Long-term Economic Change Research Articles

STUDYING LONG-TERM CHANGE IN THE WEST, A.D. 400-800

Since the 1930s, three principal models (continuity, 5th c. catastrophe and the Pirenne thesis) have been used to interpret socio-economic change in the Late Roman and Early Medieval West. With minor modifications, these models have survived with little sustained attempt to replace them. Using the examples of Tunisia, Italy and northern Gaul, this paper argues that four basic parameters of change can be identified for the period AD 400- 800. These are the occurrence of war, the level of survival of state economic infrastructures, the extent of large-scale land-ownership, and the level of structural integration into the Roman world system. Since the extent to which these four factors affect a given region varies, it is concluded that long-term economic change is dependent on structures that operate at a regional and sub-regional level.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

PHP21: SINGLE EUROPEAN-LEVEL COST-EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS: OVER THE FOURTH HURDLE AND INTO THE DITCH?

BACKGROUND: As more European governments require economic data to support reimbursement applications the potential burden of multiple economic evaluations is being seen as a problem by industry. Placing responsibility for cost-effectiveness assessment at the European level using standardised methods has been proposed as a solution. OBJECTIVE: To review the feasibility of a European level cost-effectiveness test for new drugs, from conceptual, practical and political viewpoints. METHODS: The issues are examined first from the theoretical perspective—does a European level economic evaluation have any inherent logic. Secondly, the practical issues of how such an evaluation might be conducted are examined. Could it be based on a phase III clinical trial? The political issues relate to who would regulate the production of such cost-effectiveness data; who would use the data to assist in what decision(s)? Different regulatory models are assessed using the analogy of drug licensing. DISCUSSION: The position generally taken by economists is that a generalised cost-effectiveness result is neither possible nor useful. Differences in the price structures, treatment patterns and provider incentives between systems make generalisations of cost-effectiveness of questionable relevance. How fast will European integration produce a single health market? Moves towards a single European price for each drug are relevant as in the willingness of European states to allow the EU to play a bigger role in health care financing and organisation. Will countries accept each others' assessments or will an EU agency like EMEA be required? CONCLUSIONS: Long-term political and economic changes may well create a true European market in which cost-effectiveness at the European level will have meaning and relevance. Meanwhile, individual country health care systems seem more concerned with short-term budget impact when making new drugs available. The pharmaceutical industry should not anticipate a reduction in the overall demand for locally targeted economic information.

Ideology versus the Tyranny of Paradigm: Historians and the Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on African Societies

A11l practitioners of the historical sciences will agree that our discipline thrives on controversy. Hence no historian can be a stranger to controversy.Yet it may be valid to say that the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery contains elements of controversy that are to a certain degree unique. These unique elements derive from the ease with which participants in the debates charge each other with ideology. The phenomenon may be attributed to the ideological developments associated with the history of the European slave trade and African slavery in the Atlantic world. In the first place, the presence of a large number of oppressed and degraded Africans in the western hemisphere gave rise to a profound racist ideology that was unprecedented in human history and whose legacy has remained with the world ever since. Second, the unthinkable magnitude of inhumanity associated with the Atlantic slave trade and slavery has remained a major blot on the history of human civilization. It is understandable, therefore, that no one would be glad to be held responsible for something that shames the world, or to be shown to have benefited from it. There is thus a fertile ground for suspicion between scholars of European origin, on the one hand, and those of African descent on the other. Given this fertile ground, it is extraordinarily easy for some participants in the debate to invoke ideology. Hence, charges of ideology are sometimes substituted for serious scholarly investigation. While sentimental considerations may have contributed somewhat to the degree of controversy surrounding the subject, I contend that conceptual confusion and paradigm limitations are principally responsible. On the African side of the subject, all scholars in the debate attempt ultimately to contribute directly or indirectly to the issue of whether or not the Atlantic slave trade was a factor in the historical process that produced the current economic underdevelopment in tropical Africa.This central concern certainly requires sufficient exposure to analytical tools relevant to the study of long-term economic development and structural change, which is the central focus of underdevelopment and dependency theory.Yet there is clear evidence in the literature that many participants in the debate are wholly innocent of such tools and frequently operate with paradigms that are inappropriate for the

Explaining Long-Term Economic Change.

This book provides an introduction to, and critical review of, the competing models that have been developed to explain long-term and large-scale economic change. The global pattern of production and distribution has its origins in the historical heritage of component societies and in their physical difference. Attempts to explain the social and economic dynamics which have produced this pattern are usually couched in the form of 'models'. These theoretical constructions are designed to reduce the infinite variety of historical experience to manageable proportions for analytical purposes and look primarily at causal factors seen to have been crucial in the process of change and development. This book examines and illustrates these factors and the various established models used to explain long-term economic change, with emphasis on European and Asian history over the early modern period, c.1400–1800.

