This volume was prepared by Erik Hornung while he was working in the Department Human Capital and Innovation of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Economics Department of the University of Munich (LMU). The thesis consists of four core...

Using panel data for Prussia during 1882 to 1910, we replicate Mehlum, Miguel, and Torvik's (2006) study on the causal effect of poverty on crime in 19th century Germany. In addition, our data set allows us to make several original contributions to the literature. We confirm the robust positive...

In this paper we present a new method for estimating market integration under a commodity money system such as that which existed in Europe until the demise of the gold standard. The approach is based on the analysis of deviations between exchange rates and parity, which under conditions of a...