COURSE OUTLINE



Why are some countries rich and others poor? The main goal of this course is to address that important question by looking into the world economic history of the last millennium from a global approach, focused not only on Europe and North America, but also on the extra-European world (mainly China and India).



The origins of the present world economy may be found in the way the different areas of the world faced the big Medieval crisis during the central decades of the XIVth century. Unlike China and other Asian Empires, such as Mogul India and Japan, which retreated into human intensive economies after 1348, Western Europe began to replace capital for its relatively scarce (when compared with the big Asian Empires) labour, opening the way for the wide incorporation of technology into the economy which has been one of the most important features of Western economies ever since. In 1492 Columbus discovered America and in 1498 Vasco de Gama arrived to Calicut (India). This was the beginning of the European Overseas Expansion, closely related to the expansion of International Trade and the birth of the first European Colonial Empires. Each one of the Empires of the time tried to advance its trade through highly protective mercantilist policies which involved the continuous use of war as a way to conquer and protect new colonial markets. After three centuries of continuous warfare, in the years around 1763 it was quite clear that the English/British Colonial Empire had emerged as the victor in the fierce colonial rivalries of the time. The expansion powered by the aggressive English/British mercantilist State was the main engine behind the rise of British foreign trade, and it led to the appearance of the British high wages economy and, in the last term, to the Industrial Revolution; Britain´s path breaking response to the limits posed by her narrow resource base.



The pace of the Great Divergence quickened dramatically during the Industrial Revolution. During the 19th century the USA, France and Germany followed the British pattern of close State involvement in the economy and became advanced industrial economies through a set of policies (the Standard Development Model, SDP) which included the creation of national markets, the use of tariffs to protect their industries from British competition, the setting of central banks, and the promotion of mass education to train industrial workers. This created good conditions for the adoption of labour-saving technology along British lines.



Far from being the norm, the American, German and French cases were, however, the exception and the diffusion of the Industrial Revolution outside the Western World could best be described in terms of failure so, unsurprisingly, the pace of the Great Divergence quickened dramatically during the 19th century. Despite her long-term stagnation after the beginning of the 15th century, in the years around 1800 China remained as the world leader in the field of luxury manufactures such as porcelain and silk textiles, while Mogul India was the main producer of cotton textiles, so it may be stated that in this period Asia was the manufacturing heartland of the world economy. The problem was that most industries from Casablanca to Canton were unable to survive the storm unleashed by western competition in the 19th century, and the extra-European world turned into a vast agricultural area whose main function was to provide raw materials and agricultural commodities for the western industrial core.



In most cases, the spread of the Industrial Revolution to extra-European countries was fatally hampered by the lack of political autonomy. This ended with any possibility of implementing the SDP there. Nonetheless, the SDP seemed less advantageous than the promotion of export oriented primary sectors in a phase when the prices of agricultural commodities experienced a continuous rise, as the well-known cases of independent states such as Argentine and Uruguay show. Although in the short run this orientation made good economic sense, in the medium and longer term the boom in the exports of primary products and raw materials during the 19th century led to the entrenchment of powerful export oriented constituencies completely opposed to the SDP in nearly every extra-European country. These problems were compounded by the difficulties posed by the adoption of labour-saving western technology, more suited to the needs of Western European economies, than to those of the labour-abundant Southern American or Asian countries. After 1945, a few countries - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through Big Push industrialization that has achieved a remarkable success.

In this course we will put the emphasis on improving two transversal skills (competencias transversales/zeharkako gaitasunak):



1. Written communication

2. Information analysis and synthesis



Students will have to write one short essay. Naturally the teacher will give students feedback on their essay.

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SYLLABUS



0. Introduction.

0.1. What is Economic History?

0.2. What is World Economic History?

0.3. Why study World Economic History.



1. The world economy during the medieval period: The beginnings of the Great Divergence.

1.1. The first Global Economy? The Sung Miracle, the Golden Age of Islam and Medieval Europe.

1.2. The Plague and the beginnings of the Great Divergence.



2. The preindustrial economies: The rise of the West and the Great Divergence in the Early Modern Period.

2.1. The constraints of economic growth during the preindustrial period: A world of organically based economies.

2.2. The Chinese case: The limits of an organically based economy.

2.3. The rise of Europe, 1500-1800: The rise of the Atlantic World.



3. The widening of the Great Divergence: The British Industrial Revolution and its diffusion.

3.1. Chance, continuity and change: The British Industrial Revolution

3.2. The diffusion of the Industrial Revolution in the Western World

3.3. The widening of the Great Divergence and the failure of the Industrial Revolution in the extra-European world.



4. The international economy from 1870 to present

4.1. The first globalization, 1870-1913

4.2. The triumph of anti-globalization forces: 1919-1939

4.3. The renewed advance of globalization after 1945



5. Facing globalization: winners and losers of “Big Push” industrialization in the late 20th century

5.1. The State and Big Push Industrialization.

5.2. Big Push industrialization and its losers: The Soviet economy, the Latin American countries, and Africa

5.3. Big Push industrialization and its winners: The East Asian economies

The Economic History Department of the UPV/EHU has established that the classes will divided into:

1) 42 hours of lectures

2) 18 hours of practical exercises and seminars.



