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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2018‒01‒08
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Bastien Bernela (CRIEF - Centre de Recherche sur l'Intégration Economique et Financière - Université de Poitiers); Marie Ferru (CRIEF - Centre de Recherche sur l'Intégration Economique et Financière - Université de Poitiers); Marc-Hubert Depret (CRIEF - Centre de Recherche sur l'Intégration Economique et Financière - Université de Poitiers) |
| Abstract: | Adding to the growing literature on cluster life cycle (CLC), this paper gives new insights focusing on the crucial stage of genesis. We argue that the process by which clusters came into existence matters by structuring its further development. We conceptualize this dynamic process through an evolutionary perspective-considering the relevance of history-enriched by the relational and institutional ones, giving the structuring role of interpersonal ties and institutions. To implement this comprehensive approach of CLC, data availability becomes a great challenge since historical and relational materials are needed. We suggest using an original mixed method we apply on a French cluster. Whereas our understanding of the preexisting stages of the cluster official birth is only based on qualitative data, its evolution is derived from quantitative approach interpreted by qualitative one. The CLC appears to be driven by historical features which make it able to adapt over time. |
| Keywords: | Cluster life cycle,genesis,embeddedness,mixed method,cluster policy |
| Date: | 2017–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01616929&r=his |
| By: | Gregori Galofré-Vilà; Christopher M. Meissner; Martin McKee; David Stuckler |
| Abstract: | The current historical consensus on the economic causes of the inexorable Nazi electoral success between 1930 and 1933 suggests this was largely related to the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression (high unemployment and financial instability). However, these factors cannot fully account for the Nazi’s electoral success. Alternatively it has been speculated that fiscally contractionary austerity measures, including spending cuts and tax rises, contributed to votes for the Nazi party especially among middle- and upper-classes who had more to lose from them. We use voting data from 1,024 districts in Germany on votes cast for the Nazi and rival Communist and Center parties between 1930 and 1933, evaluating whether radical austerity measures, measured as the combination of tax increases and spending cuts, contributed to the rise of the Nazis. Our analysis shows that chancellor Brüning’s austerity measures were positively associated with increasing vote shares for the Nazi party. Depending on how we measure austerity and the elections we consider, each 1 standard deviation increase in austerity is associated with a 2 to 5 percentage point increase in vote share for the Nazis. Consistent with existing evidence, we find that unemployment rates were linked with greater votes for the Communist party. Our findings are robust to a range of specifications including a border-pair policy discontinuity design and alternative measures of radicalization such as Nazi party membership. The coalition that allowed a majority to form government in March 1933 might not have been able to form had fiscal policy been more expansionary. |
| JEL: | E6 N1 N14 N44 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24106&r=his |
| By: | Mongin, Philippe |
| Abstract: | The recently born expression "analytic narratives" refers to studies that have appeared at the boundaries of history, political science, and economics. These studies purport to explain specific historical events by combining the usual narrative way of historians with the analytic tools that economists and political scientists find in rational choice theory. Game theory is prominent among these tools. The paper explains what analytic narratives are by sampling from the eponymous book Analytic Narratives by Bates, Greif, Levi, Rosenthal, and Weingast (1998) and covering one outside study by Mongin (2008). It first evaluates the explanatory performance of the new genre, using some philosophy of historical explanation and then checks its discursive consistency, using some narratology. The paper concludes that analytic narratives can usefully complement standard narratives in historical explanation, provided they specialize in the gaps that these narratives reveal and that they are discursively consistent, despite the tension that combining a formal model with a narration creates. Two expository modes, called alternation and local supplementation, emerge from the discussion as the most appropriate ones to resolve this tension |
| Keywords: | Analytic narratives; Rational choice theory; Game theory; Historical explanation; Text; Form of discourse; Narratology. |
| JEL: | C79 D89 N01 N43 |
| Date: | 2016–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1155&r=his |
| By: | Maria Kulikova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Studies of interconnections between social, technological, economic and cultural forces belong to the trend of modernisation studies in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. Modernisation implies the establishment and growth of institutions and infrastructures that are examined as a set of communication practices between different actors – the state, experts and various offices. This research is an historical study of interconnections between technologies and society. It is focused on the significance of materiality (namely natural oil resources) in these processes |
| Keywords: | technology, natural resources, goods, development of infrastructure, institutions |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:163/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Ivan A. Ladynin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The problem basically unanswered is whether the Soviet historiography has ever developed an all-embracing concept of antiquity as a slave-owning society and whether it produced a general scheme of this period at all. Two attempts to create a uniform Marxist concept of “slave-owning antiquity” in 1930-1940s (undertaken by the scholars of GAIMK and by A.V. Mishulin with his followers) failed; a real generalization of ancient history was not achieved before 1980s, when it was perceived (not quite in the manner of Marxist method) as the evolution of rural communities rather than slavery. |
| Keywords: | Marxism, ancient history, general concept, social and economic research, class struggle, slavery, rural community, historiography |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:161/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Chambru, Cédric; Viallet-Thévenin, Scott |
| Abstract: | Cet article a pour but d’analyser les origines sociales de l’élite administrative du second empire colonial français. L’analyse prosopographique nous permet, à partir d’une nouvelle base de données englobant les 591 individus ayant occupé la fonction de gouverneur entre 1830 et 1960, de montrer que l’évolution des origines sociales de ces individus s’explique par les changements observés dans le rapport à la métropole, l’attrait des colonies et l’institutionnalisation des administrations coloniales. Nous nous appuyons sur une comparaison avec une élite administrative métropolitaine proche, le corps préfectoral, afin de mettre en évidence les spécificités de cette élite coloniale. Entre 1830 et 1960, la carrière coloniale offre aux individus qui s’y engagent des possibilités d’ascension sociale plus importantes que les carrières administratives en métropole. Ainsi, la mise en place de l’administration coloniale au tournant du XXe siècle - une période où les conditions sanitaires et sécuritaires rendent les colonies peu attractives - représente une opportunité sans pareille pour les individus issus des milieux les plus modestes et/ou aux carrières les plus atypiques. Le renforcement de la professionnalisation des carrières coloniales après la Première Guerre mondiale conduit à une homogénéisation plus forte des parcours et des origines des gouverneurs coloniaux. Les possibilités de mobilité sociale ascendante restent, cependant, fortes, et ne prendront fin qu’avec les bouleversements apportés par la Seconde Guerre mondiale. |
| Keywords: | prosopographie, mobilité sociale, élites administratives, colonisation, vingtième siècle |
| JEL: | N0 N30 N40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:100709&r=his |
| By: | Nicola Fontana; Tommaso Nannicini; Guido Tabellini |
| Abstract: | The Italian civil war and the Nazi occupation of Italy occurred at a critical juncture, just before the birth of a new democracy. We study the impact of these traumatic events by exploiting geographic heterogeneity in the duration and intensity of civil war, and the persistence of the battlefront along the “Gothic line” cutting through Northern-Central Italy. We find that the Communist Party gained votes in postwar elections where the Nazi occupation lasted longer, mainly at the expense of centrist parties. This effect persists until the late 1980s and appears to be driven by equally persistent changes in political attitudes. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:618&r=his |
| By: | Nogues-Marco, Pilar |
| Abstract: | This chapter focuses on money markets and exchange rates in preindustrial Europe. The foreign exchange market was mostly based on bills of exchange, the instrument used to transfer money and provide credit between distant centers in pre-industrial Europe. In this chapter, first I explain bill of exchange operations, money market integration, usury regulations and circumventions to hide the market interest rate as well as the evolution of bills of exchange in history, focusing mainly on the most relevant features generalized during the first half of the 17th century: endorsement and the joint liability rule, which facilitated the full expansion of the foreign exchange market beyond personal networks. Then, I describe the European geography of money in the mid-18th century, characterized by a very high degree of multilateralism with the triangle of Amsterdam, London and Paris as the backbone of the European settlement system. Finally, I measure the cost of capital and relate it to liquidity. I show evidence of interest rates in the 18th century for Amsterdam, London, Paris and Cadiz. While Amsterdam, London and Paris presented low and similar interest rates, Cadiz had higher interest rates, mostly being double the cost of capital. These results seem to show a high inverse correlation between liquidity and interest rates, suggesting that the share in international trade of European centers might have been a powerful driver of international monetary leadership. While more empirical evidence and further research is needed, this approach opens the scope of the analysis beyond the national institutional explanation. |
| Keywords: | Money market, Bills of exchange, Monetary geography, Usury regulations, Cost of capital, Exchange rates, Interest rates, Specie-point mechanism |
| JEL: | E42 F31 G15 N23 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:100808&r=his |
| By: | Hoadley, Mason (Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University); Hatti, Neelambar (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Studies of relations binding ruled and ruler over the form and content of revenue assessment during the colonial era are not lacking. Rather, the intellectual challenge lies in ascertaining the degree to which the relevant economic institutions of the subjected regions in southern Asia constituted continuity of tradition, modifications thereof, or completely alien constructs. Meeting that challenge is hindered by inequality of information revealing ‘before’ and ‘after’ conditions; an embarrassment of riches in information on the latter contrasts to poverty of the former. The present paper aims at least partially filling that gap by ascertaining in comparative perspective the basis of the revenue assessment systems prevailing in South India (Karnataka) and Central Java (Yogyakarta) during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. What makes such an undertaking not only desirable from a scholarly point of view but also possible in practice is the near unique finds of virtually untapped original source materials deriving from the respective institutions’ function. |
| Keywords: | Revenue assessment; Land tenure; Inequality; Archival sources; Kaditas; South India; Central Java; Local administrative traditions; Colonial policy |
| JEL: | H71 N35 N45 N95 Q15 |
| Date: | 2017–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0169&r=his |
| By: | Durand, Rodolphe; Clemente, Marco; Roulet, Thomas J. |
| Abstract: | In this essay, we propose a recursive model of institutional change building on the Annales School, one of the 20th century’s most influential streams of historical research. Our model builds upon three concepts from the Annales — mentalities, levels of time, and critical events — to explore how punctual disruptions affect different dimensions of institutional logics and exert short- or long-range influences. On these bases, organizations make choices, from decoupling to more radical shifts in logics, leading to severe institutional changes that become a matter of history. As much as organizations are influenced by their times and the prevalent institutional logics, their choices trigger macro-level changes in a recursive manner. More broadly, we comment on how fruitful it our approach to historicize organization studies. |
| Keywords: | Annales School; Institutional change; Institutional Logics; Events |
| Date: | 2016–06–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1159&r=his |
| By: | Jorda, Oscar (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco); Knoll, Katharina (Deutsche Bundesbank); Kuvshinov, Dmitry (University of Bonn); Schularick, Moritz (University of Bonn); Taylor, Alan M. (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the long-run? Which particular assets have the highest long-run returns? We answer these questions on the basis of a new and comprehensive dataset for all major asset classes, including—for the first time—total returns to the largest, but oft ignored, component of household wealth, housing. The annual data on total returns for equity, housing, bonds, and bills cover 16 advanced economies from 1870 to 2015, and our new evidence reveals many new insights and puzzles. |
| JEL: | D31 E10 E44 G12 N10 |
| Date: | 2017–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2017-25&r=his |
| By: | Scott A. Carson |
| Abstract: | When traditional measures for health and economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now well-accepted measures that reflect net nutrition during economic development. To date, there is no study that compares 19th century BMIs of immigrants and US natives. Individuals in the New South and West had high BMIs, while those in the upper South and Northeast had lower BMIs. Immigrants from Europe had the highest BMIs, while immigrants from Asia were the lowest. African-Americans and mixed-race individuals had greater BMIs than fairer complexioned whites. After accounting for occupational selection, workers in agricultural occupations had greater BMIs. Close proximity to rural agriculture decreased the relative price of food, increased net nutrition, and was associated with higher BMIs. |
| Keywords: | nineteenth century US health, immigrant health, BMI, malnourishment, obesity |
| JEL: | I12 I31 J70 N31 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6771&r=his |
| By: | Anton N. Afanasiev (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study aims to present that A.V. Mikhailov’s historical method is systematic. Special attention is given to historical-anthropological dimension of the A.V. Mikhailov's theory of the baroque. The article shows that Mikhailov's historical anthropology should be viewed as a constitutive part of his “Kulturwissenschaft”, opposed both to the literary science and to the positivist historiography by means of commitment to historize human sciences through the notion of «new historiñism». |
| Keywords: | A.V. Mikhailov, baroque, Kulturwissenschaft, historical anthropology, historicism |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:162/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Toke Aidt; Gabriel Leon; Max Satchell |
| Abstract: | Social unrest often erupts suddenly and diffuses quickly. What drives people to overcome their collective action problem and join a riot or protest, turning what is initially a small event into a widespread movement? We address this question by examining the Swing riots of 1830-31. The communication constraints of the time induced spatio-temporal variation in exposure to news about the uprising, allowing us to estimate the role of contagion in the spread of the riots. We find that local (rather than national) sources of information were central in driving contagion, and that this contagion magnified the impact that social and economic fundamentals had on riots by a factor of 2.65. Our historical data allow us to overcome a number of econometric challenges, but the Swing riots are of independent interest as well: they contributed to the passage of the Great Reform Act, a key step in Britain’s institutional development. |
| Keywords: | riots, diffusion, conflict, contagion, Captain Swing |
| JEL: | D72 D74 O16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6773&r=his |
| By: | Mira Bergelson (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Andrej Kibrik (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper describes the ongoing research project on Ninilchik Russian as a unique variety of the Russian language. We believe it is a remnant of Alaskan Russian – a language that emerged at the end of the 18th century as a result of Russian colonial presence in Alaska and served as a means of communication in Russian America until the end of the Russian period in 1867. By that time Alaskan Russian became the native language for the people of mixed Russian/Native origin residing in various parts of Alaska. Ninilchik was one such place and, due to many factors combined, became a major location where this linguistic variety kept developing and serving as a means of communication, creating and maintaining cultural identity, and holding together the community of brave, persistent, and self-sustained people. Thanks to the people of Ninilchik, Alaskan Russian is still alive in the 21st century. The paper deals with two aspects of this multifaceted linguistic phenomenon. One is a theoretical problem of the “archaeological approach” to the language data which reflects a rather short but diverse history of Alaskan Russian and involves contact studies. Another is the Ninilchik Russian Dictionary project that allows to record both items and concepts, s well as the sociocultural narratives together making up the special story of the linguistic and cultural community |
| Keywords: | Alaskan Russian, Russian cultural and linguistic influence, language contact, community oriented dictionary |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:55/lng/2017&r=his |
| By: | Philips, Robin C. M.; Földvàri, Péter; Van Leeuwen, Bas |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we trace the causes of regional industrial development in the nineteenth century Low Countries by disentangling the complex relationship between industrialisation, technological progress and human capital formation. We use sectoral differences in the application of technology and human capital as the central elements to explain the rise in employment in the manufacturing sector during the nineteenth century, and our findings suggest a re-interpretation of the deskilling debate. To account for differences among manufacturing sectors, we use population and industrial census data, subdivided according to their present-day manufacturing sector equivalents of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC). Instrumental variable regression analysis revealed that employment in the manufacturing sector was influenced by so-called upper- tail knowledge and not by average educational levels, providing empirical proof of a so-called deskilling industrialisation process. However, we find notable differences between manufacturing sectors. The textiles and clothing sectors show few agglomeration effects and limited use of steam-powered engines, and average education levels cannot adequately explain regional industrialisation. In contrast, the location of the fast- growing and innovative machinery-manufacturing sector was more influenced by technology and the availability of human capital, particularly upper-tail knowledge captured by secondary school attendance rates. |
| Keywords: | industrialization; deskilling; human capital; steam engine; labour; economic growth |
| JEL: | J24 L60 N13 N63 O14 O41 |
| Date: | 2017–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:83304&r=his |
| By: | Thaler, Richard H. (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Richard H. Thaler delivered his Prize Lecture on 8 December 20167 at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral economics; |
| JEL: | D03 D90 G02 |
| Date: | 2017–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2017_003&r=his |
| By: | Tomás E. Murphy (Università Bocconi); Martín Rossi (Department of Economics, Universidad de San Andres) |
| Abstract: | We study the historical origins and consequences of Mexican cartels. We first trace the location of current cartels to the location of Chinese migration at the beginning of the XX century, and document that both events are strongly connected. We then use Chinese presence in 1930 as an instrument for cartel presence today. We find a positive link between cartel presence and good socioeconomic outcomes, such as lower marginalization rates, lower illiteracy rates, higher salaries, and better public services. We also report that municipalities with cartel presence have higher tax revenues and more political competition. Given that Chinese immigration at the end of the century was driven by elements largely exogenous to the drug trade, the link between cartel presence and good socioeconomic outcomes can be interpreted in a causal way. Previous research has shown that the presence of organized crime is associated with bad outcomes at the macro level (Pinotti, 2015) and has deep effects at individual level, making children more likely to be criminals in adulthood (Sviatschi, 2017a; 2017b). Our paper reconciles this previous literature with the fact that drug lords, the leaders of this particular form of organized crime, have great support in the local communities in which they operate. |
