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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2011‒01‒30
thirty papers chosen by |
| By: | Lipartito, Kenneth |
| Abstract: | Credit reporting is a contested process whereby parties with distinct interests (borrowers, lenders, and intermediaries) jointly construct the form, method, and style of credit assessment. In contrast to theories that argue information should grow more secure and credit relationships more transparent over time, the conflicted struggle over representation produces different styles or “genres” of credit evaluation that are compromises between the interests of the different parties. Thus, in the United States, trade credit reporting in the nineteenth century evolved an enduring narrative reporting style, incorporating heterogeneous forms of information not easily reducible to a single quantitative score. Lack of institutions for sharing information between creditors, legal precedents, and strong resistance among borrowers to overly intrusive surveillance made the narrative report the best means to handle the diverse business credit market. By contrast, lenders in the consumer credit market established information sharing capabilities, which were enhanced after World War II when banks developed the credit card and card verification systems. Fair credit laws in the 1960s and 70s actually reinforced the move to quantitative scoring based on information shared among creditors, eventually institutionalizing the FICO score as the prime method of consumer credit evaluation. |
| Keywords: | credit score; credit reporting; credit; information economy; surveillance; FICO |
| JEL: | Z1 N82 N22 |
| Date: | 2011–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28142&r=his |
| By: | Huillery, Elise |
| Abstract: | Did colonization change the distribution of prosperity within French-speaking West Africa? Using a new database on both pre-colonial and colonial contexts, this paper gives evidence that Europeans tended to settle in more prosperous pre-colonial areas and that the European settlement had a strong positive impact on current outcomes, even in an extractive colonial context, resulting in a positive relationship between pre and post-colonial performances. I argue that the African hostility towards colonial power to colonisation provides a random variation in European settlement since it damaged the profitability of colonial activities and dissuaded European from settling, but does not have a direct effect on current outcomes. Rich and hostile areas received less European settlers than they would have received had they not been so hostile, resulting in lower current performances partly due to lower colonial investments. Despite the absence of a “reversal of fortune” within former French West Africa, some of the most prosperous pre-colonial areas lost their advantage because of their hostility: other areas caught up and became the new leaders in the region. |
| Keywords: | Economic history; West Africa; Colonization; |
| JEL: | O11 P16 N37 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:dauphi:urn:hdl:123456789/4316&r=his |
| By: | Azham, Ali; Teck Heang, Lee; Yusof, Nor Zalina; Ojo, Marianne |
| Abstract: | This work investigates the role and contribution of external auditing as practised in the Malaysian society during the forty year period from independence in 1957 to just before the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. It applies the political economic theory introduced by Tinker (1980) and refined by Cooper & Sherer (1984), which focuses on the social relations aspects of professional activity rather than economic forces alone. In a case study format where qualitative data was gathered mainly from primary and secondary source materials, the study found that the function of auditing in the Malaysian society in most cases is devoid of any essence of mission; instead it is created, shaped and transformed by the pressures which give rise to its development over time. The largely insignificant role that it serves is intertwined within the contexts in which it operates. |
| Keywords: | external audit; Malaysia; politics; history; economy; Companies Act 1965; Companies Act 1985; British Companies Acts; Accountants Act 1967; Asian Financial Crisis |
| JEL: | K2 M4 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28138&r=his |
| By: | Laurent Warlouzet |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Competition policy is perhaps the field in which the European Commission has the most extensive powers. Born institutionally in 1950, European competition policy now has a sixty year-long history. This paper argues that its history has not been peaceful, and that it has been characterized by heated debates. In a first methodological part, an assessment is made of the growing multidisciplinary academic debates relating to this topic. A claim for a methodology combining historical sources (archives) and a focus on the relationship between ideas and institutions. Then the paper turns to an empirical application of the methodology just described. In particular, it examines the history of European competition policy, using new archival findings in three steps: the institutional basis in 1950-62 (part II); the failure of the neo-functionalist momentum in 1962-81 (part III); and the rise of a powerful policy in 1981-91 (part IV). |
