EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

Revolution: Craft Guilds, Reputations, and Insurance in
Fourteenth-Century England

             EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1997 EH.Net
-----------------------------------------------------------
              Name:  Gary Richardson
               Email:  gary at econ.berkeley.edu
         Institution:  University of California-Berkeley  

         Co-author:  None
 
             Title:  Brand Names before the Industrial
Revolution: Craft Guilds, Reputations, and Insurance in
Fourteenth-Century England  

  Internet Address
of abstracted work:  Not available on the Internet  

           By mail:  
                     Gary Richardson
                     Department of Economics
                     University of California
                     Berkeley CA 94720 
                     USA
 
          Language:  English
 
          Abstract:
   Craft guilds controlled urban manufacturing before the
Industrial Revolution.	Historians believe these self-interested
associations discouraged commerce by monopolizing markets and
reputations for quality, reputations known as brand names today.
Brand names mitigated adverse selection in markets for
manufactures.  I also show that craft guilds insured their
members against the risks of everyday life: poverty, post-mortem
expense, and litigation.  I argue that craft guilds bundled brand
names and insurance together because bundling the two allowed
them to use one to solve the incentive problem that inhibited the
creation of the other. Evidence of brand names, insurance, and
the severity of adverse selection substantiates my arguments.  A
game-theoretic model explores the relationship between
reputations and insurance.  The model suggests that the
disruption of risk-sharing and religious institutions after the
Black Death and the restructuring of those institutions during
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries influenced economic growth
by influencing the value of guilds, to establish reputations for
quality. 
 
      Bibliography:  Richardson, Gary. "Brand Names before the
Industrial Revolution: Craft Guilds, Reputations, and Insurance
in Fourteenth-Century England." Paper presented at the
Cliometrics Conference, University of Toronto, May 1997.

 
                  Subject:  W
 Geographical Area:  4
      Country/Region:  England
           Time Period:  3