Can We Rehabilitate the Guilds? A Sceptical Re-Appraisal

Sheilagh Ogilvie

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: This paper examines recent attempts to rehabilitate pre-modern craft guilds as efficient economic institutions. Contrary to rehabilitation views, craft guilds adversely affected quality, skills, and innovation. Guild rent-seeking imposed deadweight losses on the economy and generated no demonstrable positive externalities. Industry flourished where guilds decayed. Despite impairing efficiency, guilds persisted because they redistributed resources to powerful groups. The ‘rehabilitation’ view of guilds, it concludes, is theoretically contradictory and empirically untenable.

Keywords: Institutions; guilds; rent-seeking; monopoly; craft; industry; quality; human capital; training; technology; innovation; economic history; methodology; local studies; case studies. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N01 N43 O17 O43 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2007-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-his and nep-hpe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:0745

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