Economic and social scientists are increasingly interested in historical data, but many relevant sources are still available in analog form, limiting accessibility and research potential. This article introduces the WBdigital database, which aims to improve this situation. The database provides...

During the First World War, the film industry of the major European countries experienced a lasting crisis, which necessitated significant restructuring and prompted appeals for state intervention to counterbalance the invasion of American films. As the extent of this crisis did not affect all...

The trade in Mitrowitz in the period following the signing of the commercial treaty of Passarowitz between Austria and the Ottoman Empire in 1718 was lively. It reflected the characteristics of both domestic and border trade, but Mitrowitz also served as a transit region. Commercial activities...

Growth in per pupil education spending in the United States was mostly flat until 1918, after which it increased by almost 100% in a brief six-year period. This is the fastest documented increase in per pupil education spending in U.S. history. Using newly digitized biennial data on 386 of the...

We analyze the impact of World War II service on income and mobility among male Army and Army Airforce veterans from various racial and ethnic groups, using linked 1940 Census, WWII enlistment, and 1969 administrative tax return data. The dataset includes non-Hispanic White, Black, Hispanic,...

During World War II, the U.S. government launched an unprecedented effort to mobilize science for war: the newly-established Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) entered thousands of R&D contracts with industrial and academic contractors, spending one to two orders of magnitude...

The recent ascent of right-wing populist movements in many countries has rekindled interest in understanding the causes of the rise of Fascism in inter-war years. In this paper, we argue that there was a strong link between the surge of support for the Socialist Party after World War I (WWI) and...

Although it was initiated by the Allies as a kind of compromise in an Anglo-American dispute over banking policy in occupied Germany, and was thus an Allied creation, the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) was soon to be called "a characteristic German institution". This was because of the...

This study aims to clarify the influences of state banks on the private banks for Turkey after the second world war. The literature on state banks emphasizes the adverse impact of state, namely the crowding-out effect. On the other hand, state-owned banks arose as a result of development policy...

The paper deals with the role played by the Istituto Mobiliare Italiano, a public credit institution created in 1931 to finance industrial investment, as an instrument for the State intervention in the Italian economy, especially in the 25 years after the World War II. In particular, the IMI was...

Die Arbeit untersucht die Wiederherstellung der privaten deutschen Kreditwürdigkeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg anhand eines Konstitutionsprozesses von Vertrauen im Zuge der Londoner Schuldenkonferenz. Im Mittelpunkt steht die These, dass die Bedeutung der deutschen Auslandsschuldenregelung...

This paper investigates why the U.S. unemployment rate rose only a few percentage points despite the dramatic decline in government spending and other upheaval at the end of World War II. Using a new longitudinal data set based on archival sources and government surveys, we study the many facets...

War reparations have been large and small, repaid and defaulted on, but the consequences have almost always been significant. Ever since Keynes made his case against German reparations in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the effects of transfer payments have been hotly debated. When...

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers, researchers, and journalists have made comparisons to World War II. In 1940, a group of top U.S. science administrators organized a major coordinated research effort to support the Allied war effort, including significant investments in...

Innovation policy can be a crucial component of governments' responses to crises. Because speed is a paramount objective, crisis innovation may also require different policy tools than innovation policy in non-crisis times, raising distinct questions and tradeoffs. In this paper, we survey the...

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers, researchers, and journalists have made comparisons to World War II. In 1940, a group of top U.S. science administrators organized a major coordinated research effort to support the Allied war effort, including significant investments in...

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers, researchers, and journalists have made comparisons to World War II. In 1940, a group of top U.S. science administrators organized a major coordinated research effort to support the Allied war effort, including significant investments in...

Post-war reconstruction in Ukraine will face challenges in public procurement, including corruption risks and lengthy procedures. Strengthening existing legal and institutional foundations, aligned with international standards, is crucial. Streamlining procurement, ensuring transparency, and...

"Between 1946 and 1952, Albert O. Hirschman, a German-born economist and wartime refugee, worked as an economic analyst in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States. He was first in charge of the Western European desk; later he was the Fed's representative to the...

This book traces the afterlives of things. Out of the rubble of World War II and the Holocaust, the Federal Republic of Germany emerged, and with it a foundational myth of the “economic miracle.” In this narrative, a new mass consumer society based on the production, export, and consumption...

The recent ascent of right-wing populist movements in many countries has rekindled interest in understanding the causes of the rise of Fascism in inter-war years. In this paper, we argue that there was a strong link between the surge of support for the Socialist Party after World War I (WWI) and...

The "flats-for-land" system was an equity financing mechanism extensively used in Greece following World War II to alleviate the acute housing crisis caused by mass migration from the countryside to big cities. Drawing on historical evidence and using a parsimonious VAR model, we show that the...

During World War II, the U.S. government launched an unprecedented effort to mobilize science for war: the newly-established Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) entered thousands of R&D contracts with industrial and academic contractors, spending one to two orders of magnitude...

The nullification of slave wealth after the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) was one of the largest episodes of wealth compressions in history. We document that white Southern households holding more slave assets in 1860 lost substantially more wealth by 1870, relative to households that had been...

Cities in the United States dramatically expanded spending on public education in the years following World War I, with the average urban school district increasing per pupil expenditures by over 70 percent between 1916 and 1924. We provide the first evaluation of these historically...

Following one of the largest displacements in human history, almost eight million forced migrants arrived in West Germany after WWII. We study empirically how the settlement location of migrants affected their economic, social and political integration in West Germany. We first document large...

Cities in the United States dramatically expanded spending on public education in the years following World War I, with the average urban school district increasing per pupil expenditures by over 70 percent between 1916 and 1924. We provide the first evaluation of these historically...

The nullification of slave wealth after the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) was one of the largest episodes of wealth compressions in history. We document that white Southern households holding more slave assets in 1860 lost substantially more wealth by 1870, relative to households that had been...

Following one of the largest displacements in human history, almost eight million forced migrants arrived in West Germany after WWII. We study empirically how the settlement location of migrants affected their economic, social and political integration in West Germany. We first document large...

This paper investigates the effect of uncertainty on the volatility of the Mexican peso U.S. dollar exchange rate for the period 1999 - 2018. The empirical analysis consists on estimating a model by OLS and System GMM that includes measures of economic, political, and financial uncertainty, both...

Exploiting differences in occupation status in East Germany in the last days of World War II and shortly thereafter, we find that regions which – due to their occupation status – experienced a drastic supply problem caused by the influx of great numbers of refugees fleeing from the Red Army...

"Argues that the Chinese Nationalist's retreat inland during the Sino-Japanese War, its consequent need to develop inland resources, and its participation in new scientific and technical relationships with the United States led to fundamental changes in how the Nationalists engaged with science...

Following World War II, the director of the social sciences division at the Rockefeller Foundation, the industrial economist Joseph H. Willits, thought it important to extend its activities to Europe, especially France. His agenda was to strengthen institutional economics and to create modern...