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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2017‒07‒16
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Toms, Steven |
| Abstract: | The paper considers the dual aspect of social networks in terms of 1) product innovators and developers and 2) the providers of finance. The growth of networks can be explained as a function of incumbents and entrants’ preferences to link with specific nodes defined according to the underlying duality. Such preferences can be used to explain network evolution and growth dynamics in the cotton textile industry, from being the first sector to develop in the industrial revolution through to its maturity. The network preference approach potentially explains several features of the long run industry life cycle: 1. The early combination of innovators with access to extensive credit networks, protected by entry barriers determined by pre-existing network structures, leading to lower capital costs for incumbents and rapid productivity growth, c.1780-1830. 2. The spread of innovation and productivity through value chain linkages during the nineteenth century. 3. The trust movement, joint stock and personal capitalism: the emergence of large firms and a preference for regional financial markets in Lancashire and Scotland. 4. The consolidation of regional instead of national business groups which help explain the decline of the industry. The paper uses case studies of firms, networks, and market institutions based on a mixture of archival evidence, drawn mainly from the financial records of a large sample of cotton firms, and contemporary publications. It stresses human interactions (as opposed to population ecology mechanisms) as determinants of the character, scale and scope of network evolution. Intergenerational features of the networks are identified and classified by these characteristics. Networks were typically bounded in terms of product innovators and less bounded in terms of finance providers. Consequently, finance providers tend to provide the impetus for the rate of network growth in expansion, maturity and contraction phases. |
| Keywords: | Business networks, British cotton textile industry, innovation, finance, regions, entrepreneurship, mergers. |
| JEL: | L14 L26 N23 N83 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–07–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80058&r=his |
| By: | Claude Diebolt; Charlotte Le Chapelain; Audrey-Rose Menard |
| Abstract: | Was technological progress conducive to human capital accumulation or was industrialization a deskilling process? Our paper investigates the effect of the French industrialization process on human capital accumulation throughout the nineteenth century. The novelty of the research is twofold: (i) we explore the deskilling hypothesis for the whole process of industrialization by implementing a panel analysis; (ii) we introduce a disaggregated human capital perspective to examine changes in skills demand at different stages of the process. Our analysis builds upon a new comprehensive dataset providing an exhaustive assessment of the diffusion of the steam technology in France at the county (Département) level over the 1839-1900 period. We use exogenous geographic variations as an instrument for the number of steam engines erected in each French department. We perform panel and cross-section regression analyses to compare the effect of technological change on basic vs. intermediate human capital accumulation. Our contribution reveals that French industrialization was not deskilling but that a shift in the type of the skills demanded occurred in the second half on the nineteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Technological change, steam engines, industrialization, human capital, education. |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2017-17&r=his |
| By: | Brata, Aloysius Gunadi |
| Abstract: | This study explores the impact on Java’s economic geography of railways built by the Dutch colonial government. Pre-1940 Dutch railway construction affords an historical experiment on the spatial distribution of economic activities across urban Java both before and after 1940. Using city data for over 100 years, the study finds that the railways had a short-term impact on the distribution of population, but that in the long run colonial railway investment lost its advantages. Until 1930, the railways substituted for the Great Mail Road. Between 1930 and 2010, however, the Great Mail Road regained an earlier importance in shaping urban Javanese patterns. The study also draws important lessons for recent Indonesian infrastructure development in Indonesia, notably in regard to the railway system itself. |
| Keywords: | colonial railways, history, economic geography, Java |
| JEL: | N75 N95 R12 |
| Date: | 2017–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80097&r=his |
| By: | Maxime Demarais-Tremblay (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne and Centre Walras-Pareto - Université de Lausanne) |