| Keywords: | drug trade, Chinese migration, Mexico, illegal markets, organized crime |
| JEL: | N36 O15 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sad:wpaper:130&r=his |
| By: | Stelian Manolache (University Ovidius, Constanta) |
| Abstract: | As a historian and philosopher of religions, a gifted narrator and talented essayist, with a fascinating work of articles, studies and research volumes, Mircea Eliade must be discovered and decrypted in a religious key, leaving aside the confusion ethnic – aesthetic. Thus, Eliade affirms his own credo, writing that inside the same ethnical mass, the culture is produced not by the ethnic fibre, it is produced by a bouquet of nuclei developed spiritually, most of the time by religion ... the mystic experience – the functional actualisation of the religious reality – being the only effective one. In this context, his friend Petre Ţuţea, wrote that Eliade must be thought/understood inside the existential triangle God-human-nature, a triangle ruled by the category of the archetypal sacred and of the symbol, meaning the All-including Real, the unique cause of all things. |
| Keywords: | homo religious, sacred, profane, Emile Durkheim, Wilhelm Schmidt, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Georges Dumezil |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:opaper:18&r=his |
| By: | Ilya G. Guryanov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The movement of the so-called philosophiñal physicians was formed at the Prussian University of Halle in the middle of the 18th century as a medico-philosophical approach outside of the structure of university genres both in medicine and in philosophy. Being professional physicians, they read metaphysical texts relating to the status of body, to the living or to the relationship between soul and body and introduce the elements of new philosophical discourses such as Wolffianism into the field of medical theory outside of academic discourse. In this context, the objective of the paper is to identify and describe the argumentative features of E. A. Nicolai’s ‘An essay on the beauty of the human body’. Nikolai builds his reasoning more geometrico, referring directly to the works of Christian Wolff and Alexander Baumgarten. However, Nicolai’s use of Wolffian terminology and form of reasoning is systematically ambiguous; for instance, he comes to anthropological conclusions which seem quite consistent with a theory of physical influx totally denied by Wolff discussing the soul-body problem. Moreover, the style of many passages of ‘An essay on the beauty of the human body’, saturated with philosophical terminology, is obviously ironic. Departing from Nikolai’s medico-philosophical approach, the paper lead to a reflection on the configuration of the disciplinary textual spaces and on the borders of academic medicine in the social dimension of the 18th century |
| Keywords: | Philosophical physicians, Christian Wolff, Early Modern medicine, University of Halle, more geometrico, physical influx, anthropology and aesthetics |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:160/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Makram El-Shagi; Lin Zhang (Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan) |
| Abstract: | We assess the role of silver price fluctuations on Chinese trade and GDP during the late Qing dynasty, when China still had a bimetallic monetary system where silver was mostly used for trade. Using a structural VAR with a newly proposed small sample bias correction and blockwise recursive identification, we identify the impact of silver price shocks o the Chinese economy from 1867 to 1910. We find that silver price changes have substantial impact on trade, but barely affect GDP. Our results can partly be applied to the analysis of the role of vehicle currencies in today's emerging economies. |
| Keywords: | vehicle currency, China, SVAR, small sample |
| JEL: | C32 F14 F31 F41 N15 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fds:dpaper:201705&r=his |
| By: | Dominique Méda (IRISSO-UMR 7170 - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales - Université Paris-Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the notion of work historically and how new meanings have enriched this notionover centuries. It then analyses the importance Europeans give to the concept of work, and presents theongoing discourse on technological revolution and its impact on work and employment. The paper thenexamines the future of work in the coming decades in the light of three broad scenarios, which arecompeting 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 theend 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 mostcompatible with the need to combat the unbearable features of our present model of development andseems 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 Europeanscontinue to place on work while ensuring the continuation of our societies. |
| Keywords: | ecological conversion,digital revolution,Automation,importance of work,work,future of work |
