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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2011‒01‒03
thirty-two papers chosen by |
| By: | Yannick Lemarchand (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - Université de Nantes : EA4272) |
| Abstract: | Accounting tools and procedures played a significant role in the development of the modern State, in the implementation of democracy and in its operation. This paper sets out to illustrate several aspects of this long term relationship by examining the French example. We firstly look at two fundamental improvements which occurred in the public sector accounting, in the early nineteenth century, i.e., the implementation of an efficient tax collecting system, replacing private tax-collecting agencies by a centralised bureaucratic administration, after several unsuccessful attempts during the eighteenth century, and the organisation of the parliamentary control on public expenditure through the adoption of budgetary rules and the definition of control mechanisms. With the Réglement général de la comptabilité publique of 1838, the design of the general framework of French public sector accounting was completed and was to last for over a century. The paper then examines the intervention of the State in the regulation of private sector accounting, in two phases. Only after World War I did State begin to intervene in private accounting practices, because of the creation of an income tax, defining a set of accounting rules with the aim of optimizing income tax performance. At a later date, by the end of the Interwar years, the growing interest for the ideas encompassing a co-ordinated economy and economic planning gradually shaped a further stage in accounting regulation with the adoption of a national accounting chart or the Plan comptable général of 1947. One of the main objectives was to obtain accounting data that were sufficiently homogeneous to be aggregated for the construction of national income statistics and the development of national accounting. These choices contributed to France's economic recovery after World War II. During these 250 years, accounting as a technology of power, knowledge and control, was enrolled in the service of strengthening the State in various respects, and became one of the governance tools of modern democracy This proactive policy contrasts sharply with the abandonment of sovereignty from the European countries regarding accounting regulation, in favour of a non-European private organisation, i.e. the IASB. |
| Keywords: | Accounting and the State ; accounting standardisation ; modern fiscal State ; public sector accounting ; French history |
| Date: | 2010–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00547752_v1&r=his |
| By: | Alfredo Gigliobianco (Bank of Italy, Structural Economic Analysis Department); Claire Giordano (Bank of Italy, Structural Economic Analysis Department) |
| Abstract: | The paper provides a qualitative assessment of the role mainstream economic theory had in orienting Italy’s banking legislation from its political unification (1861) to the introduction of the 1936 Banking Act. Five regulatory regimes are considered. Whilst market discipline and self-regulation arguments characterized the first sub-period (1861-1892), the debate over convertibility and limits on note issuance was intense in the second (1893-1906). The third sub-period (1907-1925) was punctuated by two banking crises: the first (1907) vindicated economists who had stressed the need of a lender of last resort à la Bagehot; the second (1921-23) confirmed – to no avail – the dangers congenital to bank-industry ties. The following sub-period (1926-1930) was inaugurated by the first commercial bank regulation (1926) and responded to the prevailing economists’ call for restricting bank competition. The 1936 regulation, which inaugurated the approximately five-decade long fifth regime, matured in a virtual vacuum of professional economic debate. Overall, two key factors were found to affect the degree to which legislation drew upon contemporary economic thought: a) the severity of the preceding crisis; and b) the timing of the subsequent regulation. |
| Keywords: | banking crises, prudential regulation, economic theory |
| JEL: | B15 G28 N4 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_5&r=his |
| By: | Miguel A. López-Morell (Universidad de Murcia); Jos M. O'Kean (Departamento de Economía, Universidad Pablo de Olavide & IE Business School) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this article is to analyse the strategies employed by the Rothschilds until 1940 to limit competition in the non ferrous international market. We will study how they opted for rigid demand products of highly concentrated supply which were favourable to market control (mercury, nickel, lead and copper and sulphur) by assuming administrative monopolies (mercury from Spanish Almadn Mines) or through control of the leading businesses of the respective markets (Le Nickel, Pearroya and Rio Tinto). We will also analyse how the family was able to gain worldwide monopolies, or if not, how they promoted collusive oligopolies with the competition in any number of forms in their quest to maintain profitability and to flee from any competition. |
| Keywords: | International Raw material markets, Cartels, Rothschild, mining, Non-ferrous metals. |
| JEL: | N50 D43 L13 L72 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:10.17&r=his |
| By: | Michael D Bordo; Owen F Humpage; Anna J Schwartz |
