This Paper documents the size and timing of the world intercontinental trade boom following the great voyages in the 1490s of Columbus, da Gama and their followers. Indeed, a trade boom followed over the next three centuries. But what was its cause? The conventional wisdom in the world history...

Poor countries are more volatile than rich countries, and we know this volatility impedes their growth. We also know that commodity price volatility is a key source of those shocks. This paper explores commodity and manufactures prices over the past three centuries to answer three questions: Has...

The aim of the Paper is to see whether individuals’ attitudes towards globalization are consistent with the predictions of Heckscher-Ohlin theory. The theory predicts that the impact of being skilled or unskilled on attitudes towards trade and immigration should depend on a country’s skill...

This Paper explores the diffusion of two agricultural innovations in late 19th century Denmark and Ireland: the milk separator and the cooperative creamery. It asks whether variables identified as important for innovation and growth by cross-country regressions mattered in this instance: in...

There are two contrasting views of pre-19th century trade and globalization. First there are the world history scholars like Andre Gunder Frank who attach globalization ‘big bang' significance to the dates 1492 (Christopher Columbus stumbles on America in search of spices) and 1498 (Vasco da...

The paper estimates the correlation between tariffs and economic growth in the late nineteenth century, in the context of three types of growth equation: unconditional convergence equations; conditional convergence equations; and factor accumulation models. It does so for a panel of ten...

Using data collected by the International Institute of Agriculture, we document the disintegration of international commodity markets between 1913 and 1938. There was dramatic disintegration during World War I, gradual reintegration during the 1920s, and then a very substantial disintegration...

In this paper we evaluate quantitatively the impact of mass emigration from Ireland between the 1850s and the first World War on Irish real wages. We produce new estimates for several occupations which show that, contrary to some accounts, real wage growth in Ireland was respectable by...

Trade theorists have come to understand that their theory is ambiguous on the question: Are trade and factor flows substitutes? While this sounds like an open invitation for empirical research, hardly any serious econometric work has appeared in the literature. This paper uses history to fill...