nep-his New Economics Papers
on Business, Economic and Financial History
Issue of 2015‒03‒13
thirty papers chosen by



  1. Non-residential capital stock in Latin America. 1875-2008 By Xavier Tafunell; Cristián Ducoing
  2. Returns to Education and Experience in Criminal Organizations: Evidence from the Italian-American Mafia By Nadia Campaniello; Rowena Gray; Giovanni Mastrobouni
  3. The Danish Agricultural Revolution in an Energy Perspective: A Case of Development with Few Domestic Energy Sources By Henriques, Sofia Teives; Sharp, Paul
  4. Adam Smith, Watch Prices, and the Industrial Revolution By Morgan Kelly; Cormac Ó Gráda
  5. THE WAGES OF WOMEN IN ENGLAND,1260-1850 By Humphries, Jane; Weisdorf, Jacob
  6. Contracts and cooperation: The relative failure of the Irish dairy industry in the late nineteenth century reconsidered By Henriksen, Ingrid; McLaughlin, Eoin; Sharp, Paul
  7. Poisedness and Propagation: Organizational Emergence and the Transformation of Civic Order in 19th-Century New York City By Victoria Johnson; Walter W. Powell
  8. Participative Political Institutions and City Development 800Ð1800 By Fabian Wahl
  9. Speculative bubbles in the Stockholm housing market 1875-1935? By Blöndal, Sölvi
  10. The Political Economy of European Integration By Spolaore, Enrico
  11. Crown Rule, Home Charges, and U.K.-India Terms of Trade By Dennis Appleyard; Shyam Gouri Suresh
  12. Resolution of balance of payments crises: Emergency financing and debt workouts By Ocampo, Jose Antonio
  13. Keynes, the Pope and the IMF By Mark Hayes
  14. An early knowledge economy: the adoption of paper, human capital and economic change in the medieval Islamic Middle East, 700-1300 AD By Maya Shatzmiller
  15. A Retrospective Look at Rescuing and Restructuring General Motors and Chrysler By Austan D. Goolsbee; Alan B. Krueger
  16. George Orwell and the Incoherence of Democratic Socialism By Makovi, Michael
  17. On the origin of r-concavity and related concepts By Tamás L. Balogh; Christian Ewerhart
  18. Two Opposing Economic-Literary Critiques of Socialism: George Orwell Versus Eugen Richter and Henry Hazlitt By Makovi, Michael
  19. The Portuguese economy in the 1980s: structural change and short-term upheavals By Ana Bela Nunes
  20. Defense Innovation in China: History, Lessons, and Trends By Bo, CHEN; Qun, LIU
  21. A Veblenian Articulation of the Monetary Theory of Production By Zdravka Todorova
  22. Long-Term Contracts in the Natural Gas Industry - Literature Survey and Data on 426 Contracts (1965-2014) By Anne Neumann; Sophia Rüster; Christian von Hirschhausen
  23. The institutions of Roman markets By Benito Arruñada
  24. Periods of converging carbon dioxide emissions from oil combustion 1973-2004 By Lindmark, Magnus; Acar, Sevil
  25. West European Economic Integration since 1950: Implications for Trade and Income By Nicholas Crafts
  26. The accumulation of capital and economic growth in Brazil. A long-term prospective (1950-2008) By Mateo Tomé, Juan Pablo
  27. The First Cut is the Deepest: Repeated Interactions of Coauthorship and Academic Productivity in Nobel Laureate Teams By Ho Fai Chan; Ali Sina Onder; Benno Torgler
  28. The UTIP Global Inequality Datasets: 1963-2008 By Galbraith, James K.; Halbach, Beatrice; Malinowska, Aleksandra; Shams, Amin; Zhang, Wenjie
  29. Frederic S. Lee’s Contributions to Heterodox Economics By Jo, Tae-Hee; Todorova, Zdravka
  30. Revisiting Shiller’s excess volatility hypothesis By Dooruj Rambaccussing

  1. By: Xavier Tafunell; Cristián Ducoing
    Abstract: This work offers non-residential capital stock estimation for major Latin American economies – Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico - made towards a homogeneous method. This work covers the whole twentieth century and the years of the XXI century, expanding backward half century the present available estimations. Our research has the virtue of creating a capital stock method that could be applied to almost all Latin American economies, using the gross fixed capital formation data base (1850–1950) elaborated by one of the authors. This data could be linked with the investment series of standardized National Accounts of the Region, by ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean). Also, the authors have done a comparison between Latin American countries and most advanced economies, especially on the comparative performance of two settlers countries, Argentina and Australia.
    Keywords: Capital Stock, Latin America, Gross fixed capital formation, National Accounts.
    JEL: N16 E22 E01
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1472&r=his
  2. By: Nadia Campaniello; Rowena Gray; Giovanni Mastrobouni
    Abstract: Is there any return to education in criminal activities? This is the first paper that investigates whether education has not only a positive impact on legitimate, but also on illegitimate activities. We use as a case study one of the longest running criminal corporations in history: the Italian-American mafia. Its most successful members have been capable businessmen, orchestrating crimes that require abilities that might be learned at school: extracting the optimal rent when setting up a racket, weighting interests against default risk when starting a loan sharking business or organising supply chains, logistics and distribution when setting up a drug dealing system. We address this question by comparing mobsters with their closest (non-mobster) neighbors using United States Census data in 1940. We document that mobsters have one year less education than their neighbors on average. None of the specifications presented identified any significant difference in the returns to education between these two groups. Private returns to education exist also in the illegal activities characterised by a certain degree of complexity as in the case of organized crime in mid-twentieth century United States.
    Date: 2015–02–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esx:essedp:763&r=his
  3. By: Henriques, Sofia Teives (University of Southern Denmark); Sharp, Paul (University of Southern Denmark)
    Abstract: We examine the case of Denmark - a country which historically had next to no domestic energy resources - for which we present new historical energy accounts for the years 1800-1913. We demonstrate that Denmark’s take off at the end of the nineteenth century was relatively energy dependent. We relate this to her well-known agricultural transformation and development through the dairy industry, and thus complement the literature which argues that expensive energy hindered industrialization, by arguing that similar obstacles would have precluded other countries from a more agriculture-based growth. The Danish cooperative creameries, which spread throughout the country over the last two decades of the nineteenth century, were dependent on coal. Although Denmark had next to no domestic coal deposits, we demonstrate that her geography allowed cheap availability throughout the country through imports. On top of this we emphasize that another important source of energy was imported feed for the cows.
    Keywords: Coal, Denmark, energy transition, agriculture
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:217&r=his
  4. By: Morgan Kelly (University College Dublin); Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin)
    Abstract: Although largely absent from modern accounts of the Industrial Revolution, watches were the first mass produced consumer durable, and were Adam Smith’s pre-eminent example of technological progress. In fact, Smith makes the notable claim that watch prices may have fallen by up to 95 per cent over the preceding century; a claim that this paper attempts to evaluate. We look at changes in the reported value of over 3,200 stolen watches from records of criminal trials in the Old Bailey court in London from 1685 to 1810. Before allowing for quality improvements we find that the real price of watches in nearly all categories falls steadily by 1.3 per cent per year, equivalent to a fall of 75 per cent over a century, a rate considerably above the growth rate of average labour productivity in British industry in the early nineteenth century.