| Abstract: | The dollar’s depreciation during the early floating rate period, 1973–1981, was a symptom of the Great Inflation. In that environment, sterilized foreign exchange interventions were ineffective in halting the dollar’s decline, but they showed a limited ability to smooth dollar movements. Only after the Volcker FOMC changed its monetary-policy approach and demonstrated a willingness to maintain a disinflationary stance despite severe economic weakness and high unemployment did the dollar begin a sustained appreciation. Also contributing to the ineffectiveness of the interventions was the Desk’s method of operation. The small, covert interventions, particularly prior to 1977, seemed inconsistent with an expectations channel of influence, and financing intervention with short-term borrowed funds seemed inconsistent with a portfolio-balance channel of influence. The Desk never clearly articulated an intervention transmission mechanism. The episode indicated the shortcomings of sterilized intervention and led to their cessation in April 1981. |
| Keywords: | Banks and banking, Central ; Foreign exchange administration ; Monetary policy ; Federal Open Market Committee |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1023&r=his |
| By: | Stefano Manestra (Banca d'Italia) |
| Abstract: | This study retraces the history of tax compliance in Italy from unification to today. We review the attempts at evaluating the gap between actual and potential tax revenue, from nineteenth-century descriptive statistics up until the formal estimates of recent decades, which distinguish lawful tax erosion from avoidance and evasion. Secondly, we analyze the explanations given and solutions proposed to increase tax compliance, grouping them into five "theses": excessive tax burden, structural deficiencies in specific taxes, inefficiency of tax administration, taxpayers’ reluctance and the complexity of tax laws. We also assess the changing attitudes of taxpayers towards tax and the tax authorities over the same period. The excursus shows that compliance problems are a long-term constant of the Italian tax system, even if their scale has diminished over time, at least in percentage terms. The problems have always originated from a specific group of taxpayers (self-employed workers and sole proprietorships). On the other hand the causes, and therefore the solutions to be taken into consideration, are complex and multifaceted. |
| Keywords: | tax compliance, tax evasion, tax history |
| JEL: | H2 N4 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_81_10&r=his |
| By: | Michele Alacevich (Center for European Studies, Harvard University); Pier Francesco Asso (Università degli Studi di Palermo, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche); Sebastiano Nerozzi (Università Cattolica, Milano) |
| Abstract: | The paper aims to describe the contribution of four Harvard economists to the interpretation of the Great Depression and the policy decision making from 1933 to 1938. Lauchlin B. Currie, Jacob Viner, John H. Williams, Harry D. White, eminent scholars in the field of monetary and international economics, were deeply involved in policy decisions during the New Deal. In our synoptic analysis we will benefit from extensive scholarly work that has been provided in the last few years. We shall examine the extensive biographical connection between Currie, Viner, White and Williams with special regard to their common training at Harvard. Then we shall compare their interpretations of the causes of crisis and their proposals in fiscal, monetary and banking policy. Finally, we shall describe their advisory activity in the Roosevelt administration and try to assess their influence. |
| Keywords: | Great Depression; Monetary Theory; Monetary Policy; Fiscal Policy, Keynesism |
| JEL: | B22 E32 E58 E63 N12 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2010_18.rdf&r=his |
| By: | Trumbull, Gunnar; Trumbull, Gunnar |
| Abstract: | Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency, or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets serve to justify regulatory intervention. I argue that this causal logic must sometimes be reversed. For certain areas of regulation, its function must be understood as making markets legitimate. Based on a comparative historical analysis of consumer lending in the United States and France, I argue that national differences in the regulation of consumer credit had their roots in the historical conditions by which the small loan sector came to be legitimized. Americans have supported a liberal regulation of credit because they have been taught that access to credit is welfare promoting. This perception emerged from an historical coalition between commercial banks and NGOs that promoted credit as the solution to a range of social ills. The French regulate credit tightly because they came to see credit as both economically risky and a source of reduced purchasing power. This attitude has its roots in the early postwar lending environment, in which loans were seen to be beneficial only if they were accompanied by strong government protections. These cases suggest that national differences in regulation may trace to historically contingent conditions under which markets are constructed as legitimate. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:reg:wpaper:638&r=his |
| By: | Milanovic, Branko |
| Abstract: | The paper uses the data from Francois Quesnay's writings to derive a social table for pre-revolutionary France, estimate country's mean income and income distribution. These Quesnay-based estimates are compared with more recent estimates of 18th century French incomes and inequality. |
| Keywords: | pre-revolutionary France; inequality; social tables; Quesnay |
| JEL: | D31 N33 B11 |
| Date: | 2010–12–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27692&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur (EHESS - Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris); Amir Rezaee (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR6221 - Université d'Orléans, EDHEC - Edhec); Angelo Riva (IREBS - Institut de recherche de l'European Business School - European Business School, IDHE - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Economie - CNRS : UMR8533 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I - Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint Denis - Université de Paris X - Nanterre - École normale supérieure de Cachan - ENS Cachan) |
| Abstract: | Theoretical and historical experience suggests a financial centre may either include a single, consolidated and loosely regulated stock exchange attracting all intermediaries and actors, or a variety of exchanges going from strictly regulated to completely unregulated and adapted to the needs of different categories of intermediaries, investors and issuers. Choosing between these two solutions is uneasy because few substantial changes occur at this "meta-regulatory" level. The history of the Paris exchanges provides a good example, since two legal changes in opposite directions occurred in the late 19th century, when Paris was the second financial centre in the world. In 1893, a law threatened the existing two-exchanges equilibrium by diminishing the advantages of the more regulated exchange; in 1898, another law brought them back. We analyse the impact of these two changes on the competition between the exchanges in terms of securities listed, traded volumes and spreads. We conclude competition among exchanges is a delicate matter and efficiency is not always where one would think. |
| Keywords: | Paris Stock exchange ; microstructure ; monopoly ; regulation |
| Date: | 2010–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00547470_v1&r=his |
| By: | Mikolaj Szoltysek (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Siegfried Gruber (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Barbara Zuber Goldstein (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Rembrandt D. Scholz (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | - |
| Keywords: | German Empire, household, living conditions |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2010-036&r=his |
| By: | Ron Alquist; Ben Chabot |
| Abstract: | A commonly cited benefit of the pre-World War One gold standard is that it reduced the cost of international borrowing by signaling a country’s commitment to financial probity. Using a newly constructed data set that consists of more than 55,000 monthly sovereign bond returns, we test if gold-standard adherence was negatively correlated with the cost of capital. Conditional on UK risk factors, we find no evidence that the bonds issued by countries off gold earned systematically higher excess returns than the bonds issued by countries on gold. Our results are robust to allowing betas to differ across bonds issued by countries off- and on-gold; to including proxies that capture the effect of fiscal, monetary, and trade shocks on the commitment to gold; and to controlling for the effect of membership in the British Empire. |
| Keywords: | Gold standard ; Bonds |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2010-13&r=his |
| By: | André Martínez; Martina Viarengo; Aldo Musacchio |
| Abstract: | Recent research links the inequality across countries and regions to colonial institutions. This paper argues that trade shocks could alter the development path of a country or subnational units, in spite of its colonial institutions. This hypothesis is analyzed using state-level data for Brazil, a country with high regional heterogeneity in endowments. We find that positive trade shocks, or improvements in export tax revenues, increased expenditures on education per capita and education outcomes in the period 1889 to 1930. In fact, trade shocks ended up altering the inequality in education levels across states in a permanent way. The paper ends by explaining why politicians spent windfall tax revenues to invest on education. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Fiscal Federalism, Education, Long Run Development |
| JEL: | I20 H41 H75 N26 N36 N46 N96 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2010-18&r=his |
| By: | Samuel Garrido (Department of Economics. University Jaume I. Castellón (Spain)) |
| Abstract: | It is usually taken for granted that the existence of water markets allows economic efficiency gains to be achieved at the expense of equity losses. This paper addresses the issue by analysing the functioning of the irrigation communities in pre-1950s eastern Spain. While in some of them the water inhered in the land and could not be sold, in others there were tradable water rights. In the paper it is shown that, in the former, not only was equity greater but in fact the resource was also used more efficiently. |
| Keywords: | water markets, Spain, irrigation communities, efficiency, equity |
| JEL: | Q01 Q25 N53 N54 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1012&r=his |
| By: | Oscar Bajo-Rubio (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) |
| Abstract: | The balance of payments can act as a constraint to the rate of growth of output, on setting a limit to the growth of the level of demand to which supply can adapt. In this paper, we examine this issue for the case of Spain, using time series data extending over one-and-a-half century, i.e., the period 1850-2000. Our results show that the foreign sector would have worked as a constraint to growth only during some periods of remarkably high growth in comparison with the Western European average, such as 1914-1935, and, especially, 1950-1975. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, External deficit, Spanish economy. |
| JEL: | F41 F43 N10 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aee:wpaper:1010&r=his |
| By: | Monica Værholm (Department of Economics. Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Lars Fredrik Øksendal (Department of Economics. Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | For later generations, August 1914 has become a watershed in monetary history. In a matter of days, the belligerent and neutral countries of Europe alike suspended the gold standard. The international monetary regime that had served the world economy for close to four decades was no more. Everywhere domestic fiat money became the order of the day. Even more importantly, the war brought a fundamental change in the priorities of monetary policy: National objectives triumphed over monetary stability. |
| Date: | 2010–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2010_28&r=his |
| By: | Carlo Ciccarelli (Dipartimento SEFEMEQ, Facoltà di Economia, Università di Roma "Tor Vergata"); Stefano Fenoaltea (Dipartimento SEFEMEQ, Facoltà di Economia, Università di Roma "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | In post-Unification Italy industrialization was ever sharply sub-regional. Initially industry was largely artisanal, and located in the former political capitals; factory industry was instead attracted by the waterfalls of the subalpine Northwest. From the 1880s, as modernization accelerated, industry concentrated: in the Lombard and Piedmontese subalpine provinces with the late-nineteenth-century boom in (protected) textiles, then particularly in Turin and Milan with the engineering boom, and novel energy-transmission, of the belle époque; and in Liguria's Genoa, which captured (subsidized) civil and naval shipbuilding. The only significant diffusion came as (newly protected) beet-sugar-extraction spread throughout Emilia. |
| Keywords: | Italy, pre-1913, regional industrialization |
| JEL: | N63 N93 R11 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_4&r=his |
| By: | Zehetmayer, Matthias |
| Date: | 2010–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:dissen:12321&r=his |
| By: | Carles Manera Erbina (Universitat de les Illes Balears); Jaume Garau Taberner (Universitat de les Illes Balears); Ramon Molina de Dios (Universitat de les Illes Balears) |
| Abstract: | The explosion of mass tourism since the end of the Second World War has had a tangible effect on crucial flows of manpower, investment and production strategy towards the leisure economy in a large part of the world, with changes that take us back to what occurred two hundred years earlier in the heat of the Industrial Revolution. However, perhaps it is in particular areas (as was the case with the thrust of industrialisation) such as the Mediterranean basin, where this view can be identified more accurately. Both approaches are reflected in the key objectives of the work. In the first section of this research we discuss the major figures available on the growth of tourism since the Second World War, whilst at the same time outlining the fundamental theoretical keystones of the study: the claim with regard to a particular techno-economic paradigm in the case of mass tourism, involved in the fifth technological revolution seen since the Industrial Revolution. The second section deals specifically with the Mediterranean in its main tourism elements, based on the sources available: number of visitors, overnight stays and tourism expenditure. Finally, some conclusions are offered in order to summarise the work. |
| Keywords: | First Comers and Late Comers in Mass Tourism Economics. Techno-economics changes. |
| JEL: | L83 N30 N74 N93 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1014&r=his |
| By: | Marco Piatti; Benno Torgler |
| Abstract: | 20 years ago, William Baumol provided an interesting wish list that outlined his hopes for the future of economics over the next hundred years. Impatiently, this paper puts his wish list to the test by comparing the characteristics of publications that appeared in the American Economic Review before Baumol’s contribution in 1991 (1984 to 1988) and those published 20 years later (2004 to 2008), and by looking at the Job Openings for Economists between 1991 and 2009. Focusing on issues such as the role of mathematics, the short-run orientation of macroeconomics, the emphasis of economic history versus the history of economic ideas, as well as a more concrete menu of wishes for applied economics, we observe that this was not just a wish list, but is in many ways a list that offers an accurate picture of what has changed over time and what has happened in recent years. |
| Keywords: | American Economic Review, William Baumol, Mathematics, Macroeconomics, Applied Economics, Job Openings |
| JEL: | B41 A20 A10 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2010-26&r=his |
| By: | dumludag, devrim |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the political economy of foreign direct investment (FDI) in relation to economic development strategies and legal framework for foreign firms in Egypt and Turkey. The paper briefly examines the FDI performances of these countries starting from the end of the nineteenth century to the first decades of the twenty first century. In addition, in this paper, the legal framework for FDI is analyzed. Finally the paper put emphasis on the similarities between the FDI performances and the obstacles that foreign investors face in these countries. |
