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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2022‒05‒23
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Charles Goodhart; Donato Masciandaro; Stefano Ugolini |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the monetary policy of the Most Serene Republic of Venice in the years of calamities using a modern equivalent of helicopter money, namely an extraordinary issue of (base) money, coupled with capital losses for the issuer. We treat the 1629 famine and the 1630-1631 plague as a unique negative macroeconomic shock, which the government addressed using fiscal monetization, with diverse effects on its citizens. Consolidating the balance sheets of the Treasury and of the State Bank of Issue, we show that the Republic implemented what was, in effect, helicopter money, with such policies most likely driven by political reasons, to limit public disturbances and riots. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, helicopter money, pandemic, Venice 1629-1631 |
| JEL: | N1 N2 E5 E6 D7 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp22179&r= |
| By: | Sascha O. Becker |
| Abstract: | Forced displacement as a consequence of wars, civil conflicts, or natural disasters does not only have contemporaneous consequences but also long-run repercussions. This eclectic overview summarizes some recent research on forced displacement in economic history. While many of the episodes covered refer to Europe, this survey points to literature across all continents. It highlights new developments, and points to gaps in the literature. |
| Keywords: | forced displacement, wars, disasters, networks |
| JEL: | F22 R23 D74 Q54 N30 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9604&r= |
| By: | Sascha O. Becker (Monash University and University of Warwick); Steven Pfaff (University of Washington) |
| Abstract: | Over many centuries, church and state have grown together, and apart. Sometimes linked like Siamese twins, sometimes in conflict with each other. This chapter discusses the major themes in the literature on church and state, some of the findings in the political economy of religion, and evaluates emerging directions in research on church-state relations. |
| Keywords: | Church, State, Secularization, Political Economy, Deregulation |
| JEL: | Z12 N00 H00 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2022-09&r= |
| By: | Ganzer, Andreas (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Schmucker, Alexandra (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Stegmaier, Jens (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Stüber, Heiko (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "The Establishment History Panel (BHP) is composed of cross sectional datasets since 1975 for West Germany and 1992 for East Germany. Every cross section contains all the establishments in Germany which are covered by the IAB Employment History (BeH) on June 30th. These are all establishments with at least one employee liable to social security on the reference date. Establishments with no employee liable to social security but with at least one marginal part-time employee are included since 1999. The cross sections can be combined to form a panel. This data report describes the Establishment-History-Panel (BHP) 1975–2020." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; IAB-Open-Access-Publikation ; Datenaufbereitung ; Datenqualität ; Datenzugang ; IAB-Betriebs-Historik-Panel ; Datenanonymisierung ; Datensatzbeschreibung ; Imputationsverfahren ; Stichprobe ; 1975-2020 |
| Date: | 2022–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfda:202203(en)&r= |
| By: | Arnaud Chevalier; Olivier Marie |
| Abstract: | Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth rate halved in East Germany. Despite their small sizes, the cohorts conceived during this period of socio-economic turmoil were, as they grew up in reunified Germany, markedly more likely to be arrested than cohorts conceived a few years earlier. This is consistent with negative parental selection during the period of turmoil. We highlight risk attitude as an important selection mechanism, beyond education and other observable characteristics, which explains: (i) why some women did not alter their fertility decisions during these uncertain economic times, (ii) that this risk preference was passed on to their children and (iii) that risk preference is correlated with criminal participation. Maternal selection along risk preference might thus be an important mechanism explaining the greater criminal activity of the children conceived after the fall of the Wall. |
| Keywords: | fertility, crime, parental selection, economic uncertainty, risk attitude |
| JEL: | J13 K42 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9683&r= |
| By: | Graeber, David |
| Keywords: | Rojava; Marx; capitalism; communism; baseline communism |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114919&r= |
| By: | Florin Marius PAVELESCU (Institute of National Economy – Romanian Academy) |
| Abstract: | The paper reveal the main features of the investment flows and the dynamics of the stock of fixed capital during the XX-th century in correlation with the changes of the institutional framework and cyclical fluctuations of the gross domestic product or national income. The research methodology is differentiated for 1900-1947 period and 1948-2000 period, respectively, due to the available statistical data and the essential differences between the institutional framework and the sectoral structure of the economy. The analysis of the 1900-1947 period uses proxy variables for the estimation of the investments dynamics in agriculture and industrial activities. It was revealed the slow growth of the investments in agriculture and small industry (the craft industry, the household industry, the peasant milling industry). The trends of the investments dynamics in big industry (mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electric power industry) were identified. It was remarked the steady growth of the investments in electric power industry even in the context of the sensible fluctuations of the gross domestic product, in real terms. The impact of the macroeconomic policies and external shocks on the investment flows was also emphasized. |
