This study exploits the confiscation and auctioning off of Church property that occurred during the French Revolution to assess the role played by transaction costs in delaying the reallocation of property rights in the aftermath of fundamental institutional reform. French districts with a...

Decades of investment decisions by central planners left communist societies with structures of production ill-prepared for competitive markets. Their vulnerability to liberalization, however, varied across space. Similar to the effects identified in the "China shock" literature, we hypothesize...

In this paper we investigate the relation between population, wages and urban population in the Italian economy. During the period examined, 1320-1870, the prevailing conditions were those of a poor, mainly agricultural economy with limited human capital and rudimentary technology. However,...

The Reformation provided a powerful source of legitimacy for secularization of governance and enabled the regional authorities to change the institutional structure to eliminate the inefficiencies under the prevailing (Catholic) regime. We investigate this idea in a simple model of regime change...

This study exploits the confiscation and auctioning off of Church property that occurred during the French Revolution to assess the role played by transaction costs in delaying the reallocation of property rights in the aftermath of fundamental institutional reform. French districts with a...

Decades of investment decisions by central planners left communist societies with structures of production ill-prepared for competitive markets. Their vulnerability to liberalization, however, varied across space. Similar to the effects identified in the “China shock” literature, we...

In this study we review the literature on the relationship between landownership inequality and the accumulation of human capital in historical perspective. Furthermore we provide new evidence on the relationship between landownership inequality and marriage patterns at the county level in...

We consider a world economy, in which the global public good ’biodiversity’ is positively correlated with that share of land which is protected by land-use restrictions against the deterioration of habitats and ecosystems. The willingness-to-pay for biodiversity conservation is positive in...

This paper studies the effect of landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth-century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that landownership concentration,...

What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit...