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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2023‒08‒21
43 papers chosen by |
| By: | Jean Daniel Boyer |
| Abstract: | Seeking to clarify Boisguilbert’s conception of economics and of private interests, we examine his possible links with British political arithmetic and set out the influence this may have had on his thought. Then we explain how Boisguilbert estimates the wealth of the kingdom of France and the income of the king, and reconstruct the data he employs. We also show that Boisguilbert’s analysis of prices and public revenues is grounded on the distinction he makes between current and constant prices. Boisguilbert echoes Gramont’s analysis (1620): he seeks to dissipate the ‘monetary illusion’ to which he saw his contemporaries as having fallen victim, and which disrupted the good order. On these grounds, we show that two approaches coexist in Boisguilbert’s writings: 1. a conjectural and abstract conception of the history of society, inspired by the Scriptures; and 2. a more concrete study of the recent history of the French kingdom, although based on questionable sources. We reconstruct Boisguilbert’s conception of the good economic order following the principles of his conjectural historical analysis. We then demonstrate that Boisguilbert is an author who defends the importance of the good order of nature, which he considers as having been destroyed in France in the second half of the seventeenth century by the tax system, hoarding, the failure of circulation, and the low and disproportionate price of grain. We conclude that Boisguilbert is a very moderate supporter of the pursuit of private interests, seeing them as tending to disrupt the good order. He believes essentially in a natural pre-existing good order to which men have to bend, or else risk economic crisis. |
| Keywords: | Boisguilbert, circulation, crisis, interest, political arithmetic, order, proportion. |
| JEL: | E02 E21 E31 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2023-22&r=his |
| By: | David Laidler (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | The History of Economics Society was founded at a time when the History of Economic Thought was being expelled from the Economics post-graduate curriculum in many universities, and was one of the key institutions around which the sub-discipline successfully re-organised itself and continued to develop. Laidler (2003) argued that Economics itself, especially Macroeconomics, was suffering serious damage from this expulsion. It has continued to do so since. |
| Keywords: | History of Economic Thought, Macroeconomics, New Classical Economics, Empiricism, Deductivism |
| JEL: | B2 B22 B41 E10 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:uwowop:20235&r=his |
| By: | Paolo Silvestri (Unict - Università degli studi di Catania = University of Catania); Benoît Walraevens (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | What does Adam Smith mean by "good government"? How is it related to his political economy and system of natural liberty? No extensive or specific treatment of these hermeneutical issues has been given in Smith's scholarship. Answering these questions is fundamental to having a new interpretation of the various links between the legal, political, ethical and economic aspects of Smith's view of social order. The great theme of good government, which runs through the whole history of Western political-legal thought, if read in relation to the system of natural liberty, provides a different understanding of the thought of Smith on "Political Economy" as the "science of a statesman or legislator" and the new art of good government. Our reconstruction of Smith's view of good government aims to cast light on and give a new significance to his unfinished project of a new science of society. |
| Keywords: | Adam Smith, good government, liberty, political economy, legislator |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04088276&r=his |
| By: | Irigoin, Maria Alejandra; Kobayashi, Atsushi; Chilosi, David |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses a new, large dataset of silver prices, as well as silver and merchandise trade flows in and out of China in the crucial decades of the mid-19th century when the Empire was opened to world trade. Silver flows were associated with the interaction between heterogenous monetary preferences and availability of specific coins. Before the 1850s, money markets became increasingly efficient, as reliance on bills of exchange allowed exports to grow in times when sound money was in short supply. When a new standard for silver eventually emerged, there was a new peak in China’s silver imports. |
| Keywords: | China silver flows; triangular trade settlement mechanism; exchange operations; arbitrage; ‘opening of China’ |
| JEL: | E42 F33 N10 |
| Date: | 2023–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:119759&r=his |
| By: | Cesaratto, Sergio (University of Siena) |
| Abstract: | Relying on the lessons of Marx, Polanyi, Sraffa and Garegnani, the paper moves from the material anchor that the classical surplus approach provides to economic and institutional analysis in anthropology, archaeological and economic history. In surplus theory institutions regulate the material basis of society and in particular the extraction and distribution of the social surplus. Marx’s historical materialism is a natural source of inspiration for this view expunged, of course, of teleological and mechanical readings. The Marxian concept of modes of production has been however object of often over-complicated disputes among Marxists. These are not easily solved since historical results in anthropology, archaeological and economic history do not always deliver uncontroversial pictures of the working of ancient economies and of their transitional dynamics. Since Popper, historical materialism has also been object of methodological criticism. While the suggestions to complement macro analysis with consistent granular accounts of individual choices must be welcomed, methodological individualism is a dead end for social science. Individual and class choices must rather be dealt with through historical analysis. The surplus approach may provide support to both macro and micro analysis of behaviours and institutions. Interdisciplinarity is advocated in the paper. |