| Keywords: | Consum de capital fix, forţa de tracţiune animală, stoc de capital fix, cicluri economice, eficienţa utilizării fondurilor fixe, privatizare, reajustări structurale, imobilizări corporale |
| JEL: | E22 E N13 N14 O11 O47 |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ine:wpaper:11:y:2021&r= |
| By: | Eiji Yamamura |
| Abstract: | Post-World War II , there was massive internal migration from rural to urban areas in Japan. The location of Sumo stables was concentrated in Tokyo. Hence, supply of Sumo wrestlers from rural areas to Tokyo was considered as migration. Using a panel dataset covering forty years, specifically 1946-1985, this study investigates how weather conditions and social networks influenced the labor supply of Sumo wrestlers. Major findings are; (1) inclemency of the weather in local areas increased supply of Sumo wrestlers in the period 1946-1965, (2) the effect of the bad weather conditions is greater in the locality where large number of Sumo wrestlers were supplied in the pre-war period, (3) neither the occurrence of bad weather conditions nor their interactions with sumo-wrestlers influenced the supply of Sumo wrestlers in the period 1966-1985. These findings imply that the negative shock of bad weather conditions on agriculture in the rural areas incentivized young individuals to be apprenticed in Sumo stables in Tokyo. Additionally, in such situations, the social networks within Sumo wrestler communities from the same locality are important. However, once the share of workers in agricultural sectors became very low, this mechanism did not work. |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2204.07891&r= |
| By: | Fabien Dannequin (REGARDS - Recherches en Économie Gestion AgroRessources Durabilité Santé- EA 6292 - MSH-URCA - Maison des Sciences Humaines de Champagne-Ardenne - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne); Fabien Tarrit (REGARDS - Recherches en Économie Gestion AgroRessources Durabilité Santé- EA 6292 - MSH-URCA - Maison des Sciences Humaines de Champagne-Ardenne - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a cross-analysis the contributions of Karl Marx and of Joseph Alois Schumpeter on social classes. It discusses their discrepancies on two issues, the former helping to elaborate on the latter. Both authors admit the existence of social classes on the basis of hierarchy and of discipline. For Marx, they rely on the conflict, which can bring changes that aim to abolish the class hierarchy. As such, it needs an consciousness for facilitating the shift from an objective class in itself to a subjective class for itself. For Schumpeter, a significant degree of discipline is a condition to ensure the progress related to capitalism. Therefore, while Marx conceives capitalism as a transitional mode of social organization, which sows the seeds of its own disequilibrium and demise, Schumpeter regrets the planned end of capitalism, with the decline of innovation and then of progress, through bureaucratization. |
| Abstract: | Cet article présente une analyse croisée des contributions de Karl Marx et de Joseph Alois Schumpeter sur la question des classes sociales. Les divergences que nous soulevons portent sur deux questions, la première nourrissant la seconde. Les deux auteurs reconnaissent tous deux l'existence de classes sociales fondées sur la hiérarchie et la discipline. Marx les conçoit sous l'angle du conflit porteur d'un changement visant à abolir la hiérarchie de classe, et de la sorte l'inscrit dans la nécessité d'une prise de conscience facilitant le passage d'une classe en soi objective à une classe pour soi subjective. De son côté, Schumpeter préconise un degré significatif de discipline propre à assurer le progrès dont est porteur le capitalisme. Ainsi, alors que Marx conçoit le capitalisme comme un mode transitoire d'organisation sociale qui porte les germes de son déséquilibre et de sa disparition, c'est sous l'angle du déclin, via sa bureaucratisation, de l'innovation et donc du progrès, que Schumpeter déplore la fin programmée du capitalisme. |
| Keywords: | Marx Karl,Schumpeter,Classes sociales |
| Date: | 2022–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03633005&r= |
| By: | Liu, Ziang |
| Abstract: | Historical wages continue to provide new insights into the long-term development of the economy. In early modern Europe, the standard wage narrative hypothesises a “little divergence” in which England and the Low Countries outperformed other economies between 1500 and 1750. However, our knowledge of Chinese wage history remains considerably limited when it comes to the “great divergence” debate between China and leading economies in Europe. This article contributes to building a wage series in Lower Yangzi China from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It shows that despite the continued increase of nominal wages over this period, real day wages witnessed a sharp decline between 1620 and 1640, followed by a substantial improvement after1650, until a quick decline between 1740 and 1760. A wage gap between the Lower Yangzi and London may open up in the early eighteenth century, but this implication still awaits further examination considering the measurement limits in the current approach. |
