Demographic behaviour is influenced not just by attributes of individuals but also by characteristics of the communities in which those individuals live. A project on ‘Economy, Gender, and Social Capital in the German Demographic Transition’ is analyzing the longterm determinants of...

The Netherlands are thought to have pioneered an early modern 'Retail Revolution' which reduced the transaction costs of bringing market wares to wider social strata, facilitating the Consumer Revolution. This paper addresses open questions about this development using a commonly used...

This paper reconstructs the number of markets established in East-Flanders between 1750 and 1900, and tries to find whether there was a link with economic ideas and the discourse on the effects of periodic markets: whether more markets were established, and permissions to establish markets were...

The Netherlands pioneered an early modern ‘Retail Revolution’, facilitating the Consumer Revolution. We analyze 959 Dutch retail ratios using multivariate regressions. Retail density rose with female headship everywhere. Density was high in Holland, but moderate in intermediate provinces and...

Sugar was of the utmost importance for the development of a transatlantic trade during the early modern era. This working paper explores the impact of institutions and institutional changes of the colonial trade in sugar focusing on one country on the European semi-periphery, namely Sweden....

The paper analyzes the long century of deregulation of European grain markets. Eighteen century reformers won the intellectual battle as to the merits of laissez-faire markets for grain but failed to convince the angry crowds which were alerted by temporary increases in prices. Not until falling...

This paper is based on the difference between the formal introduction of a Weberian bureaucracy and its actual implementation through state officials. This difference between the formal institutional framework and its actual implementation could lead to failed reforms. On the other side, there...

This paper shows how an economy of a small parish developed over a consider-able time during Sweden’s period as a great power and in the beginning of the Age of Liberty up to 1735. The actual parish (Kälvsten) was a chapel of ease and situated in the diocese of Linköping. This diocese is one...