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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2010‒12‒18
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Batiz-Lazo, Bernardo; Krichel, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper adds to the growing literature on the formation of online communities from an historical perspective by telling of the emergence and development of a service for speedy, online distribution of recent additions to the broad literatures on economics and related areas called NEP: New Economics Papers as well as the online community that grew around it. We provide details of the social and technological challenges for its construction as well as the evolution of its governance. The development of NEP provides an illustrative example for the kind of new business models that have emerged as the Internet has been used by creative minds to provide existing services in a new way. |
| Keywords: | digital libraries; online communities; open source; New Economic Papers (NEP); RePEc |
| JEL: | N8 A31 L63 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27085&r=his |
| By: | Batiz-Lazo, Bernardo; Maixe-Altes, J. Carles |
| Abstract: | This article explores how savings banks managed the process of computerization through ad hoc management committees articulated under the aegis of national associations (with an emphasis on developments in Spain). The combination of cash payments (and low penetration of cheques) in the Spanish retail sector together with increasing administrative costs, acted as incentives for Spanish savings banks embracing applications of computer technology (and specifically data processing infrastructure) to articulate viable solutions for cost reductions, offer alternative payment systems to cash and facilitate greater diversification of their business portfolio within retail banking. A running comparison is made with similar developments in Britain. Computerization committees had little impact amongst the trustee savings banks. This responded to a combination of a poor corporate strategy and a number of external events (including regulatory constrains limiting their business portfolio as well as amalgamation into a single entity). By the mid-1970s it was evident that the trustee savings banks had lost a significant share of the total deposits in sterling made by UK residents. Meanwhile, collective investments in computer technology were instrumental for Spanish savings banks to successfully contest the domestic retail bank market. |
| Keywords: | co-ordination vs. hierarchies; management committees; collaboration; networks; technical change; computers; savings banks (TSB; cajas); national associations of saving banks (CECA); Spain; UK. |
| JEL: | N24 E42 N84 L63 G21 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27086&r=his |
| By: | Thodenius, Björn; Batiz-Lazo, Bernardo; Karlsson, Tobias |
| Abstract: | In this paper we describe the first decades of the history of the Swedish ATM (Automated teller machine). Sweden was one of the pioneers in using ATMs, starting with cash dispensers or cash machines in 1967. The first machine was made operational and shown to the press on July 6, 1967, in Uppsala at Upsala Sparbank, only one week after the first cash machine in the world was made operational in the UK. The Swedish machine was manufactured by the Malmö based company Metior. This paper seeks to document the origins and early development of cash machines by Swedish savings banks, employing oral as well as archival sources. Interestingly, we find that the key actor behind the ATM technology was not the saving banks’ computer company Spadab, but Sparfrämjandet, a company most known for its campaigns to encourage thrift among children. |
| Keywords: | cash dispensers; automated teller machines (ATM); technological change; savings banks; Sweden. |
| JEL: | N8 N24 E42 G21 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27083&r=his |
| By: | Vipin Chandran, K.P; Sandhya, P |
| Abstract: | Paul .A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in Economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century. As a graduate student at Harvard, Samuelson studied Economics under Joseph Schumpeter, W.W. Leontief, Goldfried Haberler and the ‘American Keynes’ Alvin Hansen. He was the first American to win to Nobel Prize in Economics; and he is considered to be one of the founders of Neo-Keynesian Economics and a seminal figure in the development of Neoclassical Economics. |
| Keywords: | Neoclassical economics; Welfare economics; International economics |
| JEL: | B31 B3 B30 B32 |
| Date: | 2010–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27173&r=his |
| By: | Ellen R. McGrattan |
| Abstract: | Previous studies of the U.S. Great Depression find that increased taxation contributed little to either the dramatic downturn or the slow recovery. These studies include only one type of capital taxation: a business profits tax. The contribution is much greater when the analysis includes other types of capital taxes. A general equilibrium model extended to include taxes on dividends, property, capital stock, and excess and undistributed profits predicts patterns of output, investment, and hours worked more like those in the 1930s than found in earlier studies. The greatest effects come from the increased tax on corporate dividends. |
| JEL: | E13 E32 H25 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16588&r=his |
| By: | Paul David |
| Date: | 2010–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:115&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo; John S. Landon-Lane |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the recent global crisis and recession to earlier international financial crises and recessions. Based on existing chronologies of banking, currency and debt crises we identify clusters of crises. We use an identification of extreme events and a weighting scheme based on real GDP relative to the U.S. to identify global financial crises since 1880. For banking crises we identify five global ones since 1880: 1890-91, 1907-08, 1913-14, 1931-32, 2007-2008. In terms of global incidence the recent crisis is fourth in ranking and comparable to 1907-08. We also calculate output losses during the recessions associated with global financial crises and again the recent crisis is similar in severity to 1907-08 and is fourth in ranking. On both dimensions the recent crisis is a pale shadow of the Great depression. The relatively mild experience of the recent crisis may reflect institutional and policy learning. |
| JEL: | E30 N20 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16589&r=his |
| By: | Jeffrey A. Frankel |
| Abstract: | What explains the success of Mauritius, a top performer among African countries? It has mostly followed growth-enhancing policies, which can in turn be attributed to sound institutions. But from where did the institutions come? Mauritius chose well around the time of independence in 1968, for example opting for the rule of law over nationalization of its sugar plantations. Some fundamental determinants that econometrically can explain success worldwide do not work within Africa: size, remoteness, tropics, and ethnic fragmentation. An intriguing theory: small islands that were populated entirely by immigrants escape the ethnic conflict that arises when one group is indigenous. |
| JEL: | O1 O55 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16569&r=his |
| By: | Charles Goodhart |
| Abstract: | Although Central Banks have pursued the same objectives throughout their existence, primarily price and financial stability, the interpretation of their role in doing so has varied. We identify three stable epochs, when such interpretations had stabilised, ie 1. The Victorian era, 1840s to 1914; 2. The decades of government control, 1930s to 1960s; 3. The triumph of the markets, 1980s to 2007. Each epoch was followed by a confused inter-regnum, searching for a new consensual blueprint. The final such epoch concluded with a crisis, when it became apparent that macro-economic stability, the Great Moderation, plus (efficient) markets could not guarantee financial stability. So the search is now on for additional macro-prudential (counter-cyclical) instruments. The use of such instruments will need to be associated with controlled variations in systemic liquidity, and in the balance sheet of the Central Bank. Such control over its own balance sheet is the core, central function of any Central Bank, even more so than its role in setting short-term interest rates, which latter could be delegated. We end by surveying how relationships between Central Banks and governments may change over the next period. |
| Keywords: | central banks, financial stability, financial regulation, bank taxes |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:326&r=his |
| By: | James Forder |
| Abstract: | Samuelson and Solow published a widely read paper in the May issue of the American Economic Review of 1960. It discussed the causes of inflation, the Phillips curve, and related matters. Discussion of their paper frequently says that it presented the Phillips curve as a stable, exploitable relation, and hence played an important role in the development of inflationary policy. This is hardly so. Sometimes authors notice this, but they nevertheless say it was misread as advocating inflationary policy and hence played the same role in policy development. Close attention to what was said about it in the relevant period – the 1960s – reveals that it was not then seen as advocating inflationary policy at all. This raises a strange puzzle as to why it was that, rather suddenly, it came to be incorrectly said that Samuelson and Solow had been interpreted as being inflationist when they neither were that, nor had been interpreted in that way. |
| JEL: | B22 B23 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:516&r=his |
| By: | Richhild Moessner; William A Allen |
| Abstract: | We compare the banking crises in 2008-09 and in the Great Depression, and analyse differences in the policy response to the two crises in light of the prevailing international monetary systems. The scale of the 2008-09 banking crisis, as measured by falls in international short-term indebtedness and total bank deposits, was smaller than that of 1931. However, central bank liquidity provision was larger in 2008-09 than in 1931, when it had been constrained in many countries by the gold standard. Liquidity shortages destroyed the international monetary system in 1931. By contrast, central bank liquidity could be, and was, provided much more freely in the flexible exchange rate environment of 2008-9. The amount of liquidity provided was 5 ½ - 7 ½ times as much as in 1931. This forestalled a general loss of confidence in the banking system. Drawing on historical experience, central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, established swap facilities quickly and flexibly to provide international liquidity, in some cases setting no upper limit to the amount that could be borrowed. |
| Keywords: | banking crisis, international monetary system, Great Depression, central bank liquidity |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:333&r=his |
| By: | Katharina Diekmann; Frank Westermann |
| Abstract: | In this paper we re-evaluate the hypothesis that the development of the financial sector was an essential factor behind economic growth in 19th century Germany. We apply a structural VAR framework to a new annual data set from 1870 to 1912 that was initially recorded by Walther Hoffmann (1965). With respect to the literature, the distinguishing characteristic of our analysis is the focus on different sectors in the economy and the interpretation of the findings in the context of a two-sector growth model. We find that all sectors were affected significantly by shocks from the banking system. Interestingly, this link is the strongest in sectors with small, non-tradable goods producing firms, such as services, transportation and agriculture. In this regard, the growth patterns in 19th century Germany are reminiscent to those in today\'s emerging markets. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth, Financial Development, Sectoral asymmetries |
| JEL: | C22 N13 N23 O11 |
| Date: | 2010–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iee:wpaper:wp0086&r=his |
| By: | Valli Vittorio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The chapter contains an analysis of the long-run trend and policies of South Korea’ s economy. The main thesis is that a combination of historical events, wise industrial policies and the great effort of families, the state and enterprises to enhance the level of human capital and of technological progress, have strongly contributed to determine the Korean economic period of fast growth. Ageing of population, financial crises, the crumbling of the fordist model of development, difficulties in stimulating a rapid productivity growth in several service sectors and other factors have reduced the rate of economic growth, which remains, however, higher than the one prevailing in most industrialized countries |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201014&r=his |
| By: | Ian W. McLean (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | The current economic crisis has taught another generation of Australians that their economy remains vulnerable to negative external shocks, as it has been since the depression of the early 1840s. So it is unsurprising that shocks and crises figure prominently in the economic history literature, with most attention given the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s. Less attention has been given to other negative shocks, or to a comparative treatment of shocks. In particular, the implications for long-run prosperity resulting from the policy responses to shocks have not received the scrutiny given their short run consequences. |
| Keywords: | Australia; economic history; growth |
| JEL: | N17 O40 O56 E65 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2010-30&r=his |
| By: | Barry Eichengreen; Marc Flandreau |
| 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: | foreign exchange reserves, network externalities, path dependency, money markets |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:328&r=his |
| By: | Lindmark, Magnus (CERE); Andersson, Lars Fredrik (CERE) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the development of carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden, especiallyn with a focus on the absolute reductions during the post-war period, during the 1970s and 1980s. The paper shows that the largest reductions were achieved before the introduction of an active climate policy in 1991. This was in turn the result of significant improvements in energy efficiency and energy conversion, while structural changes were considerably less important. One reason behind this decoupling process may be that the active energy policy put pressure on households and industries to conserve energy and to substitute from oil to electricity and biofuels. The process was substantially reinforced by the development of world oil prices in combination with the development of domestic electricity prices, where nuclear power seems to have played an important role. |
| Keywords: | Sweden; climate policy; economic growth; carbon dioxide reduction; carbon tax |
| JEL: | N54 |
| Date: | 2010–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:slucer:2010_014&r=his |
| By: | Kaushik Basu |
| Abstract: | The paper argues that if the Chinese economy had failed, mainstream economics would have described this as completely predictable, given the extent and nature of involvement of the Chinese state in the functioning of markets and the economy. The fact that China has succeeded therefore should lead us to question our textbook doctrines of development. Much of this paper is presented as a comparative study of India, China and, briefly, other Asian nations. It is shown that the mainsprings of development in these nations are widely different, even though their trajectories of growth are converging. The paper argues that social and political priming plays a major role in determining which policies will work. In the case of China, while the liberalization from 1978 onwards is important, the social preconditioning achieved during the high-noon of the Maoist period, up to 1978, is equally significant. In judging the sustainability of growth in Asia it is essential to keep these social and political factors in mind. |
| Keywords: | Chinese, succeeded, India, growth, liberalization |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3278&r=his |
| By: | Sylvie Ferrari (Groupe de Recherche en Économie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA), Research Group on Theoretical and Applied Economics, France); Kozo Mayumi (Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokushima); Jesus Ramos-Martin (Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores two major issues, from biophysical and historical viewpoints. We examine land management, which we define as the long-term fertility maintenance of land in relation to agriculture, fishery and forestry. We also explore humans’ positive role as agents aiming to reinforce harmonious materials circulation within the land. Liebig’s view on nature, agriculture and land, emphasizes the maintenance of long-term land fertility based on his agronomical thought that the circulation of matter in agricultural fields must be maintained with manure as much as possible. The thoughts of several classical economists, on nature, agriculture and land are reassessed from Liebig’s view point. Then, the land management problem is discussed at a much more fundamental level, to understand the necessary conditions for life in relation to land management. This point is analyzed in terms of two mechanisms: entropy disposal on the earth, and material circulation against gravitational field. Finally from the historical example of the metropolis of Edo, it is shown that there is yet another necessary condition for the sustainable management of land based on the creation of harmonious material cycles among cities, farm land, forests and surrounding sea areas in which humans play a vital role as agent. |
| Keywords: | land management, material circulation, sustainability, Liebig, Edo |
| JEL: | Q10 A12 B10 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:uhewps:2010_02&r=his |
| By: | Vasco Carvalho; Xavier Gabaix |
| Abstract: | We investigate the hypothesis that macroeconomic fluctuations are primitively the results of many microeconomic shocks, and show that it has significant explanatory power for the evolution of macroeconomic volatility. We define “fundamental” volatility as the volatility that would arise from an economy made entirely of idiosyncratic microeconomic shocks, occurring primitively at the level of sectors or firms. In its empirical construction, motivated by a simple model, the sales share of different sectors vary over time (in a way we directly measure), while the volatility of those sectors remains constant. We find that fundamental volatility accounts for the swings in macroeconomic volatility in the US and the other major world economies in the past half century. It accounts for the “great moderation” and its undoing. Controlling for our measure of fundamental volatility, there is no break in output volatility. The initial great moderation is due to a decreasing share of manufacturing between 1975 and 1985. The recent rise of macroeconomic volatility is due to the increase of the size of the financial sector. We provide a model to think quantitatively about the large comovement generated by idiosyncratic shocks. As the origin of aggregate shocks can be traced to identifiable microeconomic shocks, we may better understand the origins of aggregate fluctuations. |
| JEL: | E32 E37 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1208&r=his |
| By: | Stefan Dercon; Catherine Porter |
| Abstract: | In 1984, the world was shocked at the scale of a famine in Ethiopia that caused over half a million deaths, making it one of the worst in recent history. The mortality impacts are clearly significant. But what of the survivors? This paper provides the first estimates the long-term impact of the famine twenty years later, on the height of young adults aged 17–25 who experienced this severe shock in-utero and as infants during the crisis. Improving methodologically on other studies, famine intensity is measured at the household level, while impacts are assessed using a difference-indifferences comparison across siblings. We find that by adulthood, affected children who were under the age of 36 months at the peak of the crisis are significantly shorter than the older cohort, by at least 3cm. They are also less likely to have completed primary school, and more likely to have experienced recent illness. Indicative calculations show that this may lead to income losses of between 3% and 8% per year over their lifetime. The evidence also suggests that the relief operations at the time made little difference. |
