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The escape from hunger: The impact of food prices on well-being in Sweden, 1813–1967 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-12-18 Tommy Bengtsson, Luciana Quaranta
This study analyses how the standard of living for different social groups changed when Sweden developed from an agricultural to an industrial society and when the first steps towards a modern welfare society were taken. As a measure of living standards, we use the ability to overcome short-term economic stress caused by high food prices. We use individual-level longitudinal data from 1813 to 1967
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The political effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Weimar Germany Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-12-18 Stefan Bauernschuster, Matthias Blum, Erik Hornung, Christoph Koenig
How did the 1918 Influenza pandemic affect elections in Weimar Germany? We combine a panel of election results (1893–1933) with spatial heterogeneity in excess flu mortality to assess the pandemic’s effect on voting behavior across constituencies. Applying a dynamic differences-in-differences approach, we find that areas with higher influenza mortality saw a lasting shift towards leftwing parties.
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Reassessing the great compression among top earners: The overlooked role of taxation and self-employment Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-12-16 Miguel Artola Blanco, Victor Manuel Gómez-Blanco
This paper provides new estimates of wage inequality in the United States from 1918 to 1949, leveraging a novel top-income methodology that integrates both tax records and census data. Our analysis reveals no sustained decline in wage inequality before the Second World War but a marked decrease during the war years. This decline was driven primarily by stagnation among the top 1 % of earners and significant
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The Aftermath of the February Flood of 1825: Social and Demographic Change in the Krummhörn Region, East Frisia Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-12-15 Kai P. Willführ, Josep Sottile Perez
In February 1825, the dikes broke after a spring tide in the Krummhörn region in East Frisia, Germany, causing a severe disaster. Although the flood did not claim many victims, substantial damage was done to the farmland, and the economic crisis that followed permanently changed the social structure in the Krummhörn. We study family reconstitutions of the region linked to information about socioeconomic
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Long-term trends in income and wealth inequality in southern Italy. The Kingdom of Naples (Apulia), sixteenth to eighteenth centuries Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-12-05 Guido Alfani, Sergio Sardone
This paper uses new archival sources to study the long-term tendencies in economic inequality in preindustrial southern Italy (Kingdom of Naples). The paper reconstructs long-term trends in wealth inequality for the period 1550–1800 for a sample of communities in the region Apulia and produces estimates of overall inequality levels across the region. These estimates are compared with those which have
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Poverty in Germany from the Black Death until the Beginning of Industrialization Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-11-30 Guido Alfani, Victoria Gierok, Felix Schaff
This paper provides macro-level estimates of the prevalence of poverty in preindustrial Germany, from the Black Death to the onset of industrialization in the nineteenth century. Based on a new body of evidence we show that poverty declined after two large-scale catastrophes: the Black Death in the fourteenth century and the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth. Poverty increased substantially in the
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Protestantism and human capital: Evidence from early 20th century Ireland Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-11-30 Alan Fernihough, Stuart Henderson
Using a large individual-level dataset, we explore the significance of religious affiliation for human capital variation in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century. We construct a large sample based on the returns of male household heads in the 1901 census and explore variation in literacy across the three principal denominations: Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism and Presbyterianism. Protestantism
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The evolution of the value of water power during the Industrial Revolution Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-11-30 Todd Guilfoos
This work measures the historical evolution of the value of water power during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. I use the variation in county level agricultural land prices and the natural endowment of water power to identify the value of water power. This value is decomposed into direct values (power as a prime mover) and indirect values (attracting infrastructure) from 1850 to 1920;
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Agglomeration and creativity in early modern Britain Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-11-26 Gary W. Cox, Valentin Figueroa
When did western cities become the engines of creativity modern theorists envision them to be? We approach this issue by investigating how much elite authors benefited from agglomerating in early modern London. Building a new panel dataset documenting the place of residence and annual publications of 2,026 prolific authors over the period 1482–1800, we conduct longitudinal author-level analyses. Our
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Who collaborates with the Soviets? Financial distress and technology transfer during the Great Depression Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-11-15 Jerry Jiang, Jacob P. Weber
We provide evidence that financial distress induces firms to sell their technology to foreign competitors. To do so, we construct a novel, spatial panel dataset by individually researching and locating U.S. firms who signed Technology Transfer Agreements (TTAs) with the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s in various U.S. counties. By relating the number of TTAs signed in each county to the number
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Monumental effects: Confederate monuments in the Post-Reconstruction South Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-28 Alexander N. Taylor
This paper explores the contemporaneous effects of Confederate monuments dedicated in the Post-Reconstruction South. I combine monument, election, and census data to create an election-year panel dataset of former Confederate counties between 1878–1912, then exploit the temporally staggered and geographically distributed dedication of monuments using a generalized difference-in-differences design.
