Københavns Universitet A Malthusian Model for all Seasons A Malthusian Model for all Seasons: A Theoretical Approach to Labour Input and Labour Surplus in Traditional Agriculture A Malthusian Model for all Seasons: A Theoretical Approach to Labour Input a

Abstract: It has become popular to argue (e.g. Clark 2007) that all societies were Malthusian until about 1800. At the same time, the phenomenon of surplus labour is well-documented for historical (as well as modern) pre-industrial societies. This study discusses the paradox of surplus labour in a Malthusian economy. Inspired by the work of We introduce the concept of seasonality into a stylized Malthusian model, and endogenize the extent of agricultural labour input, which is then used to calculate labour surplus and the rate of labour productivity. We observe the effects of season-specific technological progress, and find that technological progress in the low-season increases labour surplus and labour productivity whilst, perhaps surprisingly, technological progress in the high-season, by relaxing the high-season bottleneck, leads to work intensification and a drop in labour surplus and labour productivity. JEL classification codes: J22, N13, O10 Keywords: Boserup, Labour Productivity, Labour Surplus, Land Productivity, Malthus, Seasonality * We gratefully acknowledge the feedback from seminar and conference participants at the University of Copenhagen, the European University Institute, the Seventh Conference of the European Economic History Society, and the 'Why (not) Europe' Summer School at University of Tartu. We are especially thankful to Steven Broadberry, Giovanni Federico, Joel Mokyr and Kevin O'Rourke for comments, suggestions and literacy recommendations. Contact: [email protected]

Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy

In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge help explain the European advantage. We build a model of technological progress in a pre-industrial economy that emphasizes the person-to-person transmission of tacit knowledge. The young learn as apprentices from the old. Institutions such as the family, the clan, the guild, and the market organize who learns from whom. We argue that medieval European institutions such as guilds, and specific features such as journeymanship, can explain the rise of Europe relative to regions that relied on the transmission of knowledge within extended families or clans

Tale of a Death Exaggerated::How Keynesian Policies Survived the 1970s

It has become a commonplace to divide the post-war period into ‘Keynesian’ and ‘post-Keynesian’ eras, usually with the break point in the 1970s. This article challenges that periodisation and the arguments that underpin it. It is argued that Keynesianism did not die in the 1970s, but survived, if somewhat mutated, into the twenty first century. This proposition is then used to challenge exaggerated views about the scale of the crisis of the 1970s