In this paper we examine the concept of “vulnerability” within the context of incomemobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the UKusing Waves 1 - 12 of the British Household Panel Study and find that, of threedifferent types of risks that we test for,...

Acemoglu, Johnson, & Robinson (2002) have claimed that the world incomedistribution underwent a "Reversal of Fortune" from 1500 to the present, wherebyformerly rich countries in what is now the developing world became poor whilepoor ones grew rich. We question their analysis with regard to both...

We introduce a model of redistributive income taxation and public expenditure. Thisjoint treatment permits analyzing the interdependencies between the two policies: onecannot be chosen independently of the other. Empirical evidence reveals that partisanconfrontation essentially falls on...

In this paper we examine the concept of "vulnerability" (Townsend 1994) within thecontext of income mobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerablehouseholds in the UK using Waves 1 - 12 of the British Household Panel Survey andfind that, of three different types of risks that we...

This paper revisits Bairoch’s hypothesis that in the late 19th century tariffs were positively associated with growth, as recently confirmed by a new generation of quantitative studies (see O`Rourke (2000), Jacks (2006) and Clemens-Williamson (2002, 2004)). This paper highlights the importance...

This paper presents new regional GDP estimates for the Habsburg Monarchy and constructs measures of market potential for its 22 major regions. The paper argues that regional income differentials were significantly larger, that intra-empire catching-up of poor with rich regions was far more...

At the start of the long wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, the taxes available to the British state fell mainly on outlays made by its citizens, upon domestically produced commodities and services. Smaller proportions came from import duties and direct taxes upon their incomes...

Much of the literature on economic change in the post-1945 world is permeated by two ideas: the temporal convergence of per capita incomes across economies and the spatial advance of free trade. For many economists and historians the two are linked: the reduction of trade barriers in the...

Economic convergence has emerged as one of the key debates in the theoretical andhistorical literature over the last decade. Galor identified three forms of long run percapita income convergence: absolute convergence, whereby convergence occursindependently of the initial conditions facing each...

As part of an endeavour to explain the divergence in incomes per capita between North and South America new institutional economics (NIE) and economic history have attempted in recent years to realize the potential effort for illumination derivable from comparisons of the heritage of their...