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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2015‒06‒27
28 papers chosen by |
| By: | Geoffrey C. Harcourt (School of Economics, UNSW Business School, UNSW) |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2015-10&r=his |
| By: | Carlos çlvarez-Nogal (Universidad Carlos III); Leandro Prados de la Escosura (Universidad Carlos III and CEPR); Carlos Santiago-Caballero (Universidad Carlos III) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of agriculture in SpainÕs contribution to the little divergence in Europe. On the basis of tithes collected by historians over the years, long-run trends in agricultural output are drawn. After a long period of relative stability, output suffered a severe contraction during 1570-1590, followed by milder deterioration to 1650. Output per head moved from a relatively high to a low path that persisted until the Peninsular War. The demand contraction, resulting from the collapse of domestic markets, monetary instability, and war in Iberia, helps to explain a less intensive use of labour and land as incentives to produce for the market sharply diminished. Agricultural output per head moved along population up to 1750. This finding confirms the view of Spain as a land abundant frontier economy. Only in the late eighteenth century a Malthusian pattern emerged. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, little divergence, early modern Spain, tithes, output per head |
| JEL: | N53 O13 Q10 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0080&r=his |
| By: | Rocha, Rudi (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IE-UFRJ)); Ferraz, Claudio (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)); Soares, Rodrigo R. (Sao Paulo School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of human capital persistence in explaining long-term development. We exploit variation induced by a state-sponsored settlement policy that attracted a pool of immigrants with higher levels of schooling to particular regions of Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th century. We show that municipalities that received settlements experienced increases in schooling that persisted over time. One century after the policy, localities that received state-sponsored settlements had higher levels of schooling and income per capita. We provide evidence that long-run effects were driven by persistently higher supply and use of educational inputs and shifts in the structure of occupations towards skill-intensive sectors. |
| Keywords: | human capital, education, immigration, development |
| JEL: | O15 O18 N36 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9101&r=his |
| By: | Kennedy, Liam |
| Abstract: | Ireland´s political and constitutional dilemma is that two competing nationalisms emerged in the nineteenth century on the one small island. One was Irish nationalism which harked back to an ancient Gaelic civilization and was infused with Catholic culture and sometimes Anglophobic sentiment. The other was a regional dialect of British nationalism which took on a distinctly confessional character in Ulster. The aim of this paper is to identify the role of economic forces and the experience of economic change - a rather more subjective notion - in the development of nationalist and unionist movements in recent centuries. A fundamental part of the story, it is argued, lies with deep economic structures as well as temporally-bound and changing economic forces. The economic mattered but not only the economic. |
| JEL: | N33 N43 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:1502&r=his |
| By: | Jaume Ventura; Hans-Joachim Voth |
| Abstract: | Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain’s borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance of liquidly traded bonds allowed the nobility to switch out of low-return investments such as agricultural improvements. This switch lowered factor demand by old sectors and increased profits in new, rising ones such as textiles and iron. Because external financing contributed little to the Industrial Revolution, this boost in profits in new industries accelerated structural change, making Britain more industrial more quickly. The absence of an effective transfer of financial resources from old to new sectors also helps to explain why the Industrial Revolution led to massive social change – because the rich nobility did not lend to or invest in the revolutionizing industries, it failed to capture the high returns to capital in these sectors, leading to relative economic decline. |
| JEL: | E22 E25 E62 H56 H60 N13 N23 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21280&r=his |
| By: | Pauline Grosjean (School of Economics, Australian School of Business, the University of New South Wales); Rose Khattar (School of Economics, Australian School of Business, the University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | We document the implications of missing women in the short and long run. We exploit a natural historical experiment, which sent large numbers of male convicts and far fewer female convicts to Australia in the 18th and 19th century. In areas with higher sex ratios, women historically married more, worked less, and were less likely to occupy high-rank occupations. Today, people have more conservative attitudes towards women working, women are still less likely to have high-ranking occupations and earn a lower wage income. We document the role of vertical cultural transmission and of marriage homogamy in sustaining cultural persistence. |
| Keywords: | Culture, gender roles, sex ratio, natural experiment, Australia |
| JEL: | I31 N37 J16 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2014-29c&r=his |