| Keywords: | wage; living standard; labour market; early modern China; great divergence |
| JEL: | N30 N15 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:115031&r= |
| By: | Douglas A. Irwin |
| Abstract: | The decade from 1985 to 1995 was an unprecedented period of declining barriers to global trade. The reform wave was especially pronounced in developing countries where overvalued currencies were eliminated, quantitative import restrictions dismantled, and import tariffs reduced. What accounts for this remarkable transformation in policy? This paper focuses on how many of these restrictions were imposed for balance of payments purposes. As the benefits of managing payments imbalances through exchange rate adjustments rather than import controls came to be understood, economists in high-ranking government positions had the opportunity to shift policy in this direction. Perhaps surprisingly, special interests played little role in fostering the move to more open markets. |
| JEL: | B17 F13 F31 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29973&r= |
| By: | Deter, Max; Lange, Martin |
| Abstract: | The empirical literature is inconclusive about whether a country's democratization has a long-lasting impact on former supporters or opponents of the bygone regime. With newly available individual-level data of former residents of the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR), we analyze how supporters and opponents of the socialist system performed within the market-based democracy after reunification. Protesters, those who helped to overthrow the socialist regime in the Peaceful Revolution show higher life satisfaction and better labor market outcomes in the new politico-economic system. Former members of the ruling socialist party and employees in state-supervised sectors become substantially less satisfied. These results do not seem to be driven by differential reactions in the post-transition period, but rather by the removal of discriminatory practices in the GDR. Additional results indicate that conformism in the GDR also explains political preferences over the almost three decades after the reunification of Germany. |
| Keywords: | East Germany,state socialism,transition,labor market,life satisfaction |
| JEL: | H10 N44 P20 D31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22012&r= |
| By: | Marta De Philippis (Bank of Italy); Andrea Locatelli (Bank of Italy); Giulio Papini (Bank of Italy); Roberto Torrini (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a historical account of economic trends in Italy and its two macro-regions, the Centre and North and the South, since the 1950s, and outlines several growth scenarios based on recent demographic projections and alternative hypotheses on future labour market and productivity paths. We document a progressive slowdown in GDP, particularly in the South, driven by productivity and, more recently, also by employment and capital accumulation dynamics. Going forward, given the reduction in the working age population, without improvements in productivity and labour force participation, the Italian economy – the southern one in particular – is projected to shrink from the second half of the current decade. Despite the unfavourable demographic trends, robust growth rates could still be achieved if productivity grew at the same rate as in other European countries and assuming a catching-up process of between the South and the Centre and North of the country. |
| Keywords: | regional disparities, demographic trends, economic growth, labour market, total factor productivity |
| JEL: | J11 R1 O40 O52 N10 E01 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_683_22&r= |
| By: | DIodato, Dario; Morrison, Andrea; Petralia, Sergio |
| Abstract: | More than 30 million people migrated to the USA between late-ninetieth and early-twentieth century, and thousands became inventors. Drawing on a novel dataset of immigrant inventors in the USA, we assess the city-level impact of immigrants' patenting and their contribution to the technological specialization of the receiving US regions between 1870 and 1940. Our results show that native inventors benefited from the inventive activity of immigrants. In addition, we show that the knowledge transferred by immigrants gave rise to new and previously not exiting technological fields in the US regions where immigrants moved to. |
| Keywords: | Age of Mass Migration; immigration; innovation; knowledge spill-over; patent; USA |
| JEL: | F22 O31 R30 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114920&r= |
| By: | Raphaël Franck |
| Abstract: | To analyze the impact of labor scarcity on technology adoption and innovation, this study uses the differential spread of cholera across France in 1832, 1849 and 1854, before the transmission mode of this disease was understood. The results suggest that a larger share of cholera deaths in the population, which can be causally linked to summer temperature levels, had a positive and significant shortrun effect on technology adoption and innovation in agriculture but a negative and significant short-run impact on technology adoption in industry. These results, which are not driven by migration, urbanization, religiosity or local financial intermediation, can be explained by the positive impact of labor scarcity on human capital formation. |
| Keywords: | epidemics, labor scarcity, technology adoption |
| JEL: | I15 N13 O33 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9528&r= |
| By: | Rising, James A.; Taylor, Charlotte; Ives, Matthew C.; Ward, Robert E.t. |
