Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - UC3M

The Institute is sponsoring the "Figuerola Prize", a generous prize of 1,500 euros awarded biennially for the best article published in the European Review of Economic History, the journal of the European Historical Economic Society (EHES). The award is made during the Congress of the European Economic Historical Society.

ANTONIO TENA
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Instituto Figuerola

"BARIOCH REVISITED. TARIFF STRUCTURE AND GROWTH IN LATE 19TH CENTURY" European Review of Economic History . 2010. nº1, vol 14. pp.111-141.

Postprint version available
in our E-Archivo 

Abstract of the article:

This article revisits Bairoch's hypothesis that in the late nineteenth century tariffs were positively associated with growth, as recently confirmed by a new generation of quantitative studies (see O'Rourke 2000; Jacks 2006; Clemens and Williamson 2002, 2004). This article highlights the importance of the structure of protection in the relation between trade policy and its potential growth-promoting impact. Evidence is based on a new database on industrial tariffs for the 1870s. The results show that income, factor endowment and policy independence are important for explaining regional asymmetries between tariffs and growth. At a global level, increased protection, measured by total and average tariffs on manufactures, implied more unskilled inefficient protection and less growth, and this is especially true for the poor countries in the late nineteenth century. Protection was only positive for a ‘rich club’ if we include in this group new settler countries, which grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century and imposed high tariffs mainly for fiscal reasons.

PILAR NOGUÉS - MARCO
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris 

&

CAMILA VAMMALLE SABOURET
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

"East India bonds, 1718–1763: early exotic derivatives and London market efficiency", European Review of Economic History, Volume 11, Issue 03, Dec 2007, pp 367-394

Abstract of the article:

Were eighteenth-century financial markets efficient? Neal (1990) shows that the London and Amsterdam markets were integrated. Yet some scholars find that the London capital market was either not integrated across various classes of securities, or was comprised of ignorant investors who were not knowledgeable enough to arbitrage across securities with different maturities, or was even irrational at times. In this article, we demonstrate that these London capital market inefficiencies suggested by previous scholars arise from an incorrect comprehension of the pricing of the financial instrument they use. After examining certain features peculiar to India bonds overlooked by previous authors, we make it clear that the London domestic market was perfectly integrated and that investors were capable of handling and pricing sophisticated options.

Figuerola Prize 2007
JAN LUITEN VAN ZANDEN
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.

&

MAARTEN PRAK
Institute of History, Utrecht University
The Netherlands

"Towards an economic interpretation of citizenship: The Dutch Republic between medieval communes and modern nation-states", European Review of Economic History, Volume 10, Issue 02, August 2006, pp 111-145

Abstract of the article:

Citizenship was a key concept in European state formation from the Middle Ages onwards. This article presents an economic interpretation of citizenship. It argues that such contract increases the efficiency of the exchange between the state and the inhabitants. Next, the concept of citizenship is applied to the political economy of the Dutch Republic, wich was an "intermediate" stage in the process of state formation between the medieval commune (with a restricted form of citizenship) and the nation-state of the nineteenth century, when the concept became more inclusive, covering all inhabitants. The article briefly sketches the genesis of the Dutch Republic and identifies some of the key problems of its political economy. 
 

"Explaining Anglo-German productivity differences in services since 1870", European Review of Economic History, Volume 8, Issue 03, Dec 2004, pp 229-262

Abstract of the article:

Germany overtook Britain in comparative productivity levels for the whole economy primarily as a result of trends in services rather than trends in industry. Britain's productivity lead in services before World War II reflected external economies of scale in a highly urbanised economy with an international orientation. Low productivity in Germany reflected the underdevelopment of services in an economy that was slow to move out of agriculture. As German agricultural employment contracted sharply from the 1950s, catching-up occurred in services. This was aided by a sharp increase in human and physical capital accumulation, underpinned by the institutional framework of the postwar settlement.

(That year the prize was shared)

"The Golden Age of European growth reconsidered", European Review of Economic History, Volume 6, Issue 01, Apr 2002, pp 3-22

Abstract of the article:

I reconsider the growth of Western Europe during the Golden Age of European Economic Growth after the Second World War. The preceding thirty years of conflict and depression impeded the normal path of industrialisation in these countries, and they had too much labour in agriculture for their level of income and stage of development at the end of the war. The disequilibrium added to other more ordinary forces to produce unusually rapid economic growth. This hypothesis explains the speed of economic growth during the Golden Age, differences between growth rates in these years, and the end of this historical episode.

"Making the French pay: The costs and consequences of the Napoleonic reparations", European Review of Economic History, Volume 5, Issue 03, Dec 2001, pp 337-365

Abstract of the article:

Reparations as an instrument of international peace settlements were abandoned after the failure of Germany to pay its post-World War I indemnity. However, reparations played a useful role in the construction of earlier peace treaties. This article examines the payment of reparations by the French after the Napoleonic Wars. By most measures, these reparations were the largest ever fully paid; and they imposed a high cost on the economy in terms of lost output, consumption, and diminished capital stock. The incentives to pay were appropriately set and payment permitted France to be accepted once again as an equal among the great powers.