Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cliometric Approaches to War

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Handbook of Cliometrics

  • 2207 Accesses

Abstract

This article is a review of the many perspectives from history, political science, sociology, and economics that economic historians have applied to the study of war. Here I first review some of the scholarship on the premodern period, especially the formation of European nation states and conflicts. It is fairly clear that Europeans emerged out of this period with a comparative advantage in violence, through technological innovations and repeated warfare. Fiscal innovation and expansion was a key part of this. The period of the revolutions and Napoleonic conflicts represented a change in the nature of warfare and the arrival of total war, as well as the industrial age. The period of the world wars represents perhaps the best represented area of study for economic historians as of late. New data and scholarship has shown the mechanics of mobilization and highlighted the importance of resources in deciding these conflicts. Conversely, the Cold War period has been relatively sparsely studied, at least from the perspective of conflicts or military spending. Given the availability of new data and the opening of many archives, it is highly likely that this state of affairs will change in the near future. Economic historians have clearly made an impact in the study of long-run phenomena such as state formation, empires, and democracy. Cliometrics is well suited to the study of such topics, given the new panel and time series techniques, the rapid development of computing power, and the many new online databases.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Coordinator of the European State Finance Database: http://www.esfdb.org/

  2. 2.

    Founders of The Global Price and Income History Group: http://gpih.ucdavis.edu/

  3. 3.

    See Fishback and Kachanovskaya (2010) as an example of this debate.

References

  • Abelshauser W (2000) Germany: guns, butter, and economic miracles. In: Harrison M (ed) The economics of World War II. Six great powers in international comparison. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 122–176

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell D (2007) The first total war: Napoleon’s Europe and the birth of warfare as we know it. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger H, Ritschl A (1995) Germany and the political economy of the Marshall Plan, 1947–1952: a re-revisionist view. In: Eichengreen B (ed) Europe’s postwar recovery. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 199–245

    Google Scholar 

  • Blainey G (1973) The causes of war. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaydes L, Chaney E (2013) The Feudal Revolution and Europe’s rise: political divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE. Am Polit Sci Rev 107(01):16–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Blum M (2011) Government decisions before and during the First World War and the living standards in Germany during a drastic natural experiment. Explor Econ Hist 48(4):556–567

    Google Scholar 

  • Blum M (2013) War, food rationing, and socioeconomic inequality in Germany during the First World War. Econ Hist Rev 66(4):1063–1083

    Google Scholar 

  • Blum M, Eloranta J (2013) War zones, economic challenges, and well-being – perspectives on Germany during the First World War. In: Miller N (ed) War: global assessment, public attitudes and psychological effect. Nova Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonney R (ed) (1999a) The rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c. 1200–1815. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonney R (1999b) Introduction. In: Bonney R (ed) The rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c. 1200–1815. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonney R (1999c) France, 1494–1815. In: Bonney R (ed) The rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c. 1200–1815. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Brauer J, Tuyll HV (2008) Castles, battles & bombs. How economics explains military history. Chicago University Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadberry S, Harrison M (eds) (2005a) The economics of World War I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadberry S, Harrison M (2005b) The economics of World War I: an overview. In: Broadberry S, Harrison M (eds) The economics of World War I. The Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadberry S, Howlett P (1998) The United Kingdom: ‘Victory at all costs’. In: Harrison M (ed) The economics of World War II. Six great powers in international comparisons. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron R, Neal L (2003) A concise economic history of the World. From paleolithic times to the present. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi SW (2011) Re-evaluating capitalist and democratic peace models 1. Int Stud Q 55(3):759–769

    Google Scholar 

  • Crafts N, Mills TC (2013) Rearmament to the rescue? New estimates of the impact of “Keynesian” policies in 1930s’ Britain. J Econ Hist 73(04):1077–1104

    Google Scholar 

  • Crouzet F (1964) Wars, blockade, and economic change in Europe, 1792–1815. J Econ Hist 24(4):567–588

    Google Scholar 

  • Dafoe A, Russett B (2013) Does capitalism account for the democratic peace? The evidence still says no. In: Schneider G, Gleditsch NP (eds) Assessing the capitalist peace. Routledge, New York, pp 110–126

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis LE, Huttenback RA (1982) The political economy of British imperialism: measures of benefits and support. J Econ Hist 42(01):119–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis LE, Huttenback RA (1986) Mammon and the pursuit of Empire: the political economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis LE, Engerman SL (2006) Naval blockades in peace and war: an economic history since 1750. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • De Mesquita BB, Morrow JD, Siverson RM, Smith A (1999) An institutional explanation of the democratic peace. Am Polit Sci Rev 93(4):791–807

    Google Scholar 

  • Dincecco M (2009) Fiscal centralization, limited government, and public revenues in Europe, 1650–1913. J Econ Hist 69(01):48–103

    Google Scholar 

  • Dincecco M (2010) Fragmented authority from Ancien Régime to modernity: a quantitative analysis. J Inst Econ 6(3):305

    Google Scholar 

  • Dincecco M, Prado M (2012) Warfare, fiscal capacity, and performance. J Econ Growth 17(3):171–203

