ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS HISTORY

In accordance with the learning objectives of the Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Management, the course provides an overview of key economic and organizational changes over the long term. The course aims at developing the students’ ability to critically analyse, comment and debate main historical business and economic processes singling out the main actors involved, and the main historical turn-arounds (Globalizations, Great Convergence & Great Divergence, Industrial and Technological Revolutions).
The course is designed for second year undergraduate students, who do not have previous knowledge of business and economic history.
During week 1, students will become acquainted with the main features of the economic history of preindustrial societies and with the typical business organizations of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Week 2 will be devoted to preindustrial economic growth and to the origins and development of the First Industrial Revolution, the rise of the modern entrepreneur and of the factory system. Week 3 lessons will focus on technological change, the Second Industrial revolution and the origins of the large corporation during the first globalization. Week 4 will focus on the collapse of first globalization, the Great Depression, the Golden age of economic growth, and their market and business organization impacts on capitalist and socialist economies. In week 5 students will discuss the neoliberal turn, late 20th and early 21st centuries globalization, the third and fourth technological revolutions and global capitalism.

Course Objectives
1. Students distinguish, compare and appraise different theoretical approaches to the study of economic and business facts in the past;
2. Students recognize and describe the key economic, industrial and organizational changes from early-modern to contemporary times;
3. Students explain historical economic dynamics as the result of the interplay of multiple variables (market, firms, institutions);
4. Students comprehend the role of institutions as the rules of the game for economic life, and the transformations of the firm structure;
5. Students comment and debate case studies, are able to place them in their historical context, critically discuss sources and methodologies.

The course is designed for second year undergraduate students, who do not have previous knowledge of economic and business history. Microeconomics as necessary requirement to take the exam.

WEEK 1
1. Introduction to the course and rules of the game (3.2)
a. A Malthusian world
2. The Firm in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (4.2)
a. Workshops, guilds and boats
b. The privileged firm in the Early Modern Period
3. The road to the First Industrial Revolution (5.2)
a. Proto-industrialization markets, firms and workers
b. From Malthus to Adam Smith.
Reading: Amatori-Colli (31-39); Amatori-Colli, eds. (1-45).
WEEK 2
4. The Industrious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution (10.2)
a. The entrepreneur of the first industrial revolution
b. The factory as an organizational revolution. A Marxian or a Marshallian world?
5. The Great Divergence during the First Industrial Revolution (11.2)
a. The Great Divergence: Why the West Grew Rich?
b. Diffusion of the First Industrial Revolution. Ricardian rules, List’s reactions.
6. Presentation – Josiah Wedgwood and the First Industrial Revolution or August Thyssen and German Steel (12.2)
Reading: Allen (1-40); Amatori-Colli (40-58); Chandler (70-85)
WEEK 3
7. The rise of the modern large corporation (17.2)
a. The railways and the rise of the modern corporation
b. US ascendancy
8. First globalization, British decline and the Second Industrial Revolution (18.2)
a. First globalization, British Empire and freestanding companies.
b. Germany and the Second Industrial Revolution. A Schumpeterian world
9. Presentation - Rolls-Royce and the Rise of High-Technology Industry or Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan and the Three Phases of Marketing (19.2)
Reading: Allen (40-113); Amatori – Colli (59-98); Chandler (85-120)
WEEK 4
10. The American Century and big firms (24.2)
a. Multidivisionalisation
b. Multinationalisation
11. Catching-up Century (25.2)
a. The Soviet solution: big firms without market
b. The East Asian solution: the State promoting exports and business groups
12. Presentation: Toyoda Automatic looms and Toyota automobiles or 7-Eleven in America and Japan (26.2)
Reading: Allen (114-147); Amatori – Colli (123-147, 161-182); Chandler (120-133)
WEEK 5
13. Second globalization and third and fourth technological revolutions (3.3)
a. The neoliberal turn and third technological revolution
b. The triumph of free trade, second globalization and China’s miracle
14. The dollar, the euro and financial capitalism (4.3)
a. The fourth technological revolution: platforms and consumer worlds
b. The US Dollar, the Euro, bitcoins and financial instability
15. Presentation: IBM and the Two Thomas J. Watson or The Deutsche Bank (5.3)
Reading: Amatori – Colli, eds. (317-331)

WEEK 6
16. EXAM PREPARATION (10.3)

TEXTBOOK
Robert C.Allen, Global Economic History. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2011
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Selected chapters or extra support from:
Amatori, Franco & Andrea Colli, Business History. Complexities and Comparisons, London, Routledge, 2011.
Amatori, Franco & Andrea Colli, eds., The Global Economy. A concise history, London, Routledge, 2019 and Torino, Giappichelli, 2017.
Chandler, Jr., Alfred D., “The United States: The Evolution of Enterprise”, in Peter Mathias and M.M.Postan, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. VII, The Industrial Economies: Capital, Labour and Enterprise. Part 2, The United States, Japan, and Russia, Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 70-123.
Colli, Andrea, Dynamics of International Business. Comparative Perspectives of Firms, Markets and Entrepreneurship, Routledge, 2016.
Jones, Geoffrey, Multinationals and Global Capitalism. From the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century, Oxford University Press, 2004.
McCraw, Thomas, Creating Modern Capitalism, Harvard University Press, 1997.
Neal, Larry and Jeffrey Williamson, eds., The Cambridge History of Capitalism, Vol. II, The Spread of Capitalism: From 1848 to the Present, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Jesús Valdaliso & Santiago López, Historia económica de la empresa, Crítica, Barcelona, 2007.

With the exception of Allen’s volume, all used materials will be available through Moodle –articles, chapters and other materials.

All presentation readings come from Thomas McCraw book.

Assessment
The course will be based on frontal lectures and guided class discussions; online and in class exercises and group activities will be organized and graded.
1. Oral and written presentations: each Wednesday, group presentations (4 students maximum per team) of one of the texts containing case studies. These texts are available on Moodle. Students need to discuss the text in both oral and written form. They must prepare a presentation (maximum of 20 minutes, with accompanying slides), where they identify notably: a) what makes the interest and relevance of the case study; b) the main disciplinary/theoretical frame adopted by the author; c) the research hypothesis; d) the methodology or methodologies used; and e) the results. In the following week, the team must submit a short essay (1000 words max.) recapitulating these points and mentioning what they have learned from the case study. Grade: 1, 2 or 3 extra points.
Organization: each Wednesday one group presents and one discusses according to the scheme: A presents on February 12th and B makes questions; B presents on the 19th and C makes questions; C presents on the 26th and D makes questions; D presents on March 4th and A makes questions.
2. Final exam: for all students, written exam covering all readings and the slides prepared by the professor for each class. The exam will be based on a few open questions. Each lecture’s slides will include a series of questions from which will be chosen those included in the exam.

The course will be based on Frontal Lectures and guided class discussions; online and in class exercises and group activities will be organized and graded.
Materials will be available through Moodle with the exception of R. C. Allen, Global Economic History. A very Short Introduction, OUP, 2011

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development