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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2016‒11‒13
24 papers chosen by |
| By: | KARBOWNIK, Krzysztof; WRAY, Anthony |
| Abstract: | We utilize the individual-level World War I Draft Registration Cards matched to late-nineteenth century hurricane paths and the 1940 U.S. Census to explore whether fetal and early childhood exposure to stress caused by hurricanes affects human capital development and labor market outcomes in adulthood. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that white males who were born in the South and experienced a hurricane either in utero or as infants had lower income at ages 42 to 53. They are robust to alternate specifications of either the treatment or outcome variables, as well as changes in the tolerance for imperfectly matched historical data. |
| Keywords: | Prenatal stress, natural disasters, labor market outcomes |
| JEL: | I10 J24 Q54 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-36&r=his |
| By: | Huntington, Hillard |
| Abstract: | Sustained energy price increases in the United States have preceded declines in economic activity as far back as 1890. This finding applies to two different historical GDP data sets. It suggests a much longer national experience with rising energy prices that began well before the period after World War Two. This problem emerged well before the US transition towards petroleum products when coal was an important energy source. This relationship varies with the state of the economy and appears less evident during some periods, as in the years following the 1929 stock market crash. |
| Keywords: | economic history; supply shocks; energy and the economy |
| JEL: | N51 N71 O51 Q43 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74935&r=his |
| By: | Llopis, Maria Teresa Sanchis (University of Valencia and Figuerola Institute of History and Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Following the growth accounting approach introduced by Oliner & Sichel (2000, 2002) to evaluate the impact of information and communications technologies on the U.S. economy in the 1990s, this paper analyses the impact of electricity on Spanish economic growth in the period 1958-1970. Spain was a follower country that exhibited the benefits of electricity nearly half a century after it had its biggest impact in the U.S. The results confirm that electricity played a significant role in Spain via the three channels identified in the literature for quantifying the contribution of a general purpose technology (GPT): capital deepening, the total factor productivity effect and the spillover effect. The overall impact is greater than that estimated for other follower countries in the 1920s. The main boost to growth came from improvements in productivity in developments in electric plants electricity and the production of electrical capital goods, not from electricity use. We also find a weaker positive effect of spillovers in electricity-using industries. The laggard effect of electrification in Spain, in spite of its early start, confirms that a GPT needs time to establish new institutional arrangements and complementary investments in order to display positive linkages deriving from the new technology. |
| Keywords: | Technological change, Aggregate Productivity, Spain (country studies) JEL Classification: O33, O47, O52 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:309&r=his |
| By: | Marianna Astore (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche e sociali); Michele Fratianni (Indiana University, Kelly School of Business, Bloomington US, Univ. Politecnica Marche and MoFiR) |
| Abstract: | The paper deals with Italian inter-war debts, against the background of the very contentious international issue of war reparations that many Allied nations wanted to link to war debt repayments. While the bulk of the literature looks at the Lausanne conference of 1932 as an act of forgiveness of war debts, we show that Italy, having first achieved an extremely large haircut by restructuring US and UK debts in 1925-26, defaulted after Lausanne. We also present a new times series on Italian foreign debt from 1925 to 1934, a series that is consistent with the unfolding of relevant historical events. |
| Keywords: | Italy, foreign debt, debt restructuring, default |
| JEL: | H63 N44 N94 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wmofir:129&r=his |
| By: | Tristan Jacques (IDHES - Paris1 - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Economie et de la Société - Université Paris1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne); Erich Pinzón Fuchs (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the construction of quantitative data for the French national trade between 1945 and the 1970s. Our purpose is to provide an account of the establishment of a statistical system specific to this economic sector. By statistical system we imply the apparatus and devices that were put together in order to produce statistical information, in particular political willpower, the professional and institutional actors involved, the accounting frameworks, and the tools and classifications used. In the first section we provide an overview of the transformations of French trade during the period studied, while in the second section We examine the production of statistical data for this sector. In the third section, we study the conditions of emergence of these data, examining the role that particular merchants and political regimes might have had to provoke biases, and questioning the possible political use of these statistics. We show that the construction of a statistical system is not exclusively an institutional or a technical matter, but also that political decisions and particular interests play an important role in the construction of such a system. |
