This paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of UK banking crises over the period 1750 to 1938. We construct a new annual banking crisis series using bank failure rate data, which suggests that the incidence of banking crises was every 32 years. Using our new series and a narrative approach...

In June 2017, in the negotiations between Greece, the European Union and its Member States, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, it was decided that the highly-indebted country in Europe's southern periphery should receive an additional disbursement of 8.5 billion...

Douglass North gehört zu den führenden Sozialwissenschaftlern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Er wurde für seine bahnbrechenden Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der ökonomischen Geschichtstheorie mit dem Nobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Dieser Aufsatz rekonstruiert (a) seine kliometrische Diagnose der Moderne, (b)...

The financial crises of 2007-2008 and the subsequent worldwide recession show the importance of exploring the correlation between financial and real crises. Starting from our new estimation of the Italian business cycle (Bartoletto et al., 2017), we analyze the linkage between banking crises and...

This paper is a thoroughly revised and extended version of an article firstly published in the anthology "Moderne Wirtschaftsgeschichte" (München: Oldenbourg) in 1996. This book is an introduction to modern economic history for historians and economists. Accordingly this paper has to two...

Building on a new dataset on Italian banks and other financial corporations from 1861 to 2011, the novelty of this paper is to examine the patterns of the main items of bank’s balance sheets, such as deposits, capital and reserves, bonds issued, bonds held in portfolio, and loans for a period...

The aim of this article is to analyze the role of energy in longterm economic growth. Particular attention will be paid to the relation between energy and GDP. Energy productivity, that is the ratio of output to energy (Y/E), will be reconstructed and, through a decomposition analysis, I will...

We examine the role of substitution from traditional to modern energy carriers and of differential rates of innovation in the use of each of these in Sweden from 1850 to 1950. We use a simple growth model with a nested CES production function and exogenous factor augmenting technological change...

This Special Issue of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti celebrates the 150th anniversary of Italy's political unity. Since 1861, Italy has evolved from a poor, backward and agrarian economy to a rich and industrial economy; has gone though bouts of economic insularity and integration; has swung...