It seems obvious that lowering the cost of communication among innovators would facilitate scientific and technological progress. Yet, few studies examine this relationship. This column explores the introduction of the first modern postal system in Britain in 1840 and its effect on the number of citations between pairs of scientists and on patenting. The gradient with which citations declined with distance-based postage costs fell and patenting increased in locations that experienced more significant improvements in letter market access due to the reform ..read more

Large and persistent wealth gaps between Black and white Americans have attracted considerable attention from researchers and policymakers. This column presents a new long-run time series of the per capita wealth gap, from before the Civil War to 2020. A key finding is that severe racial differences in initial conditions after Emancipation have contributed greatly to today’s stalled progress in closing the racial wealth gap. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for policies that seek to foster greater racial wealth equality in the near future.  ..read more

The war in Ukraine is having immediate and stark humanitarian and economic impacts, yet its long-term consequences are challenging to predict. This column revisits the evidence on the long-term impact of conflict and presents preliminary evidence for the continued invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The after-effects of bombing campaigns and those of violence against civilians can be substantial and are typically, although not exclusively, damaging. The authors find a strong positive correlation between the presence of ethnic Russians historically and current conflict, as well as a negative re ..read more

Academia has seen remarkable progress in gender equality over the last 50 years, but has yet to achieve parity – particularly in economics and STEM disciplines. This column documents the participation of women in European academia from the first universities to the eve of the Industrial Revolution, with unexpected results. Of the 108 women who taught at universities or belonged to academies, most were in Catholic southern Europe, challenging the idea that Protestantism was more liberal than Catholicism, at least where the participation of women in upper-tail human capital was concerned ..read more

Successful state formation processes are a crucial element for the development of well-functioning institutions. However, there are many instances of state building encountering resistance by local communities. This column uses Italian unification as a historical case study to investigate how cultural proximity to the new ruler may promote successful state building. The authors find that communities culturally closer to the new ruler have a lower propensity to rebel, and discuss two possible cultural mechanisms: social identification with the new ruler, and ‘goodness of fit’ of the new institu ..read more

A large part of the world operates under oligarchic and authoritarian regimes, where access to economic opportunities is not offered to all citizens. This column discusses the impact of such ‘extractive institutions’ in stifling innovation and future economic growth. Using novel hand-collected data, it documents that ‘inclusive institutions’, which promote equal access to economic opportunities, are a first-order determinant of innovation. Geographical regions with more inclusive institutions are able to produce more than twice as much innovation (proxied with patents per capita) as regions wi ..read more

A pessimistic view of Chinese agriculture development is based on a Malthusian trap, characterised by diminishing returns to agriculture and a declining land-labour ratio. This column presents stylised empirical facts of 19th and 20th century Chinese agriculture, focusing on the seasonality of labour demand and the resulting rise of sideline employment, to challenge the implications of this view. The reallocation of labour across idle seasons facilitated commercialisation and higher population densities, yet it was industrialisation, occurring outside the agriculture sector, which en ..read more

Spain was one of the world’s richest countries around 1500. Two centuries later, it was a backwater. This column discusses the long-run impact of the influx of precious metals from the New World on the economic development of Spain. Using an augmented synthetic control methodology, the authors show that in the long run the growth and price level trajectories evolved dramatically different in Spain relative to other Western European nations. Spain initially boomed but suffered from high inflation and became poorer as the result of a resource curse which had economic and political dimensions ..read more

Recessions in Europe often pushed Europeans to migrate to the US in search of better economic opportunities. This column examines the effect of this on conflict with Native Americans in the western US during the late 19th century. The authors find that a recession in Europe significantly increased the probability of conflict between US soldiers and Native American tribes. As they were often driven off their land and relocated to areas with inferior land and rainfall, European immigration to the American west likely had long-term negative effects on economic conditions for Native Americans ..read more

Researchers typically collect newspaper-based data for use as outcome, treatment, or control variables in statistical analysis. This column argues that data generated from historical newspaper articles can also be used as a low-cost alternative for resolving measurement errors. The authors illustrate their framework by replicating two recent studies of how the boll weevil – a beetle that infests cotton crops – affected economic outcomes in the US South from 1892 to 1922. The newspaper-based replications i ..read more