This paper surveys the results of four recent, separate attempts at estimating agricultural output and food availability in England and Wales at points between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. It highlights their contrasting implications for trends in economic growth and...

Using historical data, we test the validity of Wagner's law of increasing state activity at different stages of economic development for five industrialized European countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Italy. In order to investigate the coherence between Wagner's law and...