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Elite persistence and inequality in the Danish West Indies, 1760–1914 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-28 Stefania Galli, Dimitrios Theodoridis, Klas Rönnbäck
The issue of how elites as a social group form, maintain their position, and influence the society they control is central to the debate on inequality. This paper studies one of the most extremely unequal societies ever recorded — the sugar-based economies in the West Indies — by focusing on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies and examines the emergence and persistence of its economic
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Speed of convergence in a Malthusian world: Weak or strong homeostasis? Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-26 Arnaud Deseau
The Malthusian trap is a well recognized source of stagnation in per capita income prior to industrialization. However, previous studies have found mixed evidence about its exact strength. This article contributes to this ongoing debate by estimating the speed of convergence for a panel of 9 preindustrial European economies over a long period of time (14th–18th century). The analysis relies on a calibrated
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Incredible commitment: Influence accumulation, consensus-making, and the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-17 Mikołaj Malinowski
I aim to explain the petrification of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's parliament due to the veto in the 17th and 18th centuries. I study genealogical data on senatorial ancestors and identify the formation of an oligarchic elite. I propose that the accumulation of influence by powerful individuals undermined their vested interest in the state's continuation. This weakened the elite's ability to
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The Black–white lifetime earnings gap Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-16 Ezra Karger, Anthony Wray
The average white male born in 1900 earned 2.6 times more labor income over their lifetime than the average Black male. This gap is nearly twice as large as the more commonly studied cross-sectional Black–white earnings gap because 48% of Black males born in 1900 died before the age of 30 as compared to just 26% of white males. We calibrate a model of optimal consumption in a world with mortality risk
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Are some piece rates better than others? Cross-sectional variation in piece rates at a US cotton factory Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-13 Joyce Burnette
While piece rates were a common form of payment in manufacturing, historians have rarely tried to understand the cross-sectional structure of piece-rate prices. This paper examines piece rates paid to weavers at a US cotton factory and demonstrates that in most cases expected daily earnings were constant across different piece rates. While some rates did result in higher daily earnings, there is no
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Reservoirs of power: The political legacy of dam construction in Franco’s Spain Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-10 Gema Lax-Martinez
This paper delves into infrastructure projects initiated during the dictatorship in Spain, particularly the construction of reservoirs and dams. These projects were instrumental in bolstering support for right-wing factions advocating for Franco’s regime over the years. However, our research reveals a notable trend: areas where dams were erected by the regime demonstrate diminished political backing
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(In-kind) Wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages: It’s not (all) about the money Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-10-01 Jordan Claridge, Vincent Delabastita, Spike Gibbs
This paper explores the prevalence of in-kind wages in medieval labour markets and the underlying reasons for their use. Using a new dataset of agricultural labourers in medieval England, we demonstrate that, until the late fourteenth century, wages were recorded anonymously and most remuneration was done through in-kind payment. From the 1370s, however, labour remuneration shifted increasingly to
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Wealth and history: A reappraisal Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-09-27 Daniel Waldenström
The study revisits trends and drivers of wealth inequality and accumulation since the onset of industrialization. Empirical analysis reveals that Western countries are both wealthier and more equal today than a century ago. Wealth concentration has declined in all countries over the past century, remaining at historically low levels in Europe, while rising in the United States. These trends are largely
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Family first: Defining, constructing, and applying historical patent families Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-09-26 David E. Andersson, Matti La Mela, Fredrik Tell
The article presents a novel method that enables the formation of historical patent families. Patent families are useful for studying the value of inventions and identifying key technologies, as they indicate geographic diffusion and higher patenting costs. The concept of patent family has not been employed in historical contexts as historical sources generally lack information about priority rights
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Access to kin, economic stress, and late-life mortality in North Orkney, Scotland, 1851–1911 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-09-18 Julia A. Jennings
