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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2021‒08‒16
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo; Catherine R. Schenk |
| Abstract: | In 1919, John Maynard Keynes wrote his famous tract The Economic Consequences of the Peace. In that work, he anticipated the collapse of the first era of globalization that began in the mid-nineteenth century. He admonished the short-sighted assumption that these years of relative peace and prosperity for many was a permanent norm, interrupted only briefly by the Great War. The diplomatic failures, lapses in leadership, and promotion of narrow interests and vision outlined by Keynes underpinned his prediction of a backslash of economic nationalism, trade protectionism, and recession. The paper revisits the turning points in the evolution of the global economic system since 1919 by focusing primarily on the evolution of the international monetary system and policy cooperation/coordination. We identify three disruptions and examine how each prompted a change in the underlying ideology about how the international monetary system should organize: World War I, Bretton Woods, 1970s Great Inflation and Managed Floating. Each turning point was characterized by different forms and institutions of cooperation, how rules (either explicit or implicit) were designed and implemented, and the crucial importance of the historical context. |
| JEL: | F02 F33 N10 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29114&r= |
| By: | Gregori Galofré-Vilà (Universidad Pública de Navarra & INARBE); María Gómez-León (Universidad Pública de Navarra & INARBE); David Stuckler (Bocconi University. Department of Social and Political Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Objectives- Evidence linking past experiences of worsening health and support for radical political views has generated concerns about the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The influenza pandemic that began in 1918 had a devastating impact on mortality. We test the hypothesis that deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to the rise of fascism in Italy. Study design- Cross-sectional study comparing votes for the Fascist party and other mainstream parties in Italian cities in the general election of April 1924, using data that Corbetta and Piretti collected from state archives with yearly cause-specific mortality data, taken from the Italian historical statistical books (Statistica Delle Cause di Morte, edited by the Ministero per L’Industria, Il Commercio e Il Lavoro). Methods- We linked city-level regression models of Fascist vote shares in the 1924 election on changes in deaths from influenza in 1918 in 73 Italian cities, adjusting for socioeconomic factors, city-characteristics and regional dummies. To provide a ‘thicker’ interpretation of these quantitative patterns, we applied historical text mining to the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia (Mussolini’s newspaper). Results- 4.1 million Italians contracted influenza and about 500,000 died. In cities with higher influenza death rates the Fascists gained higher vote shares. Each additional 1 influenza death/1,000 population was associated with a 3.12-percentage-point increase in vote share for the Fascist party in 1924 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.44 to 5.79). These results were consistent even after adjusting for casualties in World War I and indicators of social conflicts and economic hardship. There was no association between higher mortality and vote share for the Socialist or Communist parties. Historical archival analysis also shows how the Fascists exploited the pandemic for political gain. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nav:ecupna:2102&r= |
| By: | Roberto Bonfatti; Giovanni Facchini; Alexander Tarasov; Gian Luca Tedeschi; Cecilia Testa |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role played by politics in shaping the Italian railway network, and its impact on long-run growth patterns. Examining a large state-planned railway expansion that took place during the second half of the 19th century in a recently unified country, we first study how both national and local political processes shaped the planned railway construction. Exploiting close elections, we show that a state-funded railway line is more likely to be planned for construction where the local representative is aligned with the government. Furthermore, the actual path followed by the railways was shaped by local pork-barreling, with towns supporting winning candidates more likely to see a railway crossing their territory. Finally, we explore the long-run effects of the network expansion on economic development. Employing population and economic censuses for the entire 20th century, we show that politics at a critical junction played a key role in explaning the long-run evolution of local economies. |
| Keywords: | Infractural Development, Political Economy |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2021-04&r= |
| By: | Gregori Galofré-Vilà (Universidad Pública de Navarra & INARBE); María Gómez-León (Universidad Pública de Navarra & INARBE) |
| Abstract: | Using annual mortality rates at the provincial level for men and women, we construct a Gini index to estimate changes in regional health inequalities since 1860 in Spain. We find a long steady decline in health inequality across provinces from 1860 until today, interrupted only by World War I and the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s 40-year legacy in terms of health is one of health inequality. Today, regional differences across provinces are at their lowest historical levels. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nav:ecupna:2103&r= |
| By: | Seltzer, Andrew J. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111038&r= |
| By: | María Gómez-León (Universidad Pública de Navarra & INARBE); Giacomo Gabbuti (Faculty of History, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents new, yearly estimates of overall income inequality for Italy, from the first industrial 'take-off' to the eve of the ‘Economic Miracle’, contributing both to the comparative literature on the evolution of inequality in the interwar decades, and to the historiography of Italian fascism and its distributive legacy. By constructing dynamic social tables, we are able to obtain the first comprehensive assessment of all major components of Italian society, shedding light on overlooked ‘halves’ (women, self-employed workers, capital earners), and to consistently compare these results to estimates available for Britain, Germany and Spain. We identify a steep decline in inequality (especially within-labour) after the Great War, followed by a reversal between 1922 and 1931, a relative stability, and a further increase during WWII, this time driven by capital income. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nav:ecupna:2104&r= |
| By: | Horrell, Sara; Humphries, Jane; Weisdorf, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Malthus believed that rising real wages encouraged earlier marriage, higher fertility and a growing population. But diminishing returns in agriculture meant that an organic economy could not keep pace. Excess labour and rising food prices drove wages down and brought population growth to a halt. Studies testing this hypothesis have focussed on the relationship between population growth and men’s wages, typically overlooking women and children’s economic activities and influence on demographic outcomes. New daily and annual wage series, including women and children, enable these missing actors to be incorporated into a more complete account of Malthus’s hypothesis. New findings emerge: the demographic reaction to wage changes was gendered. Early-modern bachelors responded to rising male wages by marrying earlier, whereas spinsters responded to rising female wages by delaying marriage. Our evidence suggests that women played a key role in England’s low- fertility demographic regime and escape from the Malthusian trap. More tentatively, we consider the demographic regime in medieval England. Although marriage was related to earnings, the size of the population was a forceful determinant of economic outcomes. While superficially similar in terms of the prevalence of late marriage and low nuptiality, this regime was consolidated by poverty and social control absent the female agency of the later era. |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2020–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105553&r= |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany); Martin Obschonka (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia); Fabian Wahl (University of Hohenheim, Germany); Michael Wyrwich (University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A region’s present-day economic performance can be deeply anchored in historical factors. We provide the first systematic evidence of a deep imprinting effect in the context of Roman rule in the south-western part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago. Our analysis reveals that regions in the former Roman part of Germany show a stronger entrepreneurship and innovation culture today, evident by higher levels of quantity and quality entrepreneurship and innovation. The data indicate that this lasting 'Roman effect' was constituted by the early establishment of interregional social and economic exchange and related infrastructure. Our findings thus help in unpacking the hidden cultural roots of present-day economic performance, with important implications for research and economic policy. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, innovation, historical roots, Romans, Limes |
| JEL: | N9 O1 I31 |
| Date: | 2021–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2021-012&r= |
| By: | Katherine Di Lucido; Nicholas K. Tabor; Jeffery Y. Zhang |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a brief history of the U.S. financial regulatory perimeter, a legal cordon comprised of “positive†and “negative†restrictions on the conduct of banking organizations. Today’s regulatory perimeter faces a wide range of challenges, from disaggregation, to new commercial entrants, to new varieties of charters (and new uses of legacy charters). We situate these challenges in the longer history of American banking, identifying a pattern in debates about the nature, shape, and position of the perimeter: outside-in pressure, inside-out pressure, and reform and expansion. We also observe a shift in this pattern, beginning roughly three decades ago, which gradually made the perimeter broader, more complex, and arguably more permeable. We show this trend graphically in an animation accompanying this paper. |
| Keywords: | Regulatory perimeter; Banking regulation; Law and economics; Non-bank financial intermediation |
| JEL: | K20 K40 N20 N40 |
| Date: | 2021–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2021-51&r= |
| By: | Schneider, Eric B. |
| Abstract: | There is a complex inter-relationship between nutrition and morbidity in human health. Many diseases reduce nutritional status, but on the other hand, having low nutritional status is also known to make individuals more susceptible to certain diseases and to more serious illness. Modern evidence on these relationships, determined after the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, may not be applicable to historical settings before these medical technologies were available. This paper uses a historical cohort study based on records from the London Foundling Hospital to determine the causal effect of nutritional status of children, proxied by weight- and height-for-age Z-scores, on the odds of contracting five infectious diseases of childhood (measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and whooping cough) and on sickness duration from these diseases. I identify a causal effect by exploiting the randomisation of environmental conditions as foundling children were removed from their original homes, then fostered with families in counties nearby London and later returned to the Foundling Hospital’s main site in London. I find no effect of nutritional status on the odds of contracting the five diseases, but I do find a historically important and statistically significant effect of nutritional status on sickness duration for measles and mumps. These findings have three implications. First, historical incidence of these diseases was unrelated to nutritional status, meaning that poor nutritional status during famines or during the Colombian Exchange did not affect the spread of epidemics. However, undernutrition in these events may have exacerbated measles severity. Second, improving nutritional status in the past 150 years would have reduced the severity of measles and mumps infections but not affect the decline in whooping cough mortality. Finally, selective culling effects from measles would be larger than those from whooping cough since whooping cough severity was not correlated with underlying nutritional status. |
| Keywords: | morbidity; nutritional status; infectious diseases; health transition |
| JEL: | N01 N30 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111030&r= |
| By: | Eric Monnet,; Angelo Riva,; Stefano Ungaro. |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal impact of bank runs by exploiting a key feature of the French Great Depression (1930-1931) that created exogenous geographical variations in the withdrawals of bank deposits. Unregulated commercial banks coexisted with government-backed saving institutions (Caisses d’épargne). During the crisis, depositors who had an account in Caisses d’épargne were more likely to withdraw from banks. Pre-crisis density of Caisses d’épargne accounts was unrelated to economic and bank characteristics. Using this variable as an instrument, we find that a 1% decrease in bank branches reduced aggregate income by 1%. Our identification highlights how a shift of deposits towards safer institutions can affect financial fragility. It holds lessons for current financial regulation and the design of central bank digital currency (CBDC). <p> Nous étudions l’impact causal des paniques bancaires en exploitant une caractéristique essentielle de la Grande Dépression française (1930-1931) qui entraîna des variations géographiques exogènes des retraits des dépôts bancaires. Les banques commerciales, non réglementées, coexistaient avec les Caisses d’Épargne, régulées par l’État. Pendant la crise, les déposants titulaires d’un compte dans les Caisses d’épargne étaient plus susceptibles de retirer leurs dépôts des banques. La densité des Caisses d’Épargne au niveau départemental avant la crise n’était pas liée aux caractéristiques économiques et bancaires du département. En utilisant cette variable comme instrument, nous constatons qu’une baisse de 1 % des guichets bancaires réduisit le PIB local de 1 %. Notre identification montre comment un transfert des dépôts vers des institutions plus sûres peut affecter la stabilité financière. Elle permet également de tirer des enseignements pour la réglementation financière actuelle et pour la conception des monnaies digitales de banque centrale (CBDC). |
| Keywords: | bank runs, flight-to-safety, banking panics, Great Depression; ruées bancaires, fuite vers la sécurité, paniques bancaires, Grande Dépression |
| JEL: | E44 E51 G01 G21 N14 N24 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:decfin:37&r= |
| By: | Gagliarducci, Stefano (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Tabellini, Marco (Harvard Business School) |
| Abstract: | Ethnic religious organizations are often blamed for slowing down immigrants' assimilation in host societies. This paper offers the first systematic evidence on this topic by focusing on Italian Catholic churches in the US between 1890 and 1920, when four million Italians had moved to America, and anti-Catholic sentiments were widespread. Relying on newly collected data on the presence of Italian Catholic churches across counties over time, we implement a difference-in-differences design. We find that Italian churches reduced the social assimilation of Italian immigrants, lowering intermarriage, residential integration, and naturalization rates. We provide evidence that both stronger coordination within the Italian community and negative stereotyping among natives can explain these effects. Yet, Italian churches had ambiguous effects on immigrants' economic outcomes, and increased literacy and ability to speak English among Italian children. |
| Keywords: | immigration, assimilation, religious organizations |
| JEL: | J15 N31 Z12 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14567&r= |
| By: | Lali Osepashvili (Art History Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film Georgian State University, Georgia) |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this paper is to present a well-known Italian artist Ludwig Longo, who was once really active in Tbilisi, to the public life. Unfortunately, he has gradually been forgotten but he left precious heritage. According to this purpose the author of this article, considered to reconstruct Tbilisi passages of Longo’s biography in order to make a famous this painter for modern Georgian and Italian arts historians. Main materials were found by the Fund of New Georgian Art Department of Art Museum, newspaper materials, etc. As a result of this research revealed that L. Longo was deep involved in and have obtained his place in Tbilisi. He mainly was painting portraits, as well he had covered with drawings Tbilisi Saint Trinity Church and Al. Nevelly Military Temple or "Soboro" as it was called. |
| Keywords: | Ludwig Longo, Italian Painter; Georgia; Georgian Art |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:scmowp:01250&r= |
| By: | Marilena Marin (Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania) |
| Abstract: | The present paper proposes the analysis of the institutions of the central public administration in Transylvania, in the voivodeship period. The topic was a researched one by different categories of professionals, and the analysis of these institutions had some peculiarities, depending on the area of study. Thus, historians have analyzed this topic in terms of historical events, the emergence and succession over time of public administration institutions at the central level. The lawyers studied the appearance and evolution of the legal norms that regulated the appearance and activity of public administration institutions. Economists have researched public administration institutions from an economic perspective. In our turn, we intend to analyze these institutions of the central public administration from an interdisciplinary perspective, to observe the particularities of the institutions in relation to the Transylvanian form of organization, both during the voivodship. The purpose for which we started to develop this paper is to share opinions with professionals from different fields, in connection with the topic we have established, and to improve the public administration system, learning from the experience of past eras. |
| Keywords: | public administration, institution, congregation, medieval era |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:scmowp:01236&r= |
| By: | Mann, Laura; Iazzolino, Gianluca |
| Abstract: | While there is growing literature on the role of platforms in concentrating market power, this article centres on their role in ‘performing’ economic theory. As infrastructures that measure, monitor and ultimately compel human behaviour, the authors argue that digital platforms should be understood as ‘performative infrastructures’ that seek to incorporate informal populations by compelling behaviour in line with certain theoretical and commercial models. The article draws on secondary historical literature and primary research with Kenyan and international agritech developers, farmers, and representatives from international organizations, regulators and farmer organizations, to historicize contemporary ‘platformization’ within a longer history of infrastructural performativity in rural Kenya, in order to tease out both continuities and departures from the past. While contemporary technologists evoke similar justifications for top-down control over markets as did their analogue predecessors, they nonetheless seek to vest such power within the private sector and to use it to perform neoclassical theory. The authors argue that this particular orientation is not an intrinsic feature of the technology itself but is rather shaped by a longer history of shifting policy paradigms. |
| Keywords: | ES/P009603/1; Wiley deal |
| JEL: | R14 J01 N0 J1 |
| Date: | 2021–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:110725&r= |
| By: | Michel Garenne (FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International, WITS - University of the Witwatersrand [Johannesburg], IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, UMI RESILIENCES - Unité mixte internationale Résiliences - Centre ivoirien de recherches économiques et sociales (CIRES) - Université de Cocody) |
| Abstract: | The study presents an analysis of mortality trends and some of its factors in Niger since 1960. The focus is on infant and child mortality (0 to 4 years old) and young adult mortality (15-49 years old). In the absence of vital statistics, various surveys and demographic censuses are used to reconstruct trends and annual variations in mortality, and in particular DHS surveys. Overall, infant mortality declined sharply between 1960 and 2010, but irregularly. After favorable trends in the first years, infant and child mortality stagnated for about twenty years, before dropping rapidly after 1990. The difficult 1970-1989 period was seriously affected by two episodes of drought, during of which mortality increased significantly. In the later period, a few years of drought also saw small increases in mortality. The mortality of young adults is less well known: it also evolved favorably between 1990 and 2010, but no reliable data are available for the drought periods of the 1970's and 1980's. The mortality decline between 1990 and 2010 occurred in absence of any increase in per capita income, but thanks to an improvement in public health and above all thanks to international aid. No demographic data was available in 2021 to measure changes in mortality between 2010 and 2020. Finally, child nutritional status improved somewhat between 1992 and 2020, but with ups and downs. The height of adult women aged 15-49 years did not change over the period, however their Body-Mass-Index (BMI) increased slightly between 1992 and 2010. The study discusses the relationships between demographic parameters and the various political, economic and climatic changes since independence. |
| Abstract: | L'étude présente une analyse des tendances de la mortalité et de certains de ses facteurs au Niger depuis 1960. L'accent est mis sur la mortalité infanto-juvénile (de 0 à 4 ans) et sur la mortalité des jeunes adultes (de 15 à 49 ans). En l'absence de statistiques d'état civil, les différentes enquêtes et recensements démographiques sont utilisés pour reconstruire les tendances et les variations annuelles de la mortalité, et tout particulièrement les enquêtes DHS. Dans l'ensemble, la mortalité des jeunes enfants a fortement baissé entre 1960 et 2010, mais irrégulièrement. Après une évolution favorable dans les premières années, la mortalité infanto-juvénile a stagné pendant une vingtaine d'années, avant de baisser rapidement après 1990. La période difficile des années 1970-1989 a été sérieusement affectée par deux périodes de sécheresse, au cours desquelles la mortalité a augmenté sensiblement. Certaines années de sécheresse dans la période postérieure ont aussi connu des petites hausses de mortalité. La mortalité des jeunes adultes est moins bien connue : elle a aussi évolué favorablement entre 1990 et 2010, mais on ne dispose pas de données fiables pour les périodes de sécheresse. La baisse de la mortalité des années 1990-2010 s'est produite en l'absence d'une augmentation du revenu par tête, mais grâce à une amélioration de la santé publique et surtout grâce à l'aide internationale. Aucune donnée démographique n'était disponible en 2021 pour mesurer les changements de mortalité entre 2010 et 2020. Enfin l'état nutritionnel des enfants s'est un peu amélioré, mais avec des hauts et des bas entre 1992 et 2020. Si la taille des femmes de 15-49 ans n'a pas changé, leur rapport poids/taille a un peu augmenté entre 1992 et 2010. L'étude discute les relations entre les paramètres démographiques et les différentes évolutions politiques, économiques et climatiques depuis l'indépendance. |
| Keywords: | Mortalité infanto-juvénile,Mortalité des jeunes adultes,État nutritionnel de l’enfant,État nutritionnel de l’adulte,Sécheresse,Famine,Disette,Disponibilité alimentaire,PIB par tête,Enquête démographique,DHS,Afrique sub-Saharienne,Sahel : Niger |
| Date: | 2021–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03279796&r= |
| By: | Andrei Markevich; Natalya Naumenko; Nancy Qian |
| Abstract: | This study constructs a large new dataset to investigate whether state policy led to ethnic Ukrainians experiencing higher mortality during the 1932–33 Soviet Great Famine. All else equal, famine (excess) mortality rates were positively associated with ethnic Ukrainian population share across provinces, as well as across districts within provinces. Ukrainian ethnicity, rather than the administrative boundaries of the Ukrainian republic, mattered for famine mortality. These and many additional results provide strong evidence that higher Ukrainian famine mortality was an outcome of policy, and suggestive evidence on the political-economic drivers of repression. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that bias against Ukrainians explains up to 77% of famine deaths in the three republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and up to 92% in Ukraine. |
| JEL: | N14 O1 O13 P16 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29089&r= |
| By: | Lise Arena (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019)) |
| Abstract: | This chapter assesses Oxford's contributions to the emergence and institutionalisation of industrial economics as an academic discipline. Based on the analysis of primary sources (interviews, unpublished documents, archives, academic journals and teaching programmes), it charts and evaluates the gradual and, at times, conflictual process of the institutionalisation of industrial economics at Oxford from the 1920s to the 1980s. We show that Oxford's contribution to industrial economics was not attributable to any specific school of thought, as could be argued was the case for Cambridge. This was mainly due to the lack of emblematic figures at Oxford and/or the relative isolation of successive individuals elected to the Drummond Chair. Yet, it is argued that Oxford produced a unified methodological body and a unique approach to industrial economics based on an empirical approach to the firm and to organisations. |
| Date: | 2021–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03290294&r= |
| By: | Oana Tataru (Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania) |
| Abstract: | The assessment of a concept had constantly been a challenging phase in respect of the precise moment of appearance, all the more as the postulation – modernity- was considered controversial and complex along its entire history. An aspect that had to be mentioned was the fact according to which the idea of modernity could not be conceived but within the parameters of a particular awareness of the time, namely the historic, linear and irreversible one. Modernity would be purposeless if a society had not regarded the temporal-sequential concept of history as representative and organized temporal categories in accordance with a mythical and recurrent pattern. Although the notion of modernity was assimilated almost automatically to secularism, the main corresponding constitutive element had been the sense of unrepeatable time, not compatible with a religious Weltanschauung. The premodern societies highly considered the religious doctrines in contrast to actual realities the public opinion of which did not appear as the prerogative of an educated minority, but a constantly enhanced forum of social communication. |
| Keywords: | modernity, civilization, chronicle, society, individual, culture |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:scmowp:01249&r= |
| By: | Boone, Catherine; Lukalo, Fibian; Joireman, Sandra |
| Abstract: | Smallholder settlement schemes have played a prominent role in Kenya's contested history of state-building, land politics, and electoral mobilization. This paper presents the first georeferenced dataset documenting scheme location, boundaries, and attributes of Kenya's 533 official settlement schemes, as well as the first systematic data on scheme creation since 1980. The data show that almost half of all government schemes were created after 1980, as official rural development rationales for state-sponsored settlement gave way to more explicitly welfarist and electoralist objectives. Even so, logics of state territorialization to fix ethnicized, partisan constituencies to state-defined territorial units pervade the history of scheme creation over the entire 1962–2016 period, as theorized in classic political geography works on state territorialization. While these “geopolitics” of regime construction are fueled by patronage politics, they also sustain practices of land allocation that affirm the moral and political legitimacy of grievance-backed claims for land. This fuels on-going contestation around political representation and acute, if socially-fragmented, demands for state-recognition of land rights. Our findings are consistent with recent political geography and interdisciplinary work on rural peoples' demands for state recognition of land rights and access to natural resources. Kenya's history of settlement scheme creation shows that even in the country's core agricultural districts, where the reach of formal state authority is undisputed, the territorial politics of power-consolidation and resource allocation continues to be shaped by social demands and pressures from below. |
| Keywords: | Kenya; territorial politics; resettlement; political economy; land policy; ES/R005753/1; UKRI block grant |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:109307&r= |
| By: | Matthieu Renault (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | Based on the testimony of Edmond Malinvaud, this article puts forth a threefold thesis about the liberal turn in France. First, this turn marked a mere return to traditional liberalism, rather than the advent of "neoliberalism". Second, engineer-economists played a limited role as they did not initiate the reorientation of economic policies but accompanied it. Third, the liberal turn in France is understood as a period of transition during which the Planist-Keynesian model of regulation was dismantled. Three transformations – all initiated by Raymond Barre but brought to completion by the socialist government – were decisive in this regard: the end of price and wage controls, the end of the public monopoly of expertise, and the end of Keynesian stabilization policies. |
| Abstract: | A l'appui du témoignage d'Edmond Malinvaud, cet article avance une triple thèse à propos du tournant libéral en France. Premièrement, ce tournant a marqué un retour au libéralisme traditionnel plutôt que l'avènement d'un « néolibéralisme ». Deuxièmement, les ingénieurs-économistes n'y ont joué qu'un rôle limité, en accompagnant plutôt qu'en impulsant le tournant libéral. Troisièmement, le tournant libéral en France peut être appréhendé comme une période de transition au cours de laquelle fut mise en œuvre la liquidation du modèle de régulation planiste-keynésien. A cet égard, trois transformations – toutes initiées par Raymond Barre mais entérinées par le gouvernement socialiste – furent décisives : la fin du contrôle des prix et des salaires, la fin du monopole public de l'expertise économique et la fin des politiques de stabilisations keynésiennes. |
| Keywords: | Tournant libéral,Néolibéralisme,Keynésianisme,Edmond Malinvaud,Expertise |
| Date: | 2021–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03287150&r= |
| By: | Katharina Erhardt; Simon Haenni |
| Abstract: | Can culture explain persistent differences in economic activity among individuals and across regions? A novel measure of cultural origin enables us to contrast the entrepreneurial activity of individuals located in the same municipality but whose ancestors lived just on opposite sides of the Swiss language border in the 18th century. Individuals with ancestry from the German-speaking side create 20% more firms than those with ancestry from the French-speaking side. These differences persist over generations and independent of the predominant culture at the current location. Yet, founders’ ancestry does not affect exit or growth of newly-founded firms. A model of entrepreneurial choice and complementary survey evidence suggest that the empirical patterns are mainly explained by differences in preferences, rather than skill. The results have sizable economic implications, accounting for 120,000 additional jobs over a period of 15 years. |