| Abstract: | A large discrepancy exists between the dire impacts that most natural scientists project we could face from climate change and the modest estimates of damages calculated by mainstream economists. Economic assessments of climate change risks are intended to be comprehensive, covering the full range of physical impacts and their associated market and non-market costs, considering the greater vulnerability of poor people and the challenges of adaptation. Available estimates still fall significantly short of this goal, but alternative approaches that have been proposed attempt to address these gaps. This review seeks to provide a common basis for natural scientists, social scientists, and modellers to understand the research challenges involved in evaluating the economic risks of climate change. Focusing on the estimation processes embedded in economic integrated assessment models and the concerns raised in the literature, we summarise the frontiers of research relevant to improving quantitative damage estimates, representing the full complexity of the associated systems, and evaluating the impact of the various economic assumptions used to manage this complexity. |
| Keywords: | ES/R009708/1; rantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment; at the London School of Economics; and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP; UKRI block grant |
| JEL: | R14 J01 N0 |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114941&r= |
| By: | Kris James Mitchener; Gonçalo Alves Pina |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and international commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870 to 1913. This era of capital mobility, nominal anchors, specialization and trade integration, exposed economies to multiple exogenous demand-side shocks. Specialization and trade integration subjected economies to a “commodity lottery” in the form of price fluctuations in world markets. Capital mobility and a currency peg exposed them to interest-rate movements originating in the U.K., the largest economy and linchpin of the classical gold standard. We identify (i) positive effects of commodity-export prices on real GDP and the domestic price level and (ii) negative effects of exogenous changes in short-term interest rates on the same variables. We then show that countercyclical interest rates, defined relative to export-price shocks, stabilized both output and the domestic price level. This stabilization was more effective for the price level than for output. |
| JEL: | E4 E52 F33 F41 N10 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29970&r= |
| By: | Ronicle, David (Bank of England and International Monetary Fund) |
| Abstract: | This paper brings together modern empirical techniques, a sign-restricted structural vector autoregression, with contemporary high frequency data to answer an old question – what role did macroeconomic policy play in Britain’s high unemployment and deflation in the years 1919 to 1938. Its specific innovation is to draw on a previously little-used weekly publication of public finance statistics, allowing the roles of taxation, public spending and monetary policy to be assessed side-by-side in a coherent framework. In a period of particularly unsettled policy the paper finds that policy shocks, both monetary and fiscal, made a material contribution to variation in prices and unemployment – and these played a central role in the two great recessions of the period, modern Britain’s most severe. Other policy choices could have delivered better outcomes for prices and unemployment – but these would have required making different choices in the face of conflicting objectives and some sharp trade-offs. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; fiscal Policy; economic history; Great Depression |
| JEL: | E52 E62 N14 |
| Date: | 2022–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:0968&r= |
| By: | Mhamed Ben Salah (IHEID, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva); Cédric Chambru (University of Zurich); Maleke Fourati (Mediterranean School of Business, South Mediterranean University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of exposure to colonial public primary education on contemporary education outcomes in Tunisia. We assemble a new data set on the location of schools with the number of pupils by origin, along with population data during the French protectorate (1881-1956). We match those with contemporary data on education at both district and individual level. We find that the exposure of local population to colonial public primary education has a long-lasting effect on educational outcomes, even when controlling for colonial investments in education. A one per cent increase in Tunisian enrolment rate in 1931 is associated with a 1.69 percentage points increase in literacy rate in 2014. Our results are driven by older generations, namely individuals who attended primary schools before the 1989/91 education reform. We suggest that the efforts undertaken by the Tunisian government after independence to promote schooling finally paid off after 40 years and overturned the effects of history. |
| Keywords: | Colonial investment; Primary education; Tunisia |
| JEL: | D10 N37 N47 |
| Date: | 2022–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp13-2022&r= |
| By: | Esteve, Vicente; Prats, María A. |
