Economic historians have debated the importance of energy for economic development. Energy economists would argue that energy systems need to be adaptable in the face of shocks. In this light, we consider the case of Denmark, a country which was almost entirely dependent on imports of coal, and...

We consider the successful early emergence of cooperative creameries in Denmark in the late nineteenth century within the framework of the ‘new institutional economics’ presented by Williamson (2000). Previous work has focused on the social cohesion of the Danes, but we demonstrate that this...

Is a lack of domestic energy resources necessarily a limiting factor to growth, as suggested for example by the work of Robert C. Allen? We examine the case of Denmark -- a country which historically had next to no domestic energy resources -- for which we present new historical energy accounts...

"Upper tail knowledge", embodied by knowledge elites, has been suggested to be a driving force of industrialization and development, yet measuring it remains problematic. Despite some recent innovations, much empirical work continues to rely on measures of "average" or "non-upper tail" human...