| Date: | 2017–11–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01616579&r=his |
| By: | Bjørnskov, Christian (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | This paper starts with the observation that almost all military dictatorships that democratize become presidential democracies. I hypothesize that military interests are able to coordinate on status-preserving institutional change prior to democratization and therefore prefer political institutions with strong veto players. Parallel civilian interests conversely suffer from coordination failure by being more diverse and les cohesive. The hypothesis therefore implies that most military democratizations are partially planned while most democratization events from civilian autocracy are either unforeseen or poorly planned. Exploring the characteristics of 111 democratization episodes between 1950 and 2015, I find a number of features broadly consistent with further theoretical predictions. |
| Keywords: | Dictatorship; Democracy; Political institutions |
| JEL: | D72 D74 P16 |
| Date: | 2017–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1194&r=his |
| By: | Alfred Duncan; Charles Nolan |
| Abstract: | In this chapter we: (i) Review the core DSGE workhorse models of financial frictions that existed ahead of the recent financial crisis. (ii) Summarize the recent empirical literature on the history of financial crises. (iii) Summarize the key modelling developments around credit intermediation in DSGE models since the crisis. (iv) Identify gaps in the literature that are especially important for policymakers and modelers. |
| Keywords: | Financial Frictions; Credit Intermediation; Macroeconomics |
| JEL: | E32 E44 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1719&r=his |
| By: | Adriano Do Vale (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | La fin des années 80 et les années 90 ont été marquées par une grande vague d’adoption de l’indépendance des banques centrales (IBC). Les manuels et les revues de la littérature adoptent souvent un récit historique standard la présentant comme une sucess story, comme l’application d’un consensus théorique. L’art aurait suivi le pas de la science. Cet article a comme finalité ultime de proposer un récit alternatif concernant l’IBC. Adoptant une perspective historique centrée sur la première partie des années 20, nous entendons démontrer que la doctrine des banquiers centraux et les pratiques, comprises en tant qu’adoption de l’IBC, précédent la théorie, l’art venant alors avant la science. Vue de façon normative par la littérature économique à partir des années 80, l’indépendance est pensée, dès les années 20, par les praticiens qui posent eux-mêmes les principes du central banking. Dans la nouvelle donne de l’après-guerre, marquée par l’absence de l’ancrage nominal autrefois fourni par l’étalon-or, l’IBC s’avère un arrangement institutionnel alternatif face à l’inflation. Elle est recommandée au niveau international et constitue un principe central de la doctrine du central banking avancé par le gouverneur anglais Montagu Norman. Comme pour le principe d’indépendance, les pratiques précèdent la théorie. On considère qu’il y a eu une première vague d’adoption de l’IBC dans la première moitié des années 20, bien avant la vague d’adoption de l’IBC de la fin des années 80 et des années 90. Suite à des expériences hyper-inflationnistes et dans le cadre de plans de stabilisation monétaire sous tutelle internationale, les banques centrales de l’Autriche (1923), de la Hongrie (1924) et de l’Allemagne (1922-24) deviennent légalement indépendantes. |
| Date: | 2017–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-01662234&r=his |
| By: | Strunz, Sebastian; Bartkowski, Bartosz |
| Abstract: | Critiques of modernity often align with critiques of the existing institutions of lib-eral democracy. We argue that the degrowth movement can learn from the experience of past critiques of modernity by avoiding their major mistake - that is, (inadvertently) conflating a critique of modernity with a rejection of liberal democratic institutions. Hence, we suggest to frame degrowth as the promotion of new vocabularies within a deliberative account of democ-racy. Specifically, we proceed in three steps: first, we briefly review some essential critiques of modernity and their stance towards liberal democracy. Second, we illustrate how some of the argumentative patterns within the degrowth literature may inadvertently endanger core values of the open society. Third, we introduce our perspective on a liberal degrowth that aims to fulfil the "unfinished project of modernity". |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ufzdps:72017&r=his |
| By: | Tsz Lam Ngai (University of Cambridge, UK) |
| Abstract: | This article investigated the media representation of women politicians in mediated political communication in the context of Hong Kong, China. It attempted to supplement the previous feminism scholarship on media representation of women activists, which largely situated in Western contexts, with the example from East Asia. Contrary to the studies worldwide which argued that women politicians were confined to the trivialized topics in news media, this article demonstrated that the East Asian women politicians in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China which was colonized by Britain, were visible in a larger variety of topics than their male counterparts in newspapers and they were more often directly quoted than the male politicians. Also, the number of editorials women politicians wrote to the mainstream press was significantly higher than the men did. Despite these, those articles the women are in occupied latter sections. A subtler analysis also discovered that the promising trends applied only to a few celebrity women politicians. These findings were based on a content analysis of 946 news articles in four Hong Kong newspapers. The conclusion discussed how the findings could inform readers about the stereotype towards East Asia as a highly patriarchal culture influenced by Confucianism in contemporary mediated political communication. |