This paper analyzes the effects of kin availability and short-term economic stress on mortality among older adults in North Orkney, Scotland in the mid-19th through early 20th century. The mortality of those aged 60+ is associated with high oatmeal prices lagged by one year, a delayed effect that may suggest that buffering mechanisms are less effective in the longer term or that relative to younger
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Skill, race, and wage inequality in British Tanganyika Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-09-16 Sascha Klocke
High racial disparities between Europeans and Africans and high skill premiums are recurrent themes in the literature on inequality in colonial Africa. However, their determinants and effects on inequality remain underexplored. This paper investigates wage inequality, skill premiums, and racial discrimination in British Tanganyika from c. 1920 to 1960. It provides first estimates for wage inequality
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Colonial legacies and wealth inequality in Kenya Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-09-11 Rebecca Simson
This article discusses the evolution of Kenya's wealth distribution from the late 1950s to the present. Utilizing previously untapped probate and administration sources, it measures the share of Kenyans leaving estates at death, and maps how this wealth-owning strata has changed over time. It shows a growth in African estates after independence, and by the 1980s roughly 8 % of Kenyans left estates
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Corporations and partnerships: Factory productivity in late Imperial Russia Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-08-31 Nikita Lychakov
Using factory-level data from an official manufacturing census, I examine productivity among two forms of enterprise in the Russian Empire from around 1908. I find that despite having 60 times more financial capital, factories owned by corporations did not outperform those owned by ordinary and limited partnerships. Although corporations were more mechanized per worker, both enterprise forms attained
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Ethnic wealth inequality in England and Wales, 1858–2018 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-08-30 Neil Cummins
Using surnames from the universe of death and wealth-at-death records in England and Wales, from 1858 to 2018, I document the emergence of a modern ethnic wealth gradient. Historically, Non-British ethnicities have average wealth 2–5 times that of the English. However, this premium has decreased over the 20th century. By 1980, non-British ethnicities have no advantage over the British. However, this
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Fertility responses to short-term economic stress: Price volatility and wealth shocks in a pre-transitional settler colony Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-08-16 Jeanne Cilliers, Martine Mariotti, Igor Martins
This paper examines the effects of short-term economic stress, captured by general price volatility and a negative wealth shock on short-run fertility behavior in the rural pre-transitional society of the Cape Colony. First, we link complete birth histories of settler women from the South African Families database to consumer price index data to examine the effect of price volatility on conceptions
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Bank failures and economic activity: Evidence from the Progressive Era Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-07-28 Marco del Angel, Gary Richardson, Michael Gou
During the Progressive Era (1900–29), economic growth was rapid but volatile. Boom and busts witnessed the formation and failure of tens of thousands of firms and thousands of banks. This essay uses new data and methods to identify causal links between failures of banks and bankruptcies of firms. Our analysis indicates that bank failures triggered bankruptcies of firms that depended upon banks for
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Print culture and economic constraints: A quantitative analysis of book prices in eighteenth-century Britain Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-07-15 Iiro Tiihonen, Leo Lahti, Mikko Tolonen
Who could afford books in the late early-modern period? We explore how prices related to the demand for books in eighteenth-century Britain by analysing extensive bibliographic and socio-economic data based on Bayesian statistics and machine learning. Our results quantify in financial terms the difficulty of buying print products faced by most British households in the eighteenth century, and how this
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Did the 1917–21 economic depression accelerate the epidemiological transition? Milk prices, summer peak of mortality, and food-and-water causes of death in Madrid, Spain Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-07-06 Michel Oris, Stanislao Mazzoni, Diego Ramiro-Fariñas
This article aims to answer a provocative question: would higher prices, particularly that of milk, be beneficial for the survival of children under 2 years old? Using a database of more than 230,000 births, matched to deaths, we test this hypothesis in the context of a large Mediterranean city, Madrid, in the years 1915–1926. During this period an inflationary crisis spread from 1917 to 1921. We compare
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European business cycles and economic growth, 1300–2000 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-06-22 Stephen Broadberry, Jason Lennard
The modern business cycle features long expansions combined with short recessions, and is thus related to the emergence of sustained economic growth. It also features significant international co-movement, and is therefore associated with growing market integration and globalisation. When did these patterns first appear? This paper explores the changing nature of the business cycle using historical