    Keywords: Watch prices, Adam Smith, Industrial Revolution
    JEL: N0
    Date: 2015–03–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201505&r=his
  5. By: Humphries, Jane (Oxford University); Weisdorf, Jacob (Odense and CEPR)
    Abstract: This paper presents two wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850, the first based on daily wages and the second on the remuneration per day implied in annual service contracts. These two series are compared and the series for women’s daily wages is also compared with evidence for men, revealing interesting trends in the gender gap. These comparisons inform several recent debates first whether or not “the golden age of the English peasantry” included women; and, second whether or not protoindustrialization and early industrialization provided women with greater opportunities. Our contributions to these debates have implications for wider analyses of growth and wellbeing. For example, historians have argued that the rise in wages that followed the Black Death enticed female servants to delay marriage so contributing to a European Marriage Pattern, a demographic regime believed to enable modern economic growth. However, our findings suggest that servants did not benefit much in the post-plague era and so offers little in support of a ‘girl-powered’ economic breakthrough in England. Similarly, historians have hypothesized that high wages in the eighteenth century explain the labour-saving technological changes which kick-started the industrial revolution and, recently, that women shared in these high wages. Again our findings suggest a less rosy scenario with women who were unable to commit to full-time work losing ground relative to men and to their less constrained peers; such women fell increasingly adrift from any High Wage Economy.
    Keywords: Black Death; England; gender wage gap; industrial revolution; wages; women.
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:215&r=his
  6. By: Henriksen, Ingrid (University of Southern Denmark); McLaughlin, Eoin (University of St. Andrews); Sharp, Paul (University of Southern Denmark & CAGE)
    Abstract: Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared to other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the cooperative organisational form, but highlights that an important difference was institutional: specifically regarding the enforcement of vertically binding contracts, which are considered to be of vital importance for the successful operation of cooperatives. We argue that this failure, combined with a strong proprietary sector which was opposed to cooperation, reinforced the already difficult conditions for dairying in Ireland due to poor social capital.
    Keywords: Contracts, cooperation, dairying, Ireland
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:216&r=his
  7. By: Victoria Johnson; Walter W. Powell
    Abstract: The emergence of novelty, especially of new categories of people and organizations, is undertheorized in the social sciences. Some social worlds are more hospitable to novel introductions or exogenous perturbations than others. Explaining this relative "poisedness" is essential to understanding when and why new organizational forms appear, persist, and expand, both cognitively and geographically. We offer a comparative analysis of two cases of emergence in 19th-century New York City that examines the conditions under which a new organizational form - a research-intensive botanical garden - developed and took root. We show that social worlds are highly poised when environmental, intellectual, and civic factors have reinforcing consequences. Poisedness is amplified when the social character of the individuals produced by specific historical milieux attunes these innovators to the larger social and material processes that favor the creation of new modes of organization. Although our analysis of poisedness is fixed on a specific time and place, New York City over the course of the 19th century, our arguments about the emergence of new organizational forms apply readily to other settings and time periods.
    JEL: N11 N5
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21011&r=his
  8. By: Fabian Wahl (University of Hohenheim)
    Abstract: This study investigates the effect of participative political institutions (PPIs) that emerged in many central European cities from the late 13th century. The empirical analysis of the paper is based on newly compiled long-run data for the existence of different types of PPIs in 104 cities in the Holy Roman Empire. The effect of both an overall index of participativeness of political institutions as well as of the individual PPIs is tested empirically. When pooled over all periods and observations, there seems to be a significant positive overall effect of PPIs in the German-speaking area but not in the Low Countries. The study founds considerable spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the effect of PPIs. Furthermore, the effect of different types of PPIs differs substantially and in general seems to be short-lived. That is, the results show that the positive initial effect of some PPIs declined the longer they existed and over time.
    Keywords: Medieval Period, Early-Modern Period, Central Europe, City Development, Political Institutions, Early Democracy, Guilds
    JEL: N44 N94 O10 R11 H11 D72
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0073&r=his
  9. By: Blöndal, Sölvi (Dept. of Economic History, Stockholm University)
    Abstract: The main purpose of this paper has been to establish whether housing and rent prices share a common trend in the long run. And thus, to determine whether there were speculative bubbles in the Stockholm housing market during the period 1875-1930. This period offered an excellent opportunity for such an investigation due to limited regulation in the housing market. Finally, a newly generated data on Stockholm housing prices from 1875 and data on Stockholm rent prices have given us rare insight into the Stockholm housing market. After applying the statistical procedure of testing for cointegration, we have concluded that Stockholm housing and rent prices share a common trend, i.e. that they return to a long run equilibrium after experiencing an exogenous shock. More specifically, the results indicate a 22% movement back towards equilibrium following a shock to the model, one period later, i.e. one year later. Therefore, we conclude that during the period 1875-1930 there was no indication of a speculative bubble in the Stockholm housing market.
