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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2022‒06‒20
28 papers chosen by |
| By: | Jean-Sébastien Lenfant (PRISM Sorbonne - Pôle de recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences du management - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Eugen Slutsky is well-known to any graduate student in economics for two landmark articles and two operational concepts bearing his name, one in the field of consumer and utility theory ("the Slutsky equation"), the other in the field of the theory of cycles, introducing autonomous and exogenous causes in the analysis of macroeconomic fluctuations ("the Slutsky-Yule effect"). Because of the historical and political circumstances he had to confront in Ukraine, and then in Russia and in the U.S.S.R. in the first half of 20th century, Slutsky was prevented from devoting himself fully to mathematical economics, and he only published a handful more of articles dealing with economics. Over the last twenty years, researchers in Europe, Ukraine and Russia have been involved in making his contributions to mathematics and economics better known. By now, we get a clearer picture of Slutsky's views on economics and we know his network of connections with Western scholars who contributed to draw attention to his work. This essay highlights Slutsky's lasting importance in economics, focusing on the fate of his major and lesser known works. |
| Keywords: | Slutsky equation,Economic cycles,Praxeology theory,Utility Theory |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03628273&r= |
| By: | William Roberds |
| Abstract: | Recently, there has been much discussion as to whether central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) should be introduced, and if so, how they should be designed. This article offers a historical perspective on this discussion, with a survey of early public bank (proto-central bank) "analog currencies"—circulating banknotes. Public banknotes were an experimental product when they were first issued in sixteenth-century Naples, but by the late nineteenth century, such notes could be found in most European countries. In between came all sorts of implementation difficulties: egregious insider fraud, a real estate finance bubble, hyperinflation, rampant counterfeiting, and complete institutional collapse. Despite these many misfires, central bank–issued notes eventually became the default form of payment in virtually every country worldwide. |
| Keywords: | central bank digital currency; banknotes |
| JEL: | E58 N13 |
| Date: | 2022–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:a00001:94152&r= |
| By: | Robert H. Scott (Monmouth University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines Kenneth Boulding's (1910-1993) religious beliefs and argues he was one of the most prolific religious economists in the 20 th century. He was an enigmatic economist whose career spanned over six decades. He helped to establish the field of general systems and furthered peace studies and conflict and defense. His early work earned him the John Bates Clark medal in 1949. But behind Boulding's theoretical economics was a deep religious ideology. Strongly affected by World War I while growing up in Liverpool, England, Boulding became a lifelong pacifist. Raised Methodist, Boulding discovered Quakerism in high school. While Boulding published widely in the field of economics, he also published almost 100 articles in Quaker journals. Boulding's body of work in economics and Quakerism led to interesting crosspollination. His work on peace and conflict and defense were a direct result of his pacifism. Boulding's work shows deep concern for human betterment and prosperity that is seeped in his religious principles. |
| Keywords: | human betterment,Kenneth Boulding,pacifism,Quakers,Religious Society of Friends |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03541619&r= |
| By: | Aidt, T.; Lacroix, J.; Meonx, P-E. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a new mechanism that allows political elites from a non-democratic regime to survive a democratic transition: connections. We document this mechanism in the transition from the Vichy regime to democracy in post-World War II France. The parliamentarians who had supported the Vichy regime were purged in a two-stage process where each case was judged twice by two different courts. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we show that Law graduates, a powerful social group in French politics with strong connections to one of the two courts, had a clearance rate that was 10 percentage points higher than others. This facilitated the persistence of that elite group. A systematic analysis of 17,589 documents from the defendants' dossiers is consistent with the hypothesis that the connections of Law graduates to one of the two courts were a major driver of their ability to avoid the purge. We consider and rule out alternative mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Purges, Political transitions, Elite persistence, Connections |
| JEL: | D73 K40 N44 P48 |
| Date: | 2022–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2232&r= |
| By: | Mai, Nhat Chi |
| Abstract: | From the late eighteenth century the French colonial administration sponsored extensive exploratory missions to assess and map Indochina’s resources. These expeditions made the case that Indochina’s frontier regions held great potential for agricultural development |
| Date: | 2022–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yzdp6&r= |
| By: | Pablo Delgado Perea |
| Abstract: | We use Spain as a study case in order to analyse the evolution of meat consumption from the second half of the twentieth century until today. To do this, we built a database of meat consumption using all possible sources: FAO, Ministry Food Balance, Household Budget Surveys and Food Consumption Panel. There are two main contributions. First, we disagree with the idea that the consumption of meat in Spain has been growing steadily since the fifties, as some economic historians have previously reported. Second, we observe two different food consumption models. One characterized by the increase in standardized meat consumption and the other featured by the decrease in meat consumption as well as the rise in the consumption of processed and elaborated meat. |
| Keywords: | nutritional transition, meat, Spain, consumption |
| JEL: | N34 N54 O13 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2205&r= |
| By: | John R. Logan; Brian J. Stults |
| Abstract: | The 2020 Census offers new information on changes in residential segregation in metropolitan regions across the country as they continue to become more diverse. We take a long view, assessing trends since 1980 and extrapolating to the future. These new data mostly reinforce patterns that were observed a decade ago: high but slowly declining black-white segregation, and less intense but hardly changing segregation of Hispanics and Asians from whites. Enough time has passed since the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s to draw this conclusion: segregation will continue to divide Americans well into the 21st Century. |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:22-14&r= |
| By: | Philipp Lieberknecht; Philip Vermeulen |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the joint long-run evolution of wealth and income inequality. We show that top wealth and income shares were cointegrated over the past century in France and the US. We rationalise this finding using a two-agent version of the Solow growth model. In this framework, the co-movement of top wealth and income shares is determined by the relative saving rate at the top, i.e. the ratio of the saving rate of rich individuals to the aggregate saving rate. The cointegration finding suggests that relative saving rates at the top are fairly stable over time, thus explaining the tight co-movement between top wealth and income shares over the past century. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality, wealth inequality, top shares, saving rates, cointegration, error correction. |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E25 N32 N34 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2022-37&r= |
| By: | Alexandre Chirat; Michaël Assous; Olivier Brette; Judith Favereau |
| Abstract: | Surprisingly Simon’s activities at the Cowles commission remain largely unexplored; while Simon and the Cowles shared a twofold wish to operationalize economics and to formalize human decision making. This is also during his time at the Cowles commission that Simon produces his emblematic paper formalizing bounded rationality. Furthermore, Simon claims that his participation at the Cowles was decisive in his awarding of the Nobel Prize. The aim of the paper is to produce such scrutiny. As such the claim of the paper is that Simon’s relationship with the Cowles commission and its members was a bittersweet one. Indeed, such a collaboration started enthusiastically from both sides and ended surrounded by indifferences. We offer three explanations to this bittersweet relationship. First, both the Cowles and Simon shared a wish to formalize decision making problems; although, they had different conceptions about mathematical tools and the articulation between theory and empirics. Second, the irreconcilability of their conception of optimality threatened their common interest in operational research. Third, and more globally, Simon’s and the Cowles’s research agendas were not stabilized during this period explaining the enthusiastic phase as well as the cold one, once these two research agendas stabilized, but in different directions. The paper distinguishes four periods from 1947 to 1954 during Simon’s time at the Cowles. Each section of the paper deals in turn with one of these four periods. |
| Keywords: | Simon – Cowles Commission – Rationality – Optimization – Models |
| JEL: | B21 B40 C61 D01 D81 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2022-11&r= |
| By: | Lee J. Alston; Bernardo Mueller |
| Abstract: | Countries are not equally developed in large part because most countries face sets of property rights that do not foster growth despite the aggregate gains that would result from changing property rights. The difference in rents to society between the extant set of property rights and some seemingly better alternative we define as a “Demsetz” wedge. We explore the forces that sustain the status quo as well the forces that prompt property rights to change. |
| JEL: | N0 O1 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29991&r= |
| By: | Pedro Molina Ogeda; Emanuel Ornelas; Rodrigo R. Soares |
| 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 |
| Date: | 2021–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1816&r= |
| By: | - |
| Abstract: | En esta publicación se presenta un panorama general de la historia del crecimiento y de las transformaciones estructurales en los seis países de América Central entre mediados del siglo XX y el final de la década de 2010. Se examinan los patrones de crecimiento y desarrollo económico en cada uno de los seis países, entendidos como los ritmos, las características y los factores determinantes de la evolución económica y de la transformación estructural a lo largo de más de siete décadas. Asimismo, los autores de los capítulos nacionales identifican luces y sombras en la experiencia histórica de los países con la finalidad de iluminar la reflexión sobre estrategias y políticas de desarrollo en el futuro. |
| Keywords: | DESARROLLO ECONOMICO, HISTORIA ECONOMICA, POLITICA ECONOMICA, DESARROLLO INDUSTRIAL, AJUSTE ESTRUCTURAL, PRODUCTIVIDAD, MODELOS DE DESARROLLO, INTEGRACION ECONOMICA, MACROECONOMIA, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC HISTORY, ECONOMIC POLICY, INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT, PRODUCTIVITY, DEVELOPMENT MODELS, ECONOMIC INTEGRATION, MACROECONOMICS |
| Date: | 2022–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col094:47870&r= |
| By: | W. Walker Hanlon |
| Abstract: | This article develops a method for quantitatively tracking the agenda of the British Parliament—by which I mean the substantive topics on which Parliamentary debate was focused—from 1810-2005 using descriptions of 1.7 million Parliamentary debates from the Parliamentary Hansard. This provides a new tool for analyzing the evolution of the British political system across nearly two centuries. I describe and validate this new measure and then present an application that focuses on assessing the influence of the party in government on the Parliamentary agenda. |
| JEL: | H11 N4 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30021&r= |
| By: | Schneider, Eric B.; Edvinsson, Sören; Ogasawara, Kota |
| Abstract: | Woods (2009) argued that smallpox was an important cause of stillbirths in the past. While there is strong evidence that maternal smallpox infection could lead to fetal loss, it is not clear whether smallpox infections were a demographically important source of stillbirths. In this paper, we use parish-level data from the Swedish Tabellverket dataset from 1780 to 1839 to test the effect of smallpox on stillbirths quantitatively. We use two empirical strategies: dynamic panel regressions that test the instantaneous effect of smallpox epidemics on stillbirths; and a continuous treatment difference-in-difference strategy to test whether the reduction in smallpox prevalence following vaccination led to a larger decrease in the stillbirth rate in parishes where smallpox was more prevalent before vaccination. We find very little evidence that smallpox infection was a major cause of stillbirths in history. Our coefficients are largely insignificant and close to zero. This is because the vast majority of women contracted smallpox as children and therefore were no longer susceptible during pregnancy. We do find a small, statistically significant effect of smallpox on stillbirths from 1820-39 when waning immunity from vaccination put a greater share of pregnant women at risk of contracting smallpox. However, the reduced prevalence of smallpox limited the demographic impact. Thus, smallpox was not an important driver in historical stillbirth trends and did not contribute to in utero scarring effects for cohorts born when smallpox prevalence was high. |
| Keywords: | stillbirth; fetal death; smallpox; vaccination; historical demography |
| JEL: | J13 N34 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:115144&r= |
| By: | Luis Bosshart; Jeremiah Dittmar |
| 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 |
| Date: | 2021–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1805&r= |
| By: | Jha, Saumitra (Stanford U); Koudijs, Peter (Erasmus U Rotterdam); Salgado, Marcos (Stanford U) |
| Abstract: | Can differences in beliefs about politics, particularly the benefits of war and peace, move markets? During the Siege of Paris by the Prussian army (1870-71) and its aftermath, we document that the price of the French 3% sovereign bond (rente) differed persistently between the Bourse in Paris and elsewhere, despite being one of the most widely held and actively traded financial assets in continental Europe. Further, these differences were large, reaching the equivalent of almost 1% of French GDP in overall value. We show these differences manifested themselves during the period of limited arbitrage induced by the Siege and persisted until the terms of peace were revealed. As long as French military resistance continued, the rente price was higher in Paris than the outside markets, but when the parties ceased fire and started negotiating peace terms this pattern was reversed. Further, while the price responded more to war events in Paris, the price responded more to peace events elsewhere. These specific patterns are difficult to reconcile with other potential mechanisms, including differential information sets, need for liquidity, or relative market thickness. Instead, we argue, these results are consistent with prices reflecting the updating of different prevailing political beliefs that existed in Paris and elsewhere about the benefits of war and peace. |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:4012&r= |
| By: | Aldunate, Felipe; Gonzalez, Felipe (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile); Prem, Mounu |
| Abstract: | Economic sanctions and covert actions from hegemonic states are common tools used to influence other countries. Less is known about non-state actors such as banks and their impact across borders. We use new firm-level data from Chile to document a substantial decrease in financial relations with U.S. banks after socialist Salvador Allende took office in 1970. An analysis of links with banks from other countries reveals that part of the decrease was specific to the U.S. banking sector. Business reports and stock prices suggest that firms were mostly unaffected by the destruction of links with U.S. banks. Substitution of financial relations towards state-owned banks appears to be the key mechanism to explain these findings. |
| Date: | 2022–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:z8f4h&r= |
| By: | McLaughlin, Eoin; Colvin, Christopher L.; Henderson, Stuart |
| Abstract: | Age heaping in Ireland worsened in the years after the Great Irish Famine, even as other measures of educational attainment improved. We show how demography can account for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23-32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of digit preference. Quantification of heaping must be interpreted in light of an older underlying population which is more likely to heap. We propose how digit preference indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardisation. |
| Keywords: | age heaping,human capital,demography |
| JEL: | N33 J10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202207&r= |
| By: | Omang Ombolo Messono (University of Douala, Douala, Cameroon); Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé, Cameroon); Vanessa S. Tchamyou (Yaoundé, Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of the historical prevalence of infectious diseases on contemporary gender equality. Previous studies reveal the persistence of the effects of historical diseases on innovation, through the channel of culture. Drawing on the Parasite-Stress Theory, we propose a framework which argues that historical prevalence of infectious disease reduces contemporary gender equality. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) in a cross-section with data from 122 countries between 2000 and 2021, we provide support for the underlying hypothesis. Past diseases reduce gender equality both directly and indirectly. The strongest indirect effects occur through innovation output. Gender equality analysis may take these findings into account and incorporate disease pathogens into the design of international social policy. |
| Keywords: | infectious diseases; gender equality; economic development |
| JEL: | B15 B40 B54 I31 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:22/027&r= |
| By: | Haddad, Eduardo (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Araújo, Inácio (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo) |
| Abstract: | The spurt of data and organized quantitative information from different archaeological sources has challenged established truths about the ancient economy in the last three decades. The range of tools and techniques for exploiting these archaeological sources has also grown dramatically. As a result, new questions are raised, which put our sources in a broader context that increasingly favors the long-term perspective. In this paper, we discuss, using a case study, how the use of numbers can shed light in the study of ancient Roman history, with a particular interest in its economy. Our illustrative exercises focus on the use of regional science approaches, a discipline at the crossroads of economics and geography. Departing from a general equilibrium conceptual framework, we are particularly interested in Sir Alan G. Wilson’s seminal contributions as conducive to our exploration of digital numismatic databases to unravel spatial processes in the ancient world. Deriving from universal laws of physics, we will explore principles of spatial interaction modeling applied to numismatic data for the late Roman Republic that will help understand spatial interaction processes in the ancient Roman economy in the last two centuries BCE. By measuring, mapping, and modeling archaeological observations (i.e., numismatic records), we expect to make sense of patterns in the data formally and to use these insights comparatively and longitudinally, as preconized by different authors. |
| Keywords: | spatial networks; Roman economy; numismatics; spatial interaction; regional science |
| JEL: | C21 F15 N90 R12 |
| Date: | 2022–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nereus:2022_002&r= |
| By: | Ke Pang, Christos Shiamptanis (Wilfrid Laurier University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the historical behaviour of the Bank of Canada (BoC) from 1991, when the BoC adopted inflation targeting, until 2015. We use a newly released dataset that contains quarterly vintages of real-time historical data and BoC staff forecasts, and we present three novel empirical findings. First, over the full sample period we find that the BoC responds both to inflation and the real economy. The long-run coefficient on inflation exceeds unity, satisfying the Taylor principle. Second, we fi nd that there is considerable variation in the monetary policy coefficients. During the early period of our sample, we fi nd a strong response to inflation and no response to the real economy. But over time we fi nd that the response to inflation weakens, the Taylor principle disappears, and the response to the real economy rises substantially. At the later part of our sample, the BoC appears to respond to the real economy, but not to inflation. Third, we investigate if the BoC is responding to an alternative inflation measure that captures persistent inflation deviations, that is inflation that remains away from its target for an extended period. We augment our monetary policy rule with this new inflation measure and find that the BoC responds asymmetrically to positive and negative persistent inflation deviations, suggesting that persistent inflation overshooting and undershooting elicit different responses. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, forward looking Taylor rule, real-time data and forecasts, inflation deviations |
| JEL: | E42 E43 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wlu:lcerpa:bm0130&r= |
| By: | Celhay, Pablo A.; Gallegos, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on long term intergenerational mobility in developing countries. We gather data linking schooling outcomes across three generations for six Latin American countries. Our work complements recent evidence going beyond two generations in more mobile, developed nations. Our main findings indicate that (i) the empirical multi-generational persistence is higher than what seminal theoretical models predict, with a much larger upward bias for Latin America than for developed countries; (ii) absolute mobility has increased but relative mobility remains constant over fifty years, and (iii) compulsory schooling laws plausibly contribute to explaining these mobility patterns, because they increased education levels but also reduced the dispersion of schooling. Overall, this paper contributes to our understanding of long run intergenerational mobility with novel evidence for the highly immobile Latin American region, where family background effects tend to be comparatively longer-lasting. |
| Keywords: | Desarrollo, Educación, Investigación socioeconómica, Políticas públicas, Sector académico, |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1906&r= |
| By: | Osuagwu, Eze Simpson |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that the Christian conception of Natural law is indispensable for the understanding of a coherent moral theory of the State. The paper discusses the Christian conception of Natural Law with a view to understanding a philosophical link with the moral theory of the State. The paper reveals that from the classical era of Plato and Aristotle through the medieval times of Thomas Aquinas, Natural law has been conceived to be divine. However, following the protestant reforms of Martin Luther and Richard Hooker through the early modern natural law theorists inclined to the social contract, the concept of natural law has been interpreted to mean a theory that runs contrary to the existence of written laws and as such needs to be modified to be accepted as a code of conduct for society. The paper concludes that the perceived influence of Natural Law on positive or coded law is rooted in conscience, which as Thomas Aquinas pointed out is based on reason or synderesis. |
| Keywords: | Natural Law; Moral Theory; Public Policy; Christian Kingship; Religious Reformation |
| JEL: | Z1 Z12 Z18 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112999&r= |
| By: | Charles W. Calomiris; Joseph R. Mason; David C. Wheelock |
| Abstract: | In 1936-37, the Federal Reserve doubled member banks' reserve requirements. Friedman and Schwartz (1963) famously argued that the doubling increased reserve demand and forced the money supply to contract, which they argued caused the recession of 1937-38. Using a new database on individual banks, we show that higher reserve requirements did not generally increase banks' reserve demand or contract lending because reserve requirements were not binding for most banks. Aggregate effects on credit supply from reserve requirement increases were therefore economically small and statistically zero. |
