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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2013‒10‒02
24 papers chosen by |
| By: | Ma, Debin (London School of Economics); Yuan, Weipeng (Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing) |
| Abstract: | This article recounts our unique encounter –through the last seven years of our research - with the Tong Taisheng (统泰升) merchant account books in the Ninjing county of Northern China in 1800-1850. By tracing the personal history of the original owner or donor, we address a large historiographical and epistemological issue behind the current Great Divergence debate on why Industrial Revolution occurred in England but not in China. Our article showcases how the development of political ideology and academic discipline in the modern era impacts our understanding of historical statistics and realities of the early modern era, a critical issue largely neglected in the current Great Divergence debate. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:warwcg:163&r=his |
| By: | Pascali, Luigi (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Are differences in local banking development long-lasting? Do they affect long-term economic performance? I answer these questions by relying on an historical development that occurred in Italian cities during the 15th century. A sudden change in the Catholic doctrine had driven the Jews toward money lending. Cities that were hosting Jewish communities developed complex banking institutions for two reasons: first, the Jews were the only people in Italy who were allowed to lend for a profit and, second, the Franciscan reaction to Jewish usury led to the creation of charity lending institutions, the Monti di Pietà, that have survived until today and have become the basis of the Italian banking system. Using Jewish demography in 1500 as an instrument, I provide evidence of (1) an extraordinary persistence in the level of banking development across Italian cities (2) large effects of current local banking development on per-capita income. Additional firm-level analyses suggest that well-functioning local banks exert large effects on aggregate productivity by reallocating resources toward more efficient firms. I exploit the expulsion of the Jews from the Spanish territories in Italy in 1541 to argue that my results are not driven by omitted institutional, cultural and geographical characteristics. In particular, I show that, in Central Italy, the difference in current income between cities that hosted Jewish communities and cities that did not exists only in those regions that were not Spanish territories in the 16th century. JEL classification: Banks ; Economic development ; Persistence ; Jewish demography JEL codes: O43 ; G21 ; O10 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1026&r=his |
| By: | Alexander Klein; Tim Leunig |
| Abstract: | This paper examines Gibrat's law in England and Wales between 1801 and 1911 using a unique data set covering the entire settlement size distribution. We find that Gibrat's law broadly holds even in the face of population doubling every fifty years, an industrial and transport revolution, and the absence of zoning laws to constrain growth. The result is strongest for the later period, and in counties most affected by the industrial revolution. The exception were villages in areas bypassed by the industrial revolution. We argue that agglomeration externalities balanced urban disamenities such as commuting costs and poor living conditions to ensure steady growth of many places, rather than exceptional growth of few. |
| Keywords: | Gibrat’s law, city-size distribution, industrial revolution |
| JEL: | N93 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:sercdo0140&r=his |
| By: | Morgan Kelly (University College Dublin); Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University); Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Why was Britain the cradle of the Industrial Revolution? Answers vary: some focus on resource endowments, some on institutions, some on the role of empire. In this paper, we argue for the role of labour force quality or human capital. Instead of dwelling on mediocre schooling and literacy rates, we highlight instead the physical condition of the average British worker and his higher endowment of skills. These advantages meant that British workers were more productive and better paid than their Continental counterparts and better equipped to capitalize on the technological opportunities and challenges confronting them (This paper should be read in conjunction with WP13/12: Morgan Kelly, Joel Mokyr and Cormac Ó Gráda: 'Appendix to “Precocious Albion: a New Interpretation of the British Industrial Revolution”' September 2013). |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution, Human Capital, Economic Growth |
| Date: | 2013–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201311&r=his |
| By: | Kai P. Willführ (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Charlotte Störmer |
| Abstract: | The historical population of the Krummhörn region [1720-1850] in the northwest of Germany can be characterized as a non-industrialized, pre-capitalist agricultural society. Around 70 percent of the families had either no land or owned farms too small to ensure subsistence, and therefore worked on the big farms owned by the families of the economic upper class. The economic elite made up around 15 percent of the population, but they owned 80 percent of the farm land. The remaining 15 percent of the population did not belong to the elite, but owned estates that were big enough to support their families, and were therefore economically independent. During the study period there were no famines or wars, and mortality, especially of infants, was very low compared to mortality in other German regions. Furthermore, the population was not naturally fertile. As there were on average only four to five births in complete families, the population was barely growing. In this paper, we investigate how the reproductive behavior of these families was affected by their social status and by short-term fluctuations in their socioeconomic conditions. Poisson and Cox regression models are used to analyze the age at first reproduction, fertility, the sex ratio of the offspring, sex-specific infant survival rates, and the number of children. In addition, we investigate how fluctuations in crop prices affected seasonal-specific infant mortality and fertility. We also include information about the seasonal climate that may had an effect on crop prices as well as on infant mortality via other pathways. In sum, we find that reproductive success (the number of children born and the number of children surviving to adulthood) was correlated with social rank. Individuals from high-ranking families had more births and a higher number of surviving children. We also find that social strata-specific constraints were important factors: birth rank and sex-specific reproductive values affected both infant mortality and the female age at first marriage differently in the different social strata. High crop prices were associated with a rise in infant mortality in the autumn and the winter, which may have been a reflection of a tense situation among the landless. Meanwhile, warm or hot weather was associated with an increase in child mortality in the summer, possibly because of the increased risk of infection with malaria, a common disease in the Krummhörn region at that time. |
| Keywords: | Germany, family reconstitution, historical sources, reproductive behavior, social stratification |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2013-011&r=his |
| By: | Alain Béraud (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS : UMR8184 - Université de Cergy Pontoise) |
| Abstract: | Book review of a selection of Jean-Baptiste Say's principal writings on money and banking |
| Keywords: | Say; money; banking |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00865694&r=his |
| By: | Astrid Kander; David I. Stern |
| Abstract: | We examine the role of substitution from traditional to modern energy carriers and of differential rates of innovation in the use of each of these in Sweden from 1850 to 1950. We use a simple growth model with a nested CES production function and exogenous factor augmenting technological change and carry out a growth accounting decomposition based on the econometric results. Energy and energy augmenting technological change contributed more than a third of the economic growth in this period. Even though the rate of technical change was much larger for modern energy, innovation in the use of traditional energy carriers contributed more to growth between 1850 and 1890, since the cost share of traditional energy was so much larger than that of modern energy in that period. However, after 1890 we find that modern energy contributed much more to economic growth than traditional energy, but increasingly labor augmenting technological change and capital accumulation became the most important drivers of growth in the final decades of the period. |
| JEL: | O13 O41 Q43 N13 N14 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2013-65&r=his |
| By: | Alberto Basso (Plymouth Business School); David Cuberes (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data on fertility and financial development in 19th century U.S. to test the hypothesis that more developed local financial markets reduce the incentives for families to have a large offspring to provide for them at old age, the so-called old-age security hypothesis. We find that the presence of banks is associated to lower children-to-women ratios and crude birth rates even after controlling for a large set of socio-economic factors. To account for possible endogeneity of bank location we instrument for the presence of some banking activity in a given county in 1840 with the existence of at least a bank in that county in 1820. The results of using this identification strategy are in line with the OLS ones, namely that fertility in 1850 is negatively affected by financial development. Next we explore the relationship between banking activity and fertility in the state of Pennsylvania, where, by law, most banks were created before 1820. This allows us to treat banks in 1840 as exogenous and confirm the existence of a strong negative causal effect from financial development to fertility. Finally, we show that our results are robust to measuring banking activity with the number of cities with at least a bank in a given county. |
| Keywords: | fertility; old-age security hypothesis; financial development; 19th century U.S. |
| JEL: | O10 N31 J10 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2013011&r=his |
| By: | Barrientos Quiroga, Paola Andrea |
| Abstract: | The concept of club convergence has been widely used in empirical analysis to group countries in clubs with similar development paths. However, there is no unified agreement on how to identify the clubs in the first place. In this paper, I argue that economic history can guide us to identify clubs. The argument is that economic history helps us understand when, where, and how institutions are formed and since institutions determine the way scarce resources are used by their chosen policies, it allows us to understand economic growth. Even though Latin America is typically considered a club itself, due to common characteristics, such as language, geography, religion and history, it still exhibits differences across countries. I study a period of more than 100 years, from 1900 to 2007,where first, I identify two main common external shocks to the region: the Great Depression in the 1930s and the oil price shock in 1974. Second, I classify countries in clubs according, first, to their natural resources endowments, and then, after each shock, to their policy-response to the shocks. Lastly, I test convergence within each club. I find significant and positive convergence speed within each of the clubs, implying that this way of finding clubs should not be ruled out. |
| Keywords: | Convergence; Economic Growth; Latin America; Economic History |
| JEL: | N16 O43 O47 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50191&r=his |
| By: | Khan, Haider |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of industrialization and development in the 21st century. With an ongoing global financial and economic crisis with only a tepid recovery at the time of this writing(August 2013) as well as the still unfolding ecological crisis, the 21st century presents an even greater challenge for industrialization in the developing world than the post-WWII period. The changed global economic and ecological environment will shape the emergence of new technological and industrial paradigms and trajectories in significant ways (Dosi 2000, Khan 2004a). However, while the main thesis of this paper argues for a radical rethinking of development and industrialization within an ecological political economy framework in the 21st century, there are still many relevant lessons---positive and negative--- from the post-WWII development and industrialization experiences and discourses. Therefore, the next section focuses on the development and industrialization experiences of the post-WWII period. This section also focuses in particular on the successful Asian economies in order to bring out a number of still relevant insights. Section 3 discusses the problems of industrialization and innovation in the particular 21st century context for China. The problems revealed through this case study can highlight many of the challenges of development, industrialization and innovation in the 21st century. However, it must be pointed out that China is also a special case in many respects and poses some problems for itself and for the smaller developing countries by the strategy of development it has followed so far. The research strategy here is to both avoid the danger of falling into overgeneralization and to emphasize the need for a radical change in both the global economic environment and specific development and industrialization strategies. This is highlighted in section 4 of this paper where the outlines of an alternative development strategy are given. |
| Keywords: | Industrialization strategies, development strategies. Innovation, heterodox policies, industrial policies, China |
| JEL: | O1 P1 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50168&r=his |
| By: | Guillermo Calvo (Columbia University and NBER (E-mail: gc2286@columbia.edu)) |
| Abstract: | The paper claims that conventional monetary theory obliterates the central role played by media of exchange in the workings and instability of capitalist economies; and that a significant part of the financial system depends on the resiliency of paper currency and liquid assets that have been built on top of it. The resilience of the resulting financial tree is questionable if regulators are not there to adequately trim its branches to keep it from toppling by its own weight or minor wind gusts. The issues raised in the paper are not entirely new but have been ignored in conventional theory. This is very strange because disregard for these key issues has lasted for more than half a century. Are we destined to keep on making the same mistake? The paper argues that a way to prevent that is to understand its roots, and traces them to the Keynes/Hicks tradition. In addition, the paper presents a narrative and some empirical evidence suggesting a key channel from Liquidity Crunch to Sudden Stop, which supports the view that liquidity/credit shocks have been a central factor in recent crises. In addition, the paper claims that liquidity considerations help to explain (a) why a credit boom may precede financial crisis, (b) why capital inflows grow in the run-up of balance-of-payments crises, and (c) why gross flows are pro-cyclical. |
| Keywords: | Financial Crises, Bubbles, Sudden Stop |
| JEL: | E32 E65 F32 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ime:imedps:13-e-09&r=his |
| By: | Miguel Sánchez Romero (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Naohiro Ogawa; Rikiya Matsukura |
| Abstract: | In Japan due to the rapid population aging and its large financial pressure on pay-as-you-go retirement systems, the economic impact of bequest wealth has been drawing a tremendous amount of attention. Despite that, there are neither official statistics on bequest for the whole population, nor analyses of the historical evolution of bequest. Our study fills this gap by offering an estimate of bequest in Japan from 1850 to 2100, based on a computable general equilibrium model with realistic demography. Our model shows that the historical evolution of the bequest-to-output ratio in Japan follows the same U-shaped pattern described by Piketty (2011) for France. Moreover, we estimate that the annual flow of bequest represented between 4% and 6% of the output in the year 2000 and that it will reach between 7% and 13% of the output by year 2100. |
| Keywords: | Japan, economic demography, inheritance, mortality |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2013-012&r=his |
| By: | Keith Head; Thierry Mayer |
| Abstract: | With increasing sophistication, economists have been estimating gravity equations for five decades. Robust evidence shows that borders and distance impede trade by much more than tariffs or transport costs can explain. We therefore advocate investigation of other sources of resistance, despite the greater difficult involved in measuring and modeling them. From our selective review of recent findings, a unifying explanation emerges. A legacy of historical isolation and conflict forged a world economy in which neither tastes nor information are homogeneously distributed. Cultural difference and inadequate information manifest themselves most strongly at national borders and over distance. |
| Keywords: | Globalization;Gravity;Cultural differences |
| JEL: | F10 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2013-26&r=his |
| By: | Draca, Mirko (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | US government spending since World War II has been characterized by large investments in defense related goods, services and R&D. In turn, this means that the Department of Defense (DoD) has had a large role in funding corporate innovation in the US. This paper looks at the impact of military procurement spending on corporate innovation among publicly traded firms for the period 1966-2003. The study utilizes a major database of detailed, historical procurement contracts for all Department of Defense (DoD) prime contracts since 1966. Product-level spending shifts – chiefly centered around the Reagan defense build-up of the 1980s – are used as a source of exogenous variation in firm-level procurement receipts. Estimates indicate that defense procurement has a positive absolute impact on patenting and R&D investment, with an elasticity of approximately 0.07 across both measures of innovation. In terms of magnitudes, the contribution of defense procurement to innovation peaked during the early Reagan build-up, accounting for 11.4% of the total change in patenting intensity and 6.5% for R&D. This compares to a defense sector share in output of around 4%. The later defense cutbacks under Bush Senior and Clinton then curbed the growth in technological intensity by around 2%. |
| Keywords: | Regan, Military, procurement |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:warwcg:167&r=his |
| By: | Frederik Toscani |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how human capital affects agents' tendency to participate in revolutions and consequently political outcomes. We show that since human capital is not expropriatable in the way land or other assets are, revolutions are more attractive if human capital is an important source of income. Specifically, we present a model of involuntary franchise extensions in which we establish a formal link between the increasing importance of human capital as a source of income for mainly the middle classes in 19th century Europe and franchise extensions. Intuitively, agents become less change averse when their income cannot be expropriated and thus larger and larger concessions from the elite are necessary to avoid any upheaval. We show that the higher human capital is in a country, the more the elite use 'populist' policies aimed at garnering the support of the poor and the larger are the franchise extensions which the elite use to counter a revolutionary threat. While we derive the mechanism linki ng human capital and democratisation by looking at 19th century Europe it might play an important role more generally, notably in the wave of democratisations in Latin America in the 1980s and in the current Arab uprisings. |
| Keywords: | Democratisation, Involuntary Franchise Extensions, Human Capital, Middle Class |
| JEL: | D72 D74 J24 P16 H1 |
| Date: | 2013–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1332&r=his |
| By: | Bellou, Andriana (University of Montreal); Cardia, Emanuela (University of Montreal) |
| Abstract: | WWII induced a dramatic increase in female labor supply, which persisted over time, particularly for women with higher education. Using Census micro data we study the qualitative aspects of this long term increase through the lenses of the occupations women held after the war. Almost two decades after its end, we find that WWII had lasting, albeit complex but interesting effects on the occupational landscape. It led to a significant increase in the presence of young women, who were of working age at the time of the war, in manufacturing and professional/managerial occupations, while it entailed a decrease in the presence of older cohorts in clerical. Though differently, the effects surprisingly extended to the next generation of women who were too young to be working at the time of the war. For this cohort, the increase was concentrated in clerical and manufacturing. The entry of this very young cohort in clerical jobs and the exit of the older, suggests within-gender crowding-out; the increased presence of both cohorts in manufacturing, that the legacy of the wartime Rosies permeated occupational choices. |
| Keywords: | WWII, occupations |
| JEL: | J24 J31 N42 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7615&r=his |
| By: | Bertrand BLANCHETON |
| Abstract: | Cet article propose une mise en perspective de l’histoire de l’autonomie de la Banque de France au XXe siècle afin de faire ressortir la tradition d’un fort interventionnisme gouvernemental dans les affaires de la Banque de France, les tergiversations et les résistances qui ont empêché de faire évoluer la loi de janvier 1973 et ainsi de mieux mesurer la rupture que constitue la loi d’août 1993 sur l’indépendance de la Banque de France. |
| Keywords: | Banque de France, indépendance de la Banque centrale. |
| JEL: | G2 N1 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2013-21&r=his |
| By: | Grieve Roy H (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde) |
| Abstract: | Scholars who in recent years have studied the Sraffa papers held in the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, have concluded from Sraffa’s critical (but unpublished) observations on Chapter 17 of Keynes’s General Theory that he rejected Keynes’s central proposition that the rate of interest on money may come to ‘rule the roost’, thus dragging the economy into recession. While Sraffa does indeed express dissatisfaction with Chapter 17, the commentators have, we believe, misunderstood his concern: we suggest that he was unhappy with the ‘own-rates’ terminology employed by Keynes rather than with the substance of the theory developed in Chapter 17. |
| Keywords: | Chapter 17 of Keynes’s General Theory, commodity-rates, own-rates of interest |
| JEL: | B22 B31 E12 E43 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:str:wpaper:1319&r=his |
| By: | Alain Béraud (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS : UMR8184 - Université de Cergy Pontoise) |
| Abstract: | Cet article étudie la crise qui, en 1825, affecta l'économie anglaise et les travaux que John Stuart Mill, Thomas Tooke et John Ramsay McCulloch consacrèrent à son analyse. Alors que McCulloch et Tooke soutiennent que l'organisation du système bancaire anglais a joué, sinon dans l'origine du moins dans le développement de la crise, un rôle crucial, Mill pense qu'elle est l'effet de spéculations hasardeuses et qu'elle se serait tout aussi bien développée dans un système où la monnaie aurait consisté en espèces. La crise est pour lui une crise du crédit. Cette analyse, qui semble la mieux à même de rendre compte de la crise de 1825, est, de surcroît, la plus novatrice. L'article explicite ses implications pour la théorie monétaire et pour l'analyse des cycles économiques. |
| Keywords: | Crise; crise financière; spéculation; Mill; Tooke; McCulloch |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00865697&r=his |
| By: | Azam, Mehtabul (Oklahoma State University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine the intergenerational occupational mobility in India among men born during 1945-85. Following Long and Ferrie (2013, American Economic Review), we not only distinguish between prevalence and association, but also use the Altham Statistics – which involves comparison of all possible odds ratios, for example, the odds that the son of a white collar father would get a white collar job compared with the odds that the son of a low-skilled father would get a white collar job – as measure of distance between son-father occupation associations across cohorts. We extend the analysis to the differences in mobility across social groups, and attempt to isolate the specific odds ratios that account for the largest part of the difference. We find no evidence of difference in mobility in successive ten year birth cohorts; however, looking at the longer time period (birth cohort 1945-54 vs. 1975-84), we find that the mobility in the 1975-84 birth cohort is higher than the mobility in the 1945-54 birth cohort. Although the mobility among Scheduled Castes/Tribes (SC/STs) in the 1945-64 birth cohort was not different than the mobility observed in the entire 1945-64 birth cohort, SC/STs born during 1965-84 experienced a higher mobility when compared with the entire 1965-84 birth cohort. Similarly, when compared with the higher castes, SC/STs experienced lower mobility in the 1945-64 birth cohort; however, the mobility among SC/STs has been higher than the mobility among higher castes in the 1965-84 birth cohort. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, occupation, India, caste |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7608&r=his |
| By: | Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, Tazeen; Rusu, Anca Bogdana |
| Abstract: | This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones. By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28 countries that had eliminated all of the constraints monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is associated with greater participation of women in the labor force, greater movement out of agricultural employment, higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher female educational enrollment. This paper provides evidence on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Law,Population Policies,Access to Finance,Legal Products,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6617&r=his |
| By: | Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, Tazeen; Rusu, Anca Bogdana |
| Abstract: | Using a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal documents in one's own name, and to have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. Progress in reducing these constraints has been dramatic -- half of the constraints documented in the 1960s had been removed by 2010. However, some sticky areas persist where laws have not changed or have even regressed. The paper analyzes potential drivers of reforms. A significant finding is that the relationship with a country's level of development and the extent of its reforms is not straightforward. For the first half of the sample, there was no systematic connection; only in the last 25 years have increases in income been associated with higher probabilities for reform, but only in lower-income countries. With the remaining constraints as prevalent in middle- as low-income countries, increased growth is not necessarily going to spark additional reforms. Clearer patterns emerge from the momentum created by international conventions, such as the Committee to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women's political representation at the national level, mobilization of women's networks, and increasing labor force participation in sectors that provide a voice for women, which are positive forces for change. Conversely, conflict and weak rule of law can entrench a discriminatory status quo. And much is at stake; strengthening women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes that can benefit society as a whole. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Law,Population Policies,Access to Finance,Legal Products,Gender and Development |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6616&r=his |
| By: | Wilfred J. Ethier (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | A deranged publisher decided to produce a volume of some of my papers and asked me to write some comments. Since these amount to a summary of my views about international trade theory over the latest forty years or so, I’m giving the comments a separate alternative existence as a discussion paper. |
| Keywords: | factor endowments, scale economies, trade policy, direct investment, regionalism |
| JEL: | F10 F11 F12 F13 F15 F23 |
| Date: | 2013–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:13-052&r=his |
| By: | Pavel Trunin (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Eugene Goryunov (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) |
| Abstract: | Nowadays the problems of financial markets' development in emerging economies attract attention of many researchers. In this study we try to analyze the international experience of theoretical and empirical research in the linkage between the level of financial development and economic growth. Our analysis shows that in general the hypothesis of the influence of the efficiency of the financial sector on economic development is confirmed by historical data. Moreover, there is evidence that this linkage is causal, and its scale is statistically significant. In addition, in some cases, there is a reverse impact of the economic growth on the financial sector. Economic growth leads to an additional demand for financial intermediation services, which results in the development of the financial sector. |
| Keywords: | decomposition of economic growth |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:34&r=his |