|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2010‒10‒23
23 papers chosen by |
| By: | Fernandez, Angel |
| Abstract: | This working paper aims to point out the ideas defended by the Spaniard Juan de Mariana in the early XVII century in his book “De Rege et Regis Institutione” and in his monetary treatise “De Monetae Mutatione”. Juan de Mariana not only summarized the ideas of the Spanish scholastics in such books, but also added powerful arguments to the defense of private property against the different forms of State coercion, a key concept in the political economics of an open society. That is to say, he bravely defended the strict protection of citizen's private property and subjective rights against the reason of State and tyrants. As a result of it, his book “De Rege et Regis Institutione” was burned in public in the year 1610 by order of the French Parliament. Furthermore, due to his monetary treatise, he was investigated by the court of Inquisition, which ordered his preventive imprisonment for one year. His work "De Monetae Mutatione" was persecuted in Europe by the Spanish ambassadors, who were ordered to recover and destroy all copies of his monetary masterpiece. There is no doubt that he was well known throughout Europe in the early decades of the XVII century, which was precisely when he clearly explained the main economic concepts which have been reflected in the works of later authors. |
| Keywords: | History of Economic Thought; School of Salamanca; Property Rights; Subjective Rights; Law and Economics. |
| JEL: | O43 K12 K11 B15 P16 |
| Date: | 2010–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:25591&r=his |
| By: | Julio Martinez-Galarraga (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | During the 19th century, the Spanish economy went through the early stages of the industrialisation process. This process developed in parallel to the growing market integration of goods and factors as a result of the liberal reforms and the construction of the railway network, with the subsequent fall in transport costs. In that period, there were major changes in the pattern of industrial location across Spain, with an increasing spatial concentration of industrial activities between the 1850s and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and a deeper regional specialisation. What were the forces behind these changes? On the theoretical side, the Heckscher-Ohlin model suggests that the spatial distribution of economic activity is determined by comparative advantage due to factor endowments. In turn, NEG models show the existence of a bell-shaped relationship between the process of market integration and the degree of concentration of industrial activity in the territory. This paper examines empirically the determinants of industrial location in Spain between 1856 and 1929 estimating a model that nests both Heckscher- Ohlin and NEG factors and tests the relative strength of these forces, since they are not mutually exclusive and might be at work simultaneously. The analysis of the results shows that both comparative advantage and NEG-type mechanisms were determinant drivers of industrial location in Spain, although their relative strength changed over time. |
| Keywords: | factor endowments, regional economics, new economic geography, industry location, market integration, economic history |
| JEL: | F1 N9 R12 N6 R3 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bar:bedcje:2010244&r=his |
| By: | Johan Fourie (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Dieter von Fintel (Department of Economikcs, University of Stellenbosch) |
| Abstract: | The arrival of European settlers at the Cape in 1652 marked the beginning of what would seemingly become an extremely unequal society, with ramifications into modern-day South Africa. In this paper, we measure the income inequality at three different points over the first century of Dutch rule at the Cape. What emerges from the study is a society characterised by severe inequality, with a relatively (and increasingly) poor farming population combined with pockets of wealth. The inequality is driven largely by wheat and, especially, wine production, which gave rise to an elite. Historical evidence supports our findings: Amongst others, the imposition of sumptuary laws in 1755 is closely correlated with a more segmented elite which includes both alcohol merchants and (wine) farmers. We compare these measures to those of other regions and time-periods in history. Although the exact level of inequality is determined to a large extent by our assumptions, the Cape Colony registers one of the highest Gini-coefficients in pre-industrial societies. This provides some support to verify the Engerman-Sokoloff hypothesis that initial levels of high inequality would give rise to growth-debilitating institutions, resulting in higher inequality and underdevelopment. |
| Keywords: | South Africa, VOC, Gini, wealth, comparative, Kuznets, Williamson |
| JEL: | N37 D31 D63 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers122&r=his |
| By: | Marc Flandreau, Juan Flores (IUHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a theory of conditionality lending in 19th century international capital markets. We argue that ownership of reputation signals by prestigious banks rendered them able and willing to monitor government borrowing. Monitoring was a source of rent, and it led bankers to support countries facing liquidity crises in a manner similar to modern descriptions of “relationship” lending to corporate clients by “parent” banks. Prestigious bankers’ ability to implement conditionality loans and monitor countries’ financial policies also enabled them to deal with solvency. We find that, compared with prestigious bankers, bondholders’ committees had neither the tools nor the prestige required for effectively dealing with defaulters. Hence such committees were far less important than previous research has claimed. |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp08-2010&r=his |