| Keywords: | Egypt, Turkey, Economic Conditions, Foreign Direct Investment, Legal Framework |
| JEL: | F23 F21 |
| Date: | 2010–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27520&r=his |
| By: | Damiaan Persyn; Johan F.M.Swinnen; Stijn Vanormelingen |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:27110&r=his |
| By: | L. Randall Wray |
| Abstract: | This paper advances three fundamental propositions regarding money: (1) As R. W. Clower (1965) famously put it, money buys goods and goods buy money, but goods do not buy goods. (2) Money is always debt; it cannot be a commodity from the first proposition because, if it were, that would mean that a particular good is buying goods. (3) Default on debt is possible. These three propositions are used to build a theory of money that is linked to common themes in the heterodox literature on money. The approach taken here is integrated with Hyman Minsky’s (1986) work (which relies heavily on the work of his dissertation adviser, Joseph Schumpeter [1934]); the endogenous money approach of Basil Moore; the French-Italian circuit approach; Paul Davidson’s (1978) interpretation of John Maynard Keynes, which relies on uncertainty; Wynne Godley’s approach, which relies on accounting identities; the “K” distribution theory of Keynes, Michal Kalecki, Nicholas Kaldor, and Kenneth Boulding; the sociological approach of Ingham; and the chartalist, or state money, approach (A. M. Innes, G. F. Knapp, and Charles Goodhart). Hence, this paper takes a somewhat different route to develop the more typical heterodox conclusions about money. |
| Keywords: | Money; Credit; Debt; Uncertainty; Default; Unit of Account; Heterodox; Circuit Approach; Godley; Minsky; Knapp; Schumpeter; Endogenous Money |
| JEL: | E4 E5 E6 E11 E12 B5 B15 B22 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_647&r=his |
| By: | Odon Elteto (CSO); Eva Havasi (CSO) |
| Abstract: | The study shortly surveys the main characteristics of the income surveys carried out by the Hungarian CSO in the last half century, then examines how the incomes of the households and especially the income inequalities developed in this period. The changes in the income inequality are shown in several inequality measures in the study. The emphasis is on the Theil inequality measure, because it can be unequivocally additively decomposed into parts representing the differences in the mean income between the various social groups and their weights on the one hand and the average within group inequalities on the other. The decomposition enlightens how and to what extent the various personal, household and regional characteristics contribute to the income inequality within the population and how the extent of this contribution changes in time and because of what causes. Based on the data of the last two income surveys the study examines the contribution to the inequality not only on the basis of the per capita income, but also on that of the equivalent income. Finally, on the basis of the huge amount of empirical data the study makes a few summary statements. |
| Keywords: | income statistics, income inequality, index numbers |
| JEL: | D31 R20 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:1028&r=his |
| By: | Johan F.M.Swinnen; Kristine Van Herck |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:26810&r=his |
| By: | Ambec, Stefan; Cohen, Mark; Elgie, Stewart; Lanoie, Paul |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ler:wpaper:10.14.320&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the flow of funds inside Mitsubishi Bank during the Second World War, focusing on the impacts of acquisition of Daihyaku Bank in 1943 and the Designated Financial Institution System in 1944. Acquisition of Daihyaku Bank substantially expanded the branch network of Mitsubishi Bank, and Mitsubishi Bank utilized those newly acquired branches mainly as a device for deposits collection. A large part of the deposits collected at the branches was sent to the headquarters of Mitsubishi Bank, which, in turn, allocated the funds to loans based on the Designated Financial Institution System, as well to government bonds following the instruction by the National Financial Control Association. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2010cj231&r=his |
| By: | Johan Fourie (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Dieter von Fintel (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch) |
| Abstract: | Although Van Riebeeck already produced the first wine at the Cape in 1659, the arrival of French Huguenots during 1688/89 gave considerable impetus to Cape wine production. The reasons for this remain unclear. By using quantitative production data over more than a century of European settlement, we show that a subgroup of Huguenots – specifically those originating from wine producing regions in France – produced significantly more wine and more productively than the other settlers. Standard factors of production do not explain the difference: the knowledge, skills and secrets of viticulture allowed these Huguenots to produce quality wine, an invaluable asset in the fight against scurvy on the long ship voyages between Europe and the East. These competitive advantages were passed down over generations, so that, even a century after arrival, the families with the initial advantage were still more adept at wine-making. |
