|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2015‒06‒20
thirty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Jaco Zuijderduijn; Roos van Oosten |
| Abstract: | Using historical and archeological sources, we study saving behaviour in late-medieval Holland. Historical sources show that well before the Reformation – and the alleged emergence of a ‘Protestant ethic’ – many households from middling groups in society reported savings worth at least several months’ wages of a skilled worker. That these findings must be interpreted as an exponent of saving behaviour – as an economic strategy – is confirmed by an analysis of finds of money boxes: 14th and 15th-century cesspits used by middling-group and elite households usually contain pieces of money boxes. We argue this is particularly strong evidence of late-medieval saving strategies, as money boxes must be considered as ‘self-disciplining’ objects: breaking the piggy bank involved expenses and put a penalty on spending. We also show that the use of money boxes declined over time: they are no longer found in early-modern cesspits. We formulate two hypotheses to explain long-term shifts in saving behavior: 1) late-medieval socioeconomic conditions were more conducive for small-time saving than those of the early-modern period, 2) in the early-modern Dutch Republic small-time saving was substituted by craft guild insurance schemes. |
| Keywords: | medieval history, early-modern history, archaeology, saving, economic strategies, financial history. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0065&r=his |
| By: | Carlos Rodríguez Braun (Departamento de Historia e Instituciones Económicas I. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.) |
| Abstract: | El gran éxito editorial de Thomas Piketty, El capital en el siglo XXI, utiliza referencias literarias, y en particular las novelas de Jane Austen, para ilustrar el problema de la desigualdad. Su análisis es insatisfactorio en dos aspectos principales. En primer lugar, presenta una visión distorsionada de los escritos de Austen, quien de hecho reconoció que la sociedad de su tiempo era más dinámica y móvil que lo que sugiere Piketty. En Segundo lugar, Piketty ignora a un pensador tan relevante como Adam Smith, que está presente en las obras de Jane Asten a través de un principio clave de su teoría del comportamiento y del crecimiento económico: los seres humanos no procuran ser iguales, sino mejores. |
| Abstract: | Thomas Piketty’s best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, utilizes literary references, and particularly Jane Austen’s novels, to illustrate the problem of inequality. His analysis is unsatisfactory in two major aspects. First, he presents a distorted picture of Austen’s writings. Austen, in fact, recognized that the society of her time was more dynamic and socially mobile than what Piketty suggests. Second, Piketty ignores a thinker as relevant as Adam Smith, which is present in Jane Austen’s works through a key principle of his theory of conduct and of economic growth: human beings do not strive to be equal, but to be better. |
| Keywords: | Desigualdad; Capitalismo.; Inequality; Capitalism. |
| JEL: | B12 D63 E24 N13 P10 Z10 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doctra:15-04&r=his |
| By: | Jakob B. Madsen; Antonio Minniti; Francesco Venturini |
| Abstract: | This paper tests Piketty's predictions that in the long run (i) the capital-income ratio, K-Y, is driven by the ratio between the rates of saving and income growth, s and g; and that (ii) the capital share of income responds to variations in the s-g ratio, along with the rate of return on capital, r. We assess the two predictions using both Piketty and Zucman's (2014) original data and a new long historical dataset covering 21 OECD countries. Our findings corroborate Piketty’s theory in the very long run (1870-2010), whilst evidence for the latest decades is less robust (1970-2010). |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-34&r=his |
| By: | MAVEYRAUD Samuel |
| Abstract: | The aim of this article is to clearly identify the mechanisms of the money market spillovers between the United States, the United Kingdom and France during the interwar period. To describe these mechanisms in detail, a BEKK model, in which we introduce a structural break, is adopted. Our analysis sheds new light on key historical issues: Was the crisis imported into the US? Did France set off interest rate volatility in the rest of the world during the thirties? Does the propagation process of interest rate volatility corroborate the “Golden Fetters” hypothesis? |
| Keywords: | Contagion, Gold Exchange standard, interest rates |
| JEL: | N12 N14 N22 N24 E4 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2015-11&r=his |
| By: | Ventura, Jaume; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain’s borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance of liquidly traded bonds allowed the nobility to switch out of low-return investments such as agricultural improvements. This switch lowered factor demand by old sectors and increased profits in new, rising ones such as textiles and iron. Because external financing contributed little to the Industrial Revolution, this boost in profits in new industries accelerated structural change, making Britain more industrial more quickly. The absence of an effective transfer of financial resources from old to new sectors also helps to explain why the Industrial Revolution led to massive social change – because the rich nobility did not lend to or invest in the revolutionizing industries, it failed to capture the high returns to capital in these sectors, leading to relative economic decline. |
