Trials of Convergence

Prices, Markets and Industrialization in the Netherlands, 1800-1913
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-46079-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 14, 616 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 1193 g

Reihe: Library of Economic History

For over a century now, historians have debated the causes of the lagged industrialization of the Dutch economy during the nineteenth century. To this debate, Trials of Convergence brings the analytical perspective of prices, factor costs and the functioning of markets. Its critical insight is that only an approach based on the integrated incentive structure of the economy allows us to delimit the role of alternative explanations. Using statistical reconstruction and microdata, it shows that the retarded transition resulted from a confluence of forces. These ranged from open economy effects and natural endowments to the resilient influence of the institutions of the former Dutch Republic and the fiscal policy adopted in response to Belgian secession. At the height of the British Industrial Revolution the Dutch economy slowed, triggering a return to the problems of eighteenth-century stagnation. All this meant that the transition to 'modern economic growth' after 1860 came about only in a changed international context and after a period of politico-economic reform.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Riel, Arthur van

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Industrialisierung
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Arthur van Riel is senior research fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. His earlier books and papers covered Dutch early modern and 19th century economic history and the political economy of the Weimar Republic. He has also published on a variety of policy issues, among which the European Monetary Union and the evolution of money, banking and private debt.