| Abstract: | Cet article examine l'élaboration de données quantitatives pour le commerce intérieur entre 1945 et les années 1970 en France. L'objectif est de documenter la mise en place d'un système statistique spécifique à ce secteur économique. Par système statistique, on désigne l'ensemble des dispositifs mobilisés afin de produire de l'information statistique, tel que la volonté politique, les acteurs professionnels et institutionnels impliqués, les cadres de comptage, les outils utilisés et la nomenclature retenue. La première partie de l'article propose un aperçu des transformations du commerce au cours de la période étudiée, et la seconde partie étudie la production de données statistiques pour le secteur. La troisième partie s'intéresse aux condition d'élaboration de ces statistiques ; elle examine le rôle de certains commerçants, interroge les biais des données en fonction du régime de production et s'intéresse à leur usage politique. Cet article illustre bien que la construction d'un système statistique n'est pas seulement une question technique et institutionnelle, mais que les décisions politiques et les intérêts particuliers y jouent un rôle très important. |
| Keywords: | Construction of a statistical system,history of national trade in France,political regime,history of statistical tools,régime politique,Construction d'un système statistique,histoire du commerce intérieur en France,histoire des outils statistiques |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01390869&r=his |
| By: | Muhammad Arslan Haider (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad); Zulfiqar Ali (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | New tools and technologies have changed the existing social order of society and due to this new social order a new knowledge about society is emerged what is known as “Social Sciences”. During the 19th century social sciences were disciplined and institutionalised in the form of established departments in the Western universities. In Pakistan, universities doing research and teaching in the various fields of social sciences since the independence and the development started particularly from 1960. The evaluation of social sciences is the part of academic activity in developed countries but in Pakistan, the evaluation of academic disciplines remained underdeveloped. The purpose of this research study was to examine the expansion and to evaluate the social sciences in Pakistan. The sample consisted of 60 departments of social sciences from five disciplines (Economics, History, Political Science, Journalism and Sociology) taken from 17 public sector universities of Pakistan. The expansion of social sciences was looked in terms of university, department and faculty strength, while the evaluation of these academic disciplines were measured by the qualification profile of teachers teaching postgraduate classes in public sector universities of Pakistan. Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are applied in this research. For the theoretical grounds dependency theory is applied and discussed the intellectual dependency of underdeveloped states on developed states. In Pakistan the extension and expansion of higher education is without any proper planning and policy and due to that reason social sciences disciplines were facing different challenges of specialised faculty, research methodologies and relevant research. In Pakistan, as an indicator higher education was very low comparatively to other countries. |
| Keywords: | Evaluation, Expansion, Public Universities, Qualification, Social Sciences |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2015:131&r=his |
| By: | Humphries, Jane (University of Oxford); Weisdorf, Jacob (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Existing measures of historical real wages suffer from the fundamental problem that workers’ annual incomes are estimated on the basis of day wages without knowing the length of the working year. We circumvent this problem by presenting a novel wage series of male workers employed on annual contracts. We use evidence of labour market arbitrage to argue that existing real wage estimates are badly off target, because they overestimate the medieval working year but underestimate the industrial one. Our data suggests that modern economic growth began two centuries earlier than hitherto thought and was driven by an ‘Industrious Revolution’. |
| Keywords: | England; industrial revolution; industrious revolution; labour input; living standards; wages; Malthusian model. JEL Classification: J3, J4, J5, J6, J7, J8, N33 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:310&r=his |
| By: | Tristan Jacques (IDHES - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Erich Pinzón-Fuchs (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Keywords: | Construction of a statistical system; history of national trade in France; political regime; history of statistical tools |
| JEL: | B00 N14 N74 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:16059&r=his |
| By: | Alexandra M. de Pleijt (Utrecht University); Jan Luiten van Zanden (Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | We test various hypotheses about the causes of the Little Divergence, using new data and focusing on trends in GDP per capita and urbanization. We find evidence that confirms the hypothesis that human capital formation was the driver of growth, and that institutional changes (in particular the rise of active Parliaments) were closely related to economic growth. We also test for the role of religion (the spread of Protestantism): this has affected human capital formation, but does not in itself have an impact on growth. |
| Keywords: | Europe, Economic growth, Little Divergence, Human capital formation |
| JEL: | N13 N33 O40 O52 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0104&r=his |
| By: | Milanovic, Branko |
| Abstract: | Using the newly expanded set of 40 social tables from pre-modern societies, the paper tries to find out the factors associated with the level of inequality and the inequality extraction ratio (how close to the maximum inequality have the elites pushed the actual inequality). We find strong evidence that elites in colonies were more extractive, and that more densely populated countries exhibited lower extraction ratios. We propose several possibilities linking high population density to low inequality and to low elite extraction. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, inequality extraction ratio, pre modern |
| JEL: | I3 I30 N0 N3 |
| Date: | 2016–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74877&r=his |
| By: | Stephan Heblich (University of Bristol); Alex Trew (University of St Andrews); Yanos Zylberberg (University of Bristol) |
| Abstract: | Why are the East sides of former industrial cities like London or New York poorer and more deprived? We argue that this observation is the most visible consequence of the historically unequal distribution of air pollutants across neighborhoods. In this paper, we geolocate nearly 5,000 industrial chimneys in 70 English cities in 1880 and use an atmospheric dispersion model to recreate the spatial distribution of pollution. First, individual-level census data show that pollution induced neighborhood sorting during the course of the nineteenth century. Historical pollution patterns explain up to 15% of within-city deprivation in 1881. Second, these equilibria persist to this day even though the pollution that initially caused them has waned. A quantitative model shows the role of non-linearities and tipping-like dynamics in such persistence. |
| Keywords: | Neighborhood Sorting, Historical Pollution, Deprivation, Per- sistence, Environmental Disamenity. |
| JEL: | R23 Q53 N90 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:wpecon:1613&r=his |
| By: | Santucci, Lawrence (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present a brief exposition of the history of the secured credit card, beginning with its origins in California in the 1970s. We present a series of stylized facts based on a December 2015 cross section of the secured card market. We find that most secured cards require an annual fee, tend not to have promotional offers or rewards, and often have higher purchase annual percentage rates than their unsecured counterparts. We also find that the percentage of secured card accounts in a delinquency status is more than double that of unsecured cards and that far fewer secured cards are inactive compared with unsecured cards. In addition, the annual income of secured card consumers is about 43 percent lower than unsecured card consumers. Last, we examine how the credit scores of consumers opening a secured card account change during the first two years of account history. We find that keeping a secured card account open is correlated with improved creditworthiness, while closing an account, either in good standing or in default, is correlated with significantly reduced creditworthiness. |
| Keywords: | secured; credit cards |
| JEL: | D14 |
| Date: | 2016–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpdp:16-03&r=his |
| By: | Kristin Ranestad (Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo, Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | Chile and Norway are two ‘natural resource intensive economies’, which have had different development trajectories, yet are closely similar in industrial structure and geophysical conditions. The questions of how and why Chile and Norway have developed so differently are explored through an analysis of how knowledge accumulation occurred and how it was transformed by learning into technological innovation in mining, a sector which has long traditions in Norway and has by far been the largest export sector in Chile for centuries. Similar types of ‘knowledge organisations’ with the direct aim of developing knowledge for mining were developed in both countries. Formal mining education, scientifically trained professionals, organisations for technology transfer and geological mapping and ore surveys are compared in search of differences which may explain the underlying reasons for variations in economic growth. |
| Keywords: | natural intensive economies, Chile, Norway, mining, innovation, mining education, technical education, knowledge organisations |
| JEL: | N30 N50 L72 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0105&r=his |
| By: | Schlicht, Ekkehart |
| Abstract: | This is an electronic reprint of a review of the book "Cultures Merging: A Historical and Economic Critique of Culture" by Eric L. Jones, Princeton: Princeton University Press that appeared in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 2007, vol. 163, issue 3, pages 526-529, URL \url{http://www.jstor.org/stable/4075266 0}. |
| Keywords: | Long-term economic growth; growth culture; culture and economics; cultural fixity; cultural nullity; cultural reciprocity; industrialization; protestantism; Konfucianism; A13; N10; N13; N15 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenec:29964&r=his |