| Keywords: | Famine, human development, Ethiopia |
| JEL: | I12 O12 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-39&r=his |
| By: | Dogruel, Fatma; Dogruel, A. Suut |
| Abstract: | Istanbul and Adana are among the oldest and important industrial zones of Turkey. However, the shares of these two regions in the Turkish manufacturing sector substantially decreased after the year 1980. Initially, Adana was a center for the textile industry and the textile was the engine of the Turkish manufacturing sector. During 1980’s and 1990’s, textile industry gradually lost its dominance. Therefore, the change in the share of Adana can be explained by this phenomenon. On the other hand, manufacturing activities in Istanbul are highly diversified. The basic factor behind the decrease in the share of manufacturing sector of Istanbul is the deindustrialization policy implemented in this city during the last several decades. As a result of this policy some of the plants moved to neighborhoods of Istanbul. At the same time, constructions of new large scale plants were not allowed. In spite of the implementation of the deindustrialization policy, Istanbul still have largest share in the Turkish manufacturing sector. Considering the geographical proximity, in addition to direct effects on Istanbul, it is possible to expect that these policies may indirectly affect neighborhood regions. Employing the spatial statistical techniques, we analyze the growth of the manufacturing in Istanbul and its neighborhoods. The paper also focuses on the effects of the deindustrialization policy on the productivity and the firm size in Istanbul. |
| Keywords: | deindustrialization policy; productivity changes; firm size; shift-share analysis |
| JEL: | O18 R12 R38 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27070&r=his |
| By: | Hoken, Hisatoshi |
| Abstract: | A large scale Chinese agricultural survey was conducted at the direction of John Lossing Buck from 1929 through 1933. At the end of the 1990’s, some parts of the original micro data of Buck’s survey were discovered at Nanjing Agricultural University. An international joint study was begun to restore micro data of Buck’s survey and construct parts of the micro database on both the crop yield survey and special expenditure survey. This paper includes a summary of the characteristics of farmlands and cropping patterns in crop yield micro data that covered 2,102 farmers in 20 counties of 9 provinces. In order to test the classical hypothesis of whether or not an inverse relationship between land productivity and cultivated area may be observed in developing countries, a Box-Cox transformation test was conducted for functional forms on five main crops of Buck’s crop yield survey. The result of the test shows that the relationship between land productivity and cultivated areas of wheat and barley is linear and somewhat negative; those of rice, rapeseed, and seed cotton appear to be slightly positive. It can be tentatively concluded that the relationship between cultivated area and land productivity are not the same among crops, and the difference of labor intensity and the level of commercialization of each crop may be strongly related to the existence or non-existence of inverse relationships. |
| Keywords: | China, Rural survey, Farm management, Farm survey, Crop yield |
| JEL: | N55 O12 Q12 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper248&r=his |
| By: | Dima (Cristea), Stefana Maria; David, Delia; Păiuşan, Luminiţa |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to provide a synopsis of Islamic accounting characteristics as well as to identify some of the determinants which led to its specificity. It explores several aspects related to the Islamic accounting principles and its institutional framework. The cultural paradigm is viewed as a differentiating key factor in the elaboration and implementation of the accounting standards in the Islamic Word. Based on Hofstede approach, the elements of this paradigm are linked to the relative preference for IFRS adoption of different Islamic countries. From the proposed analysis, it emerges the image of Islamic Accounting’s complex nature, which may be seen as a distinct alternative to the principles and views promoted by IFRS. |
| Keywords: | Islam; accounting; IFRSs; culture; banking; AAOIFI |
| JEL: | M41 |
| Date: | 2010–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27174&r=his |
| By: | Fenske, James |
| Abstract: | I test Bates' view that trade across ecological divides promoted the development of states in pre-colonial Africa. My main result is that sub-Saharan societies in ecologically diverse environments had more centralized pre-colonial states. I use spatial variation in rainfall to control for possible endogeneity. I construct artificial societies and present narrative evidence to show the results are not due to conquest of trading regions. I also test mechanisms by which trade may have caused states, and find that trade supported class stratification between rulers and ruled. |
| Keywords: | Africa; ecology; states; trade |
| JEL: | N57 O10 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27203&r=his |
| By: | Morales Meoqui, Jorge |
| Abstract: | With the famous numerical example of chapter 7 of the Principles David Ricardo intended to illustrate first and foremost the new proposition that his labor theory of value does not regulate the price of international transactions when the factors of production are immobile between countries. Unfortunately, later scholars have often omitted this proposition when referring to Ricardo’s numerical example. Instead, they have highlighted only the comparative-advantage proposition, although Ricardo considered it as a corollary of the omitted proposition, and therefore inextricably linked to it. This inexplicable omission has led to an incomplete understanding of the logical construction of Ricardo’s numerical example, as well as the misinterpretation of the four numbers as unitary labor costs. With the accurate understanding of Ricardo’s numerical example and the logical relationship between the two propositions it meant to prove, it is relatively easy to refute the main objections that have been raised against the very same numerical example in the past. Moreover, it reaffirms the sustained relevance of Ricardo’s two propositions as important insights for understanding the current process of economic globalization. |
| Keywords: | comparative advantage; labor theory of value; David Ricardo; free trade |
| JEL: | B12 F10 |
| Date: | 2010–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27099&r=his |
| By: | Morales Meoqui, Jorge |
| Abstract: | Ricardo essentially adhered to the logic of trade that Smith formulated in the Wealth of Nations. The contrary notion that they had opposing logics of trade is the result of an inaccurate interpretation of Ricardo’s numerical demonstration of the comparative-advantage proposition in chapter seven of the Principles. A deeper understanding of this numerical demonstration also leads to a partial refutation of the familiar contraposition between the comparative-advantage proposition and the absolute cost advantage theory of trade. |
| Keywords: | comparative advantage; absolute cost advantage; Ricardian model; international trade theory; free trade |
| JEL: | B12 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27143&r=his |
| By: | Cándido Román Cervantes (Universidad de La Laguna) |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo tiene como objeto realizar un primer diagnóstico del comportamiento de las cooperativas españolas desde mediados del siglo XX hasta los primeros años de la actual centuria. Muestra cómo reaccionaron las cooperativas ante las trasformaciones estructurales de la economía española donde el impacto de los cambios políticos internos, así como una mayor apertura del país que culminó con la entrada en la Comunidad Económica Europea, modificó un marco normativo que afectó a las empresas cooperativas. Se utiliza el método transversal dejando a un lado el análisis por etapas tan característico en el discurso histórico. La idea es explicar al lector como las empresas cooperativas han ido respondiendo a los vaivenes de los ciclos de la economía española, qué sectores de la actividad productiva se vieron más afectados, y cómo se inició la modernización cuyo resultado fue la aparición de empresas de mayor tamaño. Se quiere indagar si los ciclos de creación de las cooperativas guardan relación con los períodos de expansión o contracción de la economía española. Se trata de conocer si en períodos de dificultades económicas son las empresas con perfil solidario las que mejor reaccionaron |
| Keywords: | cooperativas, ciclos económicos, evolución, legislación, España, C.E.E |
| JEL: | N10 N34 N54 N64 N74 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1013&r=his |
| By: | Amado, Raúl Oscar |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the state's role in the modernization and urban transformation in Buenos Aires in the period 1850-1910. This transformation was connected with the economic movements of the second half of the nineteenth century. It was a modernizing movement, a radical alteration of the production-trade system, composition and population distribution and transport system. No "change" only the city of Buenos Aires. Transformed the campaign and its urban centers as the Atlantic orientation of the new state consolidated and eradicated and institutional instability and monetary policy. The "big village" became a big city, not only because the state wanted it that way. This modernization was not an imitation architecture. It was the economic growth in a time of global crisis which led to the break that caused the admiration of the witnesses of the Centennial, and consolidated national unity could be seen realized the dream of the generation of '37: Enabling Europe in South America. |
| Keywords: | economic history; economic growth; political consolidation of the Argentine government; transport; trade; agriculture |
| JEL: | E0 N16 F02 E23 |
| Date: | 2010–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:26164&r=his |
| By: | Birolo, Adriano |
| Abstract: | Taking as good the famous definition of economics attributed to Viner, “Economics is what economists do”, it is surprising to see how little the history of economics has addressed the matter of what economists actually do, above all outside the USA. The vast mass of data on research output which has recently become readily accessible and arrangeable are allowed in this contribution to put into focus (to sharpen) the Italian “representative” economist, at the first rung of the academic ladder, the “Researcher” (ricercatore), in three subsequent periods over last 30 years, 1984 – 2005. With the aim, on the one hand, to trace out the evolution of the scientific profile from the beginning of the 1980s until the end of the period; on the other hand, to verify whether the progressive internationalisation of the profession, the increasing influence of the Anglo-Saxon way of organising research with the introduction of evaluation criteria taking into account the prominence achieved by publications have effectively modified the subjects and methods of research. An extensive database of publications of three cohorts of young economists at the first step of the academic career has been construded. The publications has been classified on the basis of the research structure in economics prevailing at the edge of the 1980s, thus to outline from the inside the evolution of our research model. The outcome: that research model has lost the most part of his pluralistic peculiarities to close in significantly the monistic Anglo-Saxon model. Not a result unexpected; the novelty to emphasize is that the change appeared not step by step but all of a sudden at the transition from the 1980s to the1990s. The publications of the last cohort don’t do anything but conferm that change. Even whitin this metamorphosis, however, the research model that young researchers currently carry out, shows a specificity of the old one: the prominently role, even in the international comparison, of the History of economic analysis that, just about lone, supports the fleg of the pluralism. Other research areas that were typical of and characterized the Italian research model, also in the international research market, such as, for instance, the critical theories (Sraffian and Post-keynesian) coming from the Cambridge (Uk) tradition, have, almost completely, got out from the hunt territory crossed by the young Italian economists; because, perhaps, they are inclined to believe that an academic carrier as economist cannot be developed smoothly if based on research themes outside the nowadays mainstream. |
| Keywords: | Italian research model in economics; evolution; pluralism; monism |
| JEL: | B40 B00 A10 A14 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27219&r=his |
| By: | Elio Cerrito (Bank of Italy, Structural Economic Analysis Department) |
| Abstract: | The paper carries out a review of the literature dealing with the Italian growth poles policy, from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s. The text is divided into three parts. The 4th Siderurgical Center and the start of the Alfasud car plant are the objects of the first two parts; the third part summarizes the limits and successes of the Italian experience of growth poles. Whilst the Italian poles’ policy limits are well known, their successes are scarcely dealt with.Three main results of the policy emerge: many large profitable plants have been embedded in the Southern economy; growth poles have proved to be vital and able to stably attract investments; in some cases the poles have induced the start-up and the development of firms in Southern Italy, and have stimulated the local economy. |
| Keywords: | growth poles, Southern Italy, public intervention, 4th Siderurgical Center in Taranto, Alfasud |
| JEL: | N14 R11 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_3&r=his |
| By: | Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá |
| Abstract: | El gobierno corporativo de las sociedades de familia en Bogotá: Con el propósito de contribuir a ampliar la información y el conocimiento sobre las empresas de familia y orientar a los empresarios sobre los aspectos que les pueden generar ventajas con la implementación de prácticas de buen gobierno corporativo, la Dirección de Estudios e Investigaciones y la Vicepresidencia Jurídica de la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá, realizaron el análisis y caracterización económico y jurídico de las sociedades de familia. Para ello, se identificaron 4.209 empresas de familia que aportaron información a la Superintendencia de Sociedades y al Registro Mercantil de la Cámara de Comercio. También se consultó a los empresarios sobre los aspectos más relevantes de las sociedades de familia: participación de los miembros de la familia en la compañía, implementación de prácticas de gobierno corporativo, forma de gestión de las sociedades de familia, y sobre los relevos generacionales y la resolución de conflictos. El estudio sobre el Gobierno Corporativo de las Sociedades de Familia, ofrece valiosa información sobre aspectos prioritarios para fortalecer la gestión y sostenibilidad de las sociedades de familia: diseño de programas institucionales para facilitar la implementación de Asambleas y Consejos de Familia, implementación de prácticas de Buen Gobierno Corporativo como el protocolo de familia y la incorporación de métodos alternativos de solución de conflictos. |
| Date: | 2010–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000212:007756&r=his |