The paper examines the role of the informal rural credit markets in the palestinian agricultural development at the end of the Ottoman Empire. The analysis starts from the long term effects of the legal reforms, particularly the Ottoman Land Code, on the performance of these markets. Such...

The basic aim of this paper is to take a tour de force in order to put the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach in perspective and to assess its limits and further prospects. There existed before it a certain stages-ofcapitalism (SoC) approach with a long history. The SoC approach developed...

This paper places current efforts at international economic policy coordination in historical perspective. It argues that successful cooperation is most likely in four sets of circumstances. First, when it centers on technical issues. Second, when cooperation is institutionalized - when...

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing anti-system parties in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy. What mattered...

We investigate the historical roots of poverty, with particular reference to the experience of Africa during the twentieth century. Like the recent studies by Acemoglu et al (2001, etc) we find that institutional inheritance is an important influence on current underdevelopment; but in addition,...

The cantilever chair is an iconic consumer product of the twentieth century and stands for a modern, progressive lifestyle. It is expensive, often used to furnish exclusive spaces and thereby the opposite of its original artistic vision from the late 1920s. By way of comparing historical prices...

Sovereign debt crises are harmful reoccurring economic phenomena and the subject of how best to achieve sovereign debt sustainability is therefore of paramount importance. For decades economists have struggled to find a robust and consistent means of assessing sovereign debt sustainability. This...

This paper develops a brief history of coffee in Colombia identifying the processes of change in the geography and populations. From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, coffee cultivation represented the basis of household income. Changes in rural and urban culture of the nineteenth century...

This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion...

We analyze the labor market for painters in Baroque Rome using unique panel data on primary sales of still lifes, portraits, genre paintings, landscapes and figurative paintings. In line with the traditional hierarchy of genres, average price differentials between them were high. We identify...