Mark Koyama

Professor

Economic History

Mark Koyama is Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Research Associate at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), and Mercatus Center, Senior Scholar. Professor Koyama earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford. At George Mason he is the Director of the PPE Concentration. Professor Koyama is a global economic historian. His research is focused on questions such as the origins of modern and economic growth and liberal democracy. His work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Literature, the Economic Journal and many other scholarly journals.

He is the author of two books: Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom (CUP: 2019) with Noel Johnson and How the World Became Rich (Polity: 2022) with Jared Rubin.

Selected Publications

“Feudal Political Economy” with Desiree Desierto. Economic Theory.

“Resisting Education”, with Jean Paul Carvalho and Cole. Williams. Journal of the European Economic Association. 2024. 22 (6), 2549-2597

“Religious Violence and Coalition Politics in History” with Desiree Desierto. ‘Journal of Historical Political Economy. Vol. 4, No. 2, pp 281-309.

“Economic History as a Progressive Science”. Essays in Economic and Business History. Vol. 42, No.2, June 2024, pp.1-21

“Shipwrecked by Rents”, with Fernando Arteaga and Desiree Desierto. The Journal of Development Economics. Vol. 168, May

“Pandemics and Cities: Evidence from the Black Death and the Long-Run” with Remi Jedwab and Noel Johnson. Journal of Urban Economics. Vol. 139, January 2024, 103628

“The Political Economy of Status Competition: Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe” with Desiree Desierto. TheJournal of Economic History. Vol. 84, No. 2, June 2024. pp, 479-516.

“The Fractured-Land Hypothesis” with Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Tuan-Hwee Sng, and Lin Youhong. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 138, No. 2, May 2023, pp. 1173–1231,

How the World Became Rich” with Jared Rubin. Polity Press, May 2022. Amazon.

Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom, with Noel D. Johnson, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2019. Amazon

“The Economic Impact of the Black Death,” The Journal of Economic Literature, with Remi Jedwab and Noel D. Johnson. Vol. 60. Issue 1. March 2022. Pages 132-178.

[See My CV for a Full List of Publications]

Expanded Publication List

"Legal Capacity in Historical Political Economy" in The Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy, edited by Jeffrey A. Jenkins and Jared Rubin. Oxford University Press. 2023.

`Epidemic Disease, and the State'' Public Choice. 2023. Vol. 195: pp. 145–167.

“Seapower,” with Ahmed S. Rahman and Tuan-Hwee Sng,” Journal of Historical Political Economy Volume 1, Issue 2. 2022.

“Medieval Cities Through the Lens of Urban Economic Theory” with Remi Jedwab and Noel D. Johnson, Regional Science and Urban Economics 2020, Forthcoming

“The Institutional Foundations of Religious Freedom”, The Journal of Economics,Management and Religion, 2020, Forthcoming.

“The State, Toleration, and Religious Freedom” with Noel D. Johnson, Forthcoming in Iyer, Rubin and Carvalho (Eds.), Advances in the Economics of Religion, 2019, Palgrave.

“Economic History” The Routledge Companion to Jewish History and Historiography, edited by Dean Phillip Bell. Routledge. London. 2019.

Analytical Narratives” An Economist's Guide to Economic History, edited by Matthias Blum and Christopher Colvin, Palgrave Macmillan. London 2019. pp 371-378

“States and Economic Growth: Capacity and Constraints ” with Noel D. Johnson, Explorations in Economic History, April 2017, Volume 64, Issue 2, pp 1–20

"Education, Identity, and Community: Lessons from Jewish Emancipation" with Jean-Paul Carvalho and Michael Sacks. Public Choice, 2017, vol. 171(1), pp. 119--143.

“Jewish Emancipation and Schism: Economic Development and Religious Change”, with Jean-Paul Carvalho, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 44, Issue 3, August 2016, pp. 562--584.

