Social welfare spending on health, welfare, and insurance against adverse outcomes expanded a great deal in all of the developed countries during the 20th century. The institutional structure of the spending varies with respect to the extent that governments or market institutions provide the...

The safety nets in high-income countries before 1900 and in low-income countries today were based on savings and aid from extended family, friends, charities, churches, and small amounts from local governments. Mutual societies and eventually insurance companies offered insurance against lost...

The paper summarizes research on the heterogeneous experiences of actors in agriculture in Europe and the Americas between the First and Second World Wars. Following a period of increasing globalization of agricultural markets, the First World War sharply limited farming in the main combatant...