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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2016‒10‒23
43 papers chosen by |
| By: | Deaton, Angus (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | I was born in Edinburgh, in Scotland, a few days after the end of the Second World War. Both my parents had left school at a very young age, unwillingly in my father’s case. Yet both had deep effects on my education, my father influencing me toward measurement and mathematics, and my mother toward writing and history. |
| Keywords: | Consumption; Development |
| JEL: | D10 O10 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2015_006&r=his |
| By: | Deaton, Angus (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | Interview with the 2015 Laureate in Economic Sciences Angus Deaton on 6 December 2015, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Consumption; Development |
| JEL: | D10 O10 |
| Date: | 2015–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2015_005&r=his |
| By: | Committee, Nobel Prize (Nobel Prize Committee) |
| Abstract: | Contracts are essential to the functioning of modern societies. Oliver Hart's and Bengt Holmström's research sheds light on how contracts help us deal with conflicting interests. |
| Keywords: | Contract theory; |
| JEL: | D86 |
| Date: | 2016–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2016_002&r=his |
| By: | Martínez-Carrión, José Miguel; Cañabate-Cabezuelos, José |
| Abstract: | The article analyses nutritional inequalities and stunting in inner rural Spain from a case study carried out in Castile-La Mancha. The examination of the height military draftees explores the gap between urban and rural populations and analyses the evolution of growth patterns in different habitational contexts. The results indicate that stunted growth and undernourishment were pervasive in the two initial decades of the 20th century, that the situation improved slightly in the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, and that in the 1940s and 1950s the conditions again deteriorated considerably. Stunted growth was significant especially in rural areas, which were particularly penalized during Francoism. Height increased considerably in the 1960s and 1970s and, although this improvement also reached the rural areas, the gap that separated the countryside and the urban area did not disappear until the early 1980s. The data suggests that a poor and limited diet, the economic policies and the social assistance-related institutional framework were key factors in the evolution of growth. Finally, the results also stress the need to extend the study to adolescent circumstances, and not only children, as well as the need to investigate social inequality among different professional groups during the nutritional transition. |
| Keywords: | Height, Stunting, Rural Poverty, Nutritional Transition, Spain |
| JEL: | D63 I14 I32 N34 |
| Date: | 2016–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74356&r=his |
| By: | Òscar Jordà; Moritz Schularick; Alan M. Taylor |
| Abstract: | In advanced economies, a century-long near-stable ratio of credit to GDP gave way to rapid financialization and surging leverage in the last forty years. This “financial hockey stick” coincides with shifts in foundational macroeconomic relationships beyond the widely-noted return of macroeconomic fragility and crisis risk. Leverage is correlated with central business cycle moments, which we can document thanks to a decade-long international and historical data collection effort. More financialized economies exhibit somewhat less real volatility, but also lower growth, more tail risk, as well as tighter real-real and real-financial correlations. International real and financial cycles also cohere more strongly. The new stylized facts that we discover should prove fertile ground for the development of a new generation of macroeconomic models with a prominent role for financial factors. |
| JEL: | E01 E13 E30 E32 E44 E51 F42 F44 G12 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22743&r=his |
| By: | Pierre-Hernan Rojas (LEDa SDFi - Université Paris Dauphine (Paris 9), PSL - Université Paris-Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | Robert Triffin (1960) was the first to formalize that , under the gold exchange standard , the key currency issuing country faced a dilemma. Either the United States would stop providing more dollar balances for international finance , leading to trade stagnation and deflationary bias in the global economy ; either the United States would continue to provide more of the international reserve currency , leading ultimately to a loss of confidence in the dollar. This paper shows that the formulation of this dilemma is the consequence of Triffin ' s early critics of the Bretton Woods system in the 1940s leading him to advocate a reform of the international monetary system at the regional level , ie. the European one , in the 1950s . |
| Keywords: | clearing mechanism,Bretton Woods,International Monetary Fund,European Payments Union,Triffin Classification,international money |
| Date: | 2016–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01298999&r=his |
| By: | Petri, Fabio (Università degli Studi di Siena (University of Siena)) |
| Abstract: | The nonsubstitution theorem concerns long-period technical choice and relative prices, and was so understood in its first (1951) formulations, but the modern advanced micro textbooks that present it do not make this clear, rendering the theorem impossible to understand for students. These modern presentations derive from a reinterpretation of the Leontief model as a ‘timeless’ economy in Walrasian equilibrium, capable of positive pro-duction in spite of zero initial endowments of all inputs except labour: an unacceptable interpretation, made pos-sible by a use of netputs, to describe the economy’s production possibilities, that is illegitimate in this case even from a strictly neoclassical perspective. The notion of a ‘timeless’ economy disappears from the textbook presen-tations of the Leontief model and of the nonsubstitution theorem, but the result is that the nature of the model and of the prices to which the theorem refers is not clarified, inevitably leaving students utterly confused. This note remembers the true nonsubstitution theorem, points out that it had been correctly enunciated by Samuelson (1961), and suggests that the current inability to present it in a correct way is due to the absence of the notion of long-period prices from the theoretical horizon of contemporary neoclassical value theory. The paper opens with clarifications on the meaning of the Leontief model which prepare the ground for the discussion of the problem with netputs. |
| Keywords: | Nonsubstitution theorem; Leontief model; long period; netputs |
| JEL: | B21 D24 D57 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0020&r=his |
| By: | Michel Fouquin; Jules Hugot |
| Abstract: | This document provides a detailed description of the Historical Bilateral Trade and Gravity Data set (TRADHIST) that was put together for Fouquin and Hugot (2016) and designed for historical investigations of international trade. The data set is available on the website of CEPII. Speci?cally, the data set has been built to explore the two modern waves of globalization: the First Globalization of the nineteenth century and the post-World War II Second Globalization. The data set gathers ?ve types of variables: i) bilateral nominal trade ?ows, ii) country-level aggregate nominal exports and imports, iii) nominal GDPs, iv) exchange rates, and v) bilateral factors that are known to favor or hamper trade, including geographical distance, common borders, colonial and linguistic links, as well as bilateral tari?s. This data is unique both in terms of temporal and geographical coverage. Overall, we gather more than 1.9 million bilateral trade observations for the 188 years from 1827 to 2014. We also provide about 42,000 observations on aggregate trade, and about 14,000 observations on GDPs and exchange rates respectively. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, Trade costs, Border e?ect, Distance e?ect |
| Date: | 2016–08–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000416:015129&r=his |
| By: | Thieme, Sebastian; Heise, Arne |
| Abstract: | This article discusses the development of 'heterodox' economics at universities in Germany since the 1970s. Based on Lakatos' concept of scientific research programmes (SRP), the article introduces a classification of economics in order to clarify the understanding of variety within economics, especially in the case of Germany. Based on this classification and taking into account the different kinds of capital (economic, social and symbolic) available to heterodox economists, this article aims to show how heterodox economics in Germany has developed from the early 1970s until the present day. It will be shown that the heterodox schools expanded in the 1970s, but marginalisation took hold again by the 1980s and ultimately left German heterodox economics in a state of near-extinction today. From this, it follows that the history of heterodoxy in Germany is an unequal 'battle of the paradigms', and can only be told as the story of a failure. |
| Keywords: | heterodox economics,pluralisation,philosophy of science,sociology of science,Germany |
| JEL: | A11 B20 B50 Z |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:57&r=his |
| By: | Brian A'Hearn; Alexia Delfino; Alessandro Nuvolari |
| Abstract: | A swelling stream of literature employs age-heaping as an indicator of human capital, more specifically of numeracy. We re-examine this connection in light of evidence drawn from nineteenth century Italy: census data, death records, and direct, qualitative evidence on age-awareness and numeracy. Though it can stand in as an acceptable proxy for literacy, our findings suggest that age-heaping is most plausibly interpreted as a broad indicator of cultural and institutional modernisation rather than a measure of cognitive skills. |
| Keywords: | Age-Heaping, Numeracy, Human capital, Italy |
| Date: | 2016–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2016/35&r=his |
| By: | A.B. Atkinson |
| Abstract: | The Pareto distribution has long been a source of fascination to economists, and the Pareto coefficient is widely used, in theoretical and empirical studies, as a summary of the degree of concentration of top incomes. This paper examines the empirical evidence from income tax data concerning top incomes in the UK, contrasting the dramatic changes that took place in the twentieth century, after 1918, with the much more modest changes in the preceding nineteenth century. Probing beneath the surface, it identifies a number of features of the evolution of the UK income inequality that warrant closer attention. These include the changing shape of the upper tail, where there is a link with Pareto's theory of elites, the need for a richer functional form to describe top incomes, and the limited evidence at the top of the distribution for a Kuznets curve in nineteenth century Britain. |
| Keywords: | Pareto, income, distribution, tail |
| JEL: | D63 I31 N33 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:/198&r=his |
| By: | Stuart Graham (Georgia Institute of technology); Maurizio Iacopetta (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | This article examines how closely nanotechnology resembles a general purpose technology (GPT). Using patented nanotechnology inventions during 1975-2006, we test for characteristics of GPTs identified in the prior literature, and find evidence that nanotechnology shows both “pervasive” adoption and “spawning” of follow-on innovation. Offering a methodological contribution, we employ concentration indexes such as the Gini index and Lorenz curve to construct “knowledge dissemination curves” for different technologies, thereby providing evidence that nanotechnology shares relevant characteristics with other GPTs. Using an entirely new dataset, we use three different definitions of a “nanotechnology patent” and calculate patent generality indexes, finding that nanotechnology patents are significantly more likely to be referenced across technology space than are patents in information technology, another widely-adopted GPT. In another contribution, we suggest that innovative materials may demonstrate the characteristics of a GPT, and provide a historical parallel between the advancement of steel technology in the 19th Century with that of nanotechnology in the present day. |
| Keywords: | Nanotechnology; General Purpose Technology; Patent Analysis |
| JEL: | O30 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/etn9re5q89nsrvjl30tghl61u&r=his |
