Southeast Europe’s countries are often denominated as the ‘first developing nations’. Since the end of the 19th century the question of industrialization dominated public economic debates in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and later on Yugoslavia. However, despite all soaring rhetoric no...

This paper uses linked apprenticeship-family reconstitution records to explore the influence of family structure on human capital formation in preindustrial England. We observe a small but significant relationship between birth order,resources and human capital investments. Eldest sons were less...

The history of tax havens during the decades before World War II is still little known. To date, the studies that have focused on the 1920s and 1930s have presented either a very general perspective on the development of tax havens or a narrow national point of view. Based on unpublished...

The French census of 1851 is one of the few nineteenth-century censuses that attempted to record the work of women and children carried out within households. This paper argues that the occupational designations in the nominative census lists are an accurate indicator of employment status. This...

This research tests the long-standing hypothesis put forth by Lynn White, Jr. (1962) that the adoption of the heavy plough in Northern Europe was an important cause of economic development. White argued that it was impossible to take proper advantage of the fertile clay soils of Northern Europe...

Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared to other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the...

This research evaluates the impact of the introduction of clover and potatoes on urbanization using a panel of Danish market towns from 1672 to 1901. We find evidence that both clover and potatoes contributed to urbanization using a difference-in-difference type estimation strategy which...

The consensus among legal and economic historians that British law between 1844 and 1914 provided little protection to corporate shareholders is based on formal provisions in the Companies Acts. In fact these Acts applied only to companies registered by the Board of Trade. Moreover corporate law...

In the beginning of the 1890s, counties located in the Cotton Belt of the American South were hit by an agricultural plague, the boll weevil, that adversely affected cotton production and hence the demand for labor. We use variation in the incidence of the boll weevil multiplied with countiesÕ...

I analyze the age at death of 121,524 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violence contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect...