Exploiting new data on county-level variation in alcohol prohibition from 1933 to 1939, we investigate whether the repeal of federal prohibition increased infant mortality, both in counties that repealed and in their neighboring counties. Using a binomial fixed-effects model, we find that repeal...

Federal prohibition from 1920 to 1933 was one of the most ambitious policy interventions in US history. However, due to the political concessions necessary to bring about repeal, the removal of restrictions on alcohol after 1933 was not uniform. Using new data on city-level variation in alcohol...

What is the role of transport improvements in globalization? We argue that the nineteenth century is the ideal testing ground for this question: freight rates fell on average by 50% while global trade increased 400% from 1870 to 1913. We estimate the first indices of bilateral freight rates for...

To what degree were Chinese financial markets integrated with the rest of the world prior to the 1949 Revolution and to what extent was the Chinese foreign exchange market efficient during this period? We estimate silver points for the Shanghai market from 1905 to 1933 to answer these questions....

We examine the evolution of market potential and its role in driving economic growth over the long twentieth century. Theoretically, we exploit a structural gravity model to derive a closed-form solution for a widely-used measure of market potential. We are thus able to express market potential...

In this chapter, we describe long-run trends in global merchandise trade and immigration from 1870 to 2010. We revisit the reasons why these two forces moved largely in parallel in the decades leading up to World War I, collapsed during the interwar period, and then rebounded (but with much more...

What drives globalization today and in the past? We employ a new micro-founded measure of bilateral trade costs based on a standard model of trade in differentiated goods to address this question. These trade costs gauge the difference between observed bilateral trade and frictionless trade....

This paper explores the means by which warfare influences domestic commodity markets. It is argued that England during the French Wars provides an ideal testing ground. Four categories of explanatory variables are taken as likely sources of documented changes in English commodity price...

We introduce a new data set on over 230,000 monthly prices for 10 goods in 50 Canadian cities over the 40 year period from 1910 to 1950. This coupled with previously published price information from the late twentieth century allows us to present one of the first comprehensive views of nominal...

In the wake of the Great Depression, the Canadian government embarked on a stunning reversal in its commercial policy. A key element of its response was the promotion of intra-imperial trade at the Imperial Economic Conference of 1932. This paper addresses whether or not Canadian trade was able...