{"title":"The Great Debasement and English overseas trade: Gresham and Johnson in context","authors":"Ling-Fan Li","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70099","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On the basis of price data collected from Gresham's Daybook and Johnson's letters, this article re-examines a conventional argument in the literature: that currency depreciation during the Great Debasement made English cloth cheaper and thus stimulated an export boom. The price data reveal that the purchase prices of English wool and cloth rose at roughly same rate as the depreciation of pound sterling. The two effects of coinage debasement – inflation and currency depreciation – largely offset each other. Depreciation alone is insufficient to explain the sustained expansion of English exports, rather, strong foreign demand was likely to provide the underlying momentum for the English cloth boom.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1530-1550"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Building a Potemkin village in occupied China: Japan's wartime system of linked trade, 1939–43","authors":"Shinji Takagi","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70068","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The paper discusses the novel but little-known exchange rate system of Japanese-occupied North China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in which exporters were given the right to import in the form of a piece of yellow paper, which could be sold in the secondary market. In an environment of rapid inflation where North China's currency was pegged to the Japanese yen and devaluation was not politically feasible, the system incentivized exports by allowing the exporters to offset their losses with the profits from selling goods imported, or the right to import goods, at the overvalued exchange rate. Following the start of the Pacific War, the system evolved to become a major scheme of facilitating trade between North and Central China under Japanese occupation. The paper, utilizing the classified documents of the Yokohama Specie Bank, reconstructs analytically how the system operated. Further, our analysis, based on monthly average data, confirms that the secondary market pricing of yellow paper broadly mimicked the operation of a flexible exchange rate. The system died a natural death when exploding inflation in Central China eliminated the export disincentive in North China.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1327-1345"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.70068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World , Trevor Jackson (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026. Pp. 320. Hbk £21. ISBN 9781324106876).","authors":"Sebastián Royo","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70144","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1650-1652"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149205496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Measuring the interwar housing boom: House prices and rents in England, 1913–39","authors":"Antoninus M. Samy","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70088","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Existing statistics about England's interwar housing market are sparse and based on outdated sources and methods. This article seeks to improve upon them by drawing on mortgage data from a major London-based building society and using the hedonic method of price index measurement to construct house price and rent indices for residential houses that are robust to intertemporal sampling differences. It is found that house prices and rents in England both rose significantly between 1919 and 1926 but moderated thereafter and declined throughout the 1930s housing boom. Further evidence indicates that there was excess supply in the housing market during the boom, driven by cheap money and a deliberate strategy by building societies of ‘making the market’ by fuelling private house construction.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1500-1529"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Making an Industrial Revolution: Skill, Knowledge, Community and Innovation Gillian Cookson, (Woodbridge, the Boydell Press, 2025. Pp. 252. Hbk $85.23, Pbk $32.26).","authors":"Joel Mokyr","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70143","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1647-1649"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The circulation and distribution of classical Greek coinage","authors":"Zane Mullins","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70069","url":null,"abstract":"<p>From a sample of the most prominent Greek city-states, data involving a total of 999 hoards and 160,007 coins from 550 to 300 BC were collected to discern the relative magnitudes, consistency of issue, and distribution of Classical Greek coinages. Of the city-states in this sample, the data display the widespread international use of several Classical Greek coinages. Most notable amongst these are the proliferation of Corinthian-style coinage in Sicily and Italy and the penetration of Athenian coinage into non-Greek areas such as the Levant and Egypt. The international movement of coins bolsters other forms of evidence for trade between Mediterranean civilizations in antiquity. Foreign imitations of the most successful internationally circulating coinages are also quantified and discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1275-1300"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.70069","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A series of (un)fortunate events: Commercial bank interest rates and deposit reallocation during the Great Depression in the Netherlands","authors":"Ruben Peeters, Amaury de Vicq de Cumptich","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70070","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the global economic crisis of 1929–33, deposits in the Dutch commercial banking sector sharply declined as funds shifted to the government-guaranteed Post Office Savings Bank and other savings institutions. Unlike earlier studies for neighbouring countries, we demonstrate that this shift was driven less by a flight to safety and more by a reduction in long-term interest rates on savings accounts offered by commercial banks, whilst the rates offered by the Post Office Savings Bank remained stable. Through a series of policy measures resembling financial repression, the Dutch government actively encouraged this shift to ensure a steady demand for government debt amongst savings institutions. As the demand for loans decreased, commercial banks managed to retain their profitability by reducing lending to smaller, less profitable businesses, as evidenced by higher minimum loan sizes, a preference for existing clients over new ones, and increased requirements for tangible collateral. This strategic move to eliminate less profitable loans from their portfolios enabled banks to weather the period with minimal damage and prevent an outright banking crisis, but it did contribute to a substantial reduction in private credit.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1346-1378"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.70070","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149205412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jeffry Frieden, Richard S. Grossman, Daniel Lowery
{"title":"Was freedom road a dead end? Socio-economic effects of Reconstruction in the American South","authors":"Jeffry Frieden, Richard S. Grossman, Daniel Lowery","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70085","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We investigate how Reconstruction affected Black socio-economic advancement after the American Civil War. We use the location of federal troops and Freedmen's bureau offices to indicate more intensive federal enforcement of civil rights. We find that Black people made greater socio-economic advances where Reconstruction was more rigorously enforced, and that these effects persisted at least until the early twentieth century, although these advances were weaker in cotton-plantation zones. We suggest a mechanism leading from greater Black political power to higher local property taxes through to higher levels of Black schooling and greater Black socio-economic achievement.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1474-1499"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chasing the perfida Albione: Anglo-Italian productivity gap in the late 1930s","authors":"Tancredi Salamone","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70071","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper presents new estimates of Anglo-Italian labour productivity levels in manufacturing in the late 1930s, derived using the standard single-deflation approach. The findings confirm a substantial productivity gap between Italy and the United Kingdom at the aggregate level, alongside pronounced intersectoral heterogeneity. Italy appears relatively competitive in textiles and, to a lesser extent, in iron and steel and in chemicals. Preliminary estimates using the more advanced double-deflation methodology, as well as tentative measures of productivity per hour worked, suggest that single-deflation figures may represent a lower-bound estimate. Nevertheless, the productivity gap remains large when benchmarked against other industrialized economies, lending support to a more pessimistic interpretation of the Fascist period in terms of labour productivity performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 4","pages":"1579-1607"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.70071","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149206005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic warfare and sanctions since 1688 , Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison, Eds., (Cambridge University Press, 2025. Pp. 298. ISBN 9781009474863. PbK £28).","authors":"Eric Golson","doi":"10.1111/ehr.70137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.70137","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"79 3","pages":"1270-1272"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148534345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}