This article presents the results of an extensive inquiry into urban consumption of foodstuffs in Flanders between 1800 and 1860. The octroi tax, an indirect tax levied on various consumer items, formed the principal source. During the initial phase of Belgian industrialisation the inhabitants of the eight cities under study (Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Courtrai, Ghent, Lokeren, Leuven and Mechelen) experienced a sharp decrease in the consumption of bread grains, meat, fish, beer, wine and gin. A number of other indicators suggest at the same time an accelerated widening of the gap between rich and poor. This process of impoverishment and pauperisation, which occurred in all cities (small or large, industrial or merchant centre), is explained as a result of Malthusian tensions. The rapid population growth, which started around 1750, generated the division of arable land and a sharp increase in land prices. The growing demand for food, stagnating agricultural output, and the trade and agricultural policy of the government led to a significant increase in the price level of foodstuffs. The capitalism hypothesis of Lis and Soly, elaborated for Antwerp, is rejected.

Reparations as an instrument of international peace settlements were abandoned after the failure of Germany to pay its post-World War I indemnity. However, reparations played a useful role in the construction of earlier peace treaties. This article examines the payment of reparations by the French after the Napoleonic Wars. By most measures, these reparations were the largest ever fully paid; and they imposed a high cost on the economy in terms of lost output, consumption, and diminished capital stock. The incentives to pay were appropriately set and payment permitted France to be accepted once again as an equal among the great powers.

It is well-known that clearing banks in Britain did not publish their true profits until 1969. This article sets out to establish from sources in the banks’ archives reliable and consistent estimates of the true profits and profitability of the major English clearing banks during the period 1920–68. The methods used and problems encountered are explained, and the results discussed, together with possible sources of data outside the banks. The impact of inflation on rates of return is considered. The question of ‘smoothing’ of published profits by the banks is addressed. The results are discussed in the context of economic theory and the perceived cartel nature of banking and some comparisons made to estimates of profitability in the wider UK economy. Finally, some interesting questions raised by the results, and which require further study, are identified.

By the 1820s, as a result of the protracted struggle with France, the market value of the British Government debt was twice British GDP. It has been argued that this debt represented a huge institutional failure by the government, significantly slowing growth in the Industrial Revolution period by crowding out private investment. This article constructs measures of private rates of return in the years 1725–1839 and shows these imply that neither the government deficits nor the mounting debt are associated with much higher private rates of return on capital. The reason the government could issue so much debt without raising rates of return is unclear. One possibility is that crowding out was occurring, but population growth in 1770–1839 was reducing rental income as a fraction of GDP, creating a demand for other asset income so that we do not observe tightness in capital markets.