Editor's introduction

Volume 27 is the last of 12 volumes of Research in Economic History I will edit. It includes six papers, evenly divided, as has been the case in the past, between European and North American topics. The lead paper, by Dan Bogart and Gary Richardson, opens up a new area of research in British economic history. Estate Acts were Parliamentary bills allowing landowners to relax restrictions on the sale, division, lease, or development of real property. These acts, which may have been as important as the more well-known Enclosure Acts, facilitated the move of real property to more productive uses as economic conditions changed.