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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2007‒01‒13
34 papers chosen by |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur |
| Abstract: | Ce papier constitue le onzième chapitre de l'"Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous présentons une analyse macroéconomique de la "longue stagnation" de la fin du 19e siècle à partir du marché financier. Nous discutons la thèse de l'éviction de l'investissement privé par les émissions publiques et suggérons que l'organisation imparfaite des marchés financiers a une plus grande responsabilité dans la mauvaise allocation de l'épargne. ### [english abstract: This paper is the eleventh chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title "Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He discusses the macroeconomics of the "great depression" of the late 19th century from the point of view of the capital markets. He discusses the thesis of a crowding out of private investment by the government and suggests the organization of financial markets had more responsibility in the misallocation of funds to the most productive uses.] ### |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-43&r=his |
| By: | Leslie Hannah (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In 1900 US business corporations were dominated by plutocratic family owners, while British and French quoted companies more commonly divorced ownership from control. 'Democratic' corporate governance rules explain some of Europe's precocity and London's exceptional listing requirement of large free floats was an important initial factor in manufacturing. Later in the twentieth century, the United States overtook France by further divorcing ownership from control. Business historians should direct their efforts to understanding why Britain was an early pioneer, with persistently wide shareholding, why America took decades to catch up, and why other countries did not build on their earlier lead. The pursuit of alternative (largely imagined) histories of national ownership differences could usefully be curtailed. |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2007cf460&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Esuke Taniyama (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University); Masaki Nakabayashi (Faculty of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we survey the literature on the role of communities in the development of a market economy in Japan. The role of communities has long been explored implicitly as well as explicitly in the literature on the Japanese economic history. In this survey we focus on the export industries in the early stage of the modern economic development. In the late 19th century, when the traditional legal and private institutions which had governed transactions, collapsed, and at the same time the modern institutions were still underdeveloped, it was highly possible that problems due to information asymmetry between sellers and buyers were serious. In fact, we can find many evidences of moral hazard and adverse selection in the documents of this period. On the other hand, since just after the opening up of the international trade in 1858, large amount of products including silk and tea, were exported to foreign countries. This implies some mechanisms worked to resolve the problems stemming from information asymmetry. In the case of silk industry, private associations based on local communities, prevented from moral hazard and adverse selection by establishing brands, which, in turn, were protected by the local government. This case suggests that a market economy was complementary with local communities, and that the function of local communities, in turn, was complemented by the role of local governments. |
| Date: | 2005–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2005cj133&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur |
| Abstract: | Ce papier constitue le septième chapitre de l'"Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous étudions les transformations profondes qui touchent le système bancaire au milieu du 19e siècle et nous nous interrogeons sur leur caractère substituable ou complémentaire avec le développement du marché des titres. Nous concluons en faveur de la deuxième hypothèse. ### [english abstract: This paper is the seventh chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title "Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He describes and explains the profound changes undertaken by the banking industry around the mid of the 19th century, and discusses whether they represented an alternative or a complement to the rise of the securities market; it concludes in favour of the second interpretation.] ### |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-42&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur; Carine Romey |
| Abstract: | Ce papier constitue le cinquième chapitre de l'"Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous examinons les raisons du développement d'un marché des titres (actions et obligations) à Paris au début du 19e siècle : en premier lieu les conditions économiques et légales de l'apparition d'émissions et de cotations de titres privés ; ensuite l'émergence d'un marché de titres étrangers, principalement publics. ### [english abstract: This paper is the fifth chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title "Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He discusses the reasons for the development of securities in the early 19th century in France. He presents first the economic and legal conditions for the rise of a market for private issues (mostly utilities) and then the development of a market for foreign (mostly government) securities in Paris.] ### |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-41&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | Long-term economic plans were one of the major issues of the economic policy in Japan from the late 1930s to the 1950s. In this paper, we focus on three long-term economic plans in this period, namely the Production Capacity Expansion Plan in 1939 and 1942, the Economic Reconstruction Plan in 1949, and the Five Years Plan for Economic Independence in 1955. Based on the original documents and the literature using them, the targets and the structures of the plans, the methods to draw up them, and the modes for coordinating activities of individual industries are examined from a comparative perspective. |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2005cj137&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | The central bank as the Lender of Last Resort (LLR) is faced with a trade off between the stability of the financial system and the moral hazard of banks. In this paper we explore how this trade off was dealt with by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in the pre-war period, and how LLR lending by the BOJ affected the financial system. In providing an LLR loan, the BOJ adopted the policy of favoring banks which already had a transaction relationship with the BOJ. Meanwhile, the BOJ was selective in having transaction relationship with banks, and it ceased the relationship, in case the performance of a transaction counterpart declined. The analysis of the bank exits data suggests that the BOJ could successfully bail out illiquid but solvent banks, and thereby avoided the moral hazard that the LLR policy might otherwise have incurred. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj145&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur |
| Abstract: | Ce papier constitue le premier chapitre de l'"Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous cherchons à montrer la diversité des éléments constituant le système financier au début du XIXe siècle et à comprendre la transition qui s'effectue avec celui du XVIIIe siècle, puis nous tentons de décrire et de comprendre l'évolution de ces éléments jusqu'aux années 1840. Ce chapitre est consacré aux trois types d'institutions qui dominent alors le marché des capitaux à long terme en dehors de la Bourse de valeur (à laquelle sera consacré le chapitre 2) : les banques, les notaires et le circuit du Trésor. ### [english abstract: This paper is the first chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title "Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He presents broadly the various main elements constituting the long term capital markets, excepting the stock-exchange (which is studied in the next chapter): the banks, the notaries and the network of the Treasury correspondents. We present the transition between the 18th and the 19th centuries and the main changes in the capital markets until the 1840s.] ### |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-40&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur; Nadine Levratto |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first result of a project aiming at understanding the history of bankruptcy law from an empirical economic perspective. By contrast with some proponents of "law and economics" (e.g.La Porta & alii, 1998), we consider that the impact of bankruptcy law on national economic performance cannot be deducted a priori from a simple description of the law, but can only be measured examining actual court practices and economic agents' behaviour. First of all, we believe that an empirical assessment of bankruptcy must start with a better understanding of what determines the proportions of debtor-creditors relationships which end-up in court (contrasting with those settled outside the courts, see Klapper, 2001). This simple question, which is not usually discussed, is a precondition for any interpretation of aggregate bankruptcy statistics. In this paper, we try to measure the impact of the changes in French bankruptcy law in the XIXth century focusing on the behaviour of economic agents as users of bankruptcy law for the sake of finding the best solution to their economic problems. Debtors used bankruptcy law in order to minimize their debt level when facing difficulties in servicing it, but they had to convince their creditors and/or the courts of their good faith, and faced the adverse effects of bankruptcy on their reputation and on the smooth functioning of their business. Creditors used bankruptcy law in order to force their debtors to pay, if they could. We use a new and still incomplete database constructed using both the yearly official statistics produced by the judicial system from 1830 on, and individual bankruptcy files from the Paris commercial court (Tribunal de commerce) archives in order to measure actual practices. The first part of the paper presents the evolution of French bankruptcy law during the XIXth century in its historical context. The second part briefly describes the theoretical model we use in order to understand the choices facing debtors and creditors in the face of financial distress. The last part proposes some major stylized facts concerning bankruptcies during that period and tries to understand their relationship with the legal evolution described before. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-47&r=his |