| Abstract: | The ancient Greek conception of oikonomia is often dismissed as irrelevant for making sense of the contemporary economic world. In this paper, I emphasise a tread that runs through the history of economic thought connecting the oikos to modern public economics. By conceptualising the public economy as a public household, Richard A. Musgrave (1910-2007) set foot in a long tradition of analogy between the practically oriented household and the state. Despite continuous references to the domestic model by major economists throughout the centuries, the analogy has clashed with liberal values associated with the public sphere since the eighteenth century. Musgrave's conceptualization of public expenditures represents one episode of this continuing tension. His defence of merit goods, in particular, was rejected by many American economists in the 1960s because it was perceived as a paternalistic intervention by the state. I suggest that the accusation of paternalism should not come as a surprise once the ‘domestic’ elements in Musgrave's conceptualisation of the public sector are highlighted. I develop three points of the analogy in Musgrave's public household (the communal basis, a central direction, and consumption to satisfy needs) which echo recurring patterns of thought about the state |
| Keywords: | public household; paternalism; liberalism; merit wants; merit goods; Richard A. Musgrave |
| JEL: | H40 B29 B40 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:17032&r=his |
| By: | Michele Bruni |
| Abstract: | A short summary of human population history, a critical analysis of available empirical evidence and an interpretation of data free of reverence toward the dominant theories bring to the conclusion that up to now the human population has experienced only two demographic regimes. The first was characterized by high rates of mortality and fertility. Its main characteristic was that man did not have the capability to control fertility and intervene on mortality so that periods of high demographic growth were followed by periods of pronounced demographic decline. In spite of this, at the end, the demographic history of men has been a success story. It is then argued that around 1850 an unprecedented demographic revolution was ignited by extraordinary advancements in medicine, chemistry and biology, as well as the development of new laboratory tools and techniques that opened the way to the introduction of powerful vaccines. This allowed defeating the most dangerous infectious diseases and waging a successful war against premature death. The final result was that the economically more advanced countries reached a new demographic regime, the modern regime, characterized by low fertility and low mortality rates. The fundamental characteristic of the modern regime is the capability of men to choose and determine his reproductive behavior and to control more and more the causes of death. According to present empirical evidence, the modern regime is not characterized by a demographic equilibrium, but by vastly spread situations of negative natural growth. Finally the paper argues that, in spite of the fact that deaths take place in the natural and chronological order, the modern regime is not necessarily more efficient than the natural regime. The main reason is that in this new demographic situation economic growth brings to demographic disequilibrium and the different historical moments in which the demographic “transition” has started in different countries is creating the preconditions for migration flows of unprecedented size. A paragraph of the paper is also devoted to a revisit and formalization of Carlo Cipolla hypothesis on energy and demographic growth and to the analysis of its validity both in the past and today. |
| JEL: | J10 J11 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:cappmo:0153&r=his |
| By: | Islahi, Abdul Azim |
| Abstract: | Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah is famous for his French translation of the Qur'an, and well-known for discovery, editing and bringing in light a number of rare and invaluable hadith manuscripts. He is also rightly acknowledged for his ground-breaking research works on international Islamic law, biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him), Islamic politics and archival heritage of Islam. A less known but significant aspect of his contribution is his pioneering works on Islamic Economics. Spread over more than fifty years he wrote scores of papers in English, Urdu, Arabic, French and Turkish. In fact it was he who coined the term "Islamic Economics" by which this discipline is known worldwide today. Many firsts in this subject belong to him. For instance: the first and the earliest record of the interest-free financial institution in the modern period, advocacy of mutuality as the basis for Islamic insurance, mutuality based Islamic finance, proposal for establishment of international interest-free monetary fund, federation of currencies for Muslim countries, etc. He also focused on topics such as nature of Islamic economic system, critiques of capitalism and communism, insurance, zakah and public finance, money and banking, partnership and equity finance, production and distribution, labor relations, et cetera. The present paper aims at introducing this aspect of his contribution and his legacy in Islamic economics. |
| Keywords: | Genesis of Islamic Economics, Hamidullah, Islamic Insurance, Zakah, Labour organization, Interest, Risk shifting, Federation of currencies, Mutuality. |
| JEL: | B3 B31 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80149&r=his |
| By: | Sue Konzelmann; Frank Wilkinson |