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Banking on innovation: Listed and non-listed equity investing, evidence from société générale de Belgique, 1850–1934 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Gertjan Verdickt, Marc Deloof
Société Générale de Belgique was the world's first universal bank. It pioneered another innovation: investing in non-listed equity. We use hand-collected data to show that the bank earned significant positive risk-adjusted returns from 1850 to 1934. This offset its flat return on the listed equity portfolio and underperforming bond portfolio. Other Belgian universal banks followed this strategy. As
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How rich were the rich? An empirically-based taxonomy of pre-industrial bases of wealth Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-05-03 Branko Milanovic
The paper uses fifty-three social tables, ranging from Greece in 330 BCE to Mexico in 1940 to estimate the share and level of income of the top 1 % in pre-industrial societies. The share of the top 1 % covers a vast range from around 10 % to more than 40 % of society's income and does not always move together with the estimated Gini coefficient and the Inequality Extraction Ratio. I provide a taxonomy
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Courts, legislatures, and evolving property rules: Lessons from eminent domain Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Robert K. Fleck, F. Andrew Hanssen
This paper examines judicial and legislative modifications to a specific property rule, the benefit offset, which was widely employed by railroad companies during the 19th century as a way to reduce required compensation for land taken through eminent domain. At the beginning of the railroad boom, all states allowed the benefit offset; by the end of the boom, most states had banned it, some via court
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Contagion of fear: Panics, money, and the Great Depression Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Fabrizio Almeida Marodin, Kris James Mitchener, Gary Richardson
Despite its centrality in debates about the causes and consequences of the Great Depression, banking panics’ impact on the money supply during this period remains a subject of ongoing debate. Before 1936, the Fed's decentralized structure meant that panics impacted money creation regionally while monetary impulses impacted bank stability nationally. We use this structure and newly digitized data to
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The Customary Atlas of Ancien Régime France Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Victor Gay, Paula E. Gobbi, Marc Goñi
Customary law governed most European societies during the Middle Ages and early modern period. To better understand the roots of legal customs and their implications for long-run development, we introduce an atlas of customary regions of Ancien Régime France. We also describe the historical origins of French customs, their role as a source of law, and their legal content. We then offer some insights
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Does time heal all wounds? The rise, decline, and long-term impact of forced labor in Spanish America Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Leticia Arroyo Abad, Noel Maurer
For most of human history, free wage labor was uncommon compared to various coercive institutions based on the threat of force. Latin America was no exception to this general rule. A number of scholars argue that past coercive labor institutions explain regional and national divergence within Latin America long after the institutions themselves have disappeared. A review of the literature, however
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Linked samples and measurement error in historical US census data Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Sam Il Myoung Hwang, Munir Squires
The quality of historical US census data is critical to the performance of linking algorithms. We use genealogical profiles to correct measurement error in census names and ages. Our findings suggest that one in every two records has an error in name or age, and human capital is correlated with lower error rates. While errors in age decline across subsequent census rounds from 1850 to 1930, errors
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Monopsony power in the United States: Evidence from the great depression Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-30 Andrew Chase Holt
This paper presents evidence that firms had labor market power during the early 1930s. Using plant-level data from the Census of Manufactures between 1929 and 1935, I construct a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of local labor market concentration at the State-Economic-Area-by-industry-by-occupation level. I find that local labor market concentration has a negative relationship with wages which is consistent
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Incomes and income inequality in Stockholm, 1870–1970: Evidence from micro data Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Erik Bengtsson, Jakob Molinder
This paper analyzes incomes and income inequality in Stockholm from 1870 to 1970. The paper builds on a new dataset of 38,022 randomly sampled Stockholm residents 1870–1950, with information on income, occupation, age, gender, and household composition. This is complemented by the Census of 1930 and a Statistics Sweden sample for 1960 and 1970. Incomes were very unequally distributed between 1870 and
