Did the Prussian three-class franchise, which politically over-represented the economic elite, affect policy-making? Combining MP-level political orientation, derived from all roll call votes in the Prussian parliament (1867-1903), with constituency characteristics, we analyze how local vote...

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...

It is generally argued that, in the context of Imperial Germany, public primary education was used to form "loyal citizens" and to build a nation. In this paper we analyze to what extent central spending on primary education affected participation at general elections and votes for...

Can religiosity sway a society's propensity for violence against outgroups? We first introduce two state-year-level religiosity measures for several pre-Enlightenment European states with the frequencies of (i) religious language in book publications and (ii) Christian names of newborns. To...

In this paper we study the effect of institutional reform on the decision to hold risky assets at the extensive and the intensive margin. We therefore make use of the natural experiment of German Division and Reunification and, based on savings bank customer data from German savings banks, study...

This study relies on a recent reform introducing gubernatorial term limits at the Portuguese local level to explore how an exogenous variation in eligibility for re-election affects local fiscal policy choices. Relying on electoral and fiscal outcomes for the past three complete electoral terms...

Recent research has highlighted social image and identity concerns as factors that influence economic decisions. Given that an individual’s choice of employment may be important for their social image, we consider a model of worker sorting into the mission-oriented or private sector with...

The institutional reforms France imposed in the parts of Germany it occupied in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are claimed to provide an example of successful externally-imposed institutional reforms. The most detailed study is that of Lecce and Ogliari (2019), who argue that...

Germany prides itself in having one of the most successful central banks and currencies with respect to independence and stability. I show that not only were both imposed on the country after 1945 but that there was also initial resistance to both among German experts and officials. This is a...