Our research expands earlier studies on elite human capital by widening the geographic scope and tracing the early roots of the European divergence. We present new evidence of elite numeracy in Europe since the sixth century CE. During the early medieval period, Western Europe had no advantage...

The Black Death killed 40% of Europe’s population between 1347-1352, making it one of the largest shocks in the history of mankind. Despite its historical importance, little is known about its spatial effects and the effects of pandemics more generally. Using a novel dataset that provides...

We test various hypotheses about the causes of the Little Divergence, using new data and focusing on trends in GDP per capita and urbanization. We find evidence that confirms the hypothesis that human capital formation was the driver of growth, and that institutional changes (in particular the...

This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that the severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered political centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and...

We present new data documenting European capital issues in major financial centers from 1919 to 1932. Push factors (conditions in international capital markets) perform better than pull factors (conditions in the borrowing countries) in explaining the surge and reversal in capital flows. In...

This article documents and examines the integration of markets across the early modern/late modern divide, exploiting the largest dataset compiled to date on grain prices, spanning one hundred European cities evenly spread across land-locked and low-land areas. Using those series, it studies...

This paper discusses Gelderblom’s hypothesis that urban competition (including a large number of competing cities, footloose foreign traders and municipal autonomy) was central to the rise of inclusive trade institutions in Europe. The first part discusses the precise behaviour of traders,...

Age data frequently display excess frequencies at attractive numbers, such as multiples of five. We use this "age heaping" to measure cognitive ability in quantitative reasoning, or "numeracy". We construct a database of age heaping estimates with exceptional geographic and temporal coverage,...

The paper discusses different attempts to measure economic growth in Europe before the Industrial Revolution. It is argued that the figures published by Angus Maddison probably overestimate growth between 1000 and 1820. Next, a method for simulating long-term patterns of growth is presented, and...

The view of a 1870-1913 expanding European economy providing increasing welfare to everybody has been challenged by many, then and now. We focus on the amazing growth that was experienced, its diffusion and its sources, in the context of the permanent competition among European nation states....