Does international financial integration boost economic growth? The empirical literature has not yet established a robust link between openness to the international capital market and economic growth. In this paper, we turn to the economic history of the first era of financial globalization (1880–1914) for new insights. Using identical empirical models and techniques as contemporary studies, we find a significant growth effect in the historical period. A key difference between now and then is that opening up to the international market led to net capital movements and higher investment in the historical period, but it no longer does so today.

How have house prices evolved over the long run? This paper presents annual house prices for 14 advanced economies since 1870. We show that real house prices stayed constant from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, but rose strongly and with substantial cross-country variation in the second half of the twentieth century. Land prices, not replacement costs, are the key to understanding the trajectory of house prices. Rising land prices explain about 80 percent of the global house price boom that has taken place since World War II. Our findings have implications for the evolution of wealth-to-income ratios, the growth effects of agglomeration, and the price elasticity of housing supply. (JEL C43, N10, N90, R31)