Research

Publications

  • The Cross of Gold: Brazilian Treasure and the Decline of Portugal (with Nuno Palma), Journal of Economic History, 2025.
    • Short abstract: The discovery of massive quantities of gold in Brazil during the eighteenth century led to a real exchange rate appreciation of about 30 percent, which destroyed the competitiveness of Portuguese industry and contributed to the country’s long-run economic regression.

Working Papers

  • The Success of the Embedded State in England (with Leander Heldring, James A. Robinson, and Matthias Weigand), 2026.
    • Short abstract: Many states exhibit high degrees of capacity without the fiscal resources necessary to fund a modern bureaucracy. We show, in the case of nineteenth-century Britain, that they (may) do so by creating the incentives for members of civil society to perform governing tasks on a voluntary basis.
  • The Marshall Plan: Then and Now (with Joel Mokyr), World Bank Policy Research Working Papers, 2025.
    • Short abstract: European policymakers look to historical precedents for the reconstruction of postwar Ukraine. We survey the history of the Marshall Plan, America’s rescue effort for a devastated Europe after World War II. We argue that the Plan succeeded because aid was conditioned on integration and institutional change.

Work in Progress

  • Expropriation, Reallocation, and Political Selection: Evidence from the Rise of the English Gentry (with Lukas Leucht)
  • Market Structure and Competition for Indigenous Trade (with Lukas Leucht and Chiara Motta)

Articles