Research program: The Domesday economy of England, 1086

 
Prof. John McDonald  

This program uses the Domesday Survey data of 1086 to reconstruct the late eleventh century economy of England.

• Findings are contrasted with those of social and political historians.
• Economic production functions are estimated.
• DEA frontier methods used to analyse efficiency.
• Efficiency of the main classes of production unit compared.
• Factors associated with efficiency investigated.
• And the influences of feudalism and manorialism on production activity assessed.
• The principles behind the taxation system are examined.
• Factors that resulted in lenient tax assessments discovered.
• And the tax treatment of different classes compared.
• The program has been funded by the Australian Research Council and Flinders University.

Program Director

Professor John McDonald, Flinders Business School, Flinders University
Email: john.mcdonald@flinders.edu.au

Professor John McDonald was elected a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1977, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1993 and was appointed to a Personal Chair at Flinders University in 1994. He has published widely in statistics and econometrics, economics and economic history, and was for 10 years an Associate Editor of the American Statistical Journal, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics.

Publications

1.  Were the tax assessments of Domesday England artificial? The case of Essex (PDF 1MB) (with G.D. Snooks), Economic History Review, 38, 1985, 352-372.

2. Statistical analysis of Domesday Book (1086) (PDF 1MB) (with G.D. Snooks), Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A. 148, 1985, 147-160.

3. The determinants of manorial income in Domesday England: Evidence from Essex (PDF 1MB) (with G.D. Snooks), Journal of Economic History, 45, 1985, 541-556.

4. Domesday economy: A new approach to Anglo-Norman history (with G.D. Snooks), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986.

5. The economics of Domesday England (PDF 657KB) (with G.D. Snooks), in Great domesday: The 1986 facsimile, Vol. 1-31, Alecto Historical Editions.

6. The suitability of Domesday Book for cliometric analysis (PDF 726KB) (with G.D. Snooks), Economic History Review, 40, 1987, 252-261.

7. A case of mistaken identity: National taxation and local administration in Domesday England (PDF 1MB) (with G.D. Snooks) School of Economics Research Paper, 1990, 8, Flinders University, Adelaide.

8. The taxation system of Domesday England (PDF 681KB) (with G.D. Snooks) School of Economics Research Paper, 1990, 12, Flinders University, Adelaide.

9. Manorial efficiency in Domesday England (PDF 992KB) Journal of Productivity Analysis, 8, 1997, 199-213.

10. Production efficiency in domesday England, 1086, Routledge, London, 1998, XIV + 233 pages.

11. Domesday economy: An analysis of the English economy early in the second Millennium, National Institute Economic Review, 172, 2000, 105-114.

12. Tax fairness in eleventh century England (PDF 621KB) .  Accounting Historians Journal, 29, 2002, 173-193.

13. Domesday economy, Oxford Scholarship Online Edition, (with G. D. Snooks) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.

14. Economy of England at the time of the Norman Conquest (PDF 645KB) , Online Encyclopedia of Economic History (EH.Net Encyclopedia), 2004, 1-8.

15. Using William the Conqueror?s accounting record to assess manorial efficiency (PDF 229KB) , Accounting History, 10, 2005, 125-145.

16. Analysing historical data: A justification of the use of quantitative methods (PDF 142KB) , Accounting History, 11, 2006, 73-84.

17. Tax policy 900 years ago: How fair were the tax assessments of Domesday England? (PDF 1MB) in Flinders essays in economics and economic history, ed Ralph Shlomowitz, Adelaide, Wakefield, 2008.