Week 2 suggested essay topic:

"English agriculture enjoyed a significant productivity advantage over French; can this be attributed to differences in property rights and land tenure patterns?"

A related topic, which unfortunately is difficult to address in a comparative way, could be an evaluation of the Marxian claim that English enclosures were mostly about expropriation. E.P. Thompson wrote "Enclosure (when all the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of class robbery, played according to fair rules of property and law laid down by a Parliament of property-owners and lawyers." (I can provide some suggestions for reading if you want to pursue this.) On the French side, a related, interesting, non-comparative question might be "Did the the land reforms of the Revolution block France's transition to a more modern, productive agriculture?"

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics online. See articles on "Property Rights", "Institutions and Economic Growth", and "New Institutional Economics" and browse related topics.

Allen, Robert, "Agriculture During the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850," CEHMB 1st ed., vol. I, ch. 4, pp. 96-116.

--- , and Cormac O'Grada, "On the Road Again with Arthur Young: English, Irish and French Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution," JEH, vol. 48 (1988), pp. 93-116.

--- , "Tracking the Agricultural Revolution in England," EHR, vol. 52 (1999), pp. 209-235.

--- , "Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300-1800," EREH, vol. 4 (2000), pp. 1-25.

Brenner, R. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe," reprinted in T. Aston and C. Philpin (eds.), The Brenner Debate (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), pp. 10-63.

Clark, Greg, "Commons Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change," JEH, vol. 58 (1998), pp. 73-102. Argues against importance of enclosures.

Crafts, N. F. R., and C. Knick Harley, "Precocious British Industrialisation: A General Equilibrium Perspective," Ch. 4 in Exceptionalism and Industrialisation: Britain and its European Rivals, 1688-1815, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, ed. (Cambridge: CUP, 2004). Also available in working paper form, should be downloadable.

Finley, T., R. Franck, and N. Johnson, "The Effects of Land Redistribution: Evidence from the French Revolution," working paper, 2018. Argues that redistribution of former Church land during the Revolution raised agricultural productivity, which the authors relate to an increase in inequality of landholding.

Grantham, George, "The Persistence of Open-Field Farming in 19th Century France," JEH, vol. 40 (1980), pp. 515-31. Argues that in 19c some benefits to enclosure weren't realised due to a legislative framework made it difficult, with political considerations keeping the laws in place.

--- , "Agricultural Supply during the Industrial Revolution: French Evidence and European Implications," JEH, vol. 49 (1989), pp. 43-72.

--- , "The French Cliometric Revolution", EREH, vol 1 (1997), pp. 353-405.

--- , "Divisions of Labour: Agricultural Productivity and Occupational Specialization in Pre- Industrial France," EHR, vol. 46, no. 3 (Aug. 1993), pp. 478-502."

Hoffman, Philip, "Land Rents and Agricultural Productivity: The Paris Basin, 1450-1789," JEH, vol. 51 (1991), pp. 771-805.

--- . Growth in a Traditional Society. The French Countryside, 1450-1815. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996. Chs. 1-3 are a very readable and interesting introduction. Ch. 4 is about the evidence in the JEH article cited above.

McCloskey, D., "The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a Study of Its Impact on Efficiency of English Agriculture in the 18th Century", JEH, vol. 32 (1972), pp. 15-35.

O'Brien, Patrick, "Path Dependency, or Why Britain Became Industrialised and Urbanised Long Before France", EHR, vol. 49 (1996), pp. 213-49.

O'Brien, Patrick and Caglar Keydar. Economic Growth in Britain and France. Ch. 5, pp. 102-145.

Root, Hilton. Peasant and King in Burgundy. Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism. Berkeley CA: U. of California Press, 1987. Develops the idea that the Crown strengthened communal village institutions for fiscal reasons.

Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, "The Development of Irrigation in Provence, 1700-1860," JEH, vol. 50 (1990), pp. 615-38. Not about the open fields: a valuable analysis of property rights and agriculture from a slightly different angle. Rosenthal argues that overly-secure individual property rights and overlapping jurisdictions greatly complicated building irrigation systems.