An influential literature in early modern economic history uses “distance from” as an instrumental or a control variable. I show that “distance from Wittenberg” and “distance from Mainz,” two prominent instruments for the adoption of Protestantism and printing technology, have...

Research on the practices of the moneylender, a permanent yet shadowy fixture of society, has focused on England in the early modern period. This paper, however, examines the business operations of Costantino Bogdano, a Greek moneylender active in Venice (c. 1800-44). At a time of transition in...

This paper studies the individual-level assumptions of the Malthusian model in pre-industrial Germany. By exploiting the demographic records of 150,000 individuals from the historical county of Wittgenstein, I test for status gradients in child mortality (the Malthusian positive check) and...

Patterns of poor relief varied greatly amongst nineteenth century Irish cities. To date, however, there has been little examination of the reasons behind these divergences. One possible factor is the divergent occupational and demographic structures of these cities – ranging from the dramatic...

This paper examines the problem of quantifying the wealth of the Jews of Genoa during the first half of the eighteenth-century, starting from unpublished sources compiled for tax purposes. Although the values recorded do not reflect the real consistency of wealth, but represent a rough estimate...

What are the benefits of moving from intermittent water delivery (which limits user access to less than 24 hours per day) to constant service? To address this question, we study the transition from intermittent to constant water supply in London. Between 1871 and 1910, the proportion of London...

Focusing on the urban context of Verona (a major city in the Venice Republic) during the XVIII century, the paper aim to clarify if, and in which measure, the cost of living of the employed population changed along the century. Instead of simply analyzing salaries and prices, the Author built a...

In this paper I present the cause of the rise and decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The main driving force was Polish grain trade over the Baltic. At the beginning, Polish grain was vital for Western Europe thus the Commonwealth was able to make significant profits and obtain...

This paper studies the individual-level assumptions of the Malthusian model in pre-industrial Germany. By exploiting demographic records for 150,000 individuals from the historical county of Wittgenstein, I test for status gradients in child mortality (the Malthusian positive check) and marital...