Basic Information

Position: Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics;

Executive office for the Social Science

Office Address:
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Mail Code: 228-77
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California 91125

Phone: 1+ (626) 395-4058

Fax :1 + (626) 405-9841
E-mail: jlr@hss.caltech.edu

Research Interests:

Most of my work examines how institutions affect economic performance over the long run.
With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay, I have investigated the growth of mortgage markets from the seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century in France. Our most recent book is Surviving Large Losses: Financial Crises, the Middle Class, and the Development of Capital Markets. (Harvard University Press. 2007). We are continuing this work by examining the institutions of local markets in France through a sample of 108 towns and cities for which we have collected regular cross sections of mortgage loans
With Thomas Piketty and Gilles Postel-Vinay, we are engaged in a large scale data project to document the evolution of the distribution of wealth in France from 1800 to the present.
Another project with Timothy Guinnane, Ron Harris, and Naomi Lamoreaux seeks to evaluate how law and enterprises co-evolved in Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. with a special focus for how entrepreneurs might have structured their firms so as to mitigate the costs of untimely dissolution or minority oppression.
Other interests include the political economy of public finance and the role of war in changing the economy.

Vita (PDF)

Classes

Economics/SS 129: American Economic History (Syllabus as a pdf) Course web site: American Economic History

BEM Economics 185: The Political Economy of corporate governance 2007-08 Syllabus

SS229 Theoretical and Quantitative Dimensions of Historical Development 2007-08 Syllabus

Caltech Early Modern Group Meetings

2008 Program

2009 Program

2010 Program

Books

Surviving Large Losses; Financial Crises, the Middle Class, and the Development of Capital Markets

With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Harvard University Presss 2007.

o http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HOFSUR.html

Finance, Intermediaries, and Economic Development.

Co Edited with Stanley L. Engerma, Philip T. Hoffman, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff.

o http://books.cambridge.org/0521820545.htm

Analytic Narratives.

With Robert Bates, Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, and Barry Weingast. Princeton University Press, 1998.

o http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6355.html

Priceless Markets; The Political Economy of Credit Markets in Paris 1660-1870

With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. University of Chicago Press 2000

o In English Priceless Markets

o In French see: Des Marchés sans Prix editions de l’EHESS 2001

The Fruits of Revolution; Property Rights, Litigation and French Agriculture, 1700-1860

Cambridge University Press. 1992.

o http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521392204

Papers by Areas of Interest

Institutional Change and Economic Growth

This work focuses on how the French Revolution rewrote the rules that governed invest in agricultural infrastructure and enabled a significant increase in investment in the section when compared with the period before 1789

Le drainage dans le Pays d’Auge: Les conséquences des droits de propriété incertains. In S. Ciriacono ed. Eau et développement dans l’Europe moderne. Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, 2004, 197-217. (PDF)
The Development of Irrigation in Provence 1700-1860: The French Revolution and Economic Growth. Journal of Economic History, Vol. 50, September 1990, 615-638. (PDF)

Financial Markets

Published Papers

Rural Credit in France

Révolution et évolution : Les marchés de crédit notarié en France, 1780-1840.” With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Annales E.S.C., Vol. 59 (2), March-April 2004, 387-424.

· Rural Credit Markets and Aggregate Shocks: The Experience of Nuits St. Georges in Burgundy, 1756-1776.” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 54, June 1994, 288-306.

· Credit Markets and Economic Change in Southeastern France 1630-1788.” Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 30, April 1993, 129-157.

Credit Markets in Paris

No Exit: Notarial Bankruptcies and the Evolution of Financial Intermediation in Nineteenth Century Paris.” With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. In S. Engerman et al. eds., Finance, Intermediaries And Economic Development. Cambridge University Press, 2003, 75-108.
Information and Economic History: How the Credit Market in Old Regime Paris Forces Us to Rethink the Transition to Capitalism.” With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. American Historical Review, Vol. 104 (1), February 1999, 69-104.

