This paper exploits an episode of French history to study the relationship between the roll-out of railroads and the rise of the innovation activity. I take advantage of the exogenous variation in railway access arising from a straight-line time variant instrument to document that access to rail...

In framing its ongoing relationship with the EU, and a new external trade policy, the UK is in a unique position to adopt one particular, radical free trade policy: a policy of unilateral recognition of the regulations of other territories for the acceptance of goods for the UK market. But such...