    Google Scholar 

  • Drelichman M, Voth HJ (2011) Lending to the borrower from hell: debt and default in the age of Philip II*. Econ J 121(557):1205–1227

    Google Scholar 

  • Drelichman M, Voth H-J (2014) Lending to the borrower from hell: debt, taxes, and default in the age of Philip II. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Eichengreen B (1995) Europe’s postwar recovery. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J (2002) External security by domestic choices: military spending as an impure public good among eleven European states, 1920–1938. Dissertation, European University Institute

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J (2003) National defense. In: Mokyr J (ed) The Oxford encyclopedia of economic history. The Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 30–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J (2005) Military spending patterns in history. EH.Net Encyclopedia. Accessed 1 Mar 2008 http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/eloranta.military

  • Eloranta J (2007) From the great illusion to the Great War: military spending behaviour of the Great Powers, 1870–1913. Eur Rev Econ Hist 11(2):255–283

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J (2009) Rent seeking and collusion in the military allocation decisions of Finland, Sweden, and Great Britain, 1920–381. Econ Hist Rev 62(1):23–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J (2011) Why did the League of Nations fail? Cliometrica 5(1):27–52

    Google Scholar 

  • Eloranta J, Land J (2011) Hollow victory? Britain’s public debt and the seven years’ war. Essays Econ Business Hist 29:101–118

    Google Scholar 

  • European State Finance Database (2013) Online database, managed by Richard Bonney. http://www.esfdb.org/Default.aspx. Accessed 1 Mar 2013

  • Feinstein CH, Temin P, Toniolo G (1997) The European economy between the wars. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson N (1999) The Pity of war. Explaining World War I. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson N (2001) The cash nexus: money and power in the modern world, 1700–2000. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson N (2003) Empire: the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson N (2004) Colossus: the price of America’s empire. Penguin Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson N (2006) The war of the world: twentieth-century conflict and the descent of the West. Allen Lane, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Findlay R, O'Rourke K (2007) Power and plenty: trade, war, and the world economy in the second millennium. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishback PV, Kachanovskaya V (2010) In search of the multiplier for federal spending in the states during the new deal. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Førland TE (1993) The history of economic warfare: international law, effectiveness, strategies. J Peace Res 30:151–162

    Google Scholar 

  • France J (2001) Recent writing on medieval warfare: from the Fall of Rome to c. 1300. J Mil Hist 65(2):441–473

    Google Scholar 

  • Geller DS, Singer JD (1998) Nations at war: a scientific study of international conflict. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleditsch KS, Pickering S (2014) Wars are becoming less frequent: a response to Harrison and Wolf. Econ Hist Rev 67(1):214–230

    Google Scholar 

  • Glick R, Taylor AM (2010) Collateral damage: trade disruption and the economic impact of war. Rev Econ Stat 92(1):102–127

    Google Scholar 

  • Gowa J (2011) The democratic peace after the cold war. Econ Polit 23(2):153–171

    Google Scholar 

  • Hantke M, Spoerer M (2010) The imposed gift of Versailles: the fiscal effects of restricting the size of Germany’s armed forces, 1924–9. Econ Hist Rev 63(4):849–864

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M (1996) Accounting for war: soviet production, employment, and the defence burden, 1940–1945. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M (1998) The economics of World War II: an overview. In: Harrison M (ed) The economics of World War II. Six great powers in international comparisons. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M (2000) The Soviet Union: the defeated victor. In: Harrison M (ed) The economics of World War II. Six great powers in international comparison. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 268–301

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M (2002) Coercion, compliance, and the collapse of the Soviet command economy. Econ Hist Rev 55(3):397–433

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M (2003) Soviet industry and the red army under Stalin: a military-industrial complex? Les Cahiers du Monde russe 44(2–3):323–342

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M, Wolf N (2011) The frequency of wars. Econ Hist Rev 65(3):1055–1076

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison M, Wolf N (2014) The frequency of wars: reply to Gleditsch and Pickering. Econ Hist Rev 67(1):231–239

    Google Scholar 

  • Higgs R (1994) The cold war economy. Opportunity costs, ideology, and the politics of crisis. Explor Econ Hist 31(3):283–312

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson JA (1965 (reprint)) Imperialism. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson JM (1993) The military-extraction gap and the wary titan: the fiscal sociology of British defence policy 1870–1914. J Eur Econ Hist 22(3):466–507

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman P, Rosenthal JL (1997) The political economy of warfare and taxation in early modern Europe: historical lessons for economic development. In: Drobak J, Nye JV (eds) The frontiers of the new institutional economics. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 31–55

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman PT, Jacks DS, Levin PA, Lindert PH (2002) Real inequality in Europe since 1500. J Econ Hist 62(02):322–355

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman PT (2011) Prices, the military revolution, and western Europe’s comparative advantage in violence. Econ Hist Rev 64(s1):39–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman PT (2012) Why was it Europeans who conquered the world? J Econ Hist 72(03):601–633

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamen H (1968) The economic and social consequences of the thirty years’ war. Past Present 39(1):44–61

