Sheilagh Ogilvie on Epidemics, Guilds, and the Persistence of Bad Institutions | Convos with Tyler

Video Description

Sheilagh Ogilvie has spent decades examining the institutional structures that shaped European economic history, challenging conventional wisdom about everything from guilds to marriage patterns. In her conversation with Tyler, she reveals how studying pandemic responses from the Black Death to COVID-19 provides a unique lens for understanding deeper truths about institutional effectiveness and social constraints. Tyler and Sheilagh discuss the economic impacts of historical pandemics, the "happy story" of the Black Death and why it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, the history of variolation and how entrepreneurs created vaccination franchises in 18th-century England, why local communities typically managed epidemics better than central authorities, the dastardly nature of medieval guilds, the European marriage pattern and its disputed contribution to economic growth, when sustained economic growth truly began in England, why the Dutch Republic stagnated despite its early success, whether she agrees with Greg Clark's social mobility hypothesis, her experience and conducting "anthropological fieldwork" on English social customs, the communitarian norms she encountered while living in Germany, her upcoming research project on European serfdom, and more. Recorded February 27th, 2025 Transcript and links: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sheilagh-ogilvie/ Stay connected: Follow us on X, IG, and Facebook: @cowenconvos https://www.twitter.com/cowenconvos https://www.facebook.com/cowenconvos https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/JAVWP7vTxt https://conversationswithtyler.com https://mercatus.org Timestamps 00:00:00 - On the history of epidemics 00:04:30 - On the silver lining to the Black Death 00:12:43 - On variolation 00:19:16 - On local vs centralized responses to pandemics 00:22:47 - On responses to COVID-19 00:31:03 - On dastardly guilds 00:35:59 - On the European marriage pattern and economic growth 00:41:11 - On England’s historical growth and social mobility 00:48:49 - On a personal anthropological investigation of England 00:53:57 - On German culture