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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2016‒11‒27
35 papers chosen by |
| By: | Bertocchi, Graziella; Bozzano, Monica |
| Abstract: | In this study we review the literature on the origins and implications of family structure in historical perspective with a focus on Italian provinces. Furthermore we present newly-collected data on three of the main features of family structure: female mean age at marriage, the female celibacy rate, and the fraction of illegitimate births. The data are collected at the provincial level for 1871, the year of Italy's political unification. The analysis of the data allows us to confirm and quantify the geographic differentiation in family patterns across the country. We also illustrate the links between family structure and a set of socio-economic outcomes, in the short, medium, and long run. |
| Keywords: | Culture; Development; Family structure; institutions; Italian provinces |
| JEL: | J12 N33 O1 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11617&r=his |
| By: | Denis Cogneau (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Lionel Kesztenbaum (INED - Institut national d'études démographiques, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| 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:psewpa:halshs-01321939&r=his |
| By: | Evan Roberts |
| Abstract: | Household budget studies in the autonomous British dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa) were carried out sporadically before World War II. The similar history of household budget studies in the dominions reflects the similarity of the dominions’ statistical infrastructure and the existence of other data sources that reduced the need to collect household budget studies. The budget studies that were conducted were influenced by the statistical school, and were similar in quality to contemporary European and American surveys. Statistical summaries of results are available, but only limited microdata survives in archives or publications. |
| Keywords: | Australia, Canada, household budget studies, New Zealand, South Africa |
| JEL: | C83 N30 N31 N32 N37 |
| Date: | 2016–05–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:2&r=his |
| By: | Abdul Majid (Monash University Malaysia); Sri Yogamalar (Monash University Malaysia); Sandra Ho (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University); Shanthy Rachagan (Monash University Malaysia) |
| Abstract: | When UK’s Sale of Goods Act 1893 (“the UK Act†) was passed, the United Kingdom was a flourishing colonial power having dominion over, inter alia, Hong Kong, India and Malaysia. This explains the adoption, with minor modifications, of the UK Act in Hong Kong (as the Sale of Goods Ordinance 1896 (“SOGO†)), in India (as the Sale of Goods Act, 1930 (“the Indian Act†)) and in Malaysia (as the Sale of Goods Enactment 1932 (No. 1 of 1932) (“the Enactment†)). The Indian Act was mainly based on the provisions of the UK Act, modified in the light of subsequent judicial decisions in England and India. Thereafter, the Indian Act has neither been subjected to major review nor amended to incorporate changes in its UK counterparts. While Hong Kong was a British colony (until 1 July 1997), all changes in the UK sale of goods legislation were ultimately incorporated into SOGO. From 1896-1997, SOGO was amended 12 times to keep pace with changes in the UK Act. In Britain, the Act was repealed and replaced by the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (“the 1979 Act†). Hong Kong, however, did not follow suit but retained SOGO and amended it to follow the 1979 Act. Malaya gained independence from the British in 1957 and became the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. The Enactment has since been re-intituled twice. First, it was retitled, Sale of Goods (Malay States) Ordinance 1957 (No. 1 of 1957) and in 1989, it became the Sale of Goods Act 1957 (“SOGA†). Save for its re-intitulement, there has been no amendment of any significance. Malaysia has seen fit not to be guided by local judicial pronouncements or developments in the law of the sale of goods in other common law jurisdictions. SOGA remains, as a result, an ossified version of the UK Act. |
| Keywords: | Sale of goods, legislative history, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia |
| JEL: | K39 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:5306924&r=his |
| By: | Giulia Meloni; Jo Swinnen |
| Abstract: | The 1860–1970 period is a particularly interesting period to study wine trade because of dramatic changes in the wine markets and trade over the course of a century. The dramatic changes in trade flows were caused by both “nature” and “men”. Mediterranean wine trade represented around 90% of global wine trade and France was the world’s leading exporter. The arrival of Phylloxera devastated French vineyards and stimulated Spanish and Italian wine exports. When French wine production recovered, French winegrowers pressured their government to intervene, resulting in high tariffs on Spanish and Italian wines and Greek raisins. The protectionist trade regime contributed to the bankruptcy of Greece and to the substitution of wine trade from Spain and Italy to France’s North African colonies. When Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia became independent, France imposed high wine tariffs, effectively killing their wine exports. The decline of the wine industry in North Africa coincided with the trade and policy integration of the South European wine exporters in the EEC—the predecessor of the EU. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:556191&r=his |
