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Hospitalitas

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  • Andrew T. Young

    (West Virginia University, Department of Economics)

Abstract

Good government requires a constitution that demarcates what political agents can and cannot do, and such a constitution must be self-enforcing. The medieval West was characterized by the estates system, where the political power of monarchs was roughly balanced by that of a landed and militarized nobility. This rough balance of power contributed to a Western tradition of limited government and constitutional bargaining. I argue that this balance has important roots in the fifth and sixth century barbarian settlements that occurred within the frontiers of the declining Western Roman Empire. These settlements provided barbarians with allotments consisting of lands or claims to taxes due from those lands. These allotments aligned the incentives of barbarian warriors and Roman landowners; they also realigned (or newly aligned) the incentives of barbarian warriors and leadership elite as their roving confederacies became stationary kingdoms. Barbarian military forces became decentralized and the warriors became political powerful shareholders of the realm.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew T. Young, 2015. "Hospitalitas," Working Papers 15-41, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    • Handle: RePEc:wvu:wpaper:15-41
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    File URL: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=econ_working-papers
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    constitutional political economy; polycentric sovereignty; shareholder states; collective action problems; governance institutions; state emergence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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