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Maritime trade grew enormously in Europe after c. 1100 AD, thereby contributing much to the European economic take-off commonly considered as the “Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages.” In this article, determinants of both the formation of the Hanse’s network-based system of trade in Northern Europe and its later dissolution are analysed using a multi-agent model. Findings are connected to the discussion in institutional economics and economic history concerning the importance of institutional developments in long-distance trade for economic growth in medieval Europe, the efficiency of self-enforcing institutions, and the divergence of institutional arrangements in medieval maritime trade. Finally, both potentials and limitations of agent-based models for historical research are discussed., Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung Vol. 43, No. 1 (2018): Special Issue: Agent-Based Modeling in Social Science, History, and Philosophy. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

The article provides an evaluation of the role of universities for the West German innovation system. It considers both research and education. On the whole, the balance is mixed. The higher education system, although in principle clinging to the ideals of Humboldt, was flexible enough to accommodate rapidly growing student numbers in the 1960s and 70s. Research was not driven out of universities, but universities lost ground in the competition with extra-mural research institutes. The links between universities and industry were stronger in the 1950s and 1960s than in the 1970s and 1980s. Efforts at improving knowledge transfer since the 1970s can be seen as attempts to make up for loosening informal ties. An assessment of the contribution of universities to labor productivity casts doubt on the assumption that a shortage of human capital acted as a break an economic development., Historical Social Research Vol. 37, No. 2 (2012): Special Issue: Political and Functional Elites in Post-Socialist Transformation: Central and East Europe since 1989/90 Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

This note casts skepticism over various hypothesis formulated by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) in reaching the conclusion that institutions cause economic development. The author has identified four major issues in the study. It lacks adequate econometric specification and relies only on, what the author termed, destiny variables. Secondly, the historical record does not support the author's theory that mortality rate determine Europeans strategy for institutions they intended to develop in the host country; thirdly, given current living standards and disease ridden environment in low and middle income countries, the claim that disease environment of early 19th century was neutral to economic development seems farfetched; finally, assuming that initial institutions caused present institutions put in question the developmental efforts of past half century and thus is more than a sweeping generalization., Historical Social Research Vol. 37, No. 2 (2012): Special Issue: Political and Functional Elites in Post-Socialist Transformation: Central and East Europe since 1989/90 Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

This introduction and the contributions of the HSR issue intend to develop and to demonstrate the potentialities of the economics of convention (EC) for a transdisciplinary approach to the history of economies. 'Convention' has become a core concept in the renewal of French social sciences from structuralism towards pragmatism. Conventions are interpretative schemes for action and coordination that persons and actors use in situations under conditions of uncertainty. Through repeated interaction they become an intimate part of the history, incorporated into justifications, behaviours and social objects like institutions. In contrast to neoclassic economics and to new historical institutionalism, the EC starts from assumptions of a plurality of economic frameworks of action, of the socio-historical construction of concepts, categories, and data. It rejects dichotomies, adopts a broad conception of the economy, conceives institutional change as the change of the 'conventional' foundations for the pragmatic use and interpretation of institutions. Its methodology is that of a 'complex pragmatist situationalism', dedicated to a comprehensive approach aiming at reconstructing the internal going-on of historical processes. This special issue offers a set of contributions on: the origins of the approach, its methodological standpoint, its possible developments towards a sociology of engagement or hermeneutical concerns, several applications on economic history (notably about conventions of quality and of labor)., Historical Social Research Vol. 36, No. 4 (2011): Special Issue: Conventions and Institutions from a Historical Perspective. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

This paper is devoted to Robert Fogel, the spiritual and/or intellectual son of Simon Kuznets. Master in cliometrics, he is the winner (with Douglass North) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change., Historical Social Research Vol. 36, No. 4 (2011)

This postscript discusses the contributions to the special issue of HSR in the light of recent interdisciplinary studies an markets and market societies. It picks out the problem of legitimacy, the importance of events in the formation of markets and the configuration of fields, the role of disorder in the evolution of markets and the relation of markets and fields as the major threads running through the issue and identifies the investigation of the development of modern capitalism as a pressing task for future collaborative research by sociologists, historians, and political scientists., Historical Social Research Vol. 36, No. 3 (2011): Special Issue: Change of Markets and Market Societies: Concepts and Case Studies. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

The fate of former Nazis in the economy of the GDR is closely linked to the question about the transformation of private-state enterprises in the socialist planned economy and the course of the elite change in there. To answer these questions, this article evaluates nine companies. Their directors ('Werkleiter') are characterized and compared for the period between the end of the Second World War and the 1960s. Two relevant generations of managers can be analyzed: Managers of the first generation are described as 'transformation leaders' and were mostly part of the old intelligentsia. They dominated many companies until the late 1950s and, in some cases, until the mid-1960s. Then they were replaced by representatives of the 'Aufbaugeneration', young GDR-socialized managers. In the article this process is characterized as a long drawn-out elite change paralleled by a long phase of transformation towards planned economy. The article divides this transformation into four periods. In the first phase, many former Nazis, together with other owners and managers, were ousted from their top positions in the companies. A central concern of the Communist Party (SED) leadership was the change of industrial power, not a systematic denazification. In later years, an indifferent and inclusive policy towards former Nazis prevailed. The training of a new intelligentsia, a generation that was both politically loyal and professionally qualified, became more important. In the transition phases, in-house networks were dominated by the old intelligentsia and determined the company's developments., Historical Social Research Vol. 35, No. 3 (2010): Focus: Integration or Exclusion: Former National Socialists in the GDR. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

