Institutions and Economic Development in Early Modern Central Europe

Abstract

Institutions and economies underwent profound changes between 1500 and 1800 in most parts of Europe. Differences among societies decreased in some ways, but markedly increased in others. Do these changes and these variations tell us anything about the relationship between social organisation and economic well-being? This is a very wide question, and even the qualified ‘yes’ with which I will answer it, though based on the detailed empirical research of some hundreds of local studies undertaken in the past few decades, is far from definitive. Many of these studies were inspired by an influential set of hypotheses, known as the ‘theory of proto-industrialisation’. While this theory has been enormously fruitful, its conclusions about European economic and social development are no longer tenable. This paper offers an alternative interpretation of the evidence now available about proto-industrialisation in different European societies, and explores its implications by investigating one region of Central Europe between 1580 and about 1800.