Monday 25th to Friday 29th July 2011
University of Warwick

Supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Economic History Society

Summer Schools have been an important activity for economic historians and CAGE is happy to be able to continue this tradition in July this year. CAGE welcomed 25 international participants this year to engage in discussion and draw on CAGE's expertise in the field.

What did it address?

The main theme of this summer school was long run economic growth, with the core daily lecture being provided byGunnar Persson along with subsequent lectures given by leading Economic Historians. There was opportunities for participants to present their own research to the group, a schedule for the event, including information on papers can be found here 

The daily core lectures developed themes from Persson's recent publication An Economic History of Europe and consisted of the following:

• The first lecture used a simple gravity theory of trade approach to the development and persistence of larger economic units such as Europe. The issue at stake is to explain both the persistence of cohesion and the limits of such an integrated geographical unit.
• The second lecture explained long cycles in European pre-industrial economic growth within a ‘Smithian’ growth model where population growth drives division of labour being the major source of productivity advance.
• The third lecture confronted the Malthusian model with the historical record pointing at both theoretical and empirical problems in the Malthusian world view.
• The fourth lecture discussed differential growth patterns in Europe in the 1870-2000 period with particular emphasis on technology transfer and conditions for technology absorption.
• The final lecture dealt with what Banks do to economic growth and why Banks occasionally (and repeatedly) can bring growth to a halt.