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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2014‒06‒14
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Jeremy Atack; Matthew S. Jaremski; Peter L. Rousseau |
| Abstract: | Studies have shown a connection between finance and growth, but most do not consider how financial and real factors interact to put a virtuous cycle of economic development into motion. As the main transportation advance of the 19th century, railroads connected established commercial centers and made unsettled areas along their routes better candidates for development. We measure the strength of links between railroads and banks in seven Midwest states using an annual transportation GIS database linked to a census of banking. These data indicate that those counties that already had a bank were more likely to see their first railroad go through over the next decade, while new banks tended to enter a county a year or two after it got a railroad. The initial banking system thus helped establish the rail system, while the rapid expansion of railroads helped fill in the banking map of the American Midwest. |
| JEL: | N11 N21 N71 N91 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20198&r=his |
| By: | Shapreau, Carla |
| Keywords: | Arts and Humanities |
| Date: | 2014–06–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:bineur:qt0q71b0p2&r=his |
| By: | Raskov, Danila; Kufenko, Vadim |
| Abstract: | The early accumulation of capital and the pioneering of capitalist enterprise have been undertaken in many countries by heterodox religious communities. The role of the Old Believers (further OB) in the early development of Russian industry and trade was noted by many economic historians (Blackwell, 1965; Gerschenkron, 1970; Beliajeff, 1979; Stadnikov, 2002; Kerov, 2004; Raskov, 2012); however, empirical and statistical research on the topic is still scarce. Therefore one of our goals is to analyze the role of the OB entrepreneurship in a dynamic dimension using statistical data. Taking advantage of official censuses of 1850, 1857 and, what is more important, 15 archive sources for confessional data for 1808 - 1905 and 7 industrial reports, we analyze the role of the OB firms in the Moscow textile industry for the period of 1832 - 1890. We find that the share of the OB firms in turnover and employment was over-proportionate prior to 1879, which hints at a higher propensity to entrepreneurship. The turnover per worker of the OB firms was significantly higher only in the wool sub-sector. Additionally, the OB firms tended to employ more labor. We capture the continuous process of the rise and fall of the OB entrepreneurship, especially in cotton-paper and wool weaving sub-sectors. Bearing in mind cyclical waves of repressions against the OB, we can state, that the performance of their firms was impressing. We discuss the Weber thesis and the Petty-Gerschenkron argument, and state that various factors contributed to their success: working ethics and minority status; social capital, networking and access to interest free financing; own informal institutions and reputation mechanisms; human capital and literacy. -- |
| Keywords: | economic history of Russia,the Old Believers,religious minority,minority entrepreneurship,textile industry |
| JEL: | N33 N83 J15 L26 Z10 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohpro:402014&r=his |
| By: | Axel Fisher |
| Abstract: | The report summarizes the agenda, scientific contents, results, contribution to the future direction of the field, and outcomes of the Exploratory research workshop held in Rome and Sabaudia (Italy) on Octobre 7-10th 2013.Le rapport synthétise le déroulement, les contenus scientifiques, les résultats, les contributions aux directiosn futures dans le champ, et les résultats du séminaire de recherche exploratoire tenu à Rome et Sabaudia (Italie) les 7-10 Octobre 2013. |
| Keywords: | colonisation agricole; méditerranée; utopies; révolution passive; urbanisme agraire |
| JEL: | O21 N34 N54 N94 O18 F54 N95 |
| Date: | 2014–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/163646&r=his |
| By: | Laura Salisbury |
| Abstract: | Under the Civil War pension act of 1862, the widow of a Union Army soldier was entitled to a pension if her husband died as a direct result of his military service; however, she lost her right to the pension if she remarried. I analyze the effect this had on the rate of remarriage among these widows. This study fits into a modern literature on the behavioral effects of marriage penalties. In addition, it offers a unique perspective on 19th century marriage markets, which are little understood. Using a new database compiled from widows' pension files, I estimate the effect of the pension on the hazard rate of remarriage using variation in pension processing times. Taking steps to account for the potential endogeneity of processing times to marital outcomes, I find that receiving a pension lowered the hazard rate of remarriage by 25 percent, which implies an increase in the median time to remarriage of 3.5 years. Among older women and women with children, this effect is substantially greater. This indicates that women were willing to substitute away from marriage if the alternatives were favorable enough, suggesting that changes in the desirability of marriage to women may account for some of the aggregate patterns of first marriage documented for this period. |
| JEL: | J1 J12 J18 N31 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20201&r=his |
| By: | Yefimov, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes to reconsider radically the methodology and history of economics, whether present day mainstream or heterodox versions of it. The profession of economists must definitely abandon Cartesian dualism and adopt Vygotskian constructivism. In fact constructivist economics already existed in the past and was cognitively very successful and socially very useful. It was the economics of Gustav Schmoller’s historico-ethical school and the institutionalist economics of John R. Commons, traditions of which are totally ignored by the contemporary community of economists. The former tradition was based on Dilthey’s hermeneutics and the latter on Peirce’s pragmatism. It is worth to underline that hermeneutics and pragmatism are both predecessors of Vygotskian constructivism. During the last two decades a lot was written by economists on pragmatist, constructivist and discursive approaches to the methodology and history of economics, but those who wrote on these topics viewed them from the dualistic point of view. My paper is an appeal to economists to reconsider Methodenstreit. The dispute of methods between Schmoller and Menger can be considered as a repetition of a similar dispute taking place more than two hundred years earlier between Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes. Schmoller-Menger dispute started soon after the beginning of the institutionalisation of experimentally-oriented economics which happened with the creation in 1873 of the Verein für Sozialpolitik. Boyle-Hobbes dispute started in 1660, when the Royal Society of London had been founded, the cradle of the institution of science. Schmoller was one of the creators of the Verein and Boyle was one of the founders of the Royal Society. The activities of both societies were similar in several respects: they represented efforts to collect data, working out of detailed reports and collective evaluation of obtained results. For Hobbes, as for Menger, the model of ‘science’ was geometry. Boyle and Schmoller privileged collecting and analysing data. Boyle did win the dispute, Schmoller did loose. It happened because of different attitudes of powerful groups in societies towards natural scientific experimental research and experimental social research. They were interested in the former and they saw much more danger than benefit for them in the latter. On the contrary they were interested in abstract theoretical constructions justifying the market vision of society and laissez-faire. This kind of constructions corresponded to deeply enrooted scholastic traditions of European universities to teach theology and linked with it philosophy. In the framework of these traditions mathematics was considered as a summit of the scientific approach. On the one hand the adoption of constructivism by economists would turn their discipline into a science functionally close to natural sciences. On the other hand the Vygotskian constructivism, as a social and political philosophy, once accepted by economists, may lead them to become preachers of the communitarian liberalism with its emphasis on social responsibility, deliberative democracy, and discourse ethics. |
| Keywords: | Methodenstreit; social constructivism; constructivist epistemology and ontology for economics; constructivist history of economics; economic policy and deliberative democracy; economic philosophy and discourse ethics, communitarian liberalism. |
| JEL: | A1 A11 A13 A14 B0 B4 B41 |
| Date: | 2014–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56499&r=his |
| By: | Eric B. Schneider (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new adaptive framework for understanding children’s growth in the past. Drawing upon the recent work of Gluckman and Hanson (2006) and their co-authors on adaptive responses in relation to growth, I present three prenatal and three postnatal adaptive mechanisms that affect the growth patterns of children. The most novel adaptive response to the historical literature is the prenatal predictive adaptive response where the foetus develops assuming that the postnatal environment will closely match prenatal conditions. Thus, the metabolism and growth trajectory of a child is programmed during the prenatal period: children experiencing good conditions in utero would have a higher metabolism and growth trajectory than their counterparts facing poor conditions. Having discussed the framework and other responses in detail, I then use it to reinterpret the growth pattern of American slaves (Steckel, 1979, 1986). I argue that the mismatch between relatively good conditions in utero and absolutely appalling conditions in infancy and early childhood led slave children to become incredibly stunted by age three or four. However, after this age, slave children experienced rapid catch-up growth, first because their immune systems had become more developed and had adapted to the poor disease environment and later because their diet improved tremendously and hookworm exposure was reduced when they entered the labour force around age ten. Thus, American slave children were able to experience rapid catch-up growth because they were prenatally programmed for a higher metabolism and growth trajectory. The paper concludes by setting out some stylized facts about children’s growth in the past and pointing toward areas of future research. |
