Serfs and the city: market conditions, surplus extraction institutions and urban growth in Poland, 1500-1772
I investigate the relation between institutions, markets, and preindustrial economic growth. In particular, I analyze the impact of coercive agricultural class structures on urban population growth in Poland. My main point is that the impact of the demesne economy based on serfdom on urban growth was neither inherently negative nor positive. Instead, I suggest that the effect of serfdom depended o