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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒10‒22
twenty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Committee, Nobel Prize (Nobel Prize Committee) |
| Abstract: | This year’s Prize in Economic Sciences rewards the design of methods that address some of the most fundamental and pressing issues of our time: long-run sustainable growth in the global economy and the welfare of the world’s population. |
| Keywords: | long-term growth; |
| JEL: | O00 |
| Date: | 2018–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2018_001&r=his |
| By: | Vuillemey, Guillaume (HEC Paris - Finance Department) |
| Abstract: | I study the real effects a contracting innovation that suddenly made financial markets more complete: central clearing counterparties (CCPs) for derivatives. The first CCP to provide full insulation against counterparty risk was created in Le Havre (France) in 1882, in the coffee futures market. Using triple difference-in-differences estimation, I show that central clearing changed the geography of trade flows Europe-wide, to the benefit of Le Havre. Inspecting the mechanism using trader-level data, I show that the CCP was instrumental both to mitigate adverse selection issues and to solve a ``missing market'' problem. Increased risk-sharing possibilities enabled more gains from trade to be realized. The successful contractual innovation quickly spread to new exchanges. |
| Keywords: | financial markets; central clearing counterparties; risksharing |
| JEL: | D53 N23 |
| Date: | 2018–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1307&r=his |
| By: | D. Mark Anderson; Kerwin Kofi Charles; Daniel I. Rees |
| Abstract: | Using data on 25 major American cities for the period 1900-1940, we explore the effects of municipal-level public health efforts that were viewed as critical in the fight against food- and water-borne diseases. In addition to studying interventions such as treating sewage and setting strict bacteriological standards for milk, which have received little attention in the literature, we provide new evidence on the effects of water filtration and chlorination, extending the work of previous scholars. Contrary to the consensus view, we find that none of the interventions under study contributed substantially to the observed declines in total and infant mortality. |
| JEL: | I18 J1 N3 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25027&r=his |
| By: | Bengtsson, Erik (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Stockhammer, Engelbert (Department of European & International Studies, King's College, London) |
| Abstract: | Wage restraint plays an important role in the conventional economic history explanation of the post-war golden growth experience of industrialized economies. Conversely, wage increases harming investment and increasing unemployment have been proffered as explanations for some of the high unemployment during the interwar period. This article argues that the conventional account implicitly only considers effects of wage growth on investment and not the advantageous effects on consumption. Thus, the evaluation of the effects on GDP growth is lop-sided. We employ a Post-Keynesian model to estimate effects of growth in the wage share of national income on consumption, investment, exports and imports separately, and weigh the effects together to estimate total effects on GDP growth, in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) 1900–2010. Furthermore, we estimate the positive effects of wage pressure on productivity, showing it to be significant and positive in all three countries. We show that the postwar wage push had small positive effects on GDP growth in Denmark and Sweden, and a small negative effect in Norway. Thus, wage restraint is not a valid explanation for the postwar growth miracle. We propose a more comprehensive macroeconomic framework for understanding the implications of labour-capital distribution. |
| Keywords: | functional income distribution; inequality; consumption; investment; Scandinavia; Bhaduri-Marglin model; economic history |
| JEL: | E12 N14 |
| Date: | 2018–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0179&r=his |
| By: | Karadja, Mounir (Department of Economics); Prawitz, Erik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | We study the political effects of mass emigration to the United States in the 19th century using data from Sweden. To instrument for total emigration over several decades, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased the local demand for political change, as measured by labor movement membership, strike participation and voting. Emigration also led to de facto political change, increasing welfare expenditures as well as the likelihood of adopting more inclusive political institutions. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Political change; Labor mobility; Economic history |
| JEL: | D72 J61 P16 |
| Date: | 2018–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1237&r=his |
| By: | Ericsson, Johan (Department of History, Uppsala University); Molinder, Jakob (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | The impact of the transition to modern economic growth on the distribution of income is widely debated. The experience of early industrializers like Britain and the US has informed much of the debate, lending support to the idea embedded in the models of Kuznets and Lewis that real wages of laborers tend to lag behind the growth of GDP per capita in the early stages of economic development. We examine the impact growth on workers in Sweden using a new dataset on daily wages for helpers, carpenters, masons, and teamsters over the 1831–1900 period. The data has a uniquely detailed geographical coverage, including a broad set of places in the countryside as well as towns. Our new series shows that real wage growth began in the mid-1850s, that the average yearly increase was substantial and superseding GDP per capita growth after 1880, that it was larger for unskilled helpers than higher-skilled groups, and was present in the countryside and urban areas alike. A comparison with Northern Europe shows that unskilled workers in Sweden benefited to a much greater extent from economic growth, highlighting the importance of paying careful attention to distributional issues when comparing living standards across countries. |
| Keywords: | wages; inequality; distribution; economic development; growth; living standards; Kuznets-curve; Lewis |
| JEL: | J31 N00 N13 N33 O14 |
| Date: | 2018–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0181&r=his |
| By: | Josh Ryan-Collins; Frank van Lerven (None) |
| Abstract: | In the face of the perceived high public and private debt levels and sluggish recovery that has followed the financial crisis of 2007-08, there have been calls for greater fiscal-monetary coordination to stimulate nominal demand. Policy debates have been focused upon the inflationary expectations that may be generated by monetary financing or related policies, consistent with New Consensus Macroeconomics theoretical frameworks. Historical examples of fiscal-monetary policy coordination have been largely neglected, along with alternative theoretical views, such as post-Keynesian perspectives that emphasise uncertainty and demand rather than rational expectations. This paper begins to address this omission. First, we provide an overview of the holdings of government debt by both central banks and commercial banks as an imperfect but still informative proxy for fiscal-monetary coordination in advanced economies in the 20th century. Second, we develop a new typology of forms of fiscal-monetary coordination that includes both direct and less direct forms of monetary financing, illustrating this with case-study examples. In particular, we focus on the 1930s-1970s period when central banks and ministries of finance cooperated closely, with less independence accorded to monetary policy and greater weight attached to fiscal policy. We find a number of cases where fiscal-monetary coordination proved useful in stimulating economic growth, supporting industrial policy objectives and managing public debt without excessive inflation. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, monetary financing, inflation, central bank independence, fiscal policy, debt, credit creation |
| JEL: | B22 B25 E02 E12 E31 E42 E51 E52 E58 E63 N12 N22 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1810&r=his |
| By: | Smith, Tim; Delgado, Michael |
| Keywords: | Household and Labor Economics, Rural/Community Development, Food and Agricultural Policy Analysis |
| Date: | 2018–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea18:274162&r=his |
| By: | Ashley, Richard (Virginia Tech); Tsang, Kwok Ping (Virginia Tech); Verbrugge, Randal (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | The historical analysis of FOMC behavior using estimated simple policy rules requires the specification of either an estimated natural rate of unemployment or an output gap. But in the 1970s, neither output gap nor natural rate estimates appear to guide FOMC deliberations. This paper uses the data to identify the particular implicit unemployment rate gap (if any) that is consistent with FOMC behavior. While its ability appears to have improved over time, our results indicate that, both before the Volcker period and through the Bernanke period, the FOMC distinguished persistent movements in the unemployment rate from other movements; implicitly such movements were treated as an intermediate target, one that departs substantially from conventional estimates of the natural rate. We further investigate historical FOMC responses to inflation fluctuations. In this regard, FOMC behavior changed in the Volcker-Greenspan-Bernanke period: its response to the inflation rate became much stronger, and it focused more intensely on very persistent movements in this variable. Our results shed light on the “Great Inflation” experience of the 1970s, and are consistent with the view that political pressures effectively limited the FOMC response to the buildup of inflation. They also suggest new directions for DSGE modeling. |
| Keywords: | Taylor rule; Great Inflation; intermediate target; natural rate; persistence; dependence; |
| JEL: | C22 C32 E52 |
| Date: | 2018–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1814&r=his |
