|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2014‒02‒02
thirty-two papers chosen by |
| By: | Acheson, Graeme G.; Campbell, Gareth; Turner, John D.; Vanteeva, Nadia |
| Abstract: | Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership was separated from control in the UK much earlier than previously thought, and given that it occurred in an era with weak shareholder protection law, it undermines the influential law and finance hypothesis. We also find that diffuse ownership is correlated with large boards, a London head office, non-linear voting rights, and shares traded on multiple markets. -- |
| Keywords: | corporate ownership and control,law and finance hypothesis,shareholder protection law,British financial history |
| JEL: | G32 K22 N24 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:1402&r=his |
| By: | Peter H. Lindert; Jeffrey G. Williamson |
| Abstract: | New data now allow conjectures on the levels of real and nominal incomes in the thirteen American colonies. New England was the poorest region, and the South was the richest. Colonial per capita incomes rose only very slowly, and slowly for five reasons: productivity growth was slow; population in the low-income (but subsistence-plus) frontier grew much faster than that in the high-income coastal settlements; child dependency rates were high and probably even rising; the terms of trade was extremely volatile, presumably suppressing investment in export sectors; and the terms of trade rose very slowly, if at all, in the North, although faster in the South. All of this checked the growth of colony-wide per capita income after a 17th century boom. The American colonies led Great Britain in purchasing power per capita from 1700, and possibly from 1650, until 1774, even counting slaves in the population. That is, average purchasing power in America led Britain early, when Americans were British. The common view that American per capita income did not overtake that of Britain until the start of the 20th century appears to be off the mark by two centuries or longer. |
| JEL: | N11 N31 O47 O51 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19861&r=his |
| By: | Grietjie Verhoef, Lorraine Greyling and John Mwamba |
| Abstract: | The sub-optimal savings propensity in South Africa the past three decades causes concern for the ability of the country to support its economic development. An historical analysis of the development of the savings’ trends in South Africa may assist in understanding the historical roots of the phenomenon. Apart from general descriptions of the nature of economic activity in the Cape Colony very little is known about the role financial sector development and savings played in the growing colonial economy. This paper explores the performance of the economy of the Cape Colony between 1850 and 1909, through the business cycles, financial sector stability, the nature and extent of economic activity and seeks to explain the relationship between savings and economic growth. The question is whether the general view that ‘financial development is robustly growth promoting’ can be substantiated in the last half of the nineteenth century Cape Colony? It contributes to the economic history literature on the colonial past of South Africa by using newly compiled data on the GDP of the Cape Colony during the last half of the nineteenth century. The paper finds that despite the expectations in the literature that financial deepening contributes to economic growth; the Cape Colony did not display such causal relationship between savings and economic growth in the period under review. The paper shows the different forms of savings in the colony and the trend of savings behavior in the period amidst the development of a relatively robust financial sector. |
| Keywords: | Cape Colony, economic growth, financial deepening, gross domestic product, savings |
| JEL: | N27 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:408&r=his |
| By: | Jose Miguel Martínez-Carrión (Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain); Miguel Á. Pérez de Perceval Verde (Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain); Ángel Pascual Martínez Soto (Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of the mining boom in the biological standard of living and inequality in Rio Tinto, the main copper basin of Spain and one of the largest in the world. We use data height of military recruits in two municipalities: Zalamea Real and Nerva between 1856 and 1935 (1836-1914 cohorts). The results show that the height deteriorated in the 1850-1870 cohorts and increased inequality, seeing themselves affected adolescents from 1870 to 1890, when the British firm took its biggest push. During the mining fever and heavy immigration, the cohorts of the late nineteenth century increased the height, but the gap between natives and immigrants and among illiterate and literate also widened. The height of the cohorts of the early twentieth century stagnated due to the business downturn following the increase of competitiveness. |
| Keywords: | Biological welfare, mining, Río Tinto, inequality |
| JEL: | I12 J24 N13 D63 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1401&r=his |
| By: | Michel Bordo; John Lando-Lane |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the relationship between loose monetary policy, low inflation, and easy bank credit with asset price booms. Using a panel of up to 18 OECD countries from 1920 to 2011 we estimate the impact that loose monetary policy, low inflation, and bank credit has on house, stock and commodity prices. We review the historical narratives on asset price booms and use a deterministic procedure to identify asset price booms for the countries in our sample. We show that “loose” monetary policy – that is having an interest rate below the target rate or having a growth rate of money above the target growth rate – does positively impact asset prices and this correspondence is heightened during periods when asset prices grew quickly and then subsequently suffered a significant correction. This result was robust across multiple asset prices and different specifications and was present even when we controlled for other alternative explanations such as low inflation or “easy” credit. |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchwp:710&r=his |
| By: | BLINOV, Sergey |
| Abstract: | The Industrial Revolution happened in Britain because by the 19-th century the eternal problem faced by humankind, i.e. the problem of hunger, had been resolved on a local scale. Thanks to a unique combination of factors, Britain just overtook the other West European countries (for a short period of time in historical terms) in the understanding that the value of food “depreciates”. |
| Keywords: | British Industrial Revolution, malthusian trap, international trade |
| JEL: | F10 F16 N10 O14 O40 Q17 |
| Date: | 2014–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53239&r=his |
| By: | Foley-Fisher, Nathan; McLaughlin, Eoin |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new database on Irish land bonds listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange from 1891 to 1938. It outlines the nature of these bonds and presents data on their size, liquidity and market returns. These government-guaranteed bonds arose during a period when the possibility of Irish secession from the United Kingdom appeared ever more likely, and were used to finance the transfer of land ownership from landlords to tenants in Ireland (North and South). Movements in the prices of these bonds can help financial historians understand how financial markets responded to events in the early economic and political history of the Irish Free State, including Irish partition, Independence, Civil War and de facto default. Additionally, understanding these issues has contemporary relevance for regions in Spain (Catalonia, Euskadi), Great Britain (Scotland) and Belgium (Flanders). -- |
| Keywords: | Irish financial history,land reform,land bonds,Dublin Stock Exchange |
| JEL: | N23 N24 N53 N54 G15 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:1401&r=his |
| By: | Alan Fernihough (Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College, Ireland); Kevin Hjorstshøj O’Rourke (All Souls College, Oxford, UK) |
| Abstract: | We examine the importance of geographical proximity to coal as a factor underpinning comparative European economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Our analysis exploits geographical variation in city and coalfield locations, alongside temporal variation in the availability of coal-powered technologies, to quantify the effect of coal availability on historic city population sizes. Since we suspect that our coal measure could be endogenous, we use a geologically derived measure as an instrumental variable: proximity to rock strata from the Carboniferous era. Consistent with traditional historical accounts of the Industrial Revolution, we find that coal exhibits a strong influence on city population size from 1800 onward. Counterfactual estimates of city population sizes indicate that our estimated coal effect explains at least 60% of the growth in European city populations from 1750 to 1900. This result is robust to a number of alternative modelling assumptions regarding missing historical population data, spatially lagged effects, and the exclusion of the United Kingdom from the estimation sample. |
| Keywords: | Coal, Historical Population, Geography |
| JEL: | N13 N53 O13 O14 J10 |
| Date: | 2014–01–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_124&r=his |
| By: | Remi Jedwab; Edward Kerby; Alexander Moradi |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the extent and forces of urban path dependence in developing countries. Railroad construction in colonial Kenya provides a natural experiment to study the emergence and persistence of this spatial equilibrium. Using new data at a fine spatial level over one century shows that colonial railroads causally determined the location of European settlers, which in turn decided the location of the main cities of the country at independence. Railroads declined and settlers left after independence, yet cities persisted. Their early emergence served as a mechanism to coordinate investments in the post-independence period, yielding evidence for how path dependence influences development. |
| Keywords: | Path Dependence; Urbanisation; Transportation; Colonialism |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R40 O18 O33 N97 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-04&r=his |
| By: | Kolev, Stefan; Goldschmidt, Nils; Hesse, Jan-Otmar |
| Abstract: | In the history of economic thought Walter Eucken is mostly known for his impact in establishing the Social Market Economy in post-war Germany. Even though there is a growing interest in his ideas especially from an Austrian and a Constitutional Economics perspective, his influence on the discussions within neoliberalism and, more specifically, his impact in the course of the foundation of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) are not yet widely considered. In this paper we attempt to show that Eucken was very influential in the formation of the MPS and that German ordoliberalism had a significant imprint on the early history of the society. It is primarily Eucken's correspondence with F. A. Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke in this context which we present and analyze, complementing it with some hypotheses about early influences between Eucken and Hayek in terms of methodology and epistemology. Subsequently we show, by regarding the first MPS meetings between 1947 and 1949 (general and organizational), that there was - even at this early stage in the development of the MPS - a widening gap between a Continental European and an Anglo-Saxon understanding of neoliberalism, despite the personal friendships and high collegial respect especially between Eucken, Hayek and Röpke; Ludwig von Mises playing a special role in this setting. We illustrate this development also by discussing personal memories of Leonhard Miksch, a student of Eucken and a participant of the MPS meeting in 1949, recorded in his so far unpublished diary. -- |
| Keywords: | Neoliberalism,Mont Pèlerin Society,Ordoliberalism,History of Economic Thought,Political and Economic Order,Role of Economists |
| JEL: | A11 B25 B31 B41 H11 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:1402&r=his |
| By: | Adena, Maja; Enikolopov, Ruben; Petrova, Maria; Santarosa, Veronica; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina |
| Abstract: | How far can media undermine democratic institutions and how persuasive can it be in assuring public support for dictator policies? We study this question in the context of Germany before World War II, between 1929 and 1939. First, we estimate the impact of radio signal on voting for the Nazi party before and after Nazi got control over the content of the broadcast. Prior to Hitler s appointment as chancellor, the radio, broadcasting cultural programs and some political news with an anti-Nazi slant, had a substantial negative effect on voting for the Nazi party. This negative effect was fully undone in just one month before the last competitive pre-war election following Hitler s appointment in 1933, which resulted in the change of radio content to heavy pro-Nazi propaganda. In the last few months that Germany remained democracy, the persuasion power of pro-Nazi propaganda was smaller than that of the anti-Nazi radio. Second, we examine the impact of the radio after Nazi fully consolidated power. Radio propaganda helped Nazi to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti-Semitism. Radio was most effective as propaganda tool when combined with other tools, such as Hitler s speeches, and when the message was more aligned with listeners priors as measured by historical variation in anti-Semitism. -- |
| JEL: | D72 L82 P26 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79876&r=his |
| By: | Leroi Raputsoane and Ruthira Naraidoo |
| Abstract: | This study assesses debt sustainability in South Africa allowing for possible nonlinearities in the form of threshold behaviour by fiscal authorities. A long historical data series on the debt-to-GDP ratio and models with fixed and time-varying thresholds allowing the level of debt to vary relative to its recent history and the occurrence of financial crises are used in the analysis. First, the results reveal that fiscal consolidation occurs at a much lower debt-to-GDP ratio of 46 percent in the period 1946 to 2010 compared to 65 percent in the period 1865 to 1945. Secondly, the results provide evidence of a statistically insignificant fiscal consolidation below these threshold levels. Thirdly, the results reveal that fiscal consolidation occur at a higher debt-to-GDP ratio during financial crises periods. |
| Keywords: | Debt sustainability, thresholds, financial crises |
| JEL: | C22 C51 E62 H63 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:403&r=his |
| By: | Falck, Oliver; Bauernschuster, Stefan |
| Abstract: | Friedrich Froebel, a German pedagogue, established the first kindergarten worldwide in Thuringia in 1839. We study the spatial dissemination of the kindergarten movement in Germany in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Spatial dissemination can be explained by the cultural proximity, measured by dialect similarity at the end of the 19th century, to Froebel s place of activity. We further show that the spatial pattern of child care use is highly persistent over time. End of 19th century cultural proximity to Froebel s place of activity can explain the spatial pattern of child care use in the 1990s and 2000s. -- |
| JEL: | N33 J13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79704&r=his |
| By: | Cemal Eren Arbatli; Quamrul Ashraf; Oded Galor |
| Abstract: | This research empirically establishes that the emergence, prevalence, and recurrence of civil conflict in the modern era reflect the long shadow of prehistory. Exploiting variations across contemporary national populations, it demonstrates that genetic diversity, as determined pre- dominantly tens of thousands of years ago, has contributed significantly to the frequency, incidence, and onset of both overall and ethnic civil conflicts over the last half century, accounting for a large set of geographical and institutional correlates of civil conflict, as well as measures of economic development. These findings arguably reflect the adverse effect of genetic diversity on interpersonal trust and cooperation, the potential impact of genetic diversity on income inequality, the potential association between genetic diversity and divergence in preferences for public goods and redistributive policies, and the contribution of genetic diversity to the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic and linguistic groups in the population |
| Keywords: | # |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2013-15&r=his |
| By: | Abhijit Banerjee; Esther Duflo |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the two leading views of history and political institutions. For some scholars, institutions are mainly products of historical logic, while for others, accidents, leaders, and decisions have a significant impact. We argue that while there is clear evidence that history matters and has long-term effects, there is not enough data to help us distinguish between the two views. Faced with this uncertainty, what is a social scientist to do? We argue that given the possibility that policy decisions indeed make a difference, it makes sense to assume they do and to try to improve policymaking. |
| JEL: | N30 O1 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19848&r=his |
| By: | Sohn, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Using individual income data from university archives, we look at the development of professorial salaries over a time-span covering the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich as well as the Federal Republic of Germany. We find that relative salaries have fallen dramatically, both with respect to other highly qualified labour and to the average income. We also find that inter-discipline dispersion among professorial salaries has decreased and that conversely to today it was professors in the social sciences rather than the natural sciences who earned the most. -- |
| JEL: | J24 N34 J45 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79966&r=his |
| By: | Tim Atkin (Reserve Bank of Australia); Mark Caputo (Reserve Bank of Australia); Tim Robinson (Reserve Bank of Australia); Hao Wang (Reserve Bank of Australia) |
| Abstract: | The early 21st century saw Australia experience its largest and longest terms of trade boom. This paper places this recent boom in a long-run historical context by comparing the current episode with earlier cycles. While similarities exist across most episodes, current macroeconomic policy frameworks and settings are quite different to those of the past. This mitigated the broader macroeconomic consequences of the upswing and as the terms of trade decline may do likewise. |
| Keywords: | commodity prices; terms of trade; macroeconomic policy |
| JEL: | E30 E60 N17 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2014-01&r=his |
| By: | Hakobyan, Lilit (Department of Economics, Umeå School of Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the survival of four different growth regimes conditional on political regime transitions that occurred during the first or prior year of the economic regime. The results suggest that in countries with no history of military dictatorship (MD), the episodes of fast-growing regimes initiated by political democratisation have an approximately 40% lower hazard of termination than the miracle growth episodes that were not started by political transitions. This finding does not hold in countries in which the consolidation of democracy is complicated by the historical role played by the army in the governing process. Additional analyses are carried out for the effect of political transitions on the duration of ongoing economic regimes. The data does not support the argument that “order” and the “rule of law” promote economic growth under more authoritarian regimes, which commonly feature authoritarian leaders during times of economic crisis. Political transitions of both directions under an economic crisis render the ongoing economic regime more durable. In contrast political transitions (of both directions) seem to be economically more efficient under the regime of stagnation. |
| Keywords: | Heckman correction for selection bias; economic growth regimes; survival analyses; political transition |
| JEL: | C21 O43 O57 P16 |
| Date: | 2014–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0873&r=his |
| By: | Nonso Obikili |
| Abstract: | I examine the possibility that the trans-Atlantic slave trades influenced the political institutions of villages and towns in precolonial Africa. Using anthropological data, I show that villages and towns of ethnic groups with higher slave exports were more politically fragmented during the precolonial era. I use instrumental variables to show that the relationship is at least partly causal. I argue this fragmentation is important for relative economic development because it still influences political institutions today. I support this argument by using more contemporary data to show that areas with higher precolonial political fragmentation have a higher incidence of bribery. |
| Keywords: | Trans-Atlantic, Slave trade, Poltical |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:406&r=his |
| By: | Susan Helper; Rebecca Henderson |
| Abstract: | General Motors was once regarded as one of the best managed and most successful firms in the world, but between 1980 and 2009 its share of the US market fell from 62.6 to 19.8 percent, and in 2009 the firm went bankrupt. In this paper we argue that the conventional explanation for this decline – namely high legacy labor and health care costs – is seriously incomplete, and that GM’s share collapsed for many of the same reasons that many of the other highly successful American firms of the 50s, 60s and 70s were forced from the market, including a failure to understand the nature of the competition they faced and an inability to respond effectively once they did. We focus particularly on the problems GM encountered in developing the relational contracts essential to modern design and manufacturing. We discuss a number of possible causes for these difficulties: including GM’s historical practice of treating both its suppliers and its blue collar workforce as homogeneous, interchangeable entities, and its view that expertise could be partitioned so that there was minimal overlap of knowledge amongst functions or levels in the organizational hierarchy and decisions could be made using well-defined financial criteria. We suggest that this dynamic may have important implications for our understanding of the role of management in the modern, knowledge based firm, and for the potential revival of manufacturing in the United States. |
| JEL: | J24 L2 L21 L23 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19867&r=his |
| By: | Bhattacharya, Joydeep; Chakraborty, Shankha |
| Abstract: | Three profound changes - the mortality, fertility and contraception transitions - characterized the Victorian era in England. Economists, following Becker (1960), focus on the first two and underplay the third by assuming couples can achieve their fertility target at no cost. The historical experience from Victorian England is at odds with this view of costless fertility regulation. We incorporate costly fertility limitation into the Becker paradigm: in our story, the mortality transition spurs on a contraception revolution which, in turn, makes it possible for the fertility transition to arrive. In the model, generationally-linked households with heterogeneous income choose between two contraception strategies, one ``traditional'', the other ``modern''. The modern comes with a higher fixed cost (reflecting social opposition and informational barriers characteristic of the times), but has a lower variable cost when it comes to averting childbirths. While the initial adopters of the modern technology are the rich -- those unfazed by the higher fixed cost -- eventually everyone switches so as to economize on the variable cost. What hastens the switch is the decline in child mortality. Increased adoption of modern contraception unleashes a social diffusion process causing more people to switch, lowering fertility further and across all socioeconomic groups. The model is consistent with broad time-series and cross-sectional patterns of the English fertility transition. |
| Keywords: | child mortality, fertility, demographic transition, contraception |
| JEL: | I12 J11 O40 |
| Date: | 2014–01–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53129&r=his |
| By: | Martha J. Bailey; Nicolas J. Duquette |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration systematically directed funding toward poorer and more nonwhite areas. In contrast to the distribution of New Deal spending, short-term political considerations appear to have played a minor role in distributing EOA funds. Choosing to fight poverty and discrimination rather than playing politics may help explain some of the immediate backlash against the War on Poverty programs. It also suggests that the implementation of the War on Poverty may play an important role in explaining why it is remembered as a failure. |
| JEL: | H50 J08 N12 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19860&r=his |
| By: | Federico Ciani; Gianna Claudia Giannelli |
| Abstract: | Between April and July 1994 Rwanda experienced a tremendous wave of inter-ethnic violence that caused at least 500,000 deaths. Combining birth history data drawn from the 2000 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey with prefecture-level information on the intensity of the conflict, we examine the impact of the civil war on infant and child mortality. War exposure is measured exploiting the differential effects of timing of birth and genocide intensity at the household and geographic level. Considering both in utero and postnatal war exposure, we estimate discrete time proportional hazard models of child mortality for the exposed and the unexposed birth cohorts. We find large positive effects of exposure to the conflict on infant and child mortality. Moreover, restricting our sample to the survivors, we find that child mortality is significantly impacted by war exposure, increasing the hazard rate by nearly 6 percentage points on average. This result holds true also for children who were only exposed while in utero. This evidence points to the existence of long-term disruptive effects on the cohorts of children exposed to the violence. |
| Keywords: | genocide, child mortality, child health, survival analysis, Rwanda |
| JEL: | I20 J13 O12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wchild:20&r=his |
| By: | Noem’ M. Girbal-Blacha |
| Abstract: | In times of Modern Argentina (1880-1930) marginality is part of the agro- export model; structured around Buenos Aires port and the Pampas livestock-cereal, the recipient of massive immigration, growing urbanization and foreign investment concentration. Marginality does not always mean isolation. This is the case of Argentinean Gran Chaco situated in northeastern Argentina, crossed by 3 railways and major waterways, which communicate with the powerful metropolitan littoral. Formosa, bordering Paraguay, is still a postponed territory in the Argentinean Gran Chaco. The land tenure system goes with desertification. Natural resources preservation together with heterogeneous productive models joins the scarce technology. Livestock and deforestation turned the promised land into a devastated land, full of precarious squatters, short term exploitations and soil intensive use. This historical study refers to a specific case of occupation and construction of the space, interrelating with national government alternatives and the logical territory together with its heterogeneous people and precarious economy, without a local rooted bourgeoisie or obtained profit reinvestment. The aim is to describe and interpret the survival conditions in times when Formosa was a National Territory. |
| Keywords: | Formosa, Argentine, Land tenure, Desertificacion |
| JEL: | N16 N56 N96 Q15 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1401&r=his |
| By: | James Fenske; Namrata Kala |
| Abstract: | Suppression of the slave trade after 1807 increased the incidence of conflict between Africans. We use geo-coded data on African conflicts to uncover a discontinuous increase in conflict after 1807 in areas affected by the slave trade. In West Africa, the slave trade declined. This empowered interests that rivaled existing authorities, and political leaders resorted to violence in order to maintain their influence. In West-Central and South-East Africa, slave exports increased after 1807 and were produced through violence. We validate our explanation using Southwestern Nigeria and Eastern South Africa as examples. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-02&r=his |
| By: | Braun, Sebastian; Kvasnicka, Michael |
| Abstract: | Does immigration accelerate sectoral change towards high-productivity sectors? This paper uses the mass displacement of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe to West Germany after World War II as a natural experiment to study this question. A simple two-sector specific factors model, in which moving costs prevent the marginal product of labor to be equalized across sectors, predicts that immigration boosts output per worker by expanding the high-productivity sector, but decreases output per worker within a sector. Using German district-level data from before and after the war, we find empirical support for these predictions. -- |
| JEL: | J61 F22 N34 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79864&r=his |
| By: | Maito, Esteban Ezequiel |
| Abstract: | The present study analyzes the economic Japanese performance according to Marxist political economy. In that sense, an estimation of the valorization process categories is made: profit rate, surplus rate, value capital composition and turnover speed. The Japanese economy is passing through a long period of two decades with low growth related to the world and Japan´s own recent history. There is a deep and constant fall in the profit rate, and its low levels since the nineties keeps Japanese capitalism in the current standstill situation. This work also presents data that refute “profit squeeze” explanations of the profitability fall, reinforcing those related to capital over-accumulation, due to increasing fixed capital to labor force. “Profit squeeze” theories ignore both the basic foundations of the wage income participation and the fixed capital consumption tendency to growth, as a particular income expression of fixed capital relative increase. |
| Keywords: | Profit rate – Turnover speed - Surplus rate – Income distribution – Capital composition - Japan |
| JEL: | G01 O11 O40 O53 P16 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53102&r=his |
| By: | Carabelli, Anna Maria; Cedrini, Mario Aldo (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | In trying to assess the content and significance of Keynes's attempted revolution in economic methodology, historians have almost exclusively focused on the General Theory. By highlighting the legacy of the Treatise on Probability for Keynes's economic writings, this paper provides evidence of strong methodologic al continuity between the Tract on Monetary Reform, the Treatise on Money and the General Theory, despite radical differences in the theories. We argue that the novelty of Keynes's approach lies in offering a method of analysis requiring cooperation on the part of the reader, in the effort to tackle the complexity of the economic material. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201344&r=his |
| By: | Carlo Ciccarelli (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Gianni De Fraja (Nottingham School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the demand for tobacco products in post-unification Italy. We construct a very detailed panel dataset of annual consumption in the 69 Italian provinces from 1871 to 1913, which is then used to estimate the demand for tobacco products. We find support for the Becker and Murphy (1988) rational addiction model. We also find that, in the period considered, tobacco was a normal good in Italy: aggregate tobacco consumption increased with income. Subsequently, we consider separately the four types of products which comprise aggregate tobacco (fine-cut tobacco, snuff, cigars, and cigarettes), and tentatively suggest that habit formation was a stronger factor in the persistence of consumption than physical addiction. The paper ends by showing that the introduction of the Bonsack cigarette rolling machine in the early 1890s did not coincide with changes in the structure of the demand for tobacco, suggesting cost-driven technological change. |
| Keywords: | smoking, Italian Kingdom, rational addiction, panel data |
| JEL: | D11 N33 I18 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_31&r=his |
| By: | Gautier, Arthur (ESSEC Business School); Pache , Anne-Claire (ESSEC Business School); Chowdhury, Imran (Pace University – Lubin School of Business) |
| Abstract: | In this research project we aim to understand the role of institutional entrepreneurship across multiple levels - field, organization, and micro levels - in the institutionalization of a new professional role within organizations. Specifically, we study the rise of the "corporate philanthropy manager," a position inspired by nonprofit values and goals which developed within large French corporations during the period 1979 to 2011. The process of creating, maintaining and legitimizing this new role - philanthropy as a new business function - is the central focus of our study, and we explore how elements of the nonprofit and for-profit worlds came together in this new role, as well as the role of various actors across multiple levels in influencing this combination. |
| Keywords: | Corporate philanthropy; Professions; Institutional change; Institutional entrepreneurship; Institutional work |
| JEL: | D64 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-13019&r=his |
| By: | Hecq A.W.; Urbain J.R.Y.J.; Götz T.B. (GSBE) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new way for detecting the presence of common cyclical featureswhen several time series are observed/sampled at different frequencies, hence generalizingthe common-frequency approach introduced by Engle and Kozicki 1993 and Vahid andEngle 1993. We start with the mixed-frequency VAR representation investigated in Ghysels2012 for stationary time series. For non-stationary time series in levels, we showthat one has to account for the presence of two sets of long-run relationships. The First setis implied by identities stemming from the fact that the differences of the high-frequencyI1 regressors are stationary. The second set comes from possible additional long-run relationshipsbetween one of the high-frequency series and the low-frequency variables. Ourtransformed VECM representations extend the results of Ghysels 2012 and are very importantfor determining the correct set of variables to be used in a subsequent commoncycle investigation. This has some empirical implications both for the behavior of the teststatistics as well as for forecasting. Empirical analyses with the quarterly real GNP andmonthly industrial production indices for, respectively, the U.S. and Germany illustrate ournew approach. This is also investigated in a Monte Carlo study, where we compare our proposedmixed-frequency models with models stemming from classical temporal aggregationmethods. |
| Keywords: | Economic History: Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services: Asia including Middle East; Regional and Urban History: General; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; |
| JEL: | N90 O12 N75 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2013002&r=his |
| By: | Bown, Chad P. |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys political-economic research on the variety of instruments that governments use to conduct international trade policy. It presents key insights on the relationships between instruments such as tariffs, quotas, voluntary export restraints, and other nontariff barriers, as well as the ebb and flow of the national use of temporary trade barriers such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The survey examines trends in use of these trade policy instruments over recent history; and it reviews the major theoretical and empirical explanations behind, and interrelationships between, their uses. Finally, the paper highlights potential institutional impacts of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and subsequent World Trade Organization (WTO) on choice of policy instruments, as well as how multilateral, unilateral, and preferential tariff liberalization may introduce political-economic shocks and affect incentives over time for how governments rely on different instruments. |
| Keywords: | Free Trade,Trade Law,Trade Policy,International Trade and Trade Rules,Economic Theory&Research |
| Date: | 2014–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6757&r=his |