the relatively low degree of economic inequality within hunter
gatherer societies

What explanations have economic historians given for:
a. the relatively low degree of economic inequality within hunter
gatherer societies?
b. the greater inequality found within agricultural societies?
c. an apparent decline over time, documented by archaeological
evidence, in hunter-gatherer living standards?

2. According to economic historians,
a. Why did the economic benefits that Spain reaped from its New
World empire prove short-lived?
b. Conversely, why did Britain gain more long-lasting economic
benefits from its foreign trade and empire?

3.
a. For what reasons do some historians term the changes that
occurred in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuriesan “industrial revolution”? What notable changes occurred
in this period?
b. How widespread were such “revolutionary” changes?
c. What was the impact on the British growth rate of aggregate
income per head? Explain.
d. What was the impact on living standards of the poor and of the
general population? Explain.

4.
a. Why was the replacement of feudal political fragmentation with
effective central government a key change that was favorable to
capitalist economic development?
b. What changes in European military technology favored centralized
political power?
c. How were soldiers recruited under the old feudal and newer, early
modern military arrangements?
d. Why did monarchs seek political alliances with towns as part of a
strategy to obtain greater centralized political power?

5. According to DaniRodrik:
a. What is the globalization trilemma?
b. Why is there a trilemma?
c. What course does Rodrik recommend for dealing with the
trilemma?

6.
a. Economists describe the interest rate on sovereign debt as
sometimes being determined through a “fragile” equilibrium. Explain
what is meant by a “fragile” equilibrium in this context.
b. Explain the implications of fragile equilibrium for the likelihood of
sovereign default.
c. According to Reinhart and Rogoff, why do many countries default
on sovereign debt even at external debt/GDP ratios as low as 60
percent?
d. According to Reinhart and Rogoff, what are the various forms by
which governments can and have defaulted on domestic debt?

7.
a. What do economists mean by the “infant industry argument”?
Explain the argument in detail.
b. What measures did Japan take to promote infant industries before
WWI?
c. The success of infant industry policies is often questioned on the
grounds that it is difficult for the government to know which
industries to target. How did the Japanese government select
industries to target before WWI?
d. . In light of the inherent difficulty of industry target selection, how
can we explain the seeming success of Japanese industrial policy?

8.
a. What do economists mean by the term “liquidity trap”?
b. According to Paul Krugman’s book, The Return of Depression
Economics and the Crisis of 2008, what policies are best used to
combat a liquidity trap?
c. How and why do these policies work?
d. What was the impact of the stress tests for big US banks on credit
market conditions and why did the stress tests have this effect?

9.
a. Why are even solvent banks vulnerable to bank runs?
b. What does Paul Krugman mean by the phrase “shadow banking
system”?
c. What dangers were there in the recent growth of a shadow banking
system outside the scope of US banking regulation?
d. Explain why a high prevailing degree of leverage makes financial
firms more vulnerable to failure and the financial system more
vulnerable to crisis.
e. How did heavy reliance on Repo financing specifically make US
investment banks vulnerable to a loss of confidence?

10. A number of economists link bubbles and financial crises in Japan and
Asia to defects in corporate governance and arrangements of “crony
capitalism” in which favors are traded between corporate, financial, and
government leaders. Some economists apply like arguments to the US.
a. How is the Japanese system of corporate governance different
from that of the US?
b. What links do economists draw between Japan’s system of
corporate governance and distinctive goals of Japanese
enterprise?
c. What connection is drawn between distinctive goals of Japanese
enterprise and Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s?
d. How are defects in corporate governance supposed to have
affected the goals of traders in US financial firms?
e. How did government policies in Japan and the United States foster
moral hazard among financial firms?

11. How would Acemoglu and Robinson answer the questions:
a. Are America’s best days behind it?
b. Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to
aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and
empowers a small minority?
c. What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from
the rut of poverty to prosperity?

12. How does Gregory Clark support his contention that property rights were
secure in Britain long before 1688?

13. Some historians have viewed the key technological changes during the
industrial revolution in Britain as the result of practical tinkering by
mechanics, with little role played by science or scientists.
a. What were economically the most important technological
innovations of that period?
b. According to Joel Mokyr, how did scientific advance help in a
general way with technological innovation?
c. Concretely, how did scientific understanding help with some of the
specific innovations enumerated in a.?
d. How did technological innovation help science advance?
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