We consider the relative contributions of changing technology and institutions for economic growth through the investigation of a natural experiment in history: the almost simultaneous introduction of the automatic cream separator and the cooperative ownership form in the Danish dairy industry...

Is a lack of domestic energy resources necessarily a limiting factor to growth, as suggested for example by the work of Robert C. Allen? We examine the case of Denmark - a country which historically had next to no domestic energy resources - for which we present new historical energy accounts...

This paper examines the relationship between government spending and charitable activity. We present a novel way of testing the ‘crowding out hypothesis’, making use of the fact that welfare provision under the Old Poor Laws was decided on the parish level, thus giving the heterogeneity we...

In a recent paper Ferrie and Long (2012) argue that historically high levels of social mobility can lead to a culture of non-acceptance of redistribution and welfare provision. We apply this hypothesis to England, where it has been noted that, at least historically speaking, the North and the...

The success of Danish agricultural exports at the end of the nineteenth century is often attributed to the establishment of a direct trade with Britain. Previously, exports went mostly via Hamburg, but this changed with the loss of Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia in the war of 1864. After...

Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared to other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the...

We consider an example of the impact of a new good on producers of close substitutes: the invention of margarine and its rapid introduction into the British market from the mid-1870s. This presented a challenge to the traditional suppliers of that market, butter producers from different European...

The late nineteenth century Danish agricultural revolution saw the modernization and growth of the dairy industry. Denmark rapidly caught up with the leading economies, and Danish dairying led the world in terms of productivity. Uniquely in a world perspective, high quality micro-level data...