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(This paper has been accepted (May 2011) for publication in the Economic History Review) In the past one of the main challenges to households was how to cope with adversity. War, plague, famine, and flood were a constant threat, and could reduce what little improvements families had made in productivity. Economic growth therefore required a means to absorb external adversities. To see how well late medieval households coped with adversity,this investigation focuses on the households of a small town and its surroundings in early modern Holland. Our findings reveal that several severe external events around 1500 had little effect on the general level or distribution of wealth, which suggests certain forms of insurance may have protected the population. The results show that households increasingly invested in capital markets rather than employ such techniques as scattered holdings and hoarding.. This fact indicates that such investment played a vital role in a household’s risk aversion strategy. The change from unproductive to more productive risk-aversion strategies also provides some clues about progress with respect to insurance during Holland’s financial revolution.

"Many negative effects of human use of resources do not become visible until after lengthy periods of time, often even centuries. One could assume it therefore to be obvious to integrate long-term historical developments into case-studies on common pool resources, in particular when were trying to understand how the regulation of the use of common pool resources worked and what changes of that regulation could bring about."

"The European Branch meeting of the IASCP in Brescia meeting is behind us, and now its time to sit down and reflect. It may be easier to start with some figures. About 80 people, coming from most of European countries and a number of extra-European ones, joined us in Brescia and, throughout the two days of the meeting opened by Lin Ostrom's keynote speech on Multiple methods for studying collective action over 60 papers were presented. That was much more than initially forecasted on the basis of European participation to the IASCP global meetings over the past few years. The success makes us therefore confident about the healthy status of common-pool resource research in Europe, and that is very good news."

This chapter looks at the opportunities for reframing the human right to water (HRW) in the way in India. It analyses the development of the HRW and common-based principles by the judiciary and legislature and the prospects of reframing the HRW. The dominant interpretation of the HRW both in legal and political discourse has been centred upon a fixed relationship between the rights-bearing subject and a particular quantity and quality of water. Participation can also be an important element to the HRW and, depending on the form it takes, a way to respond to the concerns about the individualism of rights. The HRW would be closer to being recognised as a right to transform the hydro-social conditions out of which water is accessed. The pronouncements of the Court over the years, through invoking the HRW and several common-based principles have been significant in giving legal authority to rights and principles.

This dissertation explores the historical underpinnings of current day gender inequalities at a global scale, with a focus on female agency (the degree of control people have over their own lives). To do so it brings together different explorations of the position of women both historically and today, which attempt to draw out ways in which differences in gender equality between countries are historically determined, and what the effects of such differences are for the transmission of human capital to the next generation. A concerted attempt is made to show the institutional roots of outcomes today and over time by employing various measures of the ways families organize themselves, as well as of various dimensions of gender inequality. This long-term perspective is of use in capturing the root causes of women’s disadvantages, and seeks to provide insight into factors that policies to address systemic inequalities need to take into account. The three inter-related research questions which are, therefore, addressed in this book are: 1) How can we (best) measure female agency in the past?; 2) What are the determinants of gender inequality? 3) And what are the effects of greater equality on development, broadly construed? In summary I find that multi-dimensional measures of the position of women allow the most scope for analysis, but that where historical data is lacking variables which capture family-organisation provide a viable alternative and one which shows important global variation. In general persistent inequality is as much determined by broad cultural institutions, including family practices as it is by developments on the economic front. Lastly greater gender equality leads to greater human capital formation of children.