Serfs and the city: market conditions, surplus extraction institutions, and urban growth in early modern Poland

Malinowski, Mikołaj

doi:10.1093/ereh/hew002

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The law states that any rise in the price gap P between cities i and j above the exchange costs is expected to have been diminished by an instant arbitrage performed by the grain merchants (Van Bochove 2008;Federico 2012;Malinowski 2016a). A decrease in the price gap is associated with a decline in the trade costs between the two cities.…”

Section: Methodology and Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various studies measured the extent of market integration in preindustrial Europe (e.g., Bateman 2011;Chilosi et al 2013;Chilosi, Schulze, and Volckart 2018;Frederico 2012;Malinowski 2016a;Shiue and Keller 2007). The results yield that, after a period of medieval disintegration, markets only became effectively integrated in the nineteenth century.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I discuss specific historical examples of these mechanisms in a subsequent section. Second, Table 1 also lists a selection of other factors affecting commodity market integration based on the relevant literature (e.g., Bochove 2008;Malinowski 2016a;Rybarski 2015;Van Tielhof 2002). The selection will motivate the inclusion of control variables into the subsequent empirical models.…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, fragmentation enabled regional elites to use their local influence to create rents and obtain personal privileges. In Poland, the strengthening of serfdom in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, that is, the lack of legal protection of the peasants by the state against the landlords that resulted in higher rents, is a classical example of this process (Malinowski 2016b).…”

Section: Transaction Costs In Domestic Grain Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772

Malinowski¹

2019

J. Econ. Hist.

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With use of innovative proxies and new annual data, I demonstrate that relatively high legal capacity and regulatory activity of the early-modern Polish parliament, the Seym, was positively associated with deeper domestic commodity market integration. Conversely, the lack of effective law-making, caused by the right of a single delegate to discontinue the Seym’s sessions, fostered market fragmentation. This indicates that early parliamentary regimes required legal capacity to harmonize domestic institutions and reduce the transaction costs. The Polish case suggests a hypothesis that the pre-1800 “Little Divergence” between European parliamentary regimes could be explained by differences in their governments’ capacities.

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Section: Methodology and Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transaction Costs In Domestic Grain Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772

Malinowski¹

2019

J. Econ. Hist.

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“…Furthermore, according to Bush (1996: 5), serfdom, although it delayed the development of a capitalist agriculture, promoted large-scale commercial farming in societies where various factors ruled out capitalist production'. Malinowski (2016b) has identified empirically that this process stimulated urban growth under adverse market conditions typical for the preindustrial period. Therefore, surplus extraction redirected resources from the agricultural to the urban sector, making not only the landlords, but also the cities richer at the expense of the peasants.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland

Malinowski

Zanden

2016

Cliometrica

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This article presents per capita GDP and income distribution estimates for preindustrial Poland. It is based on a social table for the Voivodeship of Cracow in 1578. Our evidence indicates that income in Poland was distributed more equally than in contemporary Holland. However, the extraction rate was much higher than in the North Sea area. Furthermore, income inequality in the countryside of the Voivodeship was higher than inequality in Cracow. This can be explained by the demesne economy based on serfdom that was prevalent in agriculture. Using trends in real wages and urbanisation, we also project Polish GDP forwards and backwards in time. Our results indicate that Polish per capita GDP was below that of Western Europe as early as the fifteenth century. This gap persisted despite moderate growth of the Polish economy in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Poland impoverished and became even poorer than Asian economies for which similar estimates are available. Poland recovered slightly in the eighteenth century but continued to lag behind Western Europe.

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Cliometric Approaches to Central, East, and South-East Europe

Morys

2024

Handbook of Cliometrics

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Serfs and the city: market conditions, surplus extraction institutions, and urban growth in early modern Poland

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772

Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772

Income and its distribution in preindustrial Poland

Cliometric Approaches to Central, East, and South-East Europe

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