We present the largest homogenous dataset of grain prices for four major types of grain for pre-industrial Germany covering 70 cities with a total of 259 time series. This article describes the sources and the methodology followed to create calendar-year-based price series in grams of silver per...

Although European economic history provides essentially no support for the view that education of the general population has a positive causal effect on economic growth, a recent paper by Becker, Hornung and Woessmann (Education and Catch-Up in the Industrial Revolution, 2011) claims that such...

Dieser Beitrag untersucht Deutschland in der ersten Globalisierung in den Jahrzehnten vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Damals erlebte das Deutsche Reich eine massive Zunahme von Getreideimporten aus Amerika. Wir vergleichen Landkreise, die auf die importierten Getreidesorten spezialisiert waren, mit...

This paper studies money demand in Switzerland under free banking before the establishment of the Swiss National Bank. We find that, in addition to income, the banks' balance-sheet-to-GDP ratio and the number of banks were important determinants of long-run money demand. The former variable also...

This paper examines interest-parity conditions that arguably held as regards the investment demand for bills of exchange during the classical gold standard (1880-1914). Contemporaneous guides to the foreign exchanges report that close connections between the exchange and discount rates arose...

By analyzing the case of Athens during the Classical period (508-323 BCE) the main thesis of this paper is that under direct democracy procedures and the related institutional setup, a monetary system without a Central Bank may function relatively well. We focus on the following issues: (i) The...

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...

Max Weber's path to economic science was impacted to a large degree by political motives. The question emerges how the depiction, which has been maintained by historians of economics, of Weber as a methodologist – who demands objectivity and value freedom in scientific analysis – is...

Currency debasement, defined as a loss of precious metal content (intrinsic value) of the circulating penny currencies over time, was a common feature in the monetary history of Europe, c. 1400–1900. Over the centuries the loss rate was sustained; between 1400 and 1900 A. D. the (south) German...