| Date: | 2014–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_130&r=his |
| By: | Francesco Bianchi; Cosmin Ilut |
| Abstract: | We reinterpret post World War II US economic history using an estimated microfounded model that allows for changes in the monetary/fiscal policy mix. We find that the fiscal authority was the leading authority in the '60s and the '70s. The appointment of Volcker marked a change in the conduct of monetary policy, but inflation dropped only when fiscal policy accommodated this change two years later. In fact, a disinflationary attempt of the monetary authority leads to more inflation if not supported by the fiscal authority. If the monetary authority had always been the leading authority or if agents had been confident about the switch, the Great Inflation would not have occurred and debt would have been higher. This is because the rise in trend inflation and the decline in debt of the '70s were caused by a series of fiscal shocks that are inflationary only when monetary policy accommodates fiscal policy. The reversal in the debt-to-GDP ratio dynamics, the sudden drop in inflation, and the fall in output of the early '80s are explained by the switch in the policy mix itself. If such a switch had not occurred, inflation would have been high for another fifteen years. Regime changes account for the stickiness of inflation expectations during the '60s and the '70s and for the break in the persistence and volatility of inflation. |
| JEL: | C11 E31 E58 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20194&r=his |
| By: | David le Bris; William N. Goetzmann; Sébastien Pouget |
| Abstract: | We use the Bazacle company of Toulouse's unique historical experience as a laboratory to test asset pricing theory. The Bazacle company is the earliest documented shareholding corporation. Founded in 1372 and nationalized in 1946, it was a grain milling firm for most of its 600 year history. We collect share prices and dividends over its entire lifespan. The average dividend yield in real terms was slightly in excess of is 5% per annum, while the long-term price growth was near zero. The company's unique full-payout dividend policy allows us to estimate an asset pricing model with fundamentally persistent dividends and a time-varying risk correction. The model is not rejected by the data. Variations in expected future dividends are found to explain between one-sixth and one-third of variations in prices. Moreover, the risk correction is correlated with macroeconomic shocks, in particular with the volatility of grain prices. |
| JEL: | G12 N13 N23 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20199&r=his |
| By: | Chiaki Yamamoto (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | English agriculture in the first half of the nineteenth century was characterised by the ehigh-wage north and low-wage southf pattern. The serious problem of rural unemployment in southern England is also widely acknowledged for this period. The question then remains: Why did agricultural labourers stay in the south? Why did they not move to the industrial north where more job opportunities were available? In answer to this question, I propose that; the wage rate in the south was high enough, if income-in-kind is taken into consideration, and that in-kind income, especially in the form of drink allowance, was more prevalent in the south. This paper also attempts to estimate regional unemployment rates directly. While unemployment in the south has been well recognised, the perceptions are largely based on indirect evidence such as per capita poor law expenditure, or descriptive information derived from contemporary writings. However, poor law expenditure is likely to have been affected by the actual practice of poor relief in the local context, and it is almost impossible to use contemporary remarks for systematic regional comparison. Therefore, I attempt to estimate unemployment rates more directly, in percentage terms. The second aim of this paper is to estimate regional real wages inclusive of income-in-kind. The Rural Query of the 1834 Poor Law Report, the main source for this paper, asked the rate of male wages with or without beer or cider. I used this information to estimate real wages. Thirdly, I estimate female wages and consider job opportunities for women, to calculate annual family income in a regional perspective. |
| Keywords: | the Industrial Revolution; income-in-kind; food/drink allowances; regional wage gaps; migration. |
| JEL: | N13 N33 N53 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1424&r=his |