| By: | Seth Cluett (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | This working paper presents material taken from the second chapter of my dissertation, Loudspeaker: Acoustic Display as Aesthetic Material. My dissertation interrogates the complex status of the loudspeaker as a model for thinking about the nature of acoustic amplification in media technologies. In the vast majority of its applications, the loudspeaker is a component within other media the telephone, radio, television, video, computer, and public address systems and although there is a rich critical and historical literature treating each of these host media, the loudspeaker itself is often subsumed without reference under more abstracted treatments of sound generally. Thus, though the loudspeaker is variously discussed in art history, musicology, and media theory, it has never had a proper written history. Drawing on texts from critical theory, art and architectural history, and musical aesthetics, my thesis attempts to (re)situate the technology of the loudspeaker within existing media and aesthetic discourse. I aim to construct a media-critical history of the loudspeaker as a device by observing parallels between its use as a mass-market content delivery apparatus and its deployment by musicians and artists working in a range of media art, architecture, music, performance, and installation since the turn of the century. |
| Keywords: | music, authority, loudspeaker, ammpliication |
| JEL: | Z11 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cpanda:1253&r=his |
| By: | Haveman, Heather A.; Habinek, Jacob; Goodman, Leo A. |
| Abstract: | How has access to the public sphere been affected by the rise of mass media? We address this question by studying magazines in America from the eighteenth century, when all periodicals had small circulations, to the mid-nineteenth century, when many reached mass audiences. Specifically, we investigate how the social positions of those who founded new magazines changed over this period. Previous research is divided on whether the rise of mass media made it more difficult for non-elites and industry outsiders to launch new magazines by creating large and powerful publishing houses, or made it easier by fostering acceptance of magazines as legitimate cultural products and improving access to resources needed for publishing. Using Goodman’s (1972) modification of multiple regression for the analysis of categorical data, we examine whether magazine founders were increasingly drawn from social elite and from inside publishing, or from an increasingly broad swath of society. We find that magazine publishing was originally restricted to industry insiders, elite professionals, and the highly educated, but after the rise of mass media, most founders came from outside publishing and more were of middling stature – mostly small-town doctors and clergy without college degrees. We also find that magazines founded by industry insiders remained concentrated in the major publishing centers, while magazines founded by outsiders became geographically dispersed. |
| Date: | 2010–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:1600543&r=his |
| By: | S. R. Johansson (The University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Medical knowledge – defined broadly to include both its private and public forms – has been the driving force behind the historical transitions that have raised life expectancy in modern Europe. Advances in knowledge, rather than better nutrition (particularly the escape from caloric insufficiency) deserve greater emphasis because the very first groups to undergo anything recognizable as a secular rise in longevity were the rich and well fed, rather than the poor and chronically malnourished. At the beginning of the 16th century Europe’s ruling elites lacked virtually any reliable information about how best to use their ample material resources to prevent, manage and cure the ill-health that caused so many premature deaths among them. The advance of medical knowledge and practice accelerated in Western Europe after c. 1500, with a succession of discoveries that were quite useful (as judged by modern standards) in preventing disease, reducing “life-style” risks, managing illness and providing cures for a few debilitating and deadly diseases – severe dysentery, syphilis, malaria, scurvy and, finally, smallpox, being the principal diseases affected. Yet, access to most of the available innovative medical care remained closely restricted. Medical expertise was limited and highly priced, and many of the measures prescribed were unaffordable even to town-dwelling middling-income families in environments that exposed them to endemic and epidemic disease. Along with the poor, they therefore were left at a grave health disadvantage vis-à-vis adult members of the wealthy urban families to whose conditions the doctors were attending. The London-based ruling families of England in this epoch benefited to an exceptional degree among the European elites from the contemporary progress of medicine. Their improved chances of survival in adulthood were the major factor raising royal life expectancy at birth (males and females, combined) from 24.7 years for the cohort born during the 1600s to 49.4 years for those born during the 1700s. |
| Date: | 2010–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_085&r=his |
| By: | Amedeo Fossati (Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Genoa, Italy) |