| By: | Méda, Dominique. |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the notion of work historically and how new meanings have enriched this notion over centuries. It then analyses the importance Europeans give to the concept of work, and presents the ongoing discourse on technological revolution and its impact on work and employment. The paper then examines the future of work in the coming decades in the light of three broad scenarios, which are competing to present a mid-term view of the future of work. First, the consequences of a scenario called “dismantling the labour law†are considered. Second, the validity of the propositions announcing the end of work within the scope of automation and digitalization (scenario of the technological revolution) are examined. Finally, a third scenario, the “ecological conversion†, which seems to be the most compatible with the need to combat the unbearable features of our present model of development and seems capable of satisfying the expectations placed on work is examined. It is this third scenario – “ecological conversion†– that seems best able to respond to the high expectations that Europeans continue to place on work while ensuring the continuation of our societies. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994937993302676&r=his |
| By: | David S. Jacks and Dennis Novy (Simon Fraser University); David S. Jacks and Dennis Novy (University of WarwickAbstract: We examine the evolution of market potential over the long twentieth century from 1900 to 2010. Theoretically, we exploit a structural gravity model to derive a closed-form solution for a widely-used measure of market potential. We are, thus, able to express market potential as a function of directly observable and easily estimable variables. This allows us to consistently compare our measure of market potential both in the cross-section and over time. Empirically, we collect a large data set on aggregate and bilateral trade flows as well as output for 51 countries. We find that market potential exhibits an upward trend across all regions of the world, in particular after World War II. The rise in market potential is also associated with a significant share of global income growth over that period.Keywords: Economic geography, market potential, structural gravity, trade costs JEL Classification: F1, N7) |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:307&r=his |
| By: | Sutirtha Roy , Martin Kessler and Arvind Subramanian |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests a reinterpretation of global growth—encompassing notions of unconditional convergence and the middle income trap—in the past 50 years through the lens of growth theory. We innovate by studying two modes of convergence: a classic “Solow” model where poorer countries catch up by growing faster on average; and a new “Wilde” model where catch-up growth is interpreted as growing faster than the frontier country, the United States. We apply these modes to both countries and people as units of analysis. We find that convergence has occurred faster and began earlier than widely believed. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, convergence, middle income trap |
| JEL: | O10 O15 O47 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:438&r=his |
| By: | Nathaniel Hilger |
| Abstract: | Asian Americans are the only non-white US racial group to experience long-term, institutional discrimination yet today exhibit high income. I reexamine this puzzle. I focus on California, where most Asians settled historically. Asians achieved extraordinary upward mobility relative to both blacks and whites for every cohort born in California since 1920. This mobility stemmed primarily from gains in earnings conditional on education, rather than unusual educational attainment. Historical test score data suggest that low initial earnings for Asians—unlike blacks—primarily reflected prejudice rather than skills. Asian history is consistent with the view that racial earnings gaps driven by contemporary prejudice do not persist in sufficiently competitive labor markets. |
| JEL: | J15 J31 J62 J7 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22748&r=his |
| By: | Cagé, Julia (Sciences Po Paris); Gadenne, Lucie (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the fiscal cost of trade liberalization: the extent to which countries are able to recover the trade tax revenues lost from liberalizing trade by increasing tax revenues from other sources. Using a novel dataset on government revenues over the period 1792-2006 we compare the fiscal impact of trade liberalization in developing countries and in today’s rich countries at earlier stages of development. We find that trade liberalization episodes led to larger and longer-lived decreases in total tax revenues in developing countries since the 1970s than in rich countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Half the developing countries in our sample experience a fall in total tax revenues that lasts more than ten years after an episode. Results are similar when we consider government expenditures, suggesting decreases in trade tax revenues negatively affect governments’ capacity to provide public services in many developing countries.Keywords: JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:303&r=his |
| By: | Ronald Schettkat; Sonja Jovicic |