| Keywords: | competition policy; European Commission; European Court of Justice |
| Date: | 2010–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0271&r=his |
| By: | Lestano; Jacobs, Jan; Dungey, Mardi (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | Financial crises are high cost events which can transmit across international borders. Using data from 1883 to 2008 this paper develops a means of mapping changes in the degree of international synchronisation of banking and currency crises through a formal concordance index. This index speci cally accounts for the typically low incidence and potential serial correlation of crisis data. The results show that banking crises were highly internationalised at the beginning of the 20th century, and became far less so in the strong regulatory environment prevailing after the Depression until the 1980s. A strong increase in the synchronicity of international banking crises is revealed during the late 20th and early 21st century. Currency crises began the century as more idioysncratic, but have tended to become more synchronised over the 115 year sample. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:rugsom:10002&r=his |
| By: | Vladimir Popov (New Economic School, Moscow) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact that development theories have had on development policies, and the inverse impact of actual successes and failures in the global South on development thinking. It is argued that development thinking is at the cross-roads. Development theories in postwar period went through a full circle – from Big Push and ISI to neo-liberal Washington consensus to the understanding that neither the former, nor the later really works in engineering successful catch-up development. Meanwhile, economic miracles were manufactured in East Asia without much reliance on development thinking and theoretical background – just by experimentation of the strong hand politicians. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0153&r=his |
| By: | Sarah Shields |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that Europeans worked to transform the bases for group affiliation in territories of the former Ottoman Empire, insisting on national and linguistic self-identification that created dissonance among the population. Focusing on the decades between the two World Wars, when the new Middle Eastern borders were being created and contested, the paper analyzes two episodes in which the League of Nations sought to document the identity of Middle Eastern populations in order to allocate contested territory: the Sanjak Question (Alexandretta) and the Mosul Question. Each province was home to a population diverse in language and religion; in each, the League of Nations intervened to insist that one or another group must be predominant. Instead of creating a consociational or federal system, each episode resulted in one group satisfied and the other group becoming a minority. The sorts of identities which the League of Nations privileged had little meaning before mid-century, when the new governments they created began to adhere to ideologies that reified nation and exploited the new fault lines for their own political benefit. |
| Keywords: | France; minorities |
| Date: | 2010–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0272&r=his |
| By: | Boppart, Timo (University of Zurich); Falkinger, Josef (University of Zurich); Grossmann, Volker (University of Fribourg) |
| Abstract: | During industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and whether other education motives were involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, Protestants’ education motives went beyond reading the bible. |
| Keywords: | cognitive skills, education, reading capability, religious denomination, Protestant reformation |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5402&r=his |
| By: | Popov, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact that development theories have had on development policies, and the inverse impact of actual successes and failures in the global South on development thinking. It is argued that development thinking is at the cross-roads. Development theories in postwar period went through a full circle – from Big Push and ISI to neo-liberal Washington consensus to the understanding that neither the former, nor the later really works in engineering successful catch-up development. Meanwhile, economic miracles were manufactured in East Asia without much reliance on development thinking and theoretical background – just by experimentation of the strong hand politicians. |
| Keywords: | Development theories; catch up growth; economic miracles; Washington consensus; import substitution; "Big push"; export orientation |
| JEL: | O11 O10 O43 P51 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28111&r=his |
