|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2009‒07‒03
53 papers chosen by |
| By: | Flandreau, Marc; Gaillard, Norbert; Packer, Frank |
| Abstract: | During the 1930s, rating agencies took up a central role in regulatory supervision that they still have today. We study the process through which they received this regulatory license. The proximate cause for this changeover was the economic shock of the Great Depression. Exploring the performance of rating agencies in assessing the risks of sovereign debt, an important segment of the bond market, we show that superior forecasting capacities cannot explain the agencies’ growing importance. We argue that the agencies’ perceived lack of conflicts of interest (in contrast to other financial intermediaries) was a major factor in bringing them to the forefront of a new regulatory regime. |
| Keywords: | great depression; Rating agencies regulatory licence; sovereign debt |
| JEL: | F34 G28 N2 N40 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7328&r=his |
| By: | Seema Jayachandran; Adriana Lleras-Muney; Kimberly V. Smith |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the contribution of sulfa drugs, a groundbreaking medical innovation in the 1930s, to declines in U.S. mortality. For several often-fatal infectious diseases, sulfa drugs represented the first effective treatment. Using time-series and difference-in-differences methods (with diseases unaffected by sulfa drugs as a comparison group), we find that sulfa drugs led to a 25 to 40 percent decline in maternal mortality, 17 to 36 percent decline in pneumonia mortality, and 52 to 67 percent decline in scarlet-fever mortality between 1937 and 1943. Altogether, they reduced mortality by 2 to 4 percent and increased life expectancy by 0.4 to 0.8 years. We also find that sulfa drugs benefited whites more than blacks. |
| JEL: | I10 J11 N32 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15089&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo; Owen F. Humpage; Anna J. Schwartz |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses U.S. foreign-exchange intervention since the inception of generalized floating. We find that intervention was by and large ineffectual. We first identify which interventions were successful according to three criteria. Then, we test whether the number of observed successes significantly exceeds the amount that would randomly occur given the near-martingale nature of daily exchange-rate changes. Finally, we investigate whether the various characteristics of an intervention - its size, frequency, or coordination - can increase the probability of success. We find that intervention did tend to moderate same-day exchange-rate movements relative to the previous day, but this effect is not robust across subperiods or currencies and it occurs infrequently. Increasing the size of an intervention increases the probability of success, but no other variable consistently makes a difference, including coordinating interventions with other central banks. |
| Keywords: | Foreign exchange administration |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:0903&r=his |
| By: | Nye, John V.C. |
| Abstract: | Britain â contrary to received wisdom â was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century War with Louis XIV from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France for a quarter of a century. The creation of powerful protected interests both at home and abroad (notably in the form of British merchants, and investors in Portuguese wine) led to the imposition of prohibitively high tariffs on French imports -- notably on wine and spirits -- when trade with France resumed in 1714. Protection of domestic interests from import competition allowed the state to raise domestic excises which provided increased government revenues despite almost no increases in the taxes on land and income in Britain. The state ensured compliance not simply through the threat of lower tariffs on foreign substitutes but also through the encouragement of a trend towards monopoly production in brewing and restricted retail sales of beer (which began around 1700 and continued throughout the eighteenth century). This history is analyzed in terms of its effects on British fiscal and commercial policy from the early 1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. The result is a fuller, albeit revisionist account of the rise of the modern state that calls into question a variety of theses in economics and political science that draw on the naive view of a liberal Britain unilaterally moving to free trade in the nineteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural trade policies and war, economic history of Europe, alcohol taxes, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, H20, N40, N43, N53, O13, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50295&r=his |
| By: | Raghuram G. Rajan; Rodney Ramcharan |
| Abstract: | Economists have argued that a high concentration of land holdings in a country can create powerful interest groups that retard the creation of economic institutions, and thus hold back economic development. Could these arguments apply beyond underdeveloped countries with backward political institutions? We find that in the early 20th century, the distribution of land in the United States is correlated with the extent of banking development. Correcting for state effects, counties with very concentrated land holdings tend to have disproportionately fewer banks per capita in the 1920s. Banks were especially scarce both when landed elites' incentive to suppress finance, as well as their ability to exercise local influence, was higher, suggesting support for a political economy explanation. Counties with high land concentration and fewer banks also had higher interest rates and lower loan to value ratios, consistent with more restricted access to finance. Interestingly, counties with greater land concentration had fewer loan losses during the Great Depression, consistent with borrowers in those counties being less risky, even while they had more limited access to credit in the years leading up to the Depression. We draw lessons from this episode for understanding financial and economic development. |
| JEL: | G20 O16 O43 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15083&r=his |
| By: | Filipe Campante; Edward L. Glaeser |
| Abstract: | Buenos Aires and Chicago grew during the nineteenth century for remarkably similar reasons. Both cities were conduits for moving meat and grain from fertile hinterlands to eastern markets. However, despite their initial similarities, Chicago was vastly more prosperous for most of the 20th century. Can the differences between the cities after 1930 be explained by differences in the cities before that date? We highlight four major differences between Buenos Aires and Chicago in 1914. Chicago was slightly richer, and significantly better educated. Chicago was more industrially developed, with about 2.25 times more capital per worker. Finally, Chicago’s political situation was far more stable and it wasn’t a political capital. Human capital seems to explain the lion’s share of the divergent path of the two cities and their countries, both because of its direct effect and because of the connection between education and political instability. |
| JEL: | D0 N0 R0 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15104&r=his |
| By: | Swinnen, Johan F.M. |
| Abstract: | Dramatic changes took place in agricultural policies in Europe in the 19th and 20th century. In the 1860s European nations agreed on a series of trade agreements which spread free trade across the continent. In the 1960s European nations concluded an international agreement which spread heavy government intervention and protection against imports across the continent. This paper offers hypotheses as to the causes of these dramatic changes in agricultural protection. |
| Keywords: | Political economy, agricultural distortions, high-income countries, economic development of Europe, F13, N53, O13, Q18, P16, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50296&r=his |
| By: | Nanes, Ovidiu (Universitatea Spiru Haret, Facultatea de Finante si Banci) |