| Abstract: | Liberal economics has traditionally put strong emphasis on individualisation and specialisation – and has struggled with the notion of co-operation. Thus, Alfred Marshall's pioneering work on the English industrial districts of his day posed a significant challenge to the conventional wisdom, which embraced laissez-faire markets and Adam Smith's claim that improvements in efficiency depend upon the increased division of labour within firms competing in them. Marshall found that an important determinant of the competitive success of industrial districts was effective co-operation within and between firms, supported by a dense network of institutions, and markets regulated by agreed rules, norms and standards. He theorised that these generate external economies of scale and scope that enable the district and its constituent small firms to successfully compete with large, vertically integrated firms. From the mid-1920s, however, with the emergence and growth of very large, highly successful firms, the conventional wisdom shifted to suppose that the historical tendency in capitalist development was towards large firm dominance; and the small firm sector was progressively reduced to a residuum. However, the rediscovery of the industrial district by Italian scholars during the 1960s revived interest in Marshall's notion of localised productive systems and attracted considerable attention to this form of industrial organisation. This paper traces themes within this literature, from the earliest theorising by the Classical Political Economists to the present, focusing on the role of co-operation in production, the relationship between the organisation of production and markets, and the nature and functioning of productive systems. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Districts, Productive Systems, Co-operation and Competition, Industrial Organisation |
| JEL: | B00 L00 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp481&r=his |
| By: | Miguel Martín-Retortillo; Vicente Pinilla; Jackeline Velazco; Henry Willebald |
| Abstract: | In the last third of the nineteenth century, a large majority of Latin America adopted export-led models of growth, mostly based on agricultural exports. In some countries, this strategy produced significant results in terms of economic development but in most of the countries, the strategy was not successful, either because of too slow growth in exports or because linkages with the rest of the economy were very weak and there was no significant growth-spreading effect. After WWII, Latin America turned to a new model of economic development: the import substitution industrialisation (ISI). The ISI policies penalised export-led agriculture. The 1980s and 1990s were characterised by an expansion of adjustment policies and structural reforms. The new strategy consisted of mobilising resources in competitive export sectors, including agriculture. |
| Keywords: | Latin American agriculture, agricultural development, export-led growth model, import substitution industrialization, agricultural growth, Latin American economic history |
| JEL: | N16 N56 Q10 Q17 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1703&r=his |
| By: | Brandolini, Andrea (Bank of Italy); Jenkins, Stephen P. (London School of Economics); Micklewright, John (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and expertise, and he made contributions right across economics. His death on 1 January 2017 deprived the world of both an intellectual giant and a deeply committed public servant in the broadest sense of the term. This collective tribute highlights the range, depth and importance of Tony's enormous legacy, the product of over fifty years' work. |
| Keywords: | Anthony B. Atkinson, inequality, poverty, public economics |
| JEL: | D3 H00 I3 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10869&r=his |
| By: | Léo CHARLES |
| Abstract: | I employ the “granger causality” test to determine the nature of Swiss protectionism during the first wave of globalization (1886-1913). This test is applied for the first time to test if the protectionism takes the form of an infant-industry protection. I argue that if tariffs cause exports flow, the economy implement a protection following List’s principles. I use a highly disaggregated database of exports flow and tariffs at the product level. It allows dealing with a panel-VAR structure to test my hypothesis. In the descriptive study I show that Switzerland protectionism is moderate and selective, giving argument in favour of an infant industry protection. Then, the result of the “granger causality” test clearly shows that my different measures of protection “granger cause” exports flows. This article gives a new empirical test of the infant industry protection argument. |
| Keywords: | International trade, Protectionism, First Globalization |
| JEL: | F13 N13 N73 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2017-11&r=his |
| By: | Abel Brodeur; Warn N. Lekfuangfu; Yanos Zylberberg |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants behind the spatial distribution of the sex industry in Thailand. We relate the development of the sex industry to an early temporary demand shock, i.e., U.S. military presence during the Vietnam War. Comparing the surroundings of Thai military bases used by the U.S. army to districts close to unused Thai bases, we find that there are currently 5 times more commercial sex workers in districts near former U.S. bases. The development of the sex industry is also explained by a high price elasticity of supply due to female migration from regions affected by an agricultural crisis. Finally, we study a consequence induced by the large numbers of sex workers in few red-light districts: the HIV outbreak in the early 1990s. |
| Keywords: | persistence, industry location, sex industry, HIV/AIDS |
| JEL: | O17 O18 N15 J46 J47 I28 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1489&r=his |
| By: | Conesa, Juan Carlos (Stony Brook University); Kehoe, Timothy J. (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) |