| By: | Burton A. Abrams (Department of Economics, University of Delaware); Evangelos M. Falaris (Department of Economics, University of Delaware); James G. Mulligan (Department of Economics, University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | We provide the first empirical analysis of the diffusion pattern of the most important innovation in firefighting equipment during the latter half of the nineteenth century: steam powered water pumpers. We offer the first systematic empirical support for the hypothesis that local businesses influenced the timing of the initial adoption of this technology in order to facilitate a change from mostly autonomous volunteer firefighting organizations to a more professional and centralized municipal department. |
| Keywords: | Technological Change, Diffusion, Urban Economic History, Firefighting Technology |
| JEL: | N41 O33 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:15-09&r=his |
| By: | Luis Bértola (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Javier Rodríguez Weber (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | The paper will explore different trends in Latin American economic history written in different periods, relating them to contemporary academics, economic and political debates in Latin America and in the developed world. It will highlight the extent to which economic history in Latin America and Latin American historiography has shown similar development patterns to the Western canon, where particular and distinctive features can be found. |
| Keywords: | Latin America, economic history, development studies, political economy,economics, historiography |
| JEL: | A12 B25 B50 O54 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:doctra:37&r=his |
| By: | Claudio Marsilio |
| Abstract: | During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the public credit market of the Spanish Empire used the Genoese and Portuguese bankers’ to intermediate on their behalf. They leant money to the Spanish Crown (asientos) and offered many other financial services all around Europe. The asientos was a typical form of short term borrowing which paid high rates of interest reimbursed in silver (bullion and coins), which could be sold to many different private economic agents and public mints all over Europe. The objective of this article is to analyse, within the environment of the international silver market, the role played by some of the European mints who were directly interested in this type of financial intermediation. While the production levels of the mints in Genoa and London depended more on the financial market that of Lisbon was derived from a purely commercial market. |
| Keywords: | Bullion Trade; Silver; International Payment System; Modern Monetary History; Exchange Fairs; Spanish Public Debt JEL classification: N00; N23 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:gheswp:wp542015&r=his |
| By: | Elise Huillery (Département d'économie) |
| Abstract: | Was colonization costly for France? Did French taxpayers contribute to colonies’ development? This article reveals that French West Africa’s colonization took only 0.29 percent of French annual expenditures, including 0.24 percent for military and central administration and 0.05 percent for French West Africa’s development. For West Africans, the contribution from French taxpayers was almost negligible: mainland France provided about 2 percent of French West Africa’s revenue. In fact, colonization was a considerable burden for African taxpayers since French civil servants’ salaries absorbed a disproportionate share of local expenditures. |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/24502lcc1r91eqi8qjsc2299mq&r=his |
| By: | Bertocchi, Graziella (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) |
| Abstract: | The slave trades out of Africa represent one of the most significant forced migration experiences in history. In this paper I illustrate their long-term consequences. I first consider the influence of the slave trade on the "sending" countries in Africa, with attention to their economic, institutional, demographic, and social implications. Next I evaluate the consequences of the slave trade on the "receiving" countries in the Americas. Here I distinguish between the case of Latin America and that of the United States. For the latter, I further discuss the subsequent migration experiences of the Second Middle Passage, when African slaves were transported, again forcibly, from the coastal regions to the inland, and of the Great Migration, when as free people they chose to leave the deep South for the Northern cities. |
| Keywords: | slavery, Africa, Americas |
| JEL: | F22 J15 O15 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9105&r=his |
| By: | de Bromhead, Alan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the lessons of the interwar period to place current concerns regarding a return to protectionism in historical context, highlighting the unique and one-time changes in voting rights that took place during the period and their relationship with trade policy. A particularly novel finding is the impact of women voters on the politics of protectionism. Public opinion survey evidence from the interwar years indicates that women were more likely to hold protectionist attitudes than men, while panel data analysis of average tariff rates during the interwar period shows that when women were entitled to vote tariffs were, on average, higher. This result is supported by an instrumental variables approach using Protestantism as an instrument for female voting rights. |
| Keywords: | political economy,suffrage,international trade,gender differences |
| JEL: | N40 N70 F50 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:1503&r=his |
| By: | Heidi Tworek |
| Abstract: | This article compares American, German, and British radio policy in the interwar period. The three countries ended up in different places by the 1930s, but there were surprising parallels in institutions and attitudes to radio in the 1920s. By taking examples generally seen as representing three different radio systems, this article shows both why media content and national institutional arrangements briefly resembled one another, as well as how political and cultural factors led to divergent paths. Content in these three countries paralleled one another, as did ambitions for radio as a public and private space in the 1920s. The 1930s saw radio trajectories deviate. But they did so over the same issues of news provision, state intervention, and radio?s place in each nation?s international ambitions. Engineers and intellectuals were disappointed by radio?s inability to deliver universal peace. State officials? visions turned international by 1930, but they too would mostly be disappointed by broadcasting?s inefficacy in influencing foreign populations and global politics. Finally, content creators moved from seeing radio as a medium of elevation through music and education to attempting to cater to more ?popular? tastes. Utopianism gave way to pragmatism and propaganda. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:268016&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo; Christopher M. Meissner |
| Abstract: | Why did some countries learn to grow up to financial stability and others not? We explore this question by surveying the key determinants and major policy responses to banking, currency, and debt crises between 1880 and present. We divide countries into three groups: leaders, learners, and non-learners. Each of these groups had very different experiences in terms of long-run economic outcomes, financial development, financial stability, crisis frequency, and their policy responses to crises. The countries that grew up to financial stability had rule of law, democracy, political stability and other institutional features highlighted in the literature on comparative development. We illustrate this by way of case studies for three kinds of financial crises for four countries (Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States) over the long-run. |
| JEL: | E44 E58 E65 F32 F33 F34 F43 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21287&r=his |
| By: | Geiger, Niels |
| Abstract: | This paper is devoted to the question of operationalising the development of behavioural economics, focussing on trends in the academic literature. The main research goal is to provide a quantitative assessment in order to answer the question of whether or not behavioural economics has gained in relative importance in the past few years. After an introduction and a short summary of the history of behavioural economics, several studies are laid out and evaluated. The results generally confirm the story as it is usually told in the literature, and add some notable additional insights. |
| Keywords: | behavioural economics,bounded rationality,culturomics |
| JEL: | D03 E61 E65 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohpro:442015&r=his |
| By: | Christian A. Belabed |
| Abstract: | There is a growing literature comparing the current financial crisis or Great Recession to the worst economic crisis of capitalism, the Great Depression. However, the role of rising income inequality, which has risen dramatically before both crises, is rarely discussed. In this paper we discuss the rise of top-end inequality and its effects on household consumption, saving, and debt for the 1920s by applying a non-standard theory of consumption, the relative income hypothesis, to the period of interest. We argue that income inequality is linked to the increase of household consumption and the simultaneous decline of household savings as well as rapidly increasing household debt. Thus, the rise of top-end inequality in connection with a broader institutional change, such as the deregulation of financial markets, has contributed to a build-up of financial and macroeconomic instability, in the period leading to the Great Depression. |
| Keywords: | income distribution, relative income hypothesis, household debt, financial innovation, great depression |
| JEL: | D31 D33 E21 E25 N12 N22 N32 N62 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:wpaper:153-2015&r=his |
| By: | María Magdalena Camou (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | The topic of this paper is to explore Latin America’s backwardness in the incorporation of women to the labour market. The collected data allows advancing in the reconstruction of the main disaggregated gender indicators of performance in education, income and life expectancy for a group of Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, México and Venezuela) along the XX century. The evidence shows that Latin America has already achieved gender equality in the results for Education and Life Expectancy in most countries. Nevertheless, the main gap between the sexes is in the labour market, both in the participation rate and in wages. Our preliminary results show a marked relationship between women’s activity rate and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, but this is not enough to explain variations between countries |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, labour market, gender education gap, Gender Development Index |
| JEL: | N36 O1 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:doctra:38&r=his |
