| dc.description.abstract | Empirical research has shown that Great Britain diverged from Continental Europe in terms of wages and productivity beginning in the early 1600s. Despite this, many of the influential explanations of British industrial leadership emphasize unique features of Britain in the 18th century. In this dissertation, I examine legal institutions as a potential factor driving long-run change in the British Economy. In the first chapter, I look at the impact of common law on medieval English factor markets, using a discontinuity in common law jurisdiction created by the March of Wales to identify a causal effect. I find that estates with access to common law developed more modern forms of land ownership, and smaller estates invested more, consistent with a stronger credit market. In the second chapter, I look at the determinants of guild power across Europe in a comparative framework, with the goal of explaining the weakness of British guilds and corresponding flexibility of British skilled labor markets. I develop a model of state behavior that predicts military conflict will tend to increase the power of guilds, and then test this prediction with a panel of European cities. I find that conflict does in fact increase guild power, consistent with the model and suggestive of the role played by Britain's relative internal unity and the limited impact of the wars of religion in its long-run development. In the final chapter, I look at correlates of ideological change within the English judiciary, focusing on outcomes of treason cases as a measure of support for the monarchy. I find that class background, case venue, and the social circle of a judge as proxied by Inn of Court all influence ideological behavior on the bench. | |
