English fertility history is generally regarded as having been composed of two regimes: an era of unregulated marital fertility, from at least 1540 to 1890, then the modern era, with regulated marital fertility, lower for higher social classes. We show there were in fact three fertility regimes...

The paper estimates long run social mobility in Australia 1870-2017 tracking the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from electoral rolls, and records of degrees awarded by Melbourne and Sydney universities. Status persistence was strong throughout, with an...

The paper estimates long run social mobility in Australia 1870–2017 tracking the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from electoral rolls 1903–1980, and records of degrees awarded by Melbourne and Sydney universities 1852–2017. Status persistence was strong...

Digital transformation and the fourth industrial revolution are increasingly impacting all aspect of everyday life, including business management. The use of AI comes with substantial advantages in the short, medium and long term, but also creates substantial new risks that must be appropriately...

In this paper, we examine the changes in per-capita income and productivity from 1700 to modern times, and show four things: (1) that incomes per capita diverged more around the world after 1800 than before; (2) that the source of this divergence was increasing differences in the efficiency of...

The Industrial Revolution decisively changed economywide productivity growth rates. For successful economies, measured efficiency growth rates increased from close to zero to close to 1% per year in the blink of an eye, in terms of the long history of humanity, seemingly within 50 years of 1800...

A Farewell to Alms argued based on wages, rents and returns on capital that the English by 1800 were no wealthier than in 1400. An argument against this has been the supposed consumer revolution of 1600-1750. Since ordinary families by 1750 begin routinely consuming former luxury goods, income...