|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2010‒03‒20
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Toshihiro OKUBO (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | Despite the world-wide spread of economic blocs following the Great Depression, Japan sought to find trade partners outside of its own bloc and to maintain a relationship with some foreign blocs, in particular maintaining a connection with the British Commonwealth and the Sterling bloc. The 1930s bloc economies did not isolate Japan. Also, in the early period of the cold war after World War II, capitalist blocs did not significantly isolate Japan. Econometric analysis of Japan’s trade and world trade over the period from 1890 to 1955 based on a development of a gravity equation illustrates these statements. |
| Keywords: | Trade/ Currency Blocs; Bloc Economy; Trade Diversion; Gravity equation; GATT |
| JEL: | F10 F15 N70 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2010-06&r=his |
| By: | Geoffrey Jones (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | This working paper offers a longitudinal and descriptive analysis of the strategies of multinationals from developed countries in developing countries. The central argument is that strategies were shaped by the trade-off between opportunity and risk. Three broad environmental factors determined the trade-off. The first was the prevailing political economy, including the policies of both host and home governments, and the international legal framework. The second was the market and resources of the host country. The third factor was competition from local firms. The impact of these factors on corporate strategies is explored, as shown in Fig. 1, during the three eras in the modern history of globalization from the nineteenth century until the present day. The performance of specific multinationals depended on the extent to which their internal capabilities enabled them to respond to these external opportunities and threats. |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-076&r=his |
| By: | McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen |
| Abstract: | “Commercialization” and “monetization” dance with stage theories from Smith to modern growth theory. The sheer growth of traded or the sheer growth of money, though, do not an Industrial Revolution make. The ill-named “Price Revolution,” for example, came from American gold, not from population increases, and did not inspire innovation. Commercialization comes from falling transaction costs, which should be directly studied. Fernand Braudel, however, argued for commercialization as a force transforming “capitalism.” He distinguished “capitalism” from local trade, which no economist would, and assigned blame to the capitalists. Though hardly a Marxist, he---like a brilliant group of leftish economists such as Marglin and Lazonick---puts emphasis on the struggle over the spoils. But it was not such struggles that made the modern world. It was the positive sum arising from innovation. |
| Keywords: | commercialization; innovation; monetarization; transaction costs; braudel; marglin; lazonick |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:21054&r=his |