| By: | Satoshi Baba (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | At the turn of the 20th century Germany had much influences on Britain in the various areas (social insurance, the education system and town planning). At the same time, Britain had also exported the concept of Garden City to other countries including Germany. Indeed, this was a period in which international exchange on town planning became vigorous. The paper focuses on the perception of T.C.Horsfall of the German urban system and policy, and tries to compare with the urban policy in Frankfurt on the Main under F.Adickes and his theory on town planning. The conclusions are as follows: (1) ideas and thoughts of Adickes and Horsfall on urban system and town planning had a lot in common. Horsfall was supposed not to be inspired by German urban system, but rather to propose its introduction simply because he found some ideal elements in the German system. (2) there was however a great distance between the real German urban system and the English perception. The British perception of German urban system and policy was quite selective. Nevertheless it had actually influences on the town planning movement in Britain at that period. |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj153&r=his |
| By: | Kenji Iwata |
| Abstract: | After the Second World War, the productivity movement was spread out in Western European countries and in Japan. After that, the productivity movement was developed also in developing countries, e.g. India, and in some developed countries such as Germany and Italy until today. Japan Productivity Center (JPC) was established in 1955 and after that its local organizations were founded. So that JPC and its local organizations could have continued to exist for half a century, it is necessary for them to continually contribute to society. Its proof lies in the fact that the local organizations could be operated independently with smaller amount of financial support from JPC. I studied the current status of income and expenditure of Kansai Productivity Center (KPC), one of the local productivity centers of JPC. The result of my study clearly shows that KPC has been run with smaller amount of financial support from JPC. |
| Keywords: | Productivity movementD Local Productivity CenterD Financial IndependenceD Financial support. |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0701&r=his |
| By: | Maurice Obstfeld (University of California, Berkeley and CEPR and NBER) |
| Abstract: | The United States deficit on current account, now running at an annual rate of over $700 billion, has reached levels (as a percent of U.S. GDP) not seen since the first decades of the nineteenth century. The deficit is soaking up roughly three-quarters of the world's available external surpluses. Were the deficit to continue at this pace, the U.S. could ultimately converge to an external debt/GDP ratio around 1. Several analyses suggest that a rapid adjustment of the deficit toward balance would require a very sharp real depreciation of the U.S. dollar. This paper reviews the limitations of some optimistic arguments that predict instead a "soft landing" for the dollar. I focus in particular on the view that greater financial globalization allows the U.S. easily to run much bigger deficits for much longer periods. Some simple calculations based on real interest rate differentials suggest that markets could be underestimating the extent of necessary dollar depreciation. |
| Keywords: | Current account adjustment, international capital flows, exchange rates, |
| Date: | 2006–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ciders:1062&r=his |
| By: | Makoto Kasuya (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to analyze personnel management of Mitsui Bank, which was one of the largest banks in prewar Japan, from 1897 to 1943. Around 1900 it began to hire only new school leavers, although it hired many people in mid-career in the 19th century. As a result vacant positions came to be filled by employees under such positions. It took three kinds of people into employment: people with higher education, people with secondary education, and people with primary education. People, who received higher education, were mainly allocated to sections such as loan, screening, and foreign business and promoted to sub-manager and/or managers. People with secondary education were hired as probationers (minarai-in) and qualified as full-fledged employees in two or three years. People with only primary education were hired as trainees (renshusei) by a branch manager and qualified as probationers in three or four years. People with primary or secondary education were allocated to sections such as calculation and teller and promoted to section heads of a branch. Deposit section was filled by all three kinds of employees. Most employees, who stayed at the bank for more than twenty years, experienced three or four sections, though employees in foreign business section experienced fewer sections. When two branches were closed in 1933, fifty-six employees, of which number was nearly equal to the number of employees in the closed branches, were placed on a reserve list. Employees on the list were consisted of kinds of employees: employees, who had been with the bank for twenty-five or more years and had right to receive pension fund and employees, who had been ill and absent for a long time. The bank intended to decrease a surplus in personnel rapidly, but discharged people whose income were assured by the bank or people, who could not work on equal terms with others. This policy seemed to encourage employees to invest in firm-specific skills. |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj151&r=his |
| By: | Keiichiro Kobayashi (Research division RIETI); Masaru Inaba |
| Abstract: | We conducted business cycle accounting (BCA) using the method developed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2002a) on data from the 1980s--1990s in Japan and from the interwar period in Japan and the United States. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we find that labor wedges may have been a major contributor to the decade-long recession in the 1990s in Japan. We argue that the deterioration of the labor wedge may have been caused by sticky wages and monetary contraction, and it may have been prolonged by the continuation of asset-price declines through binding collateral constraints. Second, we performed an alternative BCA exercise using the capital wedge instead of the investment wedge to check the robustness of BCA implications for financial frictions. The accounting results with the capital wedge imply that financial frictions may have had a large depressive effect during the 1930s in the United States. This implication is the opposite of that from the original BCA findings. |
| Keywords: | Business cycle accounting; Japanese economy; capital wedge; Great Depression. |
| JEL: | E32 E37 O47 |
| Date: | 2006–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:313&r=his |
| By: | Joseph Cullen; Price V. Fishback |
| Abstract: | We examine whether local economies that were the centers of federal spending on military mobilization experienced more rapid growth in consumer economic activity than other areas. We have combined information from a wide variety of sources into a data set that allows us to estimate a reduced-form relationship between retail sales per capita growth (1939-1948, 1939-1954, 1939-1958) and federal war spending per capita from 1940 through 1945. The results show that the World War II spending had virtually no effect on the growth rates in consumption that we examined. This contrasts with Fishback, Horrace, and Kantor's (2005) findings of about half a dollar increase in retail sales associated with a dollar of New Deal public works and relief spending. Several factors contributed to this relative lack of impact. World War II spending often required a conversion of plants designed for civilian good production into military factories and back again over the 9 year period. Substantially higher federal tax rates that were paid by the majority of households imposed much stronger fiscal drags on the benefits of the spending. Finally, less of the military spending was earmarked for wages and use of locally produced inputs, which reduced the direct stimulus to the local economy. |
| JEL: | H50 N32 N42 N92 R11 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12801&r=his |
| By: | Makoto Kasuya (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the formation and modification of yakuin-shoyo in Japan. Yakuin signifies directors and auditors in these days. Soon after the Meiji Restoration, however, yakuin signified directors and white-collar workers, because National Bank Act of 1872 used this term in this way and many companies were established in accordance with the act. White-collar workers were stipulated in company's articles. Moreover, bonuses were paid not only to directors but also to white-collar workers, of which amounts were determined as a certain percentage of profits in some companies. White-collar workers were under the scheme of profit-sharing. After the commercial code, which was enforced in 1893, however, the influence of National Bank Act became weak and today's usage of yakuin prevailed very fast. Stipulations of articles on white-collar workers disappeared and bonuses to them were paid as costs after the reform of the commercial code of 1899. |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj152&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the historical development of the organization of the Japanese cotton spinning industry, from an evolutionary perspective. We focus on how "fitness" factors, namely, exit (death) rate, entry (birth) rate, growth rate and conversion rate of cotton spinning firms worked for the change in the share of those firms which integrated a spinning process and a weaving process. The former three factors represent the mechanism of "natural selection," which is common to the biological evolution, while the latter factor represents "imitation," which is not observed in the biological evolution. It was found that entries of new firms greatly contributed to the emergence of a new organizational form, and after the early stage, other fitness factors began to work. Then in the final stage, the contribution of imitation became dominant. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj144&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Michiru Sawada (Faculty of Eoconomics, Nagoya-Gakuin University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we identify networks among banks in pre-war Japan based on director interlocking data, and explore their implications. It was found that nearly 60% of banks had interlocking ties with at least one other bank. The large regional banks tended to have many interlocking ties. One of the effects of the inter-bank networks was reducing the probability of bank failure. This result is consistent with the descriptive evidences that banks supported a bank in the same network through supplying liquidity, in case it was faced with liquidity shortage. At the same time, a bank tended to choose a bank in the same network as a counterpart of consolidation, which suggests that inter-bank networks lowered the coordination cost of consolidation. |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj150&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Redding; Daniel Sturm |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the re-unification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard new economic geography model, we find that following division cities in West Germany that were close to the new border between East and West Germany experienced a substantial decline in population growth relative to other West German cities. We provide several pieces of evidence that the decline of the border cities can be entirely accounted for by their loss in market access and is neither driven by differences in industrial structure nor differences in the degree of war related destruction. Finally, we also find some first evidence of a recovery of the border cities after the re-unification of East and West Germany |
