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

  • Slides

  • Replication package

Living standards in Angola, 1760-1975 (with Hélder Carvalhal)

• • Short abstract: We investigate the comparative well-being of workers in Angola under colonialism.

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • African Economic History Network Working Paper 

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Part of the ESRC-funded project "Measuring the Great Divergence: A study of global standards of living, 1500-1950". Also here.

  • Data 

  • Revise and resubmit, Explorations in Economic History

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

  • Slides

  • Replication package

Goldilocks: American precious metals and the Rise of the West (with Yao Chen and Felix Ward)

• • Short abstract: We estimate the contribution of the American precious metal windfall to West Europe’s growth performance in the early modern period.

  • Tinbergen institute discussion paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Slides

  • Replication package

  • Revise and resubmit, Review of Income and Wealth

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, K. 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

State 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

  • Data

  • Revise and resubmit, Public Choice

Worldwide Child Stunting since the Nineteenth Century (with Eric B. Schneider and 41 co-authors) 

• • Short abstract: 

  • Working paper

Negotiating Power: 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

Nobody expects the English Inquisition (with António Henriques)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Replication package

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

A bumpy ride: economic growth in Portugal from the Reconquest to the present (with António Henriques)

• • Short abstract: 

  • Data

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

• • Short abstract: 

  • Lewis Lab working paper

  • CEPR discussion paper

  • Data

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

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