Transport, food insecurity and food aid in sub-Saharan Africa

The contribution made by transport projects to long-term regional economic change obscures the role of transport in the daily struggle for survival in places afflicted by food insecurity. In sub-Saharan Africa, limited infrastructure and transport service has occasionally disrupted food production and circulation. During the widespread food crises of the past decade, land, sea and air transport have been used more constructively to distribute food aid. An empirical review of the contradictory relations between transport and food insecurity precedes discussion of the logistics and potential impact of emergency food aid transport in north-eastern and southern Africa in the 1980s and 1990s.

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.

Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)

Ming-Qing Studies in Japan: 1988

MING-QING STUDIES IN JAPAN: 1988* Iwai Shigeki Translated by Mark Elliott Among the nearly sixty items which need to be introduced here, progress can be seen in research aimed at explaining the actual conditions of product flows and market structure and in research which tries to move closer to an understanding of the special nature of the judiciary in Chinese society, as well as in other areas. In addition, notable results of research using socialhistorical approaches and methods are also pointed out. Work by Mori Masao A J^, on the Ming "official lands" (guantian) system and on reforms in the land tax system is brought together in Studies in the Jiangnan Land System During the Ming r »y} ?\" ?-? if} * ·*&$) J^ ¿> -*ff ipi (Tôyôshi kenkyû sôkan 42, Dôbôsha). Although at first glance this might appear to be nothing more than a hastily-done supplemental monograph, when one takes a second look at Mori's research style, there is in fact exceptionally great significance in the completion of this book. Réévaluations of Mori's work on official lands (done in the first half of the 1960s) began around 1980. Just at that time issues such as tax systems and land systems came to be more actively debated in China, possibly on impetus received from Japanese research. Scholars began to expand their research into the questions of official lands, foremost among the many being Wu Dange. Taking note of this situation, Mori supplied Chinese translations of his work to Wu, Fan Shuzhi, and other Chinese researchers on numerous occasions during his time abroad, engaging them in direct exchange of opinions. On both sides there resulted a deepened familiarity with the subject and a new harvest of information from historical sources. It was through Mori's cooperative project—enterprising, ambitious, and "international" in the true sense of the word—that this major book came together. It stands as the product of the widening mutual interplay of Ming-Qing research in both Japan and China and, from another angle, is its best result. This book shows a path to heightened research exchange that international conferences and short-term workshops alone cannot achieve. *Shigaku Zasshi 98.5 (May 1989):239-45. Late Imperial China, Vol. 12, No. 1 (June 1991): 100-114© by the Society for Qing Studies 100 Ming-Qing Studies in Japan: 1988101 Production, Product Flows, and Economic Systems On issues relating to production, Christian Daniels' study, "The Adoption and Transfer of New Sugar-making Technology within South China During the Late Ming/Early Qing Period" r ^ J^ S^ ?« /s ^ £r T3 pf ty. j% 4^ #f 4£ £ % ? (Shirinll.o) and KurodaAkinobu *- ¿> ^ -if in "Qing Rice Reserves" r H^ X \'% % % * (Shirin 71.6) address two sides of the same issue. Yamamoto focuses on the economic effects and goals of policy, while Kuroda tries to explain market structure through the results of policy. Though both acknowledge the connection between rice storage policies and the rapidly-increasing price of rice from the middle of the eighteenth century and after, Yamamoto sides with those who emphasize that the roots of inflation were in monetary policy rather than with those who find the major cause in supply distortions owing to investment of silver withdrawn from the national treasury. Kuroda, on the other hand, cannot explain the problem of rice pricing by this currency supply theory. He concludes that "a structure was created by the grain reserves system and the additional supply of currency whereby regional capital, which enjoyed mutual substitutability of money and grain, came to be overvalued with respect to silver (supraregional capital)." This finding surely will contribute to enhanced discussions of pre-modern pricing problems, economic structure, and the economic relations of the state, as well as aid historical explanations of long-term social 102Iwai Shigeki and economic change. From this standpoint one might well note Kuroda's bold interpretation that in the mid-Qing the development of the market economy , accompanied by the twin phenomena of expensive rice and expensive money, helped induce the formation of closed regional capital. In another article, Yamamoto has found that an influx of rice and merchandise from Anhui was one external condition affecting...

Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European Perspective.

