Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:06:25.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fragmented authority from Ancien Régime to modernity: a quantitative analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2010

MARK DINCECCO
MARK DINCECCO*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies, Italy
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This paper performs a systematic analysis that examines institutional fragmentation in terms of customs tariffs within states west of the Rhine from 1700 to 1815 and between states east of the Rhine from 1815 to 1871. Internal customs zones are measured in two ways: physical size and urban population. Both methods use 175 sample cities as described by De Vries (1984) in England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain as the basic unit of account. The results indicate that customs zones west of the Rhine were small prior to the French Revolution but grew dramatically from 1789 onwards. They thus provide definitive evidence of divided authority in Ancien Régime Europe. The measurement of external customs zones uses 117 sample cities in the German and Italian territories. The findings indicate a remarkable degree of institutional consolidation between states east of the Rhine over the 1800s.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 305 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © The JOIE Foundation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. (2001), ‘Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’, American Economic Review, 91 (5): 1369–1401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. (2002), ‘Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Development in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (4): 1231–1294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. (2005), ‘The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth’, American Economic Review, 94 (3): 546–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Cantoni, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J. (2008), ‘From Ancien Régime to Capitalism: The French Revolution as a Natural Experiment’, mimeo, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Black, A. (1984), Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Bogart, D. (2005), ‘Did Turnpike Trusts Increase Transportation Investment in Eighteenth-Century England?’, Journal of Economic History, 65 (2): 439–468.Google Scholar
Bordo, M. and White, E. (1991), ‘A Tale of Two Currencies: British and French Finance during the Napoleonic Wars’, Journal of Economic History, 51 (2): 303–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, G. and Buchanan, J. (1980), The Power to Tax, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brewer, J. (1989), The Sinews of Power, London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1991), Society and Economy in Modern Britain, 1700–1850, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Burdun, G. D. (1968), ‘Worldwide Dissemination of the Metric System’, Measurement Techniques, 11 (9): 1147–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpanetto, D. and Ricuperati, G. (1987), Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685–1789, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Cook, B. (2002), Belgium: A History, New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Daunton, M. J. (1995), Progress and Poverty, London: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Long, J. B. and Shleifer, A. (1993), ‘Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution’, Journal of Law and Economics, 36 (2): 671–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vries, J. (1984), European Urbanization, 1500–1800, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dincecco, M. (2009a), ‘Fiscal Centralization, Limited Government, and Public Revenues in Europe, 1650–1913’, Journal of Economic History, 69 (1): 48–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dincecco, M. (2009b), ‘Political Regimes and Sovereign Credit Risk in Europe, 1750–1913’, European Review of Economic History, 13 (1): 31–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dincecco, M. (2010), ‘The Political Economy of Fiscal Prudence in Historical Perspective’, Economics & Politics, 22 (1): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (1998), ‘Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe’, Journal of Economic History, 58 (3): 684–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (2000), Freedom and Growth, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Federico, G. (2007), ‘The First European Grain Invasion: A Study of the Integration of the European Market, 1750–1870’, mimeo, European University Institute.Google Scholar
Godechot, J., Hyslop, B., and Dowd, D. (1971), The Napoleonic Era in Europe, New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.Google Scholar
Griffiths, R. (1982), ‘The Creation of the Dutch National Economy, 1795–1909’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 95: 513–537.Google Scholar
Hearder, H. (1983), Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, 1790–1870, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Henderson, W. O. (1939), The Zollverein, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Henshall, N. (1992), The Myth of Absolutism, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hickson, C. and Thompson, E. (1991), ‘A New Theory of Guilds and European Economic Development’, Explorations in Economic History, 28 (2): 127–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, P. and Rosenthal, J. L. (1997a), ‘The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation in Early Modern Europe: Historical Lessons for Economic Development’, in Drobak, J. and Nye, J. (eds.), The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics, St Louis, MO: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, P. and Rosenthal, J. L. (1997b), ‘Divided We Fall: The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation’, mimeo, California Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Hohenberg, P. and