| By: | Reto Bertoni (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Henry Willebald (Instituto de Económia, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | Settler economies are characterized by abundant natural resources, but natural capital is not homogeneous between countries and it can produce different consequences in terms of economic performance. This paper discusses the effect of natural resources on economic performance as part of the debate about the “curse of natural resources hypothesis”. We consider energy natural resources and focus on two settler societies, New Zealand and Uruguay. There is very little literature about the economic development of settler economies that identifies differences within the “club” countries that have different natural resources. We look for differences in energy natural endowments, basically coal and suitable conditions for hydroelectric generation, to explain at least partially the different welfare levels between the two economies. In the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century, New Zealand and Uruguay were similar in many ways such as production structure, movements in production factors and insertion in international markets, but there were huge differences in income per capita levels. To explain this, we need to study other aspects of the economic system. The analytical framework associated with the curse of natural resources offers some interesting lines of argument for our inquiry. The conformation of a “modern” production structure requires there to be sufficient energy supply at competitive costs, to justify exploiting the corresponding natural resources. Our analysis shows that New Zealand’s better performance in coal production and better natural conditions to generate electric energy at low cost –thus offering energy at low prices– explain those differences. New Zealand's advantage in energy endowments at least partially explains the development of a dairy sector, certain energy-intensive manufactures and a more efficient use of railways |
| Keywords: | settler economies, curse of the natural resources hypothesis, coal production, hydroelectric generation. |
| JEL: | N50 N70 Q41 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:doctra:35&r=his |
| By: | Carlos çlvarez-Nogal (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid); Christophe Chamley (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | Men of finance raised funds for loans, asientos, to Philip II by trading short-term financial instruments in credit markets and by selling long-term annuities, juros. These activities are illustrated by an asiento with the Maluenda brothers (July 13, 1595), where short-term credit secured by the equity of the fleets from the Indies were, for more than one half, converted into funded life annuities that were sold by the Maluendas. The new analysis of this asiento relies on its dossier of more than 400 pages in the archives of Simancas, including the contract, the monitoring attachments, and the final audit. |
| Keywords: | public finances, Philip II, asientos, juros, methodology, archives, verification |
| JEL: | N01 N13 N23 N43 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0079&r=his |
| By: | Anna Missiaia |
| Abstract: | Italy has been characterized, throughout its history as a unified country, by large regional differentials in the levels of income, industrialization and socio-economic development. This paper aims at testing the New Economic Geography hypothesis on the role of market access in explaining these regional differentials. We first quantify market access of the Italian regions for benchmark years from 1871 to 1911 following Harris (1954). We then use these estimates to study the causal link between GDP per capita and market potential following Head and Mayer (2011). The main result of this paper is that only domestic market potential, which represents the home market, shows a "traditional" North-South divide. When international markets are introduced, the South does not appear to lag behind. Regression analysis confirms that market potential is a strong determinant of GDP per capita only in its domestic formulation. This suggests that the home market in this period mattered far more for growth than the international markets, casting new light on one of the classical explanations to the North-South divide. |
| Keywords: | Economic Geography; Economic History of Italy; Market Potential |
| Date: | 2015–06–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2015/18&r=his |
| By: | Javier Rodríguez Weber (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a synthesis of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation. It studies the relationship between income inequality and the development process, understood as the combination of economic, social and political changes produced over time based on the case of Chile between 1850 and 2009. It aims to describe and explain the tendencies in income distribution over time signaling their causes and some of their consequences. In the empirical area, the main contributions of the dissertation are the estimates of historical series of salaries, wages, and different measures of income distribution –Gini index, Theil, labor share and the income of the top 1%. These estimates relied on the methodology of ‘social tables’, which aggregates income earners in categories such as occupation, having estimated the number and earnings for each category every year between 1860 and 1970. In spite of the problems arising from the use of assumptions to obtain an annual estimate, which implies an immeasurable but undoubtedly large margin of error for each year, this methodology allows us to analyze medium-term trends with relative confidence. In the fields of theory and methodology, the paper makes two major contributions. First, it shows the potential of in-depth case studies as a means to analyze the relationship between development and inequality. Second, its focus on the political economy of inequality overcomes the problem of oversimplification. Most studies tend to focus on a single factor –usually either on the market or institutions- and analyze the impact on inequality in a timeless or ahistorical manner. But, as this work shows, trends in inequality are always the consequence of a set of factors -economic, social, political and institutional- which interact, so that each one reinforces or overrides the influence of the other. The combination of these factors, which is an outcome of the historical process, is what determines the trends in inequality over time. |
| Keywords: | inequality, income distribution, development, Chile, institutions |
| JEL: | N16 O15 J31 O54 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:doctra:36&r=his |
| By: | Alexis Stenfors (University of Leeds) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the evolution of the Swedish financial system since the 1980s. The concept of financialisation, with its different elements and perspectives, is used as a lens through which the key historical developments are analysed. The aim of the study is two-fold. First, by highlighting some unique country-specific features, it addresses the profound changes that have taken place in the Swedish financial system during the last decades in relation to the ‘rise and fall’ of the so-called ‘Swedish model’. Second, in doing so, the study considers the appropriateness and applicability of standard attempts to categorise financial systems according to the weight of banks versus markets, states versus markets and so forth. The picture that emerges from the Swedish example in particular shows the need to go deeper and beyond these classifications in order to obtain or more nuanced understanding of the increasing role of financial markets in developed countries. |
| Keywords: | Sweden, Swedish model, welfare state, financialisation, financial system, financial crisis, banking crisis |
| JEL: | E44 F3 G2 N14 N24 O52 P16 |
| Date: | 2014–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:fstudy:fstudy13&r=his |
| By: | Daniel Detzer (Berlin School of Economics and Law and Institute for International Political Economy (IPE) Berlin,); Eckhard Hein (Berlin School of Economics and Law and Institute for International Political Economy (IPE) Berlin,) |
| Abstract: | This study on Germany examines the long-run changes between the financial and the non-financial sectors of the economy, and in particular the effects of these changes on the macroeconomic developments that have led or contributed to the financial crisis starting in 2007 and the Great Recession in 2008/09. The first part provides some descriptive statistics on real GDP growth, on the growth contributions of the main demand aggregates, and the financial balances of the macroeconomic sectors since the early 1980s, and it classifies the German type of development as ‘export-led mercantilist’. The second part examines the effects of an increasing dominance of finance since the early/mid 1990s on income distribution, investment in capital stock, consumption and the current account in more detail. The third part links the long-run developments with the financial and economic crisis and examines the causes of the quick recovery in Germany. |
| Keywords: | current account imbalances, distribution of income, finance-dominated capitalism, financialisation, financial and economic crisis, Germany, Kaleckian distribution theory, trade balance |
| JEL: | D31 D33 D43 E25 E61 E63 E64 E65 F40 F43 |
| Date: | 2014–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:fstudy:fstudy18&r=his |
| By: | Egert Juuse (Tallinn University of Technology (TTU), Estonia); Rainer Kattel (Tallinn University of Technology (TTU), Estonia) |
| Abstract: | This study on Estonia examines the long-run changes between the financial and the non-financial sectors of the economy, and in particular the effects of financialisation on key variables / categories of the real economy as well as the their contribution to the financial crisis of 2007/08. The first part provides the background historical overview of last 20 years in Estonia with some descriptive statistics on GDP, growth contributions of the main demand aggregates, and the financial balances of the macroeconomic sectors since early 1990s, and it classifies the Estonian development path as following the ‘debt-led consumption’ one. The following chapters examine the effects of financialisation and their extent, accompanied by transition processes, on income distribution, financing of capital stock investments, consumption and current account dynamics in detail. The final parts deal with the elaboration on the causes of the financial and economic crisis as well as the policy response in Estonia. |
| Keywords: | current account balance, trade balance, income distribution, finance-dominated capitalism, transition economies, financialisation, financial and economic crisis, Estonia. |
| JEL: | D31 D33 D43 E25 E61 E64 E65 F40 F43 P20 P21 R21 |
| Date: | 2014–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:fstudy:fstudy20&r=his |
| By: | Koussoubé, Estelle; Loada, Augustin; Nébié, Gustave; Rafinot, Marc |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the relevance of the North, Wallis and Weingast (2009) framework to explain the performances of Burkina in terms of economic growth and development. The political history of Burkina has been very unstable until president Compaoré took power in 1987. Since then, stability has been based on low intensity violence, with bursts of open violence like those of the mutinies of 2011 or the final upheaval of 2014. This “stability” is based on the balance of power between two main “elite” groups, the Army and the traditional chiefs. Trade unions, the Catholic Church and donors also play a role, especially in case of trouble. The political class in power and its cronies are extracting rents by creating de facto monopolies, which enables them to tame violence, to a certain extent. The paradox is that the Burkinabe economy is growing steadily (GDP per capital grew at an average 1.5 per cent rate since independence), rather smoothly in the medium run – one of the best records in West-Africa. Because of high inequality, this impressive growth is far from inclusive. |
| Keywords: | Croissance à long terme; Economie politique; Ordre social à accès limité; Institutions; Burkina Faso; Limited Access Order; Long term growth; Political economy; |
| JEL: | O11 O43 O55 P16 P35 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dau:papers:123456789/15222&r=his |
| By: | Trevor Evans (Institute for International Political Economy, Berline School of Economics and Law) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the development of the US economy since the prolonged recession in the early 1980s. This period was characterised by a serious weakening in the bargaining position of waged workers and a major expansion of the financial sector. Most of the economic gains accrued to top earners and economic growth became increasingly dependent on the expansion of credit. This precarious constellation led to short recessions in 1990 and again in 2001, but then in 2007 and 2008 the failure of highly complex financial securities led to the most serious financial crisis since 1929. The study reviews the development of profitability, income distribution and other key macroeconomic variables in the period leading up to, during and immediately after the crisis. It then identifies the main channels by which the crisis was transmitted from the US to other advanced capitalist economies and concludes with a brief review of the policy measures introduced by the US government in response to the crisis. |
| Keywords: | United States, finanace-led capitalism, financial crisis |
| JEL: | E25 E32 E44 E58 E65 F44 G01 |
| Date: | 2015–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:fstudy:fstudy32&r=his |
| By: | Ruben Durante (Sciences Po); Paolo Pinotti (Università Bocconi); Andrea Tesei (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the political impact of entertainment television in Italy over the past thirty years by exploiting the staggered introduction of Silvio Berlusconi's commercial TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find that individuals in municipalities that had access to Mediaset prior to 1985 - when the network only featured light entertainment programs - were significantly more likely to vote for Berlusconi's party in 1994, when he first ran for office. This effect persists for almost two decades and five elections, and is especially pronounced for heavy TV viewers, namely the very young and the old. We relate the extreme persistence of the effect to the relative incidence of these age groups in the voting population, and explore different mechanisms through which early exposure to entertainment content may have influenced their political attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Television; Entertainment; Voting; Political participation |
| JEL: | L82 D72 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/gjf8d7tah8ah9mq53gkdj73cq&r=his |
| By: | Neviana Krasteva (Sofia University \) |
| Abstract: | The article deals with some of the modern trends in the development of the marketing concept and the military impact on them. The end of the Cold War dramatically changed the perception about the international security environment concept. The downfall of the Eastern Bloc led to the growth of initial wave of hope and reductions in the military spending, but not long after that it became obvious that the world was still a dangerous place and there were many other conflicts that were not resolved and just waiting to escalate. The essence of conflicts has changed. They were domestic rather than international and many scholars focused upon the influence of civil wars over economics. However, those conflicts remained isolated and in the absence of major conflicts such as the Cold War, the path to the development of the global economy and marketing was clear.The simplest attempt for classification of the military conflicts would divide them into two characteristic types: more likely political (i.e. to impose a specific model of policy, political regime, ideological domination or some form of dictatorship…), or rather economical (for seizing and redistributing of markets, of strategic logistic locations or areas rich in raw materials and resources…). Most often the questions circle around/about clarifications who against who, where, with what ways and what purposes it gives one (or several) military conflicts and in the matter of this circle begins the upgrading - for the motives, interests, the “aggressor” and the “aggrieved party” are defined, inevitably some conclusions are made for the ratio justice/injustice etc. – this provides an incentive for conversations, which are too often emotional and make an endless subjective spiral. In the article the argument is presented that classical marketing is losing its importance; the defining characteristics of the future marketing model are discussed: global consumer’s culture - globalization through higher mobility, mass media, music, sport are studied. Further studies are made into the nature of similar and different types of consumer behavior during military conflicts. Some of the applications of new culture in marketing are shown, along consequences of the development of the marketing concept in Bulgaria. |
| Keywords: | marketing, global consumer, new media, new culture, military conflicts |
| JEL: | M31 M39 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:ibmpro:2304060&r=his |