This paper uses the spread of disease as a proxy to measure economic interactions. Based on a case study of the Black Death (1346-51) in the Mediterranean region and Europe, we find geographic, institutional, and cultural determinants of trade. To achieve this we create and empirically test a...

During the late seventeenth century the Atlantic trade experienced unprecedented growth. The New Institutional Economists attribute this to the emergence of new institutions for property rights enforcement. During this period, Quakers emerged as the region’s most prominent trading community....

The internationalization of economic history is everywhere except in the publication outputs. Using a new dataset of publications in the top four economic history journals, we investigate this puzzle and attempt to explain why relatively few papers on and from developing countries are published...

We examine the relationship between prices and interest rates for seven advanced economies in the period up to 1913, emphasizing the UK. There is a significant long-run positive relationship between prices and interest rates for the core commodity standard countries. Keynes (1930) labelled this...

This paper re-examines the economics of premodern apprenticeship in England. I present new data showing that a high proportion of apprenticeships in seventeenth century London ended before the term of service was finished. I then propose a new account of how training costs and repayments were...

In the 1900s, the European film industry exported throughout the world, at times supplying half the US market. By 1920, however, European films had virtually disappeared from America, and had become marginal in Europe. Theory on sunk costs and market structure suggests that an escalation of sunk...