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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2009‒09‒11
eleven papers chosen by |
| By: | People's Union of Civil Liberties PUCL |
| Abstract: | The report attempts to contextualize the exploitation of those who are aafected by the one of the worst communal riots in history and document how dominant interests have used this situation of chronic poverty in Kandhamal to suit their agenda. |
| Keywords: | christains, literacy rate, history, communal riots, carnages, poverty, dispossession, land alienation, Orissa, Kandhamal, livelihoods, dalit, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2194&r=his |
| By: | Dimitri B. Papadimitriou; Greg Hannsgen |
| Abstract: | A wave of revisionist work claims that "anti-competitive" New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) greatly slowed the recovery from the Depression; in this new public policy brief, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen review these claims in light of current policy debates and cast into doubt the argument that NIRA and NLRA significantly prolonged or worsened the Depression. Moreover, Social Security, federal deposit insurance, and other New Deal programs helped usher in an era of relative prosperity following World War II. When it comes to combating the current recession and employment slump, it is the successful experience with relief and public works, and not the repercussions of pro-union and regulatory legislation, that offer the most relevant and helpful lessons. |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levppb:ppb_104&r=his |
| By: | Manuel Adelino; Kristopher Gerardi; Paul S. Willen |
| Abstract: | This article contributes new time series for studying the U.K. economy during World War I and the interwar period. The time series are per capita hours worked and average tax rates of capital income, labor income, and consumption. Uninterrupted time series of these variables are provided for an annual sample that runs from 1913 to 1938. We highlight the usefulness of these time series with several empirical applications. We use per capita hours worked in a growth accounting exercise to measure the contributions of capital, labor, and productivity to output growth. The average tax rates are employed in a Bayesian model averaging experiment to reevaluate the Benjamin and Kochin (1979) regression. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2009-18&r=his |
| By: | Agnès Festré (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis); Eric Nasica (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we provide an institutional interpretation of Schumpeter's analysis of money, banking and finance. This interpretation is founded on an overall investigation into Schumpeter's writings addressing those issues from different perspectives.In section 1, we discuss the widespread evolutionist interpretation of Schumpeter and rather assert an institutionalist perspective. In support of our interpretation, we highlight the specific role played by economic sociology in Schumpeter's methodological approach. Economic sociology, indeed, provides the foundations of a theory of institutions and institutional change, which is often undermined by the usual evolutionary interpretation. We believe, however, that taking this dimension seriously into account may have implications for our understanding of economic and institutional change in Schumpeter. Section 2 illustrates this general statement by focusing on Schumpeter's analysis of money, banking and finance, and their respective roles in the process of economic development. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter; Money; Credit, Financial system, Institutional change; Economic sociology |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00272405_v1&r=his |
| By: | Eric Tymoigne |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the trends in the financial sector over the past 30 years, and argues that unsupervised financial innovations and lenient government regulation are at the root of the current financial crisis and recession. Combined with a long period of economic expansion during which default rates were stable and low, deregulation and unsupervised financial innovations generated incentives to make risky financial decisions. Those decisions were taken because it was the only way for financial institutions to maintain market share and profitability. Thus, rather than putting the blame on individuals, this paper places it on an economic setup that requires the growing use of Ponzi processes during enduring economic expansion, and on a regulatory system that is unwilling to recognize (on the contrary, it contributes to) the intrinsic instability of market mechanisms. Subprime lending, greed, and speculation are merely aspects of the larger mechanisms at work. It is argued that we need to change the way we approach the regulation of financial institutions and look at what has been done in other sectors of the economy, where regulation and supervision are proactive and carefully implemented in order to guarantee the safety of society. The criterion for regulation and supervision should be neither Wall Street's nor Main Street's interests but rather the interests of the socioeconomic system. The latter requires financial stability if it's to raise, durably, the standard of living of both Wall Street and Main Street. Systemic stability, not profits or homeownership, should be the paramount criterion for financial regulation, since systemic stability is required to maintain the profitability--and ultimately, the existence--of any capitalist economic entity. The role of the government is to continually counter the Ponzi tendencies of market mechanisms, even if they are (temporarily) improving standards of living, and to encourage economic agents to develop safe and reliable financial practices. See also, Working Paper No. 573.1, "Securitization, Deregulation, Economic Stability, and Financial Crisis, Part I: The Evolution of Securitization." |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_573_2&r=his |
| By: | Diego A. Comin; Bart Hobijn |
| Abstract: | This note accompanies the Cross-country Historical Adoption of Technology (CHAT) dataset. CHAT is an unbalanced panel dataset with information on the adoption of over 100 technologies in more than 150 countries since 1800. The data is available for download at: http://www.nber.org/data/chat We discuss the main aim of CHAT, its scope and limitations, as well as several ways in which we have used the data so far and ways to potentially use the data for other research. |
| JEL: | N0 O0 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15319&r=his |
| By: | Hoogendoorn, B.; Pennings, H.P.G.; Thurik, A.R. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University) |
| Abstract: | Despite the growing attention for social entrepreneurship as a scholarly field of research, it is still at a stage of infancy. Academic research in the past two decades was primarily dedicated to establish a conceptual foundation which resulted in a considerable stream of conceptual papers. Empirical articles are gradually appearing since the turn of the century. Although they are still by far outnumbered by conceptual articles, they are of considerable significance for social entrepreneurship to evolve as a field of scientific inquiry. This paper reviews 14 empirical research studies on social entrepreneurship, classifies them along four dimensions and summarizes research findings for each of these dimensions. Preliminary to the analysis of the empirical researches, an overview of four schools of thought is presented that serves as a background for interpreting the empirical inquiries. |
| Keywords: | social entrepreneurship;definition;empirical research;school of thought |
| Date: | 2009–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:1765016558&r=his |
| By: | Michelle Connolly; Kei-Mu Yi |
| Abstract: | South Korea's growth miracle has been well documented. A large set of institutional and policy reforms in the early 1960s is thought to have contributed to the country's extraordinary performance. In this paper, the authors assess the importance of one key set of policies, the trade policy reforms in Korea, as well as the concurrent GATT tariff reductions. They develop a model of neoclassical growth and trade that highlights two forces by which lower trade barriers can lead to increased per worker GDP: comparative advantage and specialization, and capital accumulation. The authors calibrate the model and simulate the effects of three sets of tariff reductions that occurred between the early 1962 and 1995. Their main finding is that the model can explain up to 32 percent of South Korea's catch-up to the G7 countries in output per worker in the manufacturing sector. The authors find that the effects of the tariff reductions taken together are about twice as large as the sum of each reduction applied individually. |
| Keywords: | Trade ; Tariff ; Economic policy |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:09-19&r=his |
| By: | Drasch, Katrin (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Matthes, Britta (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Event history calendars (EHC) have proven to be a useful tool to collect retrospective autobiographic life course data. One problem is that they are only standardized to some extent. This limits their applicability in large-scale surveys. However, in such surveys a modularized retrospective CATI design can be combined with EHC. This data revision module is directly integrated into the interview and used as a data revision module. Hereby insights from cognitive psychology are applied. The data revision module stimulates the respondent's memory retrieval by detecting both temporal inconsistencies, such as gaps, and overlapping or parallel events. This approach was implemented in the IAB-ALWA study (Work and Learning in a Changing World), a large-scale representative telephone survey with 10,000 respondents. By comparing the uncorrected data with the final data after revision, we investigate to what extent the application of this data revision module improves data quality or more precisely, time consistency and dating accuracy of individual reports." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Biografieforschung - Methode, empirische Sozialforschung, Lebenslauf |
| JEL: | C42 C81 |
| Date: | 2009–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:200921&r=his |
| By: | Leandro Prados de la Escosura; Joan R. Roses |
| Abstract: | We investigate human capital accumulation in Spain using alternative approaches based on the concept of ‘labor quality’ and on the idea of education. We, then, assess the effect of human capital accumulation on labor productivity growth and discuss the implications of the different measures for TFP growth. While long-run trends in human capital are similar with either measure, the skill premium approach fits better Spanish historical experience. Human capital provided a positive albeit small contribution to labor productivity growth facilitating technological innovation. Broad capital accumulation and efficiency gains appear complementary in Spain’s long-term growth. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Growth, Labor Productivity, Total Factor |
| JEL: | E24 J24 O47 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp09-06&r=his |
| By: | Michele Boldrin; Adrian Peralta-Alva |
| Abstract: | The extreme volatility of stock market values has been the subject of a large body of literature. Previous research focused on the short run because of a widespread belief that, in the long run, the market reverts to well understood fundamentals. Our work suggests this belief should be questioned as well. First, we show actual dividends cannot account for the secular trends of stock market values. We then consider a more comprehensive measure of capital income. This measure displays large secular fluctuations that roughly coincide with changes in stock market trends. Under perfect foresight, however, this measure fails to account for stock market movements as well. We thus abandon the perfect foresight assumption. Assuming instead that forecasts of future capital income are performed using a distributed lag equation and information available up to the forecasting period only, we find that standard asset pricing theory can be reconciled with the secular trends in the stock market. Nevertheless, our studyleaves open an important puzzle for asset pricing theory: the market value of U.S. corporations was much lower than the replacement cost of corporate tangible assets from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Stock market ; Asset pricing |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2009-42&r=his |