| Abstract: | In the early 1970s, hours worked per working-age person in Spain were higher than in the United States. Starting in 1975, however, hours worked in Spain fell by 40 percent. We find that 80 percent of the decline in hours worked can be accounted for by the evolution of taxes in an otherwise standard neoclassical growth model. Although taxes play a crucial role, we cannot argue that taxes drive all of the movements in hours worked. In particular, the model underpredicts the large decrease in hours in 1975–1986 and the large increase in hours in 1994–2007. The lack of productivity growth in Spain during 1994–2015 has little impact on the model’s prediction for hours worked. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic general equilibrium; Hours worked; Distortionary taxes; Total factor productivity |
| JEL: | C68 E13 E24 H31 |
| Date: | 2017–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:550&r=his |
| By: | Tomoko Matsumoto (Japan Legal Information Institute, Nagoya University); Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the difference between the regime transition phase and consolidation phase, dividing government elites into the pre-Meiji-Restoration-born group and the post-Meiji-Restoration-born group. Using the newly constructed government elites' data after the Meiji Restoration in Japan, we show that reformers' strategies to recruit government elites and establish a new intra-elite hierarchy changed from the regime transition phase to its consolidation phase. Initially, in order to contend against the incumbent elites, reformers recruited talented activists from the non-elite strata and assigned them to higher-level positions based on their abilities. On achieving a transfer of power, however, reformers' primary concern shifted to alleviating the dissatisfaction of the masses and the former elites. Therefore, while the barrier preventing access to the elite group keep lowering, which opened the way for non-elites to gain elite status, former elites are reintegrated into the elite group and the intra-elite hierarchy again comes to reflect the social stratum of the former regime. |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2017cf1042&r=his |
| By: | Maria Nikolaidi (University of Greenwich); Engelbert Stockhammer |
| Abstract: | Minsky’s ideas have recently gained prominence in the mainstream as well as in the heterodox literature. However, there exists no agreement upon the formal presentation of Minsky’s insights. The aim of this paper is to survey the literature and identify differences and similarities in the ways through which Minskyan ideas have been formalised. We distinguish between the models that focus on the dynamics of debt or interest, with no or a secondary role for asset prices, and the models in which asset prices play a key role in the dynamic behaviour of the economy. Within the first category of models we make a classification between (i) the Kalecki-Minsky models, (ii) the Kaldor-Minsky models, (iii) the Goodwin-Minsky models, (iv) the credit rationing Minsky models, (v) the endogenous target debt ratio models and (vi) the Minsky-Veblen models. Within the second category of models, we distinguish between (i) the equity price Minsky models and (ii) the real estate price Minsky models. Key limitations of the models and directions for future research are outlined. |
| Keywords: | business cycles, financial instability, post-Keynesian economics, debt cycles |
| JEL: | B50 E32 G01 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1706&r=his |
| By: | Konstantinos Theodoridis; Haroon Mumtaz |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a range of structural VARs to show that the response of US stock prices to fiscal shocks changed in 1980. Over the period 1955-1980 an expansionary spending or revenue shock was associated with modestly higher stock prices. After 1980, along with a decline in the fiscal multiplier, the response of stock prices to the same shock became negative and larger in magnitude. We use an estimated DSGE model to show that this change is consistent with a switch from an economy characterised by active fiscal policy and passive monetary policy to one where fiscal policy was passive and the central bank acted aggressively in response to inflationary shocks. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal policy shocks, Stock prices, VAR, DSGE |
| JEL: | C5 E1 E6 E5 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:178117307&r=his |
| By: | Pablo Filippi,; José Román; José Miguel Villena |
| Abstract: | The Central Bank balance sheet, its framework and evolution through time, shows the implementation of monetary and exchange rate policies and its relationship with the fiscal policy, so the publication of its main accounting items is a contribution to the analysis of the economic history of a country. This paper presents the historical series of the main accounting items of Banco Central de Chile from its foundation and it also describes the methodology used. The goal of the publication of these series is to promote future research that permits deep analyses, the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of the evolution of the Chilean economy. Furthermore, a brief description of the most important stylized facts of monetary and exchange rate policies, which occurred during the history of the Bank, are made considering previous studies. The series are annual and correspond to Total assets, Total Liabilities and Equity of Banco Central de Chile and its main components. The assets are broken down in Net International Reserves and Loans to the Public Sector. The main Liabilities that are presented are Monetary Base and Bonds and Promissory Notes issued by the central bank. Additionally, annual series from the first Memoria of 1926 are made available in digital format. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchee:124&r=his |
| By: | Ewan McGaughey |
| Abstract: | Why do shareholders monopolise voting rights in UK companies, and are trade unions the only way to get meaningful workplace representation? In 1967 a Labour Party policy document first coined the phrase that collective bargaining was – and should be – the 'single channel' of representation. Since then, it has been said the labour movement embraced an 'adversarial' rather than a 'constitutional' conception of corporations, neglecting legal rights to worker voice in enterprise governance. This article shows that matters were not so simple. It explains the substantial history of legal rights to vote in British workplaces, and the competition from the rival constitutional conception: employee share schemes. The UK has the oldest corporations – namely universities – which have consistently embedded worker participation rights in law. Britain has among the world's most sophisticated 'second channel' participation rights in pension board governance. Developing with collective bargaining, it had the world's first private corporations with legal participation rights. Although major plans in the 1920s for codetermination in rail and coal fell through, it maintained a 'third channel' of worker representatives on boards during the 20th century in numerous sectors, including ports, gas, post, steel, and buses. At different points every major political party had general proposals for votes at work. The narrative of the 'single channel' of workplace representation, and an 'adversarial' conception of the company contains some truth, but there has never been one size of regulation for all forms of enterprise. |
| Keywords: | Participation, labour law, corporate governance, codetermination, collective bargaining, labour law |
| JEL: | B15 J50 J58 K22 K31 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp487&r=his |
| By: | B. Garbinti; J. Goupille-Lebret; T. Piketty |
| Abstract: | This paper combines different sources and methods (income tax data, inheritance registers, national accounts, wealth surveys) in order to deliver consistent, unified wealth distribution series for France over the 1800-2014 period. We find a large decline of the top 10% wealth share from the 1910s to the 1980s, mostly to the benefit of the middle 40% of the distribution. Since the 1980s-90s, we observe a moderate rise of wealth concentration, with large fluctuations due to asset price movements. In effect, rising inequality in saving rates and rates of return pushes toward rising wealth concentration, in spite of the contradictory effect of housing prices. We develop a simple simulation model highlighting how the combination of unequal saving rates, rates of return and labor earnings leads to large multiplicative effects and high steady-state wealth concentration. Small changes in the key parameters appear to matter a lot for long-run inequality. We discuss the conditions under which rising concentration is likely to continue in the coming decades. |
| Keywords: | saving rate, steady-state, wealth inequality. |
| JEL: | D31 E21 N34 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:633&r=his |
| By: | Howard Bodenhorn |
| Abstract: | Before 1838 commercial banks in New York, as elsewhere, were incorporated by special legislative charter. In 1838 New York adopted free banking, which transformed bank formation from legislative prerogative to administrative procedure. This paper places this transition within the context of the North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009) model of social transitions from natural states to open access orders, and shows that the transition was more process than discrete event. A confluence of events, including the expansion of the franchise under the 1821 constitution, the emergence of party machine politics under the direction of Martin Van Buren, and the rise of the opposition Antimasonic Party, brought patronage-based politics and the political disbursement of economic privileges under attack. Pre-1838 attempts to open access to finance were turned back by natural state politicians, who used the chartering process to reward party operatives. By the mid-1830s, public distaste for spoils-driven patronage generated pressure to expand access to bank finance, especially among entrepreneurs in southern and western New York frustrated by their limited access to transportation and financial networks. New York’s adoption of free banking then was not an ill-advised response to the panic of 1837, but rather a manifestation of a longer-term process toward a more open polity and economy. |
| JEL: | N21 P16 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23560&r=his |
| By: | Albert, Link (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); U Yeong, Yang (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The Republic of Korea undertook a major initiative in the early 1970s to integrate high-technology industry with its regional development strategy. This effort involved three phrases: the development of science towns in the 1970s, the initiation of a technopolis program in the 1980s, and the establishment of science parks or technoparks in the 1990s. We focus on the third phase in this paper, and we identify empirically covariates with the employment growth of Korean technoparks. We find faster employment growth in parks established after the ICT revolution in 2000, in parks with tenants involved in more complex technology development, and in parks with more research-intensive tenants. |
