors in the context of the Great Divergence, and it discusses the concepts of persistence and reversal of fortune. The paper concludes that the Great Divergence was never an inevitability but became an increasingly likely prospect as time progressed. Furthermore, biogeography, culture-institutions, and contingency-conjuncture are not contradictory hypotheses. Rather, there is a clear pattern of change over time of the relative importance of these three categories of determinants. Further research is needed to uncover the underlying causal link or latent variable that could explain the successive relative importance over time of biogeographical, cultural–institutional, and contingent–conjunctural determinants of the Great Divergence.
Networks and trade costs in commodity markets during the late nineteenth century: a new dataset and evidence
Alexander Pütz and others
Pages 675–695
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez021
A new dataset of weekly wheat prices during the 1898–1914 is generated. Using variance decompositions from vector autoregressive models, a network of nine wheat markets during the sample period is constructed and information spillovers between these markets are analyzed. Our results indicate that trade costs are a significant determinant of the relative importance of information transmission in the continental European wheat trade.
Filling the ranks: the Remplacement Militaire in post-revolutionary France
Louis Rouanet and Ennio E Piano
Pages 696–715
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez014
Many economists have analyzed the efficiency of a volunteered army relative to a conscripted army. However, they have rarely studied the working of real-world alternative, market-based, military institutions where exemptions from military service are traded among the citizens. This paper fills this gap by studying the rise and fall of the Remplacement Militaire in the eighteenth and the nineteenth century France. This system endured for more than three quarters of a century until the French government progressively moved toward universal conscription after 1872. At times of military expansion, the State regulated the replacement market. We argue that the goal of such regulations was to limit the increase in fraud and avoid a deterioration in the quality of the soldiery associated with increases in the price of replacements.
Factor endowments and international trade: a study of land embodied in trade on the Baltic Sea region, 1750–1856
Dimitrios Theodoridis and others
Pages 716–735
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez019
Baltic trade is one of the key examples of flourishing economic activity in early modern European history. This study empirically outlines the role of comparative resource advantages between 1750 and 1856, using trade data from the Sound Toll Registers Online. On the one hand, the results show the significance of relative land abundance for trade patterns between the Baltic Sea region and North-Western Europe: the land abundant Baltic Sea region was overall exporting more land-intensive commodities. On the other hand, however, the results also show a seeming paradox: increasing trade openness during the nineteenth century was not associated with a higher degree of specialization along these comparative advantages.
Sooner than you think: the Pre-1914 UK Productivity Slowdown was Victorian not Edwardian
Nicholas Crafts and Terence C Mills
Pages 736–748
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez022
This paper re-examines UK productivity growth in the decades before World War I using a new dataset compiled by the Bank of England. We find that the productivity slowdown of the early twentieth century was quite modest and does not deserve to be called a climacteric. A more serious slowdown in labour productivity growth occurred in the 1870s. Neither of these episodes should be regarded as a precedent for the current severe deterioration in UK productivity performance. Nor should a late-Victorian productivity slowdown be attributed to the end of the steam age despite the popularity of this belief.
The origins of the (cooperative) species: Raiffeisen banking in the Netherlands, 1898–1909
Christopher L Colvin and others
Pages 749–782
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez018
Cooperatively owned Raiffeisen banks first emerged in the Netherlands in the late 1890s and spread rapidly across the country. Using a new dataset, we investigate the determinants of their market entry and early performance. We find the cooperative organisational form, when allied to a change in the structure of Dutch agriculture and the socioreligious pillarisation of Dutch society, was an important factor explaining their entry into rural financial markets. While religious organisations provided a necessary impetus for the emergence of Raiffeisen banks, the economic advantages associated with cooperative enterprises ensured the subsequent survival and success of these banks.
The impact of sectoral shifts on Dutch unmarried women’s labor force participation, 1812–1929
Corinne Boter and Pieter Woltjer
Pages 783–817
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez020
During the nineteenth century, Dutch female labor force participation (FLFP) was relatively low. Most scholars argue that social norms and rising wages were driving this development. However, their conclusions principally apply to married women. We study unmarried women’s LFP (UFLFP) and investigate a third driver: shifting sectoral employment shares. We include all three drivers in a logistic regression based on nearly 2 million marriage records from 1812 to 1929. We conclude that social norms and income levels mattered, but that shifting sectoral employment shares were driving the decline in UFLFP because sectors with low demand for female laborers expanded.
“Till debt do us part”: financial implications of the divorce of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom, 1922–1926
John Fitzgerald and Seán Kenny
Pages 818–842
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa004
In this paper, we discuss the apportionment of national debt when Ireland exited the UK in 1922. We estimate that the claim on Ireland amounted to 80 percent of Irish Gross National Product (G.N.P.) and describe how it was ultimately waived at the expense of an unchanged land border with Northern Ireland. While this represents the largest debt relief episode in the twentieth century, the political cost of the agreement exceeded the financial gain in the long run. We find that domestic markets reacted more to political uncertainty than the pending liability, despite the financial stability which resulted from the debt write-down.
