Economic History

Undergraduate course

School of Economics, Shandong University

Instructor: Chicheng MA

Email:macc@sdu.edu.cn

Class time and location: TBA

Office Hours: by appointment

Course Description:

This course introduces the comparative economic history of the world, especially the comparison between the West and China in the past one thousand years. After a concise description of the long-run economic development of the world over the past few millennia, the course will focus on the stylized historical facts and puzzles that have attracted economic historians as well as other social scientists to explain. These include the Voyages of Discovery, the Columbian Exchange, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Europe, the Needham Puzzle (why China fell behind the West?), Protestantism and Confucianism, the diffusion of modernization, and the modern transitions of China after 1840.

Course materials:

The textbook isA Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present(2002) by Rondo Cameron and Larry Neal, New York: Oxford University Press. In addition, the course also replies on considerable papers and other book chapters as shown in the following reading list.

Class Format:

Classes will be run in the forms of lectures and seminars. By seminars students are required to read the assigned materials before coming to class and to participate actively in class discussions.

Assessment:

The final grade is a combination of class participation (20%), précis (30%), and a final exam (50%).

Class Participation. It composes two parts. One is students’ performance in either raising questions or discussion in the class. The other is students’ presentations of their review report of the assigned articles, which will be held in the mid and the end of the semester, respectively. The specific instruction of the presentation will be announced later.

Précis. Each student will submit two précis during the semester. A précis refers to a summary that contains the essential details about theory, method, findings, and your own comments of an article in the reading list. For each article, a 2-page, single-spaced report usually suffices. The articles to be reviewed will be assigned later.

Final Exam. The questions will be based upon the required (with *’s) course materials.

Topics and Readings

1. Overview of World Economic History

Nunn, Nathan. 2009. “The Importance of History for Economic Development.”Annual Review of Economics, 1(1): 65-92.

Clark, Gregory. 2007.A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J

Maddison, Angus. 2001.The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris, France: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

2. The Mythical Chinese Past

Elvin, Mark. 1973.The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic Interpretation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Wakeman, Frederic E. 1975.The Fall of Imperial China. New York: Free Pres.

Perkins, Dwight H. 1969.Agricultural Development in China, 1368-1968.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Brook, Timothy. 1998.The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

3. Voyages of Discovery

Findlay, Ronald, and Kevin H. O’Rourke. 2007.Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

O’Rourke, Kevin H., and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2002. “After Columbus: Explaining Europe’s Overseas Trade Boom, 1500-1800.”Journal of Economic History, 62 (2): 417-456.

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2005. “The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth.”American Economic Review, 95: 546-579.

Wills, John E. 1993. “Maritime Asia, 1500-1800: The Interactive Emergence of European Domination.”American Historical Review. 98 (1): 83-105.

Kung, James K., and Chicheng Ma. 2012. “Voyages of Discovery and the Rise of Piracy in Sixteenth-Century China.” Working paper.

4. Columbian Exchange

Nunn, Nathan, and Nancy Qian. 2010. “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas.”Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24 (2): 163–88.

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson. 2002. Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution.Quarterly Journal of Economics. November.

Nunn, Nathann and Nancy Qian. 2011. “The Potato’s Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence from a Historical Experiment.”Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126 (2): 593-650.

Nunn, Nathan. 2008. “The Long Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades.”Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123 (1): 139-176.

5. Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Europe

Clark, Gregory. 2007.A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J

Mokyr, Joel. 1990.The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 5.

North, Douglass C., and Robert P. Thomas. 1973.The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 8 and 12.

Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2012.Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Publishers. Chapters 6 and 10.

6. The Needham Puzzle: Why China Fell behind?

Landes, David S. 2006. “Why Europe and the West? Why Not China?”Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20 (2): 3-22.

Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000.The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Lin, Justin Yifu. 1995. “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China.”Economic Development and Cultural Change, 43 (2): 269-92.

7. Protestantism vs. Confucianism

Weber, Max. 1904/05 [1930].The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen & Unwin, 1930.

Weber, Max. 1922.The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. New York: Free Press.

Greif, Avner, and Guido Tabellini. 2010.“Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared.”AER Papers & Proceedings, 100 (2): 1–10.

Yang, C. K. 1961.Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their Historical Factors. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1961.

Yu, Yingshi. 1987.Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen (Chinese Religious Ethic and the Spirit of Merchants). Taipei: Lian jing chu ban shi ye gong si.

8. The Diffusion of Modernization

Mokyr, Joel. 1990.The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 10.

Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2012.Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Publishers. Chapter 9.

Acemoglu, Daron, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2011. “The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution.”American Economic Review, 101: 3286–3307.

9. Economic Transition in Modern China, 1840-1949

Spence, Jonathan D. 1990.The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton.

Rawski, Thomas. 1989.Economic Growth in Prewar China. Berkerly, CA: University of California Press.

Bai, Ying, and James K. Kung. 2011. “Diffusing Knowledge While Spreading God’s Message: Protestantism and Economic Prosperity in China, 1840-1920.” Working paper, HKUST.

Jia, Ruixue, 2012. “The Legacies of Forced Freedom: China’s Treaty Ports.”The Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming.