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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒05‒07
thirty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Ashraf, Quamrul; Cinnirella, Francesco; Galor, Oded; Gershman, Boris; Hornung, Erik |
| Abstract: | This paper advances a novel hypothesis regarding the historical roots of labor emancipation. It argues that the decline of coercive labor institutions in the industrial phase of development has been an inevitable by-product of the intensification of capital-skill complementarity in the production process. In light of the growing significance of skilled labor for fostering the return to physical capital, elites in society were induced to relinquish their historically profitable coercion of labor in favor of employing free skilled workers, thereby incentivizing the masses to engage in broad-based human capital acquisition, without fear of losing their skill premium to expropriation. In line with the proposed hypothesis, exploiting a plausibly exogenous source of variation in proto-industrialization across regions of nineteenth-century Prussia, the initial abundance of elite-owned physical capital that also came to be associated with skill-intensive industrialization is shown to have contributed to the subsequent intensity of de facto serf emancipation. |
| Keywords: | capital-skill complementarity; demand for human capital; emancipation; Industrialization; Labor coercion; nineteenth-century Prussia; physical capital accumulation; serfdom |
| JEL: | J24 J47 N13 N33 O14 O15 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12822&r=his |
| By: | PARYS, Wilfried |
| Abstract: | In the history of economic thought various thinkers have been attracted by the problematic idea of a single cause of economic value. Today such ideas appear mostly in studies on the labour theory of value of Karl Marx. In 1867 his “Das Kapital” tried to explain the values of all commodities by a special common substance, the quantity of abstract labour embodied in them, i.e., the direct and indirect labour time necessary to produce them. Several well-known mainstream economists (for example, Wicksteed, Böhm-Bawerk, Wicksell and Pareto) quickly pointed out that labour was not the only common substance in commodities. Another problem was Marx’s deficient mathematics. In Marx’s system the same commodities can appear on the side of the inputs and on the side of the outputs. Today it is well-known that many analytical problems in such circular systems can be solved by means of simultaneous equations of the input-output type. Here the most original contributions were not made by leading economists mentioned above, but by rather unknown outsiders (Mühlpfordt, Dmitriev, Charasoff, Potron), whose pioneering works were neglected for decades. In December 1927, both Sraffa and Leontief, independently of each other, argued that the reduction of all commodities to labour values was not a unique process; from a formal point of view, it was possible to compute not only labour values, but also wheat values, coal values, etc. For various reasons, their insights of 1927 remained rather unnoticed for several decades. A few decades ago the high impact journal Science published some papers advocating the use of energy values, corresponding to the direct and indirect quantity of energy necessary to produce a commodity. The most conspicuous text of this type is the often cited paper “Embodied Energy and Economic Valuation” by Robert Costanza (published in Science in 1980), claiming that both theory and empiry suggest a close connection between prices and energy values. The energy theory of value is usually discussed outside the networks of orthodox or marxian economics, but the empirical and theoretical studies on energy values and labour values show several remarkable cases of analogous arguments and imperfections, both trying to support the use of a single substance of economic value. My paper considers both theoretical and empirical aspects of such discussions on labour values and energy values. I also use a simple numerical example, to illustrate the computation of both labour values and energy values via two methods: via a system of simultaneous input-output equations and via subsystems (vertically integrated systems that produce only one net output). The two computation methods are well-known from the rich literature on labour values, but comparing energy values and labour values forces me to a generalisation of the notion of a subsystem: in order to define this notion unambiguously, I need to specify not only the net output of the subsystem, but also its net input. If the only net input of the subsystem is energy, I use the expression “energy subsystem”. This concept is needed to establish a percentage formula for the deviation of prices from energy values, analogous to my formula for the deviation of prices from labour values. By generalising Sraffa’s notion of subsystems it is possible to explain why supporters of labour values and energy values both present misleadingly “good” empirical results for their favourite theory. Both groups should be more aware of the non-uniqueness of their exaggerated claims for their one sided theories of value. |
| Keywords: | Marx, Sraffa, Leontief, Costanza, Energy values, Labour values, Input-output analysis |
| JEL: | B51 C67 D57 Q40 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ant:wpaper:2018006&r=his |
| By: | Emek Basker; Chris Vickers; Nicolas L. Ziebarth |
| Abstract: | We study the grocery industry in Washington, DC, during the Great Depression using data from the 1929 Census of Distribution, a 1929–1930 survey by the Federal Trade Commission, and a 1935 business directory. We ?rst document the di?erences between chains and independents in the Washington, DC, grocery market circa 1929 to better understand chains' competitive advantages. Second, we study correlates of survival from 1929 to 1935, a period of major contraction and upheaval. We find that more productive stores survived at higher rates, as did stores with greater assortment and lower prices. Presaging the supermarket revolution, combination stores were much more likely to survive to 1935 than other grocery formats. |
| Keywords: | Grocery Stores, Survival, Great Depression, Chains |
| JEL: | L81 L11 N82 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:18-24&r=his |
| By: | Thomas I. Palley |
| Abstract: | The conventional wisdom is there have been two globalizations in the modern era. The first began around 1870 and ended in 1914. The second began in 1945 and is still underway. This paper challenges that view and argues there have been three globalizations, not two. The first half of the paper provides empirical evidence for the three globalizations hypothesis. The second half discusses the analytical implications of the three globalization hypothesis. The Victorian first globalization and Keynesian era second globalization were driven by gains from trade, and those gains increased industrialized country real wages. The neoliberal third globalization has been driven by industrial reorganization motivated by distributional conflict. Trade theory does not explain the third globalization; capital's share has increased at the expense of labor's; and there can be no presumption of mutually beneficial gains from the third globalization. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, trade theory, barge economics. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:18-2018&r=his |
| By: | Farmer, Roger E A |
| Abstract: | I review the contribution and influence of Milton Friedman's 1968 presidential address to the American Economic Association. I argue that Friedman's influence on the practice of central banking was profound and that his arguments in favour of monetary rules was responsible for thirty years of low and stable inflation in the period from 1979 through 2009. I present a critique of Friedman's position that market-economies are self-stabilizing and I describe an alternative reconciliation of Keynesian economics with Walrasian general equilibrium theory from that which is widely accepted today by most neo-classical economists. My interpretation implies that government should intervene actively in financial markets to stabilize economic activity. |
| Keywords: | Keynesian economics; Monetarism; Natural rate of unemployment |
| JEL: | E3 E4 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12825&r=his |
| By: | W. Walker Hanlon |
| Abstract: | This study provides new evidence on the impact of air pollution in London over the century from 1866-1965. To identify weeks with elevated pollution levels I use new data tracking the timing of London's famous fog events, which trapped emissions in the city. These events are compared to detailed new weekly mortality data. My results show that acute pollution exposure due to fog events accounted for at least one out of every 200 deaths in London during this century. I provide evidence that the presence of infectious diseases of the respiratory system, such as measles and tuberculosis, increased the mortality effects of pollution. As a result, success in reducing the infectious diseases burden in London in the 20th century reduced the impact of pollution exposure and shifted the distribution of pollution effects across age groups. |
| JEL: | I15 N3 Q53 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24488&r=his |
| By: | Scott A. Carson |
| Abstract: | In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner proposed that America’s Western frontier was an economic ‘safety-valve,’ a place where settlers could migrate when conditions in eastern states and Europe crystalized against their upward economic mobility. However, recent studies suggest the Western frontier’s material conditions may not have been as advantageous as Jackson proposed because settlers lacked the knowledge and human capital to succeed on the Plains and Far Western frontier. This study illustrates that current and cumulative net nutrition on the Central Plains improved during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, indicating that recent challenges to the Turner hypothesis are not well supported by net nutrition studies. Net nutrition improve with agricultural innovations and biotechnologies on the western frontier, and rural agricultural workers net nutrition was better than from elsewhere within the US. |
| Keywords: | nineteenth century black and white stature variation, urbanization, US Central Plains |
| JEL: | I10 J11 J71 N31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6969&r=his |