| By: | Nikolay Nenovsky (LEO Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - bat. A Rue de Blois - BP 6739 45067 ORLEANS CEDEX 2 FR, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; LE STUDIUM LE STUDIUM - 3D avenue de la Recherche scientifique 45071 Orléans Cedex 2 FR, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Kiril Tochkov (TCU Texas Christian University - Department of Economics Texas Christian University TCU Box 298510 Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA FR, University of Texas Christian); Camélia Turcu (LEO Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - bat. A Rue de Blois - BP 6739 45067 ORLEANS CEDEX 2 FR, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper traces the origins of the different monetary regimes adopted in Bulgaria and Romania in 1996-97 and examines their performance during the EU accession. The findings indicate that the constraints of the currency board in Bulgaria shifted economic activity towards the private sector, while the discretionary policies in Romania turned public finances into both a contributor and a response mechanism to economic imbalances. While the prospects of EU accession initially enhanced the performance of the monetary anchors, the implicit insurance of EU membership increased moral hazard and led to a rapid rise in private and public debt. The paper also explores the historical parallels between the monetary regimes of Bulgaria and Romania in 1996-97 and 1925-1940. |
| Keywords: | Post-communist transition, Monetary regimes, EU accession, Moral hazard, Interwar monetary history |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inr:wpaper:244082&r=his |
| By: | Mikkelsen, Anders L. |
| Abstract: | Using the records of several leading 19th century issuing houses, this paper analyses the transformation of underwriting practices in London's primary sovereign bond market from 1870 to 1914. It shows how underwriting risk developed from being a liability, which market intermediaries sought to avoid, to becoming a valuable financial commodity. The impetus for this development was increased competition in the loan business from the 1880s onwards, which weakened the negotiating position of issuing houses and forced them to shoulder an increasing share of the underwriting risk. Issuing houses had to find methods to deal with this risk, but they were initially hamstrung by public perception of underwriting as detrimental to the interests of ordinary investors. Firms began to adopt informal underwriting arrangements, with limited scope, but these only allowed for a relatively limited distribution of underwriting risk to third parties, the danger of which was exposed during the Baring crisis. Consequently formal underwriting syndicates were developed, allowing for a greater dissemination of underwriting risk. This meant that the risk associated with issuing loans could be broken down into sufficiently small tranches so that no underwriter had to shoulder a risk greater than what he desired. As a result underwriting risk came to be seen as a profitable investment opportunity, a financial commodity in its own right, and a means of patronage for issuing houses. -- |
| Keywords: | Underwriting,Risk,Sovereign Debt,Issuing Practices,Syndicates,Issuing Houses,Financial Intermediaries,Competition |
| JEL: | N23 G24 F34 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:1406&r=his |
| By: | Paolo Liberati; Massimo Paradiso |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the historical evolution of benefit-based taxation, with particular reference to the contribution of the Italian school of public finance. In particular, it is shown that the positive interpretation of the benefit theory as a criterion of rationality and judgment is well established in the Italian tradition of public finance. Indeed, the practice of taxation as interpreted by Italian scholars reflects more the outcome of a political bargaining, rather than the consistent application of any normative principle as in the contribution by Lindahl (1919). Under this perspective, the benefit theory may help the functioning of a system of democratic finance, in order to avoid large deviations of the level of taxation from its natural path. Thus, the concept remains of a fundamental role played by the benefit principle in its positive guise as a base for judgments and control of the action of governments. |
| Keywords: | Benefit theory; Italian public finance; Taxation. |
| JEL: | H11 N00 Z18 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0190&r=his |
| By: | Jordi Domènech Feliu |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the organization of the internal labour market of postal services in Spain from 1890 to 1935. The paper discusses the evolution of total employment in relation to postal traffic and average nominal and real wages. The paper then analyses the operation of the internal labour market for civil servants. There is an unsurprising steep wage-age gradient, in line with theories of deferred compensation in large, service firms. Voluntary or disciplinary separations were extremely rare. A career in the postal services offered higher entry wages, a growing wage over the life cycle and a secure job until retirement. There were two downsides to pursuing a career in the postal services. Firstly, entry and promotion depended crucially on the expansion of total employment for administrative personnel, which in turn depended on the fiscal position of the state. Secondly, nominal wages were upward rigid in the event of inflationary episodes, leading to substantial deterioration of real wages during the years of WW1. |
| Keywords: | Postal services, Deferred compensation, Personnel economics, Wage profiles, Internal labor markets |