| Keywords: | crowding out; debt crises; financial repression; Industrial Revolution; misallocation; productivity; Ricardian equivalence; structural change |
| JEL: | E22 E25 E62 H56 H60 N13 N23 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10652&r=his |
| By: | Till Dueppe; E. Roy Weintraub |
| Abstract: | In fall 1935, Abraham Wald presented a fixed-point proof of a general equilibrium model to Karl Menger’s Mathematical Colloquium in Vienna. Due to limited space, the paper could not be printed in the eighth proceedings of the Colloquium (the Ergebnisse) published in spring 1937 but was scheduled for the ninth issue of the series. After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938 however, Menger’s Colloquium ended and the proof never appeared in print. Nor did Wald, after he fled to the U.S. and launched a career in statistics, pursue the diffusion of his proof. After his sudden death in 1950, only Wald’s preliminary proof of 1934 was translated into English for Econometrica. When thus Arrow, Debreu, and McKenzie in 1954 referred in their own fixed-point proofs only to Wald’s preliminary published version, his 1935 fixed-point proof was forgotten. This did not change when economists and historians of economics, the authors included, reconstructed Wald’s contribution. New evidence, however, proves its existence. This article tells the story of Wald’s lost equilibrium proof. |
| Keywords: | fixed-point theorem, general equilibrium theory, Vienna Mathematical Colloquium, Karl Menger, Abraham Wald |
| JEL: | B2 B3 C6 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2015-4&r=his |
| By: | Bas van Bavel; Daniel Curtis |
| Abstract: | This papers argues that the understanding of causes and effects of hazards and shocks could be furthered by making more explicit and systematic use of the historical record, that is, by using ‘the past’ as a laboratory to test hypotheses in a careful way. History lends itself towards this end because of the opportunity it offers to identify distinct and divergent social structures existing very close to one another on a regional level and the possibility this creates of making comparisons between societal responses to shocks spatially and chronologically. Furthermore, the basic richness of the historical record itself enables us to make a long-term reconstruction of the social, economic and cultural impact of hazards and shocks simply not possible in contemporary disaster studies material. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, History, Methodology, Comparative, Disasters |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0068&r=his |
| By: | Crafts, Nicholas (University of Warwick); Klein, Alexander (University of Kent) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of industrial structure in labor productivity growth in U.S. cities between 1880 and 1930 using a new dataset constructed from the Census of Manufactures. We find that increases in specialization were associated with faster productivity growth but that diversity only had positive effects on productivity performance in large cities. We interpret our results as providing strong support for the importance of Marshallian externalities. Industrial specialization increased considerably in U.S. cities in the early 20th century, probably as a result of improved transportation, and we estimate that this resulted in significant gains in labor productivity. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies ; Jacobian externalities ; manufacturing productivity ; Marshallian externalities ; industrial structure JEL Classification: N91 ; N92 ; O7 ; R32 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:235&r=his |
| By: | Warren E. Weber |
| Abstract: | The period from 1914 to 1935 in the United States is unique in that it was the only time that both privately-issued bank notes (national bank notes) and central bank-issued bank notes (Federal Reserve notes) were simultaneously in circulation. This paper describes some lessons relevant to e-money from the U.S. experience during this period. It argues that Federal Reserve notes were not issued to be a superior currency to national bank notes. Rather, they were issued to enable the Federal Reserve System to act as a lender of last resort in times of financial stress. It also argues that the reason to eventually eliminate national bank notes was that they were potentially a source of bank reserves. As such, they could have threatened the Federal Reserve System’s control of the reserves of the banking system and thereby the Fed’s control of monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Bank notes, E-Money, Financial services |
| JEL: | E E4 E41 E42 E5 E58 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:15-18&r=his |
| By: | Valerij Gouschin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The article analyzes the role of the aristocracy in democratic Athens, i.e. in the Vth Century B.C. What happened to the aristocracy in democratic Athens? Whether the aristocrats were able to adapt themselves to new social and political realities? It is suggested that there took place their division into democratic and aristocratic piliticians, a separation of democratically-oriented leaders (prostates tou demou), who managed to adapt to democratic instituions. The political actions of prostatai had features of demagogy. Thus we can assume that such a phenomenon as demagogy appeared much earlier than previously thought. The other part of aristocracy was not alien to demagogy as well. Suffice it to mention the efforts made by Thucydides son of Melesias, who created a political hybrid, of an aristocratic hetaireia which did not shun demagogic techniques |
| Keywords: | Athenian democracy, Vth Century B.C., demos, aristocracy, political leadership. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:101hum2015&r=his |
