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PDF
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Type:
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Working Paper |
Author:
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North, Douglass C. |
Date:
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1994 |
Agency:
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Series:
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Economic History, no. 9411005 |
URI:
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https://hdl.handle.net/10535/4429
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Sector:
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Theory |
Region:
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Subject(s):
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markets--history economics
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Abstract:
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"I take my text from Max Hartwell: '...but no historian has detailed the steps by which for example, the market economy was achieved in terms of government action or changing law; no historian has linked mercantilist with laissez-faire law to trace the chronology of legal and economic change. In this neglect, surely a major element for understanding of the industrial revolution has been overlooked.' And Max might have added that in consequence of our failure to analyze how a market economy was achieved in history we have not been able to provide guidance for policy makers in the present world who are attempting to restructure failed centrally planned economies. A first step in meeting Max's challenge is to delineate the institutional characteristics of market economies in order that we may then explore their historical evolution."
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