Nicolas Dutot (1684–1741) is an important figure for the history of economic thought, as a pioneer in monetary theory and price statistics, and for economic history as a chronicler of John Law’s System. Yet until recently very little about him was known, some of it incorrect. I present...

The relationship between public expenditure and aggregate income has long been debated in economic literature. According to Wagner, expenditure is an endogenous factor or an outcome. On the other hand, Keynes considered public expenditure as an exogenous factor to be used as a policy instrument...

Can elites with access to governing institutions be constitutionally constrained? Effective constitutional constraints must be self-enforcing. This represents a substantial barrier to economic development, especially when elites control governing institutions. This paper analyzes how late Middle...

Archaeology and numismatics have long been familiar with the phenomenon of periodic re-coinage (renovatio monetae), which dominated monetary taxation in medieval Europe for almost 200 years. However, this form of monetary taxation is seldom, if ever, discussed in the literature of economics or...

What accounts for the differences in the “wealth of nations”; that is, the differing levels of opulence across countries? Adam Smith's argument is as relevant today as it was in his time. On the economic side, his answer is well-known: the division of labor, the role of capital accumulation,...

Contrary to modern democracies ancient Athens appointed large numbers of government officers by lot. After describing the Athenian arrangements, the paper reviews the literature on the choice between election and lot focusing on representativeness of the population, distributive justice,...

Europe is on the threshold of a campaign of imposing more disclosure requirements and costs through company and securities legislation. The following issues led to this European policy: Firstly, the SarbOx adaptation policy was put in place to protect European companies from the SEC's filings...

Between 950 and 1950, European states experienced four short intervals of rapid social, political and economic change. Each such period followed the introduction of a macroinvention in information and communication technology. Here these two sets of events are linked by a rational theory of...

Beginning in the second half of the 17th century any deputy could dismiss a session of the Polish-Lithuanian parliament by shouting: I do not allow. This political device came to be known as liberum veto, an unceasing subject of controversy. Historians blame it for the decline and subsequent...

Recent research has indicated that the variations in generalized trust have deep historical roots. This paper argues that geopolitical history may be an important determinant of modern levels of trust. Specifically, regions that have historically been dominated by states of different sizes may...