We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts during 1926-1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality by combining...

This paper provides new and comprehensive evidence on the relationship between ethnic segregation and Arab and Jewish human capital formation in Mandate Palestine, the historical period in which the roots of the current reality of inter-ethnic separation were built. Using a novel panel dataset...

This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. While the conventional view is that good geography (commodity endowment) inevitably favours the creation of extractive...

Compared with its nineteenth century competitors, Australian GDP per worker grew exceptionally fast, about twice that of the US and three times that of Britain. This paper asks whether the fast growth performance produced rising inequality. Using a novel data set we offer new evidence supporting...

This paper investigates the relationship between local religiosity and episodes of persecutions in a sample of over 2,100 European cities during 1100-1850. We introduce a novel proxy for measuring local religion: the cult of saints in early Western Christianity. Our findings show that cities...

This paper investigates the impact of the disruption of the Ottoman Empire on the integration of regional and colonial commodity markets in the Near East during 1923-1939. Exploiting a novel dataset on quarterly wholesale prices in interwar Syria, Egypt, Turkey, France and the UK, it tests for...