Gregory Clark (economist)
Encyclopedia
Gregory Clark is an economic historian
Economic history
Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...

 at the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...

.

Biography

Clark, whose grandfathers were migrants to Scotland from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, earned his B.A. in economics and philosophy at King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in 1979 and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1985. He has also taught as an Assistant Professor at Stanford and the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

.

Clark is now a professor of economics and department chair until 2013 at the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...

. His areas of research are long term economic growth, the wealth of nations, and the economic history of England and India.

A Farewell to Alms

Clark is most well known for his theory of economic history related to the change in behaviors that enabled the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, discussed in his book, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World.

A Farewell to Alms (the book's title is a pun on Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

's novel, A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway concerning events during the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The book, which was first published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant in the ambulance...

) discusses the divide between rich and poor nations that came about as a result of the Industrial Revolution in terms of the evolution of particular behaviors originating in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Prior to 1790, Clark asserts, man faced a Malthusian trap
Malthusian trap
The Malthusian trap, named after political economist Thomas Robert Malthus, suggests that for most of human history, income was largely stagnant because technological advances and discoveries only resulted in more people, rather than improvements in the standard of living...

: new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations. In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the sons of the wealthy. By that according to Clark less violent, more literate and more hard-working behaviour were spread biologically throughout the population. This process of "downward social mobility" eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. Clark sees this process also til today as the major factor why some countries are poor and others are rich.

With his theses, the book got attention and several reviews from newspapers and scholars. That the book discharges Western politics from every responsibility for the poverty most people on earth are living (and also does not refer in the economic history to events like the oppressive aspects of colonialism), seems to be a reason that not least made its theses attractive to some circles, stated Christof Dejung from the University of Konstanz
University of Konstanz
The University of Konstanz is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was founded in 1966, and the main campus on the Gießberg was opened in 1972. As one of nine German Excellence Universities today University of Konstanz is counted among Germany's most prestigious...

. The book has been given praise from authors like Benjamin M. Friedman
Benjamin M. Friedman
Benjamin Morton Friedman, a leading American political economist, is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. Friedman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute's Panel on Economic Activity, and the editorial board of the...

 and Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution...

 (Mercatus Center
Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in the United States is a non-profit market-oriented research, education, and outreach think tank affiliated with the Koch family. It works with policy experts, lobbyists, and government officials to connect academic learning and real-world practice...

 director) ("idea-rich book", maybe "next blockbuster in economics"), though also authors from this political direction do not all agree fully, for example Kuznicki from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...

 stated in a generally positive review that "his explanation begins to look very ad hoc when considering the last few decades".

Quite critical were reviews looking at the methods (for example accused factual mistakes and complains about missing sources). Deirdre McCloskey
Deirdre McCloskey
Deirdre N. McCloskey is an American economics professor. Her job title at the University of Illinois at Chicago is Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication...

 (University of Illinois) stated about Clark's theses on genetic influence, that "the main failure of his hypothesis is, oddly, that a book filled with ingenious calculations [...] does not calculate enough. It doesn’t ask or answer the crucial historical questions." She concluded: "[...] Clark’s socio-neoDarwinianism, which he appears to have acquired from a recent article by some economic theorists, has as little to recommend it as history." Karl Gunnar Persson (economic, University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...

) stated in the European Review of Economic History that Clark's "Malthusianism is at times more evangelical than empirical and analytical". John S. Lyons (Miami University) concluded with humour in the Journal of Socio-Economics: "casual observation suggests that reviewers have pointed to at least one distinct fault in the book for every two pages or so".

More critical are David Warsh and Joachim Voth. Voth argues that Greg Clark's book is mainly based on a paper of the authors Galor and Moav from 2002 and that Clark has just added some fragmentary and probably unrepresentative points. Similarly, Warsh suggested that "Clark’s book is, to put it frankly, self-aggrandizing to the point of being intellectually dishonest".

Some mixed reviews were critical of the theses and statistics but evaluated the book as well written and interesting. Robert Solow
Robert Solow
Robert Merton Solow is an American economist particularly known for his work on the theory of economic growth that culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him...

disagreed on the main thesis and accented instead for example institutional changes as reasons for industrialisation. He described some part of the book as stereotypical, some parts as fascinating and thought-provoking—and some parts as just irritating. John S. Lyons, who has worked together with Clark, stated that there are many mistakes in the book, but thinks of the book as interesting though: "wrong in parts, inadequate in others, yet suggestive elsewhere, and fascinating even when annoying".

External links

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