| Keywords: | science park; technopark; Korea; entrepreneurship; technology; innovation |
| JEL: | O21 O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2017_007&r=his |
| By: | Whatley, Warren |
| Abstract: | The Gun-Slave Hypothesis is the long-standing idea that European gunpowder technology played a key role in growing the transatlantic slave trade. I combine annual data from the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database and the Anglo-African Trade Statistics to estimate a Vector Error Correction Model of the 18th century British slave trade that captures four versions of the Gun-Slave Hypothesis: guns-for-slaves-in-exchange, guns-for-slaves-in-production, slaves-for-guns-derived and the gun-slave cycle. Three econometric results emerge. (1) Gunpowder imports and slave exports were co-integrated in a long-run equilibrium relationship. (2) Positive deviations from equilibrium gunpowder “produced” additional slave exports. This guns-for-slaves-in-production result survives 17 placebo tests that replace gunpowder with non-lethal commodities imports. It is also confirmed by an instrumental variables estimation that uses excess capacity in the British gunpowder industry as an instrument for gunpowder. (3) Additional slave exports attracted additional gunpowder imports for 2-3 more years. Together these dynamics formed a gun-slave cycle. Impulse-response functions generate large increases in slave export in response to increases in gunpowder imports. I use these results to explain the growth of slave exports along the Guinea Coast of Africa in the 18th century. |
| Keywords: | TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE, GUN-SLAVE CYCLE, BRITAIN, AFRICA |
| JEL: | F66 N43 N47 N73 N77 O33 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80050&r=his |
| By: | Meier zu Selhausen, Felix |
| Abstract: | This thesis offers new empirical insights on women’s empowerment in colonial and present-day in Uganda. This thesis is organised into two parts. The first part, offers a novel perspective on the long-term development of African male and female human capital formation, skills, labour market participation, intergenerational social mobility, and marriage patterns over the long 20th century, using unique individual-level data from hitherto unexplored Anglican marriage registers. In the second part, a large-scale field survey in Western Uganda highlights the challenges smallholder women face in present-day rural Uganda and investigates the determinants for women’s participation in co-operatives and the potential of collective action to improve female smallholders’ relative social and economic position. To achieve this, the thesis focuses on an in-depth case-study of a single African country, Uganda. |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susphd:0715&r=his |
| By: | Felipe Labrin |
| Abstract: | The release of the 2013 benchmark compilation set the new statistical framework for the estimation of chilean national accounts. in order to provide longer economic series, consistent with the new framework, the central bank of chile releases the results of a linking exercise of national accounts series, covering the years 1986-2013. this exercise replicates the use of sources of information and estimation methods adopted in the new benchmark compilation, and extends them to previous years. gdp was obtained through the production and expenditure approaches, both in current prices and volume terms. estimation was carried in yearly and quarterly frequencies, the latter being the result of a detailed analysis of seasonal patterns of high frequency series, and the use of benchmarking techniques. the new series present a marginal correction in the evolution of the main macroeconomic aggregates, compared to the previous release figures. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchee:123&r=his |
| By: | Goel, Rajeev K. (Illinois State University); Saunoris, James W. (Eastern Michigan University); Schneider, Friedrich (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a long term analysis of the determinants of the shadow economy. Using data for the United States over the years 1870–2014 we examine economic and political factors driving the underground sector. Results show that among the economic factors, greater economic prosperity increased the shadow sector, while greater openness to trade and a bigger government reduced it, with the effects of inflation being statistically insignificant. Politically, the efficacy of presidential vetoes and the effect of congressional party homogeneity are statistically insignificant. Further, the U.S. shadow economy increased during both world wars, but was lower during the great depression. However, in the short run, the relationship between the shadow economy and its determinants exhibit some remarkable differences. |
| Keywords: | shadow economy, underground economy, determinants, taxation, inflation, openness, world war, great depression |
| JEL: | H26 K42 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10857&r=his |
| By: | Simon Deakin |
| Abstract: | A review of theoretical, historical and quantitative empirical research on the economic effects of labour laws suggests that worker-protective labour regulation generates net positive outcomes for development and growth. Labour law should be seen as a developmental institution which has a symbiotic relationship to the rise of capitalism in the global north and is part of the transition to a market economy being experienced by today's low- and middle-income countries. Claims made for the desuetude of labour law's core mechanisms, including the standard employment relationship, are not borne about by recent evidence. The complex role played by labour regulation in the dynamics of capitalism would repay further investigation. |