| By: | Lüger, Tim |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, there have been numerous attempts in economic theory to model the historical regime of a Malthusian trap as well as the transition to growth in one coherent framework, or in other words, a unified growth theory. However, in most of these models, an important effect suggested by Malthus has been frequently omitted. By including what he had called "the great preventive check" in the traditional Malthusian model which is based on the principle of population, the principle of diminishing returns and the principle of labor division, the transition can be modelled in a very simple dynamic macroeconomic framework. The aim of this paper is to first construct and calibrate the suggested classical model and to eventually employ a conventional VAR-Method to provide evidence of the above principles using country-specific annual historical data on crude birth rate, crude death rate and GDP per capita growth rate. As a result, it is argued that emerging economies follow a universal macroeconomic pattern of development. A decreasing death rate is succeeded by a decreasing birth rate which at the same time induces GDP per capita to rise sustainably. The correspondingly advanced microeconomic theory suggests that increasing life expectancy tends to create a demographic structure that is much less prone to overpopulation. |
| Keywords: | Demographic Transition,Malthusian Trap,Unified Growth Theory,Classical Growth Theory,Vectorautoregression |
| JEL: | B12 C32 J11 O11 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:darddp:231&r=his |
| By: | Adi Schnytzer (Bar-Ilan University); Alina Zubkovych |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2017-13&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the industrial policy in postwar Japan from perspectives of the literature on a “development state†and a “middle income trap". Japan transited from a middle income country to a high income country in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s. This process was characterized by a large structural change, such as resource reallocation from the primary industry to the secondary and the tertiary industries as well as resource reallocation within the secondary industry. Transition to a high income country is a challenging task for a middle income country. With respect to Japan, the industrial policy played a positive role in the transition. This was achieved by interactions between MITI and other related actors, who constrained and corrected MITI’s attempts of excess intervention. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2018cf1086&r=his |
| By: | Lee, Neil; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; von Berlepsch, Viola |
| Abstract: | Does the economic effect of immigrant women differ from that of immigrants in general? This paper examines if gender has influenced the short- and long-term economic impact of mass migration to the US, using Census microdata from 1880 and 1910. By means of ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimations, the analysis shows that a greater concentration of immigrant women is significantly associated with lower levels of economic development in US counties. However, immigrant women also shaped economic development positively, albeit indirectly, via their children. Communities with more children born to foreign mothers and that successfully managed to integrate female immigrants experienced greater economic growth than those dominated by children of foreign-born fathers or American-born parents. |
| Keywords: | Counties; Development; Economic Growth; Gender; migration; US. |
| JEL: | F22 J16 J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12878&r=his |
| By: | Reis, Ricardo |
| Abstract: | Central banks have sometimes turned their attention to long-term interest rates as a target or as a diagnosis of policy. This paper describes two historical episodes when this happened-the US in 1942-51 and the UK in the 1960s-and uses a model of inflation dynamics to evaluate monetary policies that rely on going long. It concludes that these policies for the most part fail to keep inflation under control. A complementary methodological contribution is to re-state the classic problem of monetary policy through interest-rate rules in a continuous-time setting where shocks follow diffusions in order to integrate the endogenous determination of inflation and the term structure of interest rates. |
| Keywords: | affine models; ceilings; pegs; Taylor rule; Yield Curve |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12833&r=his |
| By: | Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis A. Gil-Alana; Tommaso Trani |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the degree of persistence in UK inflation by applying long-memory methods to historical data that span the period from 1660 to 2016. Specifically, we use both parametric and non-parametric fractional integration techniques, that are more general than those based on the classical I(0) vs. I(1) dichotomy. Further, we carry out break tests to detect any shifts in the degree of persistence, and also run rolling-window and recursive regressions to investigate its evolution over time. On the whole, the evidence suggests that the degree of persistence of UK inflation has been relatively stable following the Bretton Woods period, despite the adoption of different monetary regimes. The estimation of an unobserved-components stochastic volatility model sheds further light on the issues of interest by showing that post-Bretton Woods changes in UK inflation are attributable to a fall in the volatility of permanent shocks. |
| Keywords: | UK inflation, persistence, fractional integration |
| JEL: | C14 C22 E31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6968&r=his |
| By: | Shachmurove, Yochanan; Vulanovic, Milos |
| Abstract: | Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are a special type of public companies currently available to investors in financial markets. As an investment vehicle, modern SPACs are traced back to 18-th century England where blank checks were first mentioned as blind pools during the infamous South Sea Bubble. In the United States, the Security and Exchange Commission classifies SPAC as a blank check company. This chapter reviews the academic and financial literatures about SPACs, describes their institutional characteristics and analyses their market performance since Initial Public Offering (IPO). The sole purpose of SPACs is to use the proceeds to finance future acquisition. |
| Keywords: | Blank checks,,Initial public offering (IPO),,IPO survival,Mergers and Acquisition (M&A),Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies,SPACs |
| JEL: | G12 G32 G14 G24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:177392&r=his |
| By: | Obregon, Carlos |
| Abstract: | Today, the world is in an evident disarray; many things seem to have gone wrong at once. Various topics: terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, black accounts; financial crises, income distribution, global coordination; or the social angriness and growing anti-migration —nationalistic-protectionist— sentiments and policies, show that something has changed for the worse. As we will see, all these events have a common deep cause that we must first understand, in order to be able to cope with its consequences. We are living a technological revolution that, in many ways, surpasses the so-called Industrial Revolutions, particularly because of the speed at which it is bringing change. We defend that institutions have not yet adapted to the new world that this technological revolution has brought about. Today’s inadequate institutional arrangements are sustained by old concepts or economic theories and ideas that no longer work as they did before. This mismatch between the new technological world and the old institutions explains most of today’s world economic problems. |
| Keywords: | Globalización, Crisis financieras, Distribución del ingreso, Coordinación global, Nacionalismo, Proteccionismo, Anti-migración. |
| JEL: | F00 F01 F1 F13 F2 F20 F21 F22 F23 F3 |
| Date: | 2018–04–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86396&r=his |
| By: | Abulkader Mostafa; Colin A. Jones |
| Abstract: | The UK experienced a substantial rise in owner occupation over the twentieth century. Despite the recent fall in ownership rate, many tenants still aspire to own their own homes. These strong aspirations to own are attributed to a set of financial and non-financial benefits. Although the financial benefits are perceived to be significant and to outweigh housing benefits, there is a paucity of rigorous research measuring and confirming the significance and nature of the financial benefits from buying versus renting. This research calculates, for the first time, the historical pure financial returns from buying versus renting in Britain for first-time buyers and disaggregates the results by the eleven regions. It investigates whether the long-term growing homeownership aspiration in Britain has been sustained and rationalised by solid financial payoff or not. It is based on a DCF analysis of historical housing and mortgage market data from 1975 to 2012. The empirical analysis produces more than 18,000 simulations using a comprehensive financial model. The results of the research explore the return from house purchase differential between regions and develop a regional return ranking. It also explores the historical contribution of capital gains to the overall return by calculating the returns after excluding capital gains. The research investigates how much timing matters by comparing the returns at (or near) peaks and troughs over the major three housing cycles. The research finally explores how many holding years were historically required in order for house purchase by first time buyers to breakeven. |
| Keywords: | financial returns; Housing Markets; owner occupation; private rented sector; regions |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2017_217&r=his |
| By: | Paulus van der Kuil; Kristin Wellner |
| Abstract: | Ever since the definition of private property rights, use of that property and the buildings that were built upon provided vehicles for returns on capital invested. This process, emerged in British and Dutch economies of the 15th and 16th centuries, has evolved into the real estate industry as we acknowledge it today. Parallel to commodification processes in industrialised free market economies, the real estate industry has been and is constantly developing tools and processes to enhance efficiency and liquidity of the investment vehicle; private property and the buildings that are built upon. This ongoing process has led to a growing discrepancy between real estate investors/developers as principals of buildings and architects as agents of building construction and design. In this discrepancy and the polemic public debate that has emerged with it, architects are defending moral and ethical values of building design while simultaneously forced to serve the rules of real estate industry, one of their main client groups. The controversial Principal-Agent conflict that emerges between principals of real estate and architects is the focus of this research project.The paper presents several case studies of buildings that illustrate the relation of real estate imperatives and architecture. The case studies are buildings and building projects from the late 19th century until recently completed projects. They cover both projects designed by so called starchitects as well as buildings that have been developed with a minimal interference of architects. All buildings have been assigned by real estate investors or developers that are driven by a short or long term return (or at least a secure hedge) on their capital invested. |
| Keywords: | Principal-Agent; Real Estate and Architecture; Star Architects |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2017_198&r=his |
| By: | Olivier Godechot (Observatoire sociologique du changement) |
| Abstract: | The book Le négationnisme économique. Et comment s’en débarrasser by Pierre Cahuc and André Zylberberg has sparked a heated debate in the French press and academy. Its aim is to uncover the inadequacies, knowledge gaps, errors, and denials on the part of researchers and public actors who criticize economic science, and especially those who criticize the latter’s dominant current, the so-called mainstream economics. Its main targets are critical economists, particularly “heterodox” or “appalled economists,” but also intellectual figures from other scientific disciplines (Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Onfray, Dominique Méda, Axel Kahn), CEOs (Jean-Louis Beffa, Louis Gallois), politicians (Michel Rocard, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Barbara Romagnan), and newspapers (Alternatives économiques). [First paragraph] |
| Keywords: | Mainstream economics; Scientific debate |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/73vc0qjuac9g78uvbvb3bn9l50&r=his |
| By: | Cyril Milhaud (PSE - Paris School of Economics) |
| Date: | 2018–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01767927&r=his |
| By: | Qichun He (Central University of Finance and Economics); Heng-fu Zou (Central University of Finance and Economics) |
| Abstract: | We find robust evidence that within each consecutive dynasty of ancient China, inequality demonstrates a "U" shape (or rather a "spoon" shape, to be more precise). As inequality hit an upper limit, war occurred, leading to a new dynasty replacing the old one. The cycle would then repeat itself. A simple explanation for this has been offered, and policy implications have also been presented. |
| Keywords: | Kuznets Curve, Income inequality, U shape, Ancient China |
| JEL: | N95 O11 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cuf:wpaper:607&r=his |
| By: | Tom Emmerling; Crocker Liu; Yildiray Yildirim |
| Abstract: | When do real estate trusts exhibit superior performance, when they mimic the underlying real estate or when they behave like stock? We test whether real estate trusts outperform common stock only when it mimics underlying property fundamentals. We also explore what capital market conditions correspond to and/or contribute to when securitized real estate behaves more like underlying property fundamentals. To explore this issue, we examine the investment performance of real estate trusts over the Great Depression and also the Great Recession. A distinguishing feature of our study is that we are the first to analyze the investment performance of real estate trusts (RETs), the predecessor to modern day real estate investment trusts (REITs), which traded over the late 19th and early 20th century. We compare the behavior and performance of RETs to REITs in the process. We find evidence consistent with the notion that securitized real estate exhibits superior performance only when it mimics the direct real estate market. This performance is fueled in part by cheaper borrowing costs, greater availability of debt and equity financing, and loosening credit standards. With the advent of a crisis, securitized real estate exhibits a greater co-movement with common stock. When this occurs, real estate behaves in a similar fashion to common stock and any abnormal performance disappears. This corresponds to tighter lending conditions and higher borrowing costs. We also show that RETs behave in a similar fashion to REITs. |
| Keywords: | Great Depression; Great Recession; Real Estate Cycles; REIT |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2017_370&r=his |
| By: | Lüger, Tim |
