One strain of French structuralism has argued for the existence of long-run economic cycles driven by Marxist class and economic dynamics. Vincent Carpentier employs this approach in his study of the relationship between economic and educational change in the United Kingdom over the past two centuries. The basic framework was developed by Carpentier's mentor, Louis Fontvielle of the University of Montpellier, who has used it to examine the same relationship for France. According to this framework, leading modern economies such as those of France and the United Kingdom over the past two centuries have experienced four Kondratieff cycles of 50 years duration each. During the first three cycles, the level of resources devoted to education tended to move counter-cyclically; in the fourth cycle, the relationship reversed to move pro-cyclically. Fontvielle's explanation of this pattern is that during the first three cycles, during expansionary phases, high returns to physical capital implied pressures to cut back on public educational investments while during downturns, social stresses and contradictions in the system led to expanding educational investments. However in the fourth cycle, since 1945, both the rise of the welfare state and the increasing contribution of an educated labor force to productivity due to the increasing importance of science-based technical change resulted in the level of educational investments moving pro-cyclically.

Ten articles and a rich selective bibliography demonstrate the vitality of Historical Demography research in Belgium. In the introductory article, the editors sum up the main progress of the discipline in Belgium since 1981 and present an updated impressive commented bibliography. Belgian researchers have broken down many stereotypes. For instance, the process of industrialization in mid-nineteenth-century Belgium did not affect the traditional urban network in a spectacular way. Old-established cities and towns like Ghent, Leuven, Verviers, and Charleroi—that receive a special attention in this volume—continued to be important urban centers as they were well before the Industrial Revolution. The stereotype of a massive rural exodus generated by the industrialization is definitively overcome. By adopting a micro-research approach, Katleen Dillen shows that migration was mostly a positive choice and less disruptive than usually considered because it took place in a dense and vivid social network (“From One Textile Centre to Another: Migrations from the District of Ghent to the City of Armentières (France) During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 431–52). This absence of dramatic change in migration pattern during the industrialization—which is therefore opposite to the situation observed in the Ruhr during the same period—explains why there was no difference in fertility intensity and calendar between migrant people and the sedentary population of the industrial area of Charleroi. Interestingly Flemish migrants to Charleroi adopted the same demographic behavior as the native Walloon people. So, according to Thierry Eggerickx, the main determinant of fertility behavior is the living conditions at the place of arrival rather than the geographical and cultural origin. Eggerickx also emphasizes that the beginning of the demographic transition coincided with the economic crisis of 1873–1892. However, until now the relationship between changes in demographic behavior and economic upheaval remains unclear (“The Fertility Decline in the Industrial Area of Charleroi During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century”). The social network should probably have played a key role during that period of economic crisis. Indeed, the importance of a dense social network clearly appears as far as the illegitimate fertility in Leuven during the economic crisis of the mid-nineteenth century is concerned. Jan Van Bavel demonstrates that the risks of pregnancy before age 26 and subsequent marriage chances did not result from isolation in town (Leuven), but that sexual activity of unmarried women of courtship age was, on the contrary, a sign of integration within the local community. However what was the role of the economic crisis on the behavior of these women? (“Malthusian Sinners: Illegitimate Fertility and Early Marriage in Times of Economic Crisis: A Case Study in Leuven, 1846–1856”). Leuven's urban society in the nineteenth century is also the place to explore the relation between age homogamy and the increasing importance of romantic love. Bart Van de Putte and Koen Matthijs question Shorter's theory by demonstrating that romantic love did not involve the lower classes. The only clear cultural change in Leuven was the spread of what is today called “a conservative model of marriage life” in which the patriarchal tradition was mixed with new family centered values (“Romantic Love and Marriage. A Study of Age Homogamy in Nineteenth Century Leuven”). This model of marriage behavior seems to correspond to the Catholic Church's doctrine on matrimonial matters. The Belgian Catholic Church managed quite well to adapt itself to social changes of the nineteenth century (Paul Servais, “The Church and the Family in Belgium, 1850–1914”). Mortality has attracted fresh research. Michel Oris and George Alter explore the relationship between migration to the city and mortality pattern. In industrial towns, migration had a positive impact on mortality in the short-term, because the newcomers were healthier than natives of the same age. However, the place of arrival—the new industrial milieu—rapidly affected the children of the migrants who were disproportionately exposed to urban epidemiological conditions. Alter and Oris stress the existence of a "epidemiological depression" between 1846 and 1880, which will need further investigation. Moreover, migration to the industrial cities was at the origin of a specific pattern of mortality: high level of infant and child mortality, lower level of adult mortality (“Paths to the City and Roads to Death: Mortality and Migration in East Belgium During the Industrial Revolution”). The persistent high level of infant mortality at the turn of the twentieth century is confirmed by Marc Debuisson's enquiry covering the whole territory of Belgium (“The Decline of Infant Mortality in the Belgian Districts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”), meanwhile Jeroen Backs observes an increasing discrepancy between upper classes and poor people in front of death. The inequality results from a growing infant and child mortality (“Mortality in Ghent, 1850–1950: A Social Analysis of Death”).