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamen H (2004) Empire: how Spain became a world power, 1492–1763. HarperCollins, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamen H (2008) Imagining Spain: historical myth & national identity. Yale University Press, New Haven/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kegley CW Jr (1994) How did the cold war die? Principles for an autopsy. Mershon Int Stud Rev 38:11–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy P (1989) The rise and fall of the great powers. Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. Fontana, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Koistinen PAC (1980) The military-industrial complex. A historical perspective. Foreword by Congressman Les Aspin. Praeger Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy JS (1985) Theories of general war. World Polit 37(3):344–374

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy JS (1998) The causes of war and the conditions of peace. Ann Rev Polit Sci 1(1):139

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison A (1989) The world economy in the 20th century. OECD Publications and Information Center Distributor, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison A (2001) The world economy: a millennial perspective. OECD, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Modelski G, Thompson WR (1988) Seapower in global politics, 1494–1993. Macmillan Press, Houndmills

    Google Scholar 

  • Modelski G, Thompson WR (1996) Leading sectors and world powers. The coevolution of global politics and economics. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreira C, Eloranta J (2011) Importance of “weak” states during conflicts: Portuguese trade with the United States during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Revista de Historia Económica 29(03):393–423

    Google Scholar 

  • Naylor RT (2001) Economic warfare: sanctions, embargo busting, and their human cost. Northeastern University Press, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • North DC (1990) Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • North DC (1993) Institutions and credible commitment. J Inst Theoretical Econ 149:11–23

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien PK (1988) The costs and benefits of British imperialism, 1846–1914. Past Present 120:163–200

    Google Scholar 

  • Offer A (1989) The First World War: an agrarian interpretation. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Offer A (1993) The British Empire, 1870–1914: a waste of money? Econ Hist Rev 46(2):215–238

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson M, Zeckhauser R (1966) An economic theory of alliances. Rev Econ Stat 48(3):266–279

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson M (1993) Dictatorship, democracy, and development. Am Polit Sci Rev 87(3):567–576

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Leary JP (1985) Economic warfare and strategic economics. Comp Strategy 5(2):179–206

    Google Scholar 

  • Onorato MG, Scheve K, Stasavage D (2012) Technology and the era of the mass army. IMT Lucca EIC working papers series. Lucca, IMT Lucca, 5

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Rourke K (2006) The worldwide economic impact of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1793–1815. J Global Hist 1(1):123–149

    Google Scholar 

  • Ritschl A (2004) The Marshall Plan, 1948–1951. EH. Net Encyclopedia. Accessed 5 Aug 2009 http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-marshall-plan-1948-1951/

  • Ritschl A (2005) The pity of peace: Germany’s economy at war, 1914–1918 and beyond. In: Broadberry S, Harrison M (eds) The economics of World War I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 41

    Google Scholar 

  • Russett B (1993) Grasping the democratic peace. Principles for a post-cold war world. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandler T, Hartley K (1995) The economics of defense. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandler T, Hartley K (1999) The political economy of NATO. Past, present, and into the 21st century. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandler T, Murdoch JC (1990) Nash-Cournot or Lindahl behavior? An empirical test for the Nato Allies. Quart J Econ 105(4):875–894

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheve K, Stasavage D (2010) The conscription of wealth: mass warfare and the demand for progressive taxation. Int Organ 64(4):529–562

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer JD (1979) The correlates of War I: research origins and rationale. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer JD (1981) Accounting for international war: the state of the discipline. J Peace Res 18(1, Special Issue on Causes of War):1–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer JD (1990) Variables, indicators, and data. The measurement problem in macropolitical research. In: Singer JD, Diehl P (eds) Measuring the correlates of war. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith A (1776) An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Edwin Canna, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson D (2011) From Balkan conflict to global conflict: the spread of the First World War, 1914–1918. Foreign Policy Anal 7:169–182

    Google Scholar 

  • Strachan H (2011) Clausewitz and the First World War. J Mil Hist 75:367–391

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas M (1983) Rearmament and economic recovery in the late 1930S*. Econ Hist Rev 36(4):552–579

    Google Scholar 

  • Thornton M, Ekelund RB (2004) Tariffs, blockades, and inflation: the economics of the civil war. Scholarly Resources Inc., Wilmington, Delaware

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly C (1990) Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990–1990. Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevino R, Higgs R (1992) Profits of US defense contractors. Def Peace Econ 3(3):211–218

    Google Scholar 

  • Webber C, Wildavsky A (1986) A history of taxation and expenditure in the Western World. Simon and Schuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • White EN (2001) Making the French pay: the costs and consequences of the Napoleonic reparations. Eur Rev Econ Hist 5(3):337–365

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright Q (1942) A study of war. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Appalachian State University and University of Jyvaskyla, Boone, NC, USA

    Jari Eloranta

Authors
  1. Jari Eloranta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jari Eloranta .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. BETA/CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Institute for Advanced Study, Strasbourg, France

    Claude Diebolt

  2. University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA

    Michael Haupert

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this entry

Cite this entry

Eloranta, J. (2016). Cliometric Approaches to War. In: Diebolt, C., Haupert, M. (eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40406-1_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation