Do the preindustrial roots of gender inequality lie in exogenous forces or also in human institutions? “Dividing the Spoils: Inheritance Institutions and Gender Inequality before Industrialization” @felixschaff.bsky.social @cepr.org ‪@oxford-esh.bsky.social‬‬ cepr.org/publications...

Wonderful audience and great discussion today at the Italian Economic History Association keynote on “Leviathan’s Health: State Capacity and Pestilence from the Black Death to Covid”. An honour to be invited to this excellent conference! @PrincetonUPress ‪@oxford-esh.bsky.social‬‬

How did preindustrial work patterns differ between women and men? How do you even measure them? Amazing quantitative data coming out today at the Urbino conference on “Women and Men at Work in Preindustrial Europe” mobilityandhumanities.it/work/

Looking forward talking about “Leviathan's Health: State Capacity and Pestilence from the Black Death to Covid” at the ASE Conference in Venice on 4 Oct, and learning more about the newest work in Italian economic history ‪@oxford-esh.bsky.social‬ @PrincetonUPress‬ t.co/k5DWafQAbw

Looking forward talking about “Controlling Contagion” at the Radboud Conference next week, and learning more answers to its key question: “How Did We Lift the Burden?” www.ru.nl/en/about-us/... @oxford-esh.bsky.social @timriswick.bsky.social @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social

New CEPR Discussion Paper - DP20556 Transplanting Craft Guilds to Colonial Latin America: A Large Language Model Analysis cepr.org/publications... @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social @oxford-esh.bsky.social #echist‬

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, V:I, Part III, on government, externalities and public goods:

Adam Smith: "it would still deserve the most serious attention of government... to prevent a leprosy, or any other loathsome and offensive disease... from spreading itself... though, perhaps, no other publick good might result from such attention, besides the prevention of so great a publick evil"

Wonderful hosts and amazing audience in Edinburgh yesterday for for Adam Smith Lecture on “Market, State, and Contagion from the Black Death to Covid”. @AdamSmithHouse @PrincetonUPress @OxfordESH @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social #echist press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

A pleasure to talk about serfdom and my Leverhulme project yesterday at the Arthur Lewis Lab for Comparative Development. @oxford-esh.bsky.social @arthurlewislab.bsky.social @leverhulme.ac.uk #echist

Trade privileges didn't exactly benefit the special-interest groups, either. @OxfordESH @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social @PrincetonUPress #echist press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

What does history tell us about trade barriers to favour domestic interest-groups? On guilds and trade in medieval Europe, check out this BBC series, broadcast again this week. @BBCRadio4 @OxfordESH @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social #echist www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Has the black box of "state capacity" ever frustrated you? These guys are prying it open ...

Had fun podcasting with Tyler Cowen on “Controlling Contagion”, guilds, and the persistence of bad institutions @PrincetonUPress @OxfordESH @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/she...

Wonderful audience today for “Controlling Contagion” at the Oxford Literary Festival @PrincetonUPress @oxford-esh.bsky.social @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social

Follow the 1525 German Peasants' War day by day: @germanpeasantswar.bsky.social #earlymodern #skystorians

Do revolutions break out when peasants are poor? Or when they realize they shouldn’t be? And what role does God play? Still trying to puzzle this out, 5 centuries after the Peasants’ War (podcast in German): open.spotify.com/episode/0ZVe...

How can we raise the Human Development Index? Life expectancy at birth = 1/3 of the HDI. Infant and maternal deaths started to fall around 1650 – but why? Alice Reid's analysis of a complex, 300-year story. @amrcampop.bsky.social @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/03...

Sewer access shapes developing world cities. New research shows effects on population density as large as for highways, but little on demographics, from Sean E. McCulloch, Matthew P. Schaelling, Matthew Turner, and Toru Kitagawa https://www.nber.org/papers/w33597

Campop blog #42: The quality of care during birth has always affected outcomes for both mothers and infants. But the introduction of midwivery training in 1902 did seem to have an impact - today's blog explains why @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/03...

We are also inviting applications for a 2-year full-time Departmental Lecturer in Economic and Social History at @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social Applications should be submitted online and before noon Wednesday 23 April - details below! #econhist #history www.history.ox.ac.uk/event/depart...

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Associate Professorship in Economic and Social History, Faculty of History and All Souls College, Oxford. Deadline for applications 23 April 2025. @oxford-esh.bsky.social @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Why do sewers matter for the economy? People like them! But not only that: sewers encourage agglomeration economies, making us more productive. Super interesting new working paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“Leave fast. Go far away. Come back slowly.” Was “Cito, Longe, Tarde” the only way of controlling contagion? A few answers at the Oxford Literary Festival on 3 April @princetonupress.bsky.social oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

Any advice for someone waking up in 1348 to find the Black Death had arrived? How much did it change by 2020? Some ideas in “Controlling Contagion” - out today in Europe. @princetonupress.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Ever wondered what happened behind the harmonious facade of the traditional village community? Were the "commons" really open to the common people? More pathbreaking work in the Campop 60th birthday series.

Nearly every religion claims to be cleaner than all the others. This claim can’t be true for all religions. But is it true for any? And could it affect disease outcomes? This nice study suggests so: doi.org/10.1093/ej/u....

Did religion affect epidemics through hygiene? For astute reflections on some colourful ideas, I enjoyed Jeremy Brown’s “The Eleventh Plague” global.oup.com/academic/pro...

How did religion affect the ways we tackled epidemics over the past 700 years? How do you get at an institution that works partly inside people's minds? I try to nail it down in Chapter 5 of press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... @princetonupress.bsky.social

Interested in how the opportunity cost of women's time, social support systems, and human development indicators interact? Another great post in the Campop 60th birthday series

Why were medieval governments scared of the Hanseatic League? www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNtc... @historyextra.bsky.social

The German Hansa – prototype EU or cartellistic crocodile? Find out more on BBC HistoryExtra: podcasts.apple.com/ee/podcast/t... For anyone who can’t resist a shadowy medieval economic institution. @historyextra.bsky.social

Where did people work in the past? Lovely essay showcasing the Campop (and Erickson!) approach

Another great map from Davenport, Satchell & Shaw-Taylor 2018: doi.org/10.1016/j.so... @camunicampop.bsky.social Institutions mattered.

Smallpox mortality was lower in rich, market-oriented southern communities that paid for pesthouses and general inoculations, rewarded people for accepting them, and benefited commercially from keeping themselves smallpox-free. doi.org/10.1016/j.so... @camunicampop.bsky.social

Another cool paper I came across writing press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... In pre-vaccination England, smallpox mortality was much lower in southern than northern communities. But why? doi.org/10.1016/j.so... @camunicampop.bsky.social Institutions mattered!

Hat tip from “Controlling Contagion” – very cool paper by Guido Alfani on “Pandemics and Asymmetric Shocks” - www.brepolsonline.net/doi/epdf/10.... Great discussion of how pandemics have divergent effects in different economies – with several lovely graphs and charts!

Looking forward to posting links to some of the great papers and books I came across while writing it.

Happy to say my new book, “Controlling Contagion”, comes out next month. 700 years of tackling pandemics. Not all bad news… press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...