Sophus A. Reinert

Bio: Sophus A. Reinert is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Empire & Enlightenment. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 40 publications receiving 344 citations. Previous affiliations of Sophus A. Reinert include University of Cambridge.

Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy

Abstract: Historians have traditionally used the discourses of free trade and laissez faire to explain the development of political economy during the Enlightenment. But from Sophus Reinert's perspective, eighteenth-century political economy can be understood only in the context of the often brutal imperial rivalries then unfolding in Europe and its former colonies and the positive consequences of active economic policy. The idea of economic emulation was the prism through which philosophers, ministers, reformers, and even merchants thought about economics, as well as industrial policy and reform, in the early modern period. With the rise of the British Empire, European powers and others sought to selectively emulate the British model. In mapping the general history of economic translations between 1500 and 1849, and particularly tracing the successive translations of the Bristol merchant John Cary's seminal 1695 Essay on the State of England, Reinert makes a compelling case for the way that England's aggressively nationalist policies, especially extensive tariffs and other intrusive market interventions, were adopted in France, Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia before providing the blueprint for independence in the New World. Relatively forgotten today, Cary's work served as the basis for an international move toward using political economy as the prime tool of policymaking and industrial expansion. Reinert's work challenges previous narratives about the origins of political economy and invites the current generation of economists to reexamine the foundations, and future, of their discipline.

Climate Change in 2018: Implications for Business

Abstract: Copyright © 2016, 2017, 2018 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. R E B E C C A M . H E N D E R S O N

An early National Innovation System: the case of Antonio Serra's 1613 breve trattato

Abstract: Based on the economics of Joseph Schumpeter, National Innovation Systems have since the early 1990's emerged as a holistic and socioculturally embedded alternative approach to explaining economic growth. The idea that systemic relationships exist between different sectors of the economy that influence the production and implementation of new knowledge, and thus economic development is, however, much older than current research indicates. We will argue the Neapolitan mercantilist Antonio Serra coherently presented the kernel of a national innovation system already in his 1613 Breve trattato, including two of its key elements increasing returns and synergies. The problems of establishing the institutions conducive to economic growth faced by mercantilists at the end of the Renaissance are shared today by policy-makers in the developing world, and it can therefore prove to be fruitful, if not necessary, to explore the historical roots of this early innovation system approach. Indeed, Serra's work has been brought back to light on several occasions in the past centuries, each time as a source of guidance in an era of economic turmoil: first on the eve of Italian unification, then at the dawn of German industrialization. Following the failure of the Cancun meetings in 2003 to reach a trade agreement between North and South, such turmoil is over us again as it becomes increasingly clear that the reigning economic dogma has failed to deliver on its political promises. We argue that, in the economic profession's inevitable search for new means and methods, Serra's message is again relevant.

Mercantilism and Economic Development: Schumpeterian Dynamics, Institution Building, and International Benchmarking

Abstract: In most arts and sciences – from astronomy to zoology – the Renaissance represents a qualitative watershed in human history, and historians are generally united in considering it a period of unprecedented intellectual ferment. Echoes of da Vinci, Galileo, and Machiavelli still resound in the way we approach art, science, and human coexistence, and it is noticeable how these developments came ‘out of Italy’ (Braudel, 1991). As a precondition for this, the Renaissance was also a period when the productive powers of small European city states allowed a large part of the population to live free from poverty. Where feudalism had provided wealth for the very few and misery for most, the city states of the Renaissance for the first time witnessed a situation where artisans, merchants and public employees filled the ranks of a new middle class

The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World

Abstract: Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Foreword: Of Empire and Political Economy Richard Drayton Introduction: The Political Economy of Empire Sophus Reinert and Pernille Roge PART I: THEORISING THE EARLY MODERN EMPIRE 1. An Empire of Trade Commercial Reason of State in Seventeenth-Century Holland Jan Hartman and Arthur Weststeijn 2. A Natural Order of Empire: The Physiocratic Vision of Colonial France after the Seven Years War Pernille Roge 3. Adam Smith on American Economic Development and the Future of the European Atlantic Empires Thomas Hopkins 4. Views from the South: Images of Britain and its Empire in Portuguese and Spanish Political Economic Discourse, c. 1740-1810 Gabriel Paquette 5. The Empire of Emulation: A Quantitative Analysis of Economic Translations in the European World, 1500-1849 Sophus Reinert PART II: IMPERIAL EXPERIENCES 6. War, Peace, and the Rise of the London Stock Market Giles Parkinson 7. The Impact of Gifts and Trade: Georgia Colonists and Yamacraw Indians in the Colonial American Southeast Claire Levenson 8. Retrenchment, Reform and the Practice of Military-Fiscalism in the Early East India Company State James Lees 9. How Feeding Slaves Shaped the French Atlantic: Mercantilism and the Crisis of Food Provisioning in the Franco-Caribbean during the 17th and 18th Centuries Bertie Mandelblatt Bibliography Index ?

The archaeology of knowledge

Abstract: We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

Theory of business enterprise

Abstract: Veblen has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs. He enriched and attacked both disciplines, as he did so many others: philosophy, history, social psychology, politics, and linguistics. Because he took all knowledge as necessary and relevant to adequate understanding, Veblen was a holistic analyst of the social process. First published in 1904, this classic analysis of the U.S. economy has enduring value today. In it, Veblen posited a theory of business fluctuations and economic growth which included chronic depression and inflation. He predicted the socioeconomic changes that would occur as a result: militarism, imperialism, fascism, consumerism, and the development of the mass media as well as the corporate bureaucracy. Douglas Dowd's introduction places the volume within the traditions of both macroeconomics and microeconomics, tracing Veblen's place among social thinkers, and the place of this volume in the body of his work.