Un nouvel indice de la productivite agricole: Les baux de Notre Dame de Paris, 1450-1789

Abstract

This paper presents a new method of measuring agricultural productivity in the era before agricultural censuses, a method that relies on evidence concerning prices and land rental rates to calculate the total factor productivity of agriculture. The method is both more informative and more reliable than the typical comparisons of crop yields and output per worker, and the paper explains it using a sample of leases drawn from the archives of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The analysis of this sample reveals some of the causes of agricultural growth under the Old Regime and suggests that the agriculture of the période was capable of considerable development, at least in the Paris Basin. What growth occurred, though, was extremely sensitive to political crises.