The connection between nationalism and economic development is an important subject, and the contributors to the volume before us are to be commended for tackling it. But the significance of contributions to edited volumes in humanities and the social sciences rarely extends beyond their symbolic function—of serving as memorabilia to the rites and ceremonies in which scholarly conviviality finds its chief expression. Thus they are forgotten almost as soon as they appear in print, similarly to the elegant menus of formal dinners and wedding invitations, and for all intents and purposes are lost to the world of learning. Their only chance to escape this sad fate in most cases depends on the clarity, originality, and persuasiveness of the editors' vision, which may claim and hold the reader's attention, while creating a conceptual framework within which each individual essay acquires an added meaning. The editors of Economic Change and the National Question in Twentieth-Century Europe fail to provide such a framework, and the result is a collection of historical trivia with no more intellectual interest than any limited amount of raw data awaiting an interpreter.

Italy's transformation in little more than a century from a backward, agricultural periphery to one of the world's leading countries is one of economic history's success stories. Especially successful were the "economic miracle" years of 1950–1963, during which Italy maintained rates of growth second only to those of Japan and Germany and largely completed the structural transition to a modern, industrial economy. Rolf Petri argues that this success was built on a foundation laid in the 1930s and '40s by the fascist policy of autarchia. Autarchy policy identified and gave a decisive push to precisely those industries that proved most dynamic in the economic miracle. Employing a wide range of tools, from macroeconomic policy, through administrative control of foreign trade and the allocation of credit, to direct participation in the form of state-owned enterprises, the fascist regime created and nurtured firms, supported research and development activities, and encouraged investment in new physical plant and licensing of foreign technology. While the author eschews any statements about whether autarchia was necessary, good, or efficient and does not hide its shortcomings and failures, the flavor of this account is nonetheless positive. This contrasts with most other assessments, which have deemed autarchy policy contradictory and ad hoc, the cause of enormous waste and gross misallocation of resources.

This book provides a detailed investigation of the impact of the 1956 Restrictive Trade Practices Act on the intensity of competition in the United Kingdom. In my experience, American economists are usually traumatized to discover that the 1956 Act allowed firms to register restrictive trade agreements, including explicit schemes to fix prices and that by the end of 1959, firms had registered 2,240 agreements in the clear expectation that the newly established Restrictive Practices Court would take a relaxed view about these restrictions on competition. In fact, the Court generally took a tough pro-competition stance and after a few landmark cases where restrictive agreements were judged to be against the public interest, many of the registered agreements were abandoned voluntarily or modified substantially. This episode thus provides the raw material for assessing the impact of an intensification of competition on economic performance. George Symeonidis uses the theoretical framework of John Sutton to assess the effects of this intensification of competition. The main focus is on the upshot for concentration, although the effects on advertising intensity, innovation, and profitability are also considered. Disappointingly, perhaps, there is no discussion of the effects on productivity.