| By: | Masayuki Tanimoto (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the practice of housework in modern Japan from the point of view of the consumption history. Gary Becker's seminal argument provides us with the basic framework for considering the relationship between consuming "goods" and "housework" in the households, which combine time and market goods to produce more basic commodities that directly enter their utility functions. Based on this framework, this paper tries to explore how housework related to the consuming activities in modern Japan, by observing the practice of housework in the farming households as well as investigating the role of domestic servants in non-farming households in interwar period. We raise two points as the concluding remarks of this paper. First is the complementary nature of the housework to the consumption of goods in Japan's households. The positive correlation between household expenses and housework hours, explored by a quantitative analysis using the data from economic survey of farming households, suggests this, and this finding might propose the inconsistent image of housework to that of Jan de Vries's, which formulated the changing pattern of consumption in Europe, as he assumes the goods-intensive nature of the consumption in expense of the housework (substitutive nature of the housework to the consumption of goods) during the industrializing period in the West. This discrepancy might suggest a possible hypothesis that Japan's pattern can be formulated as labour-intensive way of growing consumption, though it requires further comparative studies on the role of housework for material lives. Secondly, we noticed the supply side of the housework by measuring the contribution of family members as well as domestic servants. The plurality of the family members engaged in housework implies the nature of the Japan's households remote from the breadwinner household model. It also suggests the link between housework and family system, or more interestingly, the relation between family system and consumption pattern. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2010cf779&r=his |
| By: | Beckert, Jens |
| Abstract: | The regulation of the transfer of property mortis causa has been a major concern of social reformers since the Enlightenment. Today, by contrast, the issue of the bequest of wealth from generation to generation stirs hardly any political controversy. Since the mid-twentieth century the topic has lost much of its earlier significance in public debates. In this working paper I show that over the last forty years we can observe a backlash in key areas of inheritance law which breaks the Enlightenment's promise to distribute wealth in society based on individual achievement rather than ascriptive criteria. Hence the question: 'Are we still modern?' -- Die Regulierung der Vermögensvererbung war wichtiger Gegenstand von Sozialreformen seit der Aufklärung. Heute hingegen erregt der Umgang mit Erbschaften kaum noch politische Aufmerksamkeit. Seit der zweiten Hälfte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts hat das Thema seine Bedeutung im öffentlichen Diskurs verloren. Das Working Paper zeigt einen Backlash in zentralen Bereichen des Erbrechts während der letzten vierzig Jahre auf, durch den mit dem Versprechen der Aufklärung gebrochen wird, Reichtum nicht nach Kriterien der Herkunft, sondern nach Maßstäben von Leistung zu verteilen. Daher die Frage: 'Sind wir noch modern?' |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgw:107&r=his |
| By: | Juan Carmona; James Simpson |
| Abstract: | Recent literature on sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (Tuscany), or in providing an important ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (US South). Yet despite these and other important features, sharecropping is surprisingly absent in many, if not most other settings. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this paper argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature: 1) the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were both sufficiently large to employ full time the sharecropper’s family, and allowed them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk; 2) measurement problems associated with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining farm price; 3) and the nature of vertical co-operation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops explains that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This paper incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Sharecropping, French agriculture, Wine history |
| JEL: | D24 L61 N13 N14 N63 N64 O47 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp10-15&r=his |
| By: | Piergallini, Alessandro; Postigliola, Michele |
| Abstract: | We examine the historical dynamics of government debt in Post-Unification Italy, from 1861 to 2009. Unit root tests for the debt-GDP ratio are unable to reject either the non stationarity or the stationarity null hypothesis. Controlling debt dynamics for fiscal feedback policies of the Barro-Bohn style, however, the debt-GDP ratio is found to be mean-reverting. Mean-reversion in the debt-GDP ratio is due not only to a nominal growth dividend, but also to a positive response of primary surpluses to variations in outstanding debt. There is indeed significant evidence that, over the history of Italy, fiscal policy makers have reacted to the accumulation of debt, taking corrective measures to rule out potential long-term sustainability problems. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Policy; Public Debt; Fiscal Sustainability. |
| JEL: | E62 H6 C2 |
| Date: | 2011–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28200&r=his |
| By: | Marc Flandreau, Kim Oosterlinck (IHEID, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | The emergence of the gold standard has for a long time been viewed as inevitable. Fluctuations of the gold-silver exchange rate in world markets were accused to lead to brutal and unsustainable switches of bimetallic countries’ money supplies. However, more recent work has shown that the option character of bimetallism provided a stabilizing feedback loop. Using original data, this paper provides support to the new view. Using quotation prices for Indian Government bonds, we analyze agents’ expectations between 1860 and 1890. The intuition is that the spread between gold and silver bonds issued by the same entity (India) and backed by a credible agent (Britain) is a “pure” measure of the silver risk. The analysis shows that up until 1874 markets were expecting bimetallism to last. It is only after this date that markets gradually started requiring a premium to hold silver bonds indicating their belief that gold would eventually become the only metallic standard. |
| Keywords: | Exchange rate regime, gold standard, bimetallism, credibility, silver risk |
| JEL: | F33 N20 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp01-2011&r=his |
| By: | Vladimir Popov (New Economic School, Moscow) |
| Abstract: | The highest rates of growth of labor productivity in the Soviet Union were observed not in the 1930s (3% annually), but in the 1950s (6%). The TFP growth rates by decades increased from 0.6% annually in the 1930s to 2.8% in the 1950s and then fell monotonously becoming negative in the 1980s. The decade of 1950s was thus the “golden period” of Soviet economic growth. The patterns of Soviet growth of the 1950s in terms of growth accounting were very similar to the Japanese growth of the 1950s-70s and to Korean and Taiwanese growth in the 1960-80s – fast increases in labor productivity counterweighted the decline in capital productivity, so that the TFP increased markedly. However, high Soviet economic growth lasted only for a decade, whereas in East Asia it continued for three to four decades, propelling Japan, South Korea and Taiwan into the ranks of developed countries. This paper offers an explanation for the inverted U-shaped trajectory of labor productivity and TFP in centrally planned economies (CPEs). It is argued that CPEs under-invested into the replacement of the retiring elements of the fixed capital stock and over-invested into the expansion of production capacities. The task of renovating physical capital contradicted the short-run goal of fulfilling plan targets, and therefore Soviet planners preferred to invest in new capacities instead of upgrading the old ones. Hence, after the massive investment of the 1930s in the USSR, the highest productivity was achieved after the period equal to the average service life of fixed capital stock (about 20 years) – before there emerged a need for the massive investment into replacing retirement. Afterwards, the capital stock started to age rapidly reducing sharply capital productivity and lowering labor productivity and TFP growth rates. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0152&r=his |
| By: | Leah Platt Boustan; Robert A. Margo |
| Abstract: | Between 1940 and 1980, the rate of homeownership among African-American households increased by close to 40 percentage points. Most of this increase occurred in central cities. We show that rising black homeownership was facilitated by the filtering of the urban housing stock as white households moved to the suburbs, particularly in the slower growing cities of the Northeast and Midwest. Our OLS and IV estimates imply that up to one half of the national increase in black homeownership over the period can be attributed to white suburbanization. |
| JEL: | J71 N92 R21 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16702&r=his |
| By: | Mazumdar, Surajit |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper critically examines the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC) School’s approach to constructing typologies of capitalisms with reference to the specific case of Indian capitalism. It emphasizes that two factors related to its origin and initial emergence remain crucial for explaining many of the key and sometimes very specific outcomes being generated by the operation of Indian capitalism in its current stage. These factors are, firstly, that Indian capitalism was born out of the womb of capitalist colonialism, and secondly, that no thoroughgoing agrarian transformation happened in India before or after independence. These have strongly conditioned capitalist development in India after independence, first under a more statist and protectionist regime till 1991 and subsequently under a more open and market‐oriented policy in the era of globalization. The transformational impact of this development has been consequently limited, even in comparison to other late‐industrializing Asian capitalisms, and insufficient to transcend these factors. Yet changes have happened over time, which lie behind the break state economic policy made with the past in 1991. The paper argues that such a combination of continuity and change poses some vexing problems for the characterization of contemporary Indian capitalism as a particular variety. |