| Keywords: | culture, entrepreneurship, natural experiment, spatial RDD |
| JEL: | D22 L26 O12 Z10 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9198&r= |
| By: | Gerald A. Carlino |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the enforceability of employee non compete agreements affects the entry of new establishments and jobs created by these new firms. We use a panel of startup activity for the U.S. states for the period 1977 to 2013. We exploit Michigan’s inadvertent policy reversal in 1985 that transformed the state from a non enforcing to an enforcing state as a quasinatural experiment to estimate the causal effect of enforcement on startup activity. In a difference-in-difference framework, we find little support for the widely held view that enforcement of non-compete agreements negatively affects the entry rate of new firms or the rate of jobs created by new firms. We find that increased enforcement had no effect on the entry rate of startups, but a positive effect on jobs created by these startups in Michigan relative to a counterfactual of states that did not enforce such covenants pre- and post-treatment. Specifically, we find that a doubling of enforcement led to an increase of about 8 percent in the startup job creation rate in Michigan. We also find evidence that enforcing non-competes positively affected the number of high-tech establishments and the level of high tech employment in Michigan. Extending our analysis to consider the effect of increased enforcement on patent activity, we find that enforcement had differential effects across technological classifications. Importantly, increased enforcement had a positive and significant effect on the number of Mechanical patents in Michigan, the most important patenting classification in that state. |
| Keywords: | Startup activity; Non-compete agreements; Regional economic growth. |
| JEL: | O30 O38 R11 |
| Date: | 2021–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:92949&r= |
| By: | Dipanwita Pal (Galsi Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal, India) |
| Abstract: | Ecocriticism is, as put forward by Diamond and Orenstein, ‘a new term for ancient wisdom’. It is a value system that explores the connections between androcentrism and environmental destruction. The theory emerged from various social movements, from both activist and academic fields during the 1980s. Ecofeminism, as a movement, developed from antimilitarist action movement in the United States while founding a political platform for the US Green party. The term was first used by Francoise D’Eaubonne (1980) in her article “Feminism or Death.†From the mid-1970s, ecological critique turned to play a significant role in the women’s movements worldwide. |
| Keywords: | ecofeminism, value dualism, androcentrism, gender inequalities |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:scmowp:01244&r= |
| By: | Hamark, Jesper (Department of Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Turner, Russell (Department of Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | For nine decades, the Swedish State Railways (SJ) produced wage records containing all its permanent employees. SJ employed more people than any private employer in Sweden, and the records contain individual-level information across hundreds of occupations: full name, yearly wage, occupational status, year and date of birth, occupational status, time of employment at SJ, etc. This paper serves as a background to a project on wage distribution within SJ, with the aim of tracking the development of, on the one hand, occupational or class-based wage inequality and, on the other, gender-based wage inequality. In this paper, we present the source material in detail, discuss its strengths and weaknesses, and describe the methods used to develop and process the wage records into data. Special attention is given to the adoption and application of HISCLASS, the historical, international social class scheme. |
| Keywords: | Wage distribution; HISCLASS; relative wages; white-collar wages; gender wage gap; the Swedish State Railways; Statens Järnvägar |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J71 N83 N84 |
| Date: | 2021–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0028&r= |
| By: | Gustavo Pereira Serra (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the contribution of human capital accumulation to solving the First Harrod Problem, which relates to the di erence between demand-led and natural growth rates in the long run. To some extent, this paper also relates to the literature on labor-saving technical change represented as a costly process. Moreover, I show how a model that considers human capital accumulation can address overeducation and technical change. I argue that human capital formation and technological progress are complementary in economic growth: the former ensures the stability of the employment rate on the balanced growth path, whereas the latter determines its level. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Post-Keynesian Economics, First Harrod Problem, Harrodian Instability, Aggregate Productivity |
| JEL: | E11 E12 E24 O40 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:2113&r= |
