Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800

Antonio Henriques and Nuno Palma

No 171, Working Papers from European Historical Economics Society (EHES)

Abstract: Why did the countries which first benefitted from access to the New World - Castile and Portugal - decline relative to their followers, especially England and the Netherlands? The dominant narrative is that worse initial institutions at the time of the opening of Atlantic trade explain Iberian divergence. In this paper, we build a new dataset which allows for a comparison of institutional quality over time. We consider the frequency and nature of parliamentary meetings, the frequency and intensity of extraordinary taxation and coin debasement, and real interest spreads for public debt. We find no evidence that the political institutions of Iberia were worse until at least the English Civil War.

Keywords: Atlantic Traders; New Institutional Economics; The Little Divergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 N23 O10 P14 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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https://www.ehes.org/wp/EHES_171.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385–1800 (2023)
Working Paper: Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800 (2022)
Working Paper: Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800 (2022)
Working Paper: Comparative European institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800 (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hes:wpaper:0171

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