If you use any of the data or replication files in your work, please cite the corresponding paper. 

Working papers

Justices of the Peace: Legal Foundations of the Industrial Revolution (with Tim Besley, Dan Bogart, and Jonathan Chapman) 

• • Short abstract: The state's legal capacity, specifically through the local magistrates known as Justices of the Peace (JPs), contributed to economic development during Britain's Industrial Revolution by enforcing property rights, resolving disputes, and administering public services.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Replication package

  • Reject and resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics

African slavery and the reckoning of Brazil (with Guilherme Lambais)

• • Short abstract: More enslaved Africans disembarked in Brazil than in any other country in the New World. Using new data and synthetic control methods, we analyze the causal consequences of this trade. The slave trade made Brazil poorer.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Replication package

Monetary capacity (with Roberto Bonfatti , Adam Brzezinski, and Kivanç Karaman)

• • Short abstract: Building on long run historical evidence, we argue that money was not neutral in the long run, as greater monetization increased real tax revenues.

• • University of Oxford discussion paper

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR working paper

  • Vox (CEPR's policy portal) column

  • Replication package

  • Revise and resubmit, International Economic Review

The century of state failure: a fiscal history of China, 1850-1949  (with Hanhui Guan, Kivanç Karaman, and Zhiyin Xu)

• • Short abstract:  We investigate the fiscal trajectory of the Chinese state from the late Qing period to the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. State capacity remained low throughout this long period, preventing economic modernization. The state’s failure to monopolize coercive power was the main constraint to the building up of fiscal capacity.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

Fiscal capacity and executive constraints in early modern Europe (with Kivanç Karaman and António Henriques)

• • Short abstract:  The prevailing view of Europe’s political history is that the rise of constrained governments and the increases in state capacity advanced hand in hand. We reevaluate this perspective by constructing new historical indices for both. 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Revise and resubmit, Public Choice

Economic progress in twentieth-century Portugal: revisiting the evidence (with Alexandra Cermeño and Renato Pistola)

• • Short abstract: A recent commentary claims that one of the three sources that we relied in previous work is not representative. We revisit the matter and show that the authors systematically misrepresent our arguments, the sources, and the historical evidence for the time. The conclusions of our original work remain valid.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

The fate of the Taiping rebellion (with Chenyang Qi and Jinlin Wei) 

• • Short abstract: We show, using a new dataset, that scholars educated in Confucian academies became a key force in the suppression of the Taiping. The civil service examinations system helped maintain political stability and associated rents by endowing elites with a stake in the Qing status quo.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

The decline of child stunting in 122 countries: a systematic review of child growth studies since the nineteenth century (with Eric B. Schneider et al.) 

• • Short abstract: 

  • Working paper

  • Revise and resubmit, BMJ Global Health 

Negotiating pwer: local agency and european strategy in precolonial Africa (with Hélder Carvalhal, Soeren J. Henn, and James A. Robinson)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Replication package

The ethnographic and institutional structure of seventeenth-century Angola (with Mariana M. Cardoso and Soeren J. Henn)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Replication package

Wage inequality in Brazil, 1574-1920 (with Guilherme Lambais)

• • Short abstract: 

  • working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

How a nation was born: four centuries of Brazilian growth in comparative perspective (with Guilherme Lambais)

• • Short abstract: 

  • working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

Nobody expects the English Inquisition (with António Henriques)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

Treasure and de-industrialization in early modern Spain (with Roberto Bonfatti, Adam Brzezinski, and Eva Fernandez-Garcia)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

Did Greenspan open Pandora's box? testing the Taylor hypothesis (with João Madeira and Christiaan van der Kwaak)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Replication package

The fraudster and the Bank (with Luís Costa and Renato Pistola) 

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

Schooling and intergenerational transmission of human capital: evidence from a long historical panel (with Pedro Carneiro, Renato Pistola, and Hugo Reis)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data