Guild traditions, economic development and the formation of national political economies in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the 19th and early 20th centuries

In recent decades historians, sociologists and political scientists have attempted to explain why in the late 19th and early 20th centuries some Western countries adopted national corporatist structures while others transformed into liberal market economies. One of the explanatory factors often mentioned is the persistence or absence of guild traditions. Yet how exactly guild traditions influenced the shaping of national political economies largely remains unclear due to a lack of empirical evidence on their 19th-century development. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by investigating... Mehr ...