Notices for My Economics Students

Professor John Munro passed away on December 23, 2013. This site is maintained and kept online as an archive. For more infomation please visit the Centre for Medieval Studies

Professor (Emeritus) John H. Munro passed away December 23, 2013

Department of Economics,
University of Toronto
150 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 3G7
My Home Page: freely accessible to everybody.
ECO 301Y course website: the only course that I am offering this year.
Updated on: Wednesday 27 November
CURRENT NOTICES FOR STUDENTS IN MY EUROPEAN ECONOMIC HISTORY COURSES:

Notices, Announcements, and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Please submt your term essays to Taye Shakibullah, the Economics receptinonist who will date-stamp and initial the essay to verify its submission before any late peanalty will be imposed.

Essays in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Economic History, 1250 - 1750: A Compendium of Web Guides for Writing Term Essays in ECO 301Y: instructions, regulations, topics, and bibliographies.

I have now posted online at > The weekly Power Point presentations (summaries of the full lectures) are given in both MS - Power Point and in PDF (converted from PP)

On Wednesday 27 Nov. I will hand out in class the take-home test, whixh will be due without any exceptions, in ten days, a week following the next Fridy,6 December 2013, also by 5:00 p.m --- same place.
NEWEST AND MOST RECENT NOTICES, with related web links:

(15) Week 12: 27 November 2013: Lecture no. 10: International Commerce: Part II: England, the Baltic, South Germany, and the Rise of Antwerp:
and Lecture No. 13: the Rise of Portugal, the Portuguese Empire, and the Beginnings of European Overseas Explorations, Colonization, and Imperialism: in Africa, Asia, and the Americas
Lecture no. 10, for Week 12: International Commerce, Part II: Englznd, the Baltic, South Germany snd the Rise of Antwerp; and Lecture no. 13, the Rise of Portugal, The Porguese Empire and the Beginnings of Euroean Overseas Exploraaion, Colonization and Imperialism in Africa, Asia, and the Americas
As you will now have learned by e-mail from the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Dwayne Benjmain, my recent and current medical adversities involving my various forms of cancers (lung, liver, and bones) and a consequent loss of energy do not permit me to continue teaching this course into the second semester, much as I was determined to do. Hence this course will now become a half-course, ECO 301H; and last the last lecture will be held on Wednesday, 27 November.
The mark composition for this course will now consist of 60 perent for the one essay due this term, and 40% for the-take home test, which will now be distributed on the final class, on Wednesday 27 November, and will be due at the end of the following week, Friday 6 December. As a final exam, there can be no exemptions or substitutes for this mandatory assgtnment; and those submitting the take-home exam aftr this due date with be subjected to a 5% percent DAILY penalty (ending with the date on which marks for first-semester courses must be submitted).
My chemotheropy began yeterday at Princess Margret Hospital, with two sepatate intravenous injections of compouded solutions, lasting over four hours (after starting 1.5 hours late). I am now finaly feeling the harh and enverating effes of of these treaments. My second treatmemt takes place on Thursday afternon, when I will again hold no office hours.
Your TA is Ms. Jessie Lamontagne (Ph.D candidate in Economics): her office hours are on Tuesday mornings, from 11:00 to 12:00 noon, in her office: GE 277 (second floor). Her e-mail address is: JessieLamontagne@utoronto.ca
Announcement from the Economics Department: There will be a Graduate School Information Session for undergraduate students on Monday, 21 October 2013, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm, in Sidney Smith SS 2102. Undergrads who are contemplating or considering graduate school at the MA or PhD level in Economics, or in Financial Economics, can meet with the Associate Chairs to ask questions about academic preparations and requirement, as well as the application process itself and related strategies.
Memorandum from the College Writing Centres: on support offered for student writing assignments in the Faculty of Arts and Science

THE COURSE READER and Bibliographies for First Term Essays:

The ECO 301Y course reader for the first-term A-List essay topics is now available from Scholar House Productions (100 Harbord Street). The price for the course reader is $65.00 including the 13% HST; and that price reflects only the cost of reproducing and binding the reader, since the CanCopy royalty fees are now included in student fees at the U of T.
The reader contains about five to seven articles and essays for each of the five A-List essay topics for the first term. Note that your essay must be based on at least five published sources -- obviously including those in the course reader, which may be used not only for the first-term essays but also for the mid-year take-home test or the third essays (submitted in lieu of the voluntary take-home test). My advice is to wait until you are certain that you want to remain in this course before buying the course reader (which cannot be returned for a refund).
Please note that your are not obligated to buy either textbooks or the course readers for ECO 301Y. You can try to download some but by no means all of the readngs yourself; i.e., for some you will have to go to the Robarts Library to fetch the books and journals from which the other readings are taken. Not everything is online; for some publishers will not supply authors with PDF files, and many journals now will not put online article published within the past five years. So reckon your opportunity cost in trying to acquire all the readings on your own, and measure that against the $65.00 price for the reader.
I have now updated all of the A-List bibliographies, and posted them online: both on my ECO301Y web page and on Blackboard's Portal. The B-List bibliographies have not been updated, nor have any A or B-list bibliographies been updated for the second term. The bibliographies for the second term A-List topics will be updated in late December 2013. See the information on the course readers above, for the five A-List topics for the first semester.

