France and the Failure to Modernize Macroeconomic Institutions

Eugene White ()

Departmental Working Papers from Rutgers University, Department of Economics

Abstract: While a great power in the eighteenth century, France fell behind Britain's lead in modernizing her macroeconomic institutions. This paper examines the development of French macroeconomic institutions from the middle ages to the eighteenth century in a comparative framework. Theories of optimal macroeconomic policy and sovereign debt identify the key weaknesses of French institutions that imposed inferior policy choices on the government. Radical reform was blocked by a political economy created by medieval and early modern France. The difficulty experienced by the government in mobilizing resources to fight wars was a key factor contributing to the loss of France's overseas empire in the eighteenth century.

Keywords: France; History; Macroeconomic policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E63 N13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-03-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sas.rutgers.edu/virtual/snde/wp/1999-04.pdf (application/pdf)

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:rut:rutres:199904

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Departmental Working Papers from Rutgers University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().