It is appropriate to conlude on a modest note. Economists really know little about the costs and benefits of monetary unification. We have trouble modelling the increase in economic efficiency associated with a single currency, and we disagree about value of an independent monetary policy.

This paper analyses the evolution of an economy where growth is driven by increased specialization caused by the geographical expansion of markets.

It is commonplace to observe that one of the great changes of the modern age is not only that life expectancy is much longer than a century or two ago, but that there has been a radical change in the causes of death. Even in the nineteenth century, infectious disease was by far the biggest cause...

This study is concerned with a case study of a famine in an economy where internal food markets are generally deemed to have been poorly integrated, ancien regime France. In the century or so before the Revolution, most historians agree that high transport costs and local vested interests...

This paper carries out an analysis of wage discrimination on the basis of health on UK data with a number of important modifications. First we control for selection into health status. Second the direct effect of health upon productivity is accounted for and third, we examine discrimination with...

A quality ladder model is used to test for Marshallian externalities in innovation. The model predicts that, in the absence of spillovers, the geographical distribution of research should be random.

Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey's excellent The Rise of Free Trade (RFT) gathers together speeches, contemporary writing and extracts from parliamentary debates relating to British trade policy between 1815 and 1906 (the year in which free trade was consolidated by a decisice General Election victory...

Along with other prospective EMU members, the Irish government is now commited to the "Stability and Growth Pact", which proposes heavy penalties for countries whose deficit-to-GDP ratios breach certain stipulated conditions. Agreement on the broad outlines on the Pact of Dublin Summit of 13-14...

This paper analyses disaggregative growth models which treat development as progress through a space of commodities, from simple to more complex goods.

To test a model of contagion -where individuals hear some bad news and communicate it to their acquaintances, who pass it on in turn, leading to a market panic- requires a knowledge of the information networks of market participants, something hitherto unavailable. For two panics in the 1850s...