During the hundred-year period from about 1320 to about 1420, the Florentine woollen cloth industry underwent two closely connected crises. The first crisis was the consequence, direct and indirect, of the ravages of warfare and falling population, afflicting the entire Mediterranean basin and...

A recurrent and indeed persistent problem in European economic history – a veritable deus ex machina -- from medieval to modern times, is Europe’s supposed ‘balance of payments’ problem in trade with the ‘East’. This supposed problem has often been couched in Mercantilist overtones:...

This study is a much revised and extended version of two previously issued working papers on the production, sale, and consumption of woollen textiles in England and the Low Countries, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It focuses on the hey-day of the production and international...

The Anti-Red Shift -- to the Dark Side: Changes in the Colour Patterns and Market Values of Flemish Luxury Woollens, 1300 - 1550 This study documents, though it cannot fully explain, the striking shift in the spectrum of colour patterns in woollen textiles, from those of the Black Death era in...

If mankind’s three basic necessities have always been food, clothing, and shelter, whose production, trade, and consumption have rightly been a primary focus of economists and economic historians for many generations, we may ask this vital question: how do they distinguish between necessities...

The clothing sector has been a driver of diversification and growth for countries that have graduated into middle income. Using a partial adjustment panel data model for 61 countries 1975-2000, we investigate the global international location of clothing production by using a combination of...

The clothing sector has been a driver of diversification and growth for countries that have graduated into middle income. Using a partial adjustment panel data model, this study tries to explain the international location of clothing production based on a combination of variables suggested by...

This paper revisits old questions of the proper subject and bounds of economics: Does economics study “provisioning”? or markets? or a method of reasoning, self-interested rational optimization? A variety of scholars and others in many fields make use of a taxonomy of society consisting of...

Why are certain movies more successful in some markets than others? Are the entertainment products we consume reflective of our core values and beliefs? These questions drive our investigation into the relationship between a society's oral tradition and the financial success of films. We combine...

This study investigates the effects of gender quotas in national elections on political participation, public policy, and corruption in Latin America. We are able to replicate the findings from previous research that women in politics do affect these outcomes, but only when we treat the number...