| Keywords: | media representation, politics, gender, women in power, celebrity, East Asia |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:opaper:13&r=his |
| By: | Deepankar Basu (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts - Amherst) |
| Abstract: | An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism : a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become important in crises of deficient surplus value are the rising organic composition of capital and the profit squeeze; two mechanisms that are salient in crisis of excess surplus value are problems of insufficient aggregate demand and increased financial fragility. This paper offers a synthetic and synoptic account of the Marxist literature on capitalist economic crises. |
| Keywords: | capitalism, crisis, rising organic composition, profit squeeze, underconsumption, financial fragility |
| JEL: | B24 B51 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2017-21&r=his |
| By: | Potter, Simon M. (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | Keynote remarks for the Commemoration of the Centennial of the Federal Reserve’s U.S. Dollar Account Services to the Global Official Sector, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City. |
| Keywords: | foreign central banks; dollar accounts |
| Date: | 2017–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsp:268&r=his |
| By: | Daniela Giaconi (Dipartimento di Economia e Management - Università di Pisa) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this presentation proposes a first reasoned overview of the results of a new study of documents archive of the National Purge Commission of Universities Professors (in Italian: Commissione Nazionale di Epurazione del Personale Universitario) deposited at the Central State Archive in Rome. It is focused on the whole segment of economists which, up til now, has been considered only for some aspects linked to personal stories of the single scientists. This new research serves to demonstrate that in the personal files of the thirty-eight economists analysed, beyond the individual trial pathways, there is a common thread in their strategy of defence that makes them indistinguishable from their colleagues of the other subjects. In concrete terms, inside the purge of economists exist several situations, similar to those of the branches of knowledge under trial; they repeat acts of defence that are apart from their expert knowledge and their proper and specialized terms well fit together with the conceptual framework delineating purge as a rite-of-passage to the new Republic, but without hangover for their careers. |
| Abstract: | Questo contributo propone una prima delucidazione ragionata degli esiti di una nuova esplorazione del fondo della Commissione Nazionale di Epurazione del Personale Universitario dell’Archivio Centrale dello Stato, focalizzata sull’intero segmento degli economisti che, finora, era stato valutato soltanto in alcuni lavori centrati sulle vicende personali di singoli scienziati. La nuova ricerca è tesa a dimostrare che nei fascicoli personali dei trentotto economisti esaminati, al di là dei singoli percorsi processuali, esiste una trama comune nella loro strategia di difesa che li rende indistinguibili dai colleghi delle altre materie. In pratica, dentro l’epurazione gli economisti vivono situazioni affini a quelle di tutte le classi disciplinari processate, ripetono gesti di difesa che prescindono dal loro sapere specialistico e i loro vocaboli di elezione si incastrano perfettamente in un quadro concettuale teso a delineare l’epurazione come una sorta di rito di passaggio verso la nuova Repubblica ma senza strascichi per il procedere delle carriere. |
| Date: | 2017–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01625586&r=his |
| By: | Laurent Linnemer (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - ENSAE ParisTech - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique); Michael Visser (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - ENSAE ParisTech - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents what are the most cited articles published in the top-5 economics journals during the period 1991-2015. EconLit is used to collect bibliographic information about these articles, and we gathered yearly citations for each article through the Web of Science database. We present different sorts of citation lists. Our most basic one ranks articles on the basis of the cumulated number of citations received between year of publication and 2015. To facilitate the comparison of articles of different ages, we also consider rankings by subperiods, and on the basis of normalized citations per year. Finally we report lists by field of economic research, as defined by the JEL codes of the articles. The paper contains Internet links to all articles, allowing an easy and direct access to arguably the most influential economics literature published in the last 25 years. |
| Date: | 2017–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01634432&r=his |