| By: | Nicholas Apergis (Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.); Christina Christou (University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria); Stephen M. Miller (Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89154-6005, USA) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the sparse literature on inequality convergence by empirically testing convergence across the U.S. States. This sample period encompasses a series of different periods that are discussed in the existing literature -- the Great Depression (1929-1944), the Great Compression (1945-1979), the Great Divergence (1980-present), the Great Moderation (1982-2007), and the Great Recession (2007-2009). This paper implements the relatively new methodology of panel convergence testing, recommended by Phillips and Sul (2007). This method examines the club convergence hypothesis, which argues that certain countries, states, sectors, or regions belong to a club that moves from disequilibrium positions to their club-specific steady-state positions. We find strong support for convergence through the late 1970s and early 1980s and then evidence of divergence. The divergence, however, moves the dispersion of inequality measures across states only a fraction of the way back to their levels in the early part of the 19th Century. |
| Keywords: | Club convergence, Inequality measures, Panel data, US states |
| JEL: | C22 D63 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201539&r=his |
| By: | Saito, Osamu; Takashima, Masanori |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to provide revised estimates of population totals, primary-sector output and urbanisation rates between 1600 and 1874 – covering the entire Tokugawa era plus the Tokugawa-Meiji transition period – with new benchmark years. Having checked previous estimates and data, both Tokugawa and early Meiji, on which those estimates were based, several revisions and improvements have been made. The new benchmark estimates of these indicators will serve as a good preparation for estimating historical national accounts of early modern Japan. |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rcesrs:dp15-3&r=his |
| By: | Jacob T. Levy |
| Abstract: | This paper races the shifts in treatments of intermediate groups among some liberal and democratic political theorists in the 18th and 19th centuries. The decades of the late 18th and early 19th centuries are traditionally understood to encompass the emergence of fully liberal political and social theory, and an early version of liberal political practice, in France, the UK, and the US; they have lately been identified by North, Wallis, and Weingast as the decades when those three societies substantially made the transition to “open access” political, economic, and legal orders. This transition consists in part in the democratization of organizational tools that had previously been open only to members of the elite, such as the shift from specially chartered monopolistic corporations to general incorporation laws, and that from parliamentary oligopolistic party competition to modern parties competing in wide-suffrage elections. Although the early liberal theorists did not fully perceive the changes happening around them, their analyses and reactions can help us see things about the shift to open-access orders that might not be fully visible in retrospect. To varying degrees they looked forward to the possibility of a pluralism without privilege, but they also had doubts about its possibility. They offered some reasons to prefer pluralism with privilege to the absence of both. They worried that centralization, democratic or otherwise, might be the preeminent fact of modern state consolidation, and that purely voluntary, equal, associational pluralism might not be powerful enough to check it. The kinds of pluralism grounded in ancient regime privilege and status, in entrenched jurisdictional pluralism within the constitutional order, or in pre-political cultural and customary ties might be needed to motivate the oppositional political action that could protect pluralism and freedom. |
| JEL: | B12 L30 N10 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21254&r=his |
| By: | Mulaj, Isa |
| Abstract: | The Battle of Gallipoli/Çanakkale or the Dardanelles Campaign as one of the greatest catastrophe of World War I (WWI) and major Axis victory, apart from Turkey, received little attention in the history textbooks of European countries until recently. It was most likely neglected because the Allies emerged victorious of WWI in aggregate terms. The belligerents from many nations in the Battle of Çanakkale, especially from the Balkans, ended up in the camp which they fought against – the victorious Allies. The sacrifice in that battle went missing for taking part and falling for the “wrong side.” In such a vacuum, the suffering, pride and legacy of the battle remained rightly to be exploited by Turkey to the present day. The aftermath impact of the battle was the establishment of new nation states among the Allies fighting mainly under the command of British Commonwealth, then the event was silenced. Its use by Turkey due to the territory in which the battle took place for a national pride and subsequent nationalism, does not imply that the Turks had absolute or exclusive role in waging that war. Looking more closely at the evidence, events, causes, course and consequences of the time, makes it more clear that what is presented as a Turkish sacrifice and victory, was a participation of multinational defenders with German and Austro-Hungarian support. This paper aims at unfolding some crucial aspects of the Battle in Gallipoli which in modern times show a tendency of sharing the contribution by many nations, Albanians in particular, as an inspiration of alliances not for future wars, but as a common heritage for longer term perspective and peace. |
