Crowd-sourced Chinese genealogies as data for demographic and economic history
Abstract: This paper evaluates the usefulness of crowd-sourced Chinese genealogical data for quantitative research in demography and economic history. I first examine whether genealogies — despite well-known selection biases — produce demographic patterns consistent with established historical knowledge of China. Comparisons with existing studies show that aggregate population-growth trends and sex ratios over time align […]
Credibility is not enough: Fiscal monetization and currency depreciation in early-modern Venice
Abstract: This paper focuses on an early unique experiment of managed float of State-issued money, implemented in Venice between 1619 and 1666. Building on a new hand-collected database from a previously unused archival source, we show that, despite the Venetian Banco ducat’s status as an international currency and the government’s fiscal credibility, the exchange rate […]
Pre-colonial institutions and economic development in Latin America: Evidence from a new ethnic homeland dataset
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 construct a newly digitised and georeferenced map of 257 ethnic homelands. Our results show a strong and positive relationship between pre-colonial institutions and contemporary economic development. Beyond the role of […]
The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Imperial China
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 the most academically talented individuals through a multi-stage examination process administered by the central government. In 1712, a reform was implemented to address disparities in exam performance, aiming to equalize […]
Religion and Economic Development: Past, Present, and Future
Abstract: This chapter examines the role of religion in economic development, both historically and today. Religion’s influence varies globally, with high religiosity in countries like Pakistan and low rates in China. Despite declines in some Western countries, religion remains influential worldwide, with projected growth in Muslim populations due to higher fertility rates. Religion continues to […]
Income Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa’s Cape Colony
Abstract: Attempts to measure social mobility before the twentieth century are frequently hampered by limited data. In this paper, we use a new source – annual, matched tax censuses over more than 70 years – to calculate intragenerational income mobility within a preindustrial, settler society, the Dutch and British Cape Colony at the southern tip […]
Early modern globalization and the extent of indigenous agency: Trade, commodities and ecology
Abstract: This paper examines the responses of Indigenous nations and European companies to new trading opportunities: the Cree nations with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and the Khoe nations with the Dutch East India Company [Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC)]. This case study is important because of the disparate outcomes. Within a few decades the Cree […]
Lobbying for Industrialization: Theory and Evidence
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 interest groups. Yet, the link between structural change and lobbying remains underexplored. Using more than 150 years of data on parliamentary petitions in USA and Britain, we measure historical lobbying […]
Respectable standards of living: The alternative lens of maintenance costs, Britain 1270-1860
Abstract: This paper argues that in all societies there is considerable agreement about what goods and services are needed to provide a decent living, and that this standard can be measured by the expense involved in maintaining people of good standing. Maintenance costs include two components of living costs that are neglected in conventional approaches. […]
Careworn: The Economic History of Caring Labor
Abstract: Economists ignore caring labor since most is provided unpaid. Disregard is unjust, theoretically indefensible, and probably misleading. Valuation requires estimates of time spent and the replacement or opportunity costs of that time. I use the maintenance costs of British workers, costs which cover both the material inputs into upkeep and the domestic services needed […]
Songlines
Abstract: This paper examines the long-term economic impacts of the adoption of local knowledge during European colonisation. We use the case of Australia, where Aboriginal knowledge of the landscape was integral to colonial exploration and settlement. To quantify the effects of this knowledge, we construct a newly digitised and georeferenced dataset of trade routes created […]
The anatomy of a bubble company: The London Assurance in 1720
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 Company. This paper examines how incorporating during the bubble affected its long run performance. We show that the bubble in the Company’s share price was partly attributable to changes in […]
The Country They Built: Dynamic and Complex Indigenous Economies in North America before 1492
Abstract: The economic history of the United States is that of Europeans and their institutions. Indigenous nations are absent. This absence is partly due to a lack of data but perhaps also to a perception that Indigenous communities contributed little to U.S. growth. Three case studies explore the economic complexity and social stratification across different […]
Dating business cycles in the United Kingdom, 1700–2010
Abstract: This paper constructs a new chronology of the business cycle in the United Kingdom from 1700 on an annual basis and from 1920 on a quarterly basis to 2010. The new chronology points to several observations about the business cycle. First, the cycle has significantly increased in duration and amplitude over time. Second, contractions […]
Monopsony Power and Wages: Evidence from the Introduction of Serfdom in Denmark
Abstract: We exploit a large historical shock to the Danish labour market to provide evidence of how restrictions on labour mobility increase monopsony power and thereby reduce wages. By severely limiting the possibility of the rural population to work beyond their place of birth, the reintroduction of serfdom in 1733 aimed to increase monopsony power […]
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. […]
Indigenous Nations and the Development of the U.S. Economy: Land, Resources, and Dispossession
Abstract: Abundant land and strong property rights are conventionally viewed as key factors underpinning U.S. economic development success. This view relies on the “Pristine Myth” of an empty undeveloped land, but the abundant land of North America was already made productive and was the recognized territory of sovereign Indigenous Nations. We demonstrate that the development […]
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 […]
A time to print, a time to reform
Abstract: The public mechanical clock and movable type printing press were arguably the most important and complex technologies of the late medieval period. We posit that towns with clocks became upper-tail human capital hubs—clocks required extensive technical know-how and fine mechanical skill. This meant that clock towns were in position to adopt the printing press […]
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 […]
Sovereign Debt Default and Restoration Literature: Dryden’s Exclusion Crisis Poems, Goldsmiths, and the Stop of the Exchequer of 1672
Abstract: This essay explores the Stop of the Exchequer of 1672 (the only sovereign debt default in English history) not only as one possible cause of the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis of 1678-1681, but also as one explored in the print media culture war around that crisis. It does so by analyzing two poems […]
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, […]
Pre-colonial institutions and socioeconomic development: The case of Latin America
Abstract: We study the effects of pre-colonial institutions on present-day socioeconomic outcomes for Latin America. Our thesis is that more advanced pre-colonial institutions relate to better socioeconomic outcomes today. We advance that pre-colonial institutions survived to our days thanks to the existence of largely self-governed Amerindian communities in rural Latin America. Amerindians groups with more […]
Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution
Summary: Winner, 2010 Donald Murphy Prize for a Distinguished First Book, American Conference on Irish Studies. Renowned as one of the most brilliant satirists ever, Jonathan Swift has long fascinated Hibernophiles beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle. Sean Moore’s examination of Swift’s writings and the economics behind the distribution of his work elucidates the […]
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