Whenever the health situation allows it, teaching will be carried out either face-to-face or in a bimodal way. The latter will only be adopted if the size of the group does not make it possible for all the students to attend the classroom in person. If for health reasons, the presence of the student in the classroom cannot be guaranteed, then teaching will be carried out online.

• Final Assessment System
• Tools and qualification percentages:
  • Written test to be taken (%): 60
  • Multiple-Choice Test (%): 10
  • Individual works (%): 20
  • Team projects (problem solving, project design)) (%): 10

Students will have to take a final exam (60% of the final mark) and write one short essay (20%) plus a written test (10%) and a team work (10%) throughout the course. Students must get a minimum of 4 points in the exam in order to compute the mark reach in the continious evaluation.



Students will be informed about the assessment criteria of the final exam at the professor’s tutorial sessions.



In the event that a student chooses to waive the continuous evaluation, he/she should submit a written application to the professor within the first nine weeks of the semester.



It is recalled that students must be aware and follow the protocol for both academic ethics and prevention of dishonest or fraudulent practices when taking assessment tests and writing academic essays at the UPV/EHU.



If the health situation makes it necessary to suspend the on-site evaluation, the exams will be carried out online using eGela’s tools. The specific characteristics of each exam will be announced in advance in the corresponding eGela forum of each group/subject.

In the second call (segunda convocatoria/bigarren deialdia) students can take an exam that gives them the chance to obtain 100% of the final mark.



It is recalled that students must be aware and follow the protocol for both academic ethics and prevention of dishonest or fraudulent practices when taking assessment tests and writing academic essays at the UPV/EHU.



If the health situation makes it necessary to suspend the on-site evaluation, the exams will be carried out online using eGela’s tools. The specific characteristics of each exam will be announced in advance in the corresponding eGela forum of each group/subject.

There will be several texts available at the photocopy shop. These texts will be read and discussed as the course moves forward.

Basic bibliography

CORE BIBLIOGRAPHY:



ALLEN, Robert C., Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxfod, OUP, 2011).



CAMERON, Rondo, A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolitic Times to the Present (Oxford, OUP, 1997).



CHANG, Ha Joon, Economics: The user´s guide (Penguin, 2014).



FINDLAY, Ronald and O´ROURKE, Kevin, Power and Plenty. Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millenium (Princeton, 2009).



FRIEDEN, Jeffry A., Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century (New York, Norton & Co., 2006).



WILLIAMSON, Jeffrey G, Trade and Poverty. When the Third World Fell Behind, (Massachussets, 2013).



WRIGLEY, Edward Antony, Energy and the English Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 2010).

In-depth bibliography

ALDCROFT, D. (1989), Historia de la Economía Europea 1914-2000, Barcelona, Crítica.
CARRERAS, A., y TAFUNELL, X. (2004), Historia económica de España, siglos XIX y XX, Barcelona, Crítica.
CAZADERO, Manuel (1995), Las revoluciones industriales, México, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
CIPOLLA, C. M. (1981), Historia económica de la Europa preindustrial, Madrid, Alianza.
--- (1982), Historia económica de la población mundial, Barcelona, Crítica.
EICHENGREEN, B. (2000), La globalización del capital: historia del sistema monetario internacional, Barcelona, Antoni Bosch
FONTANA, Josep (1999), Introducción al estudio de la historia, Barcelona, Crítica.
FOREMAN-PECK, J (1995), Historia económica mundial. Relaciones económicas internacionales desde 1850, Prentice Hall, Madrid.
KENWOOD, A. G.; LOUGHEED, A. L. (1992), Historia del desarrollo económico internacional: desde 1820 hasta nuestros días, Madrid, Itsmo.
LANDES, David S. (1979), Progreso tecnológico y revolución industrial, Madrid, Tecnos.
LANDES, David S. (1999), La riqueza y la pobreza de las naciones : por qué algunas son tan ricas y otras son tan pobres, Barcelona, Crítica
LIVI-BACCI, Máximo (1990), Historia mínima de la población mundial, Barcelona, Ariel.
MARKS, Robert B. (2007), Los orígenes del mundo moderno: una nueva visión, Barcelona, Crítica.
MASSA, P. y otros (2003), Historia Económica de Europa, siglos XV-XX, Crítica, Barcelona.
POLLARD, Sydney (1991), La conquista pacífica. La industrialización de Europa (1760-1970), Zaragoza, Prensas Universitarias.
PROCACCI, Giuliano (2003), Historia General del Siglo XX, Barcelona, Crítica
VALDALISO, J. M., y LÓPEZ, S. (2007), Historia económica de la empresa, Barcelona, Crítica, 2ª edición.

Web addresses

www.aehe.net/docencia