Early states like China, India, Italy and Greece have been experiencing more rapid economic growth in recent decades than have later-comers to agriculture and statehood like New Guinea, the Congo, and Uruguay. We show that more rapid growth by early starters has been the norm in economic...

Die Ukraine beantragte die Mitgliedschaft im IMF und der Weltbankgruppe am 19.Dezember 1991. Im Januar 1992 besuchte ein IMF-Expertenteam Kiew, um die künftige Wirtschaftspolitik zu besprechen, die Wirtschaftsstatistiken zusammenzustellen und Vorschläge für Maßnahmen zu unterbreiten. Der...

The history of the occupations “author” and “photographer” provides an insightful perspective on copyright and creativity. The concept of the romantic author, associated with personal creative genius, gained prominence in the eighteenth century. However, in the U.S. in 1900 only about...

Price volatility, reflecting the ability to absorb exogenous supply- or demand shocks, is an important dimension of market performance. In this paper we present a model to study the factors determining the price volatility of markets of basic foodstuffs in pre industrial societies. This model is...