| Keywords: | Varieties of Capitalism; India; Third World |
| JEL: | P17 F54 P16 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28162&r=his |
| By: | Popov, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | Maintaining today’s global imbalances would help to overcome the major disproportion of our times – income gap between developed and developing countries. This gap was widening for 500 years and only now, in the recent 50 years, there are some signs that this gap is starting to decrease. The chances to close this gap sooner rather than later would be better, if the West would go into debt, allowing developing countries to have trade surpluses that would help them develop faster. Previously, in 16-20th century, it was the West that was developing faster, accumulating surpluses in trade with “the rest” and using these surpluses to buy assets in developing countries, while “the rest” were going into debt. Now it is time for “the rest” to accumulate assets and for the West to go into debt. |
| Keywords: | Global imbalances; China; USA; economic growth; acumulation of foreign exchange reserves; debt |
| JEL: | O11 F34 F02 F59 F43 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28110&r=his |
| By: | Giovanni Andrea Cornia |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a simple theoretical framework to explain variations in income inequality over time and between countries. It also analyses the factors responsible for the widespread rise in inequality during the neo-liberal reforms of 1980-2000 in the fields of trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and capital flows, and the rise in migration. Finally, it compares the decline in inequality observed in most of Latin America over 2000-2008 with the steady increase of inequality in many European transition economies during this period despite their return to robust growth. The paper argues that such divergence is explained by differences in policies. |
| Keywords: | policy reforms, neo-liberalism, international economic integration, income inequality, Latin America, transition economies of Europe |
| JEL: | D31 E24 E62 F20 F41 I20 O54 P27 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:une:wpaper:101&r=his |
| By: | Gary D. Libecap |
| Abstract: | Katharine Coman’s “Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation,” published in March 1911 in the first issue of the American Economic Review addressed issues of water supply, rights, and organization. These same issues have relevance today 100 years later in face of growing concern about the availability of fresh water worldwide as demand grows and as supplies become more uncertain due to the potential effects of climate change. The central point of this article is that appropriative water rights and irrigation districts that emerged in the American West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in response to aridity to facilitate agricultural water delivery, use, and trade raise the transaction costs today of water markets. These markets are vital for smooth re-allocation of water to higher-valued uses elsewhere in the economy and for flexible response to greater hydrological uncertainty. This institutional path dependence illustrates how past arrangements to meet conditions of the time constrain contemporary economic opportunities. They cannot be easily significantly modified or replaced ex post. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:33-2010&r=his |
| By: | Richard Darbéra (LATTS - Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés - CNRS : UMR8134 - Université Paris-Est - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech) |
| Abstract: | 1. Everywhere in the world, the taxi is set to play a central role in the future of urban mobility. On the supply side, the revolution in practices brought about by the mobile phone and GPS still have a long way to go in terms of improvements in service and reductions in costs. On the demand side, demographic and lifestyle changes and environmental imperatives are beginning to create certain needs that the taxi is best able to meet at minimum cost. 2. These forces that govern the role of the taxi and the demand for mobility apply everywhere, but the resistances they encounter differ from one city to the next. However, even in cities where existing positions seem most firmly entrenched, the attraction of these markets is such that new players are managing to infiltrate gaps in the system by means of innovation. 3. The evolution of the taxi industry is generally not a smooth ride, especially when some stakeholders, entrenched in obsolete regulation, have been able to deter reform for a long time. 4. When looking back through history, the taxi industry seems to evolve from crisis to crisis, punctuating more or less lengthy periods of stillness. These crises may be the disruptive entries of newcomers into a tightly regulated market. Most of the time, these bring with them a new technology or a radically different business model. These crises may also be engineered by governments, as in the case of deregulation. 5. Studying these critical moments could provide some insights in the basic economic and political mechanisms at work when shaping the supply of taxi services and help regulators anticipating the outcomes of the changes in progress they witness. |
