Scarring and selection in the Great Irish Famine
Economic History Review, 2025

Matthias Blum, Christopher L. Colvin, Eoin McLaughlin How do famines shape the health of survivors? We examine the long-term impact of the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852) on human stature, distinguishing between adverse scarring effects and the apparent resilience of survivors due to selection. Using anthropometric data from over 14,500 individuals born before, during, and after this famine, we find that selection effects were most pronounced in areas with the highest mortality rates. Individuals born in severely affected regions exhibited no evidence of stunted growth, indicating that the Famine disproportionately eliminated the most vulnerable. In contrast, stunting is observed only in areas with lower excess mortality, where selective pressures were weaker. These findings contribute to debates on the biological consequences of extreme catastrophic risks, demonstrating how selection effects can obscure long-term health deterioration. More broadly, our study provides a methodological framework for assessing selection in historical anthropometric research.

Why are corporations terminated? A century of evidence from the Netherlands
Business History, 2025

Christopher L. Colvin, Abe de Jong, Philip T. Fliers, Florian Madertoner We identify all 196 Dutch exchange-listed corporations that halted their operations and ceased to exist between 1903 and 1996. We then explain these terminations using unique hand-collected accounting and governance data and regression techniques suited to long-run comparative analysis. Although Dutch bankruptcy laws remained unchanged across the twentieth century, patterns of corporate exit shifted markedly: shareholder-induced voluntary liquidations predominated before WWII, while creditor-driven bankruptcies became the norm thereafter. Our analyses suggest this transformation reflected a broader redefinition of corporate purpose, from a liberal shareholder-centric model before WWII, to a stakeholder-focused paradigm that emerged among Dutch business leaders in the post-war period. We further find that the Dutch government’s industrial policy initiatives in the 1970s did not succeed in reducing corporate failures. Our findings underscore how shifts in corporate purpose can fundamentally reshape business outcomes, even in the absence of formal legal changes.

Exploring the drivers of internal labour migration for the regions of Great Britain
Regional Studies, 2024

Heather Dickey, Marie Carroline Magante The role of internal migration in reducing regional inequalities is a common feature of classical economic theory and urban economics models. If regional migration is important in reducing spatial disparities, then understanding its causes, and barriers, is crucial. This paper explores the drivers of regional migration behaviour in Great Britain. Findings point to rigidities in housing that deter mobility across regions; and regional differences in the drivers and effects of regional migration. Our paper supports greater focus on spatial disaggregation, since migration studies conducted at the national level ignore important spatial differences in migration behaviour.

Place-based industrial strategies in the context of the Northern Ireland Protocol
Regional Studies, 2024

Graham Brownlow, Leslie Budd As a lagging regional economy that underperforms the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland represents a number of continuing challenges that have a long history. In recent years, technologies and processes associated with Industry 4.0 have had little impact with a few exceptions. Yet these activities have become central to industrial policy and strategies in the last two decades, in spite of the path-dependent nature of the economy. The underperformance is exacerbated by Brexit and increased hybridity of the economy due to the Northern Ireland Protocol that appears to be a form of industrial policy to be analysed.

What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature
Social Science & Medicine, 2024

Aine Doran, Christopher L. Colvin, Eoin McLaughlin What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023, with the final review encompassing 169 research papers selected for their relevance to understanding either the demographic or economic impact of pandemics. We include literature from across disciplines to maximise our knowledge base, finding many relevant articles in journals which would not normally be on the radar of social scientists. Our review identifies two gaps in the literature: (1) the need to study pandemics and their effects more collectively rather than looking at them in isolation; and (2) the need for more study of pandemics besides 1918 Spanish Influenza, especially milder pandemic episodes. These gaps are a consequence of academics working in silos, failing to draw on the skills and knowledge offered by other disciplines. Synthesising existing knowledge on pandemics in one place provides a basis upon which to identify the lessons in preparing for future catastrophic disease events.

Zero hours contracts and self-reported (mental) health in the UK
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2024

Egidio Farina, Colin Green, Duncan McVicar This article examines associations between precarious contract types and a range of self-reported health measures for the UK. We focus on zero hours contracts (ZHCs), an extreme form of precarious employment that has grown rapidly in the UK over the last decade, and on mental health. We demonstrate that workers employed on ZHCs are more likely to report a long-term health condition than workers employed on other types of contract, with the main driver being that they are almost twice as likely to report mental ill health. These associations survive conditioning on an extensive set of observable individual, job and contextual characteristics, and are robust to sensitivity analysis designed to explore the likely extent of bias due to unobserved confounders. We discuss potential explanations for these associations, from sorting of workers with poor health into ZHC employment to detrimental effects of ZHC employment on health, drawing on additional instrumental variables estimates to do so. Finally, we discuss potential policy implications.

Informal institutions as inhibitors of rent-seeking entrepreneurship: evidence from U.S. legal history
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2023

Andrew Smith, Graham Brownlow Rent-seeking entrepreneurship occurs whenever an entrepreneur expends resources on activities that benefit their firm while reducing overall economic efficiency. Since rent-seeking ultimately makes nations poorer, we need to know more about how institutions can discourage rent-seeking entrepreneurship. Using historical data from the Unites States, we explore how changes in judicial thinking altered individuals’ incentives to engage in rent-seeking entrepreneurship. Traditionally, entrepreneurship researchers interested in policy issues have paid little attention to changes in judicial thinking. We argue that entrepreneurship researchers who are interested in why levels of entrepreneurial dynamism vary over time should pay more attention to how judges think.

Urban regeneration projects and crime: evidence from Glasgow
Journal of Economic Geography, 2023

Daniel Borbely, Gennaro Rossi This study investigates the effects of urban regeneration on crime, leveraging recent large-scale regeneration projects—called Transformational Regeneration Areas (TRAs)—in Glasgow, Scotland. We employ a difference-in-differences approach that makes use of variation in both the timing of TRA implementation, and in proximity to these areas to measure exposure to urban regeneration projects. We find a large and significant reduction in crime within 400 m of TRAs but this effect fades as we move further away. Simultaneously, we find no evidence of city-wide reductions in crime after urban regeneration.