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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2012‒06‒05
thirteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Angeles, Luis |
| Abstract: | Institutions, and more speci cally private property rights, have come to be seen as a major determinant of long-run economic development. We evaluate the case for property rights as an explanatory factor of the Industrial Revolution and derive some lessons for the analysis of developing countries today. We pay particular attention to the role of property rights in the accumulation of physical capital and the production of new ideas. The evidence that we review from the economic history literature does not support the institutional thesis. |
| Keywords: | Institutions and Economic Development, Property Rights, Industrial Revolution, long-run growth, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edn:sirdps:250&r=his |
| By: | Pogany, Peter |
| Abstract: | Since value and utility are the highest profile abstractions that underlie an epoch’s intellectual climate and ethical principles, their evolution reflects the transformation of socioeconomic conditions and institutions. The “Classical Phase” flourished during the first global system, laissez-faire/metal money/zero multilateralism (GS1); the second, “Subjective/Utilitarian” phase marked the long transition to the current epoch of “Modern Subjectivism/General Equilibrium,” tied to the second and extant global system, mixed economy/minimum reserve banking/weak multilateralism (GS2). History has witnessed the material de-essentialization of value and substantialization of utility. But now the two concepts face a thorough transvaluation as the world’s combined demographic and economic expansion encounters ecological/physical limitations. An extended macrohistoric implosion may lead to a third form of global self-organization: two-level economy/maximum bank reserve money/strong multilateralism (GS3). If history unfolds along the suggested path, not only economics, but also thinking about economics would change. It would be considered an evolving hermeneutic of the human condition expressed through global-system-specific texts. The implied critical alteration, with the recognition of the entropy law’s importance as its focal point, matches the prediction of Swiss thinker Jean Gebser (1905-1973) about the impending mutation of human consciousness into its integral/arational structure. Such extrapolations form the context in which the fourth historical phase of value and utility is hypothesized, leading to the material re-essentialization of value and de-substantialization of utility. |
| Keywords: | value; utility; new historical materialism; a new take on universal history |
| JEL: | A12 Z10 N00 Q01 B00 |
| Date: | 2012–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39056&r=his |
| By: | D’Ippolito,Beatrice; Miozzo,Marcela; Consoli,Davide |
| Abstract: | Drawing on evidence on the home furnishing sectors in Italy during the XX century, the aim is to understand the instituted processes that facilitated the translation of design know-how from being project-specific to becoming relevant to broader remits. The paper contributes to the debate on industry evolution by incorporating the institutional dimension to the organisational and technological changes taking place at both firm and industry level. |
| Keywords: | Industry emergence, growth of the firm, division of knowledge, division of labour, business function, design, Italian furniture, home furnishing |
| JEL: | O33 L84 D83 |
| Date: | 2012–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201202&r=his |
| By: | Yann Décarie, Michaël Boissonneault and Jacques Légaré |
| Abstract: | The first aim of this document was to produce the most complete list as possible of the microsimulation models developed in Canada in the last two decades. Morever, information was provided about the people or entities that participated in their production, as well as about the researchers who used them and the papers in which they were mentioned. All these informations were found online, more particularly on the web pages of the various workshops of the International Microsimulation Association (IMA) as well as on Statistics Canada‘s Internet page. |
| Keywords: | Microsimulation, Canada, Statistics Canada |
| JEL: | C15 C60 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:298&r=his |
| By: | Grossman, Gene M. (Princeton University); Horn, Henrik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | This study is part of The American Law Institute (ALI) project Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law. The project aims to analyze the central instrument in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement for the regulation of trade in goods – The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT). The present study is one of two background studies for this project*. The first study, The Genesis of the GATT, appraises the rationale for the creation of the GATT, and tracks its development from a historical and legal perspective. This second study provides an overview of the economics of trade agreements. * There is a second leg to the ALI project, in which economists and lawyers jointly analyze the emerging case law from the WTO dispute-settlement mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Trade agreements; GATT; WTO |
| JEL: | F13 |
| Date: | 2012–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0916&r=his |
| By: | Abo-Zaid, Salem |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I study the monthly net job creation (NJC) at the aggregate level in the U.S. over the period 1950-2011. The paper has few important findings. First, NJC did not show a significant trend over the last 6 decades, which resulted in a fall in the NJC rate. Second, NJC is very volatile and it may change course even in the span of one month. Third, there is no clear pattern about the co-movement between NJC and the change in the unemployment rate in the U.S. Fourth, the average of total NJC and private NJC since late 2010 are significantly higher than their respective historical averages and the volatility in NJC since the end of the Great Recession is not unusual by historical standards. Fifth, the size of NJC in the first decade of the 21st century has been the lowest along the entire sample. Finally, the most frequent drop in the unemployment rate is by 0.1 percent, and drops of more than 0.2 percent should not be highly expected. |
| Keywords: | U.S. Net Job Creation; U.S. Unemployment Rate; U.S. Labor Force; The Great Recession |
| JEL: | E24 J60 J21 |
| Date: | 2012–05–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39084&r=his |
| By: | Dan Corry; Anna Valero; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | A common view is that the performance of the UK economy between 1997 and 2010 under Labour was very weak and that the current economic problems are a consequence of poor policies in this period. In this report, we analyse the historical performance of the UK economy since 1997 compared with other major advanced economies and with performance prior to 1997, notably the years of Conservative government, 1979-97. We focus on measures of business performance, especially productivity growth. This is a key economic indicator as in the long run, productivity determines material wellbeing - wages and consumption. Productivity determines the size of the "economic pie" available to the citizens of a country. |
| Keywords: | UK economic performance, productivity, fiscal policy, Labour government |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:366&r=his |
| By: | Kitov, Ivan |
| Abstract: | There is an extensive historical dataset on real GDP per capita prepared by Angus Maddison. This dataset covers the period since 1870 with continuous annual estimates in developed countries. All time series for individual economies have a clear structural break between 1940 and 1950. The behavior before 1940 and after 1950 can be accurately (R2 from 0.7 to 0.99) approximated by linear time trends. The corresponding slopes of regressions lines before and after the break differ by a factor of 4 (Switzerland) to 19 (Spain). We have extrapolated the early trends into the second interval and obtained much lower estimates of real GDP per capita in 2011: from 2.4 (Switzerland) to 5.0 (Japan) times smaller than the current levels. When the current linear trends are extrapolated into the past, they intercept the zero line between 1908 (Switzerland) and 1944 (Japan). There is likely an internal conflict between the estimating procedures before 1940 and after 1950. A reasonable explanation of the discrepancy is that the GDP deflator in developed countries has been highly underestimated since 1950. In the USA, the GDP deflator is underestimated by a factor of 1.4. This is exactly the ratio of the interest rate controlled by the Federal Reserve and the rate of inflation. Hence, the Federal Reserve actually retains its interest rate at the level of true price inflation when corrected for the bias in the GDP deflator. |
| Keywords: | real GDP; price inflation; interest rate; central bank; developed countries |
| JEL: | E43 O47 E31 E01 |
| Date: | 2012–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39059&r=his |
| By: | Olivier Fournout (LTCI - Laboratoire traitement et communication de l'information - CNRS : UMR5141 - Institut Télécom - Télécom ParisTech) |
| Abstract: | Textbooks and manuals on management suggest that managers are heroes who deal with difficult problems of collective adaptation and change. American films are similarly built on the premise of a hero confronted with extremely difficult situations. What if this hero figure promoted for so long in both management literature and the American film industry was the same at the structural level? This paper will attempt to clearly define the performance of heroes that is perhaps shared by the imagination industry (Hollywood) and the image of human relations in the western industrial world. We shall follow this picture of the Manager as Hollywood Hero - or the Managerial-Hollywood Hero (MHH) - through multiple examples in both writings on management and American movies. |
| Keywords: | actor, role, emotion, creativity, innovation, conflict, negociation, heroism, interiority, mission, artist, knighthood |
| Date: | 2012–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00700131&r=his |
| By: | Crosbie, Eric MA; Sebrie, Ernesto M. MD MPH; Glantz, Stanton A. PhD |
| Abstract: |  The tobacco industry successfully blocked or displaced strong tobacco control legislation in Costa Rica for nearly 40 years using similar strategies used in the U.S. and the rest of the world, until the country successfully passed a strong tobacco control law in March 2012. During the 1970s and 1980s, the tobacco companies displaced strong tobacco control legislation on tobacco advertising by endorsing weaker executive decrees. In response to increased tobacco control pressure, the industry successfully weakened the 1995 law by secretly hiring scientific consultants to counter the SHS threat and using the hospitality industry to rollout the Courtesy of Choice program in Costa Rica (then Latin America). Tobacco companies then used Costa Rica as a model to rollout industry youth smoking prevention programs and corporate social responsibility campaigns throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The industry continued its dominance in Costa Rica during the 2000s by developing a cooperative relationship with the Ministry of Health. Although theNational Anti-Tobacco Network(RENATA), a new coalition ofgovernmental health institutions and nongovernmental tobacco control associationsformed in 2007, generated enough public pressure on Legislative Assembly to ratify the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2008 and secure Bill 17.371’s introduction in 2009 to implement the treaty, the industry once again worked through the Ministry of Health to delay the bill’s passage. However, RENATA’s abilityto alert the media and mobilize a coalition of international health advocates to effectivelyinform lawmakers on the importance of the FCTCbetween 2010 and 2012 helped pass a strong tobacco control law in March 2012. |
| Keywords: | Area, Ethnic, Cultural, Gender, and Group Studies, History, Costa Rica, tobacco control legislation, tobacco industry dominance |
| Date: | 2012–05–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ctcres:qt8029s7xw&r=his |
| By: | Ivan Kitov; Oleg Kitov |
| Abstract: | The growth rate of real GDP per capita in the biggest OECD countries is represented as a sum of two components - a steadily decreasing trend and fluctuations related to the change in some specific age population. The long term trend in the growth rate is modelled by an inverse function of real GDP per capita with a constant numerator. This numerator is equivalent to a constant annual increment of real GDP per capita. For the most advanced economies, the GDP estimates between 1950 and 2007 have shown very weak and statistically insignificant linear trends (both positive and negative) in the annual increment. The fluctuations around relevant mean increments are characterized by practically normal distribution. For many countries, there exist historical estimates of real GDP since 1870. These estimates extend the time span of our analysis together with a few new estimates from 2008 to 2011. There are severe structural breaks in the corresponding time series between 1940 and 1950, with the slope of linear regression increasing by a factor of 4.0 (Switzerland) to 22.1 (Spain). Therefore, the GDP estimates before 1940 and after 1950 have been analysed separately. All findings of the original study are validated by the newly available data. The most important is that all slopes (except that for Australia after 1950) of the regression lines obtained for the annual increments of real GDP per capita are small and statistically insignificant, i.e. one cannot reject the null hypothesis of a zero slope and thus constant increment. Hence the growth in real GDP per capita is a linear one since 1870 with a break in slope between 1940 and 1950. |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1205.5671&r=his |
| By: | Monica Martinez-Bravo; Gerard Padró i Miquel; Nancy Qian; Yang Yao |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of introducing elections on public goods and redistribution in rural China. We collect a large and unique survey to document the history of political reforms and economic policies and exploit the staggered timing of the introduction of elections for causal identification. We find that elections significantly increase public goods expenditure, the increase corresponds to demand and is paralleled by an increase in public goods provision and local taxes. We also find that elections cause significant income redistribution within villages. The results support the basic assumptions of recent theories of democratization (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2000; Lizzeri and Persico, 2004). In addition, we show that the main mechanism underlying the effect of elections is increased leader incentives. |
| JEL: | H11 O38 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18101&r=his |
| By: | Droppelmann, Klaus; Makuwira, Jonathan; Kumwenda, Ian |
| Abstract: | Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the study of structural transformation. However, Africa has received little attention despite the fact that its rural areas seem to be very poor and unproductive relative to urban areas. This case study provides a reflection on challenges faced and development strategies adopted by successive governments in Malawi. Malawi is a country with a complex history of rural-urban transformation. On one hand, Malawi has long been, and still is, a predominantly agrarian economy that has seemingly undergone relatively little rural-urban transformation. Malawi is still predominantly rural, most migration is rural-to-rural, and its economic base is heavily dominated by the production of maize (largely for domestic consumption) and tobacco (largely for exports). In this paper we analyze the macroeconomic policy situation and document patterns and trends in Malawi's rural-urban transformation in a systematic manner. To that end, we focus on a number of dimensions of this transformation, including urban population growth, migration patterns, employment trends, and a spatial analysis of agglomerations and connectivity to major urban centers. We then turn to explain these patterns, largely in terms of colonial, post-independence, and more recent history of agricultural policies. We also examine migration patterns (both rural-urban and rural-rural), and constraints on the development of the nonfarm sector. In conclusion it becomes apparent that Malawi must diversify its economy to sustain poverty reduction and economic growth. However, it is not clear whether Malawi has an obvious comparative advantage in any sizeable nonfarm sector and how exactly the economic diversification process is to be achieved. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, agricultural sector growth, Rural-urban transformation, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1177&r=his |