The regional impact of an epidemic: socioeconomic and demographic data in Java, 1905-1924.

This dataset contains data for the island of Java, Indonesia, at the -level - comparable to present-day . The data concern trends in area of cultivated sugar, total and per-hectare sugar production, crude mortality rates and wages in the period ca. 1909-1924.

A bitter epidemic: The impact of the 1918 influenza on sugar production in Java.

Research about the economic consequences of past epidemics has mostly focused on the experience of industrialized countries, thus providing little knowledge about the effects of health shocks on developing economies. We fill this gap by studying the impact of the 1918 influenza in Java, with a new dataset on aggregate food production and district-level figures on (i) sugar production, the major export commodity and the predominant source of labour demand; (ii) agricultural and plantation wages, and (iii) annual crude death rates. The mortality impact of the influenza on Java was high, as crude mortality rates doubled in 1918 relative to the preceding years, but its economic impact was mixed.

Why were Dutch East Indiamen so slow?

The speed of ships is a crucial variable in shipping productivity. Despite the dominance of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Eurasian trade in the early modern era, its ships were generally slower than those of other companies. This article investigates the causes of this gap in shipping speeds.