| By: | Marion Dieudonné (LEDA-SDFi - LEDA-SDFi - Université Paris IX - Paris Dauphine, PSL - Université Paris-Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | The beginning of the 20th century saw the first steps in a tradition of leading economists explaining the link between corporate finance, investment and financial structure. The writings of John Maynard Keynes (1930), Gunnar Myrdal (1931, 1933) and James Tobin (1969) deal with the development of an investment theory based on the financial structure. In this context, we give a new presentation of Wicksellian and Keynesian theories. The initial impetus given by Knut Wicksell (1898) with his system of two interest rates must be emphasized (Schmidt, 1995). However, these studies do not mention Thorstein Veblen (1904, 1908, 1923), one of the founding fathers of institutionalism, who remains unknown, particularly in this tradition, although recent literature (Ganley, 2004; Gagnon, 2007; Cochrane, 2011; Mendez, 2012) considers that he made a real contribution to capital theory. He made an early American analysis of corporate governance structure, which emerged as a central issue in the early 20th century in light of the development of financial instruments, shareholder behavior and corporate equity valuation concerns. Our work is based on a critical review of the literature, which is guilty of omissions, lack of accuracy and errors of formalization. The theory of the non-neutrality of the financial structure remains wholly relevant today, so that in this paper, we focus on the reasons why Veblen’s corporate financial analysis should not be forgotten. |
| Keywords: | Keynes, goodwill, investment theory,capital valuation, corporate governance, financial structure, promoter’s profit, Myrdal’s Q, Tobin’s q, Veblen, Wicksell, windfall profits. |
| Date: | 2016–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01313309&r=his |
| By: | Mark Pauly; Kyle Myers |
| Abstract: | This paper examines trends in the aggregate productivity of the pharmaceutical sector over the past three decades. We incorporate Ricardo’s insight about demand-driven productivity in settings of variable scarce resources, and estimate the industry’s responsiveness to changes in demand over this timeframe using therapeutic class-specific data. In contrast to many analyses, our empirical estimates indicate that the industry has “met demand” with remarkable consistency since the late-1980s. The growth in total R&D spending, and therefore R&D costs per new drug, appear to have been profitable and productive investments. While we identify a significant increase in the industry’s fixed costs - the intercept of the production function - we find no decline in the marginal productivity of industry investments that might suggest significant supply-side frictions. While we cannot diagnose in detail why average, but not marginal, productivity declined, the data suggests that firms have finally begun to compete down returns from the supranormal levels of decades past. |
| JEL: | D20 I11 L10 L65 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22720&r=his |
| By: | Geoffrey C. Harcourt (School of Economics, UNSW Business School, UNSW) |
| Keywords: | Keynes, Versailles, King’s, lives of economists and scientists, life philosophy |
| JEL: | B10 B31 A31 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2016-10&r=his |
| By: | Antoine Bozio (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), PSE - Paris School of Economics); Thomas Breda (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), PSE - Paris School of Economics); Malka Guillot (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique) |
| Abstract: | This paper makes two simple points. First, labour demand depends on product wage or labour cost. Hence, demand-side explanations for the rise in inequalities such as skill-biased technical change and job polarization should be tested using data on labour cost and not net wage or posted wage. Contrary to previous studies, we find evidence of skill-biased technical change in France when we measure wage inequality in terms of labour cost. In that respect, France is no exception. Second, the French case provides a clear evidence that changes in taxation can have very significant effect in converting market inequalities into consumption or net wages inequalities. In France, net wage inequalities have decreased by about 10%, while labour cost inequalities have increased by 15% over the 1976-2010 period. This fact provides support both for the supporters of the skill-biased technical change explanations of the secular increase in wage inequalities, as well to those who believe that institutions could have significant impact on inequalities in disposable incomes. |
| Keywords: | Wage inequality,Labour cost,Social Security contributions,Tax incidence |
| Date: | 2016–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01294599&r=his |
| By: | Quentin Lippmann (PSE - Paris School of Economics); Alexandre Georgieff (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), PSE - Paris School of Economics); Claudia Senik (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), PSE - Paris School of Economics, UP4 - Université Paris-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Social scientists have provided empirical evidence that "gender trumps money", in the sense that gender norms can be more powerful then economic rationality in shaping daily arrangements between spouses. In particular, it has been shown that when they deviate from the "male breadwinner" norm, women react by "doing gender", i.e. overplaying their feminine role by increasing the number of housework hours that they accomplish. It has also been shown that the risk of divorce increases when a woman earns more than her husband. This paper shows that, however powerful, these norms are cultural and can be trumped by institutions. We use the 41-year division of Germany as a natural experiment and look at differences between East and West Landers in terms of gender behavior after the German reunification. As most countries of the socialist bloc, the former GDR had designed institutions that were much more gender equalizing than their counterpart in the former FRG. We show that these institutions have created a culture that keeps influencing behavior up to the current period. In particular, East Germany differs from West Germany in the sense that a woman can earn more than her husband without "doing gender" and without putting her marriage at risk. |
| Keywords: | Gender norms,Culture,Institutions,German Division,Household economics |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01297653&r=his |
| By: | Bidard, Christian (University Paris Ouest) |
| Abstract: | We propose to re-read Ricardo's theory of rent to which, we claim, the post-Sraffian literature is methodologically unfaithful. Ricardo's dynamic approach follows the transformations of a long-term equilibrium with demand. Sraffa adopted the same framework while substituting a value criterion for a physical criterion to determine the incoming marginal method, but he did not state the law of succession of methods explicitly. This prevented him to realize that his critique to Ricardo opens the door to all complications of capital theory, with the consequence that the Ricardian dynamics fail when a divergence appears between profitability and productivity. Contemporary studies have cast doubts on the validity of some of Ricardo's and Sraffa's over-optimistic conclusions, but the abandonment of the dynamic approach does not allow them to explain the ultimate reason of the phenomena they have pointed at Ricardo's method has been recently rediscovered by mathematicians. |
