The Prebisch-Singer hypothesis is often popularised as implying a declining long-run trend in primary commodity prices relative to manufactures, and conventional datasets to examine the hypothesis typically commence at the beginning of the 20th century. Theoretical rationales include the...

We examine the formation and growth of the distressed asset investment industry during the late twentieth century, with specific focus on the strategies of the leading firms. The distressed asset investment industry is dominated by firms based in the United States and is relatively concentrated,...

I compare and contrast the relief efforts in response to the extraordinary employment of the Great Depression in the U.S. and Australia. The effectiveness of relief spending in America at the local level is discussed with reference to a series of studies that I have performed with a series of...

Australia is notably, if not notoriously, a land of much space but few people. Its population density is, correspondingly, almost the lowest of any country in the world: only Namibia and Mongolia record a lower figure. Australia’s extreme divergence from the common human experience has been a...

We examine the health and height of men born in England and Wales in the 1890s who enlisted in the army at the time of the First World War. We take a sample of the army service records and use this information to find the recruits as children in the 1901 census. Econometric results indicate that...

This is a draft chapter for B. R. Chiswick and P. W. Miller (eds.) Handbook on the Economics of International Migration. It provides an overview of trends and developments in international migration since the industrial revolution. We focus principally on long-distance migration to rich...

We examine the labour market experience of the UK and the US in the recessions of the early 1920s and the early 1930s and the subsequent recoveries. These were deep recessions, comparable to that of 2008-9, but the recoveries were very different. In the UK the recovery of the 1920s was...

This paper examines pathways through which parental characteristics might affect children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Using the 2004 LSAC, I show that more educated and mentally healthier parents are likely to have children with better outcomes. While educated parents are more...

Tracking households and individuals over time is important for a variety of research and policy questions. Exploring the validity of matched household and individuals within a dataset is a necessary step for ensuring the reliability of analysis designed to address such questions. This paper...