Supposedly, labour regulation makes firms less competitive in international markets. This paper studies the adoption of labour laws in Belgium before 1914 and Brazil in the 1920s. In the two countries, regulation induced investments in new plant and equipment. The rise in labour productivity...

We explore the association between income and international capital flows between 1880 and 1913. Capital inflows are associated with higher incomes per capita in the long run, but capital flows also brought incomes down in the short run via financial crises. Countries just barely made up for...