Henry Sinden (2004)

Question 1

Allen (2009)

Answer 1

• Steam Engine was an outcome of tinkering, not the industrial revolution
• It paid to invent the steam engine in Britain, because Britain had a large endowment of coal relative to labour, compared to other countries (high wage economy)
• Hence puts geography forward, reasons for high wage not so clear

Question 2

Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001)

Answer 2

• The quality of institutions is the most important factor in economic development. Inclusive institutions which provide a level playing field for all individuals and groups are necessary for sustained economic growth
• The type of colonialism a nation experiences has a significant impact on its current economic development. Extractive institutions, established by colonisers to extract resources from colonies, have persisted in many countries and continue to hinder growth
• Geography plays a role in determining economic development. Countries with favourable geography, such as those with access to waterways or natural resources, are more likely to develop than those without

Question 3

Bazzi, Fiszbein, and Gebresilasse (2020)

Answer 3

• Rugged individualism, which is a combination of individualism and anti-statism, is a prominent feature of American culture with deep roots in the country’s frontier culture, which would hamper the response to COVID-19
• Across US counties, greater total frontier experience (TFE) is associated with less social distancing and mask use as well as weaker local government effort to control the virus.
• The authors argue that frontier culture lies at the the root of several more proximate explanations for the weak collective response to public health risks, including a lack of civic duty, partisanship, and distrust in science.

Question 4

David (1985)

Answer 4

• The QWERTY layout became dominant because it was adopted by the first successful typewriter manufacturer, Remington, and other manufacturers followed suit to ensure compatibility
• The cost of switching to a new keyboard layout was prohibitively high for typists who had already learned the QWERTY layout
• The widespread adoption of QWERTY created a network effect that made it difficult for alternative keyboard layouts to gain acceptance

Question 5

Persson, Gunnar, and Sharp (2015)

Answer 5

An Economic History of Europe from 600 to the present day.

No underlying argument, check individual chapters.

Question 6

Rodrik, Subramanian, and Trebbi (2004)

Answer 6

• The quality of institutions is the most important factor in determining income levels around the world. Indeed, the quality of institutions “trumps” everything else
• They estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining income levels around the world, using recently developed instrumental variables for institutions and trade
• They also find that trade is not a significant determinant of income once regional indicators and proxies for institutional quality are included

Question 7

Blanning (2007)

Answer 7

In this text, the “Five revolutions which made modern Europe” are:
- The Scientific Revolution, which transformed the understanding of nature and the role of human reason
- The Industrial Revolution, which unleashed unprecedented economic growth and social change
- The American Revolution, which challenged the legitimacy of colonialism and monarchy
- The French Revolution, which overturned the old order and inspired a wave of radical movements across Europe
- The Romantic Revolution, which redefined the meaning of art, culture, and identity

Question 8

Clark (2007)

Answer 8

• The evolution of specific behaviours which first occurred in Britain was responsible to a divide between rich and poor nations.
• Prior to 1790, Clark asserts that there was a Malthusian trap, and though technology enabled more food this was consumed by high populations
• In Britain, however, as disease continually killed of poorer members of society, their positions were taken over by the descendants of the wealthy. In this way, less violent, more literate and more hard-working behaviour - middle-class values - were spread culturally and biologically throughout the UK.
• This process of “downward social mobility” eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity which escaped the Malthusian trap.

Clark sees this process continuing to this day

Question 9

Fouquet and Broadberry (2015)

Answer 9

• Significant increase in per capita income in Europe between 1348 and 1780, followed by stagnation until the Industrial Revolution
• The Black Death, which killed 1/3 of Europe’s population, led to a rise in wages and a decline in land rents, which in turn led to an increase in per capita income.
• The paper argues that the Industrial Revolution was not a sudden event but rather the culmination of a long process of technological change that began in the late Middle Ages.

Question 10

Hajnal (1965)

Answer 10

• Women in Europe tended to marry at a later age than in other parts of the world, due to needing to accumulate sufficient wealth, importance of education, etc.
• A significant proportion of the population remained unmarried throughout their lives. This was due to a variety of factors, including the high age of marriage and prevalence of celibacy
• Most households in Europe were nuclear, consisting only of parents and their children, as contrast to other parts of the world where extended families were more common

Question 11

Diamond (1999)

Answer 11

• The differences between societies and societal development arise primarily from geographical causes, a theory known as geographic determinism
• Eurasia developed faster as it was far more longitudinal than Africa and the Americas, thus allowing similar foods, beasts of burden, and technology to travel faster

Question 12

Link (2023)

Answer 12

• Paper shows how the geographic distribution of domesticable transport animals shaped differences in development
• Strong relationship between the historical presence of domesticable transport animals and the emergence of long distance trade routes, as well as early forms of hierarchy
• Such groups developed greater numerical skills, higher levels of class stratification, but also higher levels of labour specialisation

Question 13

Bologna Pavlik and T. Young (2018)

Answer 13

• Technologies spread more slowly North-South than they do East-West
• It was costly to transport innovations from N-S due to climate variations, and some innovations, like selectively bred seeds, would have been less likely to survive N-S movements
• The evidence is not significant in every estimation, however the results offer compelling support for the Diamond hypothesis

Question 14

Fernandez-Villaverde et al. (Jan 2023)

Answer 14

• Diamond (1997) argued that “fractured land” was responsible for China’s tendency toward political unification and Europe’s protracted polycentrism
• Through a dynamic module of granular formations, they find that topography alone is sufficient, but not necessary, to explain polycentrism.
• Differences in land productivity, in particular the existence of a core region of high land productivity in Northern China, also deliver the same result