| Keywords: | Classical theory; land; rent; Ricardo; Sraffa |
| JEL: | B12 B51 C61 D33 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0008&r=his |
| By: | Petri, Fabio (Università degli Studi di Siena (University of Siena)) |
| Abstract: | A review by Bortkiewicz, wholeheartedly approved by Walras, of the second edition of the Eléments supplies an important insight, until now neglected, on how Walras interpreted his own capitalization equations before the fourth edition. The insight helps to explain why Walras was for so long unable to perceive that his given vectorial endowment of capital goods was incompatible with the uniform rate of return on supply price that he was assuming. Walras seems to have confusedly considered the capital endowments relevant for the determi-nation of equilibrium rentals to be the ones resulting from the production of new capital goods, and therefore as having already undergone an adjustment of their composition toward the one required for URRSP. Realization of the erroneousness of this view can explain the unobtrusive but crucial changes in the discussion of capitalization in the fourth edition, and most likely also the introduction of the ‘bons’. |
| Keywords: | Walras; capital; Bortkiewicz; tâtonnement |
| JEL: | B13 B31 D50 |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0017&r=his |
| By: | Stirati, Antonella (Università degli Studi Roma Tre (University of Rome Tre)) |
| Abstract: | Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been spectacularly successful and a reason for this might be the fact that the theory that underlies his analysis is mainstream theory, with some adjustments or reservations on specific points, but never on the fundamentals. Thus, while Piketty’s empirical analysis often challenges received views and supports a non-apologetic view of capitalism’s dynamics, the book at the same time speaks a language which is common to mainstream economists around the world. This however is not always conducive to consistency and interpretative accuracy. A different theoretical perspective (and some empirical evi-dence) might lead to questioning some of the book’s central claims. |
| Keywords: | Piketty; inequality; income distribution; capitalist dynamics |
| JEL: | D31 E25 P10 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0018&r=his |
| By: | Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim; Villeneuve, Remy |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the price and wage data contained in the 1831 census of Lower Canada to provide regional estimates of disparities in living standards within Quebec in 1831. Combining these data with price data for the colony as a whole, we compare living standards in Quebec with those of numerous American and Canadian cities at the same point in time. The results show that Quebec was overall poorer in comparison. However, there are wide variations within the colony - mostly along institutional lines. As a whole, Quebec was significantly poorer than the United States at the same time. |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohpro:502016&r=his |
| By: | Luc Marco (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Robert Noumen (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The history of the small business schools in Province in the nineteenth century can be made through the works of his professors. The link between arithmetic and accounting is essential to understand the education at the average level for pupils having between 12 and 16 years. The rediscovery of a mathematician doubled by an accountant, Lazare Moulin-Collin, allows to understand the formation of the teachers and the experts in these domains. From new archival sources we rediscover the biography and the contents of his very interesting works. |
| Abstract: | L'histoire des petites écoles de commerce en Province au dix-neuvième siècle peut être faite au travers des ouvrages de ses professeurs. Le lien entre arithmétique et comptabilité est essentiel pour comprendre l'enseignement au niveau moyen pour des élèves ayant entre 12 et 16 ans. La redécouverte d'un mathématicien doublé d'un comptable, Lazare Moulin-Collin, permet de comprendre la formation des enseignants et des experts dans ces domaines. A partir de sources archivistiques nouvelles nous redécouvrons la biographie et le contenu de ses ouvrages très intéressants. |
| Keywords: | Arithmetic,accounting,Arithmétique,comptabilité |
| Date: | 2015–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01233103&r=his |
| By: | Gabriel Galvez-Behar (IRHiS - Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion - Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | For many studies, the current “commodification” of science ends with a period which started in the middle of the twentieth century. The scientific entrepreneur may renew old practices and reminds old figures like Louis Pasteur's one. Such an echo of the past justifies an historical approach. Thus this paper calls for a renewed economic history of science thanks to the study of Pasteur's scientific enterprise. Based on new approaches to entrepreneurship, he focuses here on the analysis of three very specific resources - money, patents and capital – in order to have a better understanding of Pasteur's entrepreneurial logic. This study uses sources, which were largely neglected or even unknown. At last, it highlights the accumulation process of Pasteur's enterprise, which allowed him to take more risk in his scientific activities. |
| Abstract: | De nombreux travaux considèrent que l’implication croissante de la science dans des formes de valorisation économique met fin à une parenthèse ouverte au milieu du XXe siècle. La figure actuelle du chercheur entrepreneur – ou de l’entrepreneur scientifique – renouerait avec des pratiques plus anciennes dont Louis Pasteur serait d’ailleurs l’un des symboles. Un tel constat appelle une histoire économique renouvelée des mondes savants à laquelle cet article entend contribuer à travers l’étude de l’entreprise scientifique de Louis Pasteur. S’inspirant d’approches nouvelles de l’entrepreneuriat, il se concentre ici sur l’analyse de trois ressources bien particulières – l’argent, les brevets d’invention et le capital – qui permettent de mieux saisir la logique entrepreneuriale de Louis Pasteur. Cette étude, qui repose sur l’exploitation de sources jusqu’alors largement négligées voire inexploitées, fait alors ressortir la logique d’accumulation de l’entreprise pasteurienne qui lui permet d’assumer des risques toujours croissants. |