| Keywords: | reserve requirements; reserve demand; excess reserves; money multiplier |
| JEL: | E51 E58 G21 G28 N12 N22 |
| Date: | 2022–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:94179&r= |
| By: | Burgess, Matthew G.; Langendorf, Ryan E.; Moyer, Jonathan D.; Dancer, Ashley; Hughes, Barry B.; Tilman, David |
| Abstract: | Long-run economic growth is deeply uncertain, but will profoundly affect societal scale, well-being, and challenges. Statistical forecasts, expert opinions, and socioeconomic scenarios from integrated assessment models (IAMs) project an order-of-magnitude range of 2100 global GDP per capita values, with an even wider range for today’s developing countries. Definitive multidecadal predictions are impossible, but here we show that a long-standing historical relationship between GDP per capita growth and GDP per capita is most consistent with 21st-century scenarios projecting relatively slow economic growth and high inequality, though still projecting rising affluence in all regions. We show that a simple differential equation-based model that empirically fits this relationship to a Kuznets curve would have, since 1980, consistently projected a 21st-century economic future similar to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenario SSP4. Moreover, we show that the Kuznets model’s projections from 1980 onwards would have consistently outperformed short-term IMF forecasts for the 2010s, except in low-income regions, where both tend to over-project growth. We show that a complex empirically grounded IAM (International Futures, IFs) produces nearly identical 21st-century GDP per capita projections as the Kuznets model. Compared to the SSP scenarios, the IFs model projects a 21st century with relatively high poverty and population growth, and moderate energy demands and GHG emissions. |
| Date: | 2022–04–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:q4uc6&r= |
| By: | Juan Carlos de Pablo |
| Abstract: | Fue el único, de los padres fundadores del análisis económico, que no fue alumno ni profesor universitario; no obstante lo cual, fue el más riguroso de todos. Se casó por amor, superando las resistencias de su familia; lo cual no le causó ningún perjuicio económico, porque la riqueza de la familia Ricardo -judíos, migrados de Holanda- consistía en capital humano. Existieron los ricardianos y los anti ricardianos, pero su amistad con Thomas Robert Malthus es un ejemplo de que las diferencias de opinión no deben afectar las relaciones personales. Planteó ideas valiosas que, mal aplicadas, pueden ser muy peligrosas. Este trabajo medita sobre la vida y la obra de David Ricardo, con el pretexto de que el 18 de abril de 2022 se cumplieron 250 años de su nacimiento. |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:829&r= |
| By: | Larry D. Wall |
| Abstract: | The US government has intervened to provide extraordinary support 16 times from 1970 to 2020 with the goal of preventing or mitigating (or both) the cost of financial instability to the financial sector and the real economy. This article discusses the motivation for such support, reviewing the instances where support was provided, along with one case where it was expected but not provided. The article then discusses the moral hazard and fiscal risks posed by the government's insurance of the tail risk along with ways to reduce the government's risk exposure. |
| Keywords: | financial stability; FDIC; Federal Reserve; Treasury; bailout; financial history |
| JEL: | F33 F36 G18 G21 G23 G28 G32 H12 H6 N22 |
| Date: | 2021–11–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:a00001:94154&r= |
| By: | Alger, Ingela; Dridi, Slimane; Stieglitz, Jonathan; Wilson, Michael |
| Abstract: | How did humans evolve from individualistic foraging to collective foraging with sex differences in food production and widespread sharing of plant and animal foods?While current models of food sharing focus on meat or cooking, considerations of the economics of foraging for extracted plant foods (e.g., roots, tubers), inferred to be important for earlier hominins (∼ 6–2.5 mya), suggest that hominins shared such foods. Here we present a conceptual and mathematical model of early hominin food production and sharing, prior to the emergence of frequent scavenging, hunting and cooking. We hypothesize that extracted plant foods were vulnerable to theft, and that male mate-guarding protected females from food theft. We identify conditions favoring plant food production and sharing across mating systems (i.e., monogamy, polygyny, promiscuity), and we assess which mating system maximizes female fitness with changes in the energetic profitability of extractive foraging. Females extract foods and share them with males only when: i) extracting rather than collecting plant foods pays off energetically; and ii) males guard females. |
| Date: | 2022–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:126956&r= |