Decolonization, legitimacy and fiscal capacity: Event study evidence from Africa
Abstract: A vast literature across several academic disciplines studies the impact of colonial rule, but less attention has been paid to the consequences of decolonization. This paper uses a recently-constructed dataset on the fiscal history of African countries from 1900 to 2015 to analyze the impact of decolonization on fiscal capacity (defined as revenue from […]
The industrial geography of Eurasia in the 20th century: Soviet planners meet Tsarist fundamentals
Abstract: How responsive is the location of economic activity to shocks? This paper uses a new data set on the location of factories in the Russian Empire (1890, 1908) and the Soviet Union (1989), supported by modern nightlight data, to explore the forces determining the spatial location of industrial production in Eurasia over the long […]
The long-term effects of teachers’ gender stereotypes on labor outcomes
Abstract: This paper links a teacher-level measure of gender-stereotyped grading — validated against their Implicit Association Test (IAT) scores — to the later schooling and labor-market outcomes of 1.6 million Peruvian students. Exposure to a more stereotyped teacher widens the gender gaps in high-school completion, formal-sector employment, and earnings, driven by boys’ lasting gains rather […]
The Military Trap: Why Roman Emperors Died More Violently Than Chinese Emperors
Abstract: This article presents a direct bilateral comparison of imperial survival in China and Rome during 27 BCE–476 CE. Using data on 58 Chinese and 97 Roman emperors, I document that Roman emperors faced a violent death rate of 60.8% (59/97), nearly double the Chinese rate of 31.0% (18/58) (p < 0.001). The gap persists across periods and […]
Trade diversion and labor market adjustment: Vietnam and the U.S.-China trade war
Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of the U.S.-China trade war on labor market outcomes in a third country, Vietnam. We exploit variation in the extent of U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese imports across industries as well as pre-existing industry employment patterns in Vietnam. We find that Vietnamese individuals and districts that are more exposed […]
Transplanting Company Law: Shareholder Protection in the Cape Colony
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the transplantation of British company law into the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth century. The Cape Colony Companies Act of 1892 was like its British counterpart in that it provided minimal investor protection. This meant that promoters were free to choose the level and types of shareholder safeguards […]
Macroeconomic costs of gender gaps: the case of Mexico
Abstract: This article uses the Cuberes and Teignier (2018) model to study the quantitative effects of gender inequalities on entrepreneurship and labor force participation in Mexico. Focusing on a single country allows us to obtain detailed information on men’s and women’s labor force participation in domestic production, as well as their productivity in this sector. […]
Public good or public bad? Nation-building and Indigenous institutions
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 examine this in the context of the post-Mexican Revolution (1920s–1950s), when the new state implemented a nation-building policy to eliminate Indigenous cultures and identities by increasing connectivity via transport infrastructure. […]
Property rights, fiscal capacity, and social capacity: The lasting impact of the Taiping Rebellion
Abstract: We examine the long-term regional development effects of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), one of the deadliest civil wars in human history and a critical juncture in China’s path toward modernity. Our analysis shows that some areas under the control of the Taiping regime experienced important institutional changes, including stronger land property rights, greater local […]
China’s anticorruption campaign and civil servant fever
Abstract: What is the impact of anticorruption efforts on entry into bureaucratic jobs? This paper approaches the question theoretically and empirically through the lens of China’s anticorruption campaign instituted in 2013. We leverage a novel data set of national civil service exams. Exploiting assignment and timing variations in anticorruption inspections of government departments, our difference-in-differences estimate […]
The Aftermath of Sovereign Debt Crises: A Narrative Approach
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 potentially endogenous, we use the narrative approach to identify plausibly exogenous episodes. We find economically and statistically significant costs of up to 3.2 percent of GDP before recovering to the […]
Applied Economic History as Practical Historicism: Encouraging Policymakers to Reason with the Past
Abstract: This paper examines how applied history can contribute to policymaking when understood as a way of structuring judgement under uncertainty rather than as a source of policy lessons or predictions. It argues that economic history is particularly well suited to facilitating this role because it combines institutional analysis with disciplined comparison of plausible alternatives […]
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 […]
On the persistence of persistence: Lessons from long-term trends in African Institutions
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 determined by institutional choices made in the past. However, the lack of consistent annual data on GDP per capita or institutional variables has meant that this literature has been largely […]
Remote Investing in Latin America, 1869-1929
Abstract: Substantial amounts of British capital flowed to Latin America during the first era of globalization. Companies financed by this capital were typically headquartered in the United Kingdom, but operated thousands of miles away. This paper asks how this geographic separation between governance and business activities affected the valuation of these firms. We show that […]
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 […]
Precolonial Elites and Colonial Redistribution of Political Power
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 of power between precolonial domestic elites within nominally continuous institutions. We argue that colonial authorities will redistribute power toward elites that are the most congruent with the colonizer’s objectives. We […]
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 […]
Central Bank Independence: Views from History and Machine Learning
Abstract: We assemble an almost complete set of central bank statutes since 1800 to assess the legal independence of central banking institutions. We use these to extend existing indices of legal independence backward and forward in time. We document the trend toward increased independence post 1980 as well as an earlier, more limited movement in […]
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 […]
Transhumant Pastoralism, Climate Change and Conflict in Africa
Abstract: We consider the effects of climate change on seasonally migrant populations that herd livestock—i.e., transhumant pastoralists—in Africa. Traditionally, transhumant pastoralists benefit from a cooperative relationship with sedentary agriculturalists whereby arable land is used for crop farming in the wet season and animal grazing in the dry season. Rainfall scarcity can disrupt this arrangement by […]
The Ends of 27 Big Depressions
Abstract: How did countries recover from the Great Depression? In this paper, we explore the argument that leaving the gold standard helped by boosting inflationary expectations, lowering real interest rates, and stimulating interest-sensitive expenditures. We do so for a sample of 27 countries, using modern nowcasting methods and a new dataset containing more than 230,000 […]
What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature
Abstract: What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023, with the final review encompassing 169 research papers selected […]
The Last Free Traders? Interwar Trade Policy in the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies
Abstract: There has still been too little detailed work on the protectionism that emerged in the wake of the Great Depression. In this paper we explore the experiences of two countries that have been largely neglected in the literature, the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies (NEI). How did these traditionally free-trading economies respond to the […]
The Demand for Extraterritoriality: Religious Minorities in Nineteenth-Century Egypt
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 them outside the reach of local courts. In nineteenth-century Egypt, the option of extraterritoriality was extended to local non-Muslims. Drawing on Egypt’s population censuses in 1848 and 1868, we show […]