Very well-deserved, here is the full account, including a summary of her research. Excerpt:
Historians (e.g., Engerman and Sokolov) have long argued for the persistence of institutions and the “long shadow” of historical events on developing countries. For example, cross-national studies have noted that Latin America and North America organized labor differently during colonial periods and used cross-country historical data to support the idea that these differences have had long-run impacts. More generally, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson compare the experience of countries with different institutions set in place during colonial time for largely accidental reasons, showing that these early differences continue to matter today.
In her work, Dell goes beyond the cross-country evidence, using historical accidents or peculiarities to shed light on persistent effects of institutional differences, including different in the organization of the state. She exploits historical settings in which she is able to very convincingly establish the persistent impacts of specific institutions as well as explore specific channels through which these impacts occur.
Do read the whole thing. Here are some previous MR posts on Melissa Dell.
The post Melissa Dell, economic historian, wins John Bates Clark award appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Author of seven books on Wall Street history, the national debt, the Atlantic Cable, etc. Columnist for Barron's, freaquent op-ed writer for WSJ
It is 2021. The Economic War declared against PRC has been on going for 4 years.
The scale and tally of this War is largely ignored by the Western media. Although there were general consensus among Western analysts that Trump's Trade War against China "did not achieve its goals" of (1) reducing trade deficit, and (2) reshoring manufacturing back to US, Western media largely avoided a deep assessment of costs and overall assessment of success/failure.
In retrospect, 4 years of the Economic War was a significant failure for US, if damages were truly assessed for both sides.
While 2021 is not marked end of the Economic War, US effectively agreed to a partial "ceasefire" via a "phase one truce agreement" with China in 2020 during last year of Trump administration.
In reality, the "phase one truce agreement" was nothing short of a temporary surrender declared as a victory.
The nature of the "phase one truce agreement" boils down to US agreed to lower tariffs slightly on Chinese goods, in exchange for China promising to buy more from US (which China has always promised to do).
This agreement is by analogy equivalent to Qing China (if US is Qing China) agreeing to allow England to continue to sell Opium in exchange for Qing Imperial government taking a cut of the Opium profit. (if Chinese goods are as addictive as opium).
Even Qing China wasn't incompetent and shameless enough to try to claim such an agreement as a victory. Yet, Western media were continually trying to look on the "bright side": i.e. that it damaged China's economy somehow, or it "isolated" China, etc.
To top off the "phase one truce agreement", Biden administration didn't want to do the walk of shame of rescinding it completely, refusing to acknowledge that it was a total failure. So instead, Biden administration is trying to hold China to the agreement, i.e. China should be at least made to buy more US goods. (So, China just bought some long term contracts on Natural Gas, like throwing another bone to US).
While that was happening, Trump administration rallied its "allies" (colonial minions) to also start new fronts of economic war against China. Many "allies" in Europe and Asia refused to join.
3 most enthusiastic Canon Fodders of US, were Canada, Australia and Taiwan.
Canada joined the Economic War by aiding US to arrest /kidnap Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou in December 2018. China quickly retaliated with various economic sanctions and arresting 2 Canad
... keep reading on reddit ➡Hi all,
I was just wondering whether people here know many economic historians that work on the multinational enterprises/ firms. I know of Robert Fitzgerald at Royal Holloway in London, but that’s about it
I was raised Shi'ite*, so what I was taught growing up was that Ali was appointed the successor by Muhammad, but there was a coup by Umar and Abu Bakr after the Prophet's death, denying Ali his rightful inheritance, so to speak. And then after some time, the first Ummayad Caliph, Mu'auiyah** killed Hussein (son of Ali, grandson of Muhammad, fourth Shi'ite Imam) in the battle of Karbala, thereby sealing the schism "with the blood of the Prophet's grandchildren", as it was dramatically put. Some more stuff happened in between and afterwards, but thats the gist of the Twelver Shi'ite narrative as I understood it growing up.
On the other hand, there is the Sunni or orthodox narrative, which is much more common. From what I understand, the story goes: Muhammad dies, Abu Bakr gets elected Caliph; Abu Bakr appoints Umar as his successor, who is succeeded by Uthman, then Ali. After Ali, the Ummayads take over, and the rest is history. Or at least, there is some agreement between the two sects over the big picture after this point.
So, to my main question: what's the historical explanation for all this? How do historians reconcile these two narratives? Or do they give more weight to the Sunni narrative, considering 90% of Muslims are Sunni? Most academic work I've seen takes the latter position, which makes sense to me. Is this a correct understanding of the work being done in this field?
Second, the way these narratives are told traditionally seems to me to emphasise the importance of personality, or morality, or some later religious or political position. In other words, these seem more like myths than historical sources. So what are the social, economic, and political causes for the schism?
*I am no longer religious, but I mention this to explain my premise. Also, I mean Twelver Shi'ite, or Ja'afari Shi'ite, who are the largest branch of Shi'ites iirc.
**I have no idea if this is the right transliteration.
Hi all!
I am prepping for my doctoral exams in organizational and economic sociology and as such, I had to read a few chapters from Polanyi's The Great Transformation. Specifically, I had to read chapters 4 and 5.
In chapter 4, "Societies and Economic Systems," Polanyi argues against the concept of the 'economic man,' a historical construction that inaccurately portrays social actors as individualistically seeking gain past their own needs. He spends time talking about various economic logics across history demonstrating that the self-seeking, wealth-oriented 'human nature' presented by economists is a historical fantasy.
In chapter 5, "Evolution of the Market Pattern," he presents his idea of embeddedness, saying "Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system," and talks about how the market has been conceived at different points in time.
I'm wondering if someone could help me unpack this a bit. I know this idea of embeddedness is one of the most critical parts of his writing, but I'm not sure if this is Polanyi's genuine interpretation of history or if it's another criticism of economic historians. I'd love to hear what folks have to say! TIA
Naturally, I'd imagine an imposed debt of 150 million francs in 1825 which extended well into the 1940s couldn't have helped Haiti's economy to put it mildly, but I'm wondering if any economic historians have done any research on the matter as to the scale of its damages.
Also, I've read that European nations generally loath to trade with Haiti (for obvious political and social reasons) but after France 'recognized' Haiti's independence and renounced their claims to it, did Haiti see trade from foreign nations increase at all? Did that help their economy even a little bit?
Last session, (we’re using 2e) the players were fighting some cultists. Four PC’s and a capable NPC ally against 3 cultists. As GM, I was pretty certain they would win but it seemed to be taking too long. I offered to let them spend a Fortune Point to activate Ulric’s Fury on a successful hit. One of the limits is that you can only spend one Fortune Point a turn, so the choice is spend to make a hit more likely, or spend to make a hit devastating. They liked it, but now I’m wondering if it’s too good and whether I should let them continue going forward.
TL;DR would you let your players spend a Fortune Point to activate Ulric’s Fury?(if you’re 4e only, it would be like spend a Fortune Point to change your success to a double/crit)
https://preview.redd.it/3h0psai8pd681.jpg?width=695&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0625d9808fa7654cfae69bf1d7476d9c3c7fa853
I am interested to read the view of a historian who considers economic opportunities in the west as more central to westward expansion than the ideological reasons others attribute. I am relatively new to American expansion and the views I have come across all seem to follow the idea that manifest destiny and the frontier as an identity builder of the nation were the main reasons why expansion occurred. I would be interested to learn of historians that view other factors as more significant.
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