Public Goods Institutions, Human Capital, and Growth: Evidence from German History
研究了16世纪德国城市通过新法律提供公共品的起源与后果，发现采纳法律的城市随后吸引了更多人力资本并增长更快，法律变革源于宗教改革与地方政治的互动。
What are the origins and consequences of the state as a provider of public goods? We study public goods provision established through new laws in German cities during the 1500s. Cities that adopted the laws subsequently began to differentially produce and attract human capital and to grow faster. Legal change occurred where ideological competition introduced by the Protestant Reformation interacted with local politics. We study plagues that shifted local politics in a narrow period as sources of exogenous variation in public goods institutions, and find support for a causal interpretation of the relationship between legal change, human capital, and growth.