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Political Economy

Handbook of Cliometrics

Abstract

This chapter surveys research on political economy in economic history. It discusses the integration of the public choice/political economy approaches with economic history. It provides a thematic survey of topics such as the origins of the state, different regime types, labor coercion, warfare, religion, and state capacity. The chapter also provides detailed illustrations of how economic historians have investigated specific historical episodes such as the Glorious Revolution, French Revolution, the consequences of European empires, and the rise of democracy.

This chapter was completed while I was a W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Nobel Prize was awarded to Fogel and North for pioneering cliometrics, specifically, “research that combines economic theory, quantitative methods, hypothesis testing, counterfactual alternatives and traditional techniques of economic history, to explain economic growth and decline” (The Prize in Economics 1993 – Press Release 1993).

  2. 2.

    The political economy label is particularly associated with the works of Persson and Tabellini (2000), Alberto Alesina, and Dani Rodrik.

  3. 3.

    See discussion in Diebolt and Haupert (2018) of the impact of Fogel and North on economic history.

  4. 4.

    The current state of the field is influenced by Acemoglu et al. (2001, 2005a) who took Northian arguments and tested them econometrically using innovative empirical methods. Following the success of Acemoglu et al. (2001), this approach has bloomed both within economic history and in the related fields of growth economics, development and political economy. Other important publications by Acemoglu and Robinson and their coauthors include Acemoglu et al. (2005b); Acemoglu (2006).

  5. 5.

    Fleck and Hanssen (2013) discuss how the institution of tyranny – stable autocratic rule – helped to pave the way for democratization.

  6. 6.

    For a contrary perspective on institutions, see Doug Allen (2011) or Peter Leeson (2017). My understanding of their argument is that existing power relationships should be viewed as constraints. Hence existing institutions can be viewed as efficient relative to the appropriately defined set of constraints.

  7. 7.

    Economic historians have rightly criticized the coding and the depiction of Spain and France as governed by overly powerful absolutist monarchs as out of date. But this research showed what was possible with historical data.

  8. 8.

    A literature extending back to Montesquieu and Hume argues that Europe’s political fragmentation was key to its eventual rise and to modern economic growth (Baechler 1975; Jones 1981; Hall 1985; Rosenberg and Birdzell 1986).

  9. 9.

    Note that the most recent research on the Spanish economy, for instance, points to domestic factors such as the absence of integrated markets or a standardized fiscal system (Grafe 2012; Álvarez Nogal and de la Escosura 2013). Many of the bolder claims made on the behalf of the importance of empire to the origins of growth in Europe are ably dismissed by McCloskey (2010).

  10. 10.

    This leads one to ask what determines patterns of pre-colonial state development in Africa. According to Fenske (2014), pre-colonial African states emerged in more ecologically diverse environments where the returns to trade were greater.

  11. 11.

    These articles have come under criticism for not taking into account the full cost of empire (see Coyne and Davies 2007).

  12. 12.

    Dower et al. (2018) address the relationship between the threat of revolution and the emergence of representative institutions using data from Russia during the Great Reforms that abolished serfdom. They find that peasants received less representation in local assemblies (zemstvo) in districts that experienced more frequent peasant unrest in the years preceding 1864. This result is consistent with Acemoglu and Robinson (2000), who predict that political reforms are most likely to be offered when the poor posed only a temporary threat to the establish order. When the poor pose a permanent threat, however, democratization is no longer the sole way the elite can credibly commit to future redistribution.

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  1. Department of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Mark Koyama

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  1. BETA/CNRS (UMR 7522), University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, Strasbourg Cedex, France

    Claude Diebolt

  2. University of Wisconsin Department of Economics, La Crosse, WI, USA

    Michael Haupert

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Koyama, M. (2019). Political Economy. In: Diebolt, C., Haupert, M. (eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-1

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  1. Latest

    Political Economy
    Published:
    27 October 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-2

  2. Original

    Political Economy
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    05 March 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40458-0_54-1

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