The Economic History Podcast
The Economic History podcast is a platform for sharing knowledge, ideas and new research with a general interest audience. Each fortnight, we meet leading academics in the field and discuss a range of topics, including pandemics, long run economic growth, gender issues, financial crises, inequality, sustainable development and a number of weird and fun economic experiments in history. There is no time like the past to help us understand the present.
The Economic History Podcast
Economic Experiments in Extremism
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Seán Kenny
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Episode 27
Today, we meet Professor Hans-Joachim Voth to discuss some of his work on the economic forces around religious and political epochs characterised by extremism. We begin by reviewing the long term economic effects of the Spanish Inquisition and consider the historical roots of anti-semitism in explaining Nazi support centuries later. Finally, we look at how "social capital" may have negative effects in garnering support for extremist movements and look at the effects of road building on political votes for the Nazi party.