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The reasons proposed in the extant literature for the emergence of boerenleenbanken (Dutch Raiffeisen cooperative banks) at the turn of the twentieth century fall into three categories: (1) to meet untapped market demand; (2) as an organizational response to economic and technical change; and (3) as an extension of socio-religious confessional politics. I use business history case studies of boerenleenbanken established in the neighbouring villages of Loosduinen and Rijswijk to weigh the relative importance of these accounts. While all three play a part in explaining the market entry of this new type of banking business, I conclude that the third reason was probably critical; boerenleenbanken should be viewed as a component of the wider movement towards the economic confessionalization of the Netherlands

This article investigates the impact of the socioreligious segregation of Dutch society on the asset allocation choices of rural bankers and the withdrawal behavior of their depositors during the early 1920s. Results suggest that cooperatively-owned Raiffeisen banks for both Catholic and Protestant minority groups could limit their exposure to a debt-deflation crisis, despite operating more precarious balance sheets than banks for majorities. Business histories demonstrate how strict membership criteria and personal guarantors acted as screening and monitoring devices. Banks serving minorities functioned as club goods, managing their exposure to the crisis by exploiting the confessionalized nature of Dutch society.

Intro -- Praise for An Economist's Guide to Economic History -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- 1: Introduction, or Why We Started This Project -- Aim of the Book -- Structure of the Book -- Birth, Death, Resurrection, Ascension -- Reading List -- Part I: Purpose, Philosophy and Pedagogy of Economic History -- 2: Economics Versus History -- Deduction, Induction, Abduction -- Bad Economics and Bad History -- Good Economics Takes Context Seriously -- Reading List -- 3: Economics, Economic History and Historical Data -- The Understanding of Economic Theory -- Cutting Through the Mountains of Detail -- Economic Relevance -- Advice for New Scholars -- Reading List -- 4: Economic Theory and Economic History -- Understanding the Current State of Economics -- The Dichotomy of Economic Theory and Empirics -- Empiricism, Analytic Narratives and Economics -- Beyond Analytic Narratives -- Case: Economic Perspectives on Entrepreneurship -- The Entrepreneurship of the House of Medici -- Reading List -- 5: Economic History and the Policymaker -- Small but Common Issues Versus Large but Uncommon Ones -- Is This Time Different? -- Some Practical Suggestions -- Reading List -- 6: Economic History, the History of Economic Thought and Economic Policy -- Cairncross on Economics and Economic History -- Eichengreen on Economic History and Economic Policy -- Offer and Söderberg on Economic Ideas, Economic Policy and Economic History -- Reading List -- 7: Teaching Economics with Economic History -- The Book for Lecturers -- The Book for Students -- Reading List -- Part II: Questions and Themes in Economic History -- 8: Money and Central Banking -- The Origin of the Specie -- The Evolution of Central Banks -- It's the Politics, Stupid -- Reading List -- 9: Globalisation and Trade -- The Political Economy of Trade

Without economic history, economics runs the risk of being too abstract or parochial, of failing to notice precedents, trends and cycles, of overlooking the long-run and thus misunderstanding 'how we got here'. Recent financial and economic crises illustrate spectacularly how the economics profession has not learnt from its past. This book addresses this problem by demonstrating the power of historical thinking in economic research. The authors bring together important voices in the field to show readers how they can use their existing economics training to explore different facets of economic history.

Under what conditions can policymakers make demonstrably poor policy choices? By providing a new account of monetary policy management in the Netherlands during the interwar gold standard, we show how policymakers can fail to escape their long-held beliefs and refuse to consider available policy alternatives. Using high-frequency macroeconomic data, we are the first to document that the Netherlands' policymakers were able to conduct an independent monetary policy in the 1930s. We then show how this independence was squandered on fixing the guilder's exchange rate, a policy which led only to deflation, trade deficits, corporate bankruptcies and mass unemployment. We explain the government's policy stance by documenting the beliefs of politicians and central bankers, and then by investigating how business leaders and public intellectuals attempted to influence these beliefs.

Why did imitations of Raiffeisen's rural cooperative savings and loans associations work well in some European countries, but fail in others? This article considers the example of Raiffeisenism in Ireland and in the Netherlands. Raiffeisen banks arrived in both places at the same time, but had drastically different fates. In Ireland they were almost wiped out by the early 1920s, while in the Netherlands they proved to be a long‐lasting institutional transplant. Raiffeisen banks were successful in the Netherlands because they operated in niche markets with few competitors, while rural financial markets in Ireland were unsegmented and populated by long‐established incumbents, leaving little room for new players, whatever their institutional advantages. Dutch Raiffeisen banks were largely self‐financing, closely integrated into the wider rural economy, and able to take advantage of economic and religious divisions in rural society. Their Irish counterparts were not.

This paper draws on graduate research conducted by the authors: Colvin, C. L., 'Religion, competition and liability: Dutch cooperative banking in crisis, 1919-1927' (unpub. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2011); and McLaughlin, E., 'Microfinance institutions in nineteenth century Ireland' (unpub. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2009). They thank Ewen Cameron, Vincent Comerford, David Greasley, William Smyth, and participants at the European Historical Economics Society Conference (Dublin, 2011) and the Women's Committee Workshop of the Economic History Society (Oxford, 2011) for commenting on an earlier version of this paper. ; What was the recipe for the success of Raiffeisen's banking model? What made it possible for imitations of this German rural cooperative microfinance institution to work well in some European countries, but fail in others? This paper answers these questions with a comparison of Raiffeisenism in Ireland and the Netherlands. Raiffeisen banks arrived in both places at the same time, but had drastically different fates. In Ireland they were almost wiped out by the early 1920s, whilst in the Netherlands they proved to be a long-lasting institutional transplant. Raiffeisen banks were successful in the Netherlands because they operated in a niche market with few viable competitors. Meanwhile, rural financial markets in Ireland were unsegmented and populated by long-established incumbents, leaving little room for new players, whatever their perceived advantages. Whereas Dutch Raiffeisen banks were largely self-financing, closely integrated into the wider rural economy and took advantage of socioreligious division, their Irish counterparts did not.

Abstract
The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland's age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of age heaping. Any quantification of age heaping patterns must therefore be interpreted considering an older underlying population which is inherently more likely to heap. We demonstrate how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardization.