David de la Croix, LIDAM/IRES Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium       Mara Vitale, LIDAM/IRES Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium       Read the full paper here This is an updated version of an article that appeared in VOX-CEPR. Cf. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/women-early-modern-academia-catholic-phenomenon.   Despite significant progress in gender equality in academia over the past […]

  Lukas Kuld, University of Limerick, lkuld.github.io and Sara Mitchel, University of Southern Denmark, sara-mitchell.com Read the full paper here   Many studies observe two key patterns in the location of creative workers: the attraction of large cities and proximity to other creative workers. In a new paper (Kuld and Mitchell 2023), we trace the […]

Author: Guillermo Esteban-Oliver Read the full paper here Spain has a much lower proportion of inhabited territory and a significantly greater spatial concentration of population than the rest of Western Europe: approximately 90% of its population lives in only 30% of the national territory (Gutierrez et al., 2020). Although this pattern dates from the pre-industrial […]

Exploring the Economic History of the Arts reveals the profound interplay between economics and the arts throughout history. This burgeoning field offers valuable insights into the economic factors shaping artistic production, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that enrich our understanding and appreciation of art and culture. A recent Special Issue at the European Review of Economic History […]

Author: Alba Roldan Full paper available here and more about Dr Roldan’s research here     Public debt – Sustainability – Spain   Public debt in Spain accounts for 117.7% of GDP (data from the first quarter of 2022). Spain has one of the world’s worst records as a serial defaulter (Comín, 2016). Proof of […]

Amaury de Vicq and Christiaan van Bochove Read the full paper here Introduction First emerging in the late 1840s, help banks (hulpbanken) were introduced in the Netherlands to bridge the credit gap for small-scale borrowers. They would soon appear in various towns across the country. Modelled after Irish loan funds, their mission was simple yet profound: to […]

Francesco M S Fiore Melacrinis Read the full paper here When did regional divergence begin in Italy? This paper answers this question by analyzing annual wage series from the North, Centre, and South of Italy, leading up to 1861. When using annual wages, historical economic studies often face a true challenge when considering in-kind compensation, […]

Craig Palsson Societies that effectively manage and control violence tend to experience enhanced economic progress. This premise, supported by various studies such as North et al. (2009), demonstrates the adverse effects of political upheaval on the business landscape of low-capacity states. This connection is demonstrated by Haiti and the American occupation. Historically, Haiti’s political landscape […]

‘After Da Gama: Real wages in Western India, c. 1500-c. 1650’ By Hélder Carvalhal (Univ. of Manchester), Jan Lucassen (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam), and Pim De Zwart (Wageningen University & Research) How did living standards fare in India over the last five centuries? This central question in economic history, both for the debate […]

Authors: Karol Jan Borowiecki (Department of Economics, University of Southern Denmark) Nick Ford (Department of Economic History, Lund University) Maria Marchenko (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) Read the full paper here   All of us have had teachers who we can recall decades later. Many of us have struggled with a […]