| JEL: | N24 N43 N44 J30 J31 J41 J40 J45 L32 M51 M52 M55 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp14-01&r=his |
| By: | Waldenström, Daniel (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This chapter presents historical evidence about Swedish stock prices, dividends, and yields on government fixed-interest securities. Monthly returns are presented since 1901 for stocks, since 1874 for government long-term bonds and since 1856 for short-term Treasury bills or central bank discount rates. Annual stock price and returns indices from 1870 are also presented. Altogether, these series comprise the longest financial asset price database for Sweden to date. An important ambition is to provide information about the quality of the financial data, how they are constructed and how they are modified so as to ensure consistency across time. The chapter also outlines the basic institutional and economic framework of the Swedish stock and money markets. Research has shown that asset prices are influenced by the extent of trading activity as well as by the legal setting and microstructural characteristics. Finally, the chapter offers some initial analysis of the new evidence: calculation of returns for different periods, examination of trends and trend breaks in returns, dividends, volatility and cross-country returns correlations, and computation of equity risk premia across holding periods and historical eras. |
| Keywords: | Historical stock returns; Historical bond yields; Stockholm Stock Exchange; Equity risk premium |
| JEL: | G12 N23 N24 |
| Date: | 2014–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2014_005&r=his |
| By: | Foldvari, Peter |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use the components of the PolityIV project’s polity2 and Vanhanen’s Index of Democracy indicators to analyse the relationship between de iure and de facto political institutions from 1820 until 2000 with a canonical correlation method, and a correction for the sample selection bias, caused by the change in the number of available countries. We find considerably fluctuation in the relationship between the two measures and that much of the observed correlation is due to the sample selection bias. The relationship becomes strong and positive only in the second half of the 20th century. |
| Keywords: | democratization, de facto and de iure institutions, canonical correlation, Polity IV, Vanhanen’s Index of Democracy |
| JEL: | N40 O17 |
| Date: | 2014–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56576&r=his |
| By: | Pablo Fajgelbaum; Stephen J. Redding |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the natural experiment of Argentina's integration into world markets in the late-nineteenth century to provide evidence on the role of internal geography in shaping the effects of external integration. We develop a quantitative model of the distribution of economic activity across regions and sectors. The model predicts a spatial Balassa-Samuelson effect, in which locations with better access to world markets have higher population densities, higher shares of employment in the non-traded sector, higher relative prices of non-traded goods, and higher land prices relative to wages. We use the model and data on population density and sectoral employment shares to recover sufficient statistics that isolate the economic mechanisms through which external and internal integration affect economic development. Our analysis highlights the role of complementary investments in internal infrastructure and technology adoption in mediating the economy's response to external integration. |
| Keywords: | External integration, economic development, structural transformation |
| JEL: | F11 F14 O13 O14 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1273&r=his |
| By: | Oliver D. Bunn (Barclays Bank PLC); Robert J. Shiller (Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | We construct a price, dividend, and earnings series for the Industrials sector, the Utilities sector, and the Railroads sector from the beginning of the 1870s until the beginning of the year 2013 from primary sources. To infer about mispricings in the sector markets over more than a century, we investigate the forecasting power of the Cyclically Adjusted Price-Earnings (CAPE) ratio1 for these sectors. With regard to the CAPE ratio, which has originally been devised and employed by Campbell and Shiller (1988, 1998, 2001) as well as Shiller (2005), we define a methodological improvement to this ratio to not only be robust to inflationary changes, but also to changes in corporate payout policy. We then update the original evidence from Campbell and Shiller (1998, 2001) of the return predictability of the CAPE ratio for the overall stock market and furthermore extend this evidence to the three aforementioned sectors individually. Whereas this part of our analysis focuses on each sector of the US economy in isolation, we subsequently construct an indicator from the CAPE ratio that enables us to perform valuation comparisons across sectors. In addition to establishing the prediction of subsequent return differences based on differences in the CAPE-based valuation indicator, we also suggest a hypothetical, historical, and simple value investment strategy that rotates between the three sectors based on the valuation signals derived from the CAPE-based indicator, generating slightly more than 1:09% annualized, inflation-adjusted excess total return over the market benchmark during a period of nearly 110 years. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1950&r=his |
