This paper employs a new method and dataset to estimate the effect of currency unions on the integration of financial markets in late medieval Central Europe. The analysis reveals that membership in a union was significantly correlated with well-integrated markets. We also examine whether...

Statistical analysis of Greek sovereign debt denominated in gold and traded on the London Stock Exchange from the outbreak of the First World War until the advent of the Great Depression is employed to explore the way that historical events including political and institutional changes shaped...

This paper uses recently digitised samples of apprentices and masters in London and Bristol to quantify the practice of apprenticeship in the late 17th century. Apprenticeship appears much more fluid than is traditionally understood. Many apprentices did not complete their terms of indenture;...

This paper re-examines theories previously advanced to explain Lancashire’s slow adoption of ring spinning. New cost estimates show that although additional transport costs and technical complementarities between certain types of machine reduced ring adoption rates, these supply side...

As a result of recent work on historical national accounting, it is now possible to establish firmly the timing of the Great Divergence of living standards between Europe and Asia. There was a European Little Divergence as Britain and Holland overtook Italy and Spain, and an Asian Little...

This is a revised version of a previous working paper, of the same name, which incorporates corrections to errors in our estimates of TFP growth. This paper examines major privately-owned British railway companies before World War I. Quantitative evidence is presented on return on capital...

This thesis aims to contribute to an explanation of how the development of political institutions is influenced by the costs of information and exchange across society in a pre-modern context. The Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century presents an apparent paradox of an expanding economy...

This study analyses thousands of corporate annual reports and financial data from 1960-2000 to propose an early history of the term ‘shareholder value’ in the United States. Scholarly interest in ‘shareholder value’ has burgeoned since 2000, but still little is known about the term’s...