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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2011‒08‒22
fifteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Foreman-Peck, James (Cardiff Business School); Hannah, Leslie |
| Abstract: | We present the first broadly representative study for any early twentieth century economy of the extent to which quoted company ownership was already divorced from managerial control. In the 337 largest, independent, UK companies in the Investor's Year Book (those with \pounds 1m or more share capital in 1911) the two million outside shareholders were fewer than today's shareholding population, but they held 97.5% of the shares in the median company and their directors only 2.5%. This indicates a lower level of personal ownership by boards, and of director voting control, in the largest securities market of the early twentieth century than in any of the world.s major securities markets toward the end of that century. Berle, Means, Gordon and others later quantified the USA's delayed (and on this dimension less advanced) managerial "revolution." Their evidence has been widely misinterpreted: some erroneously concluded that America pioneered this aspect of "modernity" and that the "divorce" of ownership from control, globally, was a new and continuing trend. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2011/21&r=his |
| By: | Farley Grubb (Department of Economics,University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | An alternative history of the Continental Dollar is constructed from the original resolutions passed by Congress. The Continental Dollar was a zero-interest bearer bond, not a fiat currency. The public could redeem it at face value in specie at fixed future dates. Being a zero-interest bearer bond, discounting must be separated from depreciation. Before 1779 there was no depreciation, only discounting. In 1779 and again in 1780 Congress passed ex post facto laws which altered the redemption dates of past Continental Dollars in ways that were not fiscally credible. These laws were the turning point. Depreciation and collapse followed. |
| Keywords: | American Revolution; war financing; debt retirement; fiat money; bearer bonds; monetary denominations; congressional spending; currency depreciation; U.S. Constitution; founding fathers; Benjamin Franklin; state tax rates. |
| JEL: | E42 E52 G12 G18 H11 H56 H60 H71 H83 N11 N21 N41 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:11-15.&r=his |
| By: | Fry, J. M.; Masood, Omar |
| Abstract: | Motivated by an on-going debate in economic history we develop a simple method to quantify the impact of economic revolutions upon a novel historical data set listing the wages of building craftsmen and labourers in Southeast Europe. Structural breaks are found in the data and signify the effects of economic revolutions. With a small number of localised exceptions economic revolutions, caused by technological and administrative progress, lead to a decrease in the long-term level of wage volatility and overall results suggest close analogies between biological and economic evolution. The Commercial Revolution (mid 16th-early 18th centuries) acts as an important pre-requisite for the later Industrial Revolution (mid 18th-19th centuries). The Price Revolution (15th-16th centuries) results in some short-term increases in wage volatility. |
| Keywords: | Historical Economics; Economic Revolutions; Economic Evolution; European Wages |
| JEL: | N01 N00 G00 |
| Date: | 2011–08–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32812&r=his |
| By: | Simon Ville (University of Wollongong); Peter Siminski (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | Australia’s commitment to the Vietnam War drew on the selective conscription of additional manpower through 16 biannual ballots. 20-year-old men were liable to serve if their date of birth was drawn out. The random nature of the ballot was seen as an equitable method of selection for a system of labour coercion that was potentially life-threatening. We investigate the various stages of conscription of these ‘national servicemen’ to undertake service in Vietnam throughout the war and evaluate the extent to which the processes provided for fair and equitable selection. Comparisons are drawn with a similar process of Vietnam-War era conscription in the United States. |
| Keywords: | Australia; conscription; ballot; Vietnam War |
| JEL: | J45 N37 N47 H56 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp11-05&r=his |
| By: | Marcelo Curado (Universidade Federal do Paraná) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the essential elements of the debate on the role of industrialization for economic development in Brazil. The paper examines several moments of this debate, from its origins until the recent discussions of deindustrialization. It is argued that the development of the theme influences and is influenced by historical conditions prevailing. Its central conclusion is that the debate is deeply marked by the different theoretical and methodological starting points adopted by the literature. |
| Keywords: | industrialization, economic development |
