Although urban growth historically depended on large inflows of migrants, little is known of the process of migration in the era before railways. Here we use detailed data for Paris on women arrested for prostitution in the 1760s, or registered as prostitutes in the 1830s and 1850s; and of men...

How can developing countries successfully implement income taxes, which are generally desirable but costly to collect? This paper analyses the income tax compliance of elites in a developing country with a low administrative capacity, drawing attention to the role of either voluntary or...

Granular microdata is of growing interest within economics and economic history. We present a uniquely detailed database of 21,557 observations of wages and 30,000 observations of prices in rural Denmark for men, women and children, and for both skilled and unskilled workers over the eighteenth...

In the aftermath of Brexit there has been increased speculation into what national borders mean for economic and individual wellbeing. Investigating similar events in history can help us understand some of these potential effects. Malmö, a city in modern-day southern Sweden, was a part of...

Did cholera function as a potent catalyst for the reform of urban water infrastructure in 19th century Europe's disease-ridden cities, serving as "our old ally" in the struggle for urban sanitation (Robert Koch)? Based on a detailed case study of Berlin's hydrological reconfiguration, this paper...

This study provides new evidence on the advance of literacy in Spain during the period 1860-1930. A novel dataset, built with historical information (over 8,000 municipalities) from the Spanish population censuses, enables us to describe this process in detail from the end of the Ancien Régime...

Granular microdata is of growing interest within economics and economic history. Thus, we document, present, and make available to the scholarly community a uniquely detailed database of 20,152 observations of wages and 30,000 observations of prices in rural Denmark for men, women and children,...

Using data on 100 years of 19th century criminal trials at London's Old Bailey, this paper offers clear evidence of disparate treatment of Irish-named defendants and victims by English juries. We measure surname Irishness and Englishness using place of birth in the 1881 census. Irish-named...

We estimate the height of various European populations in the first half of the 18th century. English and Irish male heights are estimated at c. 65 inches (165 cm), and c. 66 inches (168 cm) respectively. These values are below those obtained from the only other sample available for the period...

The physical stature of lower- and upper-class English youth are compared to one another and to their European and North American counterparts. The height gap between the rich and poor was the greatest in England, reaching 22 cm at age 16. The poverty-stricken English children were shorter for...