| Keywords: | Surplus approach; Historical materialism; Anthropology; Archaeology; Agency |
| JEL: | A12 B51 B52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0062&r=his |
| By: | Youssouf Merouani (Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden); Faustine Perrin (Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden) |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:09-23&r=his |
| By: | Tulun, Teoman Ertuğrul (Center For Eurasian Studies (AVİM)) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the commemorations and milestones significant to Turkish history from 1915 to 1923, a tumultuous period of warfare and nation-building marked by the Battle of Gallipoli and the Turkish War of Independence. This research argues that the concerted efforts represent a strategy to defame the Turks and the Republic of Türkiye, serving as a distraction from the notable Turkish victories and establishment of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Further, the study uncovers recent attempts to construct an overarching narrative of Christian genocide, led predominantly by certain lobby groups and diaspora factions in Western Europe and the USA. This discourse dangerously oversimplifies and distorts historical complexities and is often manipulated for geopolitical gains. Finally, the analysis highlights the significant influence of the Armenian and Greeks lobby in promoting anti-Turkish sentiment. This paper serves to address these distortions and argues for academic scrutiny that is both nuanced and contextually informed. |
| Date: | 2023–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:rzgu2&r=his |
| By: | Antonio Paradiso (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Ca' Foscari) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to reconstruct the millennial historical series of global technology level from 5000 BC to the twenty-first century, using the data collected by Lilley [Men, machines and history, Cobbett Press, London, 1948] and updating them. The resulting series reveals a similar dynamic to the millennial series of global real GDP per capita. This finding is supported by structural changes in the growth dynamics of both series during the period of proto-industrialization and by the results of estimations from an unobserved components model, which highlight the effect of technology on global output. This study contributes to understanding the link between technology and economic development over the course of millennia. |
| Keywords: | Technology, GDP per capita, economic growth, regression with breaks, unobserved components model |
| JEL: | O40 N70 C20 C32 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2023:12&r=his |
| By: | Francesco Corsello (Bank of Italy); Matteo Gomellini (Bank of Italy); Dario Pellegrino (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | The Yom Kippur war in 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1979 triggered large oil-price increases that fuelled high and persistent inflation in advanced countries. There is a broad consensus that a weak monetary policy response, in the form of late tightening or early loosening, was one of the main causes for the failure to keep inflation under control after the 1973 shock. This failure is crucially tied to the end of the Bretton Woods era in 1971, when the fixed exchange rate regime and the currency peg to gold were abandoned, and monetary policy lost a consolidated frame of reference. A new framework – based on the commitment by independent and credible central banks to achieve clear quantitative inflation targets – would only be established in the subsequent two decades. Monetary policy conduct alone, however, does not fully explain the persistence and heterogeneity of inflation across advanced economies. Other institutional factors played a role ‒ most importantly, the lack of central bank independence, the structural features of the labour market, and fiscal policy rules which turned out to be at odds with price stability. A structural VAR-based analysis confirms and quantifies the role these factors played in shaping inflation. Nowadays, the institutional context has evolved considerably, mitigating the risk of inflation staying high for as long as they did in the 1970s. Ensuring that the current institutional context continues to support price stability remains key in limiting inflation persistence. |
| Keywords: | economic history, inflation, oil shocks, monetary policy, central bank independence, wage indexation, fiscal policy. |
| JEL: | N10 E31 E42 E58 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_790_23&r=his |
| By: | Escribano, Álvaro; Rodriguez, Juan Andrés |
| Abstract: | Since the influential works of Friedman and Schwartz (1963, 1982) on the monetary history of the United States of America and the United Kingdom from 1876 to 1975, there has been a great concern in the literature about the instability of money demand functions when monetary trends are explored historically. Several authors, at the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, reconsidered their statistical approach based on the distinction between money demand in the long-run (cointegration) and money demand in the short-run (error-correction models). Recently, using M1 as the measure of money, Benati, Lucas, Nicolini and Weber (2021) have shown, for a shorter and more recent period of time, that there are stable long-run money demands for a long list of countries. However, to date there are no studies on whether a stable long-run and short-run money demand equations exists for the entire monetary history of the US and the UK. By means of a nonlinear cointegration and a nonlinear error-correction approach, this paper goes beyond the work of its predecessors and presents evidence of a well-specified, long-run and short-run money demands of real broad monetary balances in these two countries from 1874 to 2020. The estimated cubic-polynomial cointegrations (US and UK) for the long-run money demand specification, and the linear (US) and cubic equilibrium correction (UK) for the short-run money demands, are shown to be stable based on an appropriate measure of the opportunity cost of holding money. |
| Keywords: | Money Demand; Nonlinear Cointegration; Nonlinear Error Correction Models; Cubic Polynomial Cointegration; Cubic Polynomial Equilibrium Correction; Financial Innovation; Money Demand Stability; Opportunity Cost Of Holding Money |
| JEL: | E41 E43 E47 E51 |
| Date: | 2023–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:37911&r=his |
| By: | Federico Droller; Martin Fiszbein; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | Argentina was the second largest destination country during the Age of Mass Migration, receiving nearly six million migrants. In this article, we first summarize recent findings characterizing migrants’ long-term economic assimilation and their contributions to local economic development. The reviewed evidence shows that Europeans experienced rapid upward mobility in Argentina and immigration contributed positively to the process of economic development. We then turn our focus to the selection patterns of Italian migrants to Argentina—the largest migratory group to this destination. Our analysis of this initial stage of the migrants’ history shows that Italians who moved to Argentina were positively selected on the basis of literacy, complementing existing evidence of rapid upward mobility and contribution to growth at destination. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J62 N36 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31448&r=his |
| By: | David S. Jacks; Krishna Pendakur; Hitoshi Shigeoka; Anthony Wray |
| Abstract: | Despite a recent and dramatic re-evaluation of the health consequences of alcohol consumption, very little is known about the effects of in utero exposure to alcohol on long-run outcomes such as later-life mortality. Here, we investigate how state by year variation in alcohol control arising from the repeal of federal prohibition affects mortality for cohorts born in the 1930s. We find that individuals born in wet states experienced higher later-life mortality than individuals born in dry states, translating into a 3.3% increase in mortality rates between 1990 and 2004 for affected cohorts. |
| JEL: | H73 I18 J18 N32 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31451&r=his |
| By: | Nuno Palma; André C. Silva |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of the discovery of precious metals in America from 1500 to 1810 on international trade. Around 1500, there was a simultaneous discovery of precious metals and new trading routes. We construct a counterfactual of new routes but no precious metals. The discovery of precious metals increased the stock of precious metals more than tenfold. We show that Euro-Asian trade at its peak increased up to 20 times compared with the counterfactual. Our simulations match the observed price dynamics. We find that precious metals were at least as important as the new routes. |
| Keywords: | monetary injections; international trade; early modern trade; Euro-Asian trade; real effects of money |
| JEL: | E40 F40 N10 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:sespap:2305&r=his |
| By: | Carnevali, Emilio; Sommacal, Matteo |
| Abstract: | In the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the notion of socialism has been swept into almost total disrepute. The more recent economic literature, however, has shown a resurgence of interest in the concept of socialism, albeit on very different theoretical grounds than in the past. This article investigates the reasons for the socialist movement's historical distrust of the development of "well-defined" economic projects. This attitude seems to have disappeared in contemporary "socialist projects". The article also discusses the Shareholder Socialism proposal developed by economist Giacomo Corneo and proposes a different mathematical formulation of the mechanism through which the takeover of private industries by the public sector should be conducted. |
| Keywords: | Market Socialism; Nationalization; Economic Systems |
| JEL: | B14 B24 H1 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117919&r=his |
| By: | Shari Eli; Joshua K. Hausman; Paul Rhode |
| Abstract: | We ask (1) why the United States adopted the car more quickly than other countries before 1929, and (2) why in the United States the car changed from a luxury to a mass market good between 1909 and 1919. We argue that the answer is in part the success of the Model T in the United States and its relative lack of success abroad. Mass production of the Model T began in 1913; by 1917, more than 40 percent of cars on the road were Model Ts. Cross-state and cross-county evidence suggest that the Model T opened up a new market for cars among farmers and in poorer areas of the country. Tariffs and difficulties producing outside Detroit made the U.S. success of the Model T difficult to replicate abroad, even in Canada. |
| JEL: | N12 N32 N62 N7 N72 N92 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31454&r=his |
| By: | Jagjit S. Chadha (National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)); Jason Lennard (London School of Economics (LSE); Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM)); Solomos Solomou (University of Cambridge); Ryland Thomas (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the degree of pass-through from import prices and tariffs to wholesale prices in interwar Britain using a new high-frequency micro data set. The main results are: (i) Pass-through from import prices and tariffs to wholesale prices was economically and statistically significant. (ii) Despite devaluation, import prices exacerbated deflation in the early 1930s because of the global slump in export prices. (iii) Rising protection, however, was a mild stimulus to prices during the shift to inflation. |
| Keywords: | Exchange rates, interwar, pass-through, prices, tariffs, United Kingdom |
| JEL: | E31 F13 N14 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2303&r=his |