| Abstract: | We address the issue of the sustainability Spain's external debt, using data for the period 1970–2020. To detect episodes of potentially explosive behavior of the Spanish net foreign assets over GDP ratio and the current account balance over GDP ratio, as well as episodes of external adjustments over this long period, we employ a recursive unit root test approach. Our empirical analysis leads us to conclude that there is some evidence of bubbles in the ratio between Spanish net foreign assets and the GDP. In contrast, the evidence that the ratio between the Spanish current account balance and the GDP had explosive subperiods is very weak. The episode of explosive behavior identified in the position of net foreign assets during the period 2002–2015 was the result of the country's economic expansion 1995–2007. The results also show an external adjustment during the period 2008–2019 after the start of a cyclical economic recession. |
| Keywords: | explosiveness; external imbalances; intertemporal external budget constraint; recursive unit root test; sustainability |
| JEL: | F32 F36 F37 F41 C22 |
| Date: | 2022–03–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114887&r= |
| By: | David de la Croix (UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain, LIDAM - Louvain Institute of Data Analysis and Modeling in economics and statistics, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Frédéric Docquier (LISER - Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research); Alice Fabre (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - AMU - Aix Marseille Université); Robert Stelter (Unibas - University of Basel, MPIDR - Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) |
| Abstract: | We argue that market forces shaped the geographic distribution of upper-tail human capital across Europe during the Middle Ages, and contributed to bolstering universities at the dawn of the Humanistic and Scienti c Revolutions. We build a unique database of thousands of scholars from university sources covering all of Europe, construct an index of their ability, and map the academic market in the medieval and early modern periods. We show that scholars tended to concentrate in the best universities (agglomeration), that better scholars were more sensitive to the quality of the university (positive sorting) and migrated over greater distances (positive selection). Agglomeration, selection and sorting patterns testify to an integrated academic market, made possible by the use of a common language (Latin). |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration,Publications,Scholars,Discrete choice model,Universities,Upper-Tail Human Capital |
| Date: | 2022–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03652304&r= |
| By: | Dezy Kumari; Veena Naregal (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi) |
| Abstract: | From 1940s onwards and well into the 1970s, labour policy had revolved around principles of tripartism and protection of labour rights; in contrast, from the late 1980s onwards, policy discourse sought to legitmise a shift from protection of labour rights to a deregulation of labour laws. Major shifts in labour policy agendas were key to changes wrought by economic reforms of the early 1990s. Part I raises questions about how we may map the influence of and continuities in policy agendas and contexts. Is policy influence synonymous with implementation? Deviating from the dominant view within development economics, we argue that policy frameworks can have an enduring influence and impact quite apart from whether they are implemented. Additionally, this part also offers an account of tripartism as a founding structural motif in sustaining labour market dualism and determining the course of labour policy agendas in post-colonial India. Part II offers a historically oriented focus on two key policy reviews of this period between 1966 to 2006, namely reports of first National Commission of Labour [1966-1969] and the Second National Commission of Labour [1999-2002] . The records and reports of both these Commissions are analysed here in conjunction with key parliamentary and political debates of the period pertaining to labour policy. |
| Keywords: | Policy analysis, Labour market dualism, Liberalisation, Labour market reforms, Politics of knowledge |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awe:wpaper:423&r= |
| By: | Winfree, Paul |
| Abstract: | Newspapers in the post-Reconstruction South disseminated propaganda accusing Black voters of excessive public corruption. This paper analyzes new data showing that propaganda influenced election outcomes by weakening biracial political coalitions that challenged the Democratic Party immediately before the adoption of new constitutions legally disenfranchising Black voters. These new constitutions reinforced Democratic control of Southern governments that lasted decades into the twentieth century. Specifically, I find evidence that insinuations of public corruption motivated voters to the polls and split the support for biracial coalitions that may have challenged control of the Democratic Party. I also find evidence that large changes in exposure to propaganda were needed to influence election outcomes when voters were routinely exposed to propaganda. |
| Keywords: | disenfranchisement,corruption,election outcomes,Reconstruction,Jim Crow,media bias |
| JEL: | D73 N11 N41 N91 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202206&r= |
| By: | Luc Marco (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - LABEX ICCA - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UPC - Université Paris Cité - Université Sorbonne Paris Nord - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université Sorbonne Paris Nord); Cédric Poivret (UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée) |
| Date: | 2022–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03624585&r= |