| Abstract: | In spite of two centuries of extensive debate, a consistent framework of the classical theory of population on which economists can universally agree has not been established. This means that either the theory lacks consistency or it has been misunderstood in important ways. This paper attempts to settle this issue by arguing that the latter was the case, revealing prevailing misconceptions. Since a large amount of these misconceptions most probably arose from the lack of a consistent nomenclature, the paper intends to clarify the classical theory of population by employing unambiguous definitions of the principle of population, the Malthusian trap, positive checks and preventive checks to population. The classical theory of population can then be applied to analyze the transition from economic stagnation to economic growth. As a result, numerous current theories trying to explain the transition to growth that are based on an increase of production will prove secondary when compared to the great preventive check. |
| Keywords: | Demographic Transition,Malthusian Trap,Unified Growth Theory,Classical Growth Theory,Positive Checks,Preventive Checks |
| JEL: | B12 J1 N3 O11 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:darddp:232&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Chapelle (Département d'économie); Quentin Ramond (Observatoire sociologique du changement) |
| Abstract: | Cet article explore la diversité des configurations locales du parc de logements locatifs sociaux. Nous réalisons une analyse quantitative et descriptive en nous intéressant aux caractéristiques des logements, au profil des locataires, aux dynamiques récentes de production et aux configurations d’acteurs intervenant dans leur gestion. Nous utilisons principalement les données du Répertoire du Parc Locatif Social (SOeS, 2013) et du Recensement de la population (Insee, 2013) pour construire une typologie des communes de l’unité urbaine de Paris. Notre approche localisée et systématique de l’offre de logement social fait ressortir dix types de parcs sociaux. Elle montre d’abord que le logement social n’est pas un habitat uniforme et n’accueille pas une population homogène. Outre les contrastes liés aux caractéristiques des logements, largement hérités des politiques passées (1960-1970), il ressort que la diversité actuelle des parcs sociaux tient aux types d’acteurs impliqués dans leur construction et dans la sélection des locataires. La pluralité de leurs objectifs, de leurs intérêts et de leurs pratiques alimente de forts contrastes dans la mobilisation de cet habitat à l’échelle locale, et ce même si les politiques du logement restent fortement centralisées en France |
| Keywords: | politique du logement; logement social; métropole parisienne; typologie; ségrégation |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3r4v4u3sjr909aosn3dnb7tdj3&r=his |
| By: | Gerard H. Dericks; Hans R. A. Koster |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits locally exogenous variation in the location of bombs dropped during the Blitz to quantify the effect of density restrictions on agglomeration economies in London: an elite global city. Employing microgeographic data on office rents and employment, this analysis points to effects for London several multiples larger than the existing literature which primarily derives its results from secondary cities. In particular, doubling employment density raises rents by 25%. Consequently if the Blitz had not taken place, the resulting loss in agglomeration economies to present day London would cause total annual office rent revenues to fall by $4:5 billion { equivalent to 1:2% of London's annual GDP. These results illuminate the substantial impact of land-use regulations in one of the world's largest and most productive cities. |
| Keywords: | regulatory costs, office rents, agglomeration economies, London Blitz bombings |
| JEL: | R14 R33 R38 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1542&r=his |
| By: | Silvana Bartoletto; Bruno Chiarini; Elisabetta Marzano; Paolo Piselli |
| Abstract: | The financial crises of 2007-2008 and the subsequent worldwide recession show the importance of exploring the correlation between financial and real crises. Starting from our new estimation of the Italian business cycle (Bartoletto et al., 2017), we analyze the linkage between banking crises and the business cycle in Italy over the last two centuries. The vast literature on banking crises in Italy is dominated by the narrative approach. In this work we aim to advance the argument one step further by integrating the narrative approach with an empirical VAR analysis, distinguishing between slowdown and inner-banking crises according to the business cycle phase in which they occur. Our long-run analysis proves that not all the banking crises have a connection with real activity and that not all the crises occurring close to a GDP contraction were associated to a boom-bust mechanism. |
| Keywords: | business fluctuations, financial cycle, bank credit, banking crisis, VAR |
| JEL: | E32 E44 N13 N14 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6972&r=his |
| By: | Federico Podestà |