| By: | Facundo Alvaredo (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Denis Cogneau (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Thomas Piketty (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We assess income inequality across French and British colonial empires between 1920 and 1960, exploiting for the first time income tax tabulations. As measured by top income shares, inequality was high in colonies. Europeans comprised the bulk of top income earners, and only a minority of autochthons could compete income-wise. Top income shares were no higher in settlement colonies, those territories were wealthier and the average European settler was less rich than the average expatriate. Inequality among autochthons was moderate, and inequality among Europeans was similar to that of the metropoles. The post-WWII fall in income inequality can be explained by the one among Europeans, mirroring that of the metropoles, and does not imply that the European/autochthon income gap was very much reduced. After independence, the mass recruitment of state employees induced a large increase in inequality among autochthons. Dualistic structures lost their racial dimension and changed shape, yet persisted. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Top incomes, Colonialism, Africa, Asia |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-03324907&r=his |
| By: | Maria Cristina Molinari (Department of Economics, University Of Venice CÃ Foscari) |
| Abstract: | When the constitution of the Republic of Genoa was rewritten in 1528, the traditional distinction between nobili and popolari was abolished and the now unified ruling class was organised into 28 groups called alberghi, which were granted equal political representation by an elaborate and bizarre voting mechanism. Using data on the composition of the Genoese nobility in 1528, we simulate the rounds of voting, nominations, and sortition of the electoral protocol to reveal how they determined the allocation of power. Our analysis shows that the constitutional reform could not succeed in bringing concord to the nobility, as the system was heavily biased towards the popolari (later renamed nobili nuovi), who could gain control over all key magistracies. We also show that the use of the alberghi for office allocation made the system less favourable to the nobili nuovi, but only marginally so. These results help explain the persistence of political instability in Genoa after the 1528 reform, and they shed light on the voting system reforms that followed. |
| Keywords: | Early modern elections, factionalism, Genoese alberghi, voting protocols |
| JEL: | D72 N43 C63 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2023:13&r=his |
| By: | Michele Brunetti (Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, CNR-ISAC); Matteo Gomellini (Bank of Italy); Paolo Croce (Bank of Italy); paolo Piselli (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper reconstructs the dynamics of temperatures at the provincial level in Italy since the end of the 19th century and estimates their effects on the economy. The analysis spans a long period of time using ten-year average data that allow us to appreciate the impact of the temperature increases that can be attributed to changes in climate rather than to short-term meteorological variability. We find that average temperatures in Italy have increased by about 2°C since the beginning of the twentieth century with homogeneous growth trends across regions. The estimates of the relationship between economic growth and temperatures are made using two different empirical methodologies (panel data and autoregressive distributed lags, ARDL) and show how global warming has had negative repercussions on the Italian economy that became more pronounced at the end of twentieth century. These estimates are used to assess the potential impacts of future temperature increases. More specifically, based on our analysis, further increases that would bring average temperatures in 2100 to +1.5°C higher than today (a scenario corresponding to 'intermediate' greenhouse gas emissions) would reduce economic growth, leading to a level of per capita GDP between 2.8 and 9.5 per cent lower than under a +2 per cent growth scenario (i.e. the pace recorded since the beginning of the twentieth century). |
| Keywords: | climate change, economic growth, long run |
| JEL: | N00 O44 Q54 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_787_23&r=his |
| By: | Jean Daniel Boyer |
| Abstract: | Often considered merely as a circle, the Gournay network was in fact a true school of economic thought that sought to develop and promote the science of commerce with the aim of reforming the French monarchy and transforming it into a commercial, colonial and maritime power, capable of overcoming the power of England. All its members followed the principles laid down by Gournay; all proposed the same scheme. Gournay’s school would thus be the concrete expression of the French mercantile system; i.e. the form that French mercantilism took in the 1750s. Its main objective was to generate trade surpluses, which would contribute to lower interest rates and so catalyse economic growth, increasing the prosperity and power of the French state. |
| Keywords: | Balance of men, balance of power, balance of trade, Gournay, mercantile system, science of commerce, school of thought. |
| JEL: | A11 A13 B11 E43 F02 F54 O24 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2023-21&r=his |
| By: | Roberto Censolo |
| Abstract: | Smith’s ideal vision of capitalism envisages a virtuous loop between social prudence and macroeconomic performance that outlines a “progressive state†of society. The trickle down of wealth strengthens the confidence in the future and a steady adherence to prudent behaviour. At the same time, this reinforcing character of prudence encourages liberal virtues needed for growth. However, a path of perpetual growth is not conceivable in Smith analysis, considering both a moral and an economic perspective. Indeed, Smith’s pessimism about the future of commercial society relates to the intrinsic inability of capitalism to sustain social prudence in the long run due to an internal contradiction in its development process. In the progress of division of labour, the industry of labourers is progressively substituted with the industry of machines. Therefore, the development process, which is initially sustained by “the industry of mankind†, endogenously expels those liberal virtues that grounds a progressive state of society, with crucial social and political implication. |
| Date: | 2022–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:20220311&r=his |
| By: | Jacks, David S.; Pendakur, Krishna; Shigeoka, Hitoshi; Wray, Anthony |
| Abstract: | Despite a recent and dramatic re-evaluation of the health consequences of alcohol consumption, very little is known about the effects of in utero exposure to alcohol on long-run outcomes such as later-life mortality. Here, we investigate how state by year variation in alcohol control arising from the repeal of federal prohibition affects mortality for cohorts born in the 1930s. We find that individuals born in wet states experienced higher later-life mortality than individuals born in dry states, translating into a 3.3% increase in mortality rates between 1990 and 2004 for affected cohorts. |
| Date: | 2023–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:tcf5n&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Daniel Boyer (LinCS, BETA, University of Strasbourg, France) |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:06-23&r=his |
| By: | Ethan Ilzetzki (London School of Economics (LSE); Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM)) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how firms adapt to demand shocks when facing capacity constraints. I show that increases in government purchases raise total factor productivity measured in quantity units (TFPQ) at the production-line level. Most of the productivity gains are concentrated in plants facing tighter capacity constraints, a phenomenon I call “learning by necessity”. The evidence is based on newly digitized and detailed data on production, productivity, and capacity utilization from archival sources on US World War II aircraft production. Shifts in military strategy provide an instrument for aircraft demand at the production-line level. I show that plants adapted to surging demand by improving production methods, outsourcing, and combating absenteeism, but did so primarily when facing tighter capacity constraints. Greater wartime production is also associated with more patenting in the decade following the war for capacity constrained plants. The study speaks to a long historical debate on whether and how demand factors can affect productivity growth. |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2305&r=his |
| By: | Tianyi Wang |
| Abstract: | Using newly digitized data on the growth of the telegraph network in America during 1840-1852, the paper studies the impacts of the electric telegraph on national elections. I use proximity to daily newspapers with telegraphic connections to Washington to generate plausibly exogenous variation in access to telegraphed news from Washington. I find that access to Washington news with less delay had a robust positive effect on voter turnout in national elections. For mechanisms, I provide evidence that newspapers facilitated the dissemination of national news to local areas. In addition, text analysis on more than a hundred small-town weekly newspapers from the 1840s shows that the improved access to news from Washington led newspapers to cover more national political news, including coverage of Congress, the presidency, and sectional divisions involving slavery. The results suggest that the telegraph made newspapers less parochial, facilitated a national conversation and increased political participation. I find little evidence that access to telegraphed news from Washington affected party vote shares or Congressmen's roll call votes. |
| JEL: | D72 L82 L96 N41 N71 O3 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31468&r=his |
| By: | Shawn Kantor; Alexander T. Whalley |
| Abstract: | We estimate the long-term effect of public R&D on growth in manufacturing by analyzing new data from the Cold War era Space Race. We develop a novel empirical strategy that leverages US-Soviet rivalry in space technology to isolate windfall R&D spending. Our results demonstrate that public R&D conducted by NASA contractors increased manufacturing value added, employment, and capital accumulation in space related sectors. While migration responses were important, they were not sufficient to generate a wedge between local and national effects. The iconic Moonshot R&D program had meaningful economic effects for both the local and national space related sectors. Yet the magnitudes of the estimated effects seem to align with those of other non-R&D types of government expenditures. |
| JEL: | H54 N12 N72 O32 R11 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31471&r=his |
| By: | Gebauer, Jana; von Jorck, Gerrit; Pungas, Lilian |
| Abstract: | This paper traces the links between post-socialist transformations and the degrowth movement. Based on a series of workshops entitled "Degrowth Enthusiasm and the Eastern Blues" that we organised in recent years, this paper focuses on the following questions: what can we learn from the state-socialist societies' transformation processes into capitalist societies? What experiences and practices before and after these transformations can potential degrowth societies build on? To what extent can people's experiences with an alternative system and its transformation contribute to unfolding their potential in a social-ecological transformation and to overcoming 'change fatigue'? We present key findings from our workshops, which we combined with our own empirical evidence from Estonia and a theoretical examination of (post-)socialist economics to form six theses that we consider essential for a decolonial degrowth debate. |
| Keywords: | degrowth, social-ecological transformation, post-socialist transformation, subsistence farming |
| JEL: | O44 P28 P30 P31 Q01 Q12 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:2152023&r=his |
| By: | Navid Sabet; Noam Yuchtman |
