Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/97701 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 149
Publisher: 
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale)
Abstract: 
Our purpose here is to challenge the big-bang approach to economic history in which some alleged institutional imposition - a deus machine - is claimed to launch a series of new economic behaviors. This so-called prime mover is then carried forward by the inexorable forces of path dependency to change the course of history. The specific creation story under investigation here is the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic conquest of parts of Germany. We show that recent efforts to re-write German economic history using this theoretical model cannot be supported by the abundant and concerted empirical evidence.
Subjects: 
institutional change
French Revolution
Germany
Prussian reforms
agricultural development
industrialization
JEL: 
N43
N53
N63
O43
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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