The infrastructure sector has the potential to generate wide differences in profits and economic outcomes. This paper examines financial returns and investment strategies for Britain’s turnpike roads in the early nineteenth century. There are three main findings. First, rates of return on...

Between 1700 and 1870 Britain's transport sector improved dramatically. This paper surveys the literature on Britain’s transport revolution and examines its contribution to economic growth during the Industrial Revolution. It reviews the important infrastructural and technological...

The Whig and Tory parties played an important role in British politics in the decades following the Glorious Revolution. Scholars have used The History of Parliament series as a key source for data on political parties, yet most editions omit tabular data on the party affiliation of individual...

The Whig and Tory parties played an important role in British politics in the decades following the Glorious Revolution. This paper introduces new data on the political affiliation of all MPs in England and Wales between 1690 and 1747. The data have numerous applications for research. The focus...

The performance of Indian railways in the nineteenth century provides a great context to study the effects of state ownership on productivity and other aspects of firm operations. We rely on a key feature of the institutional background whereby the colonial Government of India purchased a...

How does the development of one transport mode influence the development of another? This paper uses time-series data to test whether inter-model network externalities influenced the development of road, canal, and port infrastructure in England from 1760 to 1830. The main finding is that road...

Transport infrastructure investment increased substantially in Britain between the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This paper argues that the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 contributed to transportation investment by reducing uncertainty about the security of improvement rights. It shows...

Many markets are limited by laws and customs enforced by political and religious authorities. North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009) argue that the transition from limited access requires a series of steps like rule of law for elites and the creation of perpetually lived organizations. This paper...

"Adaptable property-rights institutions, we argue, foster economic development. The British example illustrates this point. Around 1700, Parliament established a forum where rights to land and resources could be reorganized. This venue enabled landholders and communities to take advantage of...