    Keywords: housing market; cointegration; economic history
    JEL: N93 N94
    Date: 2015–03–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:suekhi:0016&r=his
  10. By: Spolaore, Enrico (Tufts University)
    Abstract: This paper discusses the process of European institutional integration from a political economy perspective, linking the long-standing political debate on the nature of the European project to the recent economic literature on political integration and disintegration. First, we introduce the fundamental trade-off between economies of scale associated with larger political unions and the costs from sharing public goods and policies among more heterogeneous populations, and examine the implications of the trade-off for European integration. Second, we describe the two main political theories of European integration - intergovernmentalism and functionalism - and argue that both theories capture important aspects of European integration, but that neither view provides a complete and realistic interpretation of the process. Finally, we critically discuss the successes and limitations of the actual process of European institutional integration, from its beginnings after World War II to the current crisis.
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:221&r=his
  11. By: Dennis Appleyard; Shyam Gouri Suresh
    Abstract: This paper examines possible determinants of the long-run bilateral commodity terms of trade between the United Kingdom and British India during the Crown Rule period of 1858-1947. The potential influences of aggregate real incomes, price levels/money supplies, international transportation costs, and the exchange rate are included in the analysis, but we especially focus on the Home Charges that India was obliged to pay to Britain. The econometric results provide some support for the hypothesis that a rise in Home Charges was associated with an improvement in Britain’s terms of trade with India. In addition, a clear role was played by changes in transport costs and in the exchange rate.
    JEL: F14 F54 N73 N74 N75
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dav:wpaper:14-12&r=his
  12. By: Ocampo, Jose Antonio
    Abstract: This paper analyses the history and effectiveness of the two major mecha
    Keywords: IMF lending, conditionality, debt restructuring, collective action clauses
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2015-011&r=his
  13. By: Mark Hayes (University of Durham)
    Abstract: This paper discusses Keynes’s surprisingly positive views on the medieval scholastic teaching on usury and draws upon his work to argue that the traditional view of usury (understood as the charging of rent for the use of money) as anti-social is well-founded. Keynes’s understanding of the nature of probability allows a clear distinction to be made between debt and equity finance which most economists dismiss. Rather than meriting remuneration, the demand for the security provided by money against an uncertain future imposes a social cost in one form or another. This proposition is illustrated with reference to the problems of the modern international financial and monetary system, specifically the role of deposit insurance and the obstacles to a renewed system of managed exchange rates, without which many regions appear doomed to enduring long-term austerity.
    Keywords: Interest, monetary system, commodity standard, deposit insurance
    JEL: E42 E52 G28
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1502&r=his
  14. By: Maya Shatzmiller
    Abstract: The adoption of paper in the early days of the Islamic rule changed literacy practices in the Middle East and eventually around the world, yet the circumstances of its adoption and its impact on the Middle Eastern economy are not well known or understood. This study determines that paper use was linked to an increase in purchasing power and to a shift in cultivation patterns from cereals to textile plants. It shows that the decline in the price of paper and books played a role in the standardization of the Arabic language and in the transition from oral to written practices, the formation of new knowledge, and the spread of literacy. The result was improvement in human capital and rising labor productivity, especially in manufacturing. Finally, the flow of paper documents in the economy changed norms of contract enforcement.
