Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy

David de la Croix, Matthias Doepke and Joel Mokyr

No 22131, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge help explain the European advantage. We build a model of technological progress in a pre-industrial economy that emphasizes the person-to-person transmission of tacit knowledge. The young learn as apprentices from the old. Institutions such as the family, the clan, the guild, and the market organize who learns from whom. We argue that medieval European institutions such as guilds, and specific features such as journeymanship, can explain the rise of Europe relative to regions that relied on the transmission of knowledge within extended families or clans.

JEL-codes: E02 J24 N10 N30 O33 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his, nep-ino, nep-lma and nep-mac
Note: DEV EFG
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Published as David de la Croix & Matthias Doepke & Joel Mokyr, 2018. "Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Preindustrial Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(1), pages 1-70.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Preindustrial Economy (2018)
Working Paper: Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy (2016)
Working Paper: Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy (2016)
Working Paper: Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy (2016)
Working Paper: Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy (2016)
Working Paper: Apprenticeship and Technological Progress in the Malthusian World (2013)
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