| Abstract: | Expansionary macroeconomic policy is ineffective because, according to the policy ineffectiveness hypothesis (PIH), which is based on the rational expectations hypothesis (REH), it does not affect the real economy. This conclusion is false for several reasons. In their critique on Keynes’ theory, Lucas and Sargent (1978) argue that economic agents erroneously react with positive output and labor supply responses to expansionary macroeconomic policy. But they learn the long-run solution of the Lucas/Sargent model, which involves price reactions only, and do not repeat their mistakes when again confronted with expansionary macroeconomic policy. Thus, learning makes expansionary macroeconomic policy in the Lucas/Sargent model ineffective. The PIH is derived from models based on neoclassical micro-foundations where economic agents optimize in a stationary environment in ‘logical time.’ Experiencing and learning in ‘logical time’? In this paper, we take historical time seriously; that is, we investigate what economic agents actually experience regarding the effectiveness of expansionary macroeconomic policy in ‘historical time.’ We conclude that even if neoclassical micro-foundations are rigorously applied, if economic agents behave as assumed in the Lucas/Sargent model but that they move through time, the economy will not settle at the predicted long run equilibrium. Instead expansionary macroeconomic policy will be perceived as a virtue. |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp16005&r=his |
| By: | Ari Levine; Yao Hua Ooi; Matthew Richardson |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes a novel data set of commodity futures prices over a long sample period starting in 1877, which allows us to shed new light on several important and controversial questions. We document that commodity futures returns (1) have been positive on average; (2) vary significantly across business cycles, inflation episodes, and periods of backwardation versus contango, (3) are driven mostly by variation of spot returns and therefore closely linked to the underlying commodity spot market; (4) perform well during inflation cycles and provide more return in backwardated states; and (5) display low correlation with stocks and bonds. These long-run stylized facts imply that commodity futures can add value to a diversified portfolio from an asset allocation perspective. |
| JEL: | G10 G11 G13 N2 N21 N22 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22793&r=his |
| By: | Asad Zaman (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | Polanyi's book on The Great Transformation provides an analysis of the emergence and significance of capitalist economic structures which differs radically from those currently universally taught in economic textbooks. This analysis is based on a methodological approach which is also radically different from existing methodologies for doing economics, and more generally social science. This methodology is used by Polanyi without explicit articulation. Our goal in this article is to articulate the methodology used in this book to bring out the several dimensions on which it differs from current approaches to social science. Among the key differences, Polanyi provides substantial scope for human agency and capabilities to change the course of history. He also shows that the social, political and economic spheres of human existence are deeply interlinked and cannot be analysed in isolation, as current approaches assume. |
| Keywords: | Methodology, Social Science, Capitalism, Liberalism |
| JEL: | B31 B41 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:wpaper:2016:133&r=his |
| By: | Tuominen Elina (School of Management, University of Tampere) |
| Abstract: | In this study, recently published top 1% income share series are exploited in studying the inequality–development association in 26 countries from 1900 to 2010. The top income shares data are of high quality and provide interesting possibilities for studying slow development processes. Because many empirical inequality– development studies have challenged the use of quadratic specifications, this study addresses the issue of functional form by applying penalized spline methods. The relationship between the top 1% income share and development is found to experience a reversal at the highest levels of development and, thus, a positive association is now observed in many “advanced” economies. In an additional analysis covering a shorter time period, the discovered positive relationship holds at the highest levels of development when controls for two sectoral measures are included. |
| Keywords: | inequality, top incomes, development, nonlinearity, longitudinal data |
| JEL: | N30 O11 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tam:wpaper:1610&r=his |
| By: | Matthew J. Baker (Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY) |
| Abstract: | During the U. S. Civil War (1861-65) surgeons performed a vast number of surgical procedures such as amputations, resections, excisions, and bullet extractions. The efficacy of wartime surgery has been the subject of continuing debate since the start of the war. One reason debate continues is the dearth of empirical evidence on the (in)effectiveness of surgery. To shed light on the subject, I analyze a data set created by Dr. Edmund Andrews, a Civil war surgeon with the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. Dr. Andrews’s data can be rendered into an observational data set on surgical intervention and recovery, with controls for wound location and severity. The data also admits instruments for the surgical decision. My analysis suggests that Civil War surgery was effective, and increased the probability of survival of the typical wounded soldier, with average treatment effect of 0.25-0.28. |
| Keywords: | civil war, surgery, treatment effect |
| JEL: | N31 N41 C21 |
| Date: | 2016–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:htr:hcecon:444&r=his |