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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2009‒09‒05
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Alexander, Apostolides |
| Abstract: | The overall objective of the paper is to evaluate the growth performance of Cyprus during the interwar (1921-38) period. Pamuk and Williamson assure us that with the exception of Mandated Palestine, the economic performance of Mediterranean states was poor. In order to evaluate the performance of Cyprus, we construct Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates. Estimating the GDP of Cyprus will indicate whether the island was a typical lacklustre growth performer or a non-typical success story. |
| Keywords: | GDP; Historical National Accounting; Cyprus; Economic History; Interwar |
| JEL: | N00 E01 F43 |
| Date: | 2009–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17051&r=his |
| By: | Christopher P. Reicher |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a series of shocks to hit the US economy during the Great Depression, using a New Keynesian model with unemployment and bargaining frictions. Shocks to long-run inflation expectations appear to account for much of the cyclical behavior of employment, while an increase in labor’s bargaining power also played an important role in deepening and lengthening the Depression. Government spending played very little role during the Hoover Administration and New Deal, until the rise in military spending effectively brought an end to the Depression in 1941. With the economy at or near the zero interest rate bound, interest rates and monetary aggregates provided a misleading indicator as to the true stance of inflation expectations; in fact, conditions were deflationary all throughout the 1930s in spite of high money growth and low interest rates. The experience of the 1930s offers lessons to modern policymakers who find themselves in a similar situation |
| Keywords: | Great Depression, expectations, deflation, zero bound, liquidity trap |
| JEL: | E24 E31 E52 E65 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1543&r=his |
| By: | Janda, Karel |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an econometric estimation of the influence of individual social-economic, natural, and technological determinants of the credit provision for the agriculture in the case of the Czech Republic. The regression model is based on the microeconomic model of the maximization of the bank’s profit. The results of this paper show that the support of agricultural credit provided by Guarantee Fund goes primarily to the areas with a good conditions for the development of agricultural production. On the other hand, the direct government subsidies are targeted primarily to the areas with non-favourable natural conditions. |
| Keywords: | Subsidies; Guarantees; Rural Development |
| JEL: | R51 Q14 |
| Date: | 2009–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17005&r=his |
| By: | Libman, Alexander |
| Abstract: | The paper provides an extremly simple model of the interaction of international and internal conflicts. However, unlike the dominant approach in the literature, which looks at these two types of conflicts as substitutes in terms of investments of agents, this paper analyzes the situation when these investments are complementary. In this case the existence of internal conflict may in fact trigger international war. The discussion is then placed in the context of the democratic peace theory. |
| Keywords: | Democratic peace; internal conflict; international conflict |
| JEL: | D74 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17041&r=his |
| By: | Alvin Silk; Charles King III |
| Abstract: | We analyze changes in concentration levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services industry using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s quinquennial Economic Census and the Service Annual Survey. Heretofore largely ignored, these data allow us to redress some of the measurement problems surrounding estimates found in the existing literature Firm level concentration as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index varies across the sectors comprising the industry, but all are within the range generally considered as indicative of a competitive industry. At the holding company level, the four largest organizations account for about a quarter of the industry’s total revenue, a share lower by an order of magnitude than that frequently cited in the trade press. |
| Keywords: | advertising agencies, advertising and marketing services, concentration levels |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:09-16&r=his |
| By: | Stark, Oded |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a set of reflections on what gives rise to remittances, which constitute a major part of the impact of migration on economic development in the migrantsâ own countries. The collage of reasons presented serves to illustrate that remittance behavior is the outcome of an intricate interplay between the preferences and interests of migrants and their families. |
| Keywords: | Reasons for remitting, Consumer/Household Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, D31, F22, F24, J61, O12, O15, |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:52800&r=his |
| By: | Giovanni Dosi; Richard R. Nelson |
| Abstract: | This work prepared for B. Hall and N. Rosenberg (eds.) Handbook of Innovation, Elsevier (2010), lays out the basic premises of this research and review and integrate much of what has been learned on the processes of technological evolution, their main features and their effects on the evolution of industries. First, we map and integrate the various pieces of evidence concerning the nature and structure of technological knowledge the sources of novel opportunities, the dynamics through which they are tapped and the revealed outcomes in terms of advances in production techniques and product characteristics. Explicit recognition of the evolutionary manners through which technological change proceed has also profound implications for the way economists theorize about and analyze a number of topics central to the discipline. One is the theory of the firm in industries where technological and organizational innovation is important. Indeed a large literature has grown up on this topic, addressing the nature of the technological and organizational capabilities which business firms embody and the ways they evolve over time. Another domain concerns the nature of competition in such industries, wherein innovation and diffusion affect growth and survival probabilities of heterogeneous firms, and, relatedly, the determinants of industrial structure. The processes of knowledge accumulation and diffusion involve winners and losers, changing distributions of competitive abilities across different firms, and, with that, changing industrial structures. Both the sector-specific characteristics of technologies and their degrees of maturity over their life cycles influence the patterns of industrial organization ? including of course size distributions, degrees of concentration, relative importance of incumbents and entrants, etc. This is the second set of topics which we address. Finally, in the conclusions, we briefly flag some fundamental aspects of economic growth and development as an innovation driven evolutionary process. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Technological paradigms, Technological regimes and trajectories, Evolution, Learning, Capability-based theories of the firm, Selection, Industrial dynamics, Emergent properties, Endogenous growth |
| Date: | 2009–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2009/07&r=his |