| Keywords: | taxi; regulation; history |
| Date: | 2010–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00557491&r=his |
| By: | Mazumdar, Surajit |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper emphasizes that economic nationalism in India both contributed to and coexists with the liberalization process initiated since 1991, which marked a decisive break in India’s economic policy and pushed her towards increased integration with the global economy. It is however an inherently more exclusive form of economic nationalism in which capitalist priorities press down harder on an already constrained state. India’s capitalists embraced rather than resisted the liberalization process, in contrast to their active support for a strategy of autonomous development at independence. The paper focuses on this shift in the outlook of the capitalist class represented by India’s big business and tries to identify the reasons why it initially emerged and why it has gathered strength over time. The paper argues that this transformation reflected the development and evolution of Indian capitalism resulting from industrialization under the older autonomous strategy. Embracing liberalization became both possible and necessary for India’s capitalists. The shift in the Indian state’s policy thus was a response to the imperatives of national capitalist development, and the state has continued to assist Indian capital’s growth and development in different ways. Indian capital has in fact gained increased leverage with the state and with its support has grown rapidly and stepped on to the global stage. In the process it has also changed – become less industrial, and more integrated into global production and financial systems. This growth and transformation of Indian big business in turn has reinforced its support for liberalization. |
| Keywords: | Big Business; Economic Nationalism; India |
| JEL: | F52 G38 P16 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28160&r=his |
| By: | Tol, Richard S. J. |
| Abstract: | The research performance of business scholars on the island of Ireland is evaluated based on their number of publication, number of citations, h-index and the same divided by the numbers of years since the first publication. Data were taken from Scopus. There is a large variation in both life-time achievement and annual production. Almost half of the 748 scholars have not published in an academic journal. Men perform better than women. More senior people perform better. There are distinct differences between disciplines, with accountancy performing poorly. On average, scholars in Northern Ireland perform better than scholars in the Republic. However, Trinity College Dublin has the top rank among the eleven business schools; Queen's University Belfast and University College Dublin share the second place; and NUI Galway and the University of Ulster share the fourth spot. Irish business schools specialize in particular research areas so that mergers would lead to schools can support a broader range of cutting-edge education. |
| Keywords: | Business schools/business scholars/research performance/Ireland |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp364&r=his |
| By: | Bruno S. Frey; Paolo Pamini; Lasse Steiner |
| Abstract: | The official intention of the UNESCO World Heritage List is to protect the global heritage. However, the existing List is highly imbalanced according to countries and continents. Historical reasons, such as historical GDP, population, and number of years of high civilization, have a significant impact on being included on the List. In addition, economic and political factors unrelated to the value of heritage, such as rent seeking by bureaucrats and politicians, the size of the tourist sector, the importance of media, the degree of federalism, and membership in the UN Security Council, influence the composition of the List. |
| Keywords: | global public goods; world heritage; international organizations; international political economy; culture |
| JEL: | Z11 F5 H87 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2011-01&r=his |