"States and Economic Growth: Capacity and Constraints", with Noel D. Johnson, Explorations in Economic History, vol. 64, April 2017, pp. 1--20.

“The Long Transition from a Natural State to a Liberal Economic Order”, International Review of Law and Economics, vol. 47, August 2016, pp. 29--39.

“Monetary Stability and the Rule of Law”, with Blake Johnson, Journal of Financial Stability, vol 17, pp. 46-58, April 2015. 7.

“The Law and Economics of Private Prosecutions in Industrial Revolution England”, Public Choice, vol. 159, issue 1-2, pp. 277-298, April 2014,

“Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State” with Noel D. Johnson. Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 41, issue 4. November 2013. 11.

“Prosecution Associations in Industrial Revolution England: Private Providers of Public Goods?”, Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 41, issue 1, 2012. 12.

“The Transformation of Labor Supply in the Pre-Industrial World”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 81, issue 2, pp. 505-523, 2012. 13.

“Evading the Taint of Usury: the Usury Prohibition as a Barrier to Entry”, Explorations in Economic History, vol. 47, issue 4 pp. 420-442, 2010. 14.

“The Political Economy of Expulsion: the Regulation of Jewish Moneylending in Medieval England”, Constitutional Political Economy, vol. 32, issue 4, pp. 374-406, 2010

Grants and Fellowships

2024 Emergent Ventures, Co-Pi with Desiree Desierto

2023 Templeton Individual Freedom and Free Markets, Co-PI with Desiree Desierto

2022 Pluralism & Exchange Grant, Mercatus Center, Co-PI with Desiree Desierto

2021 Career Development Faculty Research Development Award (FRDA), GMU

2021 F.A. Hayek Fund for Scholars

2017 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell Fellowship, Hoover Institution.

2016 Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

2016 Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship (IMMF), National University Singapore.

Education

DPhil in Economics, Oxford 2010.

Recent Presentations

2024: University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (invited seminar); University of Mississippi (invited public talk); Vancouver School of Economics (invited seminar); Deep Roots of Political and Economic Development (Complexity Science Hub, Vienna)

2023: Clemson (invited seminar); University of Lincoln (invited seminar); ASREC (Harvard University); 7th International Conference on Applied Theory, Macro and Empirical Finance (keynote speaker); Institute of Politics Florida State University, Florida State University, Economics Department (invited seminar); Cage Summer School (University of Warwick); West Virginia University (invited webinar); Mercatus Markets & Society Conference; Social Science History Meetings (Washington DC, 2 presentations).

2022: Tulane University (invited seminar); University of Groningen (invited webinar); University Pittsburgh (Workshop on Political Economy and Economic History); Peking University (invited webinar); ASREC (Chapman University); Texas Tech (invited seminar); University of Connecticut (invited webinar); PPE workshop, George Mason University; Project on Democracy and Capitalism: How the World Became Rich, University of Virginia; Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska; SEA Meetings, Fort Lauderdale; PPE Book Panel, George Mason University.

In the Media

Here are a few media mentions.

NPR Planet Money: The Case of the Serial Sinking Spanish Ships(Jan 2024)

The Economist: The Link Between Poor Harvests and Violence (June 2017)

The Upshot (NY Times): The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth (June 2014)

Slate.com: How Come China Became One Country but Europe Became Lots of Countries? (January 2014)

Foreign Policy: In Medieval Europe, Bad Weather Was Especially Bad for Jews (June 2013)

Times of Israel: Pogroms on Jews linked to cold snaps (March 2013)

Financial Times: Costs of a Cuppa (August 2012)

Dissertations Supervised

Patrick Fitzsimmons, Essays in the Historical Political Economy of Violence and the State (2025)

Marcus Shera, The Political Economy of Christian Monasticism (2024)

Jacob Hall, Life in the Fast Lane: Essays in Economic History and State Building (2023)

Fernando Arteaga, Three Essays on the Formation and Fragmentation of States (2019)