Political Competition, Innovation and Growth

This volume confronts an important historical hypothesis with empirical evidence from selected periods of history. The hypothesis in question states that competition among political and legal organisations in developing rules has been a crucial condition for liberty, innovation and growth in the history of mankind. It is due to Immanuel Kant, Edward Gibbon and Max Weber and has been revived and further developed by Nobel-Laureate Douglass C. North who contributes the first chapter. The volume brings together political economists, historians and legal scholars to discuss the role of political competition in the rise and decline of nations - both in theory and in a large number of case studies.

Theoretical clarification and empirical evidence regarding a very important hypothesis of history.

Inhalt
I: Theory.- and Overview.- The Rise of the Western World.- Comment.- The Western Legal Tradition: The Interaction of Revolutionary Innovation and Evolutionary Growth.- Comment.- On the Decline of Nations.- Comment.- II: Case Studies A. The Rise of Nations.- Innovation in Early Greece: The Political Sphere.- International Competition Among States: Institutions, Market Regime and Innovations in Antiquity: A Comment and An Extension to the Cases of Sumer and Phoenicia.- The Resurgence during the Middle Ages: The Confused Dynamics of the Middle Ages.- Comment.- Rise and Declinein Italy and Upper Germany in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: An Essay.- Comment.- Economic Development, Urbanization and Political Organisation in the Late Medieval Southern Low Countries.- Comment.- Innovation and Growth in the Netherlands: Searching for Explanations.- Political Competition and the British Industrial Revolution.- Comment.- B. Decline.- Decline and Recovery: The Case of Rome.- The Decline of Spain.- The Decline of Spain and the Genoese Era of Capitalism: A Comment.- About the Authors.