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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2010‒11‒27
thirteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Ingrid Henriksen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Markus Lampe (Carlos III University, Madrid); Paul Sharp (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | We consider the relative contributions of changing technology and institutions for economic growth through the investigation of a natural experiment in history: the almost simultaneous introduction of the automatic cream separator and the cooperative ownership form in the Danish dairy industry from around 1880. Using a new database of statistics from creameries and the tool of stochastic frontier analysis, we find that both institutions and technology were important for the success of the Danish dairy industry and, by implication, the growth and early development of the Danish economy. |
| Keywords: | creameries; dairies; Denmark; development; economic growth; institutions; technology; stochastic frontier analysis |
| JEL: | L2 N5 O3 Q1 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1032&r=his |
| By: | Praveena Kodoth |
| Abstract: | Colonial judges and jurists interpreted matrilineal customs in terms of a theory of matrilineal law, which they shaped in the process of interpretation, rather than on the basis of existing practices. This paper analyses critically the process of interpretation of customs or what is referred to as the legal discourse on matriliny, from the standpoint of its own assumptions, i.e., the ideas and theory that shaped and governed it. It is argued that a theory of matrilineal law, informed by mid nineteenth century anthropological and comparative legal perspectives, gendered the detail of matrilineal law, emphasising rigidly older male control over property and excluding women, virtually, from all functions of authority. The legal discourse on matriliny then despite or precisely because of the implicit connection between women and matriliny, was not so much about matriliny or women but about what comprised ‘authentic’ custom. [Working Paper No. 338] |
| Keywords: | colonial law, customary practice, matriliny, gender, property rights |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3186&r=his |
| By: | Nigel Stapledon (School of Economics, The University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces series of house and land prices for Australia’s major capital cities for the period 1880-1970 which, spliced to modern data, give series spanning 1880-2010. The broad trends in prices for houses, land and rents highlight no significant movement in real prices for the first seventy years followed by a persistent and significant trend rise in prices. Cycles in house prices and housing activity played a major part in each of the seven major economic cycles in this period, the first associated with the 1880s boom/1890s depression and finishing with a major cycle which commenced in the mid-1990s. |
| Keywords: | Australia; house prices; land prices; gross dwelling rents; price and rent controls; housing cycles; economic cycles. |
| JEL: | G12 N97 R21 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2010-18&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | The Japanese aircraft industry, which operated on a very small scale before World War II, became Japan's largest manufacturing industry by the end of the war. In this paper, we explore the causes of the growth of the aircraft industry during this time by focusing on the No. 5 Works of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co. We find that during the war, the supply of basic inputs increased substantially: the labor force, equipment and "machinery parts" were in sufficient supply, and none of them were binding constraints on production. A binding constraint existed in the supply of "special parts." Put differently, aircraft production expanded as the supply of special parts increased. This increase in the supply of special parts and even faster growth in the supply of machinery parts came about through the expansion of supplier networks in terms of both the number of suppliers and the geographical area in which they were located. These findings imply that outsourcing played a key role in the rise of aircraft production in wartime Japan. |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2010cf755&r=his |
| By: | Alain Marciano |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we show that, in 1961 and before he had read "The Problem of Social Cost", Calabresi reached exactly the same conclusions as the one reached by Coase and summarized by Stigler as the "Coase theorem" but he believed that this result was valid only in the theoretical world of the economists. We also analyze how Calabresi's thought evolved, in particular including transaction costs in his reasoning, but nonetheless remained faithful to his conclusions about the practical validity of the Coase theorem. Calabresi's conclusions remained ignored by economists and by most of legal scholars until the early 1970s. It was only when scholars started to emphasize the unrealistic assumptions upon which rest the Coase theorem that they also started to pay attention to Calabresi. His works were quoted and essentially used to emphasize the limits of the Coase theorem. Calabresi and Coase were then put on the same footing; the works of the former presented as more complete and more practical than the works of the later. |
| Keywords: | Calabresi, economic analysis of law, Coase theorem, invariance, problem of social cost. |
| JEL: | A12 B2 B31 K0 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:26-2010&r=his |
| By: | Nicholas Horsewood; Somnath Sen; Anca Voicu |
| Abstract: | With the competitiveness of UK manufacturing declining steadily during the interwar period, and a significant rise in unemployment in the early 1930s, the UK government responded by introducing the General Tariff in February 1932 in an attempt to halt the increase in unemployment and the deterioration of the current account. This paper focuses formally on UK aggregate imports in the inter-war years, by estimating an import demand function on a new data set, and considers the effectiveness of this fundamental change in trade policy. |
| Keywords: | Trade policy, protectionism, General Tariff, British Trade, inter-war years, open economy macroeconomics |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F41 N14 N74 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bir:birmec:10-31&r=his |
| By: | G.C. Harcourt (Jesus College, Cambridge University and School of Economics, University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | In this paper I analyse how I became an economist and at the same time a democratic socialist and a Christian. I also explained how I became politically involved after my graduate studies at Cambridge in the late 1950s and started lecturing at Adelaide. When back in Cambridge, teaching in the 1960s this time, the war in Vietnam persuaded me to support direct action through the anti-war movement in South Australia when I returned to Adelaide in 1967. The 1960s and the events of the time did influence my approach to teaching and research. More concretely, I was persuaded that ideology and analysis were indissolubly mixed and that one’s stance should always be made explicit. How this influenced what I did in my years in Adelaide, and then from 1982 back in Cambridge, along with my earlier experiences, are all described in the paper. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy; Political and Religious Beliefs; Ideology and Analysis; Direct Action |
