This work analyzes the effects of transport costs and corruption on the sustainability of natural resources use in West Africa. We develop an explicitly spatial model of how transport costs and corruption can affect natural resource exploitation. We then test its implications using a unique...

This paper deals with agricultural dynamics in late-Imperial Russia. Based upon a comprehensive micro-level data set on annual yields between 1883 and 1913, we provide insight into regional differences of agricultural growth and the development prospects of Russian agriculture before WWI. Making...

Our purpose here is to challenge the big-bang approach to economic history in which some alleged institutional imposition - a deus machine - is claimed to launch a series of new economic behaviors. This so-called prime mover is then carried forward by the inexorable forces of path dependency to...