| JEL: | B10 B20 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fup:wpaper:0113&r=his |
| By: | Burda, Michael C; Hunt, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | Germany experienced an even deeper fall in GDP in the Great Recession than the United States, with little employment loss. Employers’ reticence to hire in the preceding expansion, associated in part with a lack of confidence it would last, contributed to an employment shortfall equivalent to 40 percent of the missing employment decline in the recession. Another 20 percent may be explained by wage moderation. A third important element was the widespread adoption of working time accounts, which permit employers to avoid overtime pay if hours per worker average to standard hours over a window of time. We find that this provided disincentives for employers to lay off workers in the downturn. Although the overall cuts in hours per worker were consistent with the severity of the Great Recession, reduction of working time account balances substituted for traditional government-sponsored short-time work. |
| Keywords: | extensive vs intensive employment margin; Germany; Great Recession; Hartz reforms; short time work; unemployment; working time accounts |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J6 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8520&r=his |
| By: | John Manuel Luiz; Luis Brites Pereira; Guilherme Oliveira |
| Abstract: | In this paper we focus on the role of political and economic institutions in Mozambique’s development. We produce a set of institutional indicators for Mozambique for the period 1900 through to 2005. The first index tracks political freedoms and is unique in its duration and complexity. The second index is a measure of property rights for Mozambique and such a measure has not existed previously and certainly not for this length of time. The construction of these indices is a painstaking process through historical records but it provides us with a richness of institutional data previously not available. The new institutional indices will allow us to explore the role of the institutional environment in determining economic growth and development in Mozambique over time. |
| Keywords: | Political Rights, Property Rights, Insitutional Indicators, Mozambique |
| JEL: | N47 K00 O55 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:219&r=his |
| By: | Toivanen, Otto; Waterson, Michael |
| Abstract: | Understanding the development of chainstores is important given the large GDP share of services and the continuing importance of chains in bringing these services to market. Service chains provide a puzzle because they take a long time to develop even when there are obvious expansion opportunities. We study the spread of McDonalds in Britain. We find cannibalization on the demand side and economies of density both within and between markets on the cost side, and evidence of learning by doing at the firm level. Within-period diseconomies of scale at the firm level help explain the lengthy opening pattern. |
| Keywords: | Cost of entry; diffusion; economies of density; economies of scale; entry; expansion |
| JEL: | L10 L22 L81 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8534&r=his |
| By: | Richards, John F. |
| JEL: | O53 N0 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:37829&r=his |
| By: | Cécile Hoareau |
| Abstract: | The French Government has had a paradoxical relationship with globalization. Globalization is perceived as both a threat to react against and a cradle for new policy ideas. French policymakers have a love-hate relationship with the European higher education reforms that started in the 1990s, a mixed sentiment that French singer Serge Gainsbourg spoke of in his popular song, ‘Je t’aime moi non plus’. At the outset, most of higher education reforms, such as the Bologna declaration, were framed as a way to build Europe and fight against international competition. Yet, the mode of governance of these reforms mirrored the one recommended by international organizations and led to the precise outcome criticized in globalization, i.e. greater competition. This paper explores the relationship between international, European and domestic discourses and modes of governance. It uses insights from the literature on policy transfer to investigate such relationship and questions the sustainability of such ambivalent discourse. The French government should concentrate on the policy it started developing from 2007 consisting in opening French higher education to globalization. Such global openness requires a change in the academic culture that could be triggered by a reform of academic training. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:2127951&r=his |
| By: | Földvári, Péter; van Leeuwen, Bas; van Zanden, Jan Luiten |