| Keywords: | Ottoman Empire, Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey, WWI, Allies, nation states |
| JEL: | F5 F51 |
| Date: | 2015–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:65032&r=his |
| By: | Eoin McLaughlin (Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St. Andrews); Paul Sharp (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | By 1914, Danish butter had captured a sizeable share of the British market, largely at the expense of Irish suppliers. This is usually attributed to a more successful adoption of the cooperative organisational form, where cultural and legal issues put the Irish at a disadvantage. We argue that there were also significant differences in the private sector in the two countries, where large incumbent proprietary creameries in Ireland were in a stronger position to defend their interests. Even if the cooperativ es were able to operate like their Danish counterparts, they would still have faced much tougher competition from proprietary incumbents. |
| Keywords: | Cooperation, corporate structure, Denmark, joint-stock company, dairying, Ireland, organisational form |
| JEL: | L22 L23 L66 N53 N54 Q12 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sss:wpaper:2015-16&r=his |
| By: | Clara Elisabetta Mattei |
| Abstract: | The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely unexplored. This essay considers the "liberal phase" of Fascist Italy (1922-1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and practice, encompassing the moral, the economic and the political. My explanation moves beyond the interpretation of austerity as the post-1980, neoliberal recipe of price deflation and budget cuts. The Italian case draws attention to a neglected connection: that between austerity and repression. Austerity was the guiding principle of the Fascist economic agenda during the 1920s. It served to extinguish the effects of the democratization process of the post-WWI years. The paper examines the work of four distinguished economists, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi, Alberto De Stefani and Umberto Ricci, who - in different roles as professors, journalists, advisors, and policy-makers ó can be considered the source, the guardians and the enforcers of Fascist austerity. |
| Keywords: | Austerity, Repressive Politics, Economists as Consultants, Fascism |
| Date: | 2015–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2015/17&r=his |
| By: | Jaremski, Matthew (Department of Economics, Colgate University); Wheelock, David C. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | Established by a three person Reserve Bank Organization Committee (RBOC) in 1914, the structure of the Federal Reserve System has remained essentially unchanged ever since, despite criticism at the time and over ensuing decades. This paper examines the selection of cities for Reserve Banks and branches, and of district boundaries. We show that each aspect of the Fed’s structure reflected the preferences of national banks, including adjustments of district boundaries after the Fed was established. Further, using newly-collected information on the locations of each national bank’s correspondents, we find that banker preferences mirrored established interbank connections. The Federal Reserve was thus formed on top of the structure that it was meant to replace. |
| Keywords: | Federal Reserve System; Federal Reserve Banks; Reserve Bank Organization Committee; interbank networks; correspondent banking. |
| JEL: | E58 N21 N22 |
| Date: | 2015–06–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2015-011&r=his |
| By: | Matthew T. Panhans; John D. Singleton |
| Abstract: | While historians of economics have noted the transition toward empirical work in economics since the 1970s, less understood is the shift toward \quasi-experimental" methods in applied microeconomics. Angrist and Pischke (2010) trumpet the wide application of these methods as a \credibility revolution" in econometrics that has nally provided persuasive answers to a diverse set of questions. Particularly in uential in the applied areas of labor, education, public, and health economics, the methods shape the knowledge produced by economists and the expertise they possess. First documenting their growth bibliometrically, this paper aims to illuminate the origins, content, and contexts of quasi-experimental research designs, which seek natural experiments to justify causal inference. To highlight lines of continuity and discontinuity in the transition, the quasi-experimental program is situated in the historical context of the Cowles econometric framework and a case study from the economics of education is used to contrast the practical implementation of the approaches. Finally, signicant historical contexts of the paradigm shift are explored, including the marketability of quasi-experimental methods and the 1980s crisis in econometrics. |
| Keywords: | econometrics, quasi-experimental methods, natural experiments, applied economics |
| JEL: | B21 B23 B4 C1 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2015-3&r=his |
| By: | Saito, Osamu; Takashima, Masanori |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new methodology of estimating non-primary sector output shares in early modern growth. By using data from proto-industrial Japan, the paper demonstrates, first, that not just the rate of urbanisation but population density would also work as another predictor of the secondary and tertiary sectoral shares when growth was rural-centred; and second, that regional panel data should be constructed from earliest possible sets of modern data to estimate the coefficients of these two variables on the sectoral shares. In order to apply the coefficients derived from modern data for the calculation of pre-modern estimates, regional panel data are far superior to simple time-series statistics. The paper presents new per-capita GDP estimates thus computed for Japan 1600-1874, together with a brief comparison with previous estimates, especially those by Angus Maddison. |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rcesrs:dp15-4&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Richard G. (Lindenwood University); Bordo, Michael D.; Duca, John V. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas) |
| Abstract: | This study models the velocity (V2) of broad money (M2) since 1929, covering swings in money [liquidity] demand from changes in uncertainty and risk premia spanning the two major financial crises of the last century: the Great Depression and Great Recession. V2 is notably affected by risk premia, financial innovation, and major banking regulations. Findings suggest that M2 provides guidance during crises and their unwinding, and that the Fed faces the challenge of not only preventing excess reserves from fueling a surge in M2, but also countering a fall in the demand for money as risk premia return to normal amid velocity shifts stemming from financial reform. |
| Keywords: | Money demand; Financial crises; Monetary policy; Liquidity; Financial innovation |
| Date: | 2015–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:1503&r=his |
| By: | Oriana Bandiera; Myra Mohnen; Imran Rasul; Martina Viarengo |
| Abstract: | By the mid-19th century, America was the best educated nation on Earth: signi…cant …nancial investments in education were being undertaken and the majority of children voluntarily attended public schools. So why did US states start introducing compulsory schooling laws at this point in time? We provide qualitative and quantitative evidence that compulsory schooling laws were used as a nation-building tool to homogenize the civic values held by the tens of millions of culturally diverse migrants who moved to America during the 'Age of Mass Migration'. Our central finding is that the adoption of compulsory schooling by American-born median voters occurs significantly earlier in time in states that host many migrants who had lower exposure to civic values in their home countries and had lower demand for common schooling when in the US. By providing micro-foundations for such laws, our study highlights an important link between mass migration and institutional change, where changes are driven by the policy choices of native median-voters in the receiving country rather than migrant settlers themselves |
| JEL: | D02 F22 I28 O15 P16 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stieop:57&r=his |
| By: | Ana Tur-Prats |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the historical origins of violence against women, in contrast to earlier literature, which focused only on short-term determinants. It analyses the relationship between traditional family patterns (stem versus nuclear) and intimate-partner violence (IPV). Stem families are those in which one child stays in the parental household with spouse and children, so that at least two generations live together. I model the behavior of a traditional peasant family and show how coresidence with a mother-in-law increases a wife’s contribution to farmwork. This increased contribution is shown to potentially decrease the level of violence, since the wife’s reduced productivity acts as a deterrent. In my empirical analysis I use Spanish data, as Spain offers IPV measures of the highest quality as well as a persistent geographical distribution of family types. Results show that areas where stem families were socially predominant in the past currently have a lower IPV rate. I control for a large number of contemporary, historical, and geographical variables. To address causality, I use the stages and differences in the Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (722-1492) as an instrument for the different family types. My instrumental variable results are consistent with my original findings. |
| Keywords: | Gender inequality, cultural norms, persistence, inheritance, coresidence, Christian conquest. |
| JEL: | D03 J12 N43 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1486&r=his |
| By: | Michael Spackman |
| Abstract: | The key analytical aspects of social time discounting were largely resolved by the early 1970s, the main developments since then being empirical studies and more emphasis, since the mid 1990s, on the very long term. However approaches to social discounting in developed economies and international bodies vary. This is sometimes for institutional reasons, and sometimes because of persistent differences of analytical framing. |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsg:lsgwps:wp182&r=his |
| By: | MEISSNER Christopher; BECUWE Stéphane; BLANCHETON Bertrand |
| Abstract: | Using a new long term database on French foreign trade at a high level of disaggregation the paper deepened France’s international specializations, comparative advantages and exports concentration. At the beginning of the period, France appears to have espoused a Ricardian model of trade, exporting few textiles products in large quantities. The decreasing of the degree of specialization from 1860 to WWI calling into question dynamic Ricardian model expectations about an increasing of French exports concentration. The decline of exports concentration is correlated with chronic deficit of its balance of trade during Belle Epoque. We observe the same phenomena during the major part of interwar particularly after 1927. |
| Keywords: | specialization, comparative advantage, exports concentration, first globalization. |
| JEL: | F N73 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2015-18&r=his |
| By: | Christopher Hoag (Department of Economics, Trinity College) |
| Abstract: | Before the founding of the Federal Reserve, bank clearinghouse associations served as a lender of last resort during the National Bank Era (1863-1913). This paper clarifies the operation of clearinghouse loan certificates during panic periods. If clearinghouse loan certificates are prohibited from circulating among the general public, then clearinghouse loan certificates should be viewed as interbank loans among clearinghouse member banks and not loans from a central clearinghouse organization to individual members. |
| Keywords: | bank, lender of last resort, loan certificates |
| JEL: | G21 G28 N21 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tri:wpaper:1504&r=his |
| By: | Scott Fulford (Boston College); Ivan Petkov (Boston College); Fabio Schiantarelli (Boston College; IZA) |
| Abstract: | The United States provides a unique laboratory for understanding how the cultural, institutional, and human capital endowments of immigrant groups shape economic outcomes. In this paper, we use census micro-sample information to reconstruct the country-of-ancestry distribution for US counties from 1850 to 2010. We also develop a county-level measure of GDP per capita over the same period. Using this novel panel data set, we investigate whether changes in the ancestry composition of a county matter for local economic development and the channels through which the cultural, institutional, and educational legacy of the country of origin affects economic outcomes in the US. Our results show that the evolution of the country-of-origin composition of a county matters. Moreover, the culture, institutions, and human capital that the immigrant groups brought with them and pass on to their children are positively associated with local development in the US. Among these factors, measures of culture that capture attitudes towards cooperation play the most important and robust role. Finally, our results suggest that while fractionalization of ancestry groups is positively related with county GDP, fractionalization in attributes such as trust is negatively related to local economic performance. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Ethnicity, Ancestry, Economic Development, Culture, Institutions |
| JEL: | J15 N31 N32 O10 Z10 |
| Date: | 2015–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:875&r=his |
| By: | Muriel Dal-Pont Legrand (GREDEG CNRS; University of Nice Sophia Antipolis); Harald Hagemann (University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart) |
| Abstract: | Joseph A. Schumpeter never ceased to inspire new generations of economists. One of his major contributions concerns his view of business cycles and economic development as closely interrelated dynamics. Among the different lines of research proposed by Schumpeter in order to allow economists to capture how growth and cycle dynamics intertwine, one can find the analysis of the investment decisions during recessions. Schumpeter considered this process of Creative Destruction as “the essential fact about capitalism” since the Industrial Revolution. According to him, the process of liquidation and reallocation of productive resources taking place in the recession and particularly in the depression phase is not only an essential and unavoidable characteristics of capitalist evolution, but also necessary and, finally, beneficial for long-run development. More recently, one can notice in the literature a revival of interest for these questions. This line of research has been developed again in the 1990s by Aghion and Saint-Paul (1991, 1993, 1998) and Saint-Paul (1994) but also Caballero and Hammour (1994, 1996). They elaborated the so-called “productive recessions” analysis respectively the ‘cleansing effect’ of recessions. Focusing exclusively on neo-Schumpeterian contributions which explicitly analyze the impact recessions can have on growth, our purpose is to examine the mechanisms involved in the modern literature mentioned above and to compare them with Schumpeter’s original writings. The objective of this paper is to question the ‘Schumpeterian character’ of this recent literature and then to investigate the degree of continuity as well as the differences. Some focus will be on potential differences with regard to economic policy. |
| Keywords: | business cycles, growth, creative destruction, productive recessions, Schumpeter |
| JEL: | B31 O11 O31 O47 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2015-23&r=his |
| By: | Lional Frost; Luc Borrowman; Abdel K. Halabi |
| Abstract: | In studies of professional sports leagues it has not been possible to quantify losses of economic welfare (deadweight losses) because of the absence of a counterfactual. Before 1970, Australian Football’s major league, the Melbourne-based Victorian Football League (VFL) set standard admission prices for all games and scheduled matches to distribute revenue evenly between clubs. Almost all of the League’s teams were based in one city, with all but one playing home (or regular season) games at small stadiums with limited facilities, while the city’s largest and best equipped stadium lay vacant every second weekend. By estimating demand for matches between the five highest drawing clubs over a 50-year period, we specify the size of revenue losses that resulted from different schedules and venues. The results show significant losses in League revenue and attendances, but these were not sufficient to threaten the survival of a distance-protected cartel. Fixed pricing created welfare gains for supporters of the larger clubs and welfare losses for supporters of the smaller clubs, and was not conducive to an even competition. |