| Keywords: | economic geography, market access, german division |
| JEL: | F15 N94 O18 |
| Date: | 2006–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:283&r=his |
| By: | Eunan O'Halpin |
| Date: | 2007–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp196&r=his |
| By: | Tateshi Mori (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper tries to trace the way in which various methods were used in the payment of wages in Yawata Steel Works from 1900s to 1930s. The widely held idea behind the wage payment in the post WW‡U Japanese society has required companies to pay wages which not only guarantee the amount of money sufficient to lead a family life according to his/her social status but also reflect the ability and performance of each employee. The predecessors of this idea will be found in the personnel practices of companies before the WW‡U. The development of wage system in Yawata Steel Works, along with those implemented in the National Railways and ship-building works, will represent the case which will show how a wage policy which gave employees both the guarantee of standard life style and the incentives for higher efficiency was developed at an enterprise level. By the rule of the Steel Works, all the workers were supposed to receive wages calculated on a fixed daily wage rate which varied among workers corresponding to his experience and skill. This wage system resembled the time wages dominant in U.S.A in that wages were paid for the days workers were engaged in operations, but differed from the American system in that no hourly wage rate was fixed. A day rate fixed for each worker was reviewed occasionally, and in some times managers granted an increase in the rate. The daily wage rate was quite effectual in giving workers the stability of daily life but rather weak in making them work harder. The weakness of the daily wage rate system in giving work incentives became apparent soon after the Works started the system in 1900. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 created an opportunity for the Works to expand its production. To meet the growing demand, the managers of some rolling mills felt it necessary to use incentive plans to increase production. Under the condition where the maintenance of daily wage rate was mandatory, they had recourse to a method which combined the daily wage rate with premium bonus. Ten years later, another war necessitated the adoption of various kinds of incentives and benefits along with the daily wage rate. After years of implementing incentive plans in various mills, incentive wage system gradually became an integral part of the wage system of the Works. Some times a group piece rate system with the minimum guarantee of the daily wage rate was implemented, and in other cases the combination of the daily wage rate system and group incentive systems was preferred. In this way, the need to guarantee the standard life and the call for incentives were met in the payment of wages. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj148&r=his |
| By: | David Albouy (Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | In a seminal contribution, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) evaluate the effect of property rights institutions on national income using estimated mortality rates of early European settlers as an instrument for the risk of capital expropriation. Returning to their original sources, I find the settler mortality data suffer from a number of inconsistencies, comparability problems, and questionable geographic assignments. When various methods are used to deal with these issues, the first-stage relationship between mortality and expropriation risk is no longer robust and typically insignificant. Consequently instrumental variable estimates are unreliable and suffer from weak instrument pathologies. |
| Keywords: | economic history, development, institutions, growth, colonialism, property rights, European settlement, mortality, measurement error, weak instrument, |
| Date: | 2006–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ciders:1055&r=his |
| By: | Leo van Grunsven |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0611&r=his |
| By: | Luca Fiorito |
| Abstract: | This note deals with the origins of Samuelson's multiplier-accelerator model. In clarifying the historical background of the model, we will offer a brief reconstruction of John Maurice Clark’s contributions to the ideas underlying the accelerator, the multiplier, and their interaction. We will show that 1) Clark’s theoretical contributions were quite significant, and 2) that they emerged out of the intellectual movement known as American Institutionalism |
| JEL: | B22 B31 B25 E20 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:481&r=his |
| By: | Robert M. Hunt (Research Department Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Leonard I. Nakamura |
