This article discusses the importance of accounting for cultural values and beliefs when studying the process of historical economic development. A notion of culture as heuristics or rules-of-thumb that aid in decision making is described. Because cultural traits evolve based upon relative...

A sustained export price boom may not benefit workers if the resulting rents lead employers to invest in coercive activities that reduce wages. We formalize this idea in a simple model of an agricultural economy with exogenous export price fluctuations and plantation owners who mobilize the...

In economies with a large informal sector firms can increase profits by reducing workers' outside options in that informal sector. We formalize this idea in a simple model of an agricultural economy with plantation owners who lobby the government to enact coercive policies—e.g. the eviction...

In economies with a large informal sector firms can increase profits by reducing workers' outside options in that informal sector. We formalize this idea in a simple model of an agricultural economy with plantation owners who lobby the government to enact coercive policies--e.g. the eviction and...

This chapter surveys a growing body of evidence showing the impacts that historical events can have on current economic development. Over the past two decades historical persistence has been documented in a wide variety of time periods and locations, and over remarkably long time horizons....