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...

This study establishes a link between medieval trade, agglomeration and contemporary regional development in ten European countries. It documents a statistically and economically significant positive relationship between prominent involvement in medieval trade and regional economic development...

This paper presents a micro-level historical and theoretical analysis of Genoa's economic and political history during the twelfth and thirteenth century by examining the factors influencing the extent to which its political system was self-enforcing and their change over time. It combines...

The routes of early railways around the world were generally inefficient because the prevailing doctrine of the time called for concentrating on provision of fast service between major cities and neglect of local traffic. Modern planners rely on methods such as the "gravity models of spatial...

The paper investigates the role of speculation in the Liverpool cotton futures market between 1921 and 1929. The analysis is based on historical descriptions of the working of speculation in commodity markets and is related to the tenets of behavioural finance. The model posits the existence of...

The three exchange rate regimes adopted by Italy from 1883 up to the eve of World War I - the gold standard (1883-1893), floating rates (1894-1902), and “gold shadowing” (1903-1911) - produced a puzzling result: formal adherence to the gold standard ended in failure while shadowing the gold...

Crowding-out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the...

This paper studies the operation of trans-Atlantic passenger shipping cartels during the period 1899-1911 and its effects on passenger traffic. We systematically document and categorize cartel agreements on the basis of key aspects of internal organization. Then, we exploit the variation in...

We show that the creation of the first integrated pan-European transport network during Roman times influences economic integration over two millennia. Drawing on spatially highly disaggregated data on excavated Roman ceramics, we document that interregional trade was strongly influenced by...

I study the business practices of the Comédie française, the main theater in Paris, between 1680 and 1793. The theater was an actors' partnership and operated within a (contested) oligopoly. Newly available data provide revenues by price category for over 32,000 performances. Attendance varied...