This essay elaborates concepts and methods for the analysis of welfare regimes in a variety of historical settings. Motivated by an analysis of welfare regimes in the wake of state-socialism, the essay addresses a more general set of questions about the properties, determinants, and effects of...

In 1979, when anthropometric history was still in its infancy, Robert Fogel and collaborators reported that the height of the US male white population began to decline quite unexpectedly around the birth cohorts of 1830. This was quite a conundrum on account of the fact that according to...

We construct and estimate a model that features endogenous growth and technology diffusion. The spillover effects from research and development provide a link between business cycle fluctuations and long-term growth. Therefore, productivity growth is related to the state of the economy. Shocks...