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Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth

Geography, Institutions, and the Knowledge Economy

The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. Probing the long-term effects of early colonial differences on immigration policy, land distribution, and financial development in a variety of settings, Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality, with a focus on how the monopolization of resources by the political elite limits incentives for ordinary people to invest in human capital or technological discovery. Among the topics discussed are the development of credit markets in France, the evolution of transportation companies in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the organization of innovation in the United States.


400 pages | 27 line drawings, 69 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2011

National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report

Economics and Business: Economics--Development, Growth, Planning, Economics--History

Political Science: Comparative Politics

Reviews

“This volume should be in all research libraries. The authors are experts in their areas and their chapters either shine new light on important issues or succinctly summarize what is already known. More personally, this book reminded me of why I find economic history so exciting.”

Journal of Economic Issues

Table of Contents

Introduction
Dora L. Costa and Naomi R. Lamoreaux

1. Once Upon a Time in the Americas: Land and Immigration Policies in the New World
Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff

2. The Myth of the Frontier
Camilo García-Jimeno and James A. Robinson

3. Differential Paths of Financial Development: Evidence from New World Economies
Stephen Haber

4. Political Centralization and Urban Primacy: Evidence from National and Provincial Capitals in the Americas
Sebastian Galiani and Sukkoo Kim

5. History, Geography, and the Markets for Mortgage Loans in Nineteenth-Century France
Philip T. Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

6. Two Roads to the Transportation Revolution: Early Corporations in the United Kingdom and the United States
Dan Bogart and John Majewski

7. Premium Inventions: Patents and Prizes as Incentive Mechanisms in Britain and the United States, 1750–1930
B. Zorina Khan

8. The Reorganization of Inventive Activity in the United States during the Early Twentieth Century
Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Kenneth L. Sokoloff, and Dhanoos Sutthiphisal

9. Mass Secondary Schooling and the State: The Role of State Compulsion in the High School Movement
Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz

10. The Impact of the Asian Miracle on the Theory of Economic Growth
Robert W. Fogel

11. Ken Sokoloff and the Economic History of Technology: An Appreciation
Joel Mokyr

12. Kenneth Sokoloff on Inequality in the Americas
Peter H. Lindert

13. Remembering Ken, Our Beloved Friend
Manuel Trajtenberg

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