| Abstract: | In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Italian scholars started using a scientific methodology to tackle public finance problems. Their studies are now referred to as the Italian tradition in public finance, whose origin is considered to lie with De Viti de Marco (1888). Shortly before his death in 1950, Fasiani, the last scholar of the Italian tradition, published an important article, in which he showed that, even if Pareto never worked in public finance, he had some influence on the Italian public finance scholars. This paper aims to draw scholarly attention to the above article and to direct new light onto Pareto’s methodological influence on the Italian tradition. Firstly it is pointed out that the Paretian idea of science deeply influenced the late scholars of the Italian tradition. Secondly, it is shown that Paretian sociology was less important than his economic methodology. Thirdly, it is argued that it is necessary to distinguish the problems concerning the explanation of public choices, from the problems of the economic effects of public policies; then, in a generalized Paretian approach, most public policies may be studied under economic hypothesis. It follows that much of the Italian tradition may be taken back to a Paretian approach, even if it remains true that, in the latter, public choices may be explained by sociological reasoning only. |
| Keywords: | Vilfredo Pareto; Italian tradition in public finance |
| JEL: | B00 B30 B4 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gea:wpaper:1/2010&r=his |
| By: | M. Kabir |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the public health intervention of the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the major ‘philanthropic’ organisations in the world during the twentieth century, in the erstwhile princely state of Thiruvithamkoor, which currently constitutes a part of Kerala state in India. It discusses the specific historical context of the intervention, the methods of intervention and their outcomes. [Working Paper No. 350] |
| Keywords: | Rockefeller Foundation, public health, Thiruvithamkoor |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2989&r=his |
| By: | Alessandro Vercelli |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the interaction between the Great recession triggered by the US subprime mortgages crisis and the twin crisis of macroeconomics. We argue that a major determinant of the subprime crisis and its dire consequences has been an approach to economics that is unable to deal with irregular phenomena. On the other hand, the unexpectedly deep financial crisis that has heavily affected the real economy makes clear that we need a major redirection of macroeconomic theory to make it able to explain, forecast and control irregular phenomena. The recent interaction between the crisis of the economy and the crisis of macroeconomics is analyzed in the light of similar preceding episodes in the 20th century: the Great contraction of the 1930s and the Great stagflation of the 1970s. |
| Keywords: | subprime crisis, Great recession, Great stagflation, Great contraction, Great depression, liberalism, laissez-faire, Keynesism, neoliberalism, new classical economics, theory and facts, scientific revolutions. |
| JEL: | A11 B22 B41 E E E G N1 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:depfid:0410&r=his |
| By: | Mikolaj Szoltysek (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Siegfried Gruber (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Sebastian Klüsener (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Joshua R. Goldstein (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Although historical Germany presents itself as a perfect laboratory for studying interregional demographic differences, the historical family structures in this part of the European continent remain largely unexplored. This study fills the existing gap, and documents the variability of living arrangements using measures of household complexity and entry into marriage based on aggregate data from published statistics of the German census of 1885. We examine the hypothesized roles of the degree of urbanization, agricultural systems, inheritance practices, religion, ethnic background, and demographic constraints on household structure and marital behavior by taking into consideration a wide range of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. We suggest the division of Germany in 1885 into two main regions with different family systems: an area with low household complexity and high levels of celibacy in the southwest, and an area with higher household complexity and lower levels of celibacy in the north and in the east. Contrary to our expectations, we found that many of the supposedly decisive cultural and socioeconomic differences that are known to have existed in late 19th-century Germany do not appear to have corresponded with these spatial patterns of family composition. |
| Keywords: | German Empire, family forms, historical demography |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2010-030&r=his |
| By: | Sue Bowden; Paul Mosley |
| Abstract: | We investigate the historical roots of poverty, with particular reference to the experience of Africa during the 20th century. We find that institutional inheritance is an important influence on current underdevelopment; but in addition, we argue that the influence of policies on institutions is highly significant, and that in Africa at least, a high representation of European settlers in land ownership and policy-making was a source of weakness, and not of strength. We argue this thesis, using mortality rates as a proxy for poverty levels, with reference to two settler colonies – Zimbabwe and Kenya – and two peasant export colonies – Uganda and Ghana. Our findings suggest that in Africa, settler-type political systems tended to produce highly unequal income distributions and, as a consequence, patterns of public expenditure and investment in human and infrastructural capital which were strongly biased against smallholder agriculture and thence against poverty reduction. Peasant-export type political systems, on the other hand, produced more equal income distributions, whose policy structures and, consequently, production functions were less biased against the poor. As a consequence, liberalisation during the 1980s and 1990s produced asymmetric results, with poverty falling sharply in the ‘peasant export’ systems, and rising in settler economies. These contrasts in the evolution of poverty in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we argue, can only be understood by reference to differences between the settler and peasant export economies, whose roots lie in political decisions taken 100 years previously. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:12510&r=his |
| By: | Jason Barr (Rutgers University, Newark, Department of Economics); Troy Tassier (Fordham University, Department of Economics); Rossen Trendafilov (Fordham University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Skyscrapers in Manhattan must be anchored to bedrock to prevent (possibly uneven) settling; this can potentially increase construction costs if the bedrock lies deep below the surface. The conventional wisdom holds that Manhattan developed two business centers—downtown and midtown—because bedrock is close to the surface in these locations, with a bedrock “valley” deep below the surface in between. We measure the effects of building costs associated with bedrock depths, relative to other important economic variables in the location of early Manhattan skyscrapers. We find that bedrock depths had very little influence on the creation of separate business districts; rather its poly-centric development was due to residential and manufacturing patterns, and public transportation hubs. We do find evidence, however, that bedrock depths influenced the placement of skyscrapers within business districts. |
| Keywords: | Skyscrapers, geology, bedrock, urban agglomeration |
| JEL: | D24 N62 R14 R33 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2010-09&r=his |
| By: | Vincent Bignon, Marc Flandreau (IUHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the economics of “badmouthing” in the context of the pre-1914 French capital market. We argue that badmouthing was a means through which racketeering journals sought to secure property rights over issuers’ reputation. We provide a theoretical study of the market setup that emerged to deal with such problems, and we test our predictions using new evidence from contemporary sources. |
| Keywords: | badmouthing, capital market, reputation. |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp15-2010&r=his |
| By: | Mihaly Laki (Institute of Economics - Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This article examines a case study of one industry in order to explore the factors influencing changing performance levels in the industries of post-socialist economies. It explores the influence on industrial performance of a number of once-only non-repetitive factors of market development that were typical of the transition period and compares them with longer term aspects of the market economy. The case that we discuss here is the development of the market for products of the Hungarian printing industry since the late 1980s. During the transition phase, privatisation, deregulation, the abolition of administrative distribution, and radical cuts in subsidies were all among the factors affecting this industry. Its supply chains also changed radically. However, these lost their importance after the transition had been completed and the long term processes of technical development and consumer behaviour became the main determinants of the behaviour of the printing companies. |
| Keywords: | printing industry, post-socialist economies, transition |
| JEL: | L11 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:1014&r=his |
| By: | Barry Eichengreen, Marc Flandreau (IUHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on the rise of the dollar as an international currency, focusing on its role in the conduct of trade and the provision of trade credit. We show that the shift to the dollar occurred much earlier than conventionally supposed: during and immediately after World War I. Not just market forces but also policy support – the Fed in its role as market maker – was important for the dollar’s overtaking of sterling as the leading international currency. On balance, this experience challenges the popular notion of international currency status as being determined mainly by market size. It suggests that the popular image of strongly increasing returns and pervasive network externalities leaving room for only one monetary technology is misleading. |
| Keywords: | international currency, trade credit, network externalities |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp16-2010&r=his |
| By: | Barbara Ingham; Paul Mosley |
| Abstract: | The paper is concerned with the decade and a half spent by the development economist, Arthur Lewis, at the London School of Economics between 1933 and 1948. It discusses the intellectual traditions of the institution that Lewis joined, and the various influences on the young economist. His research and teaching roles in London and Cambridge are covered, together with his work for the Fabian Society, and his links with the anti-imperialist movements centred in London in the 1930s and 1940s. The aim of the paper is to shed light on this highly significant but little known period in the career of the foremost development economist. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:12410&r=his |
| By: | B.A. Prakash |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to survey the published literature on agricultural development of Kerala covering a period between 1800 AD and 1980 AD. The Survey covers both academic studies as well as government publications. [Working Paper No. 220] |
| Keywords: | survey, published, literature, agricultural, development, Kerela, Academic Studies, Government, publications |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3044&r=his |
| By: | Jörg Bibow |
| Abstract: | This paper critically assesses the rise of central bank independence (CBI) as an apparent success story in modern monetary economics. As to the observed rise in CBI since the late 1980s, we single out the role of peculiar German traditions in spreading CBI across continental Europe, while its global spread may be largely attributable to the rise of neoliberalism. As to the empirical evidence alleged to support CBI, we are struck by the nonexistence of any compelling evidence for such a case. The theoretical support for CBI ostensibly provided by modeling exercises on the so-called time-inconsistency problem in monetary policy is found equally wanting. Ironically, New Classical modelers promoting the idea of maximum CBI unwittingly reinstalled a (New Classical) “benevolent dictator” fiction in disguise. Post Keynesian critiques of CBI focus on the money neutrality postulate as well as potential conflicts between CBI and fundamental democratic values. John Maynard Keynes’s own contributions on the issue of CBI are found worth revisiting. |
| Keywords: | Central Banks; Central Bank Independence; Democratic Accountability; Monetary Policy; Time-inconsistency |
| JEL: | B31 B59 E50 E61 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_625&r=his |
| By: | Herzer, Dierk; Strulik, Holger; Vollmer, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | We examine the long-run relationship between fertility, mortality, and income using panel cointegration techniques and the available data for the last century. Our main result is that mortality changes and growth of income per capita account for a major part of the fertility change characterizing the demographic transition. The change of mortality alone, however, is insufficient to explain the secular decline of population growth. For that interaction of mortality and income growth is needed. These results are robust against alternative estimation methods, potential outliers, sample selection, different measures of mortality, and the sample period. In addition, our causality tests suggest that fertility is both endogenous and exogenous. In particular, we find that an increase of fertility reduces growth of income per capita. |
| Keywords: | fertility; mortality; economic development; panel cointegration |
| JEL: | J1 J13 C23 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-456&r=his |
| By: | Estrada, Fernando |
| Abstract: | This paper work assesses the key aspects of a framework for research on revolutions. Our approach includes a heuristic based on an idea suggested by Marx in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”. From this maxim of Marx advance on conventional interpretations by postulating that the language and metaphors are a challenge in several respects: (1) The brain is a physical basis for understanding key political revolutions, (2) advances in neuroscience and language (Lakoff/Johnson/Narayanan) have allowed the reconstruction of conceptual frameworks in various fields, including philosophy, mathematics and politics (3) The language expressed in songs, text, flags, emblems, illustrations, slogans, speeches and rumors is key to represent and demonstrate loyalty to the idea of revolution and, more crucially, to “make” the revolution, (4) Metaphors are a powerful rational action in revolutionary processes. One interpretation of these can contribute to decipher, for example, how the brain are activated in neural systems that link past and present, how to operate the symbolic frameworks of language to influence political opinion, how metaphors interact with processes artificial simulation or how metaphors evolve in a revolution from simple metaphors. |
| Keywords: | Revolutions; French Revolution; Iran Revolution; Russian Revolutions; Language; Neural Theory |
| JEL: | B0 Z1 B1 A1 B14 B00 D7 D74 A19 P3 D8 D87 |
| Date: | 2010–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:25903&r=his |
| By: | Lambert, Caroline; Pezet, Eric |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the authors analyse the practices through which the management accountant is constructed as a knowing subject and becomes a producer of truthful knowledge. They draw on a case study of an automobile equipment manufacturer in which management accountants play a central role. The centrality of their role is evidenced, among other aspects, by their participation in online reverse auctions, wherein they commit themselves and their company to long-term projects. This commitment is constitutive of their identity as knowing subjects and organisational truth tellers. However, the “validity” of the truth they produce can only be assessed over time. They argue that, in this firm, monthly performance review meetings constitute “accounting trials of truth” during which peers and senior management crossexamine the accounting truth presented. Preparations for these trials of truth constitute a form of subjectivation whereby management accountants act on their ways of being in the firm and become the producers of truthful knowledge. |
| Keywords: | management accountant; subjectivation; trials of truth; Foucault |
| JEL: | M49 |
| Date: | 2010–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:0932&r=his |
| By: | Committee, Nobel Prize (Nobel Prize Committee) |
| Abstract: | Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 compiled by the Economic Sciences Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences |
| Keywords: | Search frictions; |
| JEL: | E24 J64 |
| Date: | 2010–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2010_001&r=his |