Title: Economic History

Instructors: Luisa Piccinno and Antonio Iodice, Marina Romani, Andrea Zanini

Credit Points (ECTS/CFU): 1

Lectures: 6 (12 hours)

Course description and objectives: the aim of this course is to provide students with some theoretical tools to analyze and understand some key historical and economic issues. It also aims to demonstrate how  archival sources and/or previous interpretative hypotheses and/or the evolution of the institutional or economic framework can influence historical and theoretical conclusions.

Prerequisites: a specific background is not requested, although students are expected to have at least some basic notions of macro and microeconomics.

Topics:

-From archival sources to databases (A. Iodice, L. Piccinno)

-Databases  for economic history: new research paths (A. Iodice, L. Piccinno)

-Optimum Currency Area: Between history and theory. The Euro area  case study (M. Romani)

-The Gulf Cooperation Council as an Optimum Currency Area (M. Romani)

-An Introduction to Economic History: Sources and Methods  (A. Zanini)

-Urbanization and economic growth in the long run  (A. Zanini)

Course Materials:

Slides and/or teacher handouts

       2.    Antonio Iodice and Luisa Piccinno’s lectures:

W. Scheltjens, J.W. Veluwenkamp, and S. van der Woude, Introduction: A Closer Look: STRO as an Instrument for the Study of Early Modern Maritime History. In Early Modern Shipping and Trade. Novel Approaches Using Sound Toll Registers Online, edited by J.W. Veluwenkamp and W. Scheltjens (pp. 1-18), Leiden: Brill.

C. Diebolt, M.J. Haupert, Measuring Success: Clio and the Value of Database Creation. Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi LIII, 2019: 59-80. doi: 10.26331/1083

L. Piccinno, The Economic Structure of Maritime Trade Calling at the Port of Genoa Through the Analysis of General Average Data (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries), ), in M. Fusaro, A. Addobbati, L.Piccinno (eds.), General Average and Risk Management in Medieval and Early Modern Maritime Business, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 297-333.

A. Iodice, L. Piccinno, A tool for all season? The (in)convenience of marine insurance in early modern shipping  (preprint)

Marina Romani’s lectures:

Kunroo, M.H.,  The theory of Optimum Currency Areas : a literature survey, Review of Market Integration, 7 (2), 2015 : 87-116

Takagj, S., Establishing Monetary Union in the Gulf Cooperation Council: What Lessons for Regional Cooperation? Asian Development Bank,  Working Paper,  390 (2012).

Andrea Zanini’s lectures:

Cipolla, C.M. (1991). Between Two Cultures: An Introduction to Economic History. New York: Norton, 1991. (part I: Economic History Nature and Methods).

Malanima, P. (2005). ‘Urbanisation and the Italian economy during the last millennium.’ European Review of Economic History 9(1): 97–122.

Oddo, L. & Zanini, A. (2022). ‘The paradox of “Malthusian urbanization”: urbanization without growth in the Republic of Genoa, 1300–1800.’ European Review of Economic History 26(4): 508–534.

Assessment: students will be assessed on the basis of the result of their final exam. The exam will consist in a short written report (1500-2000 words) in which students will deal with one out of eight topics developed in the lectures.   The report will have to consider the relevance and relationship of the lecture materials with the original contributions suggested in the bibliographic references.