Are return migrants 'losers' who fail to adapt to the challenges of the host economy, and thereby exacerbate the brain drain linked to emigration? Or are they 'winners' whose return enhances the human and physical capital of the home country? These questions are the subject of a burgeoning...

This paper surveys publications in the fields of economic history and demography in the ESR since 1969. Numbering sixty in all, they cover a broad chronological and thematic range. Some of these papers never attracted much notice, but stand as useful sources for future historians. A few have...

Are return migrants 'losers' who fail to adapt to the challenges of the host economy, and thereby exacerbate the brain drain linked to emigration? Or are they 'winners' whose return enhances the human and physical capital of the home country? These questions are the subject of a burgeoning...

Sustained economic growth in England can be traced back to the early seventeenth century. That earlier growth, albeit modest, both generated and was sustained by a demographic regime that entailed relatively high wages, and by an increasing endowment of human capital in the form of a relatively...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is currently the focus of much media attention and policy discussion. A historical perspective on AMR suggests that although the challenge of AMR is real, the doomsday tone of most commentary is unwarranted. That is partly because most of the gains in life...

This paper offers (yet another) reflection on the history and current status of economic history. No other sub-discipline of economics or history has tried so hard to be loved as economic history. That love is unrequited, because economic history's problem is existential: it is an inherently...

Understanding mortality crises is an important part of understanding some fundamental aspects of preindustrial economies. Understanding the processes leading to their decline and the associated improvements in living standards and life expectancy is a precondition for knowing what is needed to...

Ebola and plague share several characteristics, even though the second and third plague epidemics dwarfed the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak in terms of mortality. This essay reviews the mortality due to the two diseases and their lethality; the spatial and socioeconomic dimensions of plague mortality;...