| Keywords: | Sports, football, cartels, stadiums, scheduling, pricing |
| JEL: | D42 L1 L83 N97 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-07&r=his |
| By: | Marcella Alsan; Claudia Goldin |
| Abstract: | We explore the first period of decline in infant mortality in the U.S. and provide estimates of the independent and combined effects of clean water and effective sewerage systems on infant mortality. Our case is Massachusetts, 1880-1915, when state authorities developed a sewerage and water district for municipalities in the Boston Greater Metropolitan area. We find that the two interventions were complementary and together accounted for approximately 37 percent of the total decline in log infant mortality among treated municipalities during the 36 years considered. Considerable research has documented the importance of clean water interventions for improvement in population health, but there is less evidence on the importance of sewerage systems. Our findings are directly relevant to urbanization in the developing world and suggest that a dual-pronged approach of safe water and sewerage is important to improving infant and early child survival. |
| JEL: | H51 I15 J1 N3 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21263&r=his |
| By: | Branko Mihailovic, Drago Cvijanovic, Zoran Simonovic (Institute of Agricultural Economics, Belgrade) |
| Abstract: | The development of modern industry and the system of factory work, together with a large migration of people across oceans and continents, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, has led to major changes in the way people work and do business. The economy shifted from agriculture and family cooperatives to the urban, the industrial organization. The impact of these changes on individuals, professionals, families, communities and the environment, as well as the rise of a new class of wealthy business leaders, but also new areas of poverty, have led to increased reporting of ethical debate. At the same time, if someone has a clear interest in a given company, then to its employees, whose lives and professional careers closely associated with it. Business ethics pays attention to employees (including employees of the management) in several ways. First, most of the ethical problems and crises that occur include operation and participation of employees. Ethical analysis of choice, communication, and behavior of employees occupying a significant part of business ethics. How can managers and owners treat the workers is another ethical issue of interest. Job security, compensation, safety, harassment, prejudice, and even the quality of work experience, are all aspects that are ethically important. |
| Keywords: | business ethics, human resources management, communications, social responsibility |
| JEL: | M21 M54 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esb:petprv:2015-107&r=his |
| By: | Marsay, David |
| Abstract: | Keynes' mathematical Treatise addresses what some call 'radical uncertainty', which he thought endemic in world affairs and whose appreciation underpinned much of his later work. In contrast, the mainstream view in economics, as elsewhere, has been that even if radical uncertainty exists, either there is in principle nothing that can ever be done about it, or that even if one could in theory do something about it then the institutions required would be unreliable, and one would be better off without them. Thus the mainstream has worked as if it were realistic to ignore even the possibility of radical uncertainty. But one needs some conceptualisation of radical uncertainty, such as Keynes', before one can make such judgments. This paper presents an interpretation, to inform debate. The viewpoint taken here is mathematical, but this is not to deny the value of other views. |
| Keywords: | mathematical models,equilibrium conditions,stability conditions,evolutionary games,policy,regulation,crisis management |
| JEL: | C62 G18 H12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201543&r=his |
| By: | Eduardo A. Haddad; Jesús P. Mena-Chalco, Otavio J. G. Sidone |
| Abstract: | The Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL) celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2014. That was 25 years to the day since Philip Israilevich and Geoffrey JD Hewings started a cooperative venture between the Federal Reserve Bank at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Since then, REAL has become one of the leading research centers of regional science worldwide. In this paper, we describe the scholarly network involving REAL’s alumni working in academia in Brazil. We analyze the patterns of research collaboration among around 50 Brazilian researchers whose main activities are related to academic institutions in Brazil. The Brazilian REAL Network has shown to be an interesting case study that reflects the pattern of evolving collaboration networks in scientifically emerging economies. The expansion of the REAL scientific collaboration network in Brazil arises as a relevant mechanism for both the qualitative leap of national scientific production in regional science and for the dissemination of knowledge in peripheral regions of the country. Conducted by the leadership of Geoffrey JD Hewings, it has helped to further develop regional science in the country. We also present some of the developments in areas of research in regional science of particular interest to Brazil and other developing countries, taking stock of some of the network’s contributions to the field. |
