ECON 394
European Economic History
Last Offered Fall 2008
Division II
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Why did modern economic growth first occur in Europe, and not in China or the Middle East? Why did the Industrial Revolution occur in Britain and not France? Why did the economy of the Soviet Union collapse in the 1980s? What drove European economic integration? This course will explore these and other questions related to the economic development of Europe from the early modern period until today. We will investigate how institutional change, technology, industrialization, social welfare policies, trade and globalization, and government intervention have affected the process of economic growth. Drawing on a wide variety of empirical and theoretical readings, the perspective of the course will be comparative, both across Europe and to the experiences of developing countries today.