Industrializing English Law

Industrializing English Law
Author: Ron Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2000-06-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780521662758

This 2000 book addresses the discrepancy between the developing economy of England and the stagnant legal framework of business organization between 1720 and 1844.

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective
Author: Robert C. Allen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 13
Release: 2009-04-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521868270

Why did the industrial revolution take place in 18th century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? Robert Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Cambridge History of Capitalism

The Cambridge History of Capitalism
Author: Larry Neal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 628
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781107019638

The first volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism provides a comprehensive account of the evolution of capitalism from its earliest beginnings. Starting with its distant origins in ancient Babylon, successive chapters trace progression up to the 'Promised Land' of capitalism in America. Adopting a wide geographical coverage and comparative perspective, the international team of authors discuss the contributions of Greek, Roman, and Asian civilizations to the development of capitalism, as well as the Chinese, Indian and Arab empires. They determine what features of modern capitalism were present at each time and place, and why the various precursors of capitalism did not survive. Looking at the eventual success of medieval Europe and the examples of city-states in northern Italy and the Low Countries, the authors address how British mercantilism led to European imitations and American successes, and ultimately, how capitalism became global.

Making Of An Economic Superpower, The: Unlocking China's Secret Of Rapid Industrialization

Making Of An Economic Superpower, The: Unlocking China's Secret Of Rapid Industrialization
Author: Yi Wen
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9814733741

The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.

Searching for the State in British Legal Thought

Searching for the State in British Legal Thought
Author: Janet McLean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2012-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107022487

Janet McLean explores how British legal thought has imagined the state and the public sphere since 1832.

Going the Distance

Going the Distance
Author: Ron Harris
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 069115077X

"Long-distance oceanic and overland trade along the Eurasian landmass in the 1400s was largely dominated by Chinese, Indian, and Arabic traders and predominantly conducted over short trajectories by sole traders or organized around small-scale enterprises. Yet, within two centuries of Europeans' arrival in the Indian Ocean in 1498, long-distance trade throughout Eurasia was mainly taken over by them. By 1700, they had formed new, large-scale, and impersonal organizations, primarily a joint-stock business corporation between English East India Company (EIC) and Dutch East India Company (VOC). This allowed them to transform trade from an enterprise dominated by many small traders moving goods over short segments to a vertically integrated firm that was able to control goods from their origin to the end consumers. This rise of the business corporation proved essential for the economic rise of Europe. Why did the corporation arise indigenously only in Europe, and given its effective organization of long-distance trade, why wasn't it mimicked by other Eurasian civilizations for 300 years? Harris closely examines the role played by forms of organization in the transformation of Eurasian trade between 1400 and 1700, comparing the organizational forms that were used in four major civilizations: Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, and Western European. Through this comparative perspective, he argues that the organizational design of the EIC and VOC, the first long-lasting joint-stock corporations, enabled large-scale multilateral impersonal cooperation for the first time in human history. He also argues that this new organizational form enabled the English and Dutch to deploy more capital, more ships, more voyages, and more agents than other organizational forms"--

Creating Capitalism

Creating Capitalism
Author: James Taylor
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0861933230

The growth of joint-stock business in Victorian Britain re-evaluated, showing in particular the resistance to it. Winner of the Economic History Society's Best First Monograph award 2009 The emergence of the joint-stock company in nineteenth-century Britain was a culture shock for many Victorians. Though the home of the industrialrevolution, the nation's economy was dominated by the private partnership, seen as the most efficient as well as the most ethical form of business organisation. The large, impersonal company and the rampant speculation it was thought to encourage were viewed with suspicion and downright hostility. This book argues that the existing historiography understates society's resistance to joint-stock enterprise; it employs an eclectic range of sources, fromnewspapers and parliamentary papers to cartoons, novels and plays, to unearth this forgotten economic debate. It explores how the legal system was gradually restructured to facilitate joint-stock enterprise, a process culminatingin the limited liability legislation of the mid-1850s. This has typically been interpreted as evidence for the emergence of new, positive attitudes to speculation and economic growth, but the book demonstrates how traditional outlooks continued to influence legislation, and the way in which economic reforms were driven by political agendas. It shows how debates on the economic culture of nineteenth-century Britain are strikingly relevant to current questions over the ethics of multinational corporations. James Taylor is Senior Lecturer in British History at Lancaster University.

Multinational Enterprises and the Law

Multinational Enterprises and the Law
Author: Peter Muchlinski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 864
Release: 2021-02-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192557440

Multinational Enterprises and the Law is the only comprehensive, contemporary, and interdisciplinary account of the techniques used to regulate multinational enterprises (MNEs) at the national, regional, and multilateral levels. In addition, it considers the effects of corporate self-regulation, and the impact of civil society and community groups upon the development of the legal order in this area. The book has been thoroughly revised and updated for this third edition, making it a definitive reference work for students, researchers, and practitioners of international economic law, business, corporate and commercial law, development studies, and international politics. Split into four parts, the book first deals with the conceptual basis for MNE regulation. It explains the growth of MNEs, their business and legal forms, and the relationship between them and the effects of a globalised economy and society upon the evolution of regulatory agendas in the field. Part II covers the main areas of economic regulation, including the limits of national and regional jurisdiction over MNE activities, controls over, and the liberalisation of, entry and establishment, tax, company and competition law and the impact of intellectual property rights on technology diffusion and transfer. Part III introduces the social dimension of MNE regulation covering labour rights, human rights, and environmental issues. Finally, Part IV deals with the contribution of international investment law to MNE regulation and to the control of investment risks, covering the main provisions found in international investment agreements, their interpretation by international tribunals, and how concerns over these developments are leading to reform proposals.

Insuring the Industrial Revolution

Insuring the Industrial Revolution
Author: Robin Pearson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351927329

Fire had always been one of the greatest threats to an early modern British society that relied on the naked flame as the prime source of heating, lighting and cooking. Yet whilst the danger of fire had always been taken seriously, it was not until the start of the eighteenth century that a sophisticated system of insurance became widely available. Whilst a number of high profile fires during the seventeenth century had drawn attention to the economic havoc a major conflagration could wreak, it was not until the effects of sustained industrialization began to alter the economic and social balance of the nation, that fire insurance really took off as a concept. The culmination of ten years of research, this book is the definitive work on early British fire insurance. It also provides a foundation for future comparative international studies of this important financial service, and for a greater level of theorising by historians about the relationship between insurance, perceptions of risk, economic development and social change. Through a detailed study of the archives of nearly 50 English and Scottish insurance companies founded between 1696 and 1850 - virtually all the records currently available - together with the construction of many new datasets on output, performance and markets, this book presents one of the most comprehensive histories ever written of a financial service. As well as measuring the size, market structure and growth rate of insurance, and the extent to which the first industrial revolution was insured, it also demonstrates ways in which insurance can be linked into wider issues of economic and social change in Britain. These range from an examination of the joint-stock company form of organization - to an analysis of changing attitudes towards fire hazard during the course of the eighteenth century. The book concludes by emphasising the ambivalent character of fire insurance in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, contrasting the industry's dynamic long-run rate of growth with its more conservative attitude to product design and diversification.