| Abstract: | Using Compustat data, we document that prior to 1980, large R&D per-forming firms had higher R&D intensity (R&D/Sales) than small firms in the same industries. Over the course of the next two decades, in these same in-dustries, small firms came to rival and even surpass large firms in terms of R&D intensity. During this period, corporate R&D intensity nearly doubled and most of the aggregate increase is due to the substantial increase in R&D intensity among small firms. Little of the change in composition is explained by changes in the industrial distribution of R&D. Why did small firms increase their R&D after 1980 and not before? We argue that, after 1980, small firms were able to compete on better terms in industries already dominated by large firms. We show that the patterns we observe in the data are consistent with a straightforward dynamic model of R&D with falling barriers to entry. But what barriers fell? We argue the shift in R&D intensity by small firms was largely due to the electronics revolution. Prior to the 1980s, a large corporate sales and clerical force was an essential factor for the rapid and widespread distribution of new products. This technology clearly favored large, established firms. But the electronics revolution obviated the need for these factors, making entry easier. |
| Keywords: | R&D, barriers to entry, innovation |
| JEL: | O3 |
| Date: | 2006–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:121&r=his |
| By: | Takao Kobayashi (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In this article I provide the definition of market efficiency in its broadest spectrum. Instead of surveying the vast literature on where the actual market conforms to the prediction of the finance theory and where it does not, I explore the conceptual issues surrounding the idea of efficient markets and give corrections to some common misunderstanding of the efficient market hypothesis. I also clarify how the notion of market efficiency is related to the standard model of asset pricing and point out the weakness of the current theory in explaining the operation of actual markets. |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj167&r=his |
| By: | Masayuki Tanimoto (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | It is the common knowledge that the modern textile factories, cotton spinning and silk reeling, which led the Japan's industrialization, based their labor foundation on the juvenile female workers. These female workers, however, might have made only a slight impact on the indigenous development based on the household economy as they had withdrawn from factories in their late twenties at the latest and tended to be embedded afterwards in the households of peasants' or urban non-agricultural occupations'. To consider the impact of the industrialization on the indigenous society in Japan, we should pay the special attention to the life courses of the male labor force. The aim of this paper is to give an example of the factory life of the male workers in the middle scale factory, by analyzing the primary source of the firm. The analysis of the archives revealed that the life course as a lifetime factory worker, though the mobility rate between factories was rather high, emerged even in the middle scale factory circa 1910. However, the wage for the worker over the age of twenty was irrelevant to the age, varied just with attendance and the wage level was relatively low in the local labor market. These fact findings indicate that the emergence of the fulltime and lifetime factory workers can not be fully accounted for by the explanation of existing literatures that emphasize the role of the skilled and high wage workers. |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2005cj134&r=his |
| By: | Masahiro Okuno (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Yasunori Watanabe (Manufacturing Management Research Center, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we define the product architecture as a design concept of a product system which needs complicated coordination among parts to achieve the user's objectives. And we will show that by using a modular architecture we can simplify (i) the functions of the product, and (ii) the relationship between orders and operations. These results lead to the conclusion that human beings, who behave in a context-dependent manner, can not only control highly complicated systems, but also design new systems via combination of division of labor and cooperation. |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2006cj149&r=his |
| By: | Shin-ichi Fukuda (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Munehisa Kasuya (Research and Statistics Department, Bank of Japan); Kentaro Akashi (Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | Trade credit is one of the most important sources of short-term external finance for small firms. Previous literature has focused mainly on the substitution of bank loans for trade credit during monetary tightening among many firms, but in this paper we investigate the role of trade credit during the banking crisis in Japan. The basic motivation is to explore whether the substitution hypothesis still holds even under serious financial turbulence. Our main results suggest that the substitution hypothesis held in Japan when the banking sector was healthy, but broke down during the banking crisis. More precisely, both bank loans and trade credit contracted simultaneously during the crisis. Deteriorated bank health might have been primarily responsible for the widespread declines of credit to small and medium size firms in Japan during the banking crisis. |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2006cf440&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur; Carine Romey |