| By: | Olga V. Klimova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study will introduce and examine the work of Sugita Genpaku (20.10.1733-01.06.1817) – “A monologue about foreign ships” (“Yaso:dokuwa” ????) – valuable historical document that introduces the reaction of the Japanese government to the expedition of Khvostov and Davidov to Sakhalin in 1806-1807. It was written in the beginning of the 19th century, the period which is believed to be a turning point in the early Russo-Japanese relationship, when Russia began to be perceived as a major dangerous enemy. This unique document, which is hardly ever mentioned in the researches, stands out in long list of Japanese archive documents of the 19th century as one of the very few that depicts Russia as a possible trade partner and not the enemy. It was originally written by Sugita Genpaku in 1807 and was published for the first time in 1934 as a part of the multi-volume book called “The thoughts of Great Japan” (Dainippon shiso: zenshu: ???????). However, in spite of that it has been ignored by the majority of scholars throughout the world including Russia and Japan. This study will introduce the most interesting parts of the work, which describes the response of the Japanese government to the actions of two Russian officers – lieutenant Khvostov (1776–1809) and midshipman Davidov (1784?–1809) at Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in 1806 and 1807. This paper will answer following questions: what was the image of Russia in Japan? What impact did the expedition to Sakhalin have on Japanese government and society? What was the best way to address the challenges Japan was facing and could the trade with Russia help to solve them? |
| Keywords: | Sugita Genpaku, Sakhalin, Russia, Japan, Khvostov. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:135/hum/2016&r=his |
| By: | Jon Danielsson; Marcela Valenzuela; Ilknur Zer |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of volatility on financial crises by constructing a cross-country database spanning over 200 years. Volatility is not a significant predictor of crises whereas unusually high and low volatilities are. Low volatility is followed by credit build-ups, indicating that agents take more risk in periods of low financial risk consistent with Minsky hypothesis, and increasing the likelihood of a banking crisis. The impact is stronger when financial markets are more prominent and less regulated. Finally, both high and low volatilities make stock market crises more likely, while volatility in any form has no impact on currency crises. |
| Keywords: | Stock market volatility ; Financial crises predictability ; Volatility paradox ; Minsky hypothesis ; Financial instability ; Risk-taking |
| JEL: | F30 F44 G01 G10 G18 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2016-93&r=his |
| By: | Rui Coimbra Gonçalves (Center of Classical and Humanistic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra) |
| Abstract: | Since the elucidation displayed by the medieval authors, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas and Dante, on the purpose of the way to safeguard the common good, the monarchy was considered ideal as political system of governance in opposition to aristocracy and democracy. In the bosom of the Spanish Second Scholasticism and according in particular to a Jesuit author like Francisco Suárez, and his personal conception about the ruler based on limitation of powers by an ideal Res publica of citizens and the exercise of duties towards Church, the sovereign could be thrown down from his throne by reasons of political abuse of power competences and by means of recovery of legitimacy claimed by their peoples. There was the theory of the right King that could become a tyrant and then replaced by a new King or a righteous leader. The novelty here was for the XVIIth century the admission of the illegitimacy of governance due to reasons of power usurpation and the chance of plebiscite of a mighty leader, a kind of choice conceded to the population settled under his authority.Moreover, in order to define law Hugo Grotius proceeds like Suárez while combining two concepts in a same definition, those of power (potestas) and rule (lex). In his work of 1625 De jure belli ac pacis (On the law of war and peace), this concept results confined by Grotius to the simple notion of all things not classified as unfair. So it is unfair whatever could be blamed by the society of the beings endowed with reason.Suárez even anticipates the notion of social contract as it would be thought one century and a half later by Jean-Jacques Rousseau while allowing the first the admission of a kind of confessional rebellion against an impious prince. The only valid way in this level for Rousseau, as we can read in his essay On the social contract of 1762, would be the pact of association between the citizens and the state. In his turn, Suárez outlines that the popular consent to the ruler could be obtained by an original order or accepting a beneficial tyranny instituted as a mean of get away further kinds of oppression through a general plebiscite at a later period.So the aim of this study is to determine how Suárez led the discussion in the bosom of his intellectual tradition on the nascent modern political philosophy. |
| Keywords: | Scholasticism, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Hugo Grotius, Political sovereignty |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:5306966&r=his |
| By: | Greenwood, Jeremy (University of Pennsylvania); Guner, Nezih (CEMFI, Madrid); Vandenbroucke, Guillaume (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | Powerful currents have reshaped the structure of families over the last century. There has been (i) a dramatic drop in fertility and greater parental investment in children; (ii) a rise in married female labor-force participation; (iii) a decline in marriage and a rise in divorce; (iv) a higher degree of assortative mating; (v) more children living with a single mother; (vi) shifts in social norms governing premarital sex and married women's roles in the labor market. Macroeconomic models explaining these aggregate trends are surveyed. The relentless flow of technological progress and its role in shaping family life are stressed. |
| Keywords: | assortative mating, baby boom, baby bust, family economics, female labor supply, fertility, household income inequality, household production, human capital, macroeconomics, marriage and divorce, quality-quantity trade off, premarital sex, quantitative theory, single mothers, social change, survey paper, technological progress, women's rights |
| JEL: | D1 E2 J1 O1 O4 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10362&r=his |
| By: | Georges Gallais-Hamonno; Thi-hong-van Hoang; Kim Oosterlinck |
| Abstract: | Because of data scarcity, there are almost no quantitative analyses dealing with clandestine markets, despite their prime importance during wartime. This paper exploits a unique database of daily prices of gold coins traded in occupied Paris, in order to gain insights into price formation on such a market. First, using data from Switzerland, we show that arbitrage took place, despite the costs and risks involved, and led to a gradual (but incomplete) convergence of gold prices. Second, on basis of an event study, we provide evidence that the introduction of higher penalties for black market activities had no significant impact on prices. Finally, we analyze the law of one price on this clandestine market. Under this law, one gram of gold should have a similar value, whatever form it takes (independently of the coin considered). However, we do find large price variations for one gram of gold contained in different coins. We attribute this result to market participants’ taste for specific gold coins and we present our results in the framework developed by Sargeant and Velde (2002). |
| Keywords: | Paris clandestine gold market; World War II; Swiss arbitrage; weekday effect; repressions; event studies |
| JEL: | G10 N20 |
| Date: | 2016–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/240518&r=his |
| By: | Morone, Andrea; Nuzzo, Simone |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at providing an overview of several topics that have been addressed in the field of experimental asset markets. Rather than being exhaustive in any single topic, this review is meant to gather the several research strands, and to provide a powerful picture of the main advances on the use of experimental techniques for the study of financial markets. |
| Keywords: | Experimental Asset Markets |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2060&r=his |
| By: | Brian A'Hearn; Nicola Amendola; Giovanni Vecchi |
| Abstract: | The paper argues that household budgets are the best starting point for investigating a number of big questions related to the evolution of the living standards during the last two-three centuries. If one knows where to look, historical family budgets are more abundant than might be suspected. And statistical techniques have been developed to handle the associated problems of small, incomplete, and unrepresentative samples. We introduce the Historical Household Budgets (HHB) Project, aimed at gathering data and sources, but also at creating an informational infrastructure that provides i) reliable storage and easy access to historical family budget data, along with ii) tools to configure the data as it is entered so as to harmonise it with present-day surveys. |
| Keywords: | globalization, grouped data, household budgets, household budget surveys, inequality, living standards, post-stratification, poverty, purchasing power parities, survey |
| JEL: | C81 C83 D60 D63 I31 I32 N30 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:1&r=his |
| By: | Sakari Saaritsa |
