IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13930.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Brand Names Before the Industrial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Gary Richardson

Abstract

In medieval Europe, manufacturers sold durable goods to anonymous consumers in distant markets, this essay argues, by making products with conspicuous characteristics. Examples of these unique, observable traits included cloth of distinctive colors, fabric with unmistakable weaves, and pewter that resonated at a particular pitch. These attributes identified merchandise because consumers could observe them readily, but counterfeiters could copy them only at great cost, if at all. Conspicuous characteristics fulfilled many of the functions that patents, trademarks, and brand names do today. The words that referred to products with conspicuous characteristics served as brand names in the Middle Ages. Data drawn from an array of industries corroborates this conjecture. The abundance of evidence suggests that conspicuous characteristics played a key role in the expansion of manufacturing before the Industrial Revolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Richardson, 2008. "Brand Names Before the Industrial Revolution," NBER Working Papers 13930, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13930
    Note: DAE IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13930.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Metrick & Richard Zeckhauser, 1996. "Price Versus Quanitity: Market Cleaning Mechanisms When Sellers Differ in Quality," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1775, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    2. Steven Globerman, 1988. "Addressing International Product Piracy," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 19(3), pages 497-504, September.
    3. Edward Miller, 1965. "The Fortunes of the English Textile Industry during the Thirteenth Century," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 18(1), pages 64-82, August.
    4. Richardson, Gary, 2001. "A Tale of Two Theories: Monopolies and Craft Guilds in Medieval England and Modern Imagination," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 217-242, June.
    5. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark Koyama, 2020. "A review essay on The European Guilds," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 277-287, March.
    2. Gary Richardson, 2005. "Craft Guilds and Christianity in Late-Medieval England," Rationality and Society, , vol. 17(2), pages 139-189, May.
    3. Häckner, Jonas & Muren, Astri, 2012. "Counterfeiting and Consumption Externalities - A Closer Look," Research Papers in Economics 2012:2, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    4. Sheilagh Ogilvie, 2007. "'Whatever Is, Is Right'?, Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe (Tawney Lecture 2006)," CESifo Working Paper Series 2066, CESifo.
    5. Richardson, Gary & McBride, Michael, 2009. "Religion, longevity, and cooperation: The case of the craft guild," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 172-186, August.
    6. Bert De Munck, 2012. "The agency of branding and the location of value. Hallmarks and monograms in early modern tableware industries," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(7), pages 1055-1076, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka & Chi-Wa Yuen, 1999. "An Information-Based Model of Foreign Direct Investment: The Gains from Trade Revisited," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 579-596, November.
    2. Tisdell, Clem, 2014. "Information Technology's Impacts on Productivity, Welfare and Social Change: Second Version," Economic Theory, Applications and Issues Working Papers 195701, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    3. Konduru, Srinivasa & Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas G. & Magnier, Alexandre, 2009. "GMO Testing Strategies and Implications for Trade: A Game Theoretic Approach," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49594, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. König, Philipp J. & Pothier, David, 2018. "Safe but fragile: Information acquisition, sponsor support and shadow bank runs," Discussion Papers 15/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. Andrea Attar & Thomas Mariotti & François Salanié, 2021. "Entry-Proofness and Discriminatory Pricing under Adverse Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(8), pages 2623-2659, August.
    6. Reynolds, Travis & Kolodinsky, Jane & Murray, Byron, 2012. "Consumer preferences and willingness to pay for compact fluorescent lighting: Policy implications for energy efficiency promotion in Saint Lucia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 712-722.
    7. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato & John A. List, 2010. "That’S News To Me! Information Revelation In Professional Certification Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 104-122, January.
    8. Ritu Agarwal & Michelle Dugas & Guodong (Gordon) Gao & P. K. Kannan, 2020. "Emerging technologies and analytics for a new era of value-centered marketing in healthcare," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 9-23, January.
    9. Villas-Boas, Sofia B, 2020. "Reduced Form Evidence on Belief Updating Under Asymmetric Information," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt08c456vk, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    10. Yaofeng Fu & Ruokun Huang & Yiran Sheng, 2017. "Labor Contract Law -An Economic View," Papers 1702.03977, arXiv.org.
    11. Ghosh, Suman, 2007. "Job mobility and careers in firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 603-621, June.
    12. Eunsoo Kim & Suyon Kim & Jaehong Lee, 2021. "Do Foreign Investors Affect Carbon Emission Disclosure? Evidence from South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-14, September.
    13. Frédéric Gannon & Vincent Touzé, 2006. "Insurance and Optimal Growth," Post-Print halshs-00085181, HAL.
    14. Feser, Daniel & Runst, Petrik, 2015. "Energy efficiency consultants as change agents? Examining the reasons for EECs’ limited success," ifh Working Papers 1 (2015), Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).
    15. Veronica Guerrieri & Robert Shimer, 2018. "Markets with Multidimensional Private Information," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 250-274, May.
    16. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2021. "Malleability of Preferences for Honesty," CESifo Working Paper Series 9033, CESifo.
    17. Andrea Attar & Thomas Mariotti & François Salanié, 2020. "The Social Costs of Side Trading," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(630), pages 1608-1622.
    18. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim Ijaz Khwaja, 2017. "Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test Scores on Educational Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1535-1563, June.
    19. Cowling, Marc & Ughetto, Elisa & Lee, Neil, 2018. "The innovation debt penalty: Cost of debt, loan default, and the effects of a public loan guarantee on high-tech firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 166-176.
    20. Kirsten Foss & Nicolai Foss, 2001. "Theoretical isolation in contract theory: suppressing margins and entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 313-339.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • N6 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13930. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.