| By: | Streeck, Wolfgang; Mertens, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Seit Anfang der 1970er-Jahre lässt sich eine graduelle Verschärfung der fiskalischen Situation moderner Staaten beobachten. Chronisch gewordene Defizite und eine dramatisch gestiegene Staatsverschuldung sind zu einer beherrschenden Rahmenbedingung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Politik geworden. Das Papier beschreibt für die Bundesrepublik die langfristige Etablierung eines fiskalpolitischen Regimes der Austerität. Die mit diesem verbundene Einengung des diskretionären Handlungsspielraums staatlicher Politik wird anhand einer Analyse der Entwicklung der Ausgabenstruktur des Bundeshaushalts in den vergangenen vier Jahrzehnten dokumentiert. Die Reaktionen der deutschen Politik auf die 'Finanzkrise' bewirken eine Verfestigung des neuen Austeritätsregimes. Das Papier endet mit Überlegungen zu den Auswirkungen institutionalisierter fiskalischer Austerität auf Stabilität und Qualität demokratischer Politik in Deutschland. -- Since the early 1970s modern states have been faced with a gradual tightening of their fiscal situation. Chronic deficits and mounting public debt have become major factors determining welfare state policies. In the paper we identify the establishment of a fiscal regime of austerity in Germany resulting in an institutionalized crisis of public finances. Analyzing the development of the federal budget in the past four decades, we show a long-term narrowing of fiscal leeway for discretionary policies. We also argue that the reactions of German politics to the 'financial crisis' are consolidating the new austerity regime. We conclude that the stability and quality of democratic politics are substantially affected by the consequences of institutionalized fiscal austerity. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:105&r=his |
| By: | Haan, Jakob de; Kadek Dian Sutrisna Artha, I. (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | Indicators of central bank independence (CBI) based on the interpretation central bank laws in place may not capture the actual independence of the central bank. This paper develops an indicator of actual independence of the Bank Indonesia (BI), the central bank of Indonesia, for the period 1953-2008 and compares it with a new legal CBI indicator based on Cukierman (1992). The indicator of actual independence captures institutional and economic factors that affect CBI. We find that before 1999, legal and actual independence of BI diverged substantially. After a new central bank law was enacted, the legal independence of BI increased and converged to actual independence. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:rugsom:10004&r=his |
| By: | Rémi Jardat (ISTEC - Institut supérieur des Sciences, Techniques et Economie Commerciales - ISTEC); Patrick Gianfaldoni (LBNC - Laboratoire Biens, Normes, Contrats - Université d'Avignon : EA3788); David Hiez (Laboratoire de Droit Economique - Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | The democratic question became of an ardent actuality within cooperative banks since the end of the 1990's. Founding element of human-sized organizations that were the first mutual or cooperative Caisses, is democracy running the risk to dissolve by necessity in the mature and hybrid giants that are the big banking cooperative groups nowadays? The present article unveils a multidisciplinary synthesis made possible by the conjunction of three researchers studying cooperative banks through three complementary angles: law, economy and management. After a first inventory of the possible symptoms of the disappearance of democracy inherent to the cooperative project, a more differentiating diagnosis is proposed, followed by an outline of some working leads for a creative evolution of cooperative democracy. |
| Keywords: | Democracy; bank;cooperative; pluridisciplinarity; new cooperative paradigm |
| Date: | 2010–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00558179&r=his |
| By: | De Vroey, Michel |
| Abstract: | This paper concerns a neglected aspect of Lucas's work: his methodological writings, published and unpublished. Particular attention is paid to his views on the relationship between theory and ideology. I start by setting out Lucas's non-standard conception of theory: to him, a theory and a model are the same thing. I also explore the different facets and implications of this conception. In the next two sections, I debate whether Lucas adheres to two methodological principles that I dub the 'non-interference' precept (the proposition that ideological viewpoints should not influence theory), and the 'non-exploitation' precept (that the models' conclusions should not be transposed into policy recommendations, in so far as these conclusions are built into the models' premises). The last part of the paper contains my assessment of Lucas's ideas. First, I bring out the extent to which Lucas departs from the view held by most specialized methodologists. Second, I wonder whether the new classical revolution resulted from a political agenda. Third and finally, I claim that the tensions characterizing Lucas's conception of theory follow from his having one foot in the neo-Walrasian and the other in the Marshallian-Friedmanian universe. -- |
| Keywords: | Lucas,new classical macroeconomics,methodology |
| JEL: | B22 B30 B31 B41 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201028&r=his |
| By: | Freye, Saskia |
