This paper examines the evolving effects of England's Old Poor Law (1601-1834). It establishes that poor relief reduced social unrest from around the late-17th century through the turn of the 19th century, at which point it began to spur population growth and its social stability effects...

Although cross section relationships are often taken to indicate causation, and especially the important impact of economic growth on many social phenomena, they may, in fact, merely reflect historical experience, that is, similar leader-follower country patterns for variables that are causally...

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...

Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children...

Why do some leaders invest in significant nation-building policies and others do not? Why does nation-building occur at certain junctures in time and not others? In our research, we investigate what motivates leaders to nation build. We argue that threats to their regime motivate rulers to...

According to the widely known 'culture of honor' hypothesis from social psychology, traditional herding practices are believed to have generated a value system that is conducive to revenge-taking and violence. We test this idea at a global scale using a combination of ethnographic records,...

In this paper, we investigate how changes in the skill mix of local labor supply are absorbedby the economy. We distinguish between three adjustment mechanisms: through factorprices, through an expansion in the size of those production units that use the moreabundant skill group more...

The aim of the current paper is to estimate the need for new PhDs in the Estonian academicsector for the 5-year period 2007-2012 using a survey of employers, such as universities,institutions of applied higher education and research institutes. The doctoral workforce in allcountries around the...

This paper examines international technology transfers using firm-level data across 43developing countries. Our findings show that exporting and importing activities are importantchannels for the transfer of technology...

Using a unique longitudinal representative survey of both manufacturing and nonmanufacturingbusinesses in the United States during the 1990’s, I examine the incidenceand intensity of organizational innovation and the factors associated with investments inorganizational innovation...