This paper discusses some aspects of the changing relationship between thestudy of economic history and development economics. Forty years ago thesubjects seemed to be quite closely linked in the sense that senior figuresstraddled both areas, the development history of the advanced countries...

Economists generally assume that the state has sufffcient institutional capacityto support markets and levy taxes, assumptions which cannot be taken forgranted in many states, neither historcally nor in today’s developing world.Our paper develops a framework where "policy choices" in market...

Joe is one a small group of influential economists who brought theorizing aboutdevelopment processes to a new level. In trying to understand the reasons why low pooreconomies remain so, he was among the first to appreciate the importance of informationand contracting issues. His seminal...

The emergence of new economic activities is the driving force of economic development. The development of such activities is often ‘lumpy’, manifesting itself in rapid growth of particular regions or sectors. Recognition of these facts requires a reorientation of the analytical frameworks...

This paper explores the pre-First World War Austro-Hungarian economy as a prominent case where growing conflict between various ethnic and national groups within an empire might have contributed to the emergence of internal borders and even its eventual dissolution. To this end we adopt an...

The British industrial revolution created an industrial economy. While casual discourse conflates industrialization and economic growth, Britain was remarkable primarily for the pronounced structural change that occurred rather than for rapid economic growth. Uniquely the British labour force...

Historical narratives which place the Glorious Revolution at the beginning and Parliament near the centre of explanations for the rise and success of Britain’s fiscal military state begin to seem truncated in chronology, narrow in conception and insular in focus. Nevertheless, their stories...