Welcome to our archive of working papers, articles and monographs written by CEPH members.
This collection encompasses an array of themes and represents the cutting edge of the economic history discipline.
Submit content for consideration to ceph@tcd.ie.
Abstract: While existing evidence shows that nation-building policies unify societies, little is known about how and what makes some societal groups to resist them. We
Abstract: This paper evaluates how a major policy shift—the suspension of the gold standard in September 1931—affected employment outcomes in interwar Britain. We use a
Abstract: This paper investigates the causal effects of sovereign debt crises in a sample of 50 defaulting economies between 1870 and 2010. As default is
Abstract: An influential strand of literature within economics and economic history called ‘persistence studies’ argues that low material living standards in African countries today were
Abstract: This paper uses a novel dataset and the general equilibrium model in Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg (2013) to analyze the Spanish city size distribution, which
Abstract: This paper examines the effects of pre-colonial institutions on economic development in Latin America using historical ethnic homelands as the unit of analysis. We
Abstract: We study the short- and long-term effects of affirmative action policies in the context of China. During imperial China, official positions were awarded to
Abstract: We examine the accessibility and functioning of the patent system in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, a state that existed between 1815 and
Summary: Artificial intelligence (AI) heralds societal changes that could rival those associated with past transformational general-purpose technologies, such as metallurgy, the steam engine, electricity, and
Abstract: The sources formally documenting how tax policy evolves fail to capture many of the complexities inherent in such processes. Insights into such approaches would
Abstract: Studies of colonialism often associate indirect colonial rule with continuity of the precolonial institutions. Yet, we know less about how colonialism affected the distribution
Abstract: This paper uses a new dataset on the universe of Canadian imports and tariffs between 1924 and 1936, disaggregated into 1697 goods originating in
Abstract: During national crises, political elites often rally around the flag, promoting a central message to restore unity and calm the public. COVID-19 provided such
Abstract: Why do we choose one language over another? Rival views see language frontiers as exogenous, driven by policy, or endogenous, determined by social, cultural
Abstract: Industrial policies, such as infrastructure investments and export tariffs, affect the allocation of labor and incomes across sectors, attracting substantial lobbying efforts by special
Abstract: This article surveys the economic policies pursued over the first decade of the Irish Free State. The Cumann na nGaedheal governments of W. T.
Abstract: The transplantation of European legal systems in the periphery often occurred via semi-colonial institutions, where Europeans were subject to their own jurisdictions that placed
Abstract: What is the role of trade policy in promoting intra-Empire trade? We address the question in the context of interwar India, whose trade policies
Abstract: The London Assurance Company (LA), which incorporated during the bubble of 1720, experienced more dramatic price movements in its shares than the South Sea
Abstract: Feelings of collective victimhood have been demonstrated to have a strong effect on ingroup bias, outgroup hostility and support for violence. The use of
Abstract: We introduce a new database of historical Genuine Savings (GS), an indicator of sustainable development promoted by the World Bank and widely used in
Summary: Nationalists think about the economy, Marvin Suesse argues, and this thinking matters once nationalists hold political power. Many nationalists seek to limit global exchange,
Abstract: Alfred Marshall argued that the malaise of public companies in Edwardian Britain was due to the separation of ownership from control and a lack
Abstract: Social scientists have long been interested in how intergroup contact or elite messaging can reduce or eliminate racial biases. To better understand the role
Abstract: This paper argues that the underprovision of public goods can be partly explained by lower demand from Indigenous groups with high preferences for Indigenous
Abstract: New hand-collected school administrative data from 1870s Virginia, alongside linked individual US Census records, reveals that temporary school closures had lasting effects on literacy
Abstract: I investigate the effects of trade on labor coercion under the dual-coercive institutions of slavery and state coercion. Employing novel data from Egypt, I document
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