The deep roots of rebellion
Abstract: This paper analyzes the triggers of rebellion and documents the historical roots of conflict using a unique dataset at the individual level. Drawing on evidence from the Famine (1845–1850) and its effect on the Irish Revolution (1916–1921), we show how negative shocks can explain social unrest in the long run. These findings are confirmed […]
Capital market development over the long run: the portfolios of UK life assurers over two centuries
Abstract: What shapes and drives capital market development over the long run? In this paper, using the asset portfolios of UK life assurers, we examine the role of regulation, historical contingency, and political reactions to events on the long-run development of the UK capital market. Government response to events such as war, hegemony-secured peace, and […]
The settlers’ fortunes: Comparing tax censuses in the Cape Colony and early American republic
Abstract: Europeans at the end of the eighteenth century had settled across the globe, from North and South America to Australia to the southern tip of Africa. While theories of institutional persistence explain the ‘reversal of fortunes’ between settled and unsettled regions, few studies consider the large differences in early living standards between settler societies. […]
Agri-Business Firms and Irish Agriculture in the Decades to Independence
Abstract: Most agricultural output in early 20th century Ireland was consumed on the farm or exported in an unprocessed state. A significant share nevertheless served as an input to Irish industry. While farmers and agri-business firms operated on opposite sides of the market, their relationship was symbiotic: the health of one impacted on the health […]
Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights
Abstract: Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the US, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This article shows that the Great Migration and support for […]
From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration
Abstract: How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the U.S. South to Northern urban centres, which were home to millions of European […]
Winners and losers from agrarian reform: Evidence from Danish land inequality 1682–1895
Abstract: Pro-market and pro-farmer agrarian reforms enacted in eighteenth century Denmark laid the basis for rural development but we demonstrate that they also resulted in increased inequality. We investigate this using a novel parish-level database spanning more than two centuries. We identify the impact of land quality on inequality following the reforms by instrumenting with soil […]
Globalization
Abstract: This chapter written for the Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy argues that you cannot understand the history of globalization without taking political factors into account; and that you cannot understand the history of comparative economic development without taking globalization into account. Globalization compels us to take geography seriously and to think more like […]
Fringe banking and financialization: Pawnbroking in pre-famine and famine Ireland
Abstract: Pawnbroking, one of the oldest and most accessible forms of credit, was a common feature of life in pre-famine and famine Ireland. This article studies the role of pawnbroking in the Irish financial system during this important period, applying insights from modern studies on fringe banking. In the period under study, a formal tiered […]
What explains patenting behaviour during Britain’s Industrial Revolution?
Abstract: A recent re-evaluation of patenting during the British Industrial Revolution argues patentees were responsive to demand-side conditions. This view does not consider supply-side factors, such as a patentee’s skill or access to financial resources, as an alternative mechanism. I exploit a rich dataset of patentee occupations to investigate the role a patentee’s economic or […]
Financial Inclusion with Hybrid Organizational Forms: Microfinance, Philanthropy, and the Poor Law in Ireland, c. 1836–1845
Abstract: The turbulent 1830s saw a sequence of great political and social reforms in the United Kingdom. One such reform was the introduction of a locally funded Poor Law in Ireland. The development of a nascent welfare system in 1838 coincided with a boom in the formation of microfinance institutions in Ireland. The focus of […]
The growth and diversity of the Cape private capital market, 1892–1902
Abstract: The adoption of limited liability in the nineteenth century is considered to have boosted economic growth and expanded capital markets in Europe and North America. Despite similar legal changes in frontier markets such as South Africa, very few attempts have been made to analyse the economic effects thereof. After the Cape Joint Stock Company […]
Urban growth shadows
Abstract: Does a location’s growth benefit or suffer from being geographically close to large economic centers? Spatial proximity may lead to competition and hurt growth, but it may also improve market access and enhance growth. Using data on U.S. counties and metro areas for the period 1840–2017, we document this trade-off between urban shadows and […]
Folklore
Abstract: Folklore is the collection of traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community passed through the generations by word of mouth. We introduce to economics a unique catalog of oral traditions spanning approximately 1,000 societies. After validating the catalog’s content by showing that the groups’ motifs reflect known geographic and social attributes, we present […]
That’s classified! Inventing a new patent taxonomy
Abstract: Innovation researchers currently make use of various patent classification schemas, which are hard to replicate. Using machine learning techniques, we construct a transparent, replicable and adaptable patent taxonomy, and a new automated methodology for classifying patents. We contrast our new schema with existing ones using a long-run historical patent dataset. We find quantitative analyses […]
Bubbles in History
Abstract: Bubbles have become ubiquitous. This ubiquity has stimulated research over the past three decades into bubbles in history. In this article, we provide a systematic overview of research into historical bubbles. Our analysis reveals that there is no coherent approach to the study of bubbles and much of the debate has unhelpfully focussed on […]
Weber Revisited: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Nationalism
Abstract: We revisit Max Weber’s hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber’s Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late nineteenth-century century Prussia we reject Weber’s suggestion that Protestantism mattered due to an “ascetic compulsion to save.” Moreover, we find that […]
Rural Transformation, Inequality, and the Origins of Microfinance
Abstract: What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit cooperatives in the 236 eastern counties of Prussia between 1852 and 1913. […]
Private Contracting, Law and Finance
Abstract: In the late nineteenth century Britain had almost no mandatory shareholder protections, but had very developed financial markets. We argue that private contracting between shareholders and corporations meant that the absence of statutory protections was immaterial. Using circa 500 articles of association from before 1900, we code the protections offered to shareholders in these […]
Globalization, agricultural markets and mass migration: Italy, 1881–1912
Abstract: Despite the significant attention paid to the current consequences of globalization for migration behavior, there are few historical accounts of the effect of commodity market integration at the local level. We set our paper within the context of the first globalization era, when migration flows were largely unregulated, and highlight how exogenous shocks in […]
Occupational structure in Ireland in the nineteenth century: data sources and avenues of exploration
Abstract: This paper considers structural change in post-Famine Ireland through an examination of changes in the allocation of the labour force across three broad production sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary. To do so, it makes extensive use of the Irish Census of Population from 1821 to 1911 as a source of occupational information. While there […]
Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries: British Literature, Political Thought, and the Transatlantic Book Trade, 1731-1814
Abstract: Early American libraries stood at the nexus of two transatlantic branches of commerce—the book trade and the slave trade. Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries bridges the study of these trades by demonstrating how Americans’ profits from slavery were reinvested in imported British books and providing evidence that the colonial book market was shaped, […]
Convergence in the pre-1914 Atlantic economy: what really happened to wages in Ireland between 1881 and 1911?
Abstract: After the Famine, Irish wages caught up to those of Great Britain. Catch-up is ascribed to globalised labour markets and the effects of emigration. However current estimates of the level of Irish wages and their rate of growth are based on a small sample of the male workforce. This article presents estimates of the […]
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