Relying on dynamic factor business cycle indices for five South-East European countries (Austria(-Hungary), Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia/Yugoslavia), we document steadily increasing synchronisation as part of a pan-European business cycle before 1913 and the emergence of a regional business...

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Barbados formed one of the world's most successful economies, specialised in exporting sugar produced using enslaved labour. This paper analyses an account book maintained by the Bridgetown merchant factor, Richard Poor Jr, between 1699 and 1713. Poor...

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Drawing on monthly data for 12 European countries, this paper asks whether countries under the Classical Gold Standard followed the so-called “rules of the game” and, if so, whether the external constraint implied by these rules was more binding for the periphery than for the core. Our...

By combining new archival and existing data, this paper provides estimates of the economic impact of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the largest ever-recorded natural catastrophe in Europe. The direct cost of the earthquake is estimated to be between 32 and 48 percent of the Portuguese GDP. In spite...

This paper asks why the Classical Gold Standard (1870s - 1914) emerged: Why did the vastmajority of countries tie their currencies to gold in the late 19th century, while there was onlyone country – the UK – on gold in 1850? The literature distinguishes a number of theories...

Drawing on a new data set of monthly observations, this paper investigates similarities and differences in discount rate policy of 12 European countries under the Classical Gold Standard; it asks, in particular, whether bank rate policy followed different patterns in core and peripheral...

In early 19th century England there was no professional police force and most prosecutions were private. This paper examines how associations for the prosecution of felons arose to internalise the positive externalities produced by private prosecutions. Drawing upon new historical evidence, it...

This paper examines the response of the American tobacco companies to the health scare surrounding tobacco harm between 1953 and 1964, through an analysis of the operations of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC). We consider the reasons for the TIRC's establishment and subsequent...

Conventional wisdom has that most countries were not able to issue debt denominated in domestic currency before World War I. We show that Austria-Hungary had a vast external paper debt until the 1870s; only then became foreign residents reluctant to hold unsecured debt. Austria-Hungary attempted...