| Keywords: | Economic History,History of science,Patents, Brevets,Pasteur (Louis), Histoire des sciences, Histoire économique |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01267638&r=his |
| By: | Konstantin A. Kholodilin; Tymofiy Gerasymov |
| Abstract: | World War I led to radical changes in the government policy of participating countries. The enormous demographic and economic disturbances caused by the war forced the governments of all the belligerent nations to drastically restrict the market freedom. In particular, the state began actively intervening in the housing market. Ukraine as a part of the former Russian Empire, for the first time in its history saw the introduction of rent controls and protection of tenants from eviction. This paper concentrates on the government intervention in the rental housing market of Right-Bank Ukraine during World War I (1914–1918). It identifies the factors that made the state intervene in the relationships between landlords and tenants, analyzes changes in the housing legislation, and assesses the effectiveness of the regulations. |
| Keywords: | rental housing market; rent controls; tenant protection; government regulations; World War I; Right-Bank Ukraine |
| JEL: | C22 N43 O18 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1610&r=his |
| By: | Geoffrey C. Harcourt (School of Economics, UNSW Business School, UNSW); Harvey Gram (Queens College, City University of New York) |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2016-11&r=his |
| By: | Goldberg, Harmony. |
| Abstract: | Covers the historical trajectory of domestic workers' contested relationship with minimum wage and overtime protections in the United States. Traces the initial exclusion of domestic workers from foundational minimum wage and overtime protections in the 1930s through their partial inclusion in the 1970s and the ongoing struggles for full inclusion today. |
| Keywords: | domestic worker, working conditions, minimum wage, overtime, wage determination, history, USA, employé de maison, conditions de travail, salaire minimum, heures supplémentaires, fixation du salaire, histoire, Etats-Unis, trabajador doméstico, condiciones de trabajo, salario mínimo, horas extra, determinación del salario, historia, Estados Unidos |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994878543402676&r=his |
| By: | Hugo C. W. Chu |
| Abstract: | Aggregation has been a pesky topic in economics at least since Stanley Jevons’s The Theory of Political Economy, when he resorted to a “fictitious mean” to grasp the complexity of an economy composed of heterogeneous agents. In the twentieth-century context, trade economists have helped deepen the search for a measure of society's overall welfare by which they brought out the concept of community indifference curve whose proofs were first provided in Gorman (1953) and in Samuelson (1956) under highly restrictive assumptions. Since there is a close relationship between community indifference curve and representative consumer, as proved by Samuelson (1956) and acknowledged by various authors such as Chipman (1965), Muellbauer (1976), and Dow and Werlang (1988), the question addressed in this article is: what role did Samuelson (1956) play in the rise of the representative-agent macroeconomics as materialized in the seminal papers by Cass (1965) and by Koopmans (1965) and continued into the traditions of Lucas (1969a, 1975, 1977), Kydland and Prescott (1982) and Prescott (1986)? I claim in this article that although Samuelson and Koopmans belonged to different scientific communities their research interests overlapped. Based also on archival works, this paper narrates how Samuelson’s representative consumer (agent) made it to Koopmans’s and, therefore, ultimately paved the way to today’s macroeconomics. |
| Keywords: | Paul Samuelson; Tjalling Koopmans; Representative consumer; Representative Agent; General Equilibrium Theory. |
| JEL: | B2 B22 |
| Date: | 2016–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2016wpecon17&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Daudin (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris IX - Paris Dauphine, EQUIPPE - Economie Quantitative, Intégration, Politiques Publiques et Econométrie - PRES Université Lille Nord de France - Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales - Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies - Université de Lille, Droit et Santé, OFCE - Observatoire Français des Conjonctures économiques - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris - Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques [FNSP]); Raphaël Franck (Bar-Ilan University - Bar-Ilan University [Israël]); Hillel Rapoport (Department of Economics [Israël] - Bar-Ilan University [Israël], EQUIPPE - Economie Quantitative, Intégration, Politiques Publiques et Econométrie - PRES Université Lille Nord de France - Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales - Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies - Université de Lille, Droit et Santé) |
| Abstract: | France experienced the demographic transition before richer and more educated countries. This paper offers a novel explanation for this puzzle that emphasizes the diffusion of culture and information through internal migration. It tests how migration affected fertility by building a decennial bilateral migration matrix between French regions for 1861-1911. The identification strategy uses exogenous variation in transportation costs resulting from the construction of railways. The results suggest the convergence towards low birth rates can be explained by the diffusion of low-fertility norms by migrants, especially by migrants to and from Paris. |
| Keywords: | fertility,France,demographic transition,migration |
| Date: | 2016–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01308354&r=his |
| By: | Arsenault Morin, Alex; Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim |
| Abstract: | We argue that the system of seigneurial tenure used in the province of Quebec until the mid-nineteenth centurya system which allowed significant market power in the establishment of plants, factories and mills, combined with restrictions on the mobility of the labor force within each seigneurial estateis best understood as a system of regionalized monopsonies in the non-farm sector. Seigneurs had incentives to reduce their employment in those sectors to reduce wage rates. We use the fact that later, with the Constitutional Act of 1791, all new settled lands had to be settled under a different system (British land laws). This natural experiment allows us to test our hypothesis that seigneurial tenure was a monopsony, using data from the 1831 and 1851 Lower Canada censuses. We find strong evidence that this difference in tenure partially explains the gap in industrial development between Quebec and the neighboring colony of Ontario. |
| Keywords: | Canadian Economic History,Monopsony,Economic development |
| JEL: | N11 J42 R52 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohpro:512016&r=his |
| By: | Lattanzi , Eleonora (Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (La Sapienza University of Rome)); Naldi, Nerio (Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (La Sapienza University of Rome)) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a list and a brief description of files and documents where the name of Piero Sraffa is mentioned currently kept at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato and at the Archivio Storico Diplomatico. For each file or document we provide indication of the reference number where it is conserved and a transcript of one or two of the relevant documents out of more than five hundred which have been located. The purpose of the paper is to illustrate the results of archival researches of the last decade, including more recent findings, and furnish a groundwork for further research, which may bring further light to bear on documents already known to us, and lead to the discovery of new documents or information, so as to provide a better basis to the reconstruction of the biography of Piero Sraffa and of people whose lives entwined with his – Antonio Gramsci certainly ranking high among them. Given the nature of this work, providing precise indications as to the exact location of the documents is crucial, and this implies that any such indication must be presented in Italian. Furthermore, as almost all the documents considered were written in Italian, also providing quotations in the original language seemed to us of special im-portance. For these reasons, we have asked the editors of this series of working papers – usually available only in English – to allow us to present our work also in Italian. |
| Keywords: | Sraffa; Gramsci; archives |
| JEL: | B31 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0016&r=his |
| By: | Hazar Ben Barka (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Luc Marco (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The research aims to study the Board of Directors' spot on capitalism transitions. Methodology connecting historical and critical literature review was engaged to conduct our analysis. Since the early 20th century three capitalisms have succeeded: the managerial, the shareholder and the stakeholder. Organizations theories have tried to describe these changes and mainly corporate governance models that result. This capitalism’ mutations stressed privileged actors who have influenced and governed company. Our development focuses on the Board of directors with reference to the other two key governance actors: shareholders and managers. The results emphasize the importance of trust and control as two interdependent elements in the definition of CA functioning. |
| Abstract: | La définition du gouvernement d'entreprise, aussi bien par les institutions de régulation des marchés financiers que par les recherches académiques, a suscité plusieurs controverses au fil du temps. Selon Clarke (2004), cela va d'un ensemble de mécanismes de contrôle de l'équipe managériale, mis en œuvre par les actionnaires pour contrebalancer les coûts d'agence, à un système qui définit l'exercice du pouvoir entre les différents partenaires de la firme. Le gouvernement d'entreprise serait donc intimement lié aux évolutions économiques et précisément aux transformations du capitalisme financier. Gourevitch et Shinn (2005) définissent les politiques du capitalisme économique à travers deux composantes. Tout d'abord, le degré de protection de l'actionnaire minoritaire ; ensuite, le type de coordination entre le libéralisme du marché et l'intervention des institutions dans la réglementation des marchés financiers. On ne peut donc étudier l'évolution du gouvernement d'entreprise sans rappeler les phases du capitalisme financier, ses avancées et ses dérives. Pour cela une présentation des principaux auteurs qui se sont intéressés à l'étude de la vie des organisations et de leurs évolutions permettrait de déceler les différents acteurs clés de chaque étape et les rôles accordés au conseil d'administration à travers les différentes transitions dans les modèles de gouvernement d'entreprise. L'objectif de cette recherche est d'intercepter à travers ces évolutions et l'identification des acteurs clés agissant sur le modèle global (investisseurs, financiers, État etc.), la place accordé au conseil d'administration. Ceci nous permettra de faire un rapprochement avec les mutations des modèles de gouvernement d'entreprise, qui ne sont qu'une adaptation dynamique à ces contextes et réalités économiques. L'approche que nous poursuivons est donc l'approche relationnelle des organisations. Le développement poursuit la tâche de relier les deux dimensions : macro-économique et le marché. |
| Keywords: | Organizations theories,France, Board of directors,capitalism’ mutations,Mutations,Capitalisme,Conseil d’administration,Théories des organisations |
| Date: | 2016–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01335581&r=his |
| By: | Antoine Guironnet (LATTS - Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Ludovic Halbert (LATTS - Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Rachel Weber’s recent book offers a landmark contribution to the scholarship of urban studies. Written in a sharp and vivid style, and drawing from an intimate knowledge of Chicago, From Boom to Bubble constitutes an impressive work. Combining empirically-rich material with theoretically-informed research, Weber achieves the feat of bringing a strikingly new perspective on the much-debated question of why urban development is prone to overbuilding. |
| Keywords: | urban political economy, financialisation, planning,urban redevelopment |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01336517&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Daudin (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris-Dauphine); Raphaël Franck (Bar-Ilan University - Bar-Ilan University [Israël]); Hillel Rapoport (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | France experienced the demographic transition before richer and more educated countries. This paper offers a novel explanation for this puzzle that emphasizes the diffusion of culture and information through internal migration. It tests how migration affected fertility by building a decennial bilateral migration matrix between French regions for 1861-1911. The identification strategy uses exogenous variation in transportation costs resulting from the construction of railways. The results suggest the convergence towards low birth rates can be explained by the diffusion of low-fertility norms by migrants, especially by migrants to and from Paris. |
| Keywords: | Fertility,France,Demographic Transition,Migration |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01321952&r=his |
| By: | Panico, Carlo (Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" (Federico II University of Naples)); Pinto, Antonio (Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" (Federico II University of Naples)) |
| Abstract: | The paper deals with the influence of the size of financial industry on income distribution. In opposition to Piketty’s position, it argues that the wage share is influenced by changes in the size of the sectors of the economy, by the input composition of the productive structure and by the ability of the workers to capture the increases in productivity. The process of financialization experienced in the recent decades has affected these three elements. Among other things, it has enhanced the ability of the banking industry to affect the formation of monetary policy and legislation, which in turn can have had some bearing on the workers’ ability to appropriate the increases in productivity. After describing Piketty’s interpretation of the rise in inequality and discuss his views on the theories of distribution, the paper illustrates different representations of the financial sector proposed by the literature, underlining the relevance of considering this sector as an industry. By following these lines the pa-per describes how an enlarged size of the banking industry can increase inequality. |
| Keywords: | Income distribution; growth; financial industry; financialization; multi-sectorial models |
| JEL: | D30 E10 E44 G20 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0015&r=his |
| By: | Denis Cogneau (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)); Lionel Kesztenbaum (INED - Institut national d'études démographiques, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)) |
| Abstract: | From September 1870 to February 1871, the Prussian army’s siege of Paris resulted in a harsh famine. Using original data from vital records and military registers, we investigate the impact of the siege in terms of both mortality and the height stature of survivors in one of the poorest areas of the city. We first estimate that deaths more than doubled at all ages during the 6-month siege and that child mortality rates increased by more than 25% (10 percentage points) for children born in 1869 or 1870. Second, we find little impact of famine on the height of individuals less than 5 years old during the siege, but a rather large deficit exists at ages 6 to 10. After having examined selection effects linked to mortality, fertility and migration, we argue that the siege was short-lived enough that many early-age survivors were able to catch up in stature. |
| Keywords: | Height,Famine,Excess mortality,Health,Malnutrition,France |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01321939&r=his |
| By: | Rishabh Kumar (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Did India's stagnant growth performance until the 1980s increase or decrease the wealth of the elite? Using estate tax data I compute a series which highlights the relative importance of top wealth holders in India between 1961-1986. I nd that a combination of policies and shocks were able to signi cantly depress the personal wealth of the Top 0.1% over this period. A portfolio decomposition by asset categories for the rich reveals that there was a U shaped trend in the average value of movable assets while wealth invested in land signi cantly declined. Disparity within top wealth groups also follows a shrinking and swelling, consistent with the intervention of the state in private capital. These results have implications for the equalizing forces inherent in tax policy vis-a-vis the rich and the role of the state in regulating capital in poor nations. |
| Keywords: | Wealth, India, Estate Multiplier |
| JEL: | H1 N3 O1 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:1608&r=his |
| By: | LINDERT, Peter |
| Abstract: | Economic historians' Divergence debates since 2000 have asked a different question from that asked by Angus Maddison. The issue has become "when did countries' contemporaneous purchasing powers diverge?", not "when did countries' productivity grow at different rates?" The two questions have different answers, especially before 1914. Using pre-1914 current-price comparisons of real purchasing powers on six continents, this article sketches some historical geography of the departures from the conventional Maddison estimates. The underlying reason for the divergence between projections back from 1990 and current-price comparisons from long ago is that before the great 1870-1914 wave of trade globalization, consumer staples were not traded over great distances, and regions specialized in narrow luxury trade. Inter-continental price ratios for subsistence goods thus varied more widely than since 1914. The new measures open up a new economic history of international and intra-national differences in purchasing power before 1914. Northwest Europe was further ahead of Asian countries than earlier measures have shown, apparently due to a Gerschenkron effect in the Maddison approach. On the other hand, Northwest Europe was behind America and Australia across the nineteenth century. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-35&r=his |
| By: | Michele Tertilt (University of Mannheim); Alice Schoonbroodt (The University of Iowa) |