| By: | Arvydas Jadevicius; Brian Sloan; Andrew Brown |
| Abstract: | The existence of cycles in building and property, has grown to have significant importance in the UK and internationally; whereas property markets have been characterised by boom and bust cycles with a negative impact on the national economies. As a result, property cycles became a popular research topic amongst property professionals and scholars, with a greater understanding of the cyclical behaviour of the property market being seen as a major guide to the financial success (failure) of property investments. consequently, considerable literature has accumulated over the years on the subject. This paper provides a review of this literature, mostly written in the UK and US, with international insights on the subject. This paper reviews research on the subject chronologically over a one hundred-year period. The study is designed to provide readers with a historical overview of Property cycles research by emphasising the underlying theme which dominated a particular period of this research, as well as indicating methods, data analysis techniques employed and outcomes of these studies. Its ai is to put more clarity on the subject, as well as help to navigate anyone interested in Property cycles through a considerable amount of research which has accumulated over the last century. |
| Keywords: | Cycle; Literature; Property; Research; Review |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_1&r=his |
| By: | Ravshonbek Otojanov |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an alternative view on the transition from stagnation to growth by building a two-sector model of the British Industrial Revolution. The sectors differ only in the use of input factors, wood and coal. The model characterises the transition from stagnation to high growth as a direct consequence of the transition from biomass to coal use in Britain. Formalising the accounts of economic historians, technological progress is modelled as an endogenous process driven by the cost differentials between wood and coal. As wood price rises and coal price remains stable it becomes profitable to innovate in coal-using technologies and hence, innovation shifts to the coal-using sector. The model is calibrated to match the main features of the British economy in the transition period between 1550 and 1849. The model reproduces one of the important characteristics of the First Industrial Revolution – transition from low growth to high growth. Counterfactual analyses indicate that, absent coal reserves and low cost coal supplies, growth would have been slower and income per capita would have been 53% of that observed in 1849. Also, the model does a good job in explaining the timing of structural transformations in the British economy. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution; Economic Growth; Directed Technical Change; Innovation; Energy Transitions. |
| JEL: | O30 O41 Q43 D50 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:91&r=his |
| By: | Ravshonbek Otojanov and Roger Fouquet |
| Abstract: | Allen (2009) has argued that the divergence in factor prices determined the direction of technical change that altered the course of economic growth in Britain. Using historical data for the 1700 – 1914 period, this paper derives and analyses the nature and direction of technical change. The results show that technical change was biased during the Industrial Revolution and that the bias stemmed from the divergence in the cost of labour and energy. In particular, labour saving responded strongly to the acceleration in wage growth in the 1850-1914 period. Overall, technical change was labour-saving, energy-using and hence capital-deepening. Moreover, the evidence shows that the expansion of effective energy supply allowed British economy to sustain output growth in the First Industrial Revolution era. Labour-saving innovations were particularly crucial in the Second Industrial Revolution. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution; Factor-Saving Technical Change; Induced Technical Change, Productivity, Innovation. |
| JEL: | N13 O3 O11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:92&r=his |
| By: | Scott, Susan V.; Van Reenen, John; Zachariadis, Markos |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact on bank performance of the adoption of SWIFT, a network-based technological infrastructure for worldwide interbank telecommunication. We construct a new longitudinal dataset of 6,848 banks in 29 countries in Europe and the Americas with the full history of adoption since SWIFT’s initial operations in 1977. Our results suggest that the adoption of SWIFT (i) has large effects on profitability in the long-term; (ii) is greater for small than for large banks; and (iii) exhibits significant network effects on performance. We use an in-depth field study to better understand the mechanisms underlying the effects on profitability. |
| Keywords: | technology adoption; bank performance; financial services; network innovation; SWIFT |
| JEL: | N20 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:70776&r=his |
| By: | Andrea Morrison; Sergio Petralia; Dario Diodato |
| Abstract: | More than 30 million people migrated to the US between the 1850s and 1920s. In the order of thousands became inventors and patentees. Drawing on an original dataset of immigrant inventors to the US, we assess the city-level impact of immigrants patenting and their potential crowding out effects on US native inventors. Our study contributes to the different strands of literature in economics, innovation studies and economic geography on the role of immigrants as carriers of knowledge. Our results show that immigrants? patenting is positively associated with total patenting. We find also that immigrant inventors crowd-in US inventors. The growth in US inventors? productivity can be explained also in terms of knowledge spill-overs generate by immigrants. Our findings are robust to several checks and to the implementation of an instrumental variable strategy. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation, knowledge spill-over, patent, age of mass migration, US |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O31 R3 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1835&r=his |
| By: | Yann Giraud (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); José Edwards (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez [Santiago]); Christophe Schinckus (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Quantitative approaches are not yet common among historians and methodologists of economics, although they are in the study of science by librarians, information scientists, sociologists, historians, and even economists. The main purpose of this essay is to reflect methodologically on the historiography of economics: is it witnessing a quantitative turn? Is such a turn desirable? We answer the first question by pointing out a "methodological moment", in general, and a noticeable rise of quantitative studies among historians of economics during the past few years. To the second question, all contributors to this special issue bring relatively optimistic answers by highlighting the benefits of using quantitative methodologies as complements to the more traditional meta-analyses of both historians and methodologists of economics. |
| Keywords: | Topic modeling,Network analysis,Quantitative statements,Bibliometrics,Historiography of economics |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01876415&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Haelim (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation); Barth, Daniel (Office of Financial Research, U.S. Department of Treasury); Choi, Dong Beom (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | Prior to the Great Depression, regulators imposed double liability on bank shareholders to ensure financial stability and protect depositors. Under double liability, shareholders of failing banks lost their initial investment and had to pay up to the par value of the stock in order to compensate depositors. We examine whether double liability was effective at mitigating bank risks and providing a safety net for depositors before and during the Great Depression. We first develop a model that demonstrates two competing effects of double liability: a direct effect that constrains bank risk taking as a result of increased skin in the game, and an indirect effect that promotes risk taking owing to weaker monitoring by better-protected depositors. We then test the model’s predictions using a novel identification strategy that compares state Federal Reserve member banks and national banks in New York and New Jersey. We find no evidence that double liability reduced bank risk prior to the Great Depression, but do find evidence that deposits in double-liability banks were stickier and less susceptible to runs during the Great Depression. Our findings suggest that the banking system was inherently fragile under double liability because of the conflict between shareholder incentive alignment and depositor market discipline; the depositor protection feature of double liability reduced the threat of funding outflows but may have undermined its effectiveness as a regulatory tool for reducing bank risk. |
| Keywords: | double liability; moral hazard; market discipline; bank runs; Great Depression |
| JEL: | G21 G28 N22 |
| Date: | 2018–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:869&r=his |
| By: | Chaudhary, L.; Rubin, J.; Iyer, S.; Shrivastava, A. |
| Abstract: | We conduct a public goods game in three small towns in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Due to historical military conquest, until 1947 these towns were on opposite sides of a colonial border separating British India from the Princely States. Our research design offers a treatment comparison between the towns of (British) Kekri and (Princely) Sarwar, and a control comparison between Princely Sarwar and Shahpura. We find that participants from (British) Kekri are more co-operative in mixed-town groups. The differences are driven by individuals with family ties to the towns, highlighting the enduring effects of colonial rule on co-operation norms. |
| Keywords: | cultural transmission, colonialism, public goods game, natural experiment, lab-in-the- eld experiment, India |
| JEL: | C91 C93 C71 H41 H73 N35 N45 O17 Z1 |
