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European Economic History

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)

Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Union Square 4
Hosted By: Cliometric Society
  • Chair: Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, California Institute of Technology

Itinerant Kings

Jacob Hall
,
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Rather than govern from a fixed capital, medieval European kings were itinerant. I argue that itinerant kingship was a coalition-building strategy employed by kings in the face of powerful elite rivals. To empirically explore the political economy underlying itinerant kingship, I introduce novel data on the daily location of the English king from 1199 to 1547. Pairing the itineraries with genealogical network data for feudal barons and the timing of contested elections for bishops, I provide causal evidence that the king's itinerary targets particular key elites to maintain political support. Congruent with my theory, the "military revolution" in the Early Modern period increased the military power of the king relative to the barons, which led to the end of itinerant kingship in Europe. The paper speaks to the organization and operation of the premodern state and to the origins of the modern nation-state.

Rags to Rags: The Effects of the New Poor Law across Three Generations

Jennifer Mayo
,
University of Missouri
Jon Denton-Schneider
,
Clark University

Abstract

We study the intergenerational impacts of cash transfers using the 1834 (“New”) Poor Law, which drastically cut the income support that had been provided to 15 percent
of the population in England and Wales and cost 2 percent of GDP. We show that in 1861, cohorts more exposed to income-support declines in childhood held lower-skilled jobs as adults and had fewer of their children in school. Linking these sons to the 1901 census, we find the same results for them as adults and for their children, highlighting the importance of accounting for multi-generational effects in cost-benefit analyses of social programs.

Was There a Family Economics before 1870? Marital Birth Control in a Long-Running Natural Experiment, London, c. 1760-1870

Louis Henderson
,
London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract

In late nineteenth-century England, marital fertility rapidly declined. Demographers debate whether this was a behavioral 'innovation' or a rational 'adaptation'. This paper argues for the latter hypothesis with evidence from a London charity (1758–1870) exhibiting the existence of within-marriage fertility choice before the demographic transition. Unmarried women eligible for a £100 wedding lottery could re-enter subsequent draws if unsuccessful, delaying their marriage. Without fertility choice, later marriage would lead to fewer births. However, delayed marriage was compensated through shorter birth intervals, resulting in no difference in completed family size by lottery outcome—evidence that pre-transition married couples controlled births.

The rise of universities and economic development in medieval and early modern Europe (700–1800)

Nikos Benos
,
University of Ioannina
Maurizio Conti
,
University of Genova
Michail Papazoglou
,
University of Ioannina
Stamatis Tsoumaris
,
Aarhus University

Abstract

This study explores the long-term impact of medieval and early modern European universities on urban growth, as a proxy for economic development, focusing on the period 700-1800. Universities, being new institutions at the time, played a crucial role in the commercial and industrial revolutions by enhancing legal frameworks and disseminating knowledge. We build a rich dataset to assess urbanisation as a proxy for city growth, employing a staggered Difference-in-Differences methodology and a modified Poisson model to account for data skewness. Our findings indicate a sizeable and significant positive impact of universities on city population between 1200-1500, with less precise positive estimates, thereafter, primarily driven by early university cohorts. We also find weak evidence of negative spillovers from the opening of the universities on nearby cities. The results withstand various robustness checks aimed to make the parallel trend assumption more likely to hold. Further analysis suggests that proximity to the coast moderates the university effect, possibly due to the enhanced role of universities in supporting maritime trade through human capital development and legal training.
JEL Classifications
  • N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
  • N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation