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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2022‒05‒02
38 papers chosen by |
| By: | Claude Diebolt (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Karine Pellier (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the structural and spatial dynamics of patents in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The time series are extracted from international, comparative and historical databases on the long-term evolution of patents in 40 countries from the 17th century to 1945 and in more than 150 countries from 1945 to present (Diebolt and Pellier 2010). We have found strong evidence of infrequent large shocks resulting essentially from the major economic and political events formed by the two World Wars in the 20th century. Our results question the autonomous process, i.e. the internal dynamic of the patent systems. Wars seem to drive innovation and, finally, the very process of economic growth. We further investigated the role of innovation in economic growth through a causality analysis between patents and GDP per capita. Our major findings support the assumption that the accumulation of innovations was a driving force only for France, the United Kingdom and the United States during the post-World War II period. |
| Keywords: | Comparisons in time and space,Outliers,Causality,Patents,Shock analysis,Cliometrics,Database |
| Date: | 2022–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02929514&r= |
| By: | O'Brien, Patrick |
| JEL: | N13 N10 |
| Date: | 2022–03–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114279&r= |
| By: | Smith, Harry; Bennett, Robert J.; Van Lieshout, Carry; Montebruno, Piero |
| Abstract: | This article uses the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE) to examine the history of entrepreneurship in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Scotland. The BBCE identifies every business proprietor listed in the 1851–1901 Scottish censuses, correcting for non-response issues. The BBCE, therefore, allows the whole population of Scottish entrepreneurs to be examined for the first time. These data are combined with a reweighted version of the 1911 Scottish Census report to allow the trends in entrepreneurial numbers and rates to be examined as a whole and broken down by sector and gender. The article also shows how entrepreneurship varied by location. This article offers support for previous work on Scottish entrepreneurship, notably stressing the continued importance of small-scale businesses. It also reveals that female entrepreneurship rates were far higher than previously thought. This article lays the groundwork for future studies of Scottish entrepreneurship using the BBCE data. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; census; economic history; 19th century; self-employed; gender; ESRCsupported project ES/M010953 Drivers of Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses to include Scotland in the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE); with additional support from Isaac Newton Trust Grant; 18.40(g) ‘Business proprietor succession and firm size change 1851-1881’ |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113865&r= |
| By: | Alfani, Guido; Gierok, Victoria; Schaff, Felix |
| Abstract: | This article provides an overview of wealth inequality in Germany during 1300–1850, introducing a novel database. We document four alternating phases of inequality decline and growth. The Black Death (1347–1352) led to inequality decline, until about 1450. Thereafter, inequality rose steadily. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the 1627–1629 plague triggered a second phase of inequality reduction. This distinguishes Germany from other European areas where inequality grew monotonically. Inequality growth resumed from about 1700, well before the Industrial Revolution. Our findings offer new material to current debates on the determinants of inequality change in western societies, past and present. |
| Keywords: | European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement No. 283802; EINITE-Economic Inequality across Italy and Europe; 1300–1800; as well as under European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program/ERC Grant agreement No. 725687; SMITE-Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe; 1300–180 |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2022–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113758&r= |
| By: | A. Abdulhakeem, Kilishi (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates economic performance of Nigeria over the past half a century and this was juxtaposed with other countries like South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Botswana. Trends analysis using graphs was employed. The analysis reveals that Nigeria’s economic performance relative to the aforementioned countries was disappointing over the past half century. Comparing the statistics of input factors, it was clear that the income divergence between Nigeria and Korea and Singapore cannot be explained by geographical factors non colonial history rather it is due to differences in investments and quality of institutions. It is therefore concluded that for Nigeria to rewrites her economic history in the second half of the century, conscious and solemn actions must be taken to increase investment in physical and human capitals and improve the quality of institutions such as rule of law, control of corruption, regulatory qualities and political institutions. |
| Keywords: | economic performance; GDP per capita; institutional quality; Nigeria |
| Date: | 2022–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:decilo:0027&r= |
| By: | Bukowski, Paweł; Clark, Gregory; Gáspár, Attila; Pető, Rita |
| Abstract: | This paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary during the period 1949 to 2017, using surnames to measure social status. In those years, there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989), which was a communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. The second is the modern liberal democracy (1989–2017), which is a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families during 1949–2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6–0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the eighteenth-century noble class in Hungary were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, although social mobility rates did not change measurably during the transition, the composition of the political elite changed rapidly and sharply. |
| Keywords: | Institutions; Social mobility; Status inheritance; Transition; European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 724363. |
| JEL: | J62 N34 P36 |
| Date: | 2021–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114309&r= |
| By: | David Canning; Marie Christelle Mabeu; Roland Pongou |
| Abstract: | Can market incentives overcome the long-term impact of historical institutions? We address this question by focusing on the role of colonial reproductive policies in shaping fertility behavior in Africa. Exploiting the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands and the resulting discontinuity in institutions across the British-French colonial borders, we find that women in former British areas are more likely to delay sexual debut and marriage, and have fewer children. However, these effects disappear in areas with high market access, where the opportunity cost of childbearing appears to be high irrespective of colonizer identity. This heterogeneous impact of colonial origins is robust across different measures of access to international and domestic markets. Examining causal mechanisms, we collect archival data on colonial reproductive laws and policies to conduct an event-study analysis. We find that the effect of colonial origins on fertility is entirely driven by differences in the timing of colonial population policies and their lasting impact on the use of modern methods of birth control. We find little evidence that the fertility effect of British colonization operates through education or income. While British colonization is linked to higher female education, this occurs mainly in areas with higher market access while the fertility effects do not. Again, while income levels differ, the fertility gap between British and French colonies opened prior to 1980, whereas the income gap only opened after 1990. Our analysis highlights the heterogeneous nature of the colonial origins of comparative fertility behavior, and implies that economic incentives may overcome historical determinism. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Colonial Origins, Colonial Reproductive Laws and Policies, Market Access, Historical Determinism, Africa. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ott:wpaper:2201e&r= |
| By: | Masciandaro, Donato; Goodhart, Charles; Ugolini, Stefano |
| Abstract: | We analyse the money-financed fiscal stimulus implemented in Venice during the famine and plague of 1629-31, which was equivalent to a 'net-worth helicopter money' strategy - a monetary expansion generating losses to the issuer. We argue that the strategy aimed at reconciling the need to subsidize inhabitants suffering from containment policies with the desire to prevent an increase in long-term government debt, but it generated much monetary instability and had to be quickly reversed. This episode highlights the redistributive implications of the design of macroeconomic policies and the role of political economy factors in determining such designs. |
| Keywords: | helicopter money; monetary policy; pandemic; Venice 1629-31 |
| JEL: | F3 G3 N0 |
| Date: | 2022–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113845&r= |
| By: | Raphaël Franck; Oded Galor; Omer Moav; Ömer Özak |
| Abstract: | This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered a process of adaptation reducing mortality from infectious diseases while increasing the propensity for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Exploiting an exogenous source of variation in the timing of the Neolithic Revolution across French regions, the analysis establishes the presence of these conflicting forces - the beneficial effects on life expectancy before the second epidemiological transition and their adverse effects thereafter. |
| Keywords: | life expectancy, health, mortality, Neolithic Revolution, epidemiological transition, infectious disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, HIV, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I10 I15 J10 N00 N30 O10 O33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9667&r= |
| By: | Niko Hauzenberger; Daniel Kaufmann; Rebecca Stuart; Cédric Tille |
| Abstract: | We study domestic and international drivers of long-term interest rates using newly compiled financial market data for Switzerland starting in 1852. We use a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model to estimate long-term trends in nominal interest rates, exchange rate growth, and inflation. We then decompose the Swiss long-term interest rate trend into various drivers using an interest rate accounting framework. The decline in long-term interest rates since 1970 is mainly driven by a decline in the level of inflation. Comparing Switzerland with the rest of the world, we show that while Swiss real interest rates were higher during the 19th century, the pattern reversed after World War 2 with Swiss nominal and real rates becoming lower than foreign ones. However, this Swiss “low interest rate island” has disappeared in recent years. We document a connection between inflation risk and the Swiss term spread, as well between relative inflation risk and the difference between Swiss and foreign real interest rates. |
| Keywords: | Natural rate of interest, exchange rate, inflation risk, term spread, uncovered interest parity, historical data |
| JEL: | E4 E5 F3 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:22-03&r= |
| By: | Ciccone, Antonio (University of Mannheim); Nimczik, Jan Sebastian (European School of Management and Technology (ESMT)) |
| Abstract: | After the end of World War II in 1945, millions of refugees arrived in what in 1949 became the Federal Republic of Germany. We examine their effect on today's productivity, wages, income, rents, education, and population density at the municipality level. Our identification strategy is based on a spatial discontinuity in refugee settlement at the border between the French and US occupation zones in the South-West of post-war Germany. These occupation zones were established in 1945 and dissolved in 1949. The spatial discontinuity arose because the US zone admitted refugees during the 1945-1949 occupation period whereas the French zone restricted access. By 1950, refugee settlement had raised population density on the former US side of the 1945-1949 border significantly above density on the former French side. Before the war, there never had been significant differences in population density. The higher density on the former US side persists entirely in 2020 and coincides with higher rents as well as higher productivity, wages, and education levels. We examine whether today's economic differences across the former border are the result of the difference in refugee admission; the legacy of other policy differences between the 1945-1949 occupation zones; or the consequence of socio-economic differences predating WWII. Taken together, our results indicate that today's economic differences are the result of agglomeration effects triggered by the arrival of refugees in the former US zone. We estimate that exposure to the arrival of refugees raised income per capita by around 13% and hourly wages by around 10%. |
| Keywords: | immigration, productivity, wages, refugees, long-run effects |
| JEL: | O4 O11 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15185&r= |
| By: | David de la Croix (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain, Belgium and CEPR, London); Frédéric Docquier (LISER, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg); Alice Fabre (Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE,Marseille, France); Robert Stelter (University of Basel, Switzerland;Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We argue that market forces shaped the geographic distribution of upper-tail human capital across Europe during the Middle Ages, and contributed to bolstering universities at the dawn of the Humanistic and Scienti c Revolutions. We build a unique database of thousands of scholars from university sources covering all of Europe, construct an index of their ability, and map the academic market in the medieval and early modern periods. We show that scholars tended to concentrate in the best universities (agglomeration), that better scholars were more sensitive to the quality of the university (positive sorting) and migrated over greater distances (positive selection). Agglomeration, selection and sorting patterns testify to an integrated academic market, made possible by the use of a common language (Latin). |
| Keywords: | upper-tail human capital, universities, discrete choice model, scholars, sublications, agglomeration |
| JEL: | N33 O15 I25 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2209&r= |
| By: | Galli, Stefania; Theodoridis, Dimitrios; Rönnbäck, Klas |
| Abstract: | The present article provides a comparative review of historical economic inequality in the two most unequal regions of the world, namely Latin America and Africa. This contribution examines novel studies that provide quantitative estimates of income and/or wealth inequality in the two continents in terms of sources, methods, results and interpretations, focusing on the period 1650 to 1950. The article shows that although scholars in the two regions have often employed similar methodologies, their results are far from conforming to a uniform pattern. The present review highlights how scholars of Latin America and Africa tend to remain geographically isolated, failing to capture the learning opportunities stemming from the work of their continental counterparts in terms of both sources and methods. |
| Keywords: | Africa; history; inequality; Latin America; resource distribution; 2018-01840 |
| JEL: | N36 N37 |
| Date: | 2022–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113838&r= |
| By: | David de la Croix (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Mara Vitale (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | We document the participation of women in European academia from the first universities to the eve of the Industrial Revolution. 108 women taught at universities or were members of academies of arts and sciences. Most of them were active in Catholic southern Europe - an unexpected result. We conjecture that Protestantism left less room for women at the top of the distribution of human capital to exercise their talent. The percentage of ever-married female scholars is 79%, but a large fraction of them remained childless. We measure the quality of women in academia through their publications. Comparing them to 52,000 male scholars, we find that they were on average better, suggesting some form of discrimination. |
| Keywords: | University, Academy, Protestantism, Publications, Gender |
| JEL: | N33 Z12 I23 J16 |
| Date: | 2022–04–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2022010&r= |
| By: | Bennett, Robert J.; Montebruno, Piero; Van Lieshout, Carry; Smith, Harry |
| Abstract: | The article links the digital records of individual proprietors in the manuscript censuses 1851-81 for the whole of England and Wales using the BBCE database to identify career changes of employers and own account proprietors. It investigates continuing proprietorship, entry to business from previous activity, and switching out of business. The article identifies the effects on switching of demography, gender, household relationships, sector markets, and opportunity/necessity measured by location and access to railways. Previous analysis of nineteenth-century proprietor careers has been based mainly on local case studies and large firms. This article allows examination across the spectrum of small and large businesses for a representative sample large enough to generalize to the behavior of the whole population. The analysis shows a larger proportion of flows between employer, own account, and worker status than often expected, indicating a relatively open and flexible Victorian economy, and higher than in the modern United Kingdom. Farm and nonfarm activities show contrasted patterns, with farm proprietors more stable with less switching, as to be expected. Switching appears to have slowed slightly over time, with incumbency increasing for both farm and nonfarm employers, and for both men and women, but own account proprietorship was often relatively ephemeral. The article assesses the factors influencing switching using logistic regression. This confirms age, sex, marital status, family position, location, and sector as significant for explaining switching/nonswitching. The results demonstrate that although open and flexible, proprietorship was highly varied between sectors, with changes of railway accessibility mainly significant for farmers. |
| Keywords: | ES/M010953 |
| JEL: | N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2022–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113867&r= |
| By: | Franck, Raphaël (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem); Galor, Oded (Brown University); Moav, Omer (University of Warwick); Özak, Ömer (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered a process of adaptation reducing mortality from infectious diseases while increasing the propensity for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Exploiting an exogenous source of variation in the timing of the Neolithic Revolution across French regions, the analysis establishes the presence of these conflicting forces - the beneficial effects on life expectancy before the second epidemiological transition and their adverse effects thereafter. |
| Keywords: | life expectancy, health, mortality, Neolithic Revolution, epidemiological transition, infectious disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, HIV, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I10 I15 J10 N00 N30 O10 O33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15166&r= |
| By: | Rebecca Stuart |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the causes of movements in inflation and output in Switzerland over 160 years between 1855 and 2015. Aggregate supply and demand shocks are identified in a structural VAR and their evolution and effect on prices and output is discussed. Shocks to the Swiss economy have generally, although not uniformly, declined in magnitude over the sample period. The pre-Gold Standard era and the inter-war period were particularly volatile. Surprisingly, the global financial crisis represented a much smaller shock than either of the World Wars, the deflation of the 1920s, or the Great Depression. |
| Keywords: | Switzerland, aggregate supply and demand, long time series, SVAR |
| JEL: | E1 E4 N1 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:22-01&r= |
| By: | Heblich, Stephan; Redding, Stephen; Sturm, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Using newly constructed spatially disaggregated data for London from 1801 to 1921, we show that the invention of the steam railway led to the first large-scale separation of workplace and residence. We show that a class of quantitative urban models is remarkably successful in explaining this reorganization of economic activity. We structurally estimate one of the models in this class and find substantial agglomeration forces in both production and residence. In counterfactuals, we find that removing the whole railway network reduces the population and the value of land and buildings in London by up to 51.5% and 53.3% respectively, and decreases net commuting into the historical center of London by more than 300,000 workers. |
| JEL: | O18 R12 R40 |
| Date: | 2020–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:104061&r= |
| By: | Rebecca Stuart |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the predictability of stock returns using monthly data on eight markets over the period 1876-1913. In contrast to much of the existing literature I find broad predictability across stock markets. Market interest rates and seasonal dummies generally have predictive power, and in almost all of series studied there is a statistically significant autoregressive component. These relationships appear to be stable over the sample period. Testing returns from multiple indices for the same market indicates that the compilation of the index does not systematically affect its predictability. Finally, the results are robust to the exclusion of extreme observations. |
| Keywords: | stock returns, interest rates, Gold Standard |
| JEL: | G1 N2 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:22-02&r= |
| By: | Tetsuji OKAZAKI |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how financial controls functioned to affect funds allocations in late 1930s Japan. For larger firms, subject to the financial controls, the difference in capital growth between firms in the nonpriority and priority industries expanded when the financial controls started, while differences in borrowing growth between them did not until the controls were later extended to cover both short- and long-term funds. For samples including small and medium-sized firms, I found that for a nonpriority industry, the capital growth of the firms subject to the controls (with capital over the upper limit of exemption for the controls) declined compared with the firms under the upper limit when the controls commenced. Conversely, for firms in a priority industry, this discontinuity across the upper capital limit is not observed. These results strongly suggest that the financial controls did indeed affect and alter the funds allocation. Key words: Economic control, financial control, war economy, fund allocation, Japan JEL classification numbers: G18, G21, G38, N25, P21 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:22-005e&r= |
| By: | Laura Alfaro; Cathy Bao; Maggie X. Chen; Junjie Hong |
| Abstract: | We investigate how firms adapt to trademark protection, an extensively used but underexamined form of IP protection, by exploring a historical precedent: China’s trademark law of 1923—an unanticipated and disapproved response to end foreign privileges in China. By exploiting a unique, newly digitized firm-employee-level dataset from Shanghai in 1872-1941, we show that the trademark law shaped firm dynamics on all sides of trademark conflicts. The law spurred growth and brand investment among Western firms with greater dependence on trademark protection. In contrast, Japanese businesses, which had frequently been accused of counterfeiting, experienced contractions while attempting to build their own brands after the law. The trademark law also led to new linkages with domestic agents, both within and outside the boundaries of Western firms, and the growth of Chinese intermediaries. At the aggregate level, trademark-intensive industries witnessed a net growth in employment and the number of product categories. A comparison with previous attempts by foreign powers—such as extraterritorial rights, bilateral treaties, and an unenforced trademark code—shows that those alternative institutions were ultimately unsuccessful. |
| Keywords: | trademark, firm dynamics, intermediaries, intellectual property institutions |
| JEL: | F20 D20 O10 O30 N40 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9548&r= |
| By: | Molina Ogeda, Pedro; Ornelas, Emanuel; Soares, Rodrigo R. |
| Abstract: | We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a contraction in manufacturing and formal employment in the more affected regions, and despite the left's identification with protectionist policies. To rationalize this response, we consider a new institutional channel for the political effects of trade shocks: the weakening of labor unions. We provide support for this mechanism in two steps. First, we show that union presence-proxied by the number of workers directly employed by unions, by union density, and by the number of union establishments-declined in regions that became more exposed to foreign competition. Second, we show that the negative effect of tariff reductions on the votes for the left was driven exclusively by political parties with historical links to unions. Furthermore, the impact of the trade liberalization on the vote share of these parties was significant only in regions that had unions operating before the reform. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that tariff cuts reduced the vote share of the left partly through the weakening of labor unions. This institutional channel is fundamentally different from the individual-level responses, motivated by economic or identity concerns, that have been considered in the literature. |
| Keywords: | trade shocks; elections; unions; Brazil |
| JEL: | F13 D72 J51 F16 F14 |
| Date: | 2021–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113819&r= |
| By: | Bosshart, Luis; Dittmar, Jeremiah |
| Abstract: | We document how the Black Death activated politics and led to economic divergence within Europe. Before the pandemic, economic development was similar in Eastern and Western German cities despite greater political fragmentation in the West. The pandemic precipitated a divergence that coincided with prior differences in politics. After the pandemic, construction and manufacturing fell by 1/3 in the East relative to underlying trends and the Western path. Politics institutionalizing local self-government advanced in the West, but not in the East. This divergence is observed across otherwise similar cities along historic borders and foreshadows a subsequent divergence in agriculture. |
| Keywords: | institutions; political economy; structural change; cities; growth |
| JEL: | N13 N14 N60 N93 O10 O18 O40 P48 |
| Date: | 2021–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113853&r= |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (George Washington University); Robinson, RaeAnn Halenda (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the occupational status and distribution of free women in the antebellum United States. It considers both their reported and unreported (imputed) occupations, using the 1/100 IPUMS files from the 1860 Census of Population. After developing and testing the model based on economic and demographic variables used to explain whether a free woman has an occupation, analyses are conducted comparing their occupational distribution to free men, along with analyses among women by nativity, urbanization, and region of the country. While foreign-born and illiterate women were more likely to report having an occupation compared to their native-born and literate counterparts, they were equally likely to be working when unreported family workers are included. In the analysis limited to the slave-holding states, it is shown that the greater the slave-intensity of the county, the less likely were free women to report having an occupation, particularly as private household workers, suggesting substitution in the labor market between free women and enslaved labor. |
| Keywords: | women, labor force participation, occupational distribution, unreported family workers, enslaved workers, immigrants, 1860 census of population |
| JEL: | N31 J16 J21 J82 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15162&r= |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how financial controls functioned to affect funds allocations in late 1930s Japan. For larger firms, subject to the financial controls, the difference in capital growth between firms in the nonpriority and priority industries expanded when the financial controls started, while differences in borrowing growth between them did not until the controls were later extended to cover both short- and long-term funds. For samples including small and medium-sized firms, I found that for a nonpriority industry, the capital growth of the firms subject to the controls (with capital over the upper limit of exemption for the controls) declined compared with the firms under the upper limit when the controls commenced. Conversely, for firms in a priority industry, this discontinuity across the upper capital limit is not observed. These results strongly suggest that the financial controls did indeed affect and alter the funds allocation. |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2022cf1191&r= |
| By: | Dezhbakhsh, Hashem; Levy, Daniel |
| Abstract: | The U.S. prewar output series exhibit smaller shock-persistence than postwar-series. Some studies suggest that this may be due to linear interpolation used to generate missing prewar data. Monte Carlo simulations that support this view generate large standard-errors, making such inference imprecise. We assess analytically the effect of linear interpolation on a nonstationary process. We find that interpolation indeed reduces shock-persistence, but the interpolated series can still exhibit greater shock-persistence than a pure random walk. Moreover, linear interpolation makes the series periodically nonstationary, with parameters of the data generating process and the length of the interpolation time-segments affecting shock-persistence in conflicting ways. |
| Keywords: | Linear Interpolation; Random Walk; Shock-Persistence; Nonstationary series; Periodic nonstationarity; Stationary series; Prewar US Time Series |
| JEL: | C01 C02 E01 E30 N10 |
| Date: | 2022–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112493&r= |
| By: | Hiroyasu Inoue; Kentaro Nakajima; Tetsuji Okazaki; Yukiko U. Saito |
| Abstract: | This study empirically investigates the role of face-to-face contact in innovation, by exploiting the Spanish flu pandemic in Japan from 1918 to 1921, which prohibitively increased the cost of face-to-face contact between inventors. By using unique patent bibliographic data for this period, we estimate the pandemics impact on innovation for technologies which requires intensive face-to-face communication for invention. Specifically, we define the patent technology classes with the large fraction of collaborative patents before the pandemic as collaboration intensive technology that is considered to require intensive face-to-face communication for invention. Then, we estimate the impact of pandemic on the invention of collaboration intensive technology by Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach. The estimation results show that during the pandemic, patent applications for collaboration intensive technology significantly decreased, and did not fully recover even after the pandemic ended. We also find that the negative impact is driven by a decrease in new entries into patent applications, that is, patent applications by the inventors who applied for patents for the firrst time. We further find that productive inventors were experienced co-inventions during their early careers. These results suggest that the decrease in face-to-face contacts with colleagues and seniors in the preliminary stages of inventors careers reduced the opportunity to nurture new inventors. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Face-to-face communication; Idea exchange JEL Codes: R11 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:22-007e&r= |
| By: | Jonung, Lars (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The theoretical foundation of inflation targeting was laid out by the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell (1851-1926) in his groundbreaking treatise, Interest and Prices, published originally in German in 1898. Here he proposed price stability as the rule for monetary policy. Today, inflation targeting is considered the best-practice approach to monetary policy across the world. It has contributed to stable and low consumer price inflation since the 1990s in many countries. However, inflation targeting has recently been the subject of several objections. Most prominently, the focus on consumer price stability has fostered financial instability, as reflected in the global financial crisis of 2008-09. In addition, the sharp rise in asset prices has led to growing wealth inequality. <p> Why have these problems emerged? This paper provides an answer by comparing Wicksell’s theory of price level determination in a pure credit economy, the “cumulative process”, to the neo-Wicksellian world of today, characterized by inconvertible fiat money, floating exchange rates, advanced financial systems, unregulated interest rates and well-developed asset markets. In this way, it becomes apparent that the neglect of asset markets and asset prices is the source of the flaws of the present Wicksellian regime of unlimited finance. The shortcomings of the neo-Wicksellian approach can be remedied while remaining within a Wicksellian framework. The key is to combine the nominal anchor of price stability with a reformed financial system that maintains credit stability. The paper uses empirical evidence from Sweden and the United States. |
| Keywords: | Inflation targeting; price level targeting; natural rate; Knut Wicksell; Milton Friedman; financial crises; credit; asset inflation; central banking |
| JEL: | B10 B22 E10 E31 E40 E50 G01 G20 |
| Date: | 2022–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2022_008&r= |
| By: | Volckart, Oliver |
| Abstract: | Research has rejected Leopold von Ranke’s hypothesis that the Reformation emasculated the Holy Roman Empire and thwarted the emergence of a German nation state for centuries. However, current explanations of the Empire’s cohesion that emphasize the effects of outside pressure or political rituals are not entirely satisfactory. This article contributes to a fuller explanation by examining a factor that so far has been overlooked: monetary policies. Monetary conditions within the Empire encouraged its members to cooperate with each other and with the emperor. Moreover, cross-cutting cleavages forced actors on different sides of the confessional divide to frame coherent and fact-oriented monetary-policy arguments. This helped generate trust among the estates involved in the discussions about a common currency between the 1520s and the 1550s and contributed to the success of the negotiations. Monetary policies thus helped bridge the religious divide that had opened within the Empire, and they therefore contributed to its political cohesion. |
| Keywords: | Holy Roman Empire; Reformation; political cohesion; monetary policies |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2020–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100466&r= |
| By: | Pinto, Ricardo; Henriques, Sofia; Brockway, Paul; Heun, Matthew; Sousa, Tânia |
| Abstract: | In the coming renewables-based energy transition, global electricity consumption is expected to double by 2050, entailing widespread end-use electrification, with significant impacts on energy efficiency. We develop a long-run, worldwide societal exergy analysis focused on electricity to provide energetic insights for this transition. Our 1900-2017 electricity world database contains the energy carriers used in electricity production, final end-uses, and efficiencies. We find world primary-to-final exergy (i.e. conversion) efficiency increased rapidly from 1900 (6%) to 1980 (39%), slowing to 43% in 2017 as power station generation technology matured. Next, despite technological evolution, final-to-useful end-use efficiency was surprisingly constant (~48%), due to “efficiency dilution”, wherein individual end-use efficiency gains are offset by increasing uptake of less efficient end uses. Future electricity efficiency therefore depends on the shares of high efficiency (e.g. electrified transport and industrial heating) and low efficiency (e.g. cooling and low temperature heating) end uses. Our results reveal past efficiency increases (carbon intensity of electricity production reduced from 5.23 kgCO2/kWh in 1900 to 0.49 kgCO2/kWh in 2017) did little to decrease global electricity-based CO2 emissions, which rose 380-fold. The historical slow-pace of transition in generation mix and electric end-uses suggest strong, urgent incentives are needed to meet climate goals. |
| Keywords: | Energy efficiency, electricity, Carbon intensity, decarbonisation, energy history, energy end-uses |
| JEL: | Q40 |
| Date: | 2022–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112487&r= |
| By: | Shrabani Saha; Kunal Sen |
| Abstract: | While the short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods are well understood, we know little about the effect of the pandemic for longer-term outcomes such as corruption. We look at the historical data on political and economic crises to assess what we can learn from the long-term effects of past crises on corruption. We hypothesize that strong rule of law institutions may ameliorate the possible adverse effects of political and economic crises on corruption. We test our hypotheses using panel data for over 100 countries during the years 1800-2020. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, Institutions, Crisis, Panel data, Rule of law, Economic crisis, Pandemic |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2022-37&r= |
| By: | Wade, Robert H. |
| Abstract: | Deep society-wide crises tend to produce new economic thinking. 2020 familiarized many millions with trauma and loss. It also intensified the questioning – already started by the North Atlantic Financial Crisis (NAFC) of 2007-12 and by the dramatic rise of China on world technology and military frontiers – of the conservative ideology or world view which has dominated the economics profession and economic statecraft across the capitalist world for the past four decades – dominated as though simple common sense, quietly transforming western societies. This essay discusses the content of emerging thinking about the role of the state, and causes of the changes. But first, more on where we are coming from: from the deeply entrenched conservative ideology and its anti-government “intervention” in the economy. |
| Keywords: | industrial policy; neoliberalism; UK; US |
| JEL: | O20 O14 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113924&r= |
| By: | José Alves; João Quental Gonçalves |
| Abstract: | The present work offers a review on two divergent schools of thought regarding the subject of money and highlights why understanding it is important to grasp the workings and nature of the concept of money. We adopt a spontaneous order perspective on social institutions, considering money as one. Such framework allows for the construction of axioms from which we formulate our problem allowing us to ask how old forms of money such as Gold and Silver hold up in today’s world regarding their hedging properties. Moreover, we also do so for Bitcoin since we consider it an appropriate asset due to its specific characteristics and its (at the time of writing) more than 10-year life span. We resort to the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) methodology in order to study our three assets in the context of the US dollar and the US Economy for two different time periods. We analyse price dynamics from 1980 to 2020 for gold and silver resorting to annual data. Regarding bitcoin we employ quarterly data from 2009 to 2020. We conclude that the theories that explain what money is, how it comes to be so and how certain types of “money assets” may serve both as an indirect hedge against inflation in the two interpretations of the word and as a “stock of value” have merits that might deserve further investigation. . |
| Keywords: | money, inflation, gold, silver, bitcoin |
| JEL: | B25 D46 E42 E51 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9662&r= |
| By: | Centner, Ryan |
