The economics tag has no wiki summary.
13
votes
1answer
553 views
When was Silver ever more valuable than Gold?
These days we pretty much take it as a given that gold is more valuable than silver. The obvious example is the Olympics and other such competitions that give "gold" medals for first place and ...
13
votes
1answer
238 views
How did the monks whose job was to copy books react to Gutenberg's printing press?
It's typical to see people whose job it is to perform a manual task to - collectively - object when a new technology is introduced which makes their job obsolete (as the quintessential example, see ...
7
votes
0answers
68 views
What was the societal wealth demographics when the major pyramids were built?
All this talk about wealth distribution (1% of US Citizens etc. etc.) got me wondering about the wealth distribution in other periods of history when - let's call them - great edifices were built.
...
6
votes
2answers
142 views
How would one have gone about setting up a business during Communist Revolutionary China?
In 1966, Mao Zedong launched a movement towards Socialism, to, solidify his power after a disastrous Great Leap Forward, called the Cultural Revolution. Though the movement moved towards a total ...
5
votes
5answers
1k views
Why is the USA the world's strongest country?
The USA has been the world's strongest country for a long time now.
Even after the rise of China as one of the dominant economies in the world, the USA is still the world's top economy.
Does the USA ...
5
votes
1answer
71 views
When did the incident happen when bounty on rats led people to farm rats?
Sorry for the title but don't know how to phrase it exactly.
I once read an article about a period (in France I think but I'm not sure) when the cities were growing and people strted to have issues ...
4
votes
6answers
207 views
Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful?
In this interview with Neal Stephenson, talking about the historical basis for his Baroque Cycle series of novels, he makes the remark that
... persecuted religious minorities, if they’re not ...
4
votes
1answer
50 views
Of which countries was Ludwig von Mises a citizen?
This is a question regarding the economist and political thinker Ludwig von Mises.
A short biography: Mises was born in 1881 in Lviv, then part of Austria–Hungary. He studied and worked in Vienna ...
4
votes
1answer
174 views
How much did helping the American Revolution cost France?
I recall reading somewhere that the expenses of the war were ruinous for France and that the gains didn't offset them, this being one of the causes that forced Louis XVI to convene the Estates ...
2
votes
0answers
55 views
Kazakhstan and anti-capitalism in the 1990s
What drove anti-capitalist sentiments from Kazakh intellectuals and economists in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union?
It is my understanding that Kazakhstan was a low level ...
1
vote
1answer
84 views
Reception of Acemoglu-Robinson 'extractive institutions' thesis?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson believe that a great deal about the economic, social, and political life of a country can be explained by the quality of political institutions, especially the degree ...
0
votes
1answer
71 views
Is there a different view by political-scientist in history that printing more bill is different from adding few more zeros in a bill [closed]
Is there a different view by political-scientist in history mention that printing more bill is different from adding few more zeros on the bill. I know some Africa country tend to doing that.
-3
votes
0answers
87 views
How did China go from “inventing” to reverse-engineering? [closed]
In the past millenium, China was known for inventions such as paper, block type, gunpowder and others.
Nowadays, we see China is copying everything. Electronic calculators to microprocessors. ...
