Pandemics & Society Seminar, 18 September: “Survivors: The psychological impact of the Black Death on economic performance”.
For the first Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2025 series we are pleased to welcome Robert Braid (University of Montpellier). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 18 September at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.
Abstract: This paper integrates the findings of psychology and behavioral economics in order to understand better an historical phenomenon. After the Black Death, a plague epidemic which wiped out roughly 40% of the population, the historical data runs counter to all economic theory that would predict an increase in productivity and higher real wages. Peasants inherited the most fertile lands and had larger farms, yet grain yields fell. Capital (tools, windmills, livestock, carts, etc.) per capita increased tremendously but productivity fell. Commercial infrastructure and public administration remained intact, but trade dropped off. There was an acute shortage of labour yet real wages stagnated. Although climate factors may account for some of these trends, they don’t explain all, leaving economic historians of this period perplexed. This study argues that the Black Death caused trauma in survivors, altering levels of biochemicals leading to increased agitation and lack of attention in some and disengagement in others, similar to the behavior of victims of PTSD. Chroniclers and other observers recorded a number of behavior patterns among survivors which suggest that the Black Death was a deeply traumatic event which affected their ability to work. These findings are also consistent with the historical data on productivity and may also shed light on the increased levels of civil unrest in the post-plague era.
Biography: Robert Braid is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Montpellier (France), and member of the Center for Environmental Research – Montpellier. He focuses on the origins of economic regulations across different western European regions, in particular in the 13th and 14th centuries. Most of his work has been dedicated to understanding the psychological, social and economic impact of the Black Death which gave rise to a broad wave of unprecedented economic regulations seeking to constrain the demands of workers and retailers. He has also worked on the medieval scholastic literature that attempts to give a moral framework both for economic agents and for rulers who seek to regulate their behavior, and how this literature changed soon after the plague. He has also worked on wage theory and the history of economic thought in general.