Institutions and literacy rates: the legacy of Napoleonic reforms in Italy
M POSTIGLIOLA and M ROTA
Pages 757–779
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa021
The provincial gap in human capital at the time of Italy’s unification is a plausible explanation for the North–South divide of the following decades. We show that the roots of the literacy gap that existed in 1861 can be traced back to Napoleonic educational reforms enacted between 1801 and 1814. We use exogenous variation in provincial distance to Paris to quantify effects, linking the duration of Napoleonic control to human capital. If the south had experienced the same Napoleonic impact as the north, southern literacy rates would have been up to 70 percent higher than they were in 1861.
Comparing income and wealth inequality in pre-industrial economies: the case of Castile (Spain) in the eighteenth century
Esteban A Nicolini and Fernando Ramos-Palencia
Pages 680–702
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa026
Most research on inequality in pre-industrial economies has focused on either wealth or income, generating not readily comparable results. In this paper, we use a unique data set of Spain circa 1750 including information on (among other things) wealth and income for the same sample of households. Our findings provide methodological insights showing that a household’s position in the income distribution is strongly correlated with its position in the wealth distribution but is also influenced by several other household specific characteristics like human capital of the head of the household and the economic sector of her/his main occupation.
Asientos as sinews of war in the composite superpower of the 16th century
Carlos Alvarez-Nogal and Christophe Chamley
Pages 703–722
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa029
The full analysis of the text of a contract, asiento, between Philip II of Spain and a Genoese merchant–banker details how in this pre-modern composite state, merchant–bankers acted as agents of the Crown who gathered many scattered sources of income to the Crown and transformed them into large and regular cash flows, mesadas, for the army. Because of the uncertain availability of these sources, the contract provided flexibility to both parties and legal assistance to the banker who reported to accountants for audit and, if necessary, the charge of an interest at about 1 percent per month.
Spatial population trends and economic development in Puerto Rico, 1765–2010
Brian Marein
Pages 723–756
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab002
I use data for consistently defined municipalities to describe spatial patterns in population growth in Puerto Rico across all stages of economic development and rule by Spain and then the United States. The spatial distribution of population began to resemble the modern distribution after the turn of the twentieth century, around the time that municipal population densities diverged. Municipal population growth was positively correlated with crop production in the preindustrial era and was negatively correlated with agricultural employment from 1899 to 1970. Urbanization commenced around 1900, decades earlier than generally believed and before most of the Caribbean and Central America.
Before the cult of equity: the British stock market, 1829–1929
Gareth Campbell and others
Pages 645–679
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab003
We analyze the development and performance of the British equity market during the era when it reigned supreme as the largest in the world. Using an extensive monthly dataset of thousands of companies, we identify the major peaks and troughs in the market and find a relationship with the timing of economic cycles. We also show that the equity risk premium was modest and, contrary to previous research, domestic and foreign stocks earned similar returns for much of the period. We also document the early dominance of the transport and finance sectors and the subsequent emergence of many new industries.
Britain’s Empire Marketing Board and the failure of soft trade policy, 1926–33
David M Higgins and Brian D Varian
Pages 780–805
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab005
Before 1932, Britain’s essentially free-trade policy left barely any scope for reciprocating the preferential tariffs that the Dominions applied to Britain’s exports. Thus, Britain attempted to reciprocate by means of a “soft” trade policy aimed at increasing Britain’s imports from the empire through wide-reaching publicity coordinated by the Empire Marketing Board (EMB). This article, the first econometric assessment of the EMB, argues that there was not a differential increase in the volume of those imports advertised by the EMB. Principal arguments for this failure are that British consumers were frequently unaware of the geographic origin of many commodities and that they tended to identify company brand more than country of origin.
Erratum to: Climate change, weather shocks, and price convergence in pre-industrial Germany
Hakon Albers and Ulrich Pfister
Page 806
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab008
Spreading Clio: a quantitative analysis of the first 25 years of the European Review of Economic History
Martina Cioni and others
Pages 618–644
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab018
This paper traces the history of the first 25 years of the European Economic History Review (EREH) comparing its initial agenda with its actual publication record and measuring its success with citation data. We rely on a database of all articles published in the EREH and in the four other top field journals from 1997 to 2020. The EREH has been a great success becoming, as planned at its establishment, the main outlet for continental European scholars and expanding somewhat its remit. Nonetheless, EREH needs to do an extra mile to fill the remaining gap with the more established field journals.
A short history of the European Review of Economic History in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary
Paul Sharp
Pages 610–617
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab021
Today there is no doubt that the European Review of Economic History is one of the leading journals in its field, although few could have imagined this in 1997 when the first issue was published. The European Historical Economics Society (EHES) held its first meeting in Copenhagen in July 1991 sponsored by the Danish Social Science Research Council, the Danish Society for Economic and Social History, the National Bank of Denmark, and other Danish banks. The program consisted of just twenty papers. The “quality varied”. And only two female economic historians, Ingrid Henriksen and Vera Zamagni,1 were present (Persson 2012). Today, the EHES organizes regular conferences with participation in the hundreds and publishes a highly respected international journal. This short piece will hopefully go some way toward celebrating this major achievement, even though the archival work I would like to have performed has been hampered by the fact that the early (and relatively substantial) archives of the EHES are in my office at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense which has for the past few months been inaccessible due to COVID-19 restrictions.
25th year of the European Review of Economic History
Page 609
https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heab024
Note of the Editors
With the 2021 volume, we mark the 25th year of the European Review of Economic History. From its inception, the Review has the ambition to become a relevant outlet for research in quantitative economic history, promote new researchers, and be on the frontier of new topics and approaches. The editors are proud of what has been achieved so far. Those realizations would not have been possible without the contributions and efforts of the previous editors, our referees, and our authors. Our articles cover the whole range of economic history, and we publish relevant and innovative papers on European, non-European, comparative, and world economic history. Contributions shed new light on existing debates, raise new or previously neglected topics, and provide fresh perspectives from comparative research.
The past 25 years have been an exciting time for the field of economic history and the Review. An anniversary issue would not be complete without a consideration of its history, including the many people who have contributed to its development and management throughout the years. Toward this end, this issue includes an article devoted to the history of the European Review of Economic History by Paul Sharp. Furthermore, we have also included an important article on the role of the Review in the literature by Martina Cioni, Giovanni Federico, and Michelangelo Vasta. This article shows that the Review has been a great success becoming, as planned at its establishment, the main outlet for Continental European scholars and even expanding to some extent its remit. However, we have still a substantial number of opportunities for development and innovation. Finally, the editors will produce a virtual issue that will be available in our website titled “25 papers for 25 years”, with a selection of the relevant papers we have published over these 25 years.
