Abstract-Are structural reforms growth enhancing? Is the effectiveness of reforms constrained by a country's distance from the technology frontier or by its institutional environment? This paper takes a new and comprehensive look at these questions by employing a novel data set that includes several kinds of real (trade, agriculture, and networks) and financial (domestic finance, banking, securities, and capital account) reforms for an extensive list of developed and developing countries, going back to the early 1970s. First-pass evidence based on growth breaks analysis and on panel growth regressions suggests that on average, both real and financial sector reforms are positively associated with higher growth. However, on several occasions, botched reforms resulted in growth disasters. More important, the positive reform-growth relationship is shown to be highly heterogeneous and to be influenced by a country's constraints on the authority of the executive power and by its distance from the technology frontier. Finally, there is some evidence that crises, defined as severe growth downturns, are associated with subsequent reform upticks.

We present new evidence about the relationship between military conflict and city population growth in Europe from the fall of Charlemagne's empire to the start of the Industrial Revolution. Military conflict was a main feature of European history.We argue that cities were safe harbors from conflict threats. To test this argument, we construct a novel database that geocodes the locations of more than 800 conflicts between 800 and 1799. We find a significant, positive, and robust relationship that runs from conflict exposure to city population growth. Our analysis suggests that military conflict played a key role in the rise of urban Europe.

The EH Clio Lab WP series disseminates research developed by lab researchers and students quickly in order to generate comments and suggestions for revision or improvement before publication. They may have been presented at conferences or workshops already, but will not yet have been published in journals. The EH Clio Lab is a research group that applies economic tools-theory as well as quantitative tools applied in economics-to the study of economic history. The current two main research topics: (i) "The Republic in Numbers" and (ii) papers on more specific historical issues and problems, using data both from the República and other sources. The latter consists in the collection and construction of a large number of statistical series about Chile`s development process during the past two centuries.

War and the extent of mass mobilization for war has a signi…cant impact on a wide variety of economic and political development outcomes. In this paper, we investigate to what extent technological change has in ‡uenced the choice by governments to …eld mass armies. Focusing on a sample of thirteen great powers between 1600 and 2000 we argue that changes in transport and communications technology were the single most important factor that ushered in the era of the mass army and subsequently led to its demise. During the nineteenth century the development of the railroad made it possible for the …rst time to mobilize and feed armies numbering in the millions. During the late twentieth century further advances in transport and communications technology made it possible to deliver explosive force from a distance and with precision, making mass armies less desirable. We …nd strong support for our technological interpretation using a new data set that measures army size, population mobilization, and methods of recruitment from the beginning of the seventeenth century. In so doing we also consider several other plausible determinants of military mobilization. Contrary to what is often suggested by scholars, we …nd little evidence that the French Revolution and the invention of the concept of "the nation in arms" was associated with a substantial increase in levels of mobilization across nations. Even for the French case alone, the magnitude of what is sometimes referred to as the "Napoleonic watershed" was smaller than what is often believed.

What is the role of the media in coordinating and mobilizing insurgency against a foreign military occupation? We analyze this question in the context of the Nazifascist occupation of Italy during WWII. We study the effect of BBC radio counterpropaganda (Radio Londra) on the intensity of internal resistance to the Nazi-fascist regime. Using variation in monthly sunspot activities affecting the sky-wave propagation of BBC broadcasting towards Italy, we show that BBC radio had a strong impact on political violence. We provide further evidence to prove that BBC radio played an important role in coordinating resistance activities, but had no lasting role in motivating the population against the fascist regime.