| Abstract: | We empirically identify politically-motivated redistricting and its consequences, studying the effects of changed electorate composition on US congressional district boundaries and on political outcomes. We exploit the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which legalized millions of immigrants, changing local electorates without changing demographics — legalized immigrants were already counted in the census. Where Democrats controlled the 1990 redistricting process, higher IRCA populations were associated with more spatially distorted districts. Consistent with theory, Democrats packed Hispanics (their ardent supporters) into majority-minority districts. House delegations had more Hispanics suggesting that partisan gerrymandering, in this case, served the historically disadvantaged. |
| Keywords: | gerrymandering, minority political representation, immigrant legalization, state governance |
| JEL: | D70 P00 J10 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10554&r=his |
| By: | Desiree M. Kunene (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa); Renee van Eyden (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa); Petre Caraiani (Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Romania; Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | In this study, we investigate the predictive impact of climate risk (as measured by average temperature changes and temperature realised volatility) on total factor productivity (TFP) growth in 23 economies over the period 1880 to 2020 while controlling for real GDP per capita growth. Standard full-sample Granger causality tests offer little evidence of a causal impact of climate change on productivity outcomes. This may be attributed to nonlinearity and structural breaks in the relationship between climate risk and TFP growth, as evidenced by the BDS (1996) test results for nonlinearity and the Bai-Perron (1998, 2003) multiple breakpoint test results. Furthermore, Rossi-Wang (2019) time-varying VAR-based Granger causality tests, which are robust in the presence of instabilities and structural changes, indicate that for a large number of countries, we observe a significant causal impact of climate change on TFP growth in the post-World War II period, with increased significance in the causal impact for the majority of countries in the post-1980 period. |
| Keywords: | Total factor productivity growth, climate change, temperature realised volatility, average temperature change, time-varying Granger causality |
| JEL: | Q54 E23 C32 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:202321&r=his |
| By: | David Jordan (Queen's University Belfast) |
| Keywords: | productivity, industrial policy, institutions, devolution, interwar manufacturing |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anj:wpaper:031&r=his |
| By: | Lars-H. R. Siemers |
| Keywords: | business-cycle identification, Hamilton regression, EU production-function approach, HP filter, Swiss HP filter |
| JEL: | C18 C22 E32 E62 H60 N14 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sie:siegen:195-23&r=his |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (Uppsala universitet); Liljeberg, Linus (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Roman, Sara (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | We study the short- and long-term economic and social integration of European war refugees. The population under study left former Yugoslavia for Sweden in the early 1990s. In the first years, there were significant human capital investments in language training, adult education, and active labor market programs. The Yugoslav refugees then exhibited a remarkably sharp increase in employment and earnings, possibly helped by improving labor markets and pre-existing contacts in Sweden. Many entered jobs in manufacturing and service industries and remained there to a considerable extent. Among those above 50 at arrival, labor market outcomes were not as good. Despite strong development during the early years, the long-term labor market position of the Yugoslavs is broadly on par with previous cohorts of refugees. Residential segregation first increased and then declined, whereas workplace segregation was most marked among the early entrants. |
| Keywords: | Refugees; migrants; economic and social integration |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J18 |
| Date: | 2023–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_016&r=his |
| By: | Stanislas Kihm (IDHES - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Économie et de la Société - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENS Paris Saclay - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay) |
| Abstract: | This case study puts the processes of deindustrialisation into the context of the Saint-Gobain company and the managers who form its strategy. Saint-Gobain's industrial policy from 1978 to 1986 was characterised by deindustrialisation in Europe and diversification into IT and service companies. From 1986 to 1991, the company began to refocus on its industrial activities in response to the oil crisis, restructuring and privatisation. |
| Abstract: | Cette étude de cas replace les phénomènes de désindustrialisation à l'échelle de l'entreprise Saint-Gobain et des dirigeants qui forment sa stratégie. La politique industrielle de Saint-Gobain de 1978 à 1986 se caractérise par une désindustrialisation en Europe et une diversification dans l'informatique et les sociétés de services. De 1986 à 1991, le groupe entame un recentrage sur ses activités industrielles à la faveur du contre-choc pétrolier, des restructurations et de la privatisation. |
| Keywords: | ifnancialisation, deindustrialisation, nationalisation, privatisation, internationalisation, governance, Roger Fauroux, Alain Minc, Jean-Louis Beffa, financiarisation, désindustrialisation, gouvernance |
| Date: | 2023–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04136468&r=his |
| By: | Kazuya Masuda; Hitoshi Shigeoka |
| Abstract: | We examine the mortality effects of a 1947 school reform in Japan, which extended compulsory schooling from primary to secondary school by as much as 3 years. The abolition of secondary school fees also indicates that those affected by the reform likely came from disadvantaged families who could have benefited the most from schooling. Even in this relatively favorable setting, we fail to find that the reform improved later-life mortality up to the age of 87 years, although it significantly increased years of schooling. This finding suggests limited health returns to schooling at the lower level of educational attainment. |
