...Jonathan Stavnskær Doucette The printing press was arguably one of the most important pre modern innovations. Why did some European cities adopt it and not others? I argue that the Dominican monastic order played a key role in explaining the diffusion of the printing press, as the technology...

.... states, who engaged in regulatory behavior prior to the Civil War. In this paper, I utilize data on the adoption of telegraph regulation policies by the U.S. states in the 1840s and 1850s (when the telegraph was new and cutting-edge technology) in an attempt to gain purchase on what explains the rise...