| Abstract: | This paper compares how Istanbul and Beirut both attempt to underline their cultural and developmental uniqueness today in contrast to a metonymic menace — Dubai, standing in for spectacular yet supposedly culture-less Gulf cities. Even amid their own speculative construction frenzies that threaten local heritage, Turkish and Lebanese city-shapers assert theirs are “real” cities because they have “civilization” and “history.” By addressing their own efforts to build, defend, or oppose physical infrastructures related to local urban culture, Istanbullus and Beirutis rely on and reassert strategic, phatic discourses that frequently reference Gulf cities as counterpoint. Analysis focuses on how each city crafts a distinctive urban profile via civilizational appeals to historic senses of culture, inflecting infrastructural developments related to bridging (Istanbul) and bordering (Beirut). Historical truisms are deployed with marked flexibility to showcase these cities as “not Dubai.” This study offers lessons on the particular worlding of Middle Eastern cities and the role of discourses in the material-symbolic infrastructure of implicit urban cultural policy. |
| Keywords: | Istanbul; Beirut; Dubai; infrastructure; discourse; heritage; development |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2020–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105050&r= |
| By: | Thomas Palley |
| Abstract: | Oreiro and de Paula’s (2022) reply to my article (Palley, 2021) further convinces me that New Developmentalism (ND) substantially misconstrues the development challenge and ND’s policy recommendations lean in a Neoliberal direction. The critique of ND is not its emphasis of the importance of manufacturing. It is the regressive inclination, the narrowness of policy recommendations, neglect of the transformation dimension of development, and neglect of the implications of the shift to a post-industrial era. |
| Keywords: | New Developmentalism, Classical Developmentalism, economic development, transformation |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O23 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2213&r= |
| By: | Kamiar Mohaddes; Ryan N. C. Ng; M. Hashem Pesaran; Mehdi Raissi; Jui-Chung Yang |
| Abstract: | We investigate the long-term macroeconomic effects of climate change across 48 U.S. states over the period 1963.2016 using a novel econometric strategy which links deviations of temperature and precipitation (weather) from their long-term moving-average historical norms (climate) to various state-specific economic performance indicators at the aggregate and sectoral levels. We show that climate change has a long-lasting adverse impact on real output in various states and economic sectors, and on labour productivity and employment in the United States. Moreover, in contrast to most cross-country results, our within U.S. estimates tend to be asymmetrical with respect to deviations of climate variables (including precipitation) from their historical norms. |
| Keywords: | climate change, economic growth, adaptation, United States |
| JEL: | C33 O40 O44 O51 Q51 Q54 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9542&r= |
| By: | Ram Mohan, M.P.; Gupta, Aditya |
| Abstract: | Trademarks serve as a storehouse of information, assuring consumers about the quality of a product by ensuring that products bearing the trademark originate from a consistent source. The trademark doctrine has accommodated this position as its underlying thesis for several decades, and consumer confusion has served as a touchstone for trademark liability. However, given the configurations of the modern marketplace, trademarks transcend their role as source-identifiers and are framed in the language of relationships rather than transactions. With continuous and consistent use, trademarks can come to signify opulence, luxury, dependability and become cultural icons. The modern trademark doctrine must accommodate these realities of the marketplace while, at the same time, accommodating the flourishing exchange of expressive uses through unauthorized use of trademarks. This push-and-pull has resulted in complete obliteration of what were already obscure boundaries between the expressive and marketing spheres of trademark law. Drawing from the American, English, and European trademark jurisprudence, the present study examines the normative foundations of the modern trademark doctrine. These foundations are then extrapolated to Indian trademark law to create a workable limitation of mutating trademark doctrine through the actionable use requirement. |
| Date: | 2022–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:14672&r= |
| By: | Gustavo Bittencourt (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Nicolás Reig (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Cecilia Rodriguez (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | El objetivo general de este trabajo es analizar los efectos de la inversión extranjera directa (IED) sobre la inversión en los países de América Latina en una perspectiva de largo plazo (1970-2017) desde el punto de vista empírico y a nivel macroeconómico. Considerando diversos aspectos teóricos y analíticos, se realiza un análisis descriptivo y empírico del efecto total de la IED sobre la acumulación de capital de las economías, lo que comprende el aporte directo de las inversiones de las Empresas Extranjeras a la Formación Bruta de Capital, y el efecto indirecto, que son los impactos de la presencia de IED sobre las inversiones de las empresas domésticas. Los resultados sugieren que el efecto total fue negativo en el panel conjunto, y para la mayoría de los países, principalmente por el efecto indirecto de sustitución o desplazamiento de las inversiones domésticas por parte de la IED. Se exceptúan algunos países medianos y pequeños, y el panel en el período 2000-2017, que muestran efectos neutrales. |
| Keywords: | Inversión extranjera directa, Empresas transnacionales, Inversión, Crecimiento económico, América Latina |
| JEL: | F21 F23 E22 O40 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:wpaper:0320&r= |