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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2012‒09‒09
25 papers chosen by |
| By: | Oscar Gelderblom; Abe de Jong; Joost Jonker (Universiteit Utrecht and Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | With their legal personhood, permanent capital with transferable shares, separation of ownership and management, and limited liability for both shareholders and managers, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and subsequently the English East India Company (EIC) are generally considered a major institutional breakthrough. Our analysis of the business operations and notably the financial policy of the VOC during the company’s first two decades in existence shows that its corporate form owed less to foresight than to constant piecemeal engineering to remedy original design flaws brought to light by prolonged exposure to the strains of the Asian trade. Moreover, the crucial feature of limited liability for managers was not, as previously thought, part and parcel of that design, but emerged only after a long period of experimenting with various, sometimes very ingenious, solutions to the company’s financial bottlenecks. |
| Keywords: | Dutch East India Company (VOC), corporate governance, Dutch Republic, financial markets, colonial expansion |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0036&r=his |
| By: | Yoshihiko Okabe (Faculty of Economics, Kobe Gakuin University) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this research note is to study the mariner occupation in Bristol by analyzing probate inventories from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A large percentage of people were engaged in the occupation of a mariner, and this was a primary occupation for many in Bristol. In this research note, the general distribution and value of mariners' inventories are determined. It is difficult to define the occupation of a mariner by referring to only one image. Almost all mariners belonged to the middle-income group, but some inventories recorded very high values. High-value inventories were particularly recorded in the seventeenth century. Hence, the mariner occupation belonged to the upper-middle-income group in the seventeenth century; later, this occupation gave way to that of low-wage worker in the eighteenth century. The word gmarinerh has a board meaning, and it cannot be restricted to only one occupation. |
| Keywords: | English economic history, probate inventories, mariners, Bristol |
| JEL: | N3 N13 |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1215&r=his |
| By: | Timothy Besley; Marta Reynal-Querol |
| Abstract: | There is a great deal of interest in the causes and consequences of conflict in Africa, one of the poorest areas of the world where only modest economic progress has been made. This paper asks whether post-colonial conflict is, at least in part, a legacy of historical conflict by examining the empirical relationship between conflict in Africa since independence with recorded conflicts in the period 1400 to1700. We find evidence of a legacy of historical conflicts using between-country and withincountry evidence. The latter is found by dividing the continent into 120km_120km grids and measuring the distance from 91 documented historical conflicts. We also provide evidence that historical conflict is correlated with lower levels of trust, a stronger sense of ethnic identity and a weaker sense of national identity. |
| Keywords: | Conflict, Trust, Identity |
| JEL: | N47 O43 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stieop:036&r=his |
| By: | Islahi, Abdul Azim |
| Abstract: | The present paper studies economic ideas of an Azharite graduate of the nineteenth century Egypt - Rifā‘ah Rāfi‘ al-Tahtāwī who was influenced by the French Scholars and Philosophers, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mantesquieu. He wrote on significance of industry, productive and unproductive labor, importance of foreign trade, competition, and equal opportunity for all. According to him justice, freedom and human brotherhood are the foundations of economic welfare. He strived for women's economic empowerment. He was not simply a follower of Western economic ideas. He added to them human norms and Islamic values. Although born in an age of laissez faire, he advocated for a role of Government in economic matters. |
| Keywords: | Western Banking and Riba; Nineteenth Century Muslim Economic Thinking; History of Islamic Economic Thought |
| JEL: | B31 H80 B00 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:41009&r=his |
| By: | Richard J. Reid |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is deceptively simple: What has war achieved in Africa in the last two hundred years? What have the wagers of war aimed to achieve, even if they did not succeed? Why and in what ways has violence failed? This paper represents a preliminary attempt to explore what can broadly be termed the 'economic aspects' of both warfare and military organisation in Africa's modern history — to identify the economic drivers of conflict, as well as the material constraints upon it; to explore the ways in which warfare can be said to have facilitated 'development', broadly defined, as well as bringing about economic catastrophe, or at least severely inhibiting economic growth; and to highlight the degree to which participation in violence, notably as armed combatant, represented material aspiration and offered opportunities for both economic gain and social mobility. At root, it is argued here that the developmental aspects of warfare — viewed over the long term, and understood within local parameters — need to be appreciated alongside its unquestionably highly destructive elements. The paper uses as its timeframe the period since c.1800, a date which — give or take a decade or two on either side, variable from place to place — denotes the beginning of Africa's 'modern era'. In many ways the centrepiece of the thesis presented here is that across much of the continent the 'long' nineteenth century — stretching between the 1780s and the 1920s — witnessed a revolution in military affairs, ongoing aspects of which have had a profound influence on postcolonial Africa. The paper aims to examine the economic dimensions of that revolution and its aftermath, and to place Africa's recent economic and military history in a longer-term context. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:310&r=his |
| By: | Kyriazis, Nicholas; Metaxas, Theodore |
| Abstract: | In the present paper we propose that in states with relatively weak central authorities, decision makers had to develop market oriented organisation solutions to successfully face a grave external threat, and these solutions proved to be efficient. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines institutional theory, history and strategy, we analyse the concept of macroculture and then a case study, the use of corsairs (privateers) by England and the United Provinces (Dutch Republic) in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. We also propose that the development of partnership companies went hand in hand for commercial and military purposes. Lastly, we suggest that a market led decentralised type of war as practiced by English and Dutch privateers proved to be economically efficient and superior to the centrally planed war operations of the Spanish empire. |
| Keywords: | Path dependence and change, institutions, partnership companies, corsairs, 16th-17th century England and United Provinces (Dutch Republic) |
| JEL: | N23 H7 N43 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:40926&r=his |
| By: | Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Viola, von Berlepsch |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the extent to which the distinct settlement pattern of migrants arriving in the US during the big migration waves of the late 19th and early 20th centuries has left a legacy on the economic development of the counties where they settled and whether this legacy can be traced until today. Using data from the 1880, 1900 and 1910 censuses, we first look at the geography of migration across US counties in the 48 continental states. We then link this settlement pattern of migrants to current levels of local development – proxied by GDP per capita at county level in 2005 – while controlling for a number of factors which may have influenced both the location of migrants at the time of migration, as well as for the economic development of the county today. The results of the econometric analysis including instrumental variables underline that the big migration waves have left an indelible trace on territories which determines their economic performance until today. US counties which attracted large numbers of migrants more than a century ago are still more dynamic today than counties that did not. The results also show that the territorial imprint of migration has become more pervasive than all other local characteristics which would have determined and shaped economic performance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
| Keywords: | counties; culture; economic development; institutions; long-term legacy; migration; US |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9122&r=his |
| By: | Cinnirella, Francesco; Klemp, Marc P B; Weisdorf, Jacob |
| Abstract: | We question the received wisdom that birth limitation was absent among historical populations before the fertility transition of the late nineteenth-century. Using duration and panel models on individual data, we find a causal negative effect of living standards on birth spacing in the three centuries preceding England's fertility transition. While the effect could be driven by biology in the case of the poor, a significant effect among the rich suggests that spacing worked as a control mechanism in pre-modern England. Our findings support the Malthusian preventive check hypothesis and rationalize England's historical leadership as a low population-pressure, high-wage economy. |
| Keywords: | Birth intervals; Fertility limitation; Natural fertility; Preventive check; Spacing |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N33 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9116&r=his |
| By: | William Barnett (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas) |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:201233&r=his |
| By: | Dan Curtis (Universiteit Utrecht) |
| Abstract: | The Mediterranean landscape is today characterised by large concentrated settlements known as ‘agro-towns’, often melancholically depicted as grim and impoverished. Their persistence and proliferation is not yet well explained. In this article, by focusing on Southern Italy it is suggested that they can be associated with high economic polarisation consolidated over the long term. However, far from subscribing to a view of Southern Italian society as something that was completely unchanging from the medieval period right up to the twentieth century, it is argued that this continuity was only possible because dominant social groups used a number of very dynamic and flexible methods to maintain the status quo. |
| Keywords: | Mediterranean, agro-town, Italy, latifundia, polarisation, underdevelopment |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0034&r=his |
| By: | William Barnett (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas) |
| Keywords: | Fisher Ideal Index, Historical Price Indexes, Historical Quantity Indexes, Splicing |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:201221&r=his |
| By: | Maloney, William F.; Caicedo, Felipe Valencia |
| Abstract: | Using subnational historical data, this paper establishes the within country persistence of economic activity in the New World over the last half millennium. The paper constructs a data set incorporating measures of pre-colonial population density, new measures of present regional per capita income and population, and a comprehensive set of locational fundamentals. These fundamentals are shown to have explanatory power: native populations throughout the hemisphere were found in more livable and productive places. It is then shown that high pre-colonial density areas tend to be dense today: population agglomerations persist. The data and historical evidence suggest this is due partly to locational fundamentals, but also to classic agglomeration effects: colonialists established settlements near existing native populations for reasons of labor, trade, knowledge and defense. Further, high density (historically prosperous) areas also tend to have higher incomes today, and largely due to agglomeration effects: fortune persists for the United States and most of Latin America. Finally extractive institutions, in this case, slavery, reduce persistence even if they do not overwhelm other forces in its favor. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,E-Business,Transport Economics Policy&Planning |
| Date: | 2012–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6187&r=his |
| By: | David Laidler (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | Specific ideas about the Fisher relation between real and nominal interest rates and more general ideas about the nature of the central bank's duty to support the financial system in times of crisis were important to the Monetarist re-assessment of the causes of the Great Depression and what this event implied about the inherent stability of the market economy. Aspects of the evolution of these ideas since the Depression and the role that they have played in recent debates about the Great Recession are discussed, and some tentative conclusions about the validity of Monetarist ideas are drawn. |
| Keywords: | Great Depression; Great Recession; Fisher relation; interest rate; monetary policy; central bank; lender of last resort; quantitative easing; money supply; deflation; inflation; monetarism; economic stability |
| JEL: | B22 E44 E58 E65 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:epuwoc:20124&r=his |
| By: | Guido Maria Rey (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa); Luisa Picozzi (ISTAT); Paolo Piselli (Bank of Italy); Sandro Clementi (DigitPA) |
| Abstract: | The research presented here is part of a wider project of revision of historical national accounts in Italy between 1891 and 1970. The reconstruction for 1951-1970 relies on a previous estimate of inter-sectoral (input-output) matrix for 1951 and on a new estimate of inter-sectoral matrix for 1970. For that year, the last "pillar" on which this reconstruction is based, the reconstruction of level of national accounts aggregates is carried out, while keeping consistency with the figures estimated in the previous "pillar years", both in terms of classification of economic activities and with reference to the accounting scheme (ISTAT 65). Starting from values pinned down in the pillar years, value added for 15 branches and GDP uses are computed for each year under the constraint of two other inter-sectoral matrices in 1959 and 1965. Annual data between pillars are estimated with Denton's interpolation method, using as reference series the growth rates of original series from ISTAT. |
| Keywords: | Italy, National Accounts, Historical Data Reconstruction |
| JEL: | C82 N13 N14 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_27&r=his |
| By: | Dmitry Didenko; Peter Foldvari; Bas van Leeuwen (Universiteit Utrecht and Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | To date, the rise and fall of the (former) USSR has triggered a lot of research. Many have focused on the accumulation of physical capital, growth, and consumption. Recently, also the accumulation of human capital has increasingly been incorporated in this picture. However, few datasets exist that cover this crucial variable for this vast area. Therefore, our main objective is to introduce a new dataset that contains human capital related time series for the USSR (and the Newly Independent States (NIS) after its dissolution), constructed mostly on an annual basis. These data were drawn from various primary sources, available datasets and secondary literature where our focus was on constructing a dataset as clear, transparent and consistent as possible. It is our hope that, by supplying these data in electronic format, it will significantly advance quantitative economic history research on Russia and all over the former Soviet Union area (FSU) and will inspire further research in various new fields relating to intellectual production. The data presented in this paper follow after the discussion of the information value of the primary sources utilised, and the various problems that arose when linking and splicing the data from various sources. After constructing series of human capital indicators we perform a time-series and spatial analysis in order to identify the long-term trends of education penetration and of the human capital development in the FSU area with a strong emphasis on inequality issues between the NIS. Applying these results in a simple growth accounting framework provides us with some preliminary insights on the role of human capital in economic development in the FSU area. |
| Keywords: | human capital, education, book production, economic development, socialism, USSR |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0035&r=his |
| By: | Gilhooly, Robert (Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England); Weale, Martin (Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England); Wieladek, Tomasz (Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the international business cycle with new sector level data on hours and output for Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States from 1992 Q1 to 2011 Q3. We estimate a Bayesian dynamic common factor model on this disaggregate data to decompose the quarterly growth rates of output, hours worked and labour productivity into contributions from global, country, sector and idiosyncratic factors. During the ‘Great Recession’ our results suggest that the global factor became the most important determinant of output, hours and labour productivity growth. Before the ‘Great Recession’, on the other hand, the global factor was not very important; country and idiosyncratic factors were the dominant influences on output, hours and productivity; sector factors never matter very much. |
| Keywords: | Labour productivity; international business cycles; dynamic common factor model |
| JEL: | F44 |
| Date: | 2012–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpc:wpaper:0037&r=his |
| By: | Klemp, Marc P B; Weisdorf, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Growth theorists have recently argued that western nations grew rich by parents substituting child quantity (number of births) for child quality (education). Using family reconstitution data from historical England, we explore the causal link between family size and human capital of offspring measured by their literacy status and professional skills. We use a proxy of marital fecundity to instrument family size, finding that children of couples of low fecundity (and hence small families) were more likely to become literate and employed in a skilled profession than those born to couples of high fecundity (and hence large families). Robust to a variety of specifications, our findings are unusually supportive of the notion of a child quantity-quality trade-off, suggesting this could well have played a key role for the wealth of nations. |
| Keywords: | Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off; Demographic Transition; Human Capital Formation; Industrial Revolution; Instrumental Variable Analysis |
| JEL: | J13 N3 O10 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9121&r=his |
| By: | Crafts, Nicholas (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews selected aspects of the history of UK supply-side policy in terms of their productivity implications. An important change after the 1970s which improved productivity performance was the adoption of policies to end protectionism and strengthen competition. A review of horizontal industrial policies shows weaknesses in education, infrastructure, taxation and, especially, land-use planning but, on the positive side, a regulatory stance conducive to the rapid adoption of ICT. A big implication is that any return to a more active industrial policy should be designed to minimize adverse effects on competition. |
| Keywords: | competition; industrial policy; productivity; supply-side policy |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:warwcg:90&r=his |
| By: | Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay; Elliott Green |
| Abstract: | The importance of pre-colonial history on contemporary African development has become an important .eld of study within development economics in recent years. In particular Gennaioli and Rainer (2007) suggest that pre-colonial political centralization has had an impact on con- temporary levels of development within Africa at the country level. We test the Gennaioli and Rainer (2007) hypothesis at the sub-national level with evidence from Uganda. Using a variety of datasets we obtain results which are striking in two ways. First, we con.rm the Gennaioli and Rainer (2007) hypothesis that pre-colonial centralization is highly correlated with modern- day development outcomes such as GDP, asset ownership and poverty levels, and that these correlations hold at the district, sub-county and individual levels. We also use an instrumental variable approach to con.rm this .nding using the distance from ancient capital of Mubende as an instrument. However, our second .nding is that public goods like immunization coverage and primary school enrolment are not correlated with pre-colonial centralization. These .ndings are thus consistent with a correlation between pre-colonial centralization and private rather than public goods, thereby suggesting the persistence of poverty and wealth from the pre-colonial period to the present. |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stieop:039&r=his |
| By: | William Barnett (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas) |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:201222&r=his |
| By: | Étienne Desjardins; Mélina Longpré; François Vaillancourt |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an unusual inter-governmental financial arrangement: a payment by constituent units of a federation to the federal government to keep it out of a fiscal field and thus gain sole occupancy for themselves. This paper thus presents the history of the federal/provincial relationship in the gaming field in Canada focusing on the key period of 1976-1980 when both levels of governments operated lotteries. It chronicles the attempts of both levels of governments to reach an agreement on their sharing of this revenue field. Revenue sharing was rejected, market slicing was agreed to but since 1980, the provinces have purchased a sole occupancy right through an annual payment to the federal government. It shows, using multivariate analysis, that the presence of Loto-Canada reduced provincial gaming revenues in 1978 and 1979 and thus that the provinces were right to seek sole occupancy of the lottery field. It also shows, using numerical simulations of alternative formulas, that the agreement negotiated is very advantageous for the provinces as it did not take into account either the future growth of the lottery market or the diversification of the gaming market in Canada from 1980 to 2010, let alone both. <P>Ce texte présente une entente financière inter-gouvernementale inusuelle soit un paiement par les entités constituantes d’une fédération au gouvernement central pour obtenir l’occupation exclusive par elle-même d’un champ fiscal. Nous présentons donc l’historique des relations fédérales-provinciales au Canada dans le domaine du jeu de hasard, mettant l’emphase sur la période 1976-1980 lorsque les deux niveaux de gouvernements opéraient des loteries. Nous retraçons les diverses tentatives de parvenir à une entente sur le partage de cette source de revenus. Le partage des revenus fut rejeté, le partage des marchés fut convenu, mais depuis 1980, les provinces versent un paiement annuel au gouvernement fédéral pour un droit d’occupation exclusive du domaine du jeu de hasard. Des résultats d’une analyse multivariée indiquent qu’en 1978 et 1979, la présence de Loto-Canada réduisait les revenus du jeu des provinces; elles avaient donc raison d’en chercher l’occupation exclusive. Ce texte indique, à l’aide de simulations numériques, que l’entente en vigueur est très avantageuse pour les provinces, car elle ne tient pas compte de la croissance du marché des loteries et de la diversification du marché du jeu de hasard. |
| Keywords: | Lottery, Gaming revenues, fiscal federalism, Canada, Loterie jeu de hasard, fédéralisme financier, Canada |
| Date: | 2012–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2012s-21&r=his |
| By: | Vanessa Katherine Bolaños Guerrero; Oscar Andrés Espinosa Acuña; Yulman Alexander Figueroa Pico |
| Abstract: | Este escrito describe y analiza el proceso histórico colombiano relacionado con la colonización de baldíos entre 1850 y 1910, a partir de su dinámica de desarrollo y formación en permanente conflicto social a través de los años, con sus implicaciones económicas, políticas, jurídicas y sociales que repercutieron en las nuevas formas de relación de producción y de distribución de la tierra entre el campesinado y la clase empresarial terrateniente de la época. Primero se estudia el marco jurídico legal de asignación y propiedad de terrenos baldíos en el periodo propuesto, para después analizar el conflicto agrario en los aspectos social y económico, concluyendo con la idea de la débil acción del Estado como veedor de justicia para tratar temas de tierras de frontera donde los más perjudicados fueron finalmente los colonos campesinos. |
| Date: | 2012–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000176:009943&r=his |
| By: | Luz Jeannette Quintero Campos; Hugo Herrera Fonseca |
| Abstract: | Se estudian factores empresariales relacionados con los procesos de innovación y fortalecimiento empresarial a través de la ejecución de proyectos impulsados desde el Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo (MCIT) y ejecutados por el Fondo Colombiano para la Modernización y Desarrollo Tecnológico de las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (Fomipyme), en los cuales ha participado la Universidad Nacional de Colombia a través del Centro de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo (CID) de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y el Instituto de Extensión e Investigación (IEI) de la Facultad de Ingeniería, en labores de interventoría técnica y auditoría financiera dirigidas al control de los recursos. Para alcanzar tal propósito se abordan pprincipalmente los siguientes tres tópicos: 1) La estrategia empresarial y la manera cómo se organiza y controlan las actividades de innovación, en relación con la posesión de determinados recursos por parte de las empresas y organizaciones que llevan a cabo los proyectos; 2) Las características de este tipo de proyectos realizados a través del Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo y 3) Los resultados obtenidos en el desarrollo de estos proyectos innovadores. Como resultado final se obtuvo que el alcance de los resultados en innovación en las empresas y los proyectos estudiados dependían de las líneas temáticas promovidas desde el MCIT, pero también en muy buena medida del tipo de empresa, características del empresario y en general de la posesión un mayor o menor volumen de recursos y las capacidades por parte de las mismas. Este estudio constituye un análisis de tipo cualitativo que utiliza el concepto de innovación en un sentido amplio, esto implica observar aspectos intangibles (perfil del empresario, historia de la empresa y sus productos, estrategias en desarrollo de nuevos productos, comercialización, etc.) como parte de la explicación del fenómeno; aspectos que difícilmente son considerados en un estudio netamente cuantitativo. El sentido amplio del concepto de innovación también implica considerar la alternativa de que esta se produce como resultado del aprendizaje y el conocimiento resultado de la experiencia en el hacer y no únicamente a través del experimento en el laboratorio. Los resultados obtenidos en este tipo de estudios pueden ser utilizados por los diseñadores de la política pública en esta materia, para precisar tanto la naturaleza como el alcance de las estrategias de apoyo a las empresas. A nivel universitario el presente trabajo puede servir a profesores y estudiantes para establecer contacto con la realidad del sector productivo. |
| Date: | 2012–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000426:009949&r=his |
| By: | Andreas Fuchs; Axel Dreher; Peter Nunnenkamp |
| Abstract: | What determines the foreign aid effort of donor countries? We review the existing literature on donors’ aid budgets and examine which of the suggested variables robustly determine aid effort, measured as Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a share of gross national income. More specifically, we empirically test 16 hypotheses using panel econometric methods for member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the 1976-2008 period. To test for the robustness of our results, we extend our dataset to 48 possible determinants of aid budgets and apply an Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA). In our fixed effects regressions, we find that aid inertia, the donor country’s GDP per capita, the existence of an independent aid agency, and colonial history have a robust and quantitatively relevant impact on countries’ aid efforts. Among the potential substitutes for aid, remittances exert a robust effect. Excluding year fixed effects, political globalization, Russian military capacity, peer effects, aid effectiveness, and government debt also play a significant role |
| Keywords: | Foreign aid, Official Development Assistance, Aid budget, Extreme Bounds Analysis |
| JEL: | F35 H81 H87 |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1789&r=his |
| By: | Karen Andrea García Rojas |
| Abstract: | On average women are paid less than men for equal work in every country in the world. In Colombia, the average of the wage gap seems to be between 10% and 13% although women have surpassed men in average years of education. A part of these gap can be explained because of men are greater represented in better paid disciplines, but the main explanation, 'the subjective one', relevant with gender wage discrimination, could explain more than the half of the gap. Historically, the female has had to cope with the existence of a stereotyped division of work, which has assigned her, specific roles with deep traditional roots. For women it has not been easy to get rid of these cultural patterns, which not only involve employment discrimination by employers, but also involve, in general, doubts and dilemmas that make them less competitive in a world dominated by men during centuries. There are several papers about the gender wage gap in Colombia. But this field only considers women professional workers, it means, high and middle classes. If they are in that situation, what happen with the lower classes’ women? This essay constructs a discussion since a political economy critical view, around the difficult situation of labor gender discrimination and particular situations of female workers in all social classes, making a comparison between the roles and dilemmas of women workers of different classes; under the recognition that low class women face a deeper and more dramatic discrimination. In the lower classes, women's situation is far to be ‘liberation’, although in some social circles there is the wrong idea that work gender discrimination ‘is over’. In general, lower classes’ women do have a low possibility of independence, autonomy and gender consciousness, because of the difficult access to quality education and formal jobs. Moreover, there is evidence which proves that executive women and women in leadership jobs have been decisively supported by the domestic work to get 'success' in their careers; which shows that in our society there is a gender gap by social class: the dynamics of modern capitalism has allowed, in general, the improved of the welfare, independence and equality for women in upper class (although there remains a gap with their male counterparts), but has not brought the same benefits to lower class women. |
| Date: | 2012–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000176:009935&r=his |