| Abstract: | This essay charts the history, nature and uses of Finnish historical household budget data. Three perspectives are discussed: that of the changing interests of the state in producing knowledge on households; that of the multiple interests of various societal actors in shaping household behaviour through budgeting, including the households themselves; and that of reanalysis for modern economic history. In this last instance, the main focus is on behavioural, microeconometric perspectives. In the process, an overview of the sources available – “data to die for” – will be presented. To conclude, historically generated bias and future research potential of the sources are discussed. |
| Keywords: | economic history, Finland, household budgets, methodology |
| JEL: | N01 N34 |
| Date: | 2016–05–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:3&r=his |
| By: | Stepan Jurajda; Dejan Kovac |
| Abstract: | We propose a novel empirical strategy for identifying and studying nationalism using name choices. We first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the fascist Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for army service in the 1991-1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certicates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to contrast the evolution of nationalism and its intergenerational transmission across locations affected by extreme war-related experiences. Our evidence suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism was on a continuous rise starting in the 1970s, that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII, and that nationalist fathers consider the nationalism-transmission trade-off between within-family and society-wide transmission channels suggested by Bisin and Verdier (2001). |
| Keywords: | Ustase; nationalism; names; intergenerational transmission; |
| JEL: | D64 D74 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp573&r=his |
| By: | Andreas Irmen (CREA, Université du Luxembourg); Amer Tabakovic (CREA, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We scrutinize Thomas Piketty’s (2014) theory concerning the relationship between an economy’s long-run growth rate, its capital-income ratio, and its factor income distribution put forth in his recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. We find that a smaller long-run growth rate may be associated with a smaller capital-income ratio. Hence, the key implication of Piketty’s Second Fundamental Law of Capitalism does not hold. In line with Piketty’s theory a smaller long-run growth rate may go together with a greater capital share. However, the mechanics behind this result are the opposite of what Piketty suggests. Our findings obtain in variants of Romer’s (1990) seminal model of endogenous technological change. Here, both the economy’s savings rate and its growth rate are endogenous variables whereas in Piketty’s theory they are both exogenous parameters. Including demographic growth in the spirit of Jones (1995) shows that a smaller growth rate of the economy may imply a lower capital share contradicting a central claim in Piketty’s book. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous Technological Change, Capital Accumulation, Aggregate Factor Income Distribution |
| JEL: | E10 E21 E25 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:16-18&r=his |
| By: | Quentin Lippmann (PSE - Paris School of Economics); Alexandre Georgieff (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Claudia Senik (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics, UP4 - Université Paris-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Social scientists have provided empirical evidence that "gender trumps money", meaning that gender norms can be more powerful than economic rationality in shaping daily arrangements between spouses. In particular, 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. The risk of divorce also 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 Lander 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 inuencing 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: | German Division,Household economics,Gender norms,Culture,Institutions |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01297653&r=his |
| By: | Michel De Vroey (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Luca Pensieroso (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | Our paper contends that the existence of mainstream economics ought to be understood as a particular case of the now widespread certification phenomenon, which defines good practices on the grounds of a compliance with well-defined standards. Basing our analysis on Leijonhufvud’s vision of the construction of economic theory, we document the fragmentation process which economics has undergone from the marginalist revolution to the present. Studying the evolution of five sub-branches of economics, we show how at the end of the 1970s loose standards for good research practices were replaced by narrower ones in each of them. We claim that this change and the emergence of a mainstream were two faces of the same process. |
| Keywords: | mainstream, decision tree, neoclassical approach |
| JEL: | A10 A20 B20 |