| Keywords: | Kaapkolonie, Suid-Afrika, VOC, Hugenote, wynbou, slawe, Cape colony; South Africa; VOC; Huguenots; viticulture; viniculture; wine making; slaves |
| JEL: | N37 D31 D63 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers128&r=his |
| By: | Ghita, Eugen |
| Abstract: | After the peace of Karlovitz, the Mureş River became the official border between the two great empires: the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. In this context was organized the military border Tisa-Mureş, and the first called to defend the region were the Serbs, recognized for their military skills. The authorities created the first militarized localities in the county of Arad simultaneously with the first arrival of Serb immigrants in this region. Their presence in the city of Arad and other settlements located on the right bank of the Mureş River changed the ethnic proportions in these areas. The situation modified after Banat was conquered by Austrians and after the abolishment of the Tisa-Mureş military border. Most Serbs emigrated to the south of Mureş River and even in Russia, their share in the city and county of Arad decreasing significantly after the mid eighteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Arad county; Serbs immigrants; eighteenth century; demography. |
| JEL: | J10 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27609&r=his |
| By: | Ghita, Eugen |
| Abstract: | The present study aims to investigate in terms of quantitative and qualitative perspectives the rural habitat in the county of Arad during the eighteenth century. The dynamics of settlements, their evolution over the century, changes occurred in the types of environments were conducted in conjunction with the policy of the new imperial authorities and in accordance with the populationist policy of the Habsburg Empire. The rural habitat which predominated in the Arad County suffered changes of great importance not only just as a consequence of the official systematization policy, but also as a result of the constant demographical increase which occurred in the eighteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Arad county; rural habitat; settlements; Habsburg Empire; eighteenth century. |
| JEL: | J10 J11 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27612&r=his |
| By: | Ghita, Eugen |
| Abstract: | The two documents which are the subject of the present study, made to share property in the event of divorce, help to form an image on various aspects of daily life, poorly known from other sources: household size, land property, earnings in marriage furniture, tools, animals, prices, food, secular and religious involvement of the private life etc. In addition to legal information, both inventories, which stood at the base of documents on which the property was to be divided, reveal another perspective on social history of Arad in the late eighteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Arad county; eighteenth century; daily life; household; marriage; divorce. |
| JEL: | J12 |
| Date: | 2010–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27600&r=his |
| By: | Ghita, Eugen |
| Abstract: | This study proposed, first, to carry out, based on archive documents, an incursion as regards matrimonial relationships of XVIIIth century with all legal, economic and social connotations involved. The marriage contracts studied fall into a typology more closely of what was happening in the same period in Western Europe than in South Eastern Europe. This is because such acts have emerged within the former county of Arad in the first half of the century after the establishment of Habsburg domination and after the German colonists were brought into the area. Besides the juridical problems regarding the contractual liabilities of the spouses, the status of the children, some problems related to wealth and dowry, I tried to mark out some aspects regarding the everyday life of Arad’s inhabitants in the XVIIIth century. |
| Keywords: | Marriage contracts; Arad county; matrimonial relationships; dissolution of marriage; dowry; children status; household; everyday life; Habsburg Empire. |
| JEL: | J10 J12 |
| Date: | 2010–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27610&r=his |
| By: | Ghita, Eugen |
| Abstract: | Among „the bad years” of the 18th century that affected the city of Arad, 14 of it were because of the floods, the most severe overflows taking place on July 1771. The devastations were considerable and due especially to the fact that the city wasn’t protected and the bad weather lasted full days, the waters retracting only after about 7-8 days. The authorities were interested in stocktaking the effects of the overflow and as a cause they organized charts in which were totalized the losses suffered by the inhabitants of the city in the summer of 1771. The data from these charts permit us to realize the immensity of the disaster: 252 completely destroyed houses, 9 dead, about 8500 florins losses due to the overflowed and devastated gardens, the inundation of the agrarian fields from the proximity of the city, 200 animals drowned, 88 hives destroyed by the waters etc. Even though the authorities realized along the time works meant to regularize the flow of the river Mureş, and the urban policy thought about the danger of the floods, the city of Arad kept to be endangered by the river in the decades that followed until the waters overflowed again in: 1772, 1774, 1779, 1780, 1783, 1785, 1793 and 1799. |
| Keywords: | demography; Arad county; floods; Transylvania; calamities |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27611&r=his |