Did the Prussian three-class franchise, which politically over-represented the economic elite, affect policy-making? Combining MP-level political orientation, derived from all roll call votes in the Prussian parliament (1867-1903), with constituency characteristics, we analyze how local vote...

Motivated by the lack of previous research on historical inequality in Central Europe, this paper constructs wealth inequality statistics for a larger town in South Bohemia, Budweis. The data sources are rare detailed local tax censuses from 1416 and 1523 and a national tax register from 1654 as...

This paper is based on the difference between the formal introduction of a Weberian bureaucracy and its actual implementation through state officials. This difference between the formal institutional framework and its actual implementation could lead to failed reforms. On the other side, there...

This study examines a facet of institutional change in 19th Century Spain. Empirical analysis of a zone in the Ebro valley confirms that the process of selling commons prior to the 1855 Ley de Desamortización (Disentailment Law) was of great significance. It evaluates the nature of the changes...

How do a government arise from anarchy? In a classic article, Mancur Olson (1993) theorized that it could occur when a roving bandit decides to settle down. This stationary bandit comes to recognize an encompassing interest in its territory, improving its lot by providing governing and...

The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 began the process of the eventual unification of Spain. Over the ensuing decades, Spain finally conquered the Muslims at Granada in 1492 and completed the Reconquista. Spain then began a period of imperial expansion with...

Critical scholarship views corporate accumulation – a fundamental driver of capitalism – as inherently dispossessive, involving violence and expropriation. However, dispossession also involves practices of legitimation that are related to coercive violence in complex ways. We examine the...