| Date: | 2018–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1855&r=his |
| By: | Biais, Bruno; Green, Richard |
| Abstract: | Bonds are traded in opaque and fragmented over-the-counter markets. Is there some- thing special about bonds precluding transparent limit-order markets? Historical experience suggests this is not the case. Before WWII, there was an active market in corporate and municipal bonds on the NYSE. Activity dropped dramatically, in the late 1920s for munici- pals and in the mid 1940s for corporate, as trading migrated to the over-the-counter market. Average trading costs in municipal bonds on the NYSE were half as large in 1926-1927 as they are today over the counter. Trading costs in corporate bonds for small investors in the 1940s were as low or lower than they are now. The di¤erence in transactions costs likely re- ?ects the di¤erences in market structures, since underlying technological changes have likely reduced costs of matching buyers and sellers |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:33001&r=his |
| By: | Hertz, Thomas; Silva, Andrew |
| Keywords: | Household and Labor Economics, Rural/Community Development, Research Methods/Econometrics/Stats |
| Date: | 2018–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea18:274155&r=his |
| By: | Audra J. Bowlus (University of Western Ontario); Chris Robinson (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | The labor market attachment of females has increased dramatically over the last half century, converging to a pattern similar to that of males. Human capital theory predicts an associated increase in human capital investment by females and a convergence in the life-cycle human capital investment profiles of males and females. This paper explores wage-based and job-skills-based approaches to measuring the increased supply of eciency units of human capital by females over the last four decades. Results suggest that the magnitude of the contribution of the increased human capital of women to post-war economic growth is substantially under-estimated by conventional methods of measuring human capital and labor inputs. A complete picture of the evolution of the human capital of women requires new approaches to measuring their human capital. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201710&r=his |
| By: | Bannerman, Gordon |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that the resources and skills of military contractors were a crucial component of the war-making capacity of the British state in the mid-eighteenth-century. Contractors used product knowledge, access to capital and credit, market intelligence, and personal and professional connections to effectively perform contracts, and by doing so contributed towards operational capability and combat readiness. Contracting not only reveals the diversity of the domestic economy but also the degree of connectivity between different sectors. Problems of scale, cost, and risk were overcome by harnessing and channelling broad expertise across different sectors. If modern states were highly innovative in fiscal-military terms, contractors were no less so in managing extensive supply operations |
| Keywords: | supply; provisions; contracts; sub-contracting; horses; logistics; encampments; garrisons; merchants; financiers; wealth; corruption |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:73426&r=his |
| By: | MARTÍNEZ-RUIZ, Elena; NOGUES-MARCO, Pilar |
| Abstract: | This article contributes to the literature on central bank independence and monetary stability during the classical gold standard era. On the eve of the First World War, European periphery had not achieved stable adherence to gold despite the protection of central banks against political pressures to monetize debt. In the 19th century, most issuing institutions were private banks whose main objective was profit maximization. As a result, monetary stability depended on negotiations between monetary and fiscal authorities and not directly on central bank independence as is the case nowadays. Strong governments were needed to impose the objective of monetary stability on central banks in negotiation practices. To test our argument, we have constructed indicators of government strength and central bank independence to measure bargaining power for the case of Spain. Results confirm that a highly independent private central bank avoided the responsibility of defending gold adherence when negotiating with weak government, even in a stable macroeconomic environment. Our research suggests that the success of central bank independence in generating monetary stability during the gold standard period depended on sound political institutions. |
| Keywords: | gold standard, monetary stability, political economy, central bank independence, institutional design, Spain |
| JEL: | E02 E42 E58 F33 N13 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-75&r=his |
| By: | Roy, Tirthankar |