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Moderate opulence: the evolution of wealth inequality in Mexico in its first century of independence Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Diego Castañeda Garza
This article presents the first complete 19-century reconstruction of the Mexican wealth distribution, from independence to the Mexican Revolution. It uses an often underutilized source in Mexican historiography: will inventories/protocols. In addition, the present article estimates the levels and trends of historical wealth inequality using five different methods, among them the application of the
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The political economy of assisted immigration: Australia 1860–1913 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Timothy J. Hatton
From 1860 to 1913 the six colonies that became states of Australia strove to attract migrants from the UK with a variety of assisted passages. The colonies/states shared a common culture and sought migrants from a common source, the UK, but set policy independently of each other. This experience provides a unique opportunity to examine the formation of assisted immigration policies. Using a panel of
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Male and female self-selection during the Portuguese mass migration, 1885–1930 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-08 Martín Fernández, Gaspare Tortorici
This paper analyzes migrant self-selection from Portugal between 1885 and 1930 for both men and women. Leveraging newly digitized data on migrants’ characteristics across districts and literacy as a selection indicator, we document that self-selection was positive over the entire period but varied markedly across space and time. In some districts, migrants’ literacy was similar to the general population
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Unintended consequences: International trade shocks and electoral outcomes during the Second Spanish Republic, 1931–1936 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-04 Concepción Betrán, Michael Huberman
An intractable domestic conflict between forces on the right and the left roiled the Second Spanish Republic. We claim that international trade shocks exacerbated political instability. Leveraging an exposure design and disaggregated trade and employment data, we study the effects of import and export exposure on vote shares of parties and coalitions in the Republic's three elections, 1931, 1933, and
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Inland Bills of Exchange: Private Money Production without Banks+ Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Gary Gorton
I study a sample of 482 English inland bills of exchange (where all parties to the bill were in England) during the period 1762-1850. Inland bills were used as a medium of exchange during the Industrial Revolution in the north of England. During this period, they circulated via indorsements, committing each indorser's personal wealth to back the bill. The number of endorsements is a measure of the
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De-skilling: Evidence from Late Nineteenth Century American Manufacturing Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-10-19 Jeremy Atack, Robert A. Margo, Paul W. Rhode
The long-standing view in US economic history is that the shift in manufacturing in the nineteenth century from the hand labor artisan shop to the machine labor of the mechanized factory led to “labor de-skilling” – the substitution of less skilled workers, such as operatives, for skilled craft workers. Investigating the Department of Labor's 1899 Hand and Machine Labor Study, we show the adoption
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The Impact of Public Transportation and Commuting on Urban Labor Markets: Evidence from the New Survey of London Life and Labour, 1929-32 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Andrew J. Seltzer, Jonathan Wadsworth
The growth of public transport networks in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries had profound effects on commuting in the industrialized world, yet the consequences for labor markets during this important period of historical development remains largely unstudied. This paper draws on a unique dataset combining individual commuting and wage information for working-class residents of London
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What Fraction of Antebellum US National Product did the Enslaved Produce? Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-22 Paul W. Rhode
This article evaluates the high-profile claim that enslaved African-Americans produced over 50 percent of US national product in the pre-Civil War period. The accounting exercise shows the fraction was closer to (and indeed likely slightly below) the share of the population, that is, about 12.6 percent in 1860. The enslaved population had higher rates of labor force participation, but they were also
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Morts Pour la France: A database of French fatalities of the Great War Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-23 Victor Gay, Pauline Grosjean
This article describes the construction and content of the Morts pour la France database. This database contains individual-level data on the universe of the 1.3 million French fatalities of the Great War who were officially recognized as war victims. It provides information on each soldier’s first and last names, dates of birth and death, circumstances of death, recruitment status, military rank and
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Historical height measurement consistency: Evidence from colonial Trinidad Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-16 Alexander Persaud
