Fourie and Green construct estimates of the Khoikhoi population over the 1652- 1780 period using benchmarks for the initial and terminal Khoi populations and benchmarks for the punctuated population declines from smallpox epidemics in 1713 and 1755. I review the evidence underlying each of the...

How states acquire the ability to raise taxes is a central question in the study of institutions and economic development in economic history. This paper uses new data on 'ËœNative Authorities', or African local governments, to investigate tax compliance under indirect rule in British Africa....

Contemporary African fiscal systems are usually portrayed as being subject to significant instability, which has negative consequences for public spending and development. However, this paper documents significant long-term fiscal stabilisation in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger and Senegal...

The flexibility of slave labour as an economic institution has often been assumed as a given. In general, some capital investment is necessary to retrain novice slaves but essentially they could be substituted for any other form of labour. This paper refutes the claim of the flexibility of slave...

Few could have foreseen the consequences when the British Parliament, in 1807, passed the Slave Trade Act that sought to abolish slave imports into the British Empire. From population decreases in the British Caribbean to increased prices in the Cape Colony, historical evidence suggests that the...

This paper sheds new light on the impact and experience of western biomedicine in colonial Africa. We use patient registers from Western Uganda's earliest mission hospital to explore whether and how Christian conversion and mission education affected African health behaviour. A dataset of 18,600...

We review developments in the history of money, banking, and financial intermediation over the last twenty years. We focus on studies of financial development, including the role of regulation and the history of central banking. We also review the literature of banking and financial crises. This...

This paper studies the role played by politics in shaping the Italian railway network, and its impact on long-run growth patterns. Examining a large state-planned railway expansion that took place during the second half of the 19th century in a recently unified country, we first study how both...

The history of AI in economics is long and winding, much the same as the evolving field of AI itself. Economists have engaged with AI since its beginnings, albeit in varying degrees and with changing focus across time and places. In this study, we have explored the diffusion of AI and different...

This study uses prices for the German 3 percent imperial loan issued in several tranches since 1890 and still traded during World War I to measure capital market players' real-time perceptions of the prospects for Germany as the war proceeded. Price data are gathered from the Amsterdam market...