We combine unsupervised machine-learning and econometric methods to examine cultural change in 16th- and 17th-century England. A machine-learning digest synthesizes the content of 57,863 texts comprising 83 million words into 110 topics. The topics include the expected, such as Natural...

We generate and analyze data pertinent to the role of caselaw in England's economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Applying topic modeling to a corpus of 67,455 reports on English court cases, we construct annual time series of caselaw developments between 1765 and 1865. We then...

We generate and analyze data pertinent to the role of caselaw in England's economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Applying topic modeling to a corpus of 67,455 reports on English court cases, we construct annual time series of caselaw developments between 1765 and 1865. We then...

We examine spatial spillovers between countries in the development of institutions. Our dependent variables are three measures of institutions that relate to politics, law, and governmental administration. The major explanatory variable on which we focus is a spatial lag of the dependent...

Self-regulation is common, but comparative analysis of self-regulation and government regulation is rare. This paper identifies conditions determining whether regulation is delegated or centralized, analyzing the welfare implications of regulatory regime choice. Because regulatory authority...

We revisit the ubiquitous claim that aiding civil society improves institutional outcomes. In our model, a vibrant civil society initiates public debate in a reform process that would otherwise be dominated by partisan interest groups and politicians. By altering the incentives of interest...

The history of England’s institutions has long informed research on comparative economic development. Yet to date there exists no quantitative evidence on a core aspect of England’s institutional evolution, that embodied in the accumulated decisions of English courts. Focusing on the two...