This paper asks whether history should change the way in which economists and economic historians think about populism. We use Müller's definition, according to which populism is 'an exclusionary form of identity politics, which is why it poses a threat to democracy'. We make three historical...

This paper uses a new dataset on the universe of Canadian imports and tariffs between 1924 and 1936, disaggregated into 1697 goods originating in 112 countries, to analyse the impact on Canadian imports of interwar Canadian trade policy, including the 1932 Ottawa trade agreements. Rather than...

We document the outbreak of a trade war after the U.S. adopted the Smoot-Hawley tariff in June 1930. U.S. trade partners initially protested the possible implementation of the sweeping tariff legislation, with many eventually choosing to retaliate by increasing their tariffs on imports from the...

We provide a centennial overview of the Irish economy in the one hundred years following partition and independence. A comparative perspective allows us to distinguish between those aspects of Irish policies and performance that were unique to the country, and those which mirrored developments...

Imperial chancellor Bismarck’s system of social insurance (with its three pillars health, accident and pension insurance) was an important role model for social security systems across Europe and in the US. How the introduction of the German system changed economic expectations and decisions...

In this paper, we provide the first overview over all political connections for all firms listed on the Berlin stock exchange in 1924 and for the same sample of firms four years later. In contrast to anecdotal evidence which suggest that these political connections had a positive effect on...

23 Stock Exchanges were in operation in Germany in 1913. We provide new data about the number of listed firms, their market value, and the number of IPOs between 1897 and 1913 for all exchanges. We assess reasons why a firm opts to be listed at a certain exchange. Large firms tend to be listed...

We show that smaller, regional public financial intermediaries significantly contributed to industrial development, using a new data set of the foundation year and location of Prussian savings banks. This extends the banking-growth nexus beyond its traditional focus on the large universal banks,...

We propose a Unified Growth model that analyzes the role of the Scienti fic Revolution in the takeoff to sustained modern economic growth. Basic scientific knowledge is a necessary input in the production of applied knowledge, which, in turn, fuels productivity growth and leads to rising...