The paper measures productivity growth in seventeen countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  GDP per worker and capital per worker in 1985 US dollars were estimated for 1820, 1850, 1880, 1913, 1939 by using historical national accounts to back cast Penn World Table data for 1965...

There is an implicit consensus that 1930s exchange-rate regimes can be characterised as some variant of 'floating'.  This paper applies an adaptation of modern methodologies of exchange-rate regime classification to a panel of 47 countries in weekly observations between January 1919 and August...

Many previous studies of the role of trade during the British Industrial Revolution have found little or no role for trade in explaining British living standards or growth rates.  We construct a three-region model of the world in which Britain trades with North America and the rest of the...

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing anti-system parties in elections in the 1920s and 1930s.  We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy.  What...

The half-century before World War I has been characterized as the first age of financial globalization. This paper focuses on the role and significance of the bondholders` organizations for the governance of this market. I argue that the outcome of these institutions depended on two dimensions:...

This paper surveys the experience of economic growth in the 20th century with a focus on technological change at the frontier together with issues related to success and failure in catch-up growth.  A detailed account of growth performance based on historical national accounts data is given and...

This paper explores the determinants of sovereign bond yields during the classical gold standard period (1872-1913). Using the Pooled Mean Group methodology, we find that the main benefit of the gold standard can be seen as a short-hand device that enhanced a country`s reputation in...

Using data from a randomized control trail in Sri Lanka, this paper explores whether cash and in-kind grants helped microenterprises approach the productivity level of SMEs.  The paper first estimates production functions and subsequently treatment effects on TFP levels.  Most significantly,...

A large literature describes how local risk sharing networks can help individuals smooth consumption in the face of idiosyncratic economic shocks.  However, when an entire community faces a large covariate shock, and when the transaction costs of transfers are high, these risk sharing networks...

This paper examines recent employment practices among 39 families of Rayalaseema area of Andhra Pradesh, India.  A social class analysis offers a starting point for the study of employment contracts.  Employment practices are diverse, but the habitus of the employers and employees sometimes...