| JEL: | H52 I12 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31472&r=his |
| By: | Clark, Gregory |
| Abstract: | A lineage of 422, 374 English people (1600 to 2022) contains correlations in social outcomes among relatives as distant as 4th cousins. These correlations show striking patterns. The first is the strong persistence of social status across family trees. Correlations decline by a factor of only 0.79 across each generation. Even fourth cousins, with a common ancestor only five generations earlier, show significant status correlations. The second remarkable feature is that the decline in correlation with genetic distance in the lineage is unchanged from 1600 to 2022. Vast social changes in England between 1600 and 2022 would have been expected to increase social mobility. Yet people in 2022 remain correlated in outcomes with their lineage relatives in exactly the same way as in preindustrial England. The third surprising feature is that the correlations parallel those of a simple model of additive genetic determination of status, with a genetic correlation in marriage of 0.57. |
| Keywords: | assortative mating; genetic inheritance; social mobility; status persistence |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2023–06–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:119845&r=his |
| By: | José Luis Cendejas Bueno (UFV - Université Francisco de Vitoria = Universidad Francisco de Vitoria) |
| Abstract: | The possibility of a growing accumulation of wealth, what we now refer to as economic growth, was something already considered by Plato, Aristotle and Locke, under the concept of chrematistics. In this paper we show how the economic thinking of these authors cannot be fully understood without considering the intimate relationship they establish between politics and property accumulation. In addition to continuities and ruptures in the arguments, there can be seen a growing understanding of the phenomenon of economic growth in such a way that, when we arrive at Locke, an evident paradigm shift can be appreciated. This change is rooted in the contributions of scholastic thinking for which the acquisition of property through human labour or industry enjoys legitimacy according to natural law. |
| Keywords: | Platonic communism, Aristotelian chrematistics, Lockean theory of property |
| Date: | 2023–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04149419&r=his |
| By: | Buscha, Franz; Gorman, Emma; Sturgis, Patrick; Zhang, Min |
| Abstract: | Home ownership is the largest component of wealth for most households and its intergenerational transmission underpins the production and reproduction of economic inequalities across generations. Yet, little is currently known about ethnic differences in the intergenerational transmission of housing tenure. In this paper we use linked Census data covering 1971-2011 to document rates of intergenerational housing tenure mobility across ethnic groups in England and Wales. We find that while home ownership declined across all ethnic groups during this period, there were substantial differences between them. Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi households experienced the strongest intergenerational link between parent and child housing tenure, and Black individuals had the highest rates of downward housing mobility. In contrast, those of Indian origin had homeownership rates similar to White British families, and a weaker link between parent and child housing tenure. These patterns are likely to exacerbate existing gradients in other dimensions of ethnicity-based inequality, now and in the future. |
| Keywords: | housing, social mobility, wealth transmission, ethnicity |
| JEL: | J62 I24 R31 P46 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1222r&r=his |
| By: | Foltas, Alexander |
| Abstract: | I propose a novel approach to uncover business cycle reports' priorities and relate them to economic fluctuations. To this end, I leverage quantitative business-cycle forecasts published by leading German economic research institutes since 1970 to estimate the proportions of latent topics in associated business cycle reports. I then employ a supervised approach to aggregate topics with similar themes, thus revealing the proportions of broader macroeconomic subjects. I obtain measures of forecasters' subject priorities by extracting the subject proportions' cyclic components. Correlating these priorities with key macroeconomic variables reveals consistent priority patterns throughout economic peaks and troughs. The forecasters prioritize inflation-related matters over recession-related considerations around peaks. This finding suggests that forecasters underestimate growth and overestimate inflation risks during contractive monetary policies, which might explain their failure to predict recessions. Around troughs, forecasters prioritize investment matters, potentially suggesting a better understanding of macroeconomic developments during those periods compared to peaks. |
| Keywords: | Macroeconomic forecasting, Evaluating forecasts, Business cycles, Recession forecasting, Topic Modeling, Natural language processing, Machine learning, Judgemental forecasting |
| JEL: | E32 E37 C45 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:44&r=his |
| By: | Connor, Dylan Shane; Kemeny, Tom; Storper, Michael |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change – frontier work – as a driver of prosperity and spatial income inequality. Using new methods and data, we analyze the geography and incomes of frontier workers from 1880 to 2019. Initially, frontier work is concentrated in a set of ‘seedbed’ locations, contributing to rising spatial inequality through powerful localized wage premiums. As technologies mature, the economic distinctiveness of frontier work diminishes, as ultimately happened to cities like Manchester and Detroit. Our work uncovers a plausible general origin story of the unfolding of spatial income inequality. |
