The intellectual origins of the Industrial Revolution are traced back to the Baconian program of the seventeenth century, which aimed at expanding the set of useful knowledge and applying natural philosophy to solve technological problems and bring about economic growth. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment in the West carried out this program through a series of institutional developments that both increased the amount of knowledge and its accessibility to those who could make best use of it. Without the Enlightenment, therefore, an Industrial Revolution could not have transformed itself into the sustained economic growth starting in the early nineteenth century.

This article analyzes rural-urban migration in Great Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Using a new dataset of 28,000 individuals matched between the 1851 and 1881 population censuses, I examine the selection process and treatment effect of migration, controlling for the endogeneity of the migration decision. I find that urban migrants were positively selected—the best of the rural labor pool—and that the economic benefits of migration were substantial. Migrants responded to market signals, and labor markets were largely efficient; however, not all gains from migration were exploited, potentially indicating some degree of inefficiency.

Extreme variation in the extent of inequality emerged early across the New World colonies established by the Europeans, and we hypothesized in previous work that these contrasts persisted over time through systematic differences in the ability and inclination of elites to shape legal frameworks to advantage themselves. We find support for this view in how the rules governing the extension of suffrage evolved over time within the United States, and across the societies of the Americas. Polities with labor scarcity and greater equality generally led in broadening the franchise and attaining high rates of participation in elections.

We develop a compromise estimate of the German Net National Product for the years 1851–1913 based on four estimates from Hoffmann (1965) and Hoffmann and Müller (1959) by recalculating industrial production, investment, home and foreign capital income. Because differences remain during the early decades, we compute a weighted average compromise series. Economic activity is shown to be higher than the older estimates suggest. The average growth rate is lower. The average business cycle lasted five years, with high volatility in the early decades. The typical Gründerzeit pattern of boom then prolonged recession after 1873 can not be confirmed.

Before the eighth–ninth centuries CE, most Jews, like the rest of the population, were farmers. With the establishment of the Muslim Empire, almost all Jews entered urban occupations despite no restrictions prohibiting them from remaining in agriculture. This occupational selection remained their distinctive mark thereafter. Our thesis is that this transition away from agriculture into crafts and trade was the outcome of their widespread literacy prompted by a religious and educational reform in Judaism in the first and second centuries CE, which gave them a comparative advantage in urban, skilled occupations. We present evidence that supports our argument.

Using data on New Deal grants to each U.S. county from 1933 to 1939, we estimate how relief and public works spending and payments to farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Administration influenced retail consumption. On a per capita basis, we find that an additional dollar of public works and relief spending was associated with a 44 cent increase in 1939 retail sales. In contrast, the AAA seems to have had a negative effect on retail sales, suggesting that nonlandowners in the farm sector suffered disproportionate declines in income as a result of the AAA.

In 1904 the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed that the United States would intervene in the affairs of unstable Central American and Caribbean countries that did not pay their debts. We find that the average sovereign debt price for countries under the U.S. “sphere of influence” rose by 74 percent in response to the pronouncement and actions to make it credible. We use this policy change to show that the United States subsequently acted as a regional hegemon and provided the global public goods of increased financial stability and peace. Reduced conflict spurred export growth and better fiscal management, but debt settlements were driven primarily by gunboat diplomacy.

How did the wartime health of Union Army recruits affect their wealth accumulation through 1870? Wounds and exposure to combat had strong negative effects on subsequent savings, as did illnesses while in the service. The impact of poor health was particularly strong for unskilled workers. Health was a powerful determinant of nineteenth-century economic mobility. Infectious diseases' influences on wealth accumulation suggest that the economic gains from the improvement of the disease environment should be enormous. The direct economic costs of the Civil War were probably much greater than previously thought, given the persistent adverse health effects of wartime experiences.

Railroad development had a profound impact in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Brazil. Direct benefits were small for passengers, but large for freight services, and contributed heavily to the transition from stagnation to growth. Domestic-use activities received a differentially large stimulus. Estimates of the social rate of return reveal that Brazil did not overinvest in railroads. A different allocation of subsidies to railroad capital could have generated additional gains. Backward linkages did little for industry, but the “leakage” attributable to imported inputs was modest. Institutional externalities were mixed. By 1913 railroads had paved the way for dramatically improved economic growth.

The prudent peasant mitigated the risk of crop failures by scattering his arable land throughout his village, Deirdre McCloskey argued, because alternative risk-sharing institutions did not exist. But, alternatives did exist, this essay concludes. Medieval English peasants formed two types of farmers' cooperatives. Fraternities protected members from the perils of everyday life. Customary poor laws redistributed resources towards villagers beset by bad luck. In both institutions, the expectation of reciprocation motivated farmers with surpluses to aid neighbors with shortages.

This article uses an original dataset to test the effects of government monopoly service, competition, and regulation on the development of the telephone industry in Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Like today, there were stateowned monopolies in some countries, vigorous competition in others, and others with private firms operating under restrictive concessions. The main determinant of government control of the telephone sector was the state's involvement in the telegraph. Countries with competition between telephone providers and whose governments did not threaten to expropriate firms' assets saw higher telephone penetration and lower prices, even in rural areas.