| Date: | 2016–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2016026&r=his |
| By: | Antonio Heras Martínez (Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad 1 - Universidad Complutense de Madrid); David Teira (Departamento de Lógica, Historia y Filosofia de la Ciencia - Universidad Nacional de Educatión a Distancia (UNED)); Pierre-Charles Pradier (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne & LabEx RéFi) |
| Abstract: | The concept of acturial fairness stems from an Aristotelian tradition in which fairness requires equality between the goods exchanged. When dealing with aleatory contracts, this principle evolved, among medieval scholars, into equality in risk: benefits and losses should be proportional to the risks undertaken. The formalization of this principle gave rise to the concept of mathematical expectation, first implemented in the calculation of the fair price of gambles. The concept of an actuarial fair price was first theoretically articulated in the 17th century as an implementation of this same Aristotelian principle in the field of life insurance. For a practical estimation of fair actuarial prices it was necessary to build mortality tables, assuming that the major risk factor was age. Yet, in the 18th and 19th centuries, we find no agreement among proto-actuaries about the proper construction of these tables. Among the obstacles they found, we want to highlight their early awareness of the possibility of adverse selection: buyers and sellers could manipulate the risk assessment for their own private interests, in a way that would either make fair companies collapse or fair customers be cheated. The paradox in the concept of actuarial fairness is that as soon as it was formally articulated, markets made clear it could never be implemented in actual pricing |
| Keywords: | actuarial fairness; mathematical expectation; life insurance; annuity; risk |
| JEL: | G22 G28 G01 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:16073&r=his |
| By: | Patrick Bayer; Kerwin Kofi Charles |
| Abstract: | Studying working and non-working men, we find that, after closing substantially from 1940 to the mid-1970s, the median black-white earnings gap has since returned to its 1950 level, while the positional rank the median black man would hold in the white distribution has remained little changed since 1940. By contrast, higher quantile black men have experienced substantial gains in both relative earnings levels and their positional rank in the white earnings distribution. Using a new decomposition method that extends existing approaches to account for non-participation, we show that the gains of black men at higher quantiles have been driven primarily by positional gains within education level due to forces like improved access to quality schools and declining occupational exclusion. At the median and below, strong racial convergence in educational attainment has been counteracted by the rising returns to education in the labor market, which have disproportionately disadvantaged the shrinking but still substantial share of blacks with lower education. |
| JEL: | J15 J31 J71 K42 N32 N92 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22797&r=his |
| By: | Giorgio Canarella (University of Nevada, Las Vegas,US); Luis A. Gil-Alana (University of Navarra, Faculty of Economics, Pamplona, Spain); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, South Africa); Stephen M. Miller (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, US) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the complete historical US price data by employing a relatively new statistical methodology based on long memory. We consider, in addition to the standard case, the possibility of nonlinearities in the form of nonlinear deterministic trends as well as the possibility that persistence exists at both the zero frequency and a frequencies away from zero. We model the fractional nonlinear case using Chebyshev polynomials and model the fractional cyclical structures as a Gegenbauer process. We find in the latter case that that secular (i.e., long-run) persistence and cyclical persistence matter in the behavior of prices, producing long-memory effects that imply mean reversion at both the long-run and cyclical frequencies. |
| Keywords: | Persistence, Cyclicality, Chebyshev polynomials, Gegenbauer processes |
| JEL: | C22 E3 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201683&r=his |
| By: | Müller, Daniel; Schmitz, Patrick W. |
| Abstract: | Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström have been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their contributions to contract theory. In this paper, we provide a brief introduction to the field of contract theory and we discuss some of the laureates' central contributions. |
| Keywords: | contract theory, moral hazard, hidden actions, incomplete contracts, property rights |
| JEL: | D86 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75233&r=his |
