Cross-country evidence shows that a subset of developing countries is growing very rapidly, taking advantage of opportunities to "catch-up" at the same time that other developing countries are growing slowly. We argue that this is due to differences in the quality of governance. In particular we...

We describe a unique institution used by 19th century Indian guilds to raise funds: The guild members agreed that on a particular day all but one of their shops would be shut. An auction would be held to determine which one shop would remain open, and the winning bid would go to the guild funds....

Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company (EIC) operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress...

Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress two...

Contemporary historians usually attribute the East India Company's military success in India to its military strength, and to the mutual distrust of Indian regimes. We argue these explanations, though correct, are incomplete. The credibility of the Company's commitments, even though imperfect,...