Agricultural distress in the 1920s is routinely quoted among the causes of the Great Depression. This article challenges the conventional wisdom. World agriculture was not plagued by overproduction and falling terms of trade. The indebtedness of American farmers, a legacy of the boom years 1918–1921, did jeopardize the rural banks, but the relation between their crises, the banking panic of 1930, and the Great Depression is tenuous at best.

Conventional studies of the late-nineteenth-century international monetary system refer heuristically to “core” and “peripheral” countries. In this article, we seek to provide rigorous foundations to such expressions. Applying a formal procedure borrowed from network analysis produces indices of centrality and systematic rankings. We show that the international monetary system of the late nineteenth century is best described as a three-tier system. Other findings include the discovery of a closely knitted European foreign exchange system, a complete lack of foreign exchange linkages within Latin America, emerging intra-Asian relations, and a fairly late ascendancy of the U.S. dollar.

In the United States a century ago, working children turned over almost all of their earnings to their parents. What incentives, then, did they have to work? Standard answers include altruism or the “sticks” wielded by parents and employers. This article argues that there were also “carrots”: working gave children greater influence in household decision making. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Cost of Living Survey 1917–1919, this article shows that working children had higher clothing expenditures than did nonworking children and that clothing expenditures were increasing in the income a child brought into the household.

During the Progressive Era, advances in knowledge and specialization led to the emergence of modern-day professions. This growth in professions was accompanied by the adoption of occupational licensing regulation. In this article we explore the origins and effects of occupational licensing regulation during this period. Although most studies argue that occupational licensing regulation is adopted to restrict entry and reduce competition, the evidence from the Progressive Era suggests that regulation arose to improve markets as specialization and advances in knowledge made it increasingly difficult for consumers to judge the quality of professional services.

Not long ago, the Governor of a midwestern state was approached by representatives of a particular trade anxious to enlist the Governor's support in securing passage of legislation to license their trade.“Governor,” the men said, “passage of this licensing act will ensure that only qualified people will practice this occupation; it will eliminate charlatans, incompetents or frauds; and it will thereby protect the safety and welfare of the people of this state.”The governor, from long experience, was somewhat skeptical. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “are you concerned with advancing the health, safety and welfare of the people under the police powers of the state, or are you primarily interested in creating a monopoly situation to eliminate competition and raise prices?”The spokesman for the occupational group smiled and said, “Governor, we're interested in a little of each.”Council of State GovernmentsCouncil of State Governments, Occupational Licensin g, p. 1.

This article aims to cover an important aspect of the economic history of Porfirian Mexico: the integration of agricultural domestic markets. Because corn was the staple crop of the commercial agricultural sector, it becomes the protagonist of this story. Panel techniques are applied to a price-convergence model. Although still unfinished on the eve of the Mexican Revolution, corn market integration substantially accelerated during the Porfiriato and ended up further integrated than estimated by Kuntz. Railroads were not only indispensable to the economic growth of Mexico, but also played a key role in the process of corn market integration.

Turnpike trusts were private organizations that financed road improvements by levying tolls and issuing mortgage debt. They were established by Acts of Parliament throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The acts transferred authority from parishes to a body of trustees, composed of local landowners and merchants. Parishes financed road improvements with local property taxes; but they could not levy tolls. This article uses a new data set to show that turnpike trusts increased road expenditure, rather than replacing existing or forthcoming parish expenditure. It also illustrates how institutional changes contributed to the process of economic development in England.

This article studies the effects of branch banking restrictions on American firm investment and growth. Authors have suggested that the lack of widespread branching bank networks hindered the development of large-scale industrial firms. This article presents a model that implies that restrictions on branch banking cause the severity of external finance constraints to increase with firm size. This hypothesis is tested using a panel data set of over 250 firms for 1911–1922. Investment and growth sensitivities are significantly higher for large firms than for smaller firms, suggesting that branch banking restrictions hindered the expansion of large-scale firms.

I use a rich new dataset of Louisiana slave records to answer long-standing questions about manumission. I examine who was manumitted, by whom, and whether manumittees paid prices above market for their freedom, shedding some light on the debate of the efficiency of slavery. Legal changes after the Louisiana Purchase allow us to conclude that manumission laws were quite important in determining the terms at which manumission agreements were struck: when slaves lost the right to sue for self-purchase at market price, there was a precipitous drop in the number of manumissions, while prices paid increased.

We test for the presence of market discipline in the banking sector in early-twentieth-century Mexico. Using financial data from note-issuing banks between 1900 and 1910, we examine whether bank fundamentals influenced the patterns of withdrawals and of note issue. We show that fundamentals were a strong determinant of bank withdrawals and note issue, indicating that market discipline was an important feature of the banking system in this period. This result crucially depends on correcting for selection bias generated by the exit of several banks in the 1907 crisis.