· What Do Notaries Do?: Overcoming Asymmetric Information in Financial Markets: The Case of Paris, 1751. With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Vol. 154 (3), September 1998: 499-530. (PDF)

· Deposits, Bankruptcy, and Notarial Credit in Late Eighteenth-Century Paris.” With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. In Paul Servais ed., Réseaux et cultures du crédit du XVI^ème au XX^ème siècle en Europe. University of Louvain Press, 1997, 245-267.

· Redistribution and Long-Term Private Debt in Paris, 1660-1726. With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Journal of Economic History, Vol. 55, June 1995, 256-284. (PDF)

· Economie et Politique: Les marchés du crédit à Paris 1750-1840.” With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Annales E.S.C., Vol. 1, January 1994,5-98.

Private Credit Markets in Paris 1690-1840. With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52 , June 1992, 293-306. (PDF)

Public Debt in Burgundy

The Development of Intermediation in French Credit Markets: Evidence from the Estates of Burgundy. With Mark Potter. Journal of Economic History, Vol. 62 (4), Dec. 2002, 1024-1049.
The Burgundian Estates’ Bond Market: Clienteles and Intermediaries, 1660-1790.” With Mark Potter. In Paul Servais ed., Réseaux et cultures du crédit du XVI^ème au XX^ème siècle en Europe. University of Louvain Press, 1997, 173-195.
Politics and Public Finance in France: The Estates of Burgundy, 1670-1789.” With Mark Potter. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. XXVII, Spring 1997, 577-612.

Working papers

· The Old Economics of Information and the Remarkable Persistence of Traditional Credit Markets in France 1740-1899. With Philip T. Hoffman and Gilles Postel-Vinay. Fall 2007.

· Is Trust an Ultimate Cause? Its Role in the Long Run Development of Financial Markets in France, in Cook, Levi, and Hardin eds. Russell Sage Trust Initiative Capstone Volume. with Philip T. Hoffman Gilles Postel-Vinay.

Wealth Inequality

The figure displays the share of wealth left behind by the richest individuals in Paris

Published papers

Wealth Concentration in a Developing Economy: Paris and France, 1807-1994. With Thomas Piketty and Gilles Postel-Vinay

American Economic Review. Vol. 96 (1), 2006, 236-56. (PDF)

Working papers

The increased concentration of wealth in Paris 1807-1912; of Revolution and Demography with Thomas Piketty, and Gilles Postel Vinay, Fall 2006.

Data

Law and the Evolution of Firm Governance

The figure displays the proportion of new multi-owner firms registered at the Paris tribunal of Commerce by organizational form

Published papers

Legal Regime and Business’s Organizational Choice: A Comparison of France and the United States during the Mid-Nineteenth Century. With Naomi R. Lamoreaux. American Law and Economic Review, Vol. 7 (1), 2005, 28-61. (PDF)
Historical Financing of Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises. With Robert Cull, Lance E. Davis, and Naomi R. Lamoreaux. Journal of Banking and Finance. Vol. 30, 3017-42. (PDF)
Corporate Governance and the Plight of Minority Shareholders in the United States before the Great Depression. With Naomi R. Lamoreaux. In E. Glazer and C. Goldin eds. Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America’s History. University of Chicago Press. 2006, 125-152. (working paper version)
Putting the Corporation in its Place, With Timothy Guinnane, Ron Harris and Naomi R.Lamoreaux. Enterprise and Society. Vol 8, (3) 2007, 687-729.(PDF)

Working papers

Organizing Middle-Sized Firms in the United States and France, 1830-2000. With Naomi R. Lamoreaux. Fall 2005.

Pouvoir et propriété dans l’entreprise pour une histoire international des sociétés à responsabilité limitée, forthcoming in Annales: E.S.C., January 2008. With Timothy Guinnane, Ron Harris, and Naomi R. Lamoreaux. (English version Ownership and Control in the Entrepreneurial Firm: An International History of Private Limited Companies, Yale University Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper #959, December 2007)