Medieval Origins: A Review Essay on Campbell's The Great Transition

Eric Chaney

Journal of Economic Literature, 2018, vol. 56, issue 2, 643-56

Abstract: Bruce M. S. Campbell's The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval World is a significant contribution to the growing literature that traces the roots of Europe's economic rise to the climatic and population shocks of the late medieval period. This review essay discusses the empirical, historical, and theoretical support for Campbell's view while highlighting that it struggles to explain why these positive effects were limited to Europe. It then hypothesizes that Europe's differential response to this shock reflected prior institutional advantages and provides some preliminary empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis. The essay concludes by examining Campbell's claim that these shocks contributed to Atlantic Europe's rise prior to the colonial period.

JEL-codes: I15 J11 J13 N13 N33 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.20161417
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20161417 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... fSPgJ_3l4uf0cKmlyht0 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... GIxFPkGtQNBwky3ZaitB (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:56:y:2018:i:2:p:643-56

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().