    Keywords: Medieval Middle East, economic change, purchasing power, prices and wages, Agricultural shift, literacy, Human Capital, technology
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucg:wpaper:0064&r=his
  15. By: Austan D. Goolsbee; Alan B. Krueger
    Abstract: This paper takes a retrospective look at the U.S. government’s effort to rescue and restructure General Motors and Chrysler in the midst of the 2009 economic and financial crisis. The paper describes how two of the largest industrial companies in the world came to seek a bailout from the U.S. government, the analysis used to evaluate their request, and the steps taken by the government to rescue them. The paper also summarizes the performance of the U.S. auto industry since the bailout and draws some general lessons from the episode.
    JEL: E0 G01 G33 H0 J01 L50 L62
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21000&r=his
  16. By: Makovi, Michael
    Abstract: George Orwell's famous fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen-Eighty Four were intended to advocate democratic socialism by portraying undemocratic forms of socialism as totalitarian. For Orwell, democracy was a political institution which would limit the abuse of power. But there are several problems with democratic socialism which ensure its failure. In Orwell's novel A Clergyman's Daughter, Orwell's views of economics and politics are inconsistent and conflicting in a way that ensures democratic socialism will not succeed on Orwell's terms. Democratic socialism in general is criticized according to F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom and John Jewkes's The New Ordeal by Planning, whose arguments differ crucially from those against market socialism by Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. An economic analysis of the political institutions of democratic socialism shows that democratic socialism must necessarily fail for political (not economic) reasons even if nobody in authority has ill-intentions or abuses their power.
    Keywords: Orwell; Hayek; democratic socialism; market socialism; totalitarianism
    JEL: A12 B24 B25 B31 B51 B53 D70 I2 I20 J00 J20 J30 J47 P10 P20 P30 P50 Z11
    Date: 2015–02–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62527&r=his
  17. By: Tamás L. Balogh; Christian Ewerhart
    Abstract: In a less widely known contribution, Béla Martos (1966, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) introduced a generalized notion of concavity that is closely related to what is nowadays known as r-concavity in the operations research literature, and that is identical to what is nowadays known as ρ-concavity in the economics literature. The present paper aims at making the original contribution accessible to a wider audience and illustrating its importance from a modern perspective. To this end, we offer a translation of those parts of Martos (1966) that are directly related to generalized concavity. Reviewing the virtues of r-concavity and ρ-concavity, we find a surprisingly short proof of the univariate Prékopa-Borell theorem. We also survey a number of applications of the considered concepts in operations research and economics.
    Keywords: Generalized concavity, r-concavity, ρ-concavity, nonlinear optimization, economic applications
    JEL: C6 D0 Y8
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:187&r=his
  18. By: Makovi, Michael
    Abstract: Orwell's famous fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four criticized totalitarian forms of socialism from a Public Choice perspective, assuming that socialism would work as an economic system as long as the proper political institutions were in place to curb the potential for the abuse of power. This is contrasted with two novels by others who took the opposite approach: Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future and Hazlitt's Time Will Run Back. These two assumed that the political implementation of socialism would be perfect but that socialism would necessarily turn totalitarian because of the problem of economic calculation. These novels assumed away the Public Choice problem of institutions and the abuse of power and focused on the political implications of socialism as a purely economic system. Contrasting these two sets of novels shows how the Austrian and Public Choice schools criticize socialism in two entirely different ways.
    Keywords: Orwell; Richter; Hazlitt; democratic socialism; market socialism; totalitarianism
    JEL: A12 B24 B25 B31 B51 B53 D70 P11 P20 P30 Z11
    Date: 2015–02–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62528&r=his
  19. By: Ana Bela Nunes
    Abstract: The performance of the Portuguese economy during the 1980s was conditioned by two main factors: structural changes imposed by the decision to join the European Economic Community and external shocks and short-term fluctuations in the world economy. The first half of the 1980s Portugal’s economic performance was dominated by short-term macroeconomic problems, while international economic recovery after 1985 created a positive background for Portuguese economic growth and a convergence path that was followed in the EEC/EU context.
    Keywords: Portugal, Economic policy JEL classification :E65; N44
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:gheswp:wp552015&r=his
  20. By: Bo, CHEN; Qun, LIU
    Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences, China, defense innovation, civil-military integration, CMI, military technology
    Date: 2014–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt8vv034b5&r=his
  21. By: Zdravka Todorova (Wright State University)
    Abstract: The artical presents a further articulation of the monetary theory of production inspired by the writings of Thorstein Veblen. Particularly I offer a formulation of the monetary theory of production as part of broader theorizing about social provisioning and the life process. This includes an analytical focus on non-commodities; an extension of the Veblenian dichotomy to non-market activities; discussion of Veblen's theory of social valuation in connection to monetary theory of production and class; delineation of as social process that constitute social provisioning and their commodity and non-commodity aspects. The goal is bridging the gap between monetary theory of production and analysis of 'the social'.
    Keywords: Monetary theory of production, Thorstein Veblen, capitalism, heterodox economics, social provisioning, class, political economy
    JEL: B15 B41 B52 B54 P16 Z13
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1501&r=his
  22. By: Anne Neumann; Sophia Rüster; Christian von Hirschhausen
    Abstract: Long-term contracts are an important element of all economic activity and, thus, critical for understanding modern economic structures. The natural gas industry provides particular insights into the functioning and dynamics of long-term contracts and industry structures, in a sector that is globally important. This Data Documentation provides a survey of the literature on long-term contracts in the natural gas sector, as seen from an institutional and industrial economics perspective; we also add suggestions for further research. The core of the documentation is a detailed database of 426 long-term contracts struck between sellers and buyers between 1965 and 2014. Though not comprehensive, the database covers a large share of contracts, both for pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwddc:dd77&r=his
  23. By: Benito Arruñada
    Abstract: I analyze the basis of the market economy in classical Rome, from the perspective of personal-versus-impersonal exchange and focusing on the role of the state in providing market-enabling institutions. I start by reviewing the central conflict in all exchanges between those holding and those acquiring property rights, and how solving it requires reducing information asymmetry without endangering the security of property. Relying on a model of the social choice of institutions, I identify the demand and supply factors driving the institutional choices made by the Romans, and examine the economic circumstances that influenced these factors in the classical period of Roman law. Comparing the predictions of the model with the main solutions used by Roman law in the areas of property, business exchange and the enforcement of personal obligations allows me to propose alternative interpretations for some salient institutions that have been subject to controversy in the literature, and to conclude with an overall positive assessment of the market-enabling role of the Roman state.
    Keywords: property rights, enforcement, transaction costs, registries, Roman law, impersonal exchange, personal exchange, New Institutional Economics, Law and Economics.
    JEL: D1 D23 G38 K11 K12 K14 K22 K36 L22 N13 O
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1471&r=his
  24. By: Lindmark, Magnus (CERE); Acar, Sevil (Istanbul Kemerburgaz University Department of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper examines convergence of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by oil combustion for a panel of 86 countries considering the importance of analyzing several sub-periods separately. Also, the investigation points at the necessity of choosing a restricted global sample, which takes into account that, for instance, eastern bloc countries reacted differently to increasing world market crude prices than the Western economies. The analysis builds on examining the beta-convergence hypothesis in a neoclassical growth model setting with additional control variables such as combustion of solid fuels. The results reveal evidence in support of beta-convergence of CO2 emissions intensity due to oil combustion for the sub-periods 1973-1979 and 1979-1991, while no evidence for convergence was found for the post-1991 period. This is true both for the restricted global sample and the sub-samples comprised of western OECD economies. One possible interpretation of the results is that international carbon taxes or permit trading schemes may first be introduced for oil only.
