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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2006‒09‒11
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Frankema, Ewout (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | The colonial heritage of high land inequality in Latin American countries is still, after nearly two centuries of independence, one of the crucial underpinnings of its persistent high levels of income inequality. This paper assesses the colonial strategy of land redistribution in a global comparative perspective using new and existing land inequality figures in an OLS regression framework. The two central questions addressed are 1) what explains the cross-country variation in land inequality at the end of the colonial age? 2) how does initial land inequality relate to current income inequality? The main conclusions of the paper are that geography and factor endowments play a less decisive role than often argued in literature. And second, controlling for regional fixed effects, initial land inequality explains a substantial part of the present cross-country variation in current income inequality. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:rugggd:gd-81&r=his |
| By: | Kurt Dopfer |
| Abstract: | Length 44 pages |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2006-10&r=his |
| By: | Hansjörg Klausinger (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics & B.A.) |
| Abstract: | The point of departure of this study is that in the 1930s Oskar Morgenstern, well-known as the co-founder of game theory, was preoccupied by his activities in Austrian economic policy, possibly even more so than with his project to revolutionize economic theory. The main questions to be examined in this regard are, first, to what extent Morgenstern's advice did conform to the teachings of the Austrian school and, second, if he really exerted an influence on economic policy-making in Austria during this period. In order to answer this question the paper draws to a large part on unpublished sources from the Oskar Morgenstern Papers and uses them as a basis for determining Morgenstern's role in a few critical episodes of Austrian economic policy-making. |
| JEL: | B25 B30 N14 |
| Date: | 2006–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp098&r=his |
| By: | Norberg, Peter (Dept. of Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | From the 1980s and onwards, markets have been prime movers in an individualist, market-liberal transformation, and now take part in the every-day life of the general public. Similar to economic development, also personal identity has become fuelled by consumption. Production and work turn more peripheral vis-à-vis the self-project. Instead of the process of production, objects of consumption, in which to express one’s individuality become situated at the centre of business-life. Consumers with values of expressive individualism view seemingly non-conformist products as attractive. <p> Swedish finance is here analysed as a formerly conservative sector of business that because of an increasingly focus on speed opens up to notions of counter-culture and even revolution. |
| Keywords: | brokerage firms; co-optation; counter-cultures; ethical consumption; revolution |
| Date: | 2006–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:hastba:2006_007&r=his |
| By: | Mauricio Hernández Monsalve; Munir A. Jalil Barney; Carlos Esteban Posada |
| Abstract: | Dos rasgos característicos de muchas economías desarrolladas y en desarrollo de los últimos dos decenios han sido la gran expansión de sus agregados monetarios, por encima del aumento de su ingreso nominal, y la reducción de sus tasas de inflación. Suponiendo que la conjunción de ambos rasgos indica aumentos significativos de la demanda de saldos reales de dinero, en este documento se reporta un intento de estimación de la demanda de saldos reales de moneda doméstica mediante un ejercicio realizado bajo el método denominado “mínimos cuadrados ordinarios dinámicos en panel” para una muestra de 63 países a lo largo del período 1975- 2002. De acuerdo con los resultados, los aumentos del gasto en consumo privado, la caída de los diferenciales de inflación con respecto a Estados Unidos y la reducción de la tasa de interés en Estados Unidos (tasa a tres meses sobre Treasure bills) contribuyeron a aumentar la demanda de dinero doméstico en el período mencionado. |
| Date: | 2006–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:001043:002648&r=his |
| By: | Juan Carlos de Pablo |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:327&r=his |
| By: | Lars Jonung (European Commission); Ludger Schuknecht (European Central Bank and Center for Financial Studies); Mika Tujula (European Central Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the boom-bust cycle in Finland and Sweden 1984-1995 with the average boom-bust pattern in industrialized countries as calculated from an international sample for the period 1970-2002. Two clear conclusions emerge. First, the Finnish-Swedish experience is much more volatile than the average boom-bust pattern. This holds for virtually every time series examined. Second, the bust and the recovery in the two Nordic countries differ markedly more from the international pattern than the boom phase does. The bust is considerably deeper and the recovery comes earlier and is more rapid. We explain the highly volatile character of the Finnish and Swedish boom-bust episode by the design of economic policies in the 1980s and 1990s. The boom-bust cycle in Finland and Sweden 1984-1995 was driven by financial liberalization and a hard currency policy, causing large pro-cyclical swings in the real rate of interest transmitted via the financial sector into the real sector and then into the public finances. |
| Keywords: | Boom, Bust, Asset Price Cycles, Real Interest Rates, Financial Crisis, Finland, Sweden |
| JEL: | E32 E62 E63 |
| Date: | 2006–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp200613&r=his |