The origin of the modern publicly-held joint-stock company is typically traced to large-scale maritime trading companies in England and the Netherlands in the early 17th century. Highlighting medieval cases in southern Europe, we claim that the joint-stock company likely emerged in several times...

At the individual level, we test the adjustment of the female age at marriage (FAM) to the economic conditions that the supporters of the “European Marriage Pattern” assume. For a typical French village, we collect exhaustive data on families and marriage contracts as well as accurate...