We test the history-augmented Solow model with respect to its predictions on the patterns of divergence and convergence between the nowadays industrialized countries of the OECD. We show that the dispersion of incomes increased after the Industrial Revolution, peaked during the Second World War,...

In this paper we study Malthusian pressures in a frontier economy. Using the empirical data on the real prices and demographic variables from 1688 to 1860 for Quebec and Montreal, we test for the existence of Malthusian pressures. Bearing in mind the particularities of frontier economies and the...

In this article, we offer a revision to the top income share series produced by Piketty and Saez (2003) for the United States, focusing upon the period prior to and including the Second World War. The inequality estimates for these years form the left-side of a century-long U-curve that has...

This study creates estimates of GDP per capita for Canada from 1688 to 1790 in order to evaluate Canadian growth before the 19th century and generate international comparisons of living standards. These estimates show that Canada experienced little growth during the period and growth reversals...

Social justice, as a concept, has long been considered inimical to the classical liberal tradition (Hayek 1976; Nozick 1973; 1974). To be fair, there is much to criticize about the concept. The definitional fluidity of the term, along with its frequent deployment for “activist” political endeavors,...

Was 1986 Nobel Laureate James Buchanan an intellectual heir of South Carolina slavery apologist and political thinker John C. Calhoun? Further, was Buchanan's worldview shaped by segregationist Nashville Agrarian poet Donald Davidson? These are claims made by historian Nancy MacLean in her 2017...

In the late 1940s, the United States experienced a “lobotomy boom” where the use of the lobotomy expanded exponentially. We engage in a comparative institutional analysis, following the framework developed by Tullock (2005), to explain why the lobotomy gained popularity and widespread use...

Recent historical works, most notably 2017's Democracy in Chains, claim that 1986 Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan's formative contributions to political economy were inspired in significant part by hostility to Brown v. Board of Education. This argument suggests that the research agenda of...