Companies and the Rise of Economic Thought: The Institutional Foundations of Early Economics in England, 1550–1720

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Abstract

Seventeenth-century England was the site of a profound transformation of early economic thought on both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. The authors show that the proliferation of the chartered company in a context of low state representation of merchants played an important role in this shift. They outline the mechanisms through which chartered companies affected publication rates and provide systematic evidence of the impact of companies and state representation with a time-series analysis of the period from 1550 to 1720. The authors supplement this analysis with data on author biographies and the changing contents of the works. The results are consistent in supporting the importance of the chartered company in prompting the new discourse on economics and suggest a new appreciation of the role of corporatism in stimulating both economic discourse and the early expansion of the public sphere in England.

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