| By: | Antonio Cubel; Vicente Esteve; Maria Teresa Sanchis; Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) and innovation-related variables during the second half of the 20th century. We perform this analysis for several European countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain) and the U.S., extending Coe and Helpman’s (1995) empirical specification to include human capital. We use a new dataset of patents data for the past 150 years to calculate the stock of knowledge using the perpetual inventory method. Our time series empirical analysis confirms the heterogeneous relationship between innovation variables (domestic stock of knowledge, imports of knowledge, and human capital) and productivity. Our results reveal the extent to which observed differences in technology adoption patterns and the levels of endowment of such resources can explain differences in TFP dynamics across countries. The estimated coefficients confirm the considerable gap that still exists between the European countries and the U.S. in innovation-related variables. Furthermore, we obtain a finding that may have important implications for innovation policies: the higher the level of investment in human capital, the higher the level of investment in domestic innovation, and the higher the response of TFP to a 1% increase in any of the aforementioned variables. |
| Keywords: | OECD,international technology diffusion, patents, productivity, cointegration |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uae:wpaper:0614&r=his |
| By: | Jagjit S. Chadha; Morris Perlman |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between prices and interest rates for seven advanced economies in the period up to 1913, emphasizing the UK. There is a significant long-run positive relationship between prices and interest rates for the core commodity standard countries. Keynes (1930) labelled this positive relationship the Gibson Paradox. A number of theories have been put forward as possible explanations of the Paradox but they do not fit the long-run pattern of the relationship. We find that a formal model in the spirit of Wicksell (1907)and Keynes (1930) offers an explanation for the paradox: where the need to stabilize the banking sector’s reserve ratio, in the presence of an uncertain natural rate, can lead to persistent deviations of the market rate of interest from its natural level and consequently long run swings in the price level. |
| Keywords: | Gibson’s paradox; Keynes-Wicksell; prices; interest rates |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:56896&r=his |
| By: | Colvin, Christopher L.; de Jong, Abe; Fliers, Philip T. |
| Abstract: | Why do some banks fail in financial crises while others survive? This article answers this question by analysing the effect of the Dutch financial crisis of the 1920s on 142 banks, of which 33 failed. We find that choices of balance sheet composition and product market strategy made in the lead-up to the crisis had a significant impact on banks' subsequent chances of experiencing distress. We document that high-risk banks - those operating highly-leveraged portfolios and attracting large quantities of deposits - were more likely to fail. Branching and international activities also increased banks´ default probabilities. We measure the effects of board interlocks, which have been characterized in the extant literature as contributing to the Dutch crisis. We find that boards mattered: failing banks had smaller boards, shared directors with smaller and very profitable banks and had a lower concentration of interlocking directorates in non-financial firms. -- |
| Keywords: | financial crises,bank failures,bank business models,interlocking directorates,the Netherlands,the interwar period |
| JEL: | G01 G21 G33 G34 N24 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:1404&r=his |
| By: | Karina Acosta; Julio Romero P. |
| Abstract: | En este trabajo se analiza la dinámica de la tasa mortalidad infantil (TMI) en Colombia entre 1964 y 2008, estimando a una serie de tiempo extensa de la TMI desde dos métodos y fuentes diferentes. En el primer caso, se aplicó el método indirecto Brass con las variaciones de Trussell y Coale-Trussell, usando como fuente de información los microdatos censales entre 1973 y 2005. En la segunda aproximación, se empleó el método retrospectivo de Somoza-Rutstein usando las Encuesta de Demografía y Salud de 1986 a 2010. Los resultados permiten establecer una reducción sustancial de la TMI en el período analizado y la existencia de sesgos en trabajos anteriores que investigaron la magnitud de la TMI en Colombia para la década de los noventas. Adicionalmente, se encontró que la TMI se ha caracterizado por un cierre entre la brecha rural-urbana y entre regiones.******ABSTRACT: In this paper, we apply indirect and retrospective methods to analyze the time dynamic of the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in Colombia from 1964 to 2008 using two different sources of data. First estimates come through the Brass method using census microdata between 1973 and 2005; specifically, we calculate the IMR taking advantage of the Trussell and the Coale-Trussell variants of the classical Brass equation. In our second approach, we estimate the IMR using the Somoza-Rutstein retrospective analysis and Demographic and Health Surveys from 1986 to 2010. Results show a substantial reduction of the infant mortality during the second half of the 20th century as well as a decreasing urban-rural gap. We also provide evidence suggesting a systematic bias of previous research that analyzed the IMR during the 1990s. The decrease of the IMR in Colombia has been reinforced by a declining proportion of deaths due to infectious diseases. |