| By: | Philipp Lieberknecht (Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt, Germany); Philip Vermeulen (Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at AUT University) |
| 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 _nding 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 _nding 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, savings rates, cointegration, error correction |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E25 N32 N34 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:202202&r= |
| By: | Thomas Philippon |
| Abstract: | Growth theory is based on the assumption of exponential total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Across countries and time periods I find that TFP growth is actually linear. Unlike the exponential model, the additive growth model provides useful medium-term forecasts of TFP. It also explains the TFP slowdown and the volatility puzzle, and predicts falling real interest rates. For the distant future the model predicts ever increasing increments in standards of living but with growth rates that converge to zero. For the distant past the model suggests that the size of TFP increments has changed in the late 1600’s, the early 1800’s, and around 1930. |
| JEL: | E22 N1 O11 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29950&r= |
| By: | Matthias Aistleitner (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Jakob Kapeller (Institute for Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany; Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Dominik Kronberger (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present results from of a large-scale replication of Hodgson and Rothman's (1999) seminal analysis of the institutional and geographical concentration of authors publishing in top economic journals. We analyze bibliometric data of more than 49.000 articles published in a set of 30 highly influential economic journals between 1990 and 2018. Based on a random sample of 3.253 authors, we further analyze the PhD-granting institutions of the authors under study to better scrutinize the claim of an institutional oligopoly. The findings confirm the long-term persistence of strong oligopolistic structures in terms of both, author affiliations as well as PhD-granting institutions. |
| Keywords: | sociology of economics, bibliometrics, concentration in science, replication study |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:136&r= |
| By: | Summers, Kate; Accominotti, Fabien; Burchardt, Tania; Hecht, Katharina; Mann, Liz; Mijs, Jonathan J.B |
| Abstract: | In most contemporary societies, people underestimate the extent of economic inequality, resulting in lower support for taxation and redistribution than might be expressed by better informed citizens. We still know little, however, about how understandings of inequality arise, and therefore about where perceptions and misperceptions of it might come from. This methodological article takes one step toward filling this gap by developing a research design—a blueprint—to study how people’s understandings of wealth and income inequality develop through social interaction. Our approach combines insights from recent scholarship highlighting the socially situated character of inequality beliefs with those of survey experimental work testing how information about inequality changes people’s understandings of it. Specifically, we propose to use deliberative focus groups to approximate the interactional contexts in which individuals process information and form beliefs in social life. Leveraging an experimental methodology, our design then varies the social makeup of deliberative groups, as well as the information about inequality we share with participants, to explore how different types of social environments and information shape people’s understandings of economic inequality. This should let us test, in particular, whether the low socioeconomic diversity of people’s discussion and interaction networks relates to their tendency to underestimate inequality, and whether beliefs about opportunity explain people’s lack of appetite for redistributive policies. In this exploratory article we motivate our methodological apparatus and describe its key features, before reflecting on the findings from a proof-of-concept study conducted in London in the fall of 2019. |
| Keywords: | economic inequality; perceptions; public opinion; deliberative focus groups; experimental methods; Springer deal |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2022–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114591&r= |
| By: | Pavon-Prado, David |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes another factor explaining why the American banking sector accumulates reserves (the reserves-cost mechanism) and its consequences mainly on inflation (reserves-cost channel). The mechanism claims that when banks are holding reserves more expensive than those available in the market, they obtain new reserves and accumulate those unused. In addition, the cost of the sources from where banks obtain their reserves determines banks’ decisions about the loans rate. This originates the reserves-cost channel, whereby banks’ decisions about the loans rate modify the impact of Fed’s policies on final targets such as inflation. I test the validity of the mechanism and channel estimating an SVAR for the period 1922-2020. The results confirm both hypothesis and show that when banks set a loans rate lower in relation to the short-term rate of reference, there is higher demand for credit, output and inflation levels. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, Federal Reserve, SVARs, excess reserves, reserves cost |
| JEL: | E4 E5 |
| Date: | 2022–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112797&r= |