| Abstract: | The term money laundering comes from the alcohol prohibition in the U.S. when, in the 1920s, acquaintances groups Mafia leaders in Chicago, in particular, have opened public laundries, and to hide and blend funds with money from legitimate trade alcohol and other criminal activities. Although the term money laundering occurred in the twentieth century, the phenomenon has existed many centuries before: in some antique dealers hiding their wealth from more or less honest, investing them in other provinces or states, where they were not asked how they obtained, the medieval era, when usury was condemned by the Catholic Church, is considered capital murder and sin, all merchants and their camatarii mask interest on loans granted by various techniques, and the amounts obtained were invested in the business carried on. |
| Keywords: | money laundering; economic delinquency |
| JEL: | E52 H87 |
| Date: | 2009–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sphedp:2009_035&r=his |
| By: | Jose Luis Cardoso; Pedro Lains |
| Abstract: | Public finance is a major feature of the development of modern European societies, and it is at the heart of the definition of the nature of political regimes. Public finance is also a most relevant issue in the understanding of the constraints and possibilities of economic development. This paper is about the rise and development of taxation systems, expenditure programs, and dept regimes in Europe from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of World War I. Its main purpose is to describe and explain the process by which financial resources were raised and managed. We analyse nine countries or empires that are considered highly representative of the widest European experience on the matter and discuss whether there are any common patterns in the way the different European states responded to the need for raising additional resources to pay for the new tasks they were performing |
| Keywords: | Nineteenth Century Europe, Governments, Public finances, Taxation, |
| JEL: | G20 N23 N43 O16 O23 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp09-03&r=his |
| By: | Beyer, Andreas; Gaspar, Vítor; Gerberding, Christina; Issing, Otmar |
| Abstract: | During the turbulent 1970s and 1980s the Bundesbank established an outstanding reputation in the world of central banking. Germany achieved a high degree of domestic stability and provided safe haven for investors in times of turmoil in the international financial system. Eventually the Bundesbank provided the role model for the European Central Bank. Hence, we examine an episode of lasting importance in European monetary history. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how the Bundesbank monetary policy strategy contributed to this success. We analyze the strategy as it was conceived, communicated and refined by the Bundesbank itself. We propose a theoretical framework (following Söderström, 2005) where monetary targeting is interpreted, first and foremost, as a commitment device. In our setting, a monetary target helps anchoring inflation and inflation expectations. We derive an interest rate rule and show empirically that it approximates the way the Bundesbank conducted monetary policy over the period 1975-1998. We compare the Bundesbank's monetary policy rule with those of the FED and of the Bank of England. We find that the Bundesbank's policy reaction function was characterized by strong persistence of policy rates as well as a strong response to deviations of inflation from target and to the activity growth gap. In contrast, the response to the level of the output gap was not significant. In our empirical analysis we use real-time data, as available to policymakers at the time. |
| Keywords: | Inflation, Price Stability, Monetary Policy, Monetary Targeting, Policy Rules |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E41 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:7581&r=his |
| By: | Benjamin Chabot (Yale University and NBER); Christopher J. Kurz (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) |
| Abstract: | Why did Victorian Britain invest so much capital abroad? We collect over 500,000 monthly returns of British and foreign securities trading in London and the United States between 1866 and 1907. These heretofore-unknown data allow us to better quantify the historical benefits of international diversification and revisit the question of whether British Victorian investor bias starved new domestic industries of capital. We find no evidence of bias. A British investor who increased his investment in new British industry at the expense of foreign diversification would have been worse off. The addition of foreign assets significantly expanded the mean-variance frontier and resulted in utility gains equivalent to a meaningful increase in lifetime consumption. |
| Keywords: | Capital markets, Home bias, History, Victorian overseas investment |
| JEL: | E44 F22 G11 G15 N21 N23 O16 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:972&r=his |
| By: | Mariko Hatase (Director and Senior Economist, History Section, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (E-mail: mariko.hatase@boj.or.jp)); Mari Ohnuki (Associate Director and Economist, History Section, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (E-mail: mari. oonuki@boj.or.jp)) |
| Abstract: | Historical experience is often invoked in the modern debate on competition among reserve currencies, yet little is known about quantitative aspects or institutional features of reserve management. By drawing on newly obtained data on foreign exchange reserves, especially those broken down by currency, this paper explores the competition between the British pound sterling and the U.S. dollar for the status of leading reserve currency in Japan during the interwar period. We find that competition between these two currencies remained undecided and that their relative status alternated repeatedly. Historical materials and the results of econometric analysis suggest that the key factors explaining a choice of reserve currencies are trade volumes and the currency denomination of external debt. The latter criteria supported maintaining sterlingfs status as a reserve currency for the interwar period, reflecting its considerable share in debt service generated through issues that had been launched when London was the sole international market. The stability of potential reserve currencies is shown to be crucial as well. We also find evidence of institutional factors, which include taxation, foreign exchange controls, and restrictions on financial activities. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Exchange Reserves, Gold Exchange Standard, Exchange Rate, Trade Strucutre, Debt Structure, Japan |
| JEL: | F31 F32 F33 F34 N20 N25 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ime:imedps:09-e-15&r=his |
| By: | Howard Bodenhorn; Gregory Price |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the extent to which crime in the 19th century was conditioned on body weight. With data on inmates incarcerated in the Tennessee and Illinois state penitentiaries between 1831 and 1892, we estimate the parameters of Wiebull proportional hazard specifications of the individual crime hazard. Our results reveal that consistent with a theory in which body weight can be a source of labor market disadvantage, crime in the 19th century does appear to have been conditioned on body weight. However, in contrast to the 20th century, in which labor market disadvantage increases with respect to body weight, in the 19th century labor market disadvantage decreased with respect to body weight, causing individual crime hazards to decrease with respect to body weight. We find that such a relationship is consistent with a 19th century complementarity between body weight and typical jobs that required adequate nutrition and caloric intake to support normal work effort and performance. |
| JEL: | J24 K14 N31 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15099&r=his |
| By: | Bruce G. Carruthers (Northwestern University); Timothy W. Guinnane (Economic Growth Center,Yale University); Yoonseok Lee (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | The Uniform Small Loan Law (USLL) was the Russell Sage Foundation’s primary device for fighting what it viewed as the scourge of high-rate lending to poor people in the first half of the twentieth century. The USLL created a new class of lenders who could make small loans at interest rates exceeding those allowed for banks under the normal usury laws. About two-thirds of the states had passed the USLL by the 1930. This paper describes the USLL and then uses econometric models to investigate the state characteristics that influenced the law’s passage. We find that urbanization and state-level economic characteristics played significant roles. So did measures of the state’s banking system. We find no evidence that party-political affiliations had any effect, which is consistent with the USLL’s “progressive” character. Finally, we find little evidence that the passage of the USLL in one state made passage more likely in neighboring or similar states. If anything, the cross-state influences were negative. Our findings suggest that the Russell Sage Foundation only imperfectly understood the political economy of the USLL, and that a different overall approach might have produced a result closer to their aims. |
| Keywords: | Uniform law, small loans, consumer credit, usury laws |
| JEL: | N21 N22 I38 G21 G28 K23 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:971&r=his |
| By: | Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos |
| Abstract: | In the 1960s and 1970s Latin America was the setting of modernizing military coups and of the transition of their intellectuals from nationalism to associated dependency. In the 1950s two groups of public intellectuals, organized around ECLAC, in Santiago, Chile, and ISEB, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pioneer the thinking on Latin American societies and economies (including Brazil’s) from a nationalist standpoint. ECLAC mainly criticized the law of comparative advantage and its underlying imperialist implications; ISEB focused on the political definition of a national-developmentalist strategy. The idea of a national bourgeoisie was key to this interpretation of Latin America. The Cuban revolution, the economic crisis of the 1960s, and the military coups in the South Cone, however, made room for criticism of these ideas from a new interpretation – the dependency one. By fully rejecting possibility of a national bourgeoisie, two versions of the dependency interpretation (the “associated†and the “over-exploitation†interpretations) also rejected the possibility of a national-development strategy. Only a third one, the “national-dependent†interpretation, continued to affirm the need for and possibility of a national bourgeoisie and a national strategy. Yet, it was the associated-dependency interpretation that was dominant in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. |
| Date: | 2009–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:184&r=his |
| By: | William Breit |
| Abstract: | This paper uses as source material twenty-three autobiographical essays by Nobel economists presented since 1984 at Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) and published in Lives of the Laureates (MIT Press). A goal of the lecture series is to enhance understanding of the link between biography and the development of modern economic thought. We explore this link and identify common themes in the essays, relying heavily on the words of the laureates. Common themes include the importance of real-world events coupled with a desire for rigor and relevance, the critical influence of teachers, the necessity of scholarly interaction, and the role of luck or happenstance. Most of the laureates view their research program not as one planned in advance but one that evolved via the marketplace for ideas.[IZA DP No. 3956] |
| Keywords: | Nobel economists; economic thought; autobiography |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2046&r=his |
| By: | Klaus Desmet (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Stephen L. Parente (University of Illinois) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that an economy\'s transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth requires markets to reach a critical size, and competition to reach a critical level of intensity. By allowing an economy to produce a greater variety of goods, a larger market makes goods more substitutable, raising the price elasticity of demand, and lowering mark-ups. Firms must then become larger to break even, which facilitates amortizing the fixed costs of innovation. We demonstrate our theory in a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to England\'s long-run development and explore how various factors affect the timing of takeoff. |
| Keywords: | competition; industrial revolution; innovation; market revolution; unified growth theory |
| JEL: | N33 O14 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2009–05–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2009-06&r=his |
| By: | Parimala V Rao |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the nationalist discourse in Maharashtra spanning over forty years. This discourse argued that educating women and non-Brahmins would amount to a loss of nationality. The nationalists,led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak during 1881-1920 consistently opposed the establishment of girls’ schools, the imparting of education to non-Brahmins, and implementing compulsory education. They were also instrumental in defeating the proposals to implement compulsory education in nine out of eleven municipalities. By demanding ‘National Education’, the nationalists sought to reshape the meaning and scope of compulsory education advocated by reformers, as their national education consisted of teaching the Dharmashastras and some technical skills. The important source for this paper is Tilak’s own writings in his paper, the Mahratta.[CWDS] |
| Keywords: | Maharashtrian society; pre-colonial; Hunter Commission; Nationalist Opposition; education; women's education; Rakhmabai; national education; womens university |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2045&r=his |
| By: | Roberto Mazzoleni (Hofstra University, Department of Economics); Luciano Martins Costa Póvoa (Curso de Ciencias Economicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an historical analysis of the role of intellectual property rights and the accumulations of technological capabilities in Brazil. The aircraft, pharmaceutical and oil industries are analyzed in detail. While Brazil was then among the pioneers worldwide in recognizing the social value of inventive activities and the importance of protecting and rewarding the work of inventors, both the industrialization of the country and the development of technological capabilities have lagged significantly behind the creation of patent laws. Key reasons for this include the weak incentives for innovation in industries that grew behind the walls of protectionist policies and the second-order significance of IPR in the sectors where the accumulation of technological capabilities was a direct focus of other policy instruments. Este artigo apresenta uma análise histórica sobre o papel das leis de patentes na acumulação de capacidades tecnológicas da indústria brasileira. Em particular, são analisadas as indústrias aeronáutica, farmacêutica e de extração de petróleo. Embora o Brasil tenha sido um dos primeiros países a conceder patentes a inventores, tanto o processo de industrialização quanto o desenvolvimento de capacidades tecnológicas ficaram atrasados em relação à criação das primeiras leis de patentes. Entre as principais razões para este atraso estão os fracos incentivos para a inovação durante o período de substituição de importação e o papel apenas secundário das patentes em setores em que a acumulação de capacidades tecnológicas foi foco de outros instrumentos de política industrial. |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufb:wpaper:002&r=his |
| By: | Sung Ha Hwang (University of Massachusetts Amherst) |
| Abstract: | Contest success functions, which show how probabilities of win- ning depend on resources devoted to a conflict, have been widely used in the literature addressing appropriative activities (economics), international and civil wars (political science), and group con?ict and selection (evolutionary biology). Two well-known forms of contest success functions predict contest outcomes from the difference between the resources of each side and from the ratio of resources. The analytical properties of a given conflict model, such as the existence of equilibrium, can be drastically changed simply by altering the form of the contest success function. Despite this problem, there is no consensus about which form is analytically better or empirically more plausi- ble. In this paper we propose an integrated form of contest success functions, which has the ratio form and the difference form as limiting cases, and study the analytical properties of this function. We also estimate different contest success functions to see which form is more empirically probable, using data from battles fought in seventeenth-century Europe and during World War II. JEL Categories: C70, D72, D74 |
| Keywords: | Conflicts; Contest Success Functions |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2009-04&r=his |
| By: | Germà Bel (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | In the 1940s, when the Governor of Puerto Rico was appointed by the US President and the Puerto Rican government was answerable only to the US Federal government, a large state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector was established on the island. Public services such as water, transportation and energy were nationalized, and several new manufacturing SOEs were created to produce cement, glass, shoes, paper and chalkboard, and clay products. These enterprises were created and managed by government-owned corporations. Later on, between 1948 and 1950, under the island’s first elected Governor, the government sold these SOEs to private groups. This paper documents both the creation and the privatization of the SOE sector in Puerto Rico, and analyzes the role played by ideology, political interests, and economic concerns in the decision to privatize them. Whereas ideological factors might have played a significant role in the building of the SOE sector, we find that privatization was driven basically by economic factors, such as the superior efficiency of private firms in the sectors where the SOEs operated, and by the desire to attract private industrial investment to the Puerto Rican economy. |
| Keywords: | Public enterprise, Privatization, Industrial policy,Puerto Rico. |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:200915&r=his |
| By: | Harrison, Mark (Department of Economics, University of Warwick ; Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham ; Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | Attempting to satisfy their political masters in a target-driven culture, Soviet managers had to optimize on many margins simultaneously. One of these was the margin of truthfulness. False accounting for the value of production appears to have been widespread in some branches of the economy and some periods of time. A feature of cases of false accounting was that they commonly involved the aggravating element of conspiracy. The paper provides new evidence on the nature and extent of false accounting; the scale and optimal size of underlying conspiracies ; the authorities’ difficulty in committing to penalize it and the importance of political connections in securing leniency ; and the importance of herd effects, leading to correlated risk taking and periodic asset price bubbles in the socialist market where interpersonal trust was traded. |
| Keywords: | White-Collar Crime ; Performance-Based Incentives ; Trust, Soviet Economy |
| JEL: | D21 L51 N44 P21 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:909&r=his |
| By: | Clive L Spash (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces and explains how ecological economics has developed as a modern movement with its roots in environmentalism and radical environmental economics. Divisions and conflicts within the field are explored to show why material claiming to fall under the title of ecological economics fails to be representative of progress or the vision which drove socio-economic specialists to interact with ecologists in the first place. The argument is then put forward that ecological economics, as a social science engaging with the natural sciences, is a heterodox school of modern political economy. |
| Keywords: | Ecological economics, methodology, ideology, politics, history |
| JEL: | B0 B59 Q57 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cse:wpaper:2009-08&r=his |
| By: | Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya |
| Abstract: | We attempt to quantify economic reforms process in India during the period 1960 – 2006 in seven key areas viz., international finance, domestic finance, fiscal, trade and commerce, business regulations, public sector and social sector. Apart from aggregate measure of economic reforms, we also present the reforms index in these seven areas for the period 1960 – 2006. We begin with the methodology adopted to construct these indices and review the history of reforms process in India in general and in seven sectors from 1960 to 2006. We then present some important stylized facts on reforms. They show that reforms process has not always been uniform across the time in all the seven sectors. Reasonably liberal country was reversed back to regulations and restrictions during the mid-1960s – early 1980s. Though reforms process began in the 1980s they were not sufficient to undo the distorting policies adopted for over four decades. Amidst political chaos, economic crisis and social tensions, India began its true journey of reforming its economy. The period after 1990 witnessed a very significant opening of the economy to the world market. The change in reforms indices were the highest during the period 1991 – 2000. By the mid-2000, there was a widespread agreement and policy convergence in all seven sectors. However, there is much less convergence in public sector reforms because the privatization process has significantly slowed down and government control is many public sector undertakings are still reasonably high. Lastly, though there is significant variation in social sector reforms index, still there is a lot which needs to be done to include bottom sections of the society into the growth story of India. |
| Keywords: | Economic reforms; India. |
| JEL: | O53 P21 O2 |
| Date: | 2009–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:15901&r=his |
| By: | Goerlich, Francisco José; Mas, Matilde |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the influence of two classical drivers of population agglomeration: geography and history. Geography is identified by two co-ordinates: coastal position and altitude. The prominence of history is also captured by two characteristics: the initial size of the municipalities, and their status as the administrative centre of the area. In first instance we examine localization patterns, at a small geographical scale, according to these characteristics and present empirical evidence of the progressive population concentration along the coast, on the plains and in the regional (provincial) capitals; a process that has not finished in the present days. Next, we show that both drivers of population agglomeration, geography and history, are relevant for Spain and that they show an increasing explanatory power in accounting for population concentration. From a quantitative point of view the capital status factor shows the most prominent role. An exercise of conditional convergence shows that, even in the absence of these factors, we would have seen a significant amount of population concentration but at a smaller rate. Our reference is the census population data for Spanish municipalities for the period 1900-2001. Given the important changes in municipality structure, the eleven censuses have been homogenised according to the municipal structure of the 2001 Census. |
| Keywords: | Population; Municipalities; Census; Agglomeration |
| JEL: | J10 J11 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:15802&r=his |
