Hello Arthur

Just a casual comment, taken from memory, (chiefly for amusements sake?)

You ask > I am interested in the link between the introduction of mortgages
(as a result of a change in the law) and the level of land values………. 1) Are
there studies that explore the link in general (ie based on empirical data)

Berkeley in “The Querist” (1735-7 I think) floated the idea that high
denomination paper money should be launched and mortgage backed, but states
that steps would obviously have to be taken to stop financial bubbles in
mortgaged values.

Meanwhile his drinking buddy Arbuthnot wrote a little consulted work

“Tables of ancient coins, weights and measures, explain'd and exemplify'd in
several dissertations”

which begins  “I believe it will be readily owned that the Knowledge of the
Value of the Money Weights and Measures of the Ancients is necessary to the
understanding of their Writings,"

He wanted to found a tradition of customarily writing economically
quantified history, starting from (at least) the Greeks and Romans

Meanwhile Arbuthnot assisted another mutual drinking buddy Pope, in the
writing of “The Dunciad” bewailing the intellectual stupidities of early
18th century life

sigh.....

Robert Tye, York, UK