| By: | Jørgen Modalsli (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | There is increasing evidence that intergenerational transmission of economic characteristics goes beyond what can be measured by parent-child associations. However, existing studies are based on samples from small geographic areas or particular time periods, making it hard to know to what extent these multigenerational processes can be generalized across space and time, and how they depend on the measurement of economic outcomes. This paper uses Norwegian census data on occupational associations among grandfathers, fathers and sons from 1865 to 2011 and finds significant grandparental influence throughout the period. In particular, the additional grandparental influence is strong for white-collar occupations. The findings are robust to alternative ways of measuring the characteristics of the parent generation, and to the use of income rather than occupation as a measure of economic status. Multigenerational persistence is found to have been stronger early in the period, before the establishment of a modern welfare state, suggesting that institutions play a part in how economic characteristics are transmitted across generations. Persistence is strong also in subpopulations where generations grew up in different parts of the country. This shows that the grandparental effect is not exclusively driven by direct interpersonal interaction between individuals across generations. |
| Keywords: | Multigenerational mobility; human capital transmission; occupational mobility; income mobility; grandfathers |
| JEL: | J62 D31 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:850&r=his |
| By: | Ã ngel de la Fuente |
| Abstract: | El presente trabajo es una revisión menor de la versión 4.2 de RegData (de la Fuente, 2016b). El único cambio que aquí se introduce consiste en atribuir siempre a la extra-regio los deflactores del VAB y el PIB del conjunto de España (sin la extra-regio). Este cambio se introduce para corregir ciertas anomalías en el comportamiento del output real de la extra-regio y de los correspondientes deflactores durante la primera parte del período muestral detectadas en la versión anterior de RegData, en la que se utilizaban directamente los datos disponibles en la CNE y la CRE para la extra-regio. |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaeee:eee2016-35&r=his |
| By: | Federica Di Battista |
| Abstract: | This work explores the determinants of poverty in Edwardian Britain. We use a new household budget sample collected between 1900 and 1914 to understand what role vulnerability played in determining poverty and undernutrition. First, using a probit model we find that due to perceived risk on one hand, and to social norms on the other, families purchased insurance schemes as a strategy to cope with uncertainty. Second, using recursive mixed process estimation, we find that the decision to insure caused a reallocation from food to precautionary expenditures, which led to a significant reduction in calorie availability. |
| Keywords: | 1900-1914, Great Britain, insurance, poverty, vulnerability |
| JEL: | C14 I31 I32 N33 |
| Date: | 2016–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:5&r=his |
| By: | Graciela L. Kaminsky |
| Abstract: | The ongoing slowdown in international capital flows has brought again to the attention the booms and bust cycles in international borrowing. Many suggest that capital flow bonanzas are excessive, ending in crises. One of the most frequently mentioned culprits are the cycles of monetary easing and tightening in the financial centers. More recently, the 2008 Subprime Crisis in the United States has also been blamed for the retrenchment in capital flows to both developed and developing countries. To further understand international capital flow cycles, I construct a new database on capital flows spanning the first episode of financial globalization from 1820 to 1931. During this episode, monetary policy in the financial center is constrained by the adherence to the Gold Standard, thus providing a benchmark for global cycles in the absence of an active role of central banks in the financial centers. Also, panics in the financial center are rare disasters that can only be studied in this longer episode of financial globalization. This paper presents the historical data with an example for Latin America. |
| JEL: | F30 F34 F65 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22819&r=his |
| By: | Kaixing Huang (School of Economics & the Centre for Global Food and Resources, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | This article adopts a modified idea-based growth model with endogenous human capital and population to explain why the theoretically relevant growth effect of population growth on economic growth is empirically unobservable. The model predicts that the economic growth rate is proportional to the growth rates of both population and human capital. The offsetting movement of the growth rates of population and human capital after the demographic transition obscures observation of the growth effect. The model also generates an evolution of the growth rates of population, human capital, and per capita income that is consistent with historical and postwar data. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, ideas, human capital, population |