| JEL: | A0 A1 A2 B0 B2 B3 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2010-13&r=his |
| By: | Gazeley, Ian (University of Sussex); Newell, Andrew T. (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we reassess the food consumption and dietary impact of the regimes of food and food price control and eventually, food rationing, that were introduced in Britain during the First World War. At the end of the War the Sumner Committee was convened to investigate into effects of these controls on the diets of working class families. With the help of some of the original returns of an earlier 1904 survey, we are able to reassess the Sumner Committee findings. We find that although calories intakes did not fall for households headed by unskilled workers, there were substantial falls for skilled workers’ households. We also find that the price controls were particularly effective in changing the pattern of food spending. In particular, because the prices of many fruits and vegetables were allowed to rise very much more than other foodstuffs, there were large falls in the intakes of nutrients most associated with these foods, to average levels well below today’s recommended intakes. |
| Keywords: | First World War, Britain, food controls, food consumption, nutrition |
| JEL: | N34 N44 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5297&r=his |
| By: | Gianfranco Di Vaio (Research and Studies Area. Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Rome, Italy; Center for Labor and Economic Growth, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, Italy; Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Rimini, Italy); Kerstin Enflo (Department of Economic History, Lund University, Lund, Sweden) |
| Abstract: | This paper is the fi?rst to apply a fi?nite mixture model to a sample of 64 nations to endogenously analyze the cross-country growth behavior over the period 1870-2003. Results show that growth patterns were segmented in two worldwide regimes, the one characterized by convergence in per capita income, and the other by divergence. Interestingly, when three historical epochs are distinctly analyzed, in order to investigate the empirical link between globalization and convergence, the dynamics which dominated over the whole period seem to have emerged only during the post-1950 years. In contrast, the First Global Wave was marked by persistent heterogeneities. |
| Keywords: | Globalization; Economic growth; Income convergence; Multiple regimes; Mixture models |
| JEL: | C52 N10 O47 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:30_10&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Bazot |
| Abstract: | This paper aim to prove positive correlations between local banking, industry, innovation, and growth in the French classical period (1880-1913). Empirical works on GDP per capita growth gives positive correlation with local banking indicator.The relation is all the more strong since local banking tied on non agricultural economies. Thus, we open the black box and give evidence of local banking connection with innovation. We set the proof through panel data analysis on a spacial basis. Regard to so called German and English banks performances, local knowledge is a key point of industrialization, at least in the French experience. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2010-39&r=his |
| By: | Alan Fernihough (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical research has questioned the validity of using Malthusian theory in pre-industrial England. Using real wage and vital rate data for the years 1650-1881, I provide empirical estimates for a different region { Northern Italy. The empirical methodology is theoretically underpinned by a simple Malthusian model, in which population, real wages and vital rates are determined endogenously. My findings strongly support the existence of a `Malthusian' economy where population growth depressed living standards, which in turn influenced vital rates. In addition, I find no evidence of Boseru- pian effects as increases in population failed to spur sustained technological growth. |
| Keywords: | Economic History, Demographic Economics |
| Date: | 2010–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201037&r=his |
| By: | Hammermeister, Jan H.; Zimmermann, Jochen |
| Abstract: | OECD accounting regimes have significantly changed over the last three decades. Financial reporting rules for (public) companies have become more similar, and the ways in which accounting rules are set and enforced have converged. This paper explores to what extent (financial) globalisation drives convergence of financial reporting systems. We analyse globalisation developments and changes in accounting regulation in six large OECD countries: Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the USA. We identify changes in the demand and supply patters of accounting regulation, and present empirical evidence for the concurrence of financial globalisation and accounting harmonisation. A newly developed financial globalisation index and changes in accounting regulation are jointly analysed. We find that the analysed countries have experienced distinct waves of globalisation since the beginning of the 1970s and that these waves coincide with a delayed accounting harmonisation. -- Die Rechnungslegungssysteme der OECD-Staaten haben sich in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten erheblich verändert. Für kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmen sind die Rechnungslegungsregeln ähnlicher geworden, und auch die Wege zur Entwicklung und Durchsetzung von Rechnungslegungsnormen haben sich angeglichen. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, in welchem Ausmaß die (finanzielle) Globalisierung eine Konvergenz von Rechnungslegungssystemen vorantreibt. Analysiert werden Globalisierungsentwicklungen und Veränderungen von Rechnungslegungsregulierung in den sechs großen OECD-Staaten: Deutschland, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Japan, Kanada und den USA. Muster im Angebots- und Nachfrageverhalten bezüglich der Regulierung von Rechnungslegung werden untersucht, und dabei wird empirische Evidenz für einen Zusammenfallen von finanzieller Globalisierung und Harmonisierung der Rechnungslegung gefunden. Für die untersuchten Länder können seit Beginn der 1970er Jahre verschiedene Wellen der Globalisierung festgestellt werden, die, zeitlich versetzt, mit einer Harmonisierung von Rechnungslegung korrelieren. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:sfb597:125&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Noel Giraud (CERNA - Centre d'économie industrielle - Mines ParisTech); Augustin Maria (CERNA - Centre d'économie industrielle - Mines ParisTech) |
| Abstract: | L'étude du cas de la capitale indienne permet de mesurer l'étendue du problème que pose la prévalence de l'habitat informel dans les villes d'Asie du sud. L'analyse historique de l'évolution de la structure urbaine de Delhi depuis l'indépendance illustre le rôle des politiques de développement urbain, de planification et de résorption de l'habitat informel dans le cheminement jusqu'à une structure actuelle où l'informalité joue encore un rôle prépondérant et nullement décroissant. Elle constitue un obstacle essentiel à l'accès aux services urbains de base non seulement des plus pauvres, mais aussi d'autres fractions de la population. |
| Keywords: | habitat, habitat informel, structure urbaine, développement urbain |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00536862_v1&r=his |