This volume contains papers first presented at a conference, “In Data Veritas: Institutions and Growth in Economic History,” held in honor of Lance Davis at the California Institute of Technology, November 6–8, 1998. In addition to the presenters, also attending, as formal or informal discussants, were Karen Clay, Robert Cull, Price Fishback, Albert Fishlow, Stephen Haber, John James, Shawn Kantor, Zorina Khan, Margaret Levenstein, Rebecca Menes, Clayne Pope, and John Wallis. The Introduction and the Afterword were written by the editors at a later date. We wish to thank Frank Smith from Cambridge University Press and the two anonymous referees for the Press for very helpful suggestions.

We wish to acknowledge the administrative help of Susan G. Davis and the financial help of the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, in the conference arrangements. In preparing the final manuscript we were aided by the Department of Economics, University of Rochester; the Department of Economics, UCLA; and the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology. In the process of publication, we benefited from the editorial work of Michie Shaw of TechBooks, the copyediting of Carol Sirkus, and the preparation of the index by Kathleen Paparchontis. But most of all we gained from the scholarship and enthusiasm of Lance Davis.