| Date: | 2023–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:d93sj&r=his |
| By: | Rafael Di Tella; Randy Kotti; Caroline Le Pennec; Vincent Pons |
| Abstract: | A key tenet of representative democracy is that politicians' discourse and policies should follow voters' preferences. In the median voter theorem, this outcome emerges as candidates strategically adjust their platform to get closer to their opponent. Despite its importance in political economy, we lack direct tests of this mechanism. In this paper, we show that candidates converge to each other both in ideology and rhetorical complexity. We build a novel dataset including the content of 9, 000 primary and general election websites of candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, 2002-2016, as well as 57, 000 campaign manifestos issued by candidates running in the first and second round of French parliamentary and local elections, 1958-2022. We first show that candidates tend to converge to the center of the ideology and complexity scales and to diversify the set of topics they cover, between the first and second round, reflecting the broadening of their electorate. Second, we exploit cases in which the identity of candidates qualified for the second round is quasi-random, by focusing on elections in which they narrowly win their primary (in the U.S.) or narrowly qualify for the runoff (in France). Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that second-round candidates converge to the platform of their actual opponent, as compared to the platform of the runner-up who did not qualify for the last round. We conclude that politicians behave strategically and that the convergence mechanism underlying the median voter theorem is powerful. |
| JEL: | D72 P0 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31503&r=his |
| By: | Berbée, Paul; Stuhler, Jan |
| Abstract: | Germany has become the second-most important destination for migrants worldwide. Using all waves from the microcensus, we study their labor market integration over the last 50 years, and document key differences to the US case. While the employment gaps between immigrant and native men decline in the first years after arrival, they remain large for most cohorts; the average gap one decade after arrival is around 10 percentage points. Income gaps are instead widening with time spent in Germany. Differences in educational and demographic characteristics explain how those gaps vary across groups, and why they widened over time: accounting for composition, integration outcomes show no systematic trend. However, economic conditions do matter, and the employment rate of some earlier cohorts collapsed when structural shocks hit the German labor market in the 1990s. Finally, we study the likely integration path of recent arrivals during the European refugee 'crisis' and the Russo-Ukrainian war. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, labor market integration, long-run trends |
| JEL: | J11 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:23020&r=his |
| By: | Mr. Helge Berger; Sune Karlsson; Pär Österholm |
| Abstract: | We assess the bivariate relation between money growth and inflation in the euro area and the United States using hybrid time-varying parameter Bayesian VAR models. Model selection based on marginal likelihoods suggests that the relation is statistically unstable across time in both regions. The effect of money growth on inflation weakened notably after the 1980s before strengthening after 2020. There is evidence that this time variation is related to the pace of price changes, as we find that the maximum impact of money growth on inflation is increasing in the trend level of inflation. These results caution against asserting a simple, time-invariant relationship when modeling the joint dynamics of monetary aggregates and consumer prices. |
| Keywords: | Bayesian VAR; Time-varying parameters; Stochastic volatility |
| Date: | 2023–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/137&r=his |
| By: | Étienne Ollion (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris); Éric Buge (GEVIPAR - Groupe d'étude de la vie parlementaire) |
| Abstract: | Cette note propose une estimation du revenu "réel" des députés tiré de leur mandat sur plus d'un siècle, en la mettant en regard du revenu des Français. Elle ouvre (à nouveau) le débat sur la juste rémunération du personnel politique, les incitations financières à l'engagement politique et plus généralement la représentativité des parlementaires. Enseignements clés: Les revenus issus de l'indemnité parlementaire placent toujours les députés dans le sommet de la hiérarchie des revenus En 2020, les députés figurent ainsi parmi les 3% des Français les mieux payés Depuis de la fin des années 1990, ces revenus ont connu une baisse régulière L'évolution des revenus des élus informe sur la condition des parlementaires tout au long des XXe et XXIe siècles Méthode et données: Cette étude a nécessité de reconstituer une série temporelle du niveau de revenu tiré de l'indemnité parlementaire depuis 1914. Cette reconstitution s'appuie sur trois opérations successives. Tout d'abord, les auteurs ont reconstitué le montant officiel de l'indemnité parlementaire au fil du temps. Directement inscrite dans la loi, cette information est publique avant 1938. Après cette date, la donnée n'est plus disponible que dans les archives de la questure de l'Assemblée nationale. Avant 1997, toute l'indemnité n'était pas destinée aux élus mais elle visait à payer les frais de mandat. Les auteurs ont donc quantifié la part d'indemnité susceptible d'être conservée par les députés à titre de revenu de celle destinée à couvrir des frais de mandat. Enfin, les biens et services pris en charge en nature par l'Assemblée ont été valorisés par les auteurs, afin d'estimer le surplus d'indemnité que ces prises en charge étaient susceptibles de transformer en revenu. Les choix de construction sont détaillés ci-dessous, accompagnés du code de réplication : https://osf.io/5z42a/ |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:ipppap:halshs-04164868&r=his |