| By: | Fischer, Martin (IFN - Research Institute of Industrial Economics); Karlsson, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Prodromidis, Nikolaos (University of Duisburg-Essen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the long-term effects on mortality and socio-economic outcomes from institutional delivery. We exploit two Swedish interventions that affected the costs of hospital deliveries and the supply of maternity wards during the 1926–46 period. Using exogenous variation in the supply of maternity wards to instrument the likelihood of institutional delivery, we find that delivery in hospital has substantial effects on later-life outcomes such as education and mortality. We argue that a decrease in child morbidity due to better treatment of complications is a likely mechanism. This interpretation is corroborated by evidence from primary school performance, showing a large reduction in the probability of low performance. In contrast to an immediate and large take-up in hospital deliveries as response to an increase in the supply, we find no increase in hospital births from the abolishment of fees – but some degree of displacement of high-SES parents. |
| Keywords: | institutional delivery, diffusion of innovations, difference-in-discontinuities |
| JEL: | I18 I13 N34 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14562&r= |
| By: | Hopwood, Julian |
| Abstract: | Access to land for the Acholi people of northern Uganda still has much in common with understandings of the pre-colonial situation. This paper reflects on how collective landholding has faced over a century of hostile policy promoting land as private property. The notion of coloniality arises in this confrontation: the failure of communication ensuing from understanding Acholi social ordering in terms of false entities; and the foregrounding of land as object. The durability of colonial mechanisms emerges in processes such as the codification of the principles and practices of Acholi ‘customary land’. Pressure for land reform is driven by external bodies, UN agencies, donor governments and international NGOs, claiming to be seeking to protect the interest of the poor. Yet these offer no respite for the growing numbers of landless people - the colonial agenda appears to have its own momentum, serving no one’s interests. Meanwhile misunderstandings and misrepresentations of land holding groups entrenches the subaltern voicelessness of their members, isolating them from any support in dealing with the challenges of too many people on not enough land. |
| Keywords: | colonial durabilities; land; Uganda; Acholi; ES/P008038/1; Taylor & Francis deal |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2021–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:110502&r= |
| By: | Lise Arena (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019)); Anthony Hussenot (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03290300&r= |
| By: | Douglas A. Irwin; Anson Soderbery |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the political economy of U.S. trade policy around the time of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, a period when policy was unconstrained by trade agreements. We consider a model of politically-optimal trade policy for a large country that can influence its terms of trade and where workers and firms lobby for protection. The predictions of the model hinge on import demand and export supply elasticities, which we estimate using detailed U.S. import data from 1927-35, as well as industry lobbying data. We find that tariff levels are largely determined by firm lobbies, but about about 5 percentage points of the tariffs are explained by terms of trade considerations. Decomposing the politically-optimal tariff in 1931 reveals an intensification of demand for protection by workers in the Smoot-Hawley tariff. |
| JEL: | F13 F14 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29115&r= |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron (Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER); Pekkarinen, Tuomas (VATT Institute for Economic Research and Department of Economics, Aalto University School of Business); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Sarvimäki, Matti (Department of Economics, Aalto University School of Business; VATT and Helsinki GSE) |
| Abstract: | Upon assuming power for the first time in 1935, the Norwegian Labour Party delivered on its promise for a major schooling reform. The reform raised minimum instruction time in less developed rural areas and boosted the resources available to rural schools, reducing class size and increasing teacher salaries. We document that cohorts more intensively affected by the reform significantly increased their education and experienced higher labor income. Our main result is that the schooling reform also substantially increased support for the Norwegian Labour Party in subsequent elections. This additional support persisted for several decades and was pivotal in maintaining support for the social democratic coalition in Norway. These results are not driven by the direct impact of education and are not explained by higher turnout, or greater attention or resources from the Labour Party targeted towards the municipalities most affected by the reform. Rather, our evidence suggests that cohorts that benefited from the schooling reform, and their parents, rewarded the party for delivering a major reform that was beneficial to them. |
| Keywords: | education; human capital; labor; schooling reform; social democracy; voting |
| JEL: | I28 J26 P16 |
| Date: | 2021–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2021_014&r= |