This article analyses a new series of prices and wages stretching back to 1827 for the provinces of the Habsburg Empire. These real wage series are the first continuous and consistent indicator of changing living standards in this part of Europe during industrialization. They show that while the living standards stagnated throughout the monarchy prior to 1850s, the West (unlike the East) was able to launch onto a path of continuous growth in the second half of the century. The empire experienced little convergence onto the living standards of its neighbors and even internally the convergence record is mixed.

Using a new data set, this article presents new evidence on inequality in Latin America for the nineteenth century and studies the effects of factor endowments and trade on inequality. Recent research has highlighted the link between the colonial origins of inequality and its persistence in Latin America. We find that inequality varied substantially throughout the century and across the region. We identify the impact of changing factor endowments and trade on inequality using a simple theoretical framework. This work suggests that the role of initial colonial origins has been overemphasized as important changes took place during postcolonial times.

This article shows how asymmetric information shaped slavery by determining the likelihood of manumission. A theoretical model explains the need to offer positive incentives to slaves working in occupations characterized by a high degree of asymmetric information. As a result, masters freed (and, more generally, rewarded) slaves who performed well. The model's implications are then tested against the available evidence: both in Rome and in the Atlantic world, slaves with high asymmetric information tasks had greater chances of manumission. The analysis also sheds light on the master's choices of carrots versus sticks and of labor versus slavery.

This article analyzes the impact of employment institutions on Japanese-, British-, and Chinese-owned textile firms in China during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite Britain's domestic position as a world productivity leader, Japanese firms enjoyed a 70 percent productivity advantage over both British and Chinese competitors. The divergent performance of Japanese and British investments in China is explained by differences in management practice. Japanese firms had domestic experience with employment institutions similar to China's and applied labor management strategies that functioned well under these institutions. British firms lacked the institutional experience necessary to adapt management strategies to Chinese institutions.

The late Victorian era was characterized by close links between politicians and firms in the United Kingdom, with up to half of all members of Parliament serving as company directors. We analyze 467 British companies over the period 1895 to 1904. An analysis of election results shows that the election of a new tech director is associated with a 2 percent to 2.5 percent increase in that firm's share price, whereas old tech firms were unaffected by the electoral fortunes of their directors. New technology firms with political directors were more likely to undertake seasoned issues of both equity and debt.

Construction of the first transcontinental railroad, financed with large federal subsidies, is an important event in American history. Were the subsidies necessary to induce private investment in the railroad? The ex-ante investment decision examined uses contemporary reports and a simulation model to show that investors expected the railroad to be profitable. Evidence also shows that the railroad created political conflicts in Congress between the North and South. The secession removed the South as a disputant in Congress, reducing short-term political conflict but not long-term conflict. Subsidies reduced political risk, rather than transport market failure, and encouraged private investment.

Most American financial crises of the postbellum gold standard era were caused by fluctuations in the cotton harvest due to exogenous factors such as weather. The transmission channel ran through export revenues and financial markets under the pre-1914 monetary regime. A poor cotton harvest depressed export revenues and reduced international demand for American assets, which depressed American stock prices, drained deposits from money center banks and precipitated a business cycle downturn—conditions that bred financial crises. The crises caused by cotton harvests could have been prevented by an American central bank, even under gold standard constraints.

Secondary markets for public debt in Europe's most advanced preindustrial markets, Britain and the Dutch Republic, differed markedly. They were liquid in Britain, but not in the Republic. This article demonstrates that economic geography determined the shape of primary markets and the secondary markets that were based on them. Configuring financial markets in preindustrial Europe was thus not a uniform process leading to one ideal-type market structure. The development of markets with advanced financial institutions did not naturally produce liquid markets. While financial markets in preindustrial Europe were rooted in local circumstances, they functioned well while adapting to them.