Global Economic History

This set of lecture notes is the backbone of a class on Global Economic History I will be teaching this spring semester at Penn.

I have borrowed material and figures from many people's papers, including papers by Daron Acemoglu, Jim Robinson, Nathan Nunn, Kevin O'Rourke, Robert Allen, and many other fantastic economists. I am still working on the notes and I will make all the attributions explicit as soon as I can. Also, many people have helped me with some of the material. Again, I hope to have soon an explicit acknowledgment document. In the mean time, I thought it could be a good idea to show my work and get some feedback.

Of course, I warmly welcome comments (and the pointing out of errors!).

  • Lecture Notes 1: Introduction

  • Lecture Notes 2: Contacts

  • Lecture Notes 3: Malthus: Population and Economic Growth

  • Lecture Notes 4: Geography, Environment, and Climate: the "Real" Real Shocks

  • Lecture Notes 5: Sea Empires

  • Lecture Notes 6: Land Empires

  • Lecture Notes 7: Europe Gets Ahead

  • Lecture Notes 8: An Industrial Revolution? (currently merged with previous set of lecture notes, to be expanded later).

  • Lecture Notes 9: Cradle of Modernity

  • Lecture Notes 10: Catching Up, Falling Behind

  • Lecture Notes 11: The Strange Death of Liberal Europe

  • Lecture Notes 12: The Great Depression (currently merged with previous set of lecture notes, to be expanded later).

  • Lecture Notes 13: False Hopes: Communism and Fascism

  • Lecture Notes 14: Les Trente Glorieuses

  • Lecture Notes 15: New Countries: Failures and Successes (currently merged with previous set of lecture notes, to be expanded later).

  • Lecture Notes 16: Death and Transfiguration (currently merged with previous set of lecture notes, to be expanded later).

  • Lecture Notes 17: Back to the Future: the Global Recession