The Fruits of Revolution: Property Rights, Litigation and French Agriculture, 1700–1860

Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions

by Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

In The Fruits of Revolution Jean-Laurent Rosenthal investigates two central issues in French economic history: to what extent did institutions hold back agricultural development under the Old Regime, and did reforms carried out during the French Revolution significantly improve the structure of property rights in agriculture? Both questions have been the subject of much debate. Historians have touched on these issues in a number of local studies, yet they usually have been more concerned with community conflict than with economic development. Economists generally have researched the performance of the French economy without paying much attention to the impact of institutions on specific areas of the economy. This book attempts to utilize the best of both approaches: it focuses on broad questions of economic change, yet it is based on detailed archival investigations into the impact of property rights on water control.

Genres: Economics

236 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 1992

About the author

Jean-Laurent Rosenthal is an economist and Professor of Business Economics at the California Institute of Technology.

Reviews

[Nick Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough analysis that provided me with insight to the economic discourse surrounding the French revolutions’s implant on property rights litigation in relation to agricultural investment.