| Keywords: | Regional science history; social networks in regional science; scholarly collaboration; regional science in developing countries; Geoffrey JD Hewings |
| JEL: | O33 C21 R12 |
| Date: | 2015–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2015wpecon12&r=his |
| By: | George McMillan (Aegis Defense Services) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the methodology to create a unified theory of the philosophical and social sciences in the behavioral-political-economic-demographic sequence. The two major ideological political-economic philosophies (Hume-Smith and Marx-Engels) are systematized into competing integrated three dimensional behavioral-political-economic models. The paper argues that Hume-Smith’s empathy-sympathy behavioral assumptions are a sufficient starting point to create the integrated causal model sought by Tooby and Cosmides. The author then shows that the prerequisite advances in psychology and demographic studies now exist to generate the universal economic theory sought by von Neumann-Morgenstern and the integrated behavioral-economic method of Gintis—a psychological (i.e., behavioral) socio-economic model. By updating Hume-Smith’s work with a modern understanding of psychology, as presented by Fromm and others, a new integrated societal model as postulated by Harsanyi can be created that intertwines the social and psychological sciences. The author argues that this fundamentally psychology-based model also can serve as a baseline equation for all social sciences as desired by Kant and Mach, as well as the ahistorical (psychological) philosophic model noted by Husserl, Heidegger, Tillich, and Strauss. The author concludes with a discussion of the necessary next steps to generating a detailed model that fuses these disciplines. |
| Keywords: | Unified theory Model of the Micro and Macro Behavioral Sciences |
| JEL: | P50 B12 B31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:2504062&r=his |
| By: | Charles Angelucci (Columbia Business School, Columbia University.); Simone Meraglia (Department of Economics, University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | We argue that trade opportunities, combined with the provision of law and order, may lead to local political liberties. In our model, a ruler chooses the size of an administration that (i) provides law and order for a merchant to use and (ii) collects taxes. Larger gains from trade increase the demand for law and order, which requires a larger administration. However, a larger administration is more difficult to monitor and allow local officials to expropriate merchants. When the resulting inefficiencies are significant, the ruler delegates control of the administration to the better-informed merchant, even though this makes tax evasion more tempting. We then analyze the emergence of local political liberties in post-Norman Conquest England (1066-1307) using data on taxation, commerce, and the behavior of local officials. This period marks the beginning of England's transition away from feudalism. We nd that trade expansion coincides with widespread misbehavior by ocials and, in line with the predictions of our model, an increasing willingness by the king to grant boroughs of high commercial value the right to elect local officials. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Law and Order, Bureaucracy, Trade, Medieval England. |
| JEL: | D02 D73 N43 P14 P16 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:1509&r=his |
| By: | Wenli Cheng; Yongzheng Wu |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates income inequality in the post-reform Chinese economy using both national time series and provincial panel data 1978 to 2011. We identify a Kuznets inverted-U relationship between economic development and income inequality and show that this relationship was driven by the process of urbanization. We find that, after controlling for urbanization, low productivity in agriculture relative to that of the economy as a whole (i.e., dualism) and inflation appear to have been significant contributing factors to income inequality. There is also some evidence to suggest that, the expansion of higher education may have widened income inequality, but the expansion of secondary education may have narrowed it. |
| Keywords: | Kuznets curve, income inequality in China, Theil index, urbanisation, dualism |
| JEL: | O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-32&r=his |
| By: | Slobodan Cvetanovic, Danijela Despotovic, Milorad Filipovic (University of Niš, Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Economic research at the turn of the century has been explicitly dealing with the social capital, as a special form of capital. It is a relatively new concept, which is why it is not surprising that there is no generally accepted term to denote this phenomenon. The social capital means the economic benefit of the society, which can be reached with the help of communication, cooperation, and trust among the entities in the given socio-economic environment. The social capital is most often regarded as the ability of social structures and attitudes that support them to increase the effectiveness of collective action. The social capital is a connective tissue, a glue that helps people to use available resources for creating mutual benefits. Its existence is a prerequisite for economic growth and development. The components of the social capital are social ties and networks that can be transformed into economic capital. |
| Keywords: | capital, social capital, physical capital, natural capital, human capital |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esb:petprv:2015-106&r=his |