The empirical foundation
A comprehensive digital catalog of peer-reviewed monographs, policy papers, and historical treatises examining institutional friction across eras.
Published monographs
Long-form historical analyses investigating how constitutional design and resource distribution shape long-term economic trajectories.
Institutions of exchange
The friction of reform
An empirical investigation into trade networks and legal structures in early modern Europe, published by Harvard University Press.
A comparative study of administrative capacity and bureaucratic resistance during major 19th-century constitutional transitions.
Peer-reviewed articles
Quantitative studies and working drafts analyzing institutional development, legislative voting patterns, and historical fiscal policy.
Debt and sovereignty
Administrative capacity
Archival quantitative methods
Analyzing the long-term consequences of sovereign defaults on legislative authority across three centuries of European history.
A methodological framework for translating historical parish records into structured datasets for political economy research.
An empirical assessment of civil service reforms and their impact on public goods provision in post-colonial states.
Archival research standards
Every publication in this archive is cataloged with complete replication datasets, pre-print PDFs, and standardized citation metadata to support ongoing scholarly research.
Christie McDonald
Publications
Inquiries
cmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu
Harvard University — Department of Government