The late 1960s was a ‘major watershed’ for the evolution of labour laws in Hong Kong because social disturbances during 1966 and 1967 caused a ‘crucial shift of establishment attitudes’. Employers, who were ‘severely jolted’ by the events, quickly accepted thereafter the need for...

Referencing once-confidential tobacco industry documents, we compare reviews of the epidemiological literature concerning tobacco harm that were carried out by the U.S. Tobacco Industry Research Committee (T.I.R.C.) and the U.S. Public Health Service and related groups during the 1950s and early...

This paper asks why the Classical Gold Standard (1870s - 1914) emerged: Why did the vastmajority of countries tie their currencies to gold in the late 19th century, while there was onlyone country – the UK – on gold in 1850? The literature distinguishes a number of theories...

Drawing on a new data set of monthly observations, this paper investigates similarities and differences in discount rate policy of 12 European countries under the Classical Gold Standard; it asks, in particular, whether bank rate policy followed different patterns in core and peripheral...

Relying on dynamic factor business cycle indices for five South-East European countries (Austria(-Hungary), Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia/Yugoslavia), we document steadily increasing synchronisation as part of a pan-European business cycle before 1913 and the emergence of a regional business...

Drawing on monthly data for 12 European countries, this paper asks whether countries under the Classical Gold Standard followed the so-called “rules of the game” and, if so, whether the external constraint implied by these rules was more binding for the periphery than for the core. Our...

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Barbados formed one of the world's most successful economies, specialised in exporting sugar produced using enslaved labour. This paper analyses an account book maintained by the Bridgetown merchant factor, Richard Poor Jr, between 1699 and 1713. Poor...

By combining new archival and existing data, this paper provides estimates of the economic impact of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the largest ever-recorded natural catastrophe in Europe. The direct cost of the earthquake is estimated to be between 32 and 48 percent of the Portuguese GDP. In spite...

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Despite the fact that slavery existed historically in almost all known societies, historians have as yet been unable to identify any shared values from which the institution could have arisen. This article reconstructs slavery as a form of debt or obligation, by suggesting that slavery occurred...