The consolidation of royal control: evidence from northern Castile, 1352–1787
Valentín Figueroa
Pages 447–466
https://doi.org/10.1093/erehj/heaa018
Rulers of modern states consolidated control over territories that were previously complicated mosaics of private political jurisdictions. Systematic information about this process is sparse. This article analyzes village-level transition paths between jurisdictions—royal, seigneurial, and ecclesiastical—in northern Castile in the period 1352–1787. It quantifies how much power different types of lords preserved or lost to the Crown in the long run and also offers conjectural estimates showing that exposure to opportunities for trade led to more resilient and larger royal domains—at the expense of secular lords, but not of the Catholic Church.
The drivers of Italian exports and product market entry: 1862–1913
Jacopo Timini
Pages 513–548
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa019
Between its unification and WWI, Italy’s changing export composition echoed its economic transformation. In this paper, I decompose Italian export growth in its margins and then analyze the determinants of Italian exports and product market entry (and exit). To do so, I use two different databases (aggregate and product-level bilateral trade data) and methodologies (gravity and logit models). Besides confirming some well-known empirical and historical facts for the Italian case (gravity variables hold; trade follows a Heckscher–Olhin pattern), the regression results offer a new perspective on two distinctive features of its history: trade policy and emigration. These two factors are positively associated with Italian exports and product market entry. These findings also have additional implications for the role of emigration on the course of the Italian economy: accounting for the trade channel, its overall effect may be larger than previously thought.
The golden age of mercenaries
Peter T Leeson and Ennio E Piano
Pages 429–446
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa020
Between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries, Italian city-states abandoned citizen militaries for militaries composed of mercenaries: foreign soldiers for hire. So dramatic was the switch that this epoch has been called “the golden age of mercenaries,” and so treacherous did the mercenaries prove that Niccolò Machiavelli would later denounce them as “useless and dangerous.” Italian rulers knew of mercenaries’ infamous reputation when they hired them. To explain the puzzling fact that rulers hired mercenaries anyway, we develop a theory of military composition in which political circumstance constrains ruler choice. Comparative analysis of Venice and Florence provides evidence for our explanation.
GPTs and growth: evidence on the technological adoption of electrical and electronic technologies in the 1920s
Sergio Petralia
Pages 571–608
https://doi.org/10.1093/erehj/heaa022
The pervasive diffusion of electricity-related technologies at the beginning of the twentieth century has been studied extensively to understand the transformative potential of general purpose technologies (GPTs). Most of what we know, however, has been investigated in relation to the diffusion of their use. This article provides evidence on the county-level economic impact of the technological adoption of electrical and electronic (E&E) technologies in the 1920s in the United States (US). It focuses on measuring the impact of a GPT on technological adopters, i.e., those who are able to develop, transform, and complement it. It is shown that places with patenting activity in E&E technologies grew faster and paid higher wages than others between 1920 and 1930. This analysis required constructing a novel database identifying detailed geographical information for historical patent documents in the US since 1836, as well as developing a text-mining algorithm to identify E&E patents based on patent descriptions.
Bank branching, concentration, and local economic growth in pre-WW1 England and Wales
Walter Jansson
Pages 490–512
https://doi.org/10.1093/erehj/heaa025
This paper explores the relationship between the spread of bank offices, banking sector concentration, and economic growth in English and Welsh counties in the four decades before WW1. During this period, banks rapidly expanded their branch networks, while banking sector concentration increased. Findings from both panel fixed effects and instrumental variable regressions suggest that an increase in the number of bank offices in English and Welsh counties had a positive impact on local economic growth. There is no evidence of banking sector concentration being negatively associated with local economic performance prior to WW1.
A hidden fight behind neutrality. Spain’s struggle on exchange rates and gold during the Great War
Carles Sudrià
Pages 549–570
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa024
The aim of this article is to analyse the effects on Spain as a neutral country of the monetary measures adopted by the largest allied nations during the First World War. We will focus on the intervention of exchange rates and on the measures aimed at limiting gold outflows from belligerent countries. The distortions derived from these policies gave rise, in some cases, to additional profits for Spanish exporters and intermediaries, while in others prevented the effective transformation of some benefits from war into valuable assets and pushed them to be dragged down by the economic disturbances of the post-war period.
Climate change, weather shocks, and price convergence in pre-industrial Germany
Hakon Albers and Ulrich Pfister
Pages 467–489
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa030
Market integration of European inland regions such as Germany caught up on North-Western Europe from the seventeenth century onwards. As many studies rely on grain prices and the pre-industrial era was a period of climate change, a relevant question is in how far changing weather shocks impact on the measurement of convergence trends. We create a new high-quality grain price dataset and apply four methodologies to quantify market integration robust to weather shocks and climate change. Population growth and river transport turn out as plausible explanations for price convergence rather than climate change.
L’ histoire immobile? A reappraisal of French economic growth using the demand-side approach, 1280–1850
Leonardo Ridolfi and Alessandro Nuvolari
Pages 405–428
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab012
We construct a new series of GDP per capita for France for the period 1280–1850 using the demand-side approach. Our estimates point to a long-run stability of the French economy with a very gradual acceleration toward modern economic growth. In comparative perspective, our new estimates suggest that England and France were characterized by similar levels of economic performance until the second half of the seventeenth century. It is only after that period that the English economy “forges ahead” in a consistent way.
