This study documents, though it cannot fully explain, the striking shift in the spectrum of colour patterns in woollen textiles, from those of the Black Death era in the mid to late fourteenth century to those of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century, in the southern Low...

We investigate the early development of English cotton spinning by analyzing about 700 bankruptcies and 1300 dissolutions of partnership reported in the London Gazette, 1770–1840. The data show two temporal cycles, peaking in the early to mid-1800s and in the later 1820s, near the ends of...

This paper investigates the patterns of sectoral specialisation in Italian provinces over half a century following the Unification of the country. To this end we propose a multivariate graphical technique named dynamic specialisation biplots. In 1871 specialisation vocations toward the different...

This paper presents time-series estimates of construction activity in the regions of post-Unification Italy. Total construction followed very different time paths, reflecting the sharply local cycles in railway construction. Other public works were less idiosyncratic; the boom of the Giolitti...

Economic history studies often assume that the guild system has a negative impact on economic development and technological innovation. Some argue that the spillover introduction of liberal institutions from the French Revolution into Germany had a lasting effect on the latter country’s...

This paper presents the first comprehensive national and regional time-series estimates for ship building and repairing in post-Unification Italy. The path of the national aggregate differs markedly from the extant series, which cover merchant new-construction alone. The regional estimates point...

This study of the Italian wool-based textile industries (woollens, worsteds, and serges) seeks to examine its rise, expansion, and ultimate decline, over a period of five centuries (from ca. 1200 to ca. 1730) in the context of both international competition and economic conjoncture, in the...

The recent rise and distinct geography of populism highlights the need for high resolution data on the economic and political landscapes and improved spatial political economy models that explain their interrelation. This paper shows that divergent development generates political externalities...

This is the post print of a chapter appearing in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books (https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MishkovaEuropean). Citation: Ganev, Georgy, 2017. "Chapter 13. Economics." In "European regions and boundaries. A conceptual history", eds. Diana Mishkova and...

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of railways on the spatial economic development of a German economy, the Kingdom of Württemberg, during the Industrial Revolution. Our identification strategy compares the economic development of `winning' municipalities that were...