Prices play an important role in market societies. The article illustrates the development of prices in Switzerland form the beginning of the 19th to the end of the 20th century. Important sources of price statistics as well as institutional and economic causes of the long term development of prices are discussed., Historical Social Research Vol. 34, No. 4 (2009)

Shipbuilding in post-Unification Italy is here documented by new national and regional time series. Where the extant national series point to secular decline, the new estimates reveal a major increase in output tied primarily to the growth of repair work on the one hand and of naval construction on the other. The regional estimates, which have no precedent in the literature, point to considerable concentration: Liguria accounted for more than half the product and Campania for almost another quarter. Again, while in most regions shipbuilding was barely significant, in Liguria it represented up to a quarter of total industrial production. The further disaggregation of naval construction points to significant exports, from the 1890s, by the private yards in Tuscany and Liguria; the consensus view that Italy's engineering industry was then too backward to export at all is clearly unfounded., Historical Social Research Vol. 34, No. 2 (2009)

This research has two broad objectives: First, to model population growth in a stochastic framework such that the effects of possible non-mean convergent shocks could be studied theoretically on long-run economic growth and planning. Second, an empirical strategy for modelling stochastic population growth over time is provided. Forecasting exercise has been rigorously carried for population growth and income by embedding the stochastic growth feature of population. For modelling purpose, a long-memory mechanism for population growth is suggested so that the classical economic growth assumption of constant and/ or non-stochastic population growth in economic growth models appear as a limiting case. The analytical results show that embedding the stochastic features of population growth helps in explaining the economic growth volatility. In particular, it is found to be a formidable cause of the presence of long-memory in output. The empirical analysis shows that unless the stochastic feature of population growth is taken into empirical growth models, the author will not be able map out the significant effects of demographic variables consistently over time. It is also shown that how corroborating the information of stochastic shocks of population alters our forecast vision by impacting significantly on the precision of the estimates., Historical Social Research Vol. 33, No. 4 (2008): Focus: Stochastic Demographic Dynamics and Economic Growth Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

Dieser Artikel erstellt einen Beweis für die internationale Interdependenz der Totalen Faktorproduktivität (TFP) zur langfristigen human kapital Akkumulation mit Hilfe eines räumlich im Panel semi-parametrischen vektorautoregressiven Verfahrens. Die empirische Studie bezieht sich auf 15 asiatische Länder für den Zeitraum 1970-2000., This article provides evidence of cross-country total factor productivity (TFP) interdependence due to human capital accumulation over time by employing a semi-parametric spatial vector autoregressive technique in the panel. Empirical study covers a set of 15 Asian countries over the time period 1970-2000., Historical Social Research Vol. 33, No. 3 (2008)

Die Eigenschaften des 'langen Gedächtnisses' eines Schocks sind von der zeitlichen als auch von der räumlichen Perspektive wichtig. Eine kliometrische Herausforderung kann die Analyse der 'Struktur des langen Gedächtnisses eines Schocks und sein Verhalten im Raum darstellen', eine weit vernachlässigte Dimension in der Literatur., The 'memory' feature of shock is important both from the time and spatial perspective. A cliometric challenge can be to study the 'memory structure of shock and its behaviour in a spatial setting', a widely neglected dimension in the literature., Historical Social Research Vol. 32, No. 3 (2007)

In recent times World and Global History becamethe fast growing sections of international historiography,mainly due to the interest in North American universities,but also followed by an increasing interest in otherworld regions. The first European Congress in World andGlobal History, held from September, 22 to 25, 2005 at theUniversity of Leipzig, explored the field and tried to answerif there are specific European traditions and practices towrite and research world history in a global age. In the followingsection reports from the panels organised during thisconference give an impression of a first step towards a newway to think and to discuss about history on the Europeancontinent but also in contact with scholars from Australia,the Americas, Asia and Africa., Historical Social Research Vol. 31, No. 2 (2006): Focus: World and Global History in Europe Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

In der HSR, Nr. 70 hat Hans-Joachim Voth in die sogenannte 'Borchardt Debatte' zwischen deutschen und britischen Wirtschaftsgeschichtlern über die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung der Weimarer Republik eingegriffen. Voth stellt die für die Debatte entscheidende These in Frage, daß sich die Investitionsrate in der Weimarer Republik nicht wesentlich von der des Deutschen Kaiserreichs unterschieden hat und das Borchardts These auf Meßfehler zurückgeführt werden kann. Die These von der Schwäche der Wirtschaft in der Weimarer Republik sei daher widerlegt. Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt sich seinerseits mit Voths Ausführungen auseinander. Eine Sekundäranalyse der Daten zeigt, daß die Investitionsrate der Weimarer Republik tatsächlich beträchtlich unter der des Deutschen Reiches lag. Voths Argumente sind daher nicht ausreichend, Borchardts Hypothese zu widerlegen bzw. um die Debatte abzuschließen., Historical Social Research Vol. 19, No. 4 (1994)

