Title: Income Sharing Amongst Medieval Peasants: Usury Prohibitions and the Non-Market Provision of Insurance
Abstract:Traditional economic analysis posits market-based institutions as being substitutes for non-market based institutions. The process of development then tends to be seen as the process of substituting t...Traditional economic analysis posits market-based institutions as being substitutes for non-market based institutions. The process of development then tends to be seen as the process of substituting the more efficient market based institutions for their less efficient counterparts. This paper argues that non-market institutions are at times more efficient than market based institutions. Informal pooling arrangements constituted an important method of non-market consumption smoothing for medieval peasants. Usury prohibitions were promulgated in order to support such arrangements in the face of competition from more market-based alternatives, i.e., the capital market.Read More
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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