Lees, L. (1985), The Making of Urban Europe, 1000–1950, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holtman, R. (1967), The Napoleonic Revolution, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Jacks, D. (2005), ‘Intra- and International Commodity Market Integration in the Atlantic Economy, 1800–1913’, Explorations in Economic History, 42 (3): 381–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, H. (1974), A Short History of France from Early Times to 1972, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, N. (2006), ‘Banking on the King: The Evolution of the Royal Revenue Farms in Old Regime France’, Journal of Economic History, 66 (4): 963–991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonker, J. (1997), ‘The Alternative Road to Modernity: Banking and Currency, 1814–1914’, in t'Hart, M., Jonker, J., and Van Zanden, J. L. (eds.), A Financial History of the Netherlands, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, W. and Shiue, C. (2007), ‘Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution’, American Economic Review, 97 (4): 1189–1216.Google Scholar
Kula, W. (1986), Measures and Men, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, M. (1988), Of Rule and Revenue, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Love, J. and O'Brien, J. (2003), Western Europe 2003, Fifth Edition, London: Europa Productions.Google Scholar
Martins, A., Gay, P., and Blanc, J. F. (2008), ‘Clickable Map of French Departments’, Flags of the World, http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr(dep.html.Google Scholar
Major, J. R. (1994), From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Mata, E. and Valério, N. (2002), Història Econòmica de Portugal, Lisboa: Editorial Presença.Google Scholar
North, D. (1981), Structure and Change in Economic History, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
North, D. and Thomas, R. (1973), The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. and Weingast, B. (1989), ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’, Journal of Economic History, 49 (4): 803–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nye, J. (2007), War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689–1900, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, P. (2001), ‘Fiscal Exceptionalism: Great Britain and Its European rivals, from Civil War to Triumph at Trafalgar and Waterloo’, Working paper 65/01, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Persson, K. (1999), Grain Markets in Europe, 1500–1900, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, R. (1993), A Concise History of France, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ringrose, D. (1968), ‘Transportation and Economic Stagnation in Eighteenth-Century Castile’, Journal of Economic History, 28 (1): 51–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringrose, D. (1970), Transportation and Economic Stagnation in Spain, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Sacks, D. (1994), ‘The Paradox of Taxation: Fiscal Crises, Parliament, and Liberty in England, 1450–1640’, in Hoffman, P. and Norberg, K. (eds.), Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government, 1450–1789, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sargent, T. and Velde, F. (1995), ‘Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution’, Journal of Political Economy, 103 (3): 474–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sensen, M. and Martins, A. (2006a), ‘Clickable map of Germany’, Flags of the World, http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de(.html.Google Scholar
Sensen, M. and Martins, A. (2006b), ‘Clickable map of Germany as of 1871’, Flags of the World, http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de(1871.html.Google Scholar
Smith, A. (2003), The Wealth of Nations, New York: Bantam Dell.Google Scholar
Stasavage, D. (2005), ‘Cities, Constitutions, and Sovereign Borrowing in Europe, 1274–1785’, International Organization, 61 (3): 489–526.Google Scholar
Sutherland, D. (1986), France, 1789–1815, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Toniolo, G. (1990), An Economic History of Liberal Italy, 1850–1918, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tortella, G. (2000), The Development of Modern Spain, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tortella, G. and Comìn, F. (2001), ‘The Merits of a Financial Revolution: Public Finance, 1550–1700’, in Bordo, M. and Cortès-Conde, R. (eds.), Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New World, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Houtte, J. A. (1977), An Economic History of the Low Countries, 800–1800, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L. and Van Riel, A. (2004), The Strictures of Inheritance, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L. and Prak, M. (2006), ‘Towards an Economic Interpretation of Citizenship: The Dutch Republic between Medieval Communes and Modern Nation-States’, European Review of Economic History, 10 (2): 111–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vicens Vive, J. (1969), An Economic History of Spain, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Volckart, O. (2002a), ‘No Utopia: Government without Territorial Monopoly in Medieval Central Europe’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 158 (2): 325–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volckart, O. (2002b), ‘Central Europe's Way to a Market Economy’, European Review of Economic History, 6 (3): 309–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volckart, O. and Wolf, N. (2006), ‘Estimating Financial Integration in the Middle Ages: What Can We Learn from a TAR Model?’, Journal of Economic History, 66 (1): 122–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolf, S. (1979), A History of Italy, 1700–1860, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Woolf, S. (1991), Napoleon's Integration of Europe, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zupko, R. (1977), British Weights and Measures, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar