It is not easy to write the ‘long-term’ economic history of any region in India -- which may account for the fact that very few such histories have been written. One obvious problem concerns the availability of data: where a paucity of sources for the pre-colonial period suddenly becomes...

In the vast body of development theoretical knowledge oneelement has been of a considerable longevity: the abstraction of aGross Domestic Product to represent a given economic entity.This paper suggests approaching the history of developmentthinking by travelling with the GDP through this...

In everyday scientific practice, facts come in two sizes: smallfacts (data acquired by researchers through experimentation orfield work), and big facts (claims about phenomena for whichdata function as evidence). This paper explores the processesthrough which small and big facts are circulated...

We study cross-country differences in the aggregate production function whenskilled and unskilled labor are imperfect substitutes. We find that there is a skill biasin cross-country technology differences. Higher-income countries use skilled labormore efficiently than lower-income countries,...