1. Hunter-gatherer behaviour in prehistory: problems and perspectives Geoff Bailey Part I. Primary data sources: problems of theory and method: 2 Editorial 3. Time budgeting and hunter-gatherer technology Robin Torrence 4. Mortality models and the interpretation of horse population structure Marsha Levine 5. The calculation and interpretation of ungulate age profiles from dental crown heights Richard G. Klein, Kathryn Allwarden and Cornelia Wolf Part II. Spatial organization of the subsistence economy: 6. Editorial 7. Epirus revisited: seasonality and inter-site variation in the Upper Palaeolithic of north-west Greece Geoff Bailey, Pat Carter, Clive Gamble and Helen Higgs 8. Site variability and prehistoric economy in Levante Iain Davidson 9. Boreal phase settlement/subsistence models for Cantabrian Spain Geoffrey A. Clark 10 Sedentary hunters: the Ertebolle example Peter Rowley-Conway Part III. Long-term economic change: demographic and environmental factors: 11. Editorial 12. Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer adaptations in Cantabrian Spain Geoffrey A. Clark and Lawrence G. Straus 13. Economic change in Late Pleistocene Cantabria Geoff Bailey 14. Further reflections on adaptive change in Cantabrian prehistory Lawrence G. Straus and Geoffrey A. Clark 15. Late Pleistocene economies of the French Pyrenees Paul G. Bahn Part IV. Social interaction and economic change: large-scale perspectives: 16. Editorial 17. Social network systems amongst hunter-gatherers considered within southern Norway Marcie Madden 18. Culture and society in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe Clive Gamble 19. Palaeolithic cave art in ecological perspective Michael A. Jochim 20. Palaeolithic archaeology - some problems with form, space and time Martin Wobst.

Scenario planning for Australia

In view of the importance of an accurate appreciation of the business environment in Australia to the development of its corporate strategy, Shell Australia commissioned a five-man Study Team of independent academics to conduct a study into the long-term economic, social, political-strategic and technological changes affecting Australia. This article reports on the major results of that study whose main features were a survey of major trends and the description of two detailed scenarios of Australian developments to the year 2000. The study is not only of interest to readers concerned with Australia's future, but also as a result of an experiment in interaction and cross-fertilization between corporate planners and outside academic experts.

Malthusian Models and Irish History

Malthusian models occupy a central position in the interpretation and analysis of long-term economic and demographic change in preindustrial societies. The models are logically plausible and attractive, but ultimately they will have to be confronted with systematic evidence before being accepted. In this paper results are reported that cast some doubt on these models in the case of prefamine Ireland. The results indicate that the evidence supporting Malthusian views is not strong, and that the modus operandi of the nexus between economic and demographic variables is probably far more complex than is implied in standard Malthusian models.

AGRARIAN CLASS STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-INDUSTRIAL EUROPE

General interpretations of the processes of long-term economic change in late medieval and early modern Europe have continued to be constructed almost exclusively in terms of what might loosely be called “objective” economic forces – in particular, demographic fluctuations and the growth of trade and markets. A variety of models have been constructed centring on these forces. But whatever the exact nature of the model, and whether the pressure for change is seen to arise from urbanization and the growth of trade or an autonomous demographic development, a market supply/demand mechanism is usually assumed to provide the elementary theoretical underpinnings. So, the response of the agrarian economy to economic pressures, whatever their source, is more or less taken for granted, viewed as occurring more or less automatically, in a direction economically determined by the “laws of supply and demand”. In the construction of these economic models, the question of class structure tends to be treated in a variety of ways. Typically, there is the statement that one is abstracting (for the moment) from the social or class structure for certain analytical purposes. The fact remains that in the actual process of explanation, that is in the application of the model to specific economic historical developments, class structure tends, almost inevitably, to creep back in. Sometimes, it is inserted, in an ad hoc way, to comprehend a historical trend which the model cannot cover. More often, however, consciously or unconsciously, class structure is simply integrated within the model itself, and seen as essentially shaped by, or changeable in terms of, the objective economic forces around which the model has been constructed in the first place.

A Self-Generating Model of Long-Swings for the American Economy, 1860–1940

In this article we investigate the nature of long-term fluctuations (commonly called long-swings or Kuznets cycles) in the general level of activity of the American economy over the period between the Civil War and the Great Depression. We conclude that a stable socio-economic structure of long-term economic change was in existence over this entire period. This structure defines a concurrence of relationships between certain economic and demographic variables which in combination determined the dynamic pattern by which economic growth proceeded. Our findings should be of interest to the economic historian studying the general process of economic growth in a capitalist economy.