Luis Bosshart

Academy Scholar
Harvard University, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies
lbosshart@fas.harvard.edu

I work on political economy and study how institutions shape political and economic development over time. I’m currently an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. I received my PhD from the London School of Economics in 2025. [CV]

Crisis and Absolutism: A Design-based Analysis of the Thirty Years‘ War, with M. Weigand
Revise and Resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Abstract
We examine how the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), the largest conflict in pre-modern Europe, gave rise to absolutism. We use planned troop movements from secret military communications to estimate the effect of town-level troop presence on the expansion of ruler-controlled fiscal and military capacity and the dismantling of parliaments. During the war, troop pressure raised the value of delegating resource mobilization to rulers. After the war, rulers used this capacity to form coalitions with landed elites and weaken parliaments. Courts and city leagues limited parliamentary decline, consistent with lower contracting frictions and stronger local outside options. With parliaments eliminated, militarized absolutist regimes persisted for centuries. Our findings highlight a dynamic trade-off between dictatorship and disorder during states of emergency.

Political Competition and Economic Divergence: Development Before and After the Black Death, with J. Dittmar
Reject and Resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Abstract [Video]
We study how political competition drove a major divergence in development after the labor supply shock of the Black Death. We leverage the interaction between the timing of the exogenous labor supply shock and a boundary between the politically concentrated, low competition East and the politically fragmented, high competition West of Europe. We investigate disaggregated panel data 1200-1800 and find that after the shock, urban construction and the development of city institutions fell by one-third and remained depressed where political competition was low ex ante. This holds (1) comparing neighboring and otherwise similar cities on either side of the boundary, (2) comparing cities subject to the same ruler within states spanning the boundary, and (3) using dynastic shocks as an IV for local political concentration. We find this urban divergence shifted outside options in labor markets and predicts the subsequent institutionalization of serfdom and the spread of farms using labor coercion.

Hysteresis and Selection in the Rise of Fascism: The `Ordinary Men‘ of the Nazi Party, with M. Deter, L. Heldring, C. Mohr, M. Weigand
Abstract
We digitize and analyze the near-universe of National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) membership records and link them to population and industrial censuses. Four findings emerge. First, as the party expanded, its membership came to resemble the broader population more closely in occupational, demographic, and religious terms. Second, SS members’ characteristics remained different: younger, more educated, and more fanatical, as measured by the display of Nazi insignia in membership portraits. Third, within communities, workplaces, and families, early membership generated hysteresis, with subsequent entrants drawn from the same groups. Finally, local increases in party membership are associated with subsequent deportations of Germany’s Jews.

Shifting Norms and Political Demand: Denazification in postwar Germany
Abstract
Can states and societies shift social norms? In a major denazification program, millions of Germans were questioned about their political past by courts. This paper documents how denazification shaped the emerging political landscape in postwar Germany. I leverage sharp variation in denazification across Allied occupation zones, across districts, and within districts. I find that broader denazification reduced the demand for nationalist policies and changed social norms. Differences are driven by mass rather than elite cases and political consequences are observed absent major punishment. The results indicate that the breadth of transitional justice can be more important than its severity in coordinating norms.

Work in Progress

Coordination and Collusion: Evidence from German Industrialization, with M. Weigand

Red Zones: Forced Displacement and Support for Far-Right Parties, with E. Dinas, F. Foos, and V. Fouka

Trade Shock and Political Development, with J. Dittmar 

Mass Media of Remembering: The Role of TV in Coming to Terms with the Nazi Past