Before the middle of the nineteenth century most laws enacted in the United States were special bills that granted favors to specific individuals, groups, or localities. This fundamentally inegalitarian system provided political elites with important tools that they could use to reward...

Using annual data from the thirteenth century to the present, we show that improved long run economic performance has occurred primarily through a decline in the rate and frequency of shrinking, rather than through an increase in the rate of growing. Indeed, as economic performance has improved...

In 1841 and 1842, eight states and the Territory of Florida defaulted on their sovereign debts. Traditional histories of the default crisis have stressed the causal role of the depression that began with the Panic of 1837, unexpected revenue shortfalls from canal and bank investments as a result...

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction / Naomi R. Lamoreaux and John Joseph Wallis -- 1. The East Indian Monopoly and the Transition from Limited Access in England, 1600-1813 / Dan Bogart -- 2. Adam Smith's Theory of Violence and the Political Economics of Development / Barry R....

We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the...

All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This study integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked ...

This benchmark volume addresses the debate over the effects of early industrialization on standards of living during the decades before the Civil War. Its contributors demonstrate that the aggregate antebellum economy was growing faster than any other large economy had grown before. Despite the...