This paper identifies a sharp decline in the volatility of consol prices after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The volatility of consol returns drops by more than half after 1815 and our empirical testing confirms a long period of remarkable stability that includes the entire Victorian...

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which...

In the study of the North Korean economy, industrial and business activities still remain uncharted territory. They are the most basic components of an economy, yet the scarcity of information makes those in North Korea almost impossible to understand from the outside world. Today, the general...

In his recent presidential address to the American Economic History Association, Paul Hohenberg argued that anthropometric history does not meet his criteria for useful research in the field of economic history. He considers research useful if (a) it "helps shape one of our underlying...

Aktuelle wirtschaftshistorische Forschung belegt, dass vergangene historische Begebenheiten einen großen Einfluss auf aktuelle wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklungen haben. Auf der Konferenz »The Long Shadow of History« kamen international renommierte Wissenschaftler am Center for Advanced...

The interrelationship between financial constraints and firm activity is a hotly debated issue. The way firms cope with financial constraints is fundamental to the analysis of monetary transmission, of financial stability and of growth and development. The CBI Industrial Trends Survey contains...

This paper focuses on the role of absorptive capacity in determining whether or not domestic firms benefit from productivity spillovers from FDI using establishment level data for the UK. We allow for different effects of FDI on establishments located at different quantiles of the productivity...