| Abstract: | Parental control over offspring has changed dramatically in Western societies. From a state, before the 19th century, where parents completely controlled their children far into adulthood, a series of laws have shifted these control rights to the current state where even younger children control many aspects of their own lives. We first document the laws that gave parents all the control and argue that these control rights, directly or indirectly, gave parents access to a large fraction of their offspring’s labor income if they so desired. This paper argues that the shift in property rights that followed has important implications for fertility choice. In a simple overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility and altruism, we show that the first-order effect of such a shift is a decrease in fertility—contributing to the decline in fertility during the demographic transition. Depending on the cost structure of children, this decrease may be followed by an increase in fertility, exacerbated by the introduction of pay-as-you-go social security in the 1930s—a confounding factor to generate the baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:1009&r=his |
| By: | David S. Jacks; Dennis Novy |
| Abstract: | We examine the evolution of market potential over the long twentieth century from 1900 to 2010. Theoretically, we exploit a structural gravity model to derive a closed-form solution for a widely-used measure of market potential. We are, thus, able to express market potential as a function of directly observable and easily estimable variables. This allows us to consistently compare our measure of market potential both in the cross-section and over time. Empirically, we collect a large data set on aggregate and bilateral trade flows as well as output for 51 countries. We find that market potential exhibits an upward trend across all regions of the world, in particular after World War II. The rise in market potential is also associated with a significant share of global income growth over that period. |
| JEL: | F1 N7 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22736&r=his |
| By: | Michel Fouquin; Jules Hugot |
| Abstract: | This article provides an assessment of the nineteenth century trade globalization based on a systematic collection of bilateral trade statistics. Drawing on a new data set of more than 1.9 million bilateral trade observations for the 1827-2014 period, we show that international trade costs fell more rapidly than intra-national trade costs from the 1840s until the eve of World War I. This ?nding questions the role played by late nineteenth century improvements in transportation and liberal trade policies in sparking this First Globalization. We use a theory-grounded measure to assess bilateral relative trade costs. Those trade costs are then aggregated to obtain world indices as well as indices along various trade routes, which show that the fall of trade costs began in Europe before extending to the rest of the world. We further explore the geographical heterogeneity of trade cost dynamics by estimating a border e?ect and a distance e?ect. We ?nd a dramatic rise in the distance e?ect for both the nineteenth century and the post-World War II era. This result shows that both modern waves of globalization have been primarily fueled by a regionalization of world trade. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, Trade costs, Border e?ect, Distance e?ect |
| JEL: | F14 F15 N70 |
| Date: | 2016–08–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000416:015130&r=his |
| By: | Sebastian Galiani; Gustavo Torrens |
| Abstract: | Why did the most prosperous colonies in the British Empire mount a rebellion? Even more puzzling, why didn't the British agree to have American representation in Parliament and quickly settle the dispute peacefully? At first glance, it would appear that a deal could have been reached to share the costs of the global public goods provided by the Empire in exchange for political power and representation for the colonies. (At least, this was the view of men of the time such as Lord Chapman, Thomas Pownall and Adam Smith.) We argue, however, that the incumbent government in Great Britain, controlled by the landed gentry, feared that allowing Americans to be represented in Parliament would undermine the position of the dominant coalition, strengthen the incipient democratic movement, and intensify social pressures for the reform of a political system based on land ownership. Since American elites could not credibly commit to refuse to form a coalition with the British opposition, the only realistic options were to maintain the original colonial status or fight a full-scale war of independence. |
| JEL: | D74 N41 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22724&r=his |
| By: | Fabien Eloire (CLERSE - Centre lillois d'études et de recherches sociologiques et économiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies); Claire Lemercier (CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Veronica Aoki Santarosa (University of Michigan [Ann Arbor]) |
| Abstract: | This working paper gives the preliminary results of a research project on the uses of notarized powers of attorney in four large French commercial cities in the 18th and 19th centuries. Powers of attorney are often considered as symptoms of trust. We use them to test hypotheses on the embeddedness of commercial relationships. We find little support for the idea of an evolution from embedded to anonymous relationships. We therefore explore alternative hypotheses centered on the complementarity between embeddedness and formality; the importance of repeated interactions; and a broad homophily driving merchants to choose fellow merchants as proxies. |
| Keywords: | power of attorney,form of proxy,merchants,procuration,mandat,notaires |
| Date: | 2016–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01358364&r=his |
| By: | Fratini, Saverio M. (Università degli Studi Roma Tre (University of Rome Tre)) |
| Abstract: | The paper reconstructs the history of what Sraffa called the ‘degeneration of cost’ as emerges from his manuscripts of the late 1920s. In particular, Sraffa regards the Physiocrats as having the correct idea of cost as being the commodities that allow workers to subsist. The classical economists measured this bundle of commodi-ties in terms of labour, which they also ambiguously viewed as ‘toil and trouble’. Then, the idea of labour as ‘toil and trouble’ was indicated by neoclassical authors as an anticipation of their conception of cost as a sacrifice. Conferring also upon abstinence from consumption the nature of sacrifice, the neoclassical-marginalist theory understood wages and interest as compensation for the disutility of working and saving. Then, cost was ultimately seen as what induces workers and capitalists to produce. This completed the degeneration of cost from the objective-physical conception of the Physiocrats to the subjective-psychological view of the neoclassical school. |
| Keywords: | cost; economic methodology; Sraffa; Sraffa’s manuscripts |
| JEL: | B12 B13 B41 B51 D24 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0021&r=his |