Magna Carta
Presented by:
Desiree Desierto
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Friday, October 18, 2024
12:00 pm-1:15 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
Magna Carta, a pivotal moment in history, institutionalized constraints on royal power. We model it as an optimal agreement between two coalitions capable of violence: the king’s loyalists and the rebel barons. This agreement is more likely when the king extracts large rents; the distribution of rents among barons is egalitarian; and barons have large resources that are non-appropriable by the king. Under these conditions, even the baron that enjoys the largest rents would be willing to lead a rebel coalition that has sufficient resources to defeat the loyalists. We test predictions with data on the universe of barons in England between 1200-1270.