| Abstract: | Against the background of an observed strategic realignment of corporations in Germany towards the financial markets and the interests of shareholders, attention is also increasingly drawn to the top managers. Yet recent studies on the recruitment and career patterns of the German corporate elite present ambiguous results. While some studies suggest that career paths remain stable, others find evidence that patterns are changing. Drawing on these different results, scholars either highlight or reject a linkage between the career patterns of top managers and the realignment of corporate strategies. Against the background of these contradictory findings, this paper investigates the changing composition of the German corporate elite. It is based upon a unique dataset capturing the career paths of the CEOs of the fifty largest industrial companies in Germany for every five years between 1960 and 2005. For the first time the development of the career paths of German top managers can be analyzed over a period of 45 years. The analysis focuses on four career patterns which are commonly associated with German managers. Although these patterns appear stable at first sight, closer examination reveals substantial changes. Building on insights from the sociological management literature and economic sociology, the results of this study indicate a link between career patterns and the observed change in corporate strategies. Therefore it is argued that the changing composition of the German corporate elite may be relevant to the discussion on the unwinding of Deutschland AG, the specific corporate governance system of postwar Germany. -- Im Zusammenhang mit einer stärkeren strategischen Ausrichtung deutscher Unternehmen an den Finanzmärkten sowie den Interessen der Anteilseigner geraten Topmanager zunehmend ins Zentrum des Interesses. Bei der Analyse der Rekrutierungsmuster und Zusammensetzung der deutschen Wirtschaftselite kommen jüngste Studien zu keinem eindeutigen Ergebnis. Es ist zum einen umstritten, ob sich die Rekrutierungsmuster des Topmanagements verändert haben. Zum anderen gibt es widersprüchliche Analysen zum Zusammenhang zwischen den Rekrutierungsmustern und der strategischen Neuausrichtung von Unternehmen. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser unterschiedlichen Beurteilungen untersucht das Papier Veränderungen in der Zusammensetzung und den Rekrutierungsmustern der deutschen Wirtschaftselite. Die Grundlage dafür bildet eine Datenbank, in der die Karriereverläufe von Vorstandsvorsitzenden der deutschen Industrie zu zehn Zeitpunkten zwischen 1960 und 2005 erfasst sind. Erstmals können die Karrieremuster der Topmanager in Deutschland über einen Zeitraum von 45 Jahren analysiert werden. Untersucht werden einige Karrieremerkmale, die im internationalen Vergleich als typisch für deutsche Manager gelten. Auf den ersten Blick scheinen sich die Karriereverläufe der Manager durch hohe Kontinuität auszuzeichnen. In einer differenzierteren Analyse werden hingegen substanzielle Veränderungen sichtbar. Auf Erkenntnisse der soziologischen Managementliteratur und der Wirtschaftssoziologie aufbauend deuten die Ergebnisse der Studie auf eine Verbindung zwischen den Karrieremerkmalen der Manager und dem beobachteten Strategiewandel in der Wirtschaft hin. Vor diesem Hintergrund sollte die veränderte Zusammensetzung der deutschen Wirtschaftselite auch für die Literatur zur Auflösung der Deutschland AG von Interesse sein. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:1010&r=his |
| By: | COPPOLA, Gianluigi (CELPE (Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy), University of Salerno, Italy); GAROFALO, Maria Rosaria (CELPE (Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy), University of Salerno, Italy); MAZZOTTA, Fernanda (CELPE (Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy), University of Salerno, Italy) |
| Abstract: | The research described in this paper is consisting of an indepth study of an important area of the Italian Mezzogiorno: the province of Salerno. The aim of the paper is twofold. The first was to identify, by means of cluster analysis, specialization of industrial areas in this province For that, some methodological points are previously selected from the current approach to development economics, that focuses both on genesis and evolution of local systems, by emphasising, among other aspects, the role of the immaterial resources and institutions. The results depict a variegated territory comprising both areas of closed economy, where the purpose of economic activity is to satisfy basic needs (food and housing), and areas that display a certain degree of economic openness towards the outside markets. Many clusters with high indexes of manufacturing specialization are classified as areas of sub furniture or as areas born by an exogenous intervention. The second aim of the research is to measure the social conditions that should foster the growth of new industrial districts within different areas of productive specialization, just identified by the cluster analysis. The approach used was the simple correspondence analysis of a set of qualitative variables surveyed, by a questionnaire given to 462 businesses in the province of Salerno. |
| Keywords: | industrialization; local labour market; regional and urban analysis; correspondence analysis |
| JEL: | C10 O14 O18 |
| Date: | 2011–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sal:celpdp:0071&r=his |