Yves here. I must confess I had never heard of the Crusade Bulls before. I majored in the Industrial Revolution, and by then, the controversies over papal indulgences were over, even if their effects (Christian schism) were durable
I wonder how many readers will agree with the core premise of this article, that their purchase was an indicator “spiritual comfort and hence subjective well-being.” But we do see societies like Japan with comparatively low inequality where despite a long period of economic stagnation they still score well on social well-being measures.
By Carlos Álvarez-Nogal, Professor of Economics Universidad Carlos Iii De Madrid and Leandro Prados de la Escosura, Emeritus Professor of Economic History Universidad Carlos Iii De Madrid; Research Associate, CAGE University Of Warwick. Originally published at VoxEU
The relationship between a country’s economic conditions and the subjective well-being of its citizens has attracted increasing interest from economists in recent
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