The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. Probing the long-term effects of early colonial differences on...

How much credit can be given to entrepreneurship for the unprecedented innovation and growth of free-enterprise economies? In this book, some of the world's leading economists tackle this difficult and understudied question, and their responses shed new light on how free-market economies...

These classic studies of the history of economic change in 19th- and 20th-century United States, Canada, and British West Indies examine national product; capital stock and wealth; and fertility, health, and mortality. "A 'must have' in the library of the serious economic historian."—Samuel...

I. FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARIES IN EUROPE -- Markets and institutions in the rise of London as a financial center in the seventeenth century Larry Neal, Stephen Quinn -- Paris Bourse, 1724-1814: experiments in microstructure Eugene N. White -- No exit: notarial bankruptcies and the evolution of...

Biographical note: KainJohn F.: John F. Kain is Professor of Economics and Professor of City Planning, Harvard University.MeyerJohn R.: John R. Meyer was the James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation Emeritus at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.