| Abstract: | A view popular in Indian economic history scholarship claims that the institutional and commercial policy of British India made the rich Indians richer and the poor poorer during colonial rule. The paper shows that the evidence to support the conjecture is weak. Missing data on peasant income makes it hard to generalize on aggregate trends in inequality. But the evidence does question the role of state policy behind trends in inequality. An alternative account starts from the distinction between land-dependent and trade-dependent occupations. The open economy of the nineteenth century affected these two spheres differently. Low and stagnant land-productivity limited the average return that accrued to land-dependent occupations. Occupations directly or indirectly dependent on trading could escape the constraint partially. |
| Keywords: | colonialism; inequality; British Empire; South Asia |
| JEL: | N15 N3 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:90409&r=his |
| By: | Baranov, Victoria; de Haas, Ralph (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Grosjean, Pauline |
| Abstract: | Recent research has uncovered the historical roots of gender norms about women and the persistent effect of such norms on economic development. We find similar long-term effects of masculinity norms: beliefs about the proper conduct of men. We exploit a natural historical experiment in which convict transportation in the 18th and 19th century created a variegated spatial pattern of sex ratios across Australia. We show that in areas that were heavily male-biased in the past (though not the present) more Australians recently voted against same-sex marriage, an institution at odds with traditional masculinity norms. Survey data show that this voting pattern is mostly driven by men. Further evidence indicates that these historically male-biased areas also remain characterized by more violence, excessive alcohol consumption, and occupational gender segregation. We interpret these behaviors as manifestations of masculinity norms that emerged due to intense local male-male competition and that persisted over time. |
| Keywords: | masculinity; sex ratio; natural experiment; cultural persistence; same-sex marriage |
| JEL: | I31 J12 J16 N37 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:6fa57f55-71bb-42c4-8cc4-dc5c97da241d&r=his |
| By: | Igor Fedyukin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | V. K. Trediakovskii’s translation of Paul Tallement Voyage de lisle d’amour occupies a special place in the history of Russian 18th-century literature: it is often credited with creating a new vocabulary of love and amorous intercourse, an innovation that would pave the way for much of the later poetry and prose. It is also believed to have gained instant popularity among Russia’s youth, although who exactly Trediakovskii’ early readers were is not clear. Likewise, while Trediakovskii’s early life and his stay in Europe have been a subject of extensive study, we do not know much why exactly he choose this topic and this particular work for his translation: following the version offered by the poet himself, this choice is usually treated as nearly random. Against this background, this this paper uses a variety of archival sources to reconstruct the actual courtly context of these events. On the one hand, it focuses on the secret liaison between Ekaterina Ioannovna, the Duchess of Mecklenburg, the most important patron of Trediakovskii and his work in the early 1730s, and Prince Beloselskii. On the other, it explores a trove of unpublished letters written by a variety of French, German, and Dutch ladies to Prince A.B. Kurakin during his stay in Europe in the 1720s: these letters present the prince as fully integrated in the social life of Western European aristocracy and, most importantly, as thoroughly versed in the contemporary rules and conventions of gallant intercourse. Kurakin, as is well known, was another patron of Trediakovskii, and it was thanks to him that the poet has been introduced to Ekaterina. Taken together, these documents not only provide context for Trediakovskii’s translation and its popularity, but also allow us to reconstruct the amorous practices of the post-Petrine Russian elite |
| Keywords: | Love, translation, Trediakovskii, Russia, France |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:167/hum/2018&r=his |
| By: | Grodecka, Anna (Sveriges Riksbank); Kenny, Seán (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Ögren, Anders (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to literature on bank distress using the Swedish experience of the in- ternational crisis of 1907, often paralleled with 2008. By employing previously unanalyzed bank-level data, we use logit regressions and principal component analysis to measure the im- pact of pre-crisis bank characteristics on the probability of their subsequent distress. The crisis was characterized by “creative destruction,” as those banks with weaker corporate governance structures, wider branching networks, operating with lower cost efficiency were more likely to experience distress. We find that poor credit allocation rather than foreign borrowing, as often stressed, were associated with ultimate demise. |
| Keywords: | bank distress; financial crises; Swedish banks; lender of last resort |
| JEL: | E58 G21 G28 H12 N23 |
| Date: | 2018–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0180&r=his |