This paper presents a schematic history of the global economy since 1800. The economic and political logic of global capitalism in this period is defined by its ability to derive a growing share of its energy from fossil fuels. The explosive growth of this period, the dominance of capital, the...

An examination and critique of the functionalist literature on corruption in the political administration of less developed countries (LDCs) indicate that its claims are without empirical foundation. Its theses with regard to the political, economic and administrative effects in most LDCs...

This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Eurocentric claims regarding Western Europe's early economic lead. The Eurocentric...

From the standpoint of policies, the different branches of economics may be aggregated into two categories: dirigiste and laissez fairist. Dirigiste theories in economics have been based primarily on the complexity of commodities: this allows commodities to be ranked according to the...

It is the central thesis of this paper that imperialism retarded the development of human resources in lagging countries during the century ending in the 1950s. This result is established both theoretically and empirically. Controlling for other factors that might affect stocks of human capital...

This paper is a theoretical and empirical exploration of the connections between sovereignty (or its absence) and growth rates in lagging countries over the period 1870 to 1950. Using a four-fold taxonomy of sovereignty, our estimates of sovereignty differentials for growth rates of per capita...