| Keywords: | Labour law, development, growth, inequality, leximetrics |
| JEL: | J41 J83 K31 O43 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp478&r=his |
| By: | Alexandre Chirat; Charlotte Le Chapelain |
| Abstract: | This contribution highlights some unexpected proximities between Galbraith and Schultz’s thoughts on human capital. Despite apparently strong methodological divergences, both authors analyze the issue of human capital investment in the light of the dynamics of the economic development process. This issue is formulated in Galbraith’s vocabulary in terms of the requirements of the planning system, and in terms of the needs of production activities deriving from the dynamics of growth in Schultz’s. But the logic underlying their analysis is of the same order. The emphasis on the needs of production leads the two authors to address the issue of student sovereignty in making allocative decisions regarding education. By highlighting these proximities, our study shows that Schultz’s thought on human capital must not be conflated, from a methodological point of view, with Becker’s and Mincer’s. We thus question the idea that the human capital research program is characterized by strong methodological unity, in particular that it is characterized by methodological individualism. That Becker and Mincer’s works rely on methodological individualism is not called into question; the idea that Schultz’s thought is grounded on it deserves more careful examination. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Education, Schultz, Galbraith, Methodological Individualism. |
| JEL: | B41 H52 I15 P46 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2017-18&r=his |
| By: | Islahi, Abdul Azim |
| Abstract: | Muḥammad bin Muḥammad bin Khalīl al-Asadī lived in A.H. 9th/ C.E. 15th century. The details of his birth, life and death remain obscure. He authored many works on the socio-economic problems of his time. All these works have disappeared without trace except one: al-Taysīr (the Facilitation). This surviving work is the only source of information about his life and his ideas. He suggested efficient market administration, public distribution of food, elimination of monopolies, monetary reform, management of public income and expenditure, embryonic quantitative use in production and distribution, and measurement of inflation. The depth and significance of his ideas remains largely unexplored. The present paper attempts to address this need. |
| Keywords: | Economics of al-Asadi, Monetary Reform, Mirror for Princes, Measurement of Inflation, al-Hisbah, Mamlūk Economics, Kitab al-Taysir |
| JEL: | B00 B3 B31 |
| Date: | 2016–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80122&r=his |
| By: | Fabrice Tourre (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Foreign currency sovereign bond spreads tend to be higher than historical sovereign credit losses, and cross-country spread correlations are larger than their macro-economic counterparts. Foreign currency sovereign debt exhibits positive and time-varying risk premia, and standard linear asset pricing models using US-based factors cannot be rejected. The term structure of sovereign credit spreads is upward sloping, and inverts when either (a) the country's fundamentals are bad or (b) measures of US equity or credit market stress are high. I develop a quantitative and tractable continuous-time model of endogenous sovereign default in order to account for these stylized facts. My framework leads to semi-closed form expressions for certain key macro-economic and asset pricing moments of interest, helping disentangle which of the model features influences credit spreads, expected returns and cross-country correlations. Standard pricing kernels used to explain properties of US equity returns can be nested into my quantitative framework in order to test the hypothesis that US-based bond investors are marginal in sovereign debt markets. I show how to leverage my model to study the early 1980's Latin American debt crisis, during which high short term US interest rates and floating rate dollar-denominated debt led to a wave of sovereign defaults. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:13&r=his |
| By: | Goodness C. Aye (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, South Africa); Hector Carcel (University of Navarra, Faculty of Economics and NCID, Edificio Amigos, Pamplona, Spain); Luis A. Gil-Alana (University of Navarra, Faculty of Economics and NCID, Edificio Amigos, Pamplona, Spain); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the inflation hedging ability of gold in the UK based on a fractional integration and cointegration framework. This gives more flexibility as it does not restrict the order of integration between zero and 1. Annual time series data covering 1257 to 2016 were used. We conducted both full sample and sub-sample analysis. Using the full sample, the findings shows that gold and retail price index (RPI) are both I(1). However, based on the sub-sample analyses, gold is I(1) for most sub-periods while RPI is mean reverting (d |
| Keywords: | Inflation, gold price, hedging, fractional cointegration, long memory |
| JEL: | C32 E31 E44 G15 Q02 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201753&r=his |