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Can We Rehabilitate the Guilds? A Sceptical Re-Appraisal

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Author Info
Ogilvie, S.

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Abstract

This paper examines recent attempts to rehabilitate pre-modern craft guilds as efficient economic institutions. Contrary to rehabilitation views, craft guilds adversely affected quality, skills, and innovation. Guild rent-seeking imposed deadweight losses on the economy and generated no demonstrable positive externalities. Industry flourished where guilds decayed. Despite impairing efficiency, guilds persisted because they redistributed resources to powerful groups. The ‘rehabilitation’ view of guilds, it concludes, is theoretically contradictory and empirically untenable.

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File URL: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/dae/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe0745.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge in its series Cambridge Working Papers in Economics with number 0745.

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Length: 24
Date of creation: Sep 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0745

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Web page: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/index.htm

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Related research
Keywords: Institutions; guilds; rent-seeking; monopoly; craft; industry; quality; human capital; training; technology; innovation; economic history; methodology; local studies; case studies.;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods
N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
O17 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
O43 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
P48 - Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Other Economic Systems: Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights

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This page was last updated on 2009-11-16.

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