The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis"Guilds ruled many crafts and trades from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, and have always attracted debate and controversy. They were sometimes viewed as efficient institutions that guaranteed quality and skills. But they also excluded competitors, manipulated markets, and blocked innovations. Did the benefits of guilds outweigh their costs? Analyzing thousands of guilds that dominated European economies from 1000 to 1880, The European Guilds uses vivid examples and clear economic reasoning to answer that question. Sheilagh Ogilvie's book features the voices of honorable guild masters, underpaid journeymen, exploited apprentices, shady officials, and outraged customers, and follows the stories of the 'vile encroachers'--Women, migrants, Jews, gypsies, bastards, and many others--desperate to work but hunted down by the guilds as illicit competitors. She investigates the benefits of guilds but also shines a light on their dark side. Guilds sometimes provided important services, but they also manipulated markets to profit their members. They regulated quality but prevented poor consumers from buying goods cheaply. They fostered work skills but denied apprenticeships to outsiders. They transmitted useful techniques but blocked innovations that posed a threat. Guilds existed widely not because they corrected market failures or served the common good but because they benefited two powerful groups--guild members and political elites"--Jacket. |
Contents
Guilds and Governments | 36 |
Entry Barriers | 83 |
Market Manipulation | 172 |
Guilds and Women | 232 |
Quality Regulation | 307 |
CHAPTER 7 | 354 |
Innovation | 438 |
Guilds and Growth | 511 |
Conclusion | 564 |
| 587 | |
| 637 | |
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apprentices apprenticeship Augsburg Austria banned cartel cent of observations century competition craft guilds craftsmen database at 0.10 early modern period economic Ehmer eighteenth eighteenth-century enforce England Europe European guilds European societies France Germany governments guild apprenticeships guild entry barriers guild masters guild members guild ordinances guild quality guild regulations guild restrictions guilds database overall guilds imposed higher than percentage human capital industry information asymmetries innovations institutions Italy journeymen Kluge labour lobbying London lower than percentage male manipulate markets market failures market manipulation medieval medieval and early medieval period merchants Middle Rhine non-guilded Northern Netherlands observations in guilds observations in Table occupations Ogilvie output Paris percentage of observations political practise Prak producers product quality qualitative database Qualitative guilds database Quoted rural significantly higher significantly lower silk skills social capital Spain tailors textile tion Total towns urban Venice wages weavers widows Wildberg women workers workshop Württemberg