This research explores the effect of industrialization on the process of development. In contrast to conventional wisdom that views industrial development as a catalyst for economic growth, the study establishes that while the adoption of industrial technology was conducive to economic...

The following paper attempts to trace the construction of the standard employment contract in Germany from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. It was from this point in time that wage labour slowly came into being and later on developed more broadly. At first, state regulations were...

Do empires affect attitudes towards the state long after their demise? We hypothesize that the Habsburg Empire with its localized and well-respected administration increased citizens' trust in local public services. In several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the...

Do empires affect attitudes towards the state long after their demise? We hypothesize that the Habsburg Empire with its localized and well-respected administration increased citizens' trust in local public services. In several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the...

This paper reviews Finnish economic history during the ‘long’ twentieth century with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth. We argue that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable, and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth...

We consider the impact of non-violent religious conflict on firm-level productivity. We zoom in on a Protestant and otherwise very homogeneous country: early twentieth century Denmark. We exploit variation due to the emergence of pietist movements who fought for the hearts and minds of Danes. In...

'Upper tail knowledge', embodied by knowledge elites, has been suggested to be a driving force of industrialization and development, yet measuring it remains problematic. Despite some recent innovations, much empirical work continues to rely on measures of 'average' or 'non-upper tail' human...

Children early in the birth order get more parental care than later children. Does this significantly affect their life chances? An extensive genealogy of 428,280 English people 1680-2024, with substantial sets of complete families, suggests that birth order had little effect on social outcomes...

This study presents a new database, the Swedish National Wealth Database (SNWD), which contains annual data on private, public and national wealth and sectoral saving rates in Sweden over the past two centuries. The paper reviews previous investigations of national wealth, compares their...