| Abstract: | Pierson’s highly-regarded book, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment suffers from a serious methodological drawback. The author draws his conclusions about welfare state resilience by scrutinizing what happened to social policy structure during and at the end of the two governments selected, ending up by falling into the well-known ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy. The present paper sets out to replicate Pierson’s analysis in a counterfactual framework of causal inference. Adopting the synthetic control method, the trajectories of several UK and US welfare-state measures, observed in the presence of Thatcher and Reagan’s administration, were contrasted with corresponding trajectories reconstructed in the absence of neo-conservative governments. This exercise confirmed Pierson’s substantive conclusion: the neo-conservative revolution of the 1980s did not significantly alter the UK or USA welfare state. |
| Keywords: | Welfare state retrenchment, Synthetic control analysis, Neo-conservative politics, Reagan and Thatcher’s administration, Pierson’s book |
| JEL: | C54 D78 H53 H55 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2018-02&r=his |
| By: | OCDE |
| Abstract: | Suite au développement rapide de l’éducation au lendemain de la Seconde guerre mondiale, le pourcentage d’adultes âgés de 25 à 34 ans au moins diplômés du deuxième cycle de l’enseignement secondaire a presque doublé dans les pays de l’OCDE, passant de 43 % en 1965 à 84 % en 2015. En 1965, aucun pays de l’OCDE n’avait plus de 80 % de ses 25-34 ans au moins diplômés du deuxième cycle de l’enseignement secondaire, tandis qu’environ la moitié de ces pays avaient atteint ce seuil au tournant du siècle, et tous sauf six en 2015, indiquant le franchissement d’une première étape vers l’élévation du niveau de formation de la population. En 2015, dans les pays de l’OCDE, la moitié des 25-34 ans diplômés du deuxième cycle de l’enseignement secondaire étaient aussi diplômés de l’enseignement tertiaire, tandis qu’en 1965, ils n’étaient que 30 % dans ce cas. |
| Date: | 2018–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaag:48-fr&r=his |
| By: | JAQUES KERSTENETZKY |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2016:26&r=his |
| By: | Fernando Broner; Daragh Clancy; Alberto Martin; Aitor Erce |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a natural connection between fiscal multipliers and foreign holdings of public debt. Although fiscal expansions can raise domestic economic activity through various channels, they can also have crowding-out effects if the resources used to acquire public debt reduce domestic consumption and investment. Thus, these crowding-out effects are likely to be weaker when public debt is purchased by foreigners. We test this hypothesis on (i) post-war US data and (ii) data for a panel of 17 advanced economies from the 1980’s to the present. To do so, we assemble a novel database of public debt holdings by domestic and foreign creditors for a large set of advanced economies. We combine this data with standard measures of fiscal policy shocks and show that, indeed, the size of fiscal multipliers is increasing in the share of public debt held by foreigners. In particular, the fiscal multiplier is smaller than one when the foreign share is low, such as in the U.S. in the 1950’s and 1960’s and Japan today, and larger than one when the foreign share is high, such as in the U.S. and Ireland today. |
| Keywords: | sovereign debt, fiscal multiplier, foreign holdings of public debt |
| JEL: | F32 F34 F36 F41 F43 F44 G15 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1610&r=his |
| By: | Hudson, Michael; Goodhart, Charles A. E. |
| Abstract: | In this paper the authors recall the history of Jubilee debt cancellations, emphasizing what their social purpose was at that time. They note that it would not be possible to copy that procedure exactly nowadays, primarily because most debt/credit relationships are intermediated via financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies, etc., rather than by governments or wealthy families directly. But the authors argue that the underlying social purpose of such Jubilees - to keep debt within the reasonable ability to be paid without social and economic polarisation - could be recreated via alternative mechanisms, and they discuss the politico-economic arguments for, and against, doing so. |
| Keywords: | inequality,debt-canceling Jubilees,Babylonian and Byzantine empires,equity participation,student loans,land tax |
| JEL: | E60 E61 E62 E65 H10 H23 H80 N30 N35 P43 Q15 R52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201833&r=his |
| By: | Rieder, Maria; Theine, Hendrik |
| Abstract: | The continuous rise of socio-economic inequality over the past decades with its connected political outcomes such as the Brexit vote in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump are currently a matter of intense debate both in academia and in journalism. A significant sign of the heightened interest was the surprise popularity of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. The book reached the top of the bestseller lists and was described as a "media Sensation" and Piketty himself as a "rock star Economist". This paper, drawing from a major international and cross-disciplinary study, investigates the print media treatment in four European countries of economic policy proposals presented in Capital. Applying social semiotic and critical discourse analysis, we specifically focus on articles which are in disagreement with these proposals and identify five categories of counterarguments used against Piketty: authorisation, moralisation, rationalisation, portrayal of victimhood and inevitability. Providing textual and linguistic examples we demonstrate how the use of linguistic resources normalises and conventionalises ideology-laden discourses of economic means (taxation) and effects, reinforcing particular views of social relations and class as common sense and therewith upholding and perpetuating power relations and inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Thomas Piketty, Economic Inequality, economic ideology, Policy, Social Semiotics, Critical Discourse Analysis, economic discourse, media discourse, legitimation strategies |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus005:6248&r=his |