Economists have used historical heights as markers of health, living standards, and long-run development. Although possible selection bias has been debated, height measurement error is less studied. I analyze novel administrative data of male Indian indentured laborers with repeated measurements of adult height to answer an important underlying question of precision. Laborers were measured by British
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Debt policy in Spanish America during the seventeenth century Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Sergio Tonatiuh Serrano Hernández
This paper analyzes the policies that the Castile of the seventeenth century followed toward creating and selling short-term and long-term debt paid off from the Crown's New World revenues. We use microdata to reconstruct comprehensive fiscal accounts for Spanish America during the seventeenth century. Our new time series evidence shows that the Spanish Empire maintained differential debt policies
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Politics and eminent domain: Evidence from the 1879 California constitution Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-25 Mark Kanazawa
This paper explores the politics of eminent domain, using a specific historical episode: the enactment of the new California constitution in 1879. It presents evidence that the failure of a constitutional provision that would have codified eminent domain powers for water development resulted from a complex interchange of economic interests among farmers, miners, and urban residents. This evidence was
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The jobless recovery after the 1980–1981 British recession Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-19 Meredith M. Paker
Extensive research has been conducted on the concept of jobless recoveries and their potential causes, primarily focused on the United States from the 1990s. This paper finds that the prolonged employment downturn following the brief 1980–1981 recession in Britain qualifies as a jobless recovery and then investigates possible contributing factors: labor reallocation across industries, regional employment
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Paving the way to modern growth: The Spanish Bourbon roads Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López, Alfonso Herranz-Loncán, Filippo Tassinari, Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal
This paper analyses the impact that Spanish road construction had on local population growth between 1787 and 1857. We find that the increase in market potential associated to road accessibility had a significant effect on local population growth. The impact was substantially higher on the municipalities that had a more diversified occupational structure. By contrast, the effect of the new network
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Quantifying racial discrimination in the 1944 G.I. bill Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-06 Maya Eden
Did the G.I. bill discriminate against Black World War II veterans? Using a variety of historical sources, I estimate the average amounts of G.I. benefits received by Black and white World War II veterans, as well as their cash-equivalents. These estimates suggest that Black veterans received more in benefits than white veterans, but that their cash-equivalents were lower. However, these estimates
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Stock returns and the Spanish flu, 1918–1920 Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-06 Marco Del Angel, Caroline Fohlin, Marc D. Weidenmier
We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected sample of 131 firms that traded on the NYSE, we examine the impact of the four waves of the flu on stock returns using panel regressions. We find that the second and fourth wave of the pandemic significantly lowered stock returns by 65.5 and 21.6 percent relative to the sample mean return, respectively
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Historical newspaper data: A researcher’s guide Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Brian Beach, W. Walker Hanlon
Digitized historical newspaper databases offer a valuable research tool. A rapidly expanding set of studies use these databases to address a wide range of topics. We review this literature and provide a toolkit for researchers interested in working with historical newspaper data. We provide a brief description of the evolution of historical newspapers, focusing on aspects that are likely to have implications
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The intergenerational transmission of higher education: Evidence from the 1973 coup in Chile Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 María Angélica Bautista, Felipe González, Luis R. Martínez, Pablo Muñoz, Mounu Prem
We estimate the transmission of higher education across generations using the arrival of the Pinochet dictatorship to Chile in 1973 as natural experiment. Pinochet promoted a large contraction in the number of seats available for new students across all universities. Using census data, we find that parents who reached college age shortly after 1973 experienced a sharp decline in college enrollment
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Women’s educational attainment, marriage, and fertility: Evidence from the 1944 G.I. Bill Explor. Econ. Hist. (IF 2.6) Pub Date : 2023-06-30 Conor Lennon
In contemporary settings, greater earnings among women are typically associated with reduced marriage rates and lower fertility. One way that women’s earnings may increase is via changes in educational attainment. To study whether educational attainment affects marriage and fertility choices in a historical setting, I rely on the variation in educational attainment among female WWII veterans created