    Keywords: Carbon dioxide; Oil; Convergence; Carbon convergence; Energy history
    JEL: N50
    Date: 2015–01–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:slucer:2015_001&r=his
  25. By: Nicholas Crafts (University of Warwick)
    Abstract: This paper provides a survey of the implications of post-war European economic integration for trade and income. A particular focus is the impact on the United Kingdom. The literature clearly points to large effects of the EU on trade but is more ambivalent about EFT A. Conventional econometric models suggest that this extra trade meant that the level of income in 2000 in EU countries was about 9 percent larger. Comparisons of the ex-post in come gains of EU membership for the United Kingdom with ex-ante predictions show that the outcome was far better than optimistsexpectedinthe1970s.
    Keywords: economicintegration;gravitymodel;grow theffects;tradecreation
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:219&r=his
  26. By: Mateo Tomé, Juan Pablo (Kingston University London)
    Abstract: This article analyses the development of economic growth in Brazil in terms of capital accumulation, following the Marxist approach. The aim is to identify the relationship between the two processes, looking at the profit rate, which along with investment effort determines productive investment. In turn, this one affects the capital-labour ratio and labour productivity. Both, with the addition of the price ratio, determine the productivity of capital, a key variable in understanding the accumulation process in Brazil. Using the period 1950-2008 allows comparing two phases in the Brazilian economy, the period of substitutive industrialisation and the neoliberal phase, all from the perspective of the relationship between the aforementioned variables.
    Keywords: growth; investment; profitability; productivity
    JEL: E11 E22 E32 N16 O40
    Date: 2015–03–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kngedp:2014_003&r=his
  27. By: Ho Fai Chan; Ali Sina Onder; Benno Torgler
    Abstract: Despite much in-depth investigation of factors influencing this evolution in various scientific fields, our knowledge about how efficiency or creativity is linked to the longevity of collaborative relationships remains very limited. We explore what Nobel laureates' coauthorship patterns reveal about the nature of scientific collaborations looking at the intensity and success of scientific collaborations across fields and across laureates' collaborative lifecycles in physics, chemistry, and physiology/medicine. We find that more collaboration with the same researcher is actually no better for advancing creativity: publications produced early in a sequence of repeated collaborations with a given coauthor tend to be published better and cited more than papers that come later in the collaboration with the same coauthor. Thus, our results indicate that scientific collaboration involves conceptual complementarities that may erode over a sequence of repeated interactions.
    Keywords: Innovation; Scientific Collaboration; Team Formation; Nobel Laureates
    JEL: D20 O30
    Date: 2015–03–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:qubewp:wp032&r=his
  28. By: Galbraith, James K.; Halbach, Beatrice; Malinowska, Aleksandra; Shams, Amin; Zhang, Wenjie
    Abstract: This paper summarizes a comprehensive revision and update of UTIP.s work on the inequality of pay and incomes around the world, from 1963 to 2008. The new UTIP-UNIDO (University of Texas Inequality Project-United Nations Industrial Development Organizatio
    Keywords: income inequality
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2015-019&r=his
  29. By: Jo, Tae-Hee; Todorova, Zdravka
    Abstract: In this introduction we highlight Frederic Lee’s contributions to heterodox economics in terms of theory and community, which should be acknowledged and, more importantly, carried on by those who are concerned with the advancement of heterodox economics as an alternative critical theory to the status quo.
    Keywords: Frederic S. Lee, Heterodox Economics, Heterodox Microeconomics, Social Provisioning Process
    JEL: B0 B4 B5
    Date: 2015–02–24
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62568&r=his
  30. By: Dooruj Rambaccussing
    Abstract: One of the cornerstone of financial anomalies is that there exists money making opportunities. Shiller’s excess volatility theory is re-investigated from the perspective of a trading strategy where the present value is computed using a series of simple econometric models to forecast the present value. The results show that the excess volatility may not be exploited given the data available until time t. However, when learning is introduced empirically, the simple trading strategy may offer profits, but which are likely to disappear once transaction costs are considered.
    Keywords: Present Value, Excess Volatility
    JEL: G12 G14 G17
    Date: 2015–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:287&r=his

General information on the NEP project can be found at https://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.