| Abstract: | Ce papier constitue le treizième chapitre de l'"Histoire du marché financier français au 19e siècle" (à paraître en janvier 2007, publications de la Sorbonne). Dans ce chapitre, nous examinons et cherchons à expliquer les transformations majeures de l'offre de titres sur le marché financier français de la Belle Epoque : déclin des émissions publiques, montée d'émissions privées non seulement bancaires et d'infrastructures mais aussi industrielles, énorme développement des émissions étrangères privées et publiques. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-44&r=his |
| By: | Andrea Conte |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the emergence and evolution of major topics in economics of innovation. Throughout the paper, particular attention is devoted to the analysis of the cumulative aspects and complementarities between di_erent paths of research over time. Moreover, this survey highlights the crucial relationship between technological change (TC) and economic growth, and the way in which economics literature has dealt with this issue over time. The structure of this survey distinguishes between different decades and it identifies the key debates in the economics literature in each period. Although relevant steps have been made over time, a systematic and satisfactory integration of di_erent theoretical perspectives appears still to be found. In recent years, there have been more sophisticated empirical and theoretical attempts to deal with TC at several, and more disaggregated, levels of analysis. Notwithstanding such advancements, further research is needed to ensure the development of a more general theory of the determinants and the effects of TC. In turn, such theory has to deal primarily with an assessment of both the complementarities between the economic incentives and the internal mechanisms of the so-called "black box" (Rosenberg, 1994), and the heterogeneity which characterises the innovative process of firms across different sectors, countries and over time. |
| Keywords: | Technological change, economic growth, induced innovation, diffusion, evolutionary economics, path dependence |
| JEL: | O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2007-01&r=his |
| By: | Lars Boerner; Albrecht Ritschl (Economics Humboldt-University of Berlin) |
| Abstract: | The emergence of medieval markets has been seen in the literature as hampered by lack of contract enforcement and institutions like merchants’ communal responsibil-ity. Merchants traveling to a different marketplace could be held liable for debts in-curred by any merchant from their hometown. We argue that communal responsibility was effective in enforcing credit contracts and enabled merchants to use bills of ex-change in long distance trade even if reputation effects were absent. We implement this in the Lagos and Wright (2005) matching model of money demand, assuming that preference shocks follow a two-state Markov chain. We derive conditions under which cash and credit in the anonymous matching market coexist. For fixed but suffi-ciently low cost of credit, agents will pay with cash in low-quality matches, and use cash and credit in high-quality matches. The use of credit reduces the money holdup in the matching market and thus leads to Pareto improvements |
| Keywords: | Communal responsibility, matching, money demand, credit |
| JEL: | N2 E41 D51 |
| Date: | 2006–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:884&r=his |
| By: | Shin-ichi Fukuda (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Masanori Ono (Faculty of Economics, Musashi University) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to investigate why the choice of invoice currency under exchange rate uncertainty depends not only on expectations but also on history. The analysis is motivated by the fact that the U.S. dollar has historically been the dominant vehicle currency in developing countries. The theoretical analysis is based on an open economy model of monopolistic competition. When the market is competitive enough, the exporting firms tend to set their prices not to deviate from those of the competitors. As a result, a coordination failure can lead the third currency to be a less efficient equilibrium invoice currency. The role of expectations is important in selecting the equilibrium in the static framework. However, in the dynamic model with staggered price-setting, the role of history becomes another key determinant of the equilibrium currency pricing. The role of history may dominate the role of expectations when the firms are myopic, particularly in the competitive local market. It also becomes dominant in the staggered price setting when a small fraction of the new price setters are backward-looking. The result suggests the importance of history in explaining why the firm tends to choose the US dollar as vehicle currency. |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2006cf442&r=his |
| By: | Jerome Sgard |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of FDI on growth performance. We rely on a data set of Chinese cities between 1990 and 2002 to investigate the effects of FDI in the traditional growth regression framework using the GMM estimator for dynamic panels. Our growth model incorporates an explicit consideration of spatial dependence effects in the form of spatially lagged income and FDI. Our results reveal that Chinese cities take advantage not only of FDI flows received locally but also of FDI flows received by their neighbors. |
| Keywords: | bankruptcy, renegotiation, law history, legal origins |
| JEL: | G33 K12 N43 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2006-26&r=his |