Using annual mortality rates at the provincial level for men and women, we construct a Gini index to estimate changes in regional health inequalities since 1860 in Spain. We find a long steady decline in health inequality across provinces from 1860 until today, interrupted only by World War I and the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s 40-year legacy in terms of health is one of health inequality. Today, regional differences across provinces are at their lowest historical levels.
The United States central government enactment of the 1866 Post Roads Act preempted state and municipal telegraph franchise entry barriers. Like present-day telecommunication companies, local franchise regulations were an entry barrier to United States telegraph companies. These pre-1866 state and municipal telegraph laws were barriers of both entry and trade between states. Trade barriers reduced the benefits of a common market and undermined market-preserving federalism (Weingast 1995). I document what laws were preempted by the 1866 Post Roads Act, explain how these laws increased entry barriers, provide evidence that preemption was enforced, and uses two counterfactuals to calculate rough estimates of the decrease in entry costs from enforcement of the act.
One of the most important, least-known documents of the American Revolution was a 25-page pamphlet published in Amsterdam early in 1787: An Explanatory Message Concerning the Funds by Pieter Stadnitski. 1 Within a year of its publication Peter Stadnitski's Message quite literally revolutionized American sovereign finance. My paper will summarize in detail the report's content and analyze its arguments in light of Dutch archival materials including deeds, newspaper reports, and letters, as well as congressional records from American sources. It will describe what Dutch investors knew (and did not know) of the state of American public finance and American political landscape, and the Dutch financial community's view of the American future. Its essential argument is that thanks initially to Stadnitski's persuasive case and ultimately to the success of the trusts he pioneered, Dutch investment specialists came to see the American republic as a safe haven at a time that Dutch Republic's own future seemed increasingly perilous. If their dream of achieving a new Golden Age through trade and investment with the new nation ultimately proved illusory, the effects of Dutch capital in creating financial stability for the United States government and igniting the first peacetime economic expansion in American history were revolutionary indeed.
This study examines a sharp decline of school attendance among white children in the Southern US after the Civil War. According to Census data, the school-attendance rate among whites in the Confederate states declined by almost half from 1860 to 1870, whereas that in the Northern states was approximately stable. This shock left the South approximately three decades behind its antebellum trend. We use micro data to examine a variety of hypotheses for this drop. In statistical terms, the decline is related to the postwar drop in local wealth and public-school income. Yet our analysis shows that the relationship between literacy and school attendance appears to be quite stable preand post-war, which suggests for only a minor role for a drop in school quality (or constraints on time in school). As supporting evidence, we show that the return to schooling, measured by the wage premium for skilled workers, declined substantially in the South after the War. Using longitudinally-linked census samples, we show that well-educated Southerners migrated out of the South among cohorts who attended schools after the War.
This chapter deals with the development of banking in the Crown of Aragon from the end of the thirteenth century through the establishment of money changers, which followed similar patterns as in other Western European territories. It starts with a review of existing literature and follows with an explanation on the different banking services provided by money changers and the specific legal framework that supported such activities. It then examines the geographical distribution of private banks in cities and towns within the domains of the kings of Aragon, as well as their evolution throughout the fourteenth century. After that, it offers an analysis of the most common professional profiles among these bankers and financers. Finally, drawing on a heterogeneous pool of unpublished data, it seeks to shed light on the diversity of investors and clients of these establishments, a crucial proof of their role in integrated financial markets.
