The aim of this article is to analyze the role of energy in longterm economic growth. Particular attention will be paid to the relation between energy and GDP. Energy productivity, that is the ratio of output to energy (Y/E), will be reconstructed and, through a decomposition analysis, I will...

There were substantial fluctuations in the number of American overseas travelers, especially before World War Two. These fluctuations in travel around the long-term upward trend are the focus of this paper. We first identify those fluctuations in the data and then try to explain the patterns. We...

This paper analyzes the impact of the German autobahn net on the economic performance of German regions. To address endogeneity and reverse causation problems, we use historical instrument variables, i.e. a plan of the railroad net in 1890 and a plan of the autobahn net in 1937. We find a...

The impact of protection on economic growth is one of the traditional issues in economic history, which has enjoyed a revival in recent times, with the publication of a number of comparative quantitative papers. They all share a common weakness: they measure protection with the ratio of custom...

This discussion paper is a follow-up to a previous bibliometric analysis of articles published in The International Journal of Maritime History and maritime-themed articles published in other economic and business history journals over the last 25 years. The paper looks more closely at articles...

El objetivo de este trabajo es el de analizar si existían elementos objetivos, de carácter tecnológico o infraestructural, que impidieran un temprano nacimiento de la industria de construcción de material ferroviario y, específicamente, de locomotoras de vapor. Para ello se hace un repaso a...

The history of Italy since her unification in 1861 reflects the two-way relationship between foreign trade and economic development. Its growth was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the country's integration with European and global commodity markets: foreign trade in the long run grew on...

Because of a growing population and industrialization, total pollution levels in many water-courses around the world have increased considerably for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In the last few decades, however, the trend of increasing water pollution has been turned in many...

The paper presents trade policy as in line with that of other continental European powers, with a move to moderate levels of tariff protection for politically sensitive sectors such as steel and textiles and clothing, but also in agriculture, with levels of protection falling slightly before the...