We argue that the system of seigneurial tenure used in the province of Quebec until the mid-nineteenth centurya system which allowed significant market power in the establishment of plants, factories and mills, combined with restrictions on the mobility of the labor force within each seigneurial...

In this paper, I attempt to extend insights regarding statistical aggregates, from scholars such as Hayek (1931) and Mises (1947), to the topic of inequality. Using the work of Lindert and Williamson (2016), I show that a disaggregation of inequality into some of its many subcomponents alters...

The central contribution to economic science by Friedrich Hayek, co-winner of the 1974 Nobel in economics, is his theoretical understanding of how prices coordinate human decision-making by condensing and communicating the vast knowledge disseminated throughout society (Hayek 1945). Hayek's...

In the present paper, I intend to question the broad "U-Curve Narrative" of income inequality in the United States. First, I argue that a part of the rise of inequality in recent decades is overestimated but that it did nonetheless increase. Second, I argue that a part of that increase in...

This study creates estimates of GDP per capita for Canada from 1688 to 1790 in order to evaluate Canadian growth before the 19th century and generate international comparisons of living standards. These estimates show that Canada experienced little growth during the period and growth reversals...

The theory of state capacity predicts that states with powerful abilities - as long as they are constrained - can promote economic growth. Many scholars argue that post offices historically approximate state capacity and that they can be used to evaluate the state’s ability to promote...

Canada is one of the richest countries in the world today. It stands above most countries in the Americas. It is also noticeably poorer than its American neighbour in spite of considerable geographic similarities. These two facts were true as early as the 17th century. Why? An understanding of...