|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2014‒05‒24
thirty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Peter Temin |
| Abstract: | I argue in this paper for more interaction between economic history and economic development. Both subfields study economic development; the difference is that economic history focuses on high-wage countries while economic development focuses on low-wage economies. My argument is based on recent research by Robert Allen, Joachim Voth and their colleagues. Voth demonstrated that Western Europe became a high-wage economy in the 14th century, using the European Marriage Pattern stimulated by the effects of the Black Death. This created economic conditions that led eventually to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Allen found that the Industrial Revolution resulted from high wages and low power costs. He showed that the technology of industrialization was adapted to these factor prices and is not profitable in low-wage economies. The cross-over to economic development suggests that demography affects destiny now as in the past, and that lessons from economic history can inform current policy decisions. This argument is framed by a description of the origins of the New Economic History, also known as Cliometrics, and a non-random survey of recent research emphasizing the emerging methodology of the New Economic History. |
| JEL: | N01 N10 O11 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20107&r=his |
| By: | Johan Fourie; Leigh Gardner |
| Abstract: | The internationalization of economic history is everywhere except in the publication outputs. Using a new dataset of publications in the top four economic history journals, we investigate this puzzle and attempt to explain why relatively few papers on and from developing countries are published in top journals despite the growing internationalization of economic history more broadly. We find little evidence to suggest that this is due to a bias against papers on developing country topics and by developing country authors. Developing country papers and authors also do not perform worse in citation analyses. Authors from developing countries, it seems, are less productive, or discouraged from submitting their papers to top quality journals, choosing instead local journals. This journal aims to reduce this disparity. |
| Keywords: | internationalization; publication output; developing countries; citation analysis; journals |
| JEL: | Z10 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:56786&r=his |
| By: | Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper first explores the history of famine in England as a window on living standards in the medieval and pre-industrial eras. It then considers nutrition levels and human capital endowments in England in the eve of the Industrial Revolution. |
| Keywords: | Famine, Human capital, Industrial Revolution |
| Date: | 2014–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201403&r=his |
| By: | François Héran (INED) |
| Abstract: | The 1914-1918 war is remembered for the sheer scale of human losses: at least 18% of the soldiers enlisted in the French army - some 1.5 million men - died in uniform. Using datafrom the latest historical and demographic research on military and civilian losses, the author compares the carnage of the First World War with another great scourge, that of infantmortality, whose order of magnitude was similar. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idg:posoce:510&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Allegre (OFCE); Xavier Timbeau (OFCE) |
| Abstract: | Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century proposes a critical analysis of the dynamics of capital accumulation. The book has several objectives: to present the historical dynamics of capital and its distribution up to the early twenty-first century; to offer a prospective analysis of these dynamics up to the end of this century; and, finally, to discuss policy measures that would make it possible to avoid the future it lays out. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4g0qd281j48jib2k4okap9f4eo&r=his |
| By: | Satoshi Baba (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | 　　 Germany's urban land policy (kommunale Bodenpolitik) attracted the attention of foreign countries. There were also many contemporary publications about this policy in Germany because it was a precondition for city planning, which included housing and transportation policies. The aim of this paper is to clarify Frankfurt am Main's land policy at the turn of the twentieth century, especially under Franz Adickes' era. Adickes, the third senior mayor (1891-1912), carried out urban land policy as a consciously planned intervention in the land market. His land policy had two additional objectives: The first was securing land for administrative buildings and public facilities. The second was the facilitation of city extension and the preparation for future incorporation. Frankfurt's municipal land increased from 4,229.17 ha in 1900 to 6,370.19 ha in 1913. Land purchased by the city consisted of 11,649 estates during the period 1895-1915. Conversely, land sold during the same period consisted of only 2,465 estates because it was difficult to set land prices. As a result, the Erbbaurecht (Heritable Building Right) was utilized as a substitute measure for land sales. Though Frankfurt's urban land policy produced good results, it was forced to change owing to 'the predominance of purchasing policy' and increasing debt. Thus, the state government also became involved with the land and housing policies. The land policy shifted from the stage of 'social city' to that of 'social state' after World War I. |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2014cf919&r=his |
| By: | Claudia Steinwender |
| Abstract: | The telegraph was the Victorian equivalent of today's 'big data', helping firms to forecast future demand. Analysing such unique historical 'experiments' helps understand how firms and markets respond when new technology leads to a dramatic change in the availability of information. |
| Keywords: | trade, technology, markets, consumer demand, economic history |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:417&r=his |
| By: | Morgan Kelly (University College Dublin); Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper replies to commentaries by Sam White and by Ulf Büntgen and Lena Hellmann on our ‘The Waning of the Little Ice Age: Climate Change in Early Modern Europe’. White and Büntgen/Hellmann seek to prove that Europe experienced the kind of sustained falls in temperature between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries that can justify the notion of a Little Ice Age. Neither of them adequately addresses the cogency of the anecdotal or statistical evidence presented in our article, especially with regard to the spurious peaks and troughs created by the smoothing of temperature series--the so-called Slutsky Effect. |
| Keywords: | Little Ice Age, Climate Change, Economic History |
| Date: | 2014–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201406&r=his |
| By: | Alan Fernihough (Queen's University Belfast); Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin); Brendan M Walsh (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the characteristics associated with marriages between Roman Catholics and members of other religious denominations (`mixed marriages') in 1911 Ireland. Using the recently-digitized returns of the 1911 census of population, we find that such marriages were relatively rare, varying from two to three percent of all mar- riages in Dublin to less than half a percent in Connacht. However, at the turn of the century in the Dublin area mixed marriages represented 12 per cent or more of mar- riages where at least one of the partners was a non-Catholic. When mixed marriages did occur the Catholic partner was more likely to be the wife. Using regression analysis we examine the individual characteristics of the partners to these marriages and find a number of characteristics significantly associated with them. However, the strength and even the direction of predictors like socioeconomic status vary substantially across regions, most notably between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. In Ulster mixed marriages tended to occur between partners in lower socioeconomic positions, whereas in the rest of Ireland the partners tended to be from higher social strata. Since the religion of the children born to mixed marriages was a contentious issue, we match our sample of partners of mixed religions to their children and find that the religion of the children was strongly influenced by the mothers religion. Couples of mixed religions had lower fertility than the general population, even when the influence of socioeconomic class and other potentially confounding variables is allowed for. This, as well as the evi- dence of higher infant-child mortality among families of mixed marriages, potentially indicates a lack of family and social support due to the general public disapproval of couples who married across the religious divide. |
| Keywords: | Mixed Marriage, Historical Population |
| JEL: | N83 J12 J13 |
| Date: | 2014–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201407&r=his |
| By: | Pedro Garcia Duarte; Yann Giraud |
| Abstract: | Some historians argue that the history of economic thought (HET) is useful and important to economists and that historians should remain in economics departments. Others believe that historians’ initiatives toward economists are doomed in advance to failure and that they should instead ally themselves with historians and sociologists of science located in humanities departments. Generally, the contributions that are devoted to reviewing the state of HET take a firm side for either one of these two positions and therefore have a prescriptive view on how history should be written. By contrast, our paper proposes a descriptive account of the kind of contributions to HET that have been published in major economics journals over the past two decades. To avoid definitional issues over HET, we use the B category of the JEL classification to retrieve and analyze the relevant literature. We show that, though contributions to HET are still found in top economics journals, the rate of publication of such papers has become increasingly uneven and the methods and narrative styles they adopt are increasingly remote from that advocated in the sub-disciplinary literature. For this reason, historians who are still willing to address the economics’ community should be more interested in expanding the frontiers of their field rather than in trying to anticipate their targeted readers’ preferences.. |
| Keywords: | history of economics; economics journals; American Economic Review; Journal of Economic Literature; Journal of Economic Perspectives; Economic Journal |
| JEL: | B20 A14 B40 B29 |
| Date: | 2014–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2014wpecon6&r=his |
| By: | Naoki Odanaka |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:toh:tergaa:318&r=his |
| By: | Grytten, Ola (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | By drawing on information from public accounts from the nineteenth and twentieth century the present paper aims at mapping the development of key financial indicators for the Norwegian central government sector. It concludes that growth in the size of this sector often, but clearly not always, reflects political economy regimes. The paper concludes that persistant growth in public finances as tool for control over the economy did not take place before the introduction of the social-democratic regime in 1935. |
| Keywords: | Public finances; Norwegian development. |
| JEL: | N23 N24 N33 N34 N43 N44 O16 O21 O23 P11 P16 P41 |
| Date: | 2014–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_015&r=his |
| By: | Ekaterina Schnittke (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Numerous similarities between medieval vernacular texts and those written by present-day incipient writers (children and adults alike) suggest that there are certain regularities underlying the processes of literacy acquisition and the evolution of written language in general. This paper is a comparative case study of medieval vernacular Russian correspondence and letters written by contemporary Russian children. The aims of this study include the following: (i) identifying the specific structural and non-structural aspects of the similarity between the mentioned language varieties; (ii) formulating a theoretical basis for interpreting data in developmental terms; (iii) defining the role of oral strategies in the evolution of written language; (iv) proposing that our knowledge of the processes of writing acquisition by modern children and adults, which are accessible to immediate observation and experimentation, can illuminate our understanding of the pragmatics of historical texts. |
| Keywords: | history of writing; literacy acquisition; birch bark letters; uniformitarianism; historical pragmatics; vernacular writing; naive writing |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:09/lng/2014&r=his |
| By: | Voosholz, Frauke |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to survey the contributions to economic growth theory. We focus on the basic models and literature that link resource economic and economic growth, in order to reveal the main differences on how the different aspects are incorporated into growth models. As economic science is not a hard science, all economic activities must always be considered against the background of the current economy, the political and social institutions and technical capabilities (as already mentioned by Solow (1985), p. 328). That is why many of the first growth models, fitted to current state when they were developed, are not transferable to remote periods. Furthermore, natural resources as input factors, which influence economic growth, were neglected for a long time, whereas today they are one of the most discussed factors influencing economic growth. -- |
| Keywords: | economic growth,growth theory,historical overview,renewable resources,non-renewable resources |
| JEL: | O13 O41 O40 Q20 Q32 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cawmdp:69&r=his |
| By: | Rémi Jardat (ISTEC - Institut supérieur des Sciences, Techniques et Economie Commerciales - ISTEC, CNAM Paris - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM)) |
| Abstract: | Purpose: This critique of Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century summarizes and comments on the main tenets of the author's principal theory. Our aim is to point out the book's contributions to critical debate around social and economic issues, while giving special emphasis to its theoretical and epistemological relevance for management science. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a careful reading of the book, in the original French and English translation versions, we explore Piketty's arguments and proposals, and attempt to place his "scholarly discourse" in relation to Marx's "worldview" as well as the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Findings: The book's potential impact over the long run is extremely high, ostensibly enough to make it as important as Marx's work but relying on a decidedly different method and philosophy. We also consider the strong complementariness between this work and that of Pierre Rosanvallon in the field of political science. Some similarities with Fukuyama's approach are also considered, but on a much lesser note. Research limitations/implications: The question of unemployment, which is given little attention in Piketty's work, is not addressed here. Social applications: In contrast with Piketty's book, this paper intends to find social application only within the microcosm of the scholarly community. Originality/value: We hope to draw a link between the book's contribution to economic thinking and its philosophical underpinnings, that is, by presenting a reading that is both a positivist assessment and an attempt to decipher underlying assumptions. |
| Keywords: | Piketty, Capital, Marxism, Enlightenment, Rosanvallon, Wallerstein |
| Date: | 2014–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00990772&r=his |
| By: | Berleman, Michael (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg); Enkelmann, Sören (Leuphana University Lüneburg) |
| Abstract: | Are preferences exogenously given? Or do individual tastes and values evolve endogenously within a particular socio-economic environment? In this paper, we make use of a natural experiment to analyse the role of inflation experiences and institutions in the formation of individual inflation preferences. In particular, we exploit the division of post-war Germany to investigate to what extent the factual non-experience of inflation and 40 years of Communism have affected inflation preferences in East and West Germany. We find that historical experiences have a significant and long-lasting effect on people's preferences. Due to their specific political and economic background, East Germans are significantly more inflation averse than West Germans, even 20 years after reunification. |