| By: | Nadezhda Dimitrova Savova (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | Writing practiced as walking and walking as writing, I explore the spatial phenomenology of urban revitalization, “heritage,” and “cultural tourism” through the ways in which a Brazilian community imagines its history and constructs its presence in practices of local constructivism of a heritage site. The site is Providencia, Rio de Janeiro’s oldest favela (shantytown) and the “Open-Air/ Living Museum” that the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro established in the neighborhood, by building an open-air tourist trail. How in the practice of heritage-making do the “locals” imagine the “local” cultural heritage? Do they affirm or modify the institutional (municipality, state, and UNESCO) conceptualizations of tangible and intangible heritage? And how does tourism connect to the conjuring of community cultural revival and economic improvements? I develop the concept of heritage kinaesthetics as the moving bodily practices that set the built environment – to be revitalized - alive and are a counterpart of heritage aesthetics, or the immobile quality usually ascribed to a historic site. The five main heritage kinaesthetics approaches that residents and visitors of Providencia’s Museum apply to mix tangible and intangible heritage for development include: visual (photographing; seeing), ambulatory (walking around as exploration), performative (enacting intangible cultural heritage such as samba, capoeira, football, and music; tour guides’ performances), oral (telling stories/imagining history), and acoustic (creating and listening to place-specific sounds). The kinetic energy of heritage aesthetics is finally placed within the larger context of Brazilian cultural policy around the museum as a cultural center. |
| Keywords: | tangible and intangible cultural heritage, cultural policy, tourism, museum, space and place, social development |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cpanda:1164&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Kym |
| Abstract: | During the 1960s and 1970s most developing countries imposed anti-agricultural policies, while many high-income countries restricted agricultural imports and subsidized their farmers. Both sets of policies inhibited economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries, while doing little to assist small farmers in high-income countries. Since the 1980s, however, many developing countries began to reduce the anti-agricultural bias of sectoral policies, and from the early 1990s the European Union began to move away from price supports to more-direct forms of farm income payments. This paper summarizes a forthcoming book that seeks to explain this evolving pattern of distortions to incentives conceptually and econometrically by making use of new political economy theory and a new globally comprehensive and consistent set of estimates of the changing extent of annual distortions over the past half-century. The distortion estimates involve more than 70 products that cover around 70 percent of the value of agricultural output in each of 75 countries that together account for over 90 percent of the global economy, and they expose the contribution of the various policy instruments (both farm and non-farm) to the net distortion to farmer incentives. Such a widespread coverage of countries, products, years and policy instruments has allowed this collection of studies to test a wide range of hypotheses suggested by the new political economy literature, including the importance of institutions. As a set it sheds much new light on the underlying forces that have affected incentives facing farmers in the course of national and global economic and political development, and hence on how those distortions might change in the future â or be changed by concerted actions to offset political pressures from traditionally powerful vested interests. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural price and trade policies, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, F59, H20, N50, O13, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50306&r=his |
| By: | Juan Carmona Pidal; Joan Roses R. |
| Abstract: | To what extent were land markets the cause of Spanish agrarian backwardness? This paper uses new provincial data on average real land prices, together with provincial level variation in land productivity, to analyse land markets efficiency. To address this unresolved issue, we test whether land markets were spatially integrated and whether their prices can be explained with the present value model. Our results suggest that land prices converged across provinces and that variations were driven by fundamentals. In consequence, we conclude that institutional failure in land markets was not the cause of the relatively poor productivity performance of Spanish agriculture |
| Keywords: | Land prices determinants, Price convergence, Panel unit-roots, Present value model |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp09-02&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Croser, Johanna; Sandri, Damiano; Valenzuela, Ernesto |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes a new database that sheds light on the impact of trade-related policy developments over the past half century on distortions to agricultural incentives and thus also to consumer prices for food in 75 countries spanning the per capita income spectrum. Pricesupport policies of advanced economies hurt not only domestic consumers and exporters of other products but also foreign producers and traders of farm products, and they reduce national and global economic welfare. On the other hand, the governments of many developing countries have directly taxed their farmers over the past half-century, both directly (e.g., export taxes) and also indirectly via overvaluing their currency and restricting imports of manufactures. Thus the price incentives facing farmers in many developing countries have been depressed by both own-country and other countriesâ agricultural price and international trade policies. We summarize these and realted stylized facts that can be drawn from a new World Bank database that is worthy of the attention of political economy theorists, historians and econometricians. These indicators can be helpful in addressing such questions as the following: Where is there still a policy bias against agricultural production? To what extent has there been overshooting in the sense that some developing-country food producers are now being protected from import competition along the lines of the examples of earlier-industrializing Europe and Japan? What are the political economy forces behind the more-successful reformers, and how do they compare with those in less-successful countries where major distortions in agricultural incentives remain? And what explains the pattern of distortions across not only countries but also industries and in the choice of support or tax instruments within the agricultural sector of each country? |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural price and trade policies, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, F59, H20, N50, O13, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50305&r=his |
| By: | Swinnen, Johan F.M. |
| Abstract: | The 1980s and first half of the 1990s were a very active period in the field of political economy of agricultural protection. While the past decade has witnessed a slowdown in this area, there have been very important developments on political economy in other parts of the economics profession. This paper reviews key new insights and developments in the general political economy literature and draws implications for the study of the political economy of distortions to agricultural incentives. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural distortions, high-income countries, developing countries, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, N50, O13, P16, P26, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50308&r=his |
