The use of historical data has become a standard tool in economics, serving three main purposes: to examine the influence of the past on current economic outcomes; to use unique natural experiments to test modern economic theories; and to use modern economic theories to refine our understanding...

France sent five thousand men to fight alongside George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War. We show that the French combatants' exposure to the United States of America increased support for the French Revolution a decade later. French regions (départements) from which more...

This paper is the first to provide evidence about the relationship between bride price payments and fertility decisions in the African context. Remarkably, the results show that bride price payments reduce fertility pressure, with a woman reducing her number of children by 0.5 at the mean bride...