| By: | Dilem Yıldırım (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey); Onur A. Koska (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey) |
| Abstract: | This study would like to contribute to the existing literature on the Feldstein-Horioka paradox by focusing on Turkey for the period 1960-2014 and by scrutinizing the correlation between domestic savings and investments within a time-varying parameter approach (which is warranted especially for emerging countries due to their political and economic instability and due to the frequency of policy changes). Our time-varying parameter approach is able to capture the impact of various economic and political interruptions on the correlation between domestic savings and investments, especially the military coups in the early 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and the economic and financial crises in the mid-1990s, in the late 1990s, and in the early 2000s, as well as the financial crises affecting various countries in the globe in the late 1990s and 2000s. Our empirical analysis suggests a high correlation between domestic savings and investments in the 1960s, which was decreasing (increasing) during the 1970s (1980s), and which was decreasing since the 1990s. Furthermore, in the post-2002 era, with a further decline in the correlation coefficient, the saving-investment nexus has turned out to be statistically insignificant. |
| Keywords: | Feldstein-Horioka Paradox; Turkey; Economic and financial crises; Structural breaks; Time-varying parameter approach |
| JEL: | E21 E22 F21 C32 C51 G01 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:1808&r=his |
| By: | CLÁUDIO GONTIJO |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2016:18&r=his |
| By: | Warwick J. McKibbin; Augustus Panton |
| Abstract: | This papers surveys alternative monetary frameworks and evaluates whether the current inflation targeting framework followed by the RBA for the past 25 years is likely to be the most appropriate framework for the next 25 years. While flexible inflation targeting has appeared to work well in Australia in the past decades, the nature of future shocks suggests that some form of nominal income targeting is worth considering as an evolutionary changes the Australia’s framework for monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Inflation targeting, nominal income targeting, monetary framework |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2018-19&r=his |
| By: | Charles W. Calomiris; Mark Carlson |
| Abstract: | We examine whether examiners were informed and contributed to the health of the banking sector. Information included quantitative information that was eventually made public, quantitative information that remained private, and subjective information dependent on the examiner’s production of additional, “soft” information that informed examiner assessments of the quality of bank assets and management. All three types of information were useful for gauging the condition of the bank, and affected bank behavior, including a publicly observable signal (skipping a dividend payment). Participants in the market for bank liabilities reacted to this signal in ways that promoted market discipline. |
| JEL: | G21 G28 N21 N41 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24460&r=his |
| By: | Mukand, Sharun; Rodrik, Dani |
| Abstract: | We develop a conceptual framework to highlight the role of ideas as a catalyst for policy and institutional change. We make an explicit distinction between ideas and vested interests and show how they feed into each other. In doing so the paper integrates the Keynes-Hayek perspective on the importance of ideas with the currently more fashionable Stigler-Becker (in-terests only) approach to political economy. We distinguish between two kinds of ideational politics – the battle among different worldviews on the efficacy of policy (worldview politics) versus the politics of victimhood, pride and identity (identity politics). Political entrepreneurs discover identity and policy 'memes' (narratives, cues, framing) that shifts beliefs about how the world works or a person's belief of who he is (i.e. identity). Our framework identifies a complementarity between worldview politics and identity politics and illustrates how they may reinforce each other. In particular, an increase in identity polarization may be associated with a shift in views about how the world works. Furthermore, an increase in income inequality is likely to result in a greater incidence of ideational politics. Finally, we show how ideas may not just constrain, but also 'bite' the interests that helped propagate them in the first instance. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12820&r=his |