We gather a new database to conduct the first historically informed study of the importance of liquidity and credit for government bonds between 1880 and 1910. We argue that colonial and sovereign debt markets were segmented owing to differences in underlying information asymmetries. The result was heterogeneous pricing of colonial and sovereign debt, and different market microstructures and clienteles, themselves influenced by political, institutional, and financial arrangements. We find that sovereign spreads mainly reflected credit risks, while colonial spreads mainly reflected liquidity risks. Liquidity premia were economically large and significant, contributing between 10 percent and 39 percent of colonial spreads. These findings help understanding why the seemingly dry subject of colonial illiquidity inspired passionate disputes and ground-breaking reforms of financial imperial institutions.

In 1966, after more than 700 years, the irrigation community in Mula (Spain) switched from auctions to quotas to allocate water from its river. This change happened in the absence of either political or technological change. Quotas were more efficient, but required that farmers own water property rights. I develop a model in which poor farmers cannot credibly commit to purchase water rights. I show that empirical evidence on savings and prices is consistent with this interpretation. A temporary increase in output prices in the 1950s and better financial institutions allowed farmers to accumulate savings and solve the commitment problem.

I argue that Europe's political fragmentation interacted with her political innovations—self-governing cities and national parliaments—to facilitate “economic liberty,” which in turn unleashed faster and more inter-connected urban growth. Examining urban growth over the period 600–1800 ce throughout Eurasia, I show that inter-city growth correlations were positive and significant only in Western Europe after 1200 ce. Within Western Europe, I show that growth correlations were greatest in the most fragmented and parliamentary areas, individual cities became significantly more tied to urban growth when their realms became parliamentary, and spillover effects (due to competition between rulers) were significant.

An important unknown in understanding the impact of climate change is the scope of adaptation, which requires observations on historical time scales. We consider how weather across U.S. history (1860–2000) has affected various measures of productivity. Using cross-sectional and panel methods, we document significant responses of agricultural and individual productivity to weather. We find strong effects of hotter and wetter weather early in U.S. history, but these effects have generally been attenuated in recent decades. The results suggest that estimates from a given period may be of limited use in forecasting the longer-term impacts of climate change.

Drawing on a set of insurance contracts brokered in Antwerp in 1562–1563, we demonstrate that by that time Antwerp hosted a sophisticated, large, and international market for marine insurance in which small and large traders could acquire and sell insurance, backed by the intermediation of a large broker, Juan Henriquez who functioned as an open-access institution. Using information from Henriquez's ledgers which was also available to underwriters, we find that insurance premiums reflected the underlying risk and that agents were able to determine the effect of different contract parameters.

Outside of the United States, few studies have estimated the effects of World War II service. In Australia, general war-time conscription and minimal involvement in the Korean War led to large cohort differences in military service rates, which we use for identification. We find a small, temporary negative effect on employment and a substantial positive effect on post-school qualifications, but not at the university level. While service increased home ownership slightly, it greatly reduced outright home ownership, consistent with the incentives provided by veterans' housing benefits. We also find a positive effect on marriage, but only from 1971.

This article investigates the impact of the socioreligious segregation of Dutch society on the asset allocation choices of rural bankers and the withdrawal behavior of their depositors during the early 1920s. Results suggest that cooperatively-owned Raiffeisen banks for both Catholic and Protestant minority groups could limit their exposure to a debt-deflation crisis, despite operating more precarious balance sheets than banks for majorities. Business histories demonstrate how strict membership criteria and personal guarantors acted as screening and monitoring devices. Banks serving minorities functioned as club goods, managing their exposure to the crisis by exploiting the confessionalized nature of Dutch society.

We trace the development of human capital in today's Senegal, Gambia, and Western Mali between 1770 and 1900. European trade, slavery, and early colonialism were linked to human capital formation, but this connection appears to have been heterogeneous. The contact with the Atlantic slave trade increased regional divergence, as the coast of Senegambia developed more quickly than inner areas. This pattern was affected by French early colonialism and by the reaction of different West African populations to the economic incentives provided by foreign demand for agricultural products. The peanut trade since the mid-nineteenth century further amplified regional economic inequalities.