IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rut/rutres/199904.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

France and the Failure to Modernize Macroeconomic Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Eugene White

    (Rutgers University and NBER)

Abstract

While a great power in the eighteenth century, France fell behind Britain's lead in modernizing her macroeconomic institutions. This paper examines the development of French macroeconomic institutions from the middle ages to the eighteenth century in a comparative framework. Theories of optimal macroeconomic policy and sovereign debt identify the key weaknesses of French institutions that imposed inferior policy choices on the government. Radical reform was blocked by a political economy created by medieval and early modern France. The difficulty experienced by the government in mobilizing resources to fight wars was a key factor contributing to the loss of France's overseas empire in the eighteenth century.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugene White, 1999. "France and the Failure to Modernize Macroeconomic Institutions," Departmental Working Papers 199904, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:rut:rutres:199904
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sas.rutgers.edu/virtual/snde/wp/1999-04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glassman, Debra & Redish, Angela, 1988. "Currency depreciation in early modern England and France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 75-97, January.
    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. Peter L. Rousseau & Richard Sylla, 2003. "Financial Systems, Economic Growth, and Globalization," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 373-416, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Davide Cantoni & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2011. "The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3286-3307, December.
    3. Eugene White, 2001. "France's Slow Transition from Privatized to Government-Administered Tax Collection: Tax Farming in the Eighteenth Century," Departmental Working Papers 200116, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.

    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. François R. Velde, 2009. "Chronicle of a Deflation Unforetold," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 591-634, August.
    2. Wallace, Neil & Zhou, Ruilin, 1997. "A model of a currency shortage," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 555-572, December.
    3. Karaman, K. Kıvanç & Pamuk, Şevket & Yıldırım-Karaman, Seçil, 2020. "Money and monetary stability in Europe, 1300–1914," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 279-300.
    4. Young Sik Kim & Manjong Lee, 2013. "Separation of Unit of Account from Medium of Exchange," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(8), pages 1685-1703, December.
    5. Motomura, Akira, 1997. "New Data on Minting, Seigniorage, and the Money Supply in Spain (Castile), 1597-1643," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 331-367, July.
    6. Young Sik Kim & Manjong Lee, 2011. "Unit of Account, Medium of Exchange, and Prices," Discussion Paper Series 1104, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    7. Jérôme Blanc, 2011. "La réforme monétaire française de 1577 : les difficultés d'une expérience radicale," Post-Print halshs-00656436, HAL.
    8. Wallace, Neil, 2003. "Modeling small change: a review article," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1391-1401, September.
    9. Sargent, Thomas J & Velde, Francois R, 1999. "The Big Problem of Small Change," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(2), pages 137-161, May.
    10. Michael D. Bordo & Finn E. Kydland, 1990. "The Gold Standard as a Rule," NBER Working Papers 3367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Chilosi, David & Volckart, Oliver, 2010. "Good or bad money?: debasement, society and the state in the late Middle Ages," Economic History Working Papers 27946, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    12. Bignon, Vincent & Dutu, Richard, 2017. "Coin Assaying And Commodity Money," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(6), pages 1305-1335, September.
    13. Young Sik Kim & Manjong Lee, 2012. "Return on Commodity Money, Small Change Problems, and Fiat Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44, pages 533-549, March.
    14. Michael D. Bordo & William Roberds, 2022. "Central Bank Digital Currencies: An Old Tale with a New Chapter," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2022-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    15. John H. Munro, 2012. "The Technology and Economics of Coinage Debasements in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: with special reference to the Low Countries and England," Working Papers tecipa-456, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    16. Wallace, Neil, 2003. "Modeling Small Change: A Review Article," Working Papers 9-03-3, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Economics.
    17. Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti & Neil Wallace, 1997. "A model of regulated private bank-note issue," Working Papers 581, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    18. Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti & Neil Wallace, 1999. "A model of private bank-note issue," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 104-136, January.
    19. Rania Adel Al-Bawwab, 2022. "The zecca mint: a self-enforcing monetary constitution in historic venice," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-15, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    France; History; Macroeconomic policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    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:rut:rutres:199904. 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/derutus.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.