| By: | Jacques Poot (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on migration between Australia and New Zealand, which has exhibited a strong, but cyclical, net movement towards Australia since the late 1960s. A long-term historical perspective is taken. Trans-Tasman migration is also compared with inter-island migration within New Zealand. It is argued that differential economic development, driven by forces of globalisation, agglomeration and technological change, has been primarily responsible for the long-run changes in the distribution of population across the regions of Australasia. Asynchronous business cycles, demographic dynamics, perceptions, return migration and the high international mobility of New Zealanders (of whom one quarter of those aged 40-64 have lived abroad for a year or longer) are responsible for the short-run fluctuations. However, permanent and long-term migration is only a small fraction of total trans-Tasman population movement. Moreover, trans-Tasman migration has not offset New Zealand’s ability to recruit population through immigration. Over the last three decades, the outflow of half a million New Zealand citizens has been compensated by a net inflow of three-quarter million citizens from elsewhere. The number of New Zealanders in Australia is expected to continue to grow but the migration flows become increasingly diversified. One-third of the New Zealanders in Australia re-migrates within four years. Future trends will depend on New Zealand’s ability to boost productivity growth, the real cost of air travel, retirement migration and the impacts of climate change. |
| Keywords: | Trans-Tasman migration, Australia, New Zealand, economic development |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N97 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:09_05&r=his |
| By: | Stefan Bauernschuster (University of Jena); Oliver Falck (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Robert Gold (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena); Stephan Heblich (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of implicit institutions on the decision to become an entrepreneur. Implicit institutions are here defined as mindsets that have developed as the result of norms and traditions and we expect they will have an influence on risk attitudes and opportunity recognition. We conduct a natural experiment based on Germany's recent history and compare individuals born and raised in the former socialist East Germany (GDR) with their West Germany (FRG) counterparts. Our analysis confirms the expected difference in values between individuals from East and West Germany and also shows that these differences influence the probability of being self-employed. In the process of our analysis, we also sketch the ongoing economical transition process in East Germany, which severely disturbs a proper analysis of the institutional differences from a macro-perspective. |
| Keywords: | Implicit Institutions, Entrepreneurship, Socialism, Capitalism |
| JEL: | L26 A13 P39 |
| Date: | 2009–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-044&r=his |
| By: | Bezemer, Dirk J |
| Abstract: | Using an analogy with ancient Babylonia as its leading motive, this Viewpoint argues that the credit crisis is the symptom of an underlying problem. Fuelled by government policies, unprecedented debt levels were run up in industrialized countries over the last quarter century. Present policies of financial sector bailouts are not only unwise use of taxpayer’s money. They maintain economic structures opposed to what Classical liberals such as JS Mill envisaged as a free market economy. |
| Keywords: | credit crisis; debt; Babylonia; Mill; Liberalism |
| JEL: | B12 E51 E44 G28 A11 |
| Date: | 2009–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:15764&r=his |
| By: | Gazeley, Ian (University of Sussex); Newell, Andrew T. (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | We study the extent of overcrowding amongst British urban working families in the early 1900s and find major regional differences. In particular, a much greater proportion of households in urban Scotland were overcrowded than in the rest of Britain and Ireland. We investigate the causes of this spatial distribution of overcrowding and find that prices, especially rents and wages are the proximate causes of the phenomenon. In large cities, ports and cities specialising in old heavy industries high rent and overcrowding are more prevalent. Within cities, but not between cities, variations in infant mortality are clearly correlated with measures of overcrowding. All the findings are consistent with a core-periphery view of urban households choosing the location and size of housing to balance the health risks of overcrowding against the risks associated with lower and less regular incomes in places where rents are lower. |
| Keywords: | poverty, rent, overcrowding, Scotland, 1904, infant mortality, Bowley |
| JEL: | I10 N33 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4209&r=his |
| By: | Boone Ch.; Brouwer A.; Jacobs J.; Van Witteloostuijn A. |
| Abstract: | We explore the effect of population heterogeneity on organizational diversity. We do so in the context of a city community. Our argument is that organizational diversity will be positively affected by heterogeneity within the city’s population. We focus on a key aspect of population heterogeneity: religious pluralism. We test our logic with time series data for the Dutch city of Zwolle in the 1851-1914 period and find clear evidence for our key logic. |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ant:wpaper:2009003&r=his |
| By: | Mark Pinsky; Nancy Andrews; Paul Weech; Ellen Seidman; Rick Cohen |
| Abstract: | For thirty years, the community development finance industry—banks, credit unions, loan funds, community development corporations, venture funds, microfinance institutions—has quietly provided responsible, well-designed and wellpriced credit to lower-income people and communities. These entities have provided this credit with the support of the federal government, through the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the Low Income Housing and New Markets Tax Credits, the Small Business Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and various housing and facilities development programs. The industry has also been supported in its efforts by mainstream institutions such as banks and insurance companies, most frequently motivated by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) or by concern that CRA-like obligations would be imposed. Philanthropic foundations and supporters and state and local governments have also played their parts. The result: a community development finance industry that has survived and even prospered during recessions and political downdrafts. But the field, and the communities, businesses, and individuals it serves, are hurting now, and fearing bigger hurt. This paper examines this situation and focuses attention on what needs to be done. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfcw:2009-05&r=his |
| By: | H. N. Thenuwara |
| Abstract: | At this moment, the world is undergoing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1930s. It is not clear exactly which factors instigated the crisis, but there are many candidates; the formation of an asset bubble in the US, and its subsequent crash, continued excessive consumption in the US, irresponsible lending and borrowing, non-recognition of risks in some asset classes, productivity slowdown, debt default, regulatory inaction, and some policy mistakes. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current economic and financial crisis, examine global responses and document lessons. [Central Bank of Srilanka] |
| Keywords: | Crises; economic crisis; debt; productivity; financial crisis; Latin American Crises; Japanese Crisis; Crisis in Europe; East Asian Crisis; Global Fiscal Policy Response; Global Regulatory Response; recovery |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2065&r=his |
| By: | Emeteri Fabregat Galcerà (Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:uhewps:2009_07&r=his |
| By: | Pereira, Pedro L. Valls |
| Abstract: | This article investigates the existence of contagion between countries on the basis of an analysis of returns for stock indices over the period 1994-2003. The economic methodology used is that of multivariate GARCH family volatility models, particularly the DCC models in the form proposed by Engle and Sheppard (2001). The returns were duly corrected for a series of country-specific fundamentals. The relevance of this procedure is highlighted in the literature by the work of Pesaran and Pick (2003). The results obtained in this paper provide evidence favourable to the hypothesis of regional contagion in both Latin America and Asia. As a rule, contagion spread from the Asian crisis to Latin America but not in the opposite direction. |
| Date: | 2009–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:177&r=his |
| By: | Roald A.A. Suurs; Marko P. Hekkert; Ruud E.H.M. Smits |
| Abstract: | This study provides insight into the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in the Netherlands (1980-2007). This is done by applying a Technological Innovation System (TIS) approach. This approach takes the perspective that a technology is shaped by a surrounding network of actors, institutions and technologies. When a technology is in an early stage of development, a TIS has yet to be built up in order to propel technological progress. This paper focuses on the historical build-up of the hydrogen and fuel cell innovation system in the Netherlands. The research focuses on processes that accelerated or slowed down the developments of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. We suggest that this framework is helpful for actors who intend to accelerate the development and deployment of hydrogen and fuel cells in other countries. |
| Keywords: | fuel cell; technological innovation system; system functions; cumulative causation. |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uis:wpaper:0910&r=his |
| By: | Dobrin, Marinica (Universitatea Spiru Haret, Facultatea de Finante si Banci) |
| Abstract: | The concept of bancassurance has French origin but can be seen in German as Allfinanz and in English as Financial Services. The emergence of bancassurance concept can not be primarily attributed to any banks or insurance institutions. Approaching the two sectors was due to mutations occurring in the supply and demand of financial services. Convergence bankers and insurers to common platforms are determined for each country's local, and influence supervisors and reforms at the central level. Enlargement of the Euro and the proliferation of distribution channels with the Internet as a catalyst, causes pressure on the selling price of financial services. Thus, the combination of banks and insurance companies aimed primarily reducing costs and making activities. In the future there will not insurance companies or banks, but only unit complex to deal with the sale of financial products to customer needs. A step in strengthening relations between the two entities is the bancassurance which is one of the most effective ways of attraction and loyalty of customers, said Peter Schmidt, Event Producer of the Conference The Future of bancassurance, the Assurbanking & Affinity Business, place between 25-26 September 2008 in Prague. |
| Keywords: | Bancassurance; Financial integrated services; TAR system; Joint Ventures; Insurance Company; Holding; In-house banking; Loan portfolio; Life and non-life insurance; Bank deposits |
| JEL: | G22 |
| Date: | 2009–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sphedp:2009_033&r=his |
| By: | Aura Reggiani (University of Bologna, Italy); Sara Signoretti (University of Bologna, Italy); Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam); Alessandro Cento (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Milan Italy) |
| Abstract: | Air transport networks have exhibited a trend towards complex dynamics in recent years. Using Lufthansa’s networks as an example, this paper aims to illustrate the relevance of various network indicators – such as connectivity and concentration – for the empirical analysis of airline network configurations. The results highlight the actual strategic choices made by Lufthansa for its own net-work, as well in combination with its partners in Star Alliance. |
| Keywords: | air transport; complex networks; connectivity; concentration; Lufthansa |
| Date: | 2009–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20090048&r=his |
| By: | Theodore J. Joyce |
| Abstract: | Ten years have passed since John Donohue and Steven Levitt initially proposed that legalized abortion played a major role in the dramatic decline in crime during the 1990s. Criminologists largely dismiss the association because simple plots of age-specific crime rates are inconsistent with a large cohort affect following the legalization of abortion. Economists, on the other hand, have corrected mistakes in the original analyses, added new data, offered alternative tests and tried to replicate the association in other countries. Donohue and Levitt have responded to each challenge with more data and additional regressions. Making sense of the dueling econometrics has proven difficult for even the most seasoned empiricists. In this paper I review the evidence. I argue that the most straightforward test given available data involves age-specific arrest and homicide rates regressed on lagged abortion rates in the 1970s or indicators of abortion legalization in 1970 and 1973. Such models provide little support for the Donohue and Levitt hypothesis in either the US or the United Kingdom. |
| JEL: | K4 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15098&r=his |
| By: | Elena San Román (Dpto. de Historia e Instituciones Económicas II, Facultad de CCEE y EE., Universidad Complutense) |
| Abstract: | This work is focused on the origins and starting of Fierro’s Group. Ildefonso Fierro (1882‐1961) was one of the most prominent businessmen of Franco’s Regime. Fierro’s case study presents two features that distinguish it from other Spanish family firms born in the first half of the twentieth century: its high degree of diversification and its peculiar financial history. Prior to the commencement of the Franco dictatorship, Fierro has managed to form a diversified family business and has bought a bank to finance his industrial activity. This article analyzes how he achieved it and compares its path with that of the Japanese Zaibatsu (paper text in Spanish) |
| Keywords: | Business History, Family Business, New Firms, Grupo Fierro, Zaibatsu |
| JEL: | N84 M21 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:0902&r=his |
| By: | Rafael Castro Balaguer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales, Dpto. de Historia e Instituciones Económicas) |
| Abstract: | With unpublished sources, this paper draws the evolution of French banking in Spain between 1800 and 2000 and shows how French banks operated in the country, seeking, once and again, to consolidate business positions in a more and more difficult market. As the oldest foreign bank presence in the country, French banks strongly dominated the Spanish market in the 19th century. The turn of the 20th century and the Spanish economic evolution meant a sort of hibernation for French banks. They only did with it in the middle of the fifties. The second half of the 20th means for French banking the search of a place in the difficult Spanish bank market. Following the legislation and economy evolution, French banks diversified their financial supply in the sixties, lent capitals in the seventies and the eighties, and tried to compete with Spanish commercial banks in the nineties. Its evolution, for almost one hundred and fifty years, allows us to analyze an episode of foreign direct investment (FDI), focused, in this occasion, in transnational banking. This paper tries to contribute in the debate about persistent and changing patterns of FDI in a host country in the long run. |
| Keywords: | banking, FDI (foreign direct investment), Spain- France, 20th century |
| JEL: | N64 N74 N84 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:0802&r=his |
| By: | Enrique Llopis Agelán (Departamento de Historia e Instituciones Económicas II, Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Hector Garcia Montero |
| Abstract: | The presentation and analysis of a cost of living index and of different wage indices for the city of Madrid, covering the period 1680-1800 is the essential aim of this article. The accounts books of several charitable institutions have been the basic source of information for this research. The main conclusions of the work are as follows: 1) in the eighteenth century the evolution of prices in Madrid was quite similar to those in most western and central European cities; 2) yearly fluctuations in the cost of living were lower in Madrid than Palencia, Toledo and Seville; 3) in the second half of that century, Madrid was one of the cities of the old continent which showed the most abrupt fall in the wages of unskilled workers; 4) during the eighteenth century, the ‚'skill premium' increased quite noticeably in the Madrid service sector; and 5) the wage differential between men and women fell in that century, due, probably, to the considerable raise in the weight of female work in the important domestic service sector in Madrid |
| Keywords: | Prices; Wages; 18th century; Madrid |
| JEL: | N33 N63 N90 N93 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:0901&r=his |
| By: | Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos |
| Abstract: | Industrial entrepreneurs formed with public bureaucracy a political pact that was dominant in Brazil from the 1930s to the 1980s. National-developmentalism was the development strategy that they adopted. The economic and political disaster that represented the Plano Cruzado (1986) and the world hegemony of neoliberalism since the 1980s were determinant in their loss of power since the early 1990s. In this decade, FIESP and IEDI were unable to present an alternative discourse to the dominant neoliberal one. Since the 2000s, however, and particularly since the Lula administration, there are signals that they are reorganizing their discourse and giving it a macroeconomic content more consistent with the control of inflation and economic growth. |
| Date: | 2009–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:192&r=his |
| By: | David Pretel O’Sullivan (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | El artículo estudia el pensamiento tecnológico de las clases industriales españolas durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Se presta especial atención a la conceptualización y representación de la tecnología y la retórica empleada por aquellos que formaban parte del espacio de producción y de las redes de circulación de conocimiento tecnológico. En las décadas centrales del siglo XIX se empieza a generalizar entre estas clases un discurso apologético de la mecanización, el progreso industrial y la propiedad del invento. Este discurso se impregnaba de una retórica nacionalista que se veía estimulada por la creciente globalización económica, con sus consiguientes líderes y seguidores, y la competencia tecnológica escenificada en colosales exposiciones industriales. En concreto, se analiza el contenido de una publicación de carácter técnico, "La Gaceta Industrial", y el discurso, tanto explícito como implícito, de la documentación técnica y administrativa de los privilegios reales y de las patentes de invención solicitadas en España. |
| Keywords: | Progress; Techno-nationalism; Technological thought; "La Gaceta Industrial"; Patents |
| JEL: | N73 N01 Z1 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpapeh:200902&r=his |
| By: | Leandro Prados de la Escosura |
| Abstract: | Este ensayo examina el intento por parte de Jordi Maluquer de Motes de construir “una nueva y más sólida estimación del Producto Interior Bruto de España”. Para ello elabora una serie histórica del PIB a precios corrientes para 1850-1958. Además, extrapola retrospectivamente las series enlazadas de la contabilidad nacional con esta serie histórica a fin de obtener una nueva estimación del PIB a precios corrientes y constantes para 1850-2000. Errores de tipo estadístico y económico, como la utilización del IPC para reflactar el PIB en términos reales, invalidan su estimación. Además, debido al procedimiento aceptado para enlazar la contabilidad nacional, su propuesta de PIB a precios constantes da lugar a niveles de producto real por habitante que exageran la posición relativa internacional de la economía española. |
| Keywords: | Deflactores, Series enlazadas del PIB, Comparaciones internacionales del producto real per capita |
| JEL: | E01 N13 N14 O47 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp09-04&r=his |
| By: | Susana Martínez Rodríguez (Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Los textos de la Escuela Economista Española (segunda mitad del XIX) contienen una valoración del papel de las mujeres en la economía y la sociedad transgresor frente al discurso dominante, que defendía un único y exclusivo rol para todas las mujeres: el hogar y la maternidad. La mayoría de los miembros de esta corriente económica defienden el trabajo femenino en las fábricas, basándose en argumentos salariales; e incluso demandan una formación profesional para aquellas que en muchos casos ni tan siquiera eran alfabetizadas por ser mujeres. Los textos de estos economistas transmiten nuevas ideas sobre el papel económico y social de las mujeres en una España dominada por un discurso que negaba la necesidad del trabajo femenino para las familias trabajadoras. |
| Keywords: | discurso de la domesticidad, papel de las mujeres en las sociedades contemporáneas, Escuela Economista, España, XIX |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:uhewps:2009_02&r=his |
| By: | Villagómez, F. Alejandro (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México); Hernández, Juan Ignacio (CIDE) |
| Abstract: | Uno de los principales argumentos esgrimidos en la reforma al sistema de pensiones en México fue su impacto positivo en el ahorro. Este trabajo realiza una primera cuantificación de este impacto. Para ello se estima una serie de ahorro contractual generado por este programa, así como la relación que esta variable guarda con el ahorro privado voluntario. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que el ahorro contractual y los cambios en el ahorro público generados a diez años de la reforma al esquema de pensiones en México poseen efectos positivos en el ahorro y no existe un efecto compensación entre ahorro voluntario y el contractual. |
| Keywords: | pensiones, México, reforma, ahorro |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ega:docume:200902&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Croser, Johanna |
| Abstract: | The global database developed as an integral part of the World Bank's research project on Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, which is publicly available at www.worldbank.org/agdistortions, provides around 30,000 estimates of nominal rates oassistance to agricultural industries (NRAs) and associated consumer tax equivalents for 75 countries that together account for between 90 and 95 percent of the worldâs population, farmers, agricultural output and total GDP. They also account for more than 85 percent of farm production and employment in each of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the transition economies of Europe and Central Asia as well as all OECD countries. More than 70 products are included (an average of 11 per country), which represents around 70 percent of the gross value of agricultural production in each of the focus countries, and just under two-thirds of global farm production valued at undistorted prices over the period covered. Not all countries had data for all of the entire 1955-2007 period, but the average number of years covered is 41 per country. This paper provides details of the coverage of the database. It also summarizes the distributions of the NRAs by showing two sets of Box plots for 1955-84 and 1985-2007, one set for various regions of the world, the other for all the covered products for each focus country. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural price and trade policies, nominal rates of assistance, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, F59, H20, N50, O13, |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:wbadwp:50307&r=his |
| By: | Helmuth Yesid Arias Gómez |
| Abstract: | Este artículo pretende hacer un paralelo entre algunos aspectos de los sistemas de regionalización en Colombia y España, particularmente en los aspectos fiscales. En el caso colombiano se construyen algunos escenarios financieros que tratan de estimar el efecto fiscal de las recientes reformas al SGP y se resalta el carácter fuertemente centralista del proceso de regionalización colombiano. Con relación a España se describen los mecanismos institucionales que rigen el sistema de financiación autonómico, su naturaleza cuasi federal y particularmente, el papel del proceso autonómico en el retorno de España a la democracia. La última sección defiende la idea de que la descentralización fiscal ocurre en un contexto de construcción del Estado a nivel regional y local y responde a condicionamientos institucionales e históricos. |
| Date: | 2009–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000139:005665&r=his |