Prof. Noel Johnson, Ph.D.

Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom

This is the title of a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press co-authored by Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama. The book provides a novel account of the rise of religious freedom. The authors argue that it was the rise of modern states – states capable of enforcing general rules and the rule of law – that provided the conditions for religious peace and for the eventual rise of religious and other liberal freedoms.

Mr Johnson will deliver three CES Lectures related to his book: “State Capacity, Religious Toleration, and Development in Europe, 1000–1850”.

Noel Johnson is also revising a paper on state capacity and social identity in France at the turn of the eighteenth century. The paper tests one of Alexis de Tocqueville’s main theses concerning the French Revolution: Did the actions of the absolute monarchy lay the foundations for the national orientation of the 1789 revolution? Mr Johnson is also in the early stages of a project investigating the global impact of the 1815 Tambora volcanic eruption on trade and food security in Europe, China and the United States.

Mr Johnson’s interests lie at the intersection of economic history, development and the new institutional economics. His recent research has focused on questions such as: How do states build administrative and fiscal capacity? What is the relationship between state capacity and growth enhancing economic and social outcomes such as religious tolerance or free trade? How has the disease environment and climate affected economic and social outcomes under different institutional settings? This research has been published in outlets including The Journal of Law and Economics, Explorations in Economic History, The Economic Journal, and the Journal of Development Economics.

Noel Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at George Mason University. He is also a member of the Center for the Study of Public Choice and a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. He earned his PhD at Washington University in St. Louis under the supervision of Douglass North and John V. C. Nye.