| Abstract: | Price volatility, reflecting the ability to absorb exogenous supply- or demand shocks, is an important dimension of market performance. In this paper we present a model to study the factors determining the price volatility of markets of basic foodstuffs in pre industrial societies. This model is used to explain the development of price volatility on markets in countries around the Mediterranean between 580 BC and 1800 AD. This is the region for which we have the oldest evidence of functioning markets (from Mesopotamia), so that we can track their development in time over a period of more than 2000 years. We find a break in market performance: medieval markets had a much lower level of volatility than ancient markets--a fact we try to explain within our model. Moreover, we suggest that this reduction in price volatility may have had important consequences for the economic behavior of farmers: price variability had to be reduced to the level that we find for the post-1000 period to induce farmers to specialize. |
| Keywords: | economic history; market performance; market prices; Mediterranean |
| JEL: | D40 E30 N13 N15 O13 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8521&r=his |
| By: | Saul D. Hoffman (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Ivo Bicanic (Department of Economics,University of Zagreb); Oriana Vukoja (Department of Economics,University of Zagreb) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine wage inequality and wage differentials in Croatia from 1970 to 2008 using two long aggregate time series on the distribution of income. We focus especially on changing income inequality related to educational and vocational attainment, changing income inequality within those groups, and how these two components of inequality were affected by the economic transformation from Socialism to capitalism. We find that income inequality between groups rose moderately post-transformation, while overall inequality increased more sharply. This finding is consistent with a growing importance of individual rather than group productivity in labor market compensation, a change broadly consistent with the economic transformation of the Croatian labor market. |
| Keywords: | Croatia, Economics of Transition, Inequality, Gini coefficient |
| JEL: | J3 P2 P23 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:11-17.&r=his |
| By: | Tanaka, Katsuto |
| Abstract: | The work of Professor P.C.B. Phillips, even if it is focused on the area of linear nonstationary models, is enormous. So it is hard for me to explore the whole of his work in this paper. Therefore I have decided to take up only a few results of his work. The topics chosen here are applications of the martingale approximation and the problem of choosing between stochastic and deterministic trends, which I discuss and, hopefully extend. |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:econdp:2011-05&r=his |
| By: | Justin O Zake |
| Abstract: | Anglophone African countries have been implementing reform and modernization initiatives in their Customs administrations. This paper outlines the progression of key reform and modernization initiatives in these countries since the early 1990s, and assesses the gap between these reforms and those of more modern Customs agencies. The review suggests that Customs administration reform and modernization initiatives in Anglophone African countries generally lag behind international good practice and it is necessary to speed up implementation if revenue, trade facilitation, and trade chain security objectives are to be achieved. The findings also have implications on the design of reform programs and focus of potential technical assistance for the outstanding reform agenda. |
| Date: | 2011–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:11/184&r=his |
| By: | Jacques Forest; Marylène Gagné |
| Abstract: | Although compensation specialists generally argue for incentive systems that link rewards to performance, self-determination theory argues that such contingent rewards can have detrimental effects on autonomous motivation. The authors present a model of the motivational effects of compensation systems that attempts to reconcile the self-determination theory view and the literature on compensation. This model evaluates how compensation system characteristics, such as the amount and variability of pay, can influence the satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which in turn influence autonomous work motivation. <P>Si les spécialistes en rémunération sont généralement en faveur des systèmes de primes qui lient la récompense à la performance, la théorie de l’autodétermination, quant à elle, suggère que de telles récompenses contingentes peuvent nuire à la motivation autonome. Nous présentons un modèle des effets motivationnels engendrés par les systèmes de rémunération qui tente de faire concorder la théorie de l’autodétermination avec la documentation sur la rémunération. Ce modèle évalue de quelle façon les caractéristiques des systèmes de rémunération, tels les variations de la rémunération et son niveau, peuvent influer sur la satisfaction du besoin d’autonomie, la compétence et le rapprochement, lesquels peuvent, à leur tour, marquer la motivation autonome au travail. |
| Keywords: | self-determination theory, compensation, rewards, incentives, organizational justice., théorie de l’autodétermination, compensation, récompenses, mesures incitatives, justice organisationnelle. |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2011s-54&r=his |