Other recent notices:

With great sadness, I note the passing of one of the greatest economic historians of the later 20th century: David Landes (Harvard University), at age 89. He was the author of many important books, among them The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, which I have used as a recommended textbook for ECO 303Y. I knew David, well, having invited him to speak at the University of Toronto; and in return he invited me to do the same at Harvard (many years ago, now).
As indicated earlier, I have now (3 September) removed from the ECO 301Y lecture website all of the lectures (in both PDF and MS Word) that had been posted online when this course was last given, in 2011 - 2012. If you now click on the URL indicator for the PDF and Word files for these lectures you will receive this error notice: Page not found (error 404). When each lecture has been given in class (and in full, for those taking two weeks), I will then post online the revised version of the lectures, in PDF and Word.
I have not, however, removed any of the ancillary web links on this site: those for graphs, maps, and illustrations for the lectures concerned. Nor have I this year removed any of the Power Point Summmaries of these lectures, which thus will remain online all year, but those for each lecture will be replaced by revised versions after each lecture has been given.
My course on Blackboard's Learning Portal is now activated for students in the course; and virtually all of the web documents for my ECO 301Y course have now been uploaded from my ECO 301Y course website. To log on to Portal, you will need your UTORid and password.
Any upper-year students in History who are interested in taking my ECO 301Y course in medieval & early-modern European economic history but find themselves unduly constrained by the prerequisites should contact me about possible solutions to this problem.
Distributions and Means of Final Grades in ECO 301Y and ECO303Y: from 2003-2004 to the present, in Excel spreadsheets, one for each of these two courses. The academic years are listed from the most recent, on the left of the spreadsheet. Note again that these courses are offered only in alternate years.

On the Use of Turnitin for term essays:

Somewhat reluctantly, I have accepted the advice of both the Director of Undergraduate Studies and my TA (Jessie Lamontagne) to follow most of my colleagues in adopting Turnitin, as a defence aganst the chronic problem of plagiarism in term essays. This year, for the first time, the Turnitin program has been integrated with Blackboard's Portal, with information found at this website , with additional information on this site.
The following is an official statement that U of T requires us to post concerning the use of Turnitin (which is legally not mandatory):
“Normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to Turnitin.com for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site. Turnitin.com is most effective when it is used by all students in a particular course; but, if and when students object to its use on principle, a reasonable offline alternative must be offered. There is a wide variety of non-electronic methods that can be used to deter and detect plagiarism; for example, to require that all rough work is handed in with the paper or that the student include an annotated bibliography with the paper. Instructors may wish to consult with the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation when establishing these alternatives."
On Portal's Blackboard, the submission of the first term essays can be found under 'Course Materials', from the menu on the left-hand column. Do the following, in this order:
(1) Under 'First Term Essays', click on 'View Assignment'
(2) Click on the second box from the left: Submit
(3) Select (i) a submission type: and the default is 'file upload' (uploading a file from your computer)
(4) Submission Details (ii): enter, in the corresponding spaces, your student name and the title of your essay. You should be able to use the drop-down menu to the right of 'student name' to select your name from the class list.
(5) Then under 'Submission, Part 1' and File to Submit, use the Browse function to upload the computer file (PDF, Word) from your computer's hard drive
(6) Submit: click on the Submit button to proceed with the submission; or click on Cancel to quit.