| Keywords: | endogenous preferences; inflation aversion; natural experiment; Germany |
| JEL: | E02 E31 P22 |
| Date: | 2014–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:vhsuwp:2014_143&r=his |
| By: | Daniel Gingerich |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the adoption of the Australian ballot (AB), and ipso facto, the transition from the nominal to effective secret vote, shaped the nature of party politics in Brazil. Engaging the literature on political clientelism, the impact of the AB on three outcomes is studied: 1) the ideological leanings of voters at the ballot box; 2) the degree of electoral control enjoyed by local vote brokers; and 3) the capacity of citizens to effectively participate in the electoral process. In order to get leverage on these issues, the paper utilizes an original dataset -painstakingly assembled from regional electoral archives- which contains municipal-level vote returns for federal deputy and senate contests during the period before and after the AB's introduction in Brazil (1958-1962). The dataset exploits the fact that the AB was introduced at different times in different states and for different offices in the country, thereby creating an unprecedented opportunity to assess the impact of this institution. Using a triple difference-in-difference procedure, the study finds that the AB: 1) shifted the ideological balance of power from Right to Left; 2) did not greatly weaken the hand of vote brokers; and 3) greatly increased the proportion of wasted votes cast in elections. |
| Keywords: | political participation, Democracy, Elections, IDB-WP-428 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:82141&r=his |
| By: | Cristina Borderías (Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona,Spain); Pilar Pérez-Fuentes (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Spain); Carmen Sarasúa (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona,Barcelona,Spain) |
| Abstract: | La teoría económica ha revisado en los últimos años dos ideas básicas sobre el funcionamiento económico de las familias: que el ingreso familiar es la suma del ingreso de sus miembros (el income-pooling) y que el acceso a los recursos familiares por parte de los familiares que comparten hogar es igualitario. La desigualdad en el acceso a los recursos familiares (entre mujeres y hombres por un lado, y entre adultos, ancianos y niños por otro) se entiende como input (por ejemplo, que las mujeres coman menos y peor que los hombres), y como output (por ejemplo, que las mujeres tengan peor salud, mayor sobre-mortalidad epidémica o menor altura por estar peor alimentadas y peor atendidas médicamente). A pesar de que la desigualdad en el consumo intra-familiar es hoy objeto de análisis por parte de la Economía y los organismos económicos internacionales, apenas ha sido desarrollado por la Historia económica. En este artículo estudiamos la desigualdad en el acceso de hombres y mujeres a algunos de los recursos que consumían las familias en la España del siglo XIX: alimentos, bebidas alcohólicas, vestido y calzado. Las Topografías médicas que usamos como fuente principal sugieren que el acceso desigual a los recursos familiares tuvo un fuerte impacto en la salud y el bienestar de sus miembros. |
| Keywords: | consumo, desigualdad, economía familiar, género, bienestar. |
| JEL: | I14 I15 I31 N13 N33 R20 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1411&r=his |
| By: | Yoshihara, Naoki |
| Abstract: | This report explores the development of exploitation theory in mathematical Marxian economics by reviewing the main controversies surrounding the definition of exploitation since the contribution of Okishio (1963). The report first examines the robustness and economic implications of the debates on the Fundamental Marxian Theorem, developed mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the property relation theory of exploitation by Roemer (1982). Then, the more recent exploitation theory proposed by Vrousalis (2013) and Wright (2000) is introduced, before examining its economic implications using a simple economic model. Finally, the report introduces and comments on recent axiomatic studies of exploitation by focusing on the work of Veneziani and Yoshihara (2013a). |
| Keywords: | Fundamental Marxian Theorem, Property Relations Definition of Exploitation, Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle |
| JEL: | D63 D51 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:607&r=his |
| By: | Brooks A. Kaiser (Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark); James A. Roumasset (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii) |
| Abstract: | We illuminate several important aspects of the nature and causes of growth and institutional change. To do this, we focus on the role resource pressures have played in the historic development of Hawaii’s institutions. We discuss the Hawaiian story in the context of the natural co-evolution of production systems, organizational forms and authority structures in a resource dependent economy. We model the resource dependency as a multi-trophic ecologically based system. Productivity is a dynamic function of the available resource, human populations of laborers and wealth (capital) accumulation that funds management and governance through a non-productive elite class. We use both archeological and historical evidence from natural resource use during the settlement and modernization of the Hawaiian economy. Hawaii’s resources are first controlled by hierarchy, which intensifies over time. Decentralization occurs after Western contact (1778), though not immediately. Unlike many existing analyses of primitive economic development, there does not exist a monotonic relationship between population and resource pressure. In a model of second-best resource management, optimal governance changes as the balance between sustenance and other resource uses shifts.d work, integrating new scientific and economic evidence. |
| Keywords: | Natural resource dynamics, institutional change, governance of the commons, Hawaiian economic development |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sdk:wpaper:117&r=his |
| By: | Yoeu, Asikin; Pillot, Didier; Salles, Jean-Michael; Neang, Malyne |
| Keywords: | Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare14:165891&r=his |
| By: | Jaco Zuijderduijn |
| Abstract: | The cost of retirement has a strong impact on social processes. We study the prices individuals in Holland paid for corrodies: contracts providing elderly lifelong accommodation and care in hospitals. Around 1500 corrodies were relatively inexpensive, and within reach of those people able to raise the equivalent of c. 250 day wages of a skilled labourer if they wished to stay in a nursing hall and c. 500 day wages if they preferred an apartment of their own. In later centuries the real costs of retiring at least doubled. We argue that in the late Middle Ages spending old age in a retirement home was open to a relatively large part of the population, and that access to this type of care declined in the centuries that followed. We claim the later Middle Ages were a ‘golden age for the pensioner’ and discuss this finding in terms of the development of family ties. |
| Keywords: | corrodies, Holland, pre-industrial period |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0053&r=his |
| By: | Giuseppe Berlingieri |
| Abstract: | Giuseppe Berlingieri looks at the structural transformation of the US economy over the past 60 years. |
| Keywords: | Structural transformation, outsourcing, professional and business services, inputoutputtables, intermediates |
| JEL: | D57 L16 L24 L84 O14 O41 O51 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:413&r=his |
| By: | Claire France Picard (UL - Université de laval - Universite Laval (Quebec) - Canada); Sylvain Durocher (CRG - Centre de Recherche en Comptabilité - Université d'Ottawa); Yves Gendron (Université Laval [Québec] - Universite Laval (Quebec) - Canada) |
| Abstract: | Cette étude explore le glissement du professionnalisme au commercialisme au sein de la profession comptable à partir d'une analyse des documents publicitaires produits par l'Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec au cours des quatre dernières décennies. L'objectif est d'établir quelles représentations culturelles de la profession sont véhiculées dans ces documents publicitaires. En plus de réaffirmer la mouvance commercialiste de la profession, l'analyse des documents publicitaires révèle que l'establishment comptable tend à " naturaliser " la cohabitation des valeurs professionnelles et commerciales. En adoptant l'approche sémiologique de Barthes, cette étude tente de montrer que les documents publicitaires comprennent de riches messages quant au changement culturel au sein d'un champ. |
| Keywords: | profession comptable, publicité, commercialisation, représentation, approche sémiologique |
| Date: | 2013–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00993019&r=his |
| By: | Stéphane BECUWE; Bertrand BLANCHETON |
| Abstract: | Cet article cherche à montrer que les sucres des colonies ont été sacrifiés sur l’autel de la libéralisation des échanges internationaux dans les années 1860. Afin de maintenir des recettes douanières déclinantes du fait des conséquences des accords commerciaux, parmi les produits tropicaux (cacao, café, sucre) les sucres des colonies sont les seuls à ne pas bénéficier d’une diminution des droits. |
| Keywords: | sucre, colonies, libéralisation commerciale |
| JEL: | N7 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2014-08&r=his |
| By: | Elvira Lindoso Tato (Universidad de A Coruña,A Coruña,Spain); Margarita Vilar Rodríguez (Universidad de A Coruña, A Coruña,Spain) |
| Abstract: | Desde un punto de vista histórico, la industria del agua embotellada ha pasado de ser un apéndice del negocio balneario a convertirse en una de las actividades más importantes de la industria alimenticia en Europa. Este trabajo persigue dos objetivos básicos. Primero, conocer las diferentes etapas de la historia empresarial del agua envasada y la configuración de los grandes grupos empresariales que dominan el mercado actual. Con este fin, se aporta nueva información estadística sobre la producción y el consumo de agua embotellada desde una perspectiva de largo plazo y se reconstruyen las historias empresariales de las principales marcas de agua de envasada de Francia, Italia y Alemania, grandes líderes del mercado. Segundo, se analiza el sector de las aguas embotelladas en España, un país que en las últimas décadas ha conseguido escalar posiciones de manera espectacular en el ranking europeo, tanto en términos de producción como en consumo per capita |
| Keywords: | Palabras clave: historia empresarial, aguas embotelladas, Europa, España, siglo XIX, siglo XX. |
| JEL: | L79 N63 N64 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1413&r=his |
| By: | Hideaki Hirata; M. Ayhan Kose; Chris Otrok |
| Abstract: | Both global and regional economic linkages have strengthened substantially over the past quarter century. We employ a dynamic factor model to analyze the implications of these linkages for the evolution of global and regional business cycles. Our model allows us to assess the roles played by the global, regional, and country-specific factors in explaining business cycles in a large sample of countries and regions over the period 1960–2010. We find that, since the mid-1980s, the importance of regional factors has increased markedly in explaining business cycles especially in regions that experienced a sharp growth in intra-regional trade and financial flows. By contrast, the relative importance of the global factor has declined over the same period. In short, the recent era of globalization has witnessed the emergence of regional business cycles. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:164456&r=his |
| By: | Jorge M. Agüero |
| Abstract: | This paper uses year-to-year variation in temperature to estimate the long-term effects of climate change on health outcomes in Mexico. Combining temperature data at the district level and three rounds of nationally representative household surveys, an individual's health as an adult is matched with the history of heat waves from birth to adulthood. A flexible econometric model is used to identify critical health periods with respect to temperature. It is shown that exposure to higher temperatures early in life has negative consequences on adult height. Most importantly, the effects are concentrated at the times where children experience growth spurts: infancy and adolescence. The robustness of these findings is confirmed when using health outcomes derived from accidents, which are uncorrelated with early exposure to high temperatures. |
| Keywords: | Human health, Climate Change |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:83877&r=his |
| By: | Askari, Hossein; Iqbal, Zamir; Krichene, Noureddine; Mirakhor, Abbas |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the foundational rules governing human, economic and financial development in Islam, as understood from the Quran and from the life and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), are summarized. These rules pave the path to development as the basis of institutional structure, which in turn, underpin the path of economic and social progress. The essential elements in the life of a Muslim—the unity of creation, freedom and freedom of choice, economic and human development, economic system and financial practice—are developed. |
| Keywords: | Islam, Finance, Economics, Development |
| JEL: | O10 P40 P50 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56016&r=his |
| By: | Hamid Bouchikhi (Accounting / Management Control Department - ESSEC Business School); John R. Kimberly (University of Pennsylvania - University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | As of July 1, 2010, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of the Holy Spirit (UHS) has a single Department of Economics. However, in the seven prior years, there were two economics departments, one that was resolutely mainstream and the other that was just as resolutely heterodox. What accounts for this unusual organizational arrangement? We show that this arrangement was part of a protracted conflict about the kind of economics that befits the Catholic identity of UHS that resulted, ultimately, in a full embrace of mainstream economics in July 2010. We draw on and amend Oliver's (1991) typology of organizational responses to institutional processes and investigate why and how UHS went from deliberate avoidance to full acquiescence to mainstream economics. Our analysis suggests that while organizations may be compelled to adapt to dominant norms, as institutional theorists contend, the process of adaptation involves a variety of conflicting moves and counter moves that engage identity and power and that require forceful leadership to resolve. |
| Keywords: | Institutional Isomorphism ; Micro-processes ; Organizational Adaptation |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00993435&r=his |
| By: | Miguel Urrutia |
| Abstract: | El artículo discute como el Banco de la República de Colombia se ajustó durante un periodo largo a los cambios en la teoría y la legislación de la política monetaria, cambiaria y de crédito en el país. En el periodo la legislación transformo sus funciones, responsabilidades, y esquema de gobierno varias veces, pero la entidad logro mantener una cultura y seriedad administrativa muy sólida. |
| Keywords: | Política económica Siglo XX Colombia, política monetaria y cambiaria, inflación, Banco de la República. |
| JEL: | G28 N16 N26 O55 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2014–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:011194&r=his |
| By: | Kenneth S. Rogoff |
| Abstract: | Despite advances in transactions technologies, paper currency still constitutes a notable percentage of the money supply in most countries. For example, it constitutes roughly 10% of the US Federal Reserve’s main monetary aggregate, M2. Yet, it has important drawbacks. First, it can help facilitate activity in the underground (tax-evading) and illegal economy. Second, its existence creates the artifact of the zero bound on the nominal interest rate. On the other hand, the enduring popularity of paper currency generates many benefits, including substantial seigniorage revenue. This paper explores some of the issues associated with phasing out paper currency, especially large-denomination notes. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:168026&r=his |
| By: | Meacci, Ferdinando |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT The controversies between Ricardo and Malthus reached a new peak when Malthus published his pamphlet The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated and Ricardo responded by his critical Notes on Malthus’s ‘Measure of Value’ (1823 [1992]) and by a further round of correspondence with Malthus (Works, IX). The new (and final) stage of these controversies was concerned with the two authors’ conflicting theories of value and, within these theories, with the excruciating issue of the invariable measure of value. Starting from some insights provided by Malthus and Ricardo in their major or final contributions, this paper deals with a rather neglected component of their controversies, i.e. with the theory of the value of labour as distinct from the value of its products. This will be done by highlighting two sets of ambiguities which affect both Ricardo’s and Malthus’s arguments. One of these hinges on the ambiguity conveyed by the word labour in so far as this reflects the three different concepts of labour power, living labour and dead labour. The other set hinges on the different ambiguity conveyed by the word value especially when it comes to the value of labour. For this word was used in those controversies (as well as in other parts of classical theory) to convey not only the two elementary concepts of use-value and exchangeable-value but also, within the former concept, the two further concepts of the (positive) use-value of labour from the standpoint of its employer, and of the (negative) use-value (disutility) of labour from the standpoint of the labourer. The latter is the sense in which Smith’s ambiguous notion of the “value of labour to the labourer” and his related corollary of the constant “price” of labour (WN, I,V,7-8) must be understood if his system of thought (including its crucial notion of value as labour command) is to stand against Malthus’s misleading attempt to protect it from Ricardo’s criticisms. In this sense, Malthus’s attempt and Ricardo’s criticisms may be jointly regarded as a result of their common error of understanding the value of labour exclusively in the sense of its exchangeable value (which is rightly regarded by Ricardo as –normally- varying and wrongly assumed in Malthus’s Measure of Value as –strangely- constant). |
| Keywords: | Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, value of labour |
| JEL: | B12 B2 B22 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55948&r=his |
| By: | Kristin E. Smith (University of New Hampshire) |
| Abstract: | This paper tracks factors contributing to the ups and downs in women’s employment from 1970 to 2010 using regression decompositions focusing on whether changes are due to shifts in the means (composition of women) or due to shifts in coefficients (inclinations of women to work for pay). Compositional shifts in education exerted a positive effect on women’s employment across all decades, while shifts in the composition of other family income, particularly at the highest deciles, depressed married women’s employment over the 1990s contributing to the slowdown in this decade. A positive coefficient effect of education was found in all decades, except the 1990s, when the effect was negative, depressing women’s employment. Further, positive coefficient results for other family income at the highest deciles bolstered married women’s employment over the 1990s. Models are run separately for married and single women demonstrating the varying results of other family income by marital status. This research was supported in part by an Upjohn Institute Early Career Research Award. |
| Keywords: | women’s employment, other family income, stalled gender revolution, regression decomposition |
| JEL: | J11 J21 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:14-211&r=his |
| By: | Lawson, Cornelia (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Knowledge transfer has become one of the major policy goals of governments across the world and is being encouraged at the national and EU level. While policy makers and academics continue to look for a knowledge transfer model that will work for all universities, some recent analyses have shown that specific local and historic conditions that affect a university’s ability to engage with the region need to be considered. This paper looks at the knowledge transfer activities of the three universities in the Greater Manchester area. All three universities are closely linked to their local environment and can trace their origin to the mid-19th century and the development of Manchester as the “first industrial city”. Differences in research priorities and funding (cuts) have affected their development and left us with three distinct knowledge transfer strategies. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201403&r=his |
| By: | Brock Smith |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of the oil price boom in the 1970s and the subsequent bust on non-oil economic activity in oil-dependent countries. During the boom, manufacturing value added and exports increased significantly relative to non-oil dependent countries, along with wages, employment and investment. These measures decreased, though to a lesser extent, during the bust, displaying a positive relationship with oil prices In contrast with the Dutch Disease model, exportable manufacturing sectors grew faster than non-exportable ones. However, exports of non-hydrocarbon natural resources and agricultural products displayed a strongly negative relationship to prices. The results suggest a push towards industrialization induced by the oil revenue windfall. |
| Keywords: | Dutch disease, oil price boom, non-oil dependent countries, non-hydrocarbon natural resources, oil revenue windfall |
| JEL: | Q3 Q4 Q54 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:133&r=his |