Do historical institutions have a persistent impact on economic performance? We analyze the colonial institutions set up by the British to collect land revenue in India, and show that differences in historical property rights institutions lead to sustained differences in economic outcomes. Areas...

Most Difference-in-Difference (DD) papers rely on many years of data and focus on serially correlated outcomes. Yet almost all these papers ignore the bias in the estimated standard errors that serial correlation introduces. This is especially troubling because the independent variable of...