The Course Websites and Lectures: for ECO 301Y and ECO303Y

ECO 301Y course website: The Economic History of Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1250 - 1750. Given in alternate years: not offered in 2012 - 2013, but it will be offered again this year, in 2013 - 2014, as my only course offered in the coming academic year.
The lectures for ECO 301Y and the Power Point summaries (slides): will both remain online until the end of August 2013, when they will be removed before the course begins on 11 September 2013. After each revised lecture has been presented in class, the lectures (in PDF and Word) and the Power Point slides will be restored online.
ECO 303Y course website: The Economic History of Modern Europe, to 1914 (World War I). Given in alternate years only: offered in 2012 - 2013, but not in 2013 - 2014.
The lectures for ECO 303Y : These lectures will remain online until the end of August 2014.
Note that there are no Power Point Slides for lectures in ECO 303Y (only for those in ECO 301Y). BUT, as substitute, I have posted on line summaries of each of the lectures (for 24 weeks), in chronological order: by the date presented in class. Use a search engine to find the specific dates. You may more easily find the specific lectures on this website : the schedule of lecture topic for this course in 2012-2013. These summaries will similarly remain online until the end of August 2014.
This Time Chart of European Economic History, 1300-1750 provides the thematic outline of the entire course (by topic and half-century periods) on one page. This time-line chart allows you to see what happened in each economic sector or area, by half-century periods; and also to relate changes in one sector with changes in the other economic sectors in each time period. Note: there is no such time-chart for ECO 303Y.
Course links on Portal's Blackboard: You will find them by logging into Portal, and clicking on the link for this course. Most of the menu items (listed in the column on the left side, under the course name) are external links to my Home Page.

OTHER NOTICES:

Economists' Opinions: Opinion pieces and blogs on Economics and Public Affairs: by Krugman, Stiglitz, Reich, and other liberal economists.
See The Times Higher Education Supplement: for the rankings of the top 100 universities in the world. The University of Toronto is ranked as no. 16 (the same ranking as last year).

REPEC [Research Publications in Economics]:

The Top 20% of Institutions and Economists in Canada: this REPEC listing, is based a complex formula of working papers online and online publications, downloads, and citations. The listing for the top 20% of authors in Canada follows the listing of Canadian departments and other Economics-related institutions in Canada .
To find the name of an institution or of an economist, in Canada, use the standard search mechanism: CTL F.
John Munro: Research Profile and Academic 'Works': working papers and publications, listed in REPEC.

My own Publications, Working Papers, and Research Data online

My complete list of publications can be found online, on this Department of Economics website. Most of my publications that have appeared from 2000 are freely available from this site, as accessible PDF files, which may be downloaded and printed.
MPRA: The Munich Personal RePEc Archive provides an alternative source of my publications similarly available online, in PDF format. They are listed in alphabetical order (but note that the word "The" is under the letter T).
My online Working Papers and On-Line Publications:
(1) This web page provides access to all my Working Papers (posted since 1998 -- the last fourteen years), while also indicating which ones have been published.
(2) Those publications with PDF file offprints can also be found in the Department of Economics website for faculty publications, with this link for my own online publications. The phrase, highlighted in blue, stating: (Freely available) is the URL link to the PDF file of the publication.
My Research Data On-Line: I have now added all my current research data, most of it from overseas archives, in Excel files, for Textile Prices in the Late-Medieval and Eary Modern Low Countries and England. This will (presumbly) be of interest only to fellow academics and their graduate students, here and abroad. Note that there is a linked web document that explains how these Excel files on textile prices are to be used, especially in terms of quantities (i.e., units of measurement), prices, moneys-of-account, and relative values.

Access to Academic Journals online :

Journals On Line: Please note that I have revised my online web site for Journals on Line. JSTOR, or the University of Toronto's use of this site, has recently changed all of its web links to the journals whose articles it has placed on line; and I have therefore replaced all the 'dead' (inoperative) web links with the newly revised links for all the JSTOR journals on my web page.
If you find any other 'dead' web links on this (or any other web page, linked to my Home Page), please let me know about them, so that I may correct the errors.

Some information about my office and the Economics Building: Max Gluskin House

known as the Crowther building, after the 19th-century merchant who built and long owned this original house. My office is fully accessible by both our new elevator and by the stairs (located to the right of the elevator).
The other parts of the new building are: South Wing (same building as before, but renovated, as in the former Economics structure); the West Wing (new: at the back, facing the lane and courtyard); and the North Wing (also new, in the former driveway, facing the fraternity house).
See also this online document: Max Gluskin House: Building Features

On the Importance of Economic History for the educated layman: for those who value higher education

If you would like to know why European economic history is worth studying, and what approaches I take to the study of economic history: read the following two web documents:

Why Study European Economic History: Major Themes Offered in My European Economic History Courses.
Why Study Economic History (in general)? My Views. Also available in an MS-Word file.
Also, read the introductions to my two European economic history ecourses:
(1) ECO 301Y1: The Economic History of Later-Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1250 - 1750.
(2) ECO 303Y1: The Economic History of Modern Europe to 1914: formerly called 'The Industrialization of Modern Europe, 1750 - 1914'
From the News York Times Opinion Pages, for 1 April 2012, on "Room for Debate: Rethinking How We Teach Economics", read the view of Prof. Robert Skidelsky: Study Economic History. A member of the British House of Lords, and author of Keynes: The Return of the Master, Robert Skidelsky is now Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at the University of Warwick.
From the New York Times Opinion Pages, for 20 July 2012: The Trouble With Online Education.

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