Work in Progress

This paper studies the Malthusian constraint on local living standards in colonial South Asia, based on a novel district-level dataset of subsistence ratios.

Abstract

Abstract We examine the political costs of taxation in early modern France. We focus on efforts to enforce the salt tax, the rate of which varied across regions. Using a spatial difference-in-discontinuities design, we compare municipalities just inside the high-tax region with those just outside, before and after a reform aimed at curbing illicit salt smuggling.

Is a delayed fertility transition a barrier to structural change? This paper explores a mechanism based on differential demographic behavior between sectors.

Abstract