| Keywords: | Colombia, Tasa de Mortalidad Infantil, estimación indirecta, método Brass-Trussell, método Somoza-Rutstein, microdatos censales, ENDS. |
| JEL: | I14 J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2014–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:011546&r=his |
| By: | Stavros Mavroudeas (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia) |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the ongoing saga of the relationship between plan and market within the Marxist Political Economy.The first part studies the early soviet controversies on this subject. Two opposing main poles are recognised: the first is represented by Preobrazhensky and the second by Bukharin. Furthermore, the theoretical foundations and the implications for economic policy of these two approaches are being clarified. The second part surveys the socialist calculation debate. The third part analyses the Sweezy-Bettelheim debate on the nature of the Soviet Union and the plan-market contradiction.Finally, the last part describes the latest debates on market socialism and attempts to review the positions taken in all the abovementioned debates with regard to the plan-market relationship. |
| Keywords: | plan, market socialism, Marxism, soviet economics. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2014_03&r=his |
| By: | Ewout Frankema |
| Abstract: | The educational legacy of Dutch colonial rule in the Netherlands Indies has been widely regarded as disappointing. This paper probes further into the underlying causes of the poor Dutch legacy. It is argued that the spread of popular education was not only hampered by a lack of financial commitment by the colonial state, but also by notable inequalities in the allocation of funds for education and a major reluctance to support initiatives in investment in private education, which may be interpreted as a consequence of the Dutch metropolitan commitment to secular rule in an overwhelmingly Islamic society. |
| Keywords: | colonial legacy, education, Indonesia |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0054&r=his |
| By: | Andrés Sánchez Jabba |
| Abstract: | Luego de albergar una de las sociedades prehispánicas más prósperas de lo que actualmente es Colombia, el bajo San Jorge se convirtió en una de las subregiones colombianas con mayor incidencia de la pobreza. Como factor explicativo de este hecho se propone la alta concentración de la propiedad sobre la tierra. Esto ha llevado a un uso inadecuado del suelo, caracterizado por el predominio de actividades ganaderas a pesar de que la zona tiene un alto potencial agrícola. De esta manera, se configuró una sociedad que abandonó el legado Zenú, basado en un modelo de producción agrícola y el control hidráulico.******ABSTRACT: The lower San Jorge basin was once the settlement of one of the most prosperous pre-Hispanic civilizations that inhabited what now a days is Colombia. However, at present, this area stands amongst Colombia's poorest. This study states that the high levels of concentration in land ownership account for the reversal of fortune suffered by this region, since stockbreeding activities predominate despite the fact that the area has a significantly high agricultural potential. This favored the development of a society that abandoned the Zenu legacy, based on an agricultural production model and hydraulic control. |
| Keywords: | Río San Jorge, cultura Zenú, uso del suelo, concentración de la propiedad sobre la tierra. |
| JEL: | Q10 Q15 |
| Date: | 2013–07–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:011536&r=his |
| By: | Vidal-Robert, Jordi (University of Warwick and CAGE) |
| Abstract: | Using a newly collected dataset on inquisitorial activity for seven regions, fourteen provinces and 947 municipalities, I analyze the long-term economic consequences of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). I show that inquisitorial activity is negatively associated to regional and provincial economic growth (an increase of a thousand inquisitorial trials is associated with 3% to 5% lower urbanization rates). At the municipal level, I find that municipalities affected by the Inquisition experienced an annual population growth rate 0.11% lower than their counterparts. This result is robust when controlling for alternative explanatory factors, such as pre-existent religiosity and proxies for trade activity. I explore three channels through which the Inquisition may have had an impact on economic outcomes. While inquisitorial activity is not linked to levels of trust or social polarization, I find it is negatively associated with the adoption of new technologies and the creation of municipal centres of cultural transmission. |
| Keywords: | Spanish Inquisition, polarization |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:192&r=his |
| By: | Cléo Chassonnery-Zaigouche (CES; University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Lauren Larrouy (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France; GREDEG CNRS) |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on Arrow statistical discrimination theories and Schelling’s models of segregation, and how their work can be considered as an illustration of “the introduction of the same policy tools [as war game theory] into domestic politics in Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society Program” (Amadae, 2003: 10). In both contributions, abstract and formal theory serves as “a public policy tool” (Amadae, 2003: 9). We underline how (i) certain methods employed within RAND Corp. during the Cold War like its “interdisciplinary approach” or its “system analysis” are applied in Arrow and Schelling’s work on discrimination, and (ii) how certain tools which became the core of neoclassical economics are at the same time pervasive and challenged in Arrow and Schelling’s respective work. In that sense, our analysis is slightly different from Amadae’s one (2003) who sees in their work the illustration of the domination of rational choice theory in neoclassical economics. In our opinion, the two contributions have in common to be embedded in a neoclassical framework and illustrate a movement to amend this general framework for policy purpose. The paper discusses the epistemological status of Arrow and Schelling works, i.e. how they shape a new trend of scientific knowledge, by their specific methodologies, and how their works stress the usual dichotomy between economics as a normative or a positive science. Methods have consequences on political actions and Policy recommendations. The tiny threshold between prediction and explanation in Arrow and Schelling’s works imply a reflection on their epistemological status, especially because their respective amendments to standard theory are driven by the necessity of policy recommendations. |
| JEL: | A11 A12 B21 B41 D01 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2014-18&r=his |
| By: | Ragland, David R; Pande, Swati; Bigham, John; Cooper, Jill F |
| Abstract: | California was the first state to legislate a Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program under Assembly Bill AB 1475 (1999). SR2S funds construction projects that make it safer for children to walk/bicycle to school and encourage a greater number of children to choose these modes of travel for the school commute. The main goal of this project was to assess the long-term impact of program-funded engineering modifications on walking/bicycling levels and on safety. Evaluation of improvements was determined using a targeted method of determining the countermeasures to result in safety and mode shift. Major results indicate that safety of pedestrians increased within 250 feet of an infrastructure improvement, such as a sidewalk. There was also evidence of mode shift near improvements, as well. Positive results for safety and mobility, as well as improved data collection for funded programs, should make Safe Routes to School programs competitive among other transportation needs. |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Medicine and Health Sciences |
| Date: | 2014–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt8m59g6vx&r=his |
| By: | Roque B. Fernández; Paula Monteserin |
| Abstract: | En este trabajo pretendemos encontrar una repuesta al interrogante: ¿Por qué en Argentina, que cuenta con una Constitución que establece claramente un orden social basado en una democracia liberal republicana, persistentemente se impone el populismo? ¿Por qué amplias mayorías populares tiene una actitud complaciente, y por qué la dirigencia política subordina las reglas constitucionales al oportunismo demagógico de turno?¿Existen atavismos históricos que nos condenan a repetir una y otra vez la misma historia sufriendo las mismas consecuencias sin fin de continuidad? En este sentido, nuestro interés es tratar de descifrar la enigmática lógica de los argentinos, identificando en la historia patrones y prácticas atávicas que nos ayuden a explicar la dinámica de nuestro orden social, lo cual requiere integrar perspectivas y andamiajes conceptuales de las teorías principales en economía y en ciencias políticas y sociales. Para elaborar una primera aproximación empezamos con una revisión histórica tratando de identificar aspectos atávicos que constituyen impedimentos al fortalecimiento institucional. En esta primera parte hacemos un rastreo histórico exploratorio cubriendo el período que abarca la colonización de América, la Revolución de Mayo, las Guerras Civiles, la Constitución de 1853/60, y la capitalización de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires en 1880. En la segunda y tercera parte, actualmente en elaboración y que publicaremos más adelante, nos concentraremos en la implicancias de los atavismos históricos en la articulación de la lógica discursivo-política populista para entender cómo opera y cuál es su relación con las instituciones democráticas. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:537&r=his |