| JEL: | E27 O40 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2016-13&r=his |
| By: | Klor, Esteban F; Saiegh, Sebastian; Satyanath, Shanker |
| Abstract: | Well-known dictatorships have justified massive human rights violations on the grounds that they were aimed at attacking crony capitalism (governance based on favoring firms that are connected to the regime). So far, however, there is no systematic study examining whether this justification should be believed. We address this gap in the literature in the context of one of the best-known episodes of human rights violations in modern history, the repression following the coup in Argentina on March 24, 1976. Specifically, we examine the logic driving the choice of firm level union representatives who were subjected to violence following the coup. Using an original dataset assembled and digitized by us, we find that political, business and social connections to the regime are associated with an increase of 2 to 3 times in the number of firm level union representatives arrested and/or disappeared. This is the case even after controlling for a battery of firms' characteristics that capture alternative explanations for the targeting of violence. The effect is particularly pronounced in privately owned (as opposed to state-owned) firms, suggesting that the correlation is driven by cronyism for financial gain rather than ideology or information transmission. We also show that connected firms benefited from violence against union representatives by subsequently having less strikes and a higher market valuation. Our findings highlight the pervasiveness of ties to the government, even in cases where one of the main stated goals of the regime is to curb cronyism. |
| Keywords: | Argentina; Human Rights Violations; Labor Repression; Political Connections |
| JEL: | D73 D74 J52 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11650&r=his |
| By: | Stefan Öberg |
| Abstract: | We investigate the behaviors used by households to economize on their spending on food using data from a budget survey of urban households in Sweden in 1913–1914. Higher-income households bought higher-quality varieties of both luxury and staple foods. But changing the composition of the diet was a much more important way to adjust spending on food than changing the quality of the foods bought. Higher incomes allowed households to increase the variability of their diets as well as to increase the enjoyability of the staple foods that dominated diets at the time. |
| Keywords: | dietary change, food consumption, household consumption, LONGH Cohort, quality elasticity |
| JEL: | D12 I31 N34 |
| Date: | 2016–05–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:4&r=his |
| By: | García-Santana, Manuel; Pijoan-Mas, Josep; Villacorta, Lucciano |
| Abstract: | The sectoral composition of growing economies is largely affected by the evolution of the investment rate outside the balanced growth path. We present three novel facts consistent with this idea: (a) the value added share of manufacturing within investment goods is larger than within consumption goods, (b) the standard hump-shaped profile of manufacturing with development is much more apparent for the whole economy than for the investment and consumption goods separately, and (c) the investment rate displays a hump with development similar to the one of the value added share of manufacturing. Using a standard multi-sector growth model estimated with a large panel of countries, we find that this mechanism is especially important for the industrialization of several countries since the 1950's and for the deindustrialization of many Western economies since the 1970's. In addition, it explains a substantial part of the standard hump-shaped relationship between manufacturing and development, which has been a challenge for theories of structural transformation under balanced growth. Finally, the different composition of investment and consumption goods can also explain up to half of the decline in the relative price of investment since 1980 |
| Keywords: | Structural Change; Transitional Dynamics; Neo-classical Growth Model |
| JEL: | E21 E23 O41 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11636&r=his |
| By: | Laura Jaramillo; Carlos Mulas-Granados; Elijah Kimani |
| Abstract: | What explains public debt spikes since the end of WWII? To answer this question, this paper identifies 179 debt spike episodes from 1945 to 2014 across advanced and developing countries. We find that debt spikes are not rare events and their probability increases with time. We then show that large public debt spikes are neither driven by high primary deficits nor by output declines but instead by sizable stock-flow adjustments (SFAs). We also find that SFAs are poorly forecasted, which can affect debt sustainability analyses, and are associated with a higher probability of suffering non-declining debt paths in the aftermath of public debt spikes. |
| Keywords: | Public debt;European Union;Developed countries;Developing countries;Cross country analysis;Regression analysis;Econometric models;Economic forecasting;Time series;Public Debt, Debt Spikes, Stock Flow Adjsutment, SFA, Debt Forecasting |
| Date: | 2016–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/202&r=his |
| By: | Bertrand Laporte (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Céline De Quatrebarbes (FERDI - Fondation pour les études et les recherches sur le développement international - FERDI [FERDI]); Yannick Bouterige (FERDI - Fondation pour les études et les recherches sur le développement international - FERDI [FERDI]) |
| Abstract: | The lack of information about the mining resource rent sharing between governments and investors is an easy statement in Africa. Existing public databases are often insufficient for a deep analysis of the African tax law applied to natural resource sectors, which limits the academic and operational work. The FERDI publishes the first tax and legal database which specifies the tax regime applied to industrial gold mining companies in 14 African countries from the 1980s to 2015. The database featuring three major innovations: (i) an inventory of taxes and duties (rate, base and exemptions) payable during the prospecting phase and mining phase of a gold mining project; (ii) an entirely new level of historical depth; (iii) the link between each piece of tax information and its legal source. This database is used to make a first analysis of tax regimes and rent sharing in gold producer countries. The first results emphasize heterogeneity of tax regimes between English-speaking and French-speaking countries with a convergence of the average effective tax rates that increase in most countries following the tax reforms undertaken since 2010. |
| Keywords: | Mining sector,Gold,Taxation of natural resources,Database. |
| Date: | 2016–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01388636&r=his |
| By: | Stefano Chianese |
| Abstract: | Newly discovered archival material is used to document the standard of living of slum dwellers in fascist Rome. As part of the regime's effort to suppress growing shanty towns in the capital, the Governorate of Rome conducted a census in 1933, gathering information on the identity and living conditions of their inhabitants, the "baraccati". The paper analyzes the mostly migrant families of the shanty towns, identifying their social and demographic characteristics. |
| Keywords: | fascism, household budgets, housing, internal migration, poverty, slum dwellers |
| JEL: | N01 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:6&r=his |
| By: | Chris Brewster (Henley Business School, University of Reading); Paul N Gooderham (Department of Strategy and Management, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway); Torben Schubert (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU-Wien), Austria); |
| Abstract: | Reviewing the trajectory of human resource management research over the last thirty years, this polemical paper argues that the dominant focus has been on 'Strategic HRM' or HRM that is supposed to improve firm performance in some way. It argues that this narrow focus has not only proved disappointing in its own terms but has led to the subject being addressed in a simplistic neo-liberal way that fails to take into account the wider constituency of HRM stakeholders and does not address many of the 'big issues' that these stakeholders face in practice. It calls for a wider and more realistic research agenda. |
| Keywords: | HRM strategy, job satisfaction, sustainable HRM, contextual HRM |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:jhdxdp:jhd-dp2016-07&r=his |
| By: | Arthur B. Kennickell; Martha Starr-McCluer |
| Abstract: | There are very few sources of high-quality data on the dynamics of wealth accumulation. This paper uses newly-available data from the 1983-89 panel of the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine household saving and portfolio change over the 1980s. The 1983 SCF collected detailed information on households' assets, liabilities, income and other characteristics for a sample of 4,103 families. In 1989, 1,479 of these families were re-interviewed using a similar questionnaire. After describing the sample and methodology of the panel survey, we analyze changes in household wealth over the 1983-89 period. We also investigate changes in the structure of households' assets and liabilities. |
| Keywords: | Household saving ; portfolios ; panel data |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:1996-18&r=his |
| By: | Kris James Mitchener; Gonçalo Pina |
| Abstract: | We develop a simple model that highlights the costs and benefits of fixed exchange rates as they relate to trade, and show that negative export-price shocks reduce fiscal revenue and increase the likelihood of an expected currency devaluation. Using a new high-frequency data set on commodity-price movements from the classical gold standard era, we then show that the model’s main prediction holds even for the canonical example of hard pegs. We identify a negative causal relationship between export-price shocks and currency-risk premia in emerging market economies, indicating that negative export-price shocks increased the probability that countries abandoned their pegs. |
| JEL: | F31 F33 F36 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22844&r=his |