In dem Artikel 'Zwangslagen und Handlungsspielräume in der großen Wirtschaftskrise der frühen dreißiger Jahre' (in: Jahrbuch der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1979) vertritt Knut Borchardt die These, daß staatliche Entscheidungen während der relativ stabilen Jahre der Weimarer Republik (1925-29) zu einem massiven Lohnkostendruck geführt haben. Als direkte Folge wurden die Unternehmensgewinne und Investitionsmöglichkeiten hart eingeschränkt und so eine 'small-cake economy' geschaffen, die letztlich scheitern mußte. Der vorliegende Beitrag prüft die (vieldiskutierte) These, indem er die grundlegenden demographischen Variablen des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts zeitreihenanalytisch untersucht. Hier zeigt sich nach der Interpretation des Autors, daß die rückläufige Bevölkerungsentwicklung für den von Borchardt behaupteten makroökonomischen Trend verantwortlich ist. Überprüft werden soll der entscheidende Indikator 'Lohnkostendruck'., According to the Borchardt hypothesis, state arbitration during Weimar's relatively stable years (1925-29) led to excessive wage pressure. As a direct consequence, profits were squeezed hard and investment fell, giving rise to a 'small-cake economy' which, in the end, had to fail. Borchardt's interpretation, hotly debated amongst German and Anglo-Saxon scholars for some time, is challenged in this paper. I first discuss the shifts in basic demographic variables during the early decades of the twentieth century. It will emerge that declining population growth rates are largely responsible for the changes in macro-economic variables noted by Borchardt. Finally, this article demonstrates why the indicator of wage pressure used in previous works is fundamentally flawed., Historical Social Research Vol. 19, No. 3 (1994)

Der Artikel resümiert die Ergebnisse des Buches 'Geld, Währung und Preisentwicklung. Der Niederrhein im europäischen Vergleich: 1350-1800. (Schriften des Instituts für bankhistorische Forschung e.V. 14, Frankfurt 1990).' Ausgegangen wird von der Frage, inwieweit die Entwicklung der Geld- und Preisstrukturen als ein allgemeiner Indikator der ökonomischen Entwicklung angesehen werden können. Die Preis- und Lohnentwicklung wird statistisch über die Gold- und Silbergewichtsäquivalente rekonstruiert. Der Beitrag enthält keinen Datenteil; er verweist auf das Buch., Historical Social Research Vol. 16, No. 1 (1991)

Wirtschaftshistorische Forschung, die mit Hilfe der Zeitreihenanalyse nach deutbaren Regelmäßigkeiten ökonomischer Prozesse sucht, arbeitet weitgehend nach undefinierten Regeln. Da sich die in der Theorie geforderten Eigenschaften in der historischen Wirklichkeit nur selten beobachten lassen, werden empirische Fakten so transformiert, daß sie den Anforderungen der Theorie genügen. Der Autor setzt sich mit diesem Problem der statistischen Adäquation auseinander und kommt zu folgenden Schlüssen: 'Die vorwiegend auf idealtypischen Begriffen basierende Deskription und Interpretation historisch-ökonomischer Prozesse bedürfen statistischer Methoden, die die wesentlichen Eigenschaften der relevanten Begriffe adäquat abbilden. Um solche Prozesse numerisch quantifizieren zu können, müssen die relevanten Begriffseigenschaften in einer Form definiert werden, die einer statistischen Operationalisierung zugänglich ist. Empirisch-historische Forschung erfordert die ständige Reflexion über verwendete Begriffe und deren statistische Adäquation. Diese Reflexion soll auf der einen Seite zur Definition weitgehend operabler Begriffe und auf der anderen Seite zur Entwicklung eines vorwiegend an fachwissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen orientierten statistischen Methodenapparates führen., The function of economic theories within the analysis of economic time series is still undefined. Those who do not use time series analysis exclusively for testing pre-fabricated theories are often reproached to engage in 'Measurement without Theory'. This reproach is based on the one hand on an underrating of the possibilities of time series analysis and on the other hand on an overestimation of economic theories within the empirical oriented research process. The article tries to show that describing historical reality empirically is an independant and legitimate task of time series analysis. The use of statistical methods in this process requires the theoretical concept to be adequate to the statistical method and the statistical method to be adequate to the theoretical concept. The permanent process of equalizing in this sense is described as 'Adäquation'. Because of the fact that the theoretical concepts are always in the form of an 'ideal type' the adequation can never be perfect. Minimizing the gap between theoretical concepts and statistical procedure has to be the permanent effort of both economic theory and statistical analysis., Historical Social Research Vol. 13, No. 3 (1988): Special Issue: Methods of Time Series Analysis 1 Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1