We introduce a new database of historical Genuine Savings (GS), an indicator of sustainable development promoted by the World Bank and widely used in contemporary economic research. GS derives from the theoretical work on wealth accounting, and addresses shortcomings in conventional metrics of...

The paper summarizes research on the heterogeneous experiences of actors in agriculture in Europe and the Americas between the First and Second World Wars. Following a period of increasing globalization of agricultural markets, the First World War sharply limited farming in the main combatant...

Both energy and the environment are inputs into production, influencing the economy and the overall welfare of the population. While the economy itself has been a central focus of economic history from its inception, energy and the environment have received more limited attention. On the energy...

Social welfare spending on health, welfare, and insurance against adverse outcomes expanded a great deal in all of the developed countries during the 20th century. The institutional structure of the spending varies with respect to the extent that governments or market institutions provide the...

The safety nets in high-income countries before 1900 and in low-income countries today were based on savings and aid from extended family, friends, charities, churches, and small amounts from local governments. Mutual societies and eventually insurance companies offered insurance against lost...

Due to a last-minute fight among the candidates, Vox, a party at the right end of the Spanish political spectrum, could not run in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a relatively representative electoral constituency, in the general election of July 23, 2023. Since this fight was a power struggle within...

This paper formalizes the principle that persecution power of government may generate violent contests over it. We show that this principle yields a large set of theoretical insights on different separation-of-powers institutions that can help to preempt such contests under different...

This paper asks whether history should change the way in which economists and economic historians think about populism. We use Müller's definition, according to which populism is 'an exclusionary form of identity politics, which is why it poses a threat to democracy'. We make three historical...

Two centuries ago, in most countries around the world, women were unable to vote, had no say over their own children or property, and could not obtain a divorce. Women have gradually gained rights in many areas of life, and this legal expansion has been closely intertwined with economic...

Tile drainage was first demonstrated in the United States in 1835 as a method to adapt agriculture to excessive water in soils. Subsequently, innovations in coordinated drainage enterprises, engineering, and tile manufacture led to drainage over large portions of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast....