|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2017‒01‒15
28 papers chosen by |
| By: | Panza, Laura; Williamson, Jeffrey G |
| Abstract: | Although the Australian historical literature covering the colonies' first century from the initial convict settlement in 1788 at Botany Bay to the post-gold rush census of 1871 is packed with assertions about Australian living standards and inequality exceptionalism - compared with western Europe and America, there has been very little evidence offered to confirm them. This paper will establish the Australian facts about living standards and inequality trends between the 1820s and the 1870s. Where do we find exceptionalism, compared with the United States, and where not? And can exceptionalism be readily explained by the fact that the US was undergoing a dramatic industrial revolution while Australia was following its commodity-exporting comparative advantage? We start by exploring the end-period benchmark, 1871, where previous literature (since Michael Mulhall in 1892) has reported a big Australian income per capita and living standard lead. We ask whether 1871 is a poor choice for making these comparisons, and whether 1861 would be better. The US had just fought a Civil War and underwent a 'lost growth decade' and southern destruction in the 1860s (Lindert & Williamson 2016b). In addition, both countries had to deal with a mineral rent bust, one in Victoria and the other in California and Nevada. The result for 1861 without the devastated American south or the mineral-rich Victoria, California, and Nevada is a smaller Australian living standard lead, but a significant lead nonetheless. Next we ask whether Australia was born (relatively) rich or grew (relatively) rich by commodity-export-led (relatively) fast growth. It was the latter, a conclusion reached in two ways, indirectly à la Angus Maddison backcasting and directly à la historic purchasing-power- parity living standard estimates for the early years. Our new purchasing-power-parity estimates of working class living standards in the 1820s and 1830s place Australian towns below London. This not-born-relatively-rich conclusion is confirmed indirectly by an exceptionally fast growth performance between 1821 and 1871. In addition, we ask whether the convicts had similar living standards as free urban unskilled in the 1830s (the convicts were still nearly half of the labor force). We follow this with two additional questions: Was the 1871 Australian distribution of income as unequal as it was in the US and Western Europe then? Or was it exceptionally equal? If the latter, was it also as equal in the 1820s as it was in America in 1800? While we cannot yet answer either question, we can document inequality trends between those two dates by exploiting various proxies. Here we find exceptionalism since there is little evidence supporting rising income inequality over the half-century prior to 1871. |
| Keywords: | Colonial Australia; exceptionalism; growth; inequality; living standards |
| JEL: | N17 N37 O47 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11756&r=his |
| By: | Klausinger, Hansjörg |
| Abstract: | The Nationalökonomische Gesellschaft (Austrian Economic Association, NOeG) provides a prominent example of the Viennese economic circles that more than academic economics dominated scientific discourse in the interwar years. For the first time this paper gives a thorough account of its history, from its foundation 1918 until the demise of its long-time president, Hans Mayer, 1955, based on official documents and archival material. The topics treated include its predecessor and rival, the Gesellschaft österreichischer Volkswirte, the foundation 1918 soon to be followed by years of inactivity, the relaunch by Mayer and Mises, the survival under the NS-regime and the expulsion of its Jewish members, and the slow restoration after 1945. In particular, an attempt is made to provide a list of the papers presented to the NOeG, as complete as possible, for the period 1918-1938. (author's abstract) |
| Keywords: | History of economic thought; Austrian school of economics; Vienna economic circles; University of Vienna |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus005:4515&r=his |
| By: | Klausinger, Hansjörg |
| Abstract: | This contribution examines the teaching of economics at the Hochschule für Welthandel as a case study in the evolution of Austrian academic economics in the 20th century. The period considered is divided into three periods - before, under and after the NS-regime. The main focus is on the multiparadigmatic character of the discipline before WWII, on economics under the NS rule, and on the restoration and delayed integration of economics into the international mainstream after 1945. On the personal level, the teaching of economics at the Welthandel was dominated for more than three decades by Walter Heinrich and Richard Kerschagl, whose influence is explored with regard to their academic, scientific and political activities. (author's abstract) |
| Keywords: | History of economic thought; Teaching of economics; Austrian economics; Hochschule für Welthandel (WU Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus005:4627&r=his |
| By: | Facundo Alvaredo (Paris School of Economics, INET at the Oxford Martin School, and Conicet); Anthony B. Atkinson (Nuffield College, London School of Economics, and INET at the Oxford Martin School); Salvatore Morelli (CSEF, University of Naples and Institute for Economic Modelling at the INET Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Recent research highlighted controversy about the evolution of concentration of personal wealth. In this paper we provide new evidence about the long-run evolution of top wealth shares for the United Kingdom. The new series covers a long period – from 1895 to the present – and has a different point of departure from the previous literature: the distribution of estates left at death. We find that the application to the estate data of mortality multipliers to yield estimates of wealth among the living does not substantially change the degree of concentration over much of the period both, in the UK and US, allowing inferences to be made for years when this method cannot be applied. The results show that wealth concentration in the UK remained relatively constant during the first wave of globalization, but then decreased dramatically in the period from 1914 to 1979. The UK went from being more unequal in terms of wealth than the US to being less unequal. However, the decline in UK wealth concentration came to an end around 1980, and since then there is evidence of an increase in top shares, notably in the distribution of wealth excluding housing in recent years. We investigate the triangulating evidence provided by data on capital income concentration and on reported super fortunes. |
| Keywords: | wealth inequality, estates, mortality multipliers, United Kingdom, United States |
| JEL: | D3 H2 N3 |
| Date: | 2017–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:464&r=his |
| By: | Hubmer, Joachim; Krusell, Per; Smith Jr, Anthony A. |
| Abstract: | This paper employs the benchmark heterogeneous-agent model used in macroeconomics to examine drivers of the rise in wealth inequality in the U.S. over the last thirty years. Several plausible candidates are formulated, calibrated to data, and examined through the lens of the model. There is one main finding: by far the most important driver is the significant drop in tax progressivity that started in the late 1970s, intensified during the Reagan years, and then subsequently flattened out, with only a minor bounce back. The sharp observed increases in earnings inequality, the falling labor share over the recent decades, and potential mechanisms underlying changes in the gap between the interest rate and the growth rate (Piketty's r - g story) all fall far short of accounting for the data. |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11743&r=his |
| By: | Areendam Chanda; Dachao Ruan |
| Abstract: | We explore the extent to which present day economic development at the sub-national level captured by GDP per capita, urbanization, and night-time light density is correlated to regional economic development in 1850. Drawing on historical city data, we construct a measure of urban population density and other features of urbanization in 1850 for 2,055 sub-national regions covering 135 countries. We find strong evidence of persistence in regional development. In our baseline estimates, a one standard deviation increase in urban density in 1850 raises 2005 GDP per capita by almost 10%. Further, the presence of the largest national city in 1850 confers significant advantages to the region even 150 years later. While, our findings are robust to a large range of geographic and spatial controls, proximity to the coast and rivers continues to have a significant effect. We also find that while persistence is generally true there is also considerable heterogeneity across subsets of nations with it being strongest in Asia and West Europe. Finally, early urbanization is also associated with human capital and infrastructure differences across regions. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2017-01&r=his |
| By: | Flandreau, Marc |
| Abstract: | This paper is about the economics of financial power and regime change. It revisits important aspects of the'end of globalization' -“ as the shutting down of global capital markets after 1931 is generally referred to. It articulates a novel perspective on the fundamental regime change that occurred at that point by putting the collapse of foreign government bonds that occurred in New York in the early 1930s in the perspective of London's earlier experience as a centre of global capital exports. It argues that the London industrial set-up for managing foreign government debts had been essentially transplanted from London to New York in the 1920s. This set-up rested on the role of prestigious intermediaries who were involved in originating, distributing and monitoring high quality securities, as well as dealing with crises. It then argues that several critical aspects of the New Deal financial reforms adopted during the 1930s interfered directly with this set-up and prevented the industry from dealing with the crisis in the usual way. It concludes that the global bond market was a casualty of domestic policies associated with the New Deal, and that the New Deal opened a new era in international finance. |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11747&r=his |
| By: | Akcigit, Ufuk; Grigsby, John; Nicholas, Tom |
| Abstract: | We examine the golden age of US innovation by undertaking a major data collection exercise linking US patents to state and county-level aggregates and matching inventors to Federal Censuses between 1880 and 1940. We identify a causal relationship between patented inventions and long run economic growth and outline a basic framework for analyzing key macro and micro-level determinants. We explore drivers of regional performance including population density, financial development, geographic connectedness and social structure. We then profile the characteristics of inventors and their life cycle, measure the returns to technological development, and document the relationship between innovation, inequality and social mobility. Our new data help to address important questions related to innovation and long-run growth dynamics. |
| Keywords: | census; demographics; Earnings; growth; innovation; inventors; migration; patents |
| JEL: | N11 N12 O31 O40 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11755&r=his |
| By: | Samuel Garrido (Universitat Jaume I, Spain) |
| Abstract: | With the aim of drawing lessons that can act as a reference for reforms in today’s developing countries, economic historians are showing a renewed interest in the European experiences of agrarian reform. But in some developing countries property rights over the land show‘oddities’ with respect to the ‘Western canon’. Drawing on the case of Catalonia, this paper maintains that, if their work is to be useful, historians should be sensitive to the fact that in Europe – including the United Kingdom – oddities were not rare either. In Catalan vineyards, sharecropping contracts that granted the sharecropper ownership rights over the land were in widespread usage. Around 1900, sharecroppers’ rights became insecure, which led to several dysfunctions that the paper analyses. |
| Keywords: | Agrarian contracts, Property rights, Catalonia, Wine, Sharecropping, Land reform. |
| JEL: | N53 N54 P14 Q15 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1701&r=his |
| By: | Ager, Philipp; Bursztyn, Leonardo; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | A growing theoretical and empirical literature shows that public recognition can lead to greater effort amongst employees. At the same time, status competition can be associated with excessive expenditure on status goods, higher risk of bankruptcy, and more risk taking amongst money managers. In this paper, we look at the effects of recognition and status competition jointly: We focus on the spillover effects of public recognition on the performance and risk taking of peers. Using newly collected data on monthly victory scores of over 5,000 German pilots during World War II, we find corrosive effects of status competition: When the daily bulletin of the German armed forces mentioned the accomplishments of a particular fighter pilot, his former peers perform markedly better. Outperformance is differential across skill groups. When a former squadron peer is mentioned, the best pilots try harder, score more, and die no more frequently; average pilots win only a few additional victories, but die at a markedly higher rate. Our results suggest that the overall efficiency effects of non-financial rewards can be ambiguous in settings where both risk and output affect aggregate performance. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral economics; Employee motivation; Nonfinancial incentives; Status competition; World War II |
| JEL: | J24 J32 M52 N44 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11751&r=his |
| By: | Andrea Szekely |
| Abstract: | The farm or lodge historically means a few isolated settlements of the Hungarian Great Plain (that belongs nowadays into three countries Hungary-Serbia-Romania) that are today the centres of the agricultural works and more generally, the centres of the agricultural management. The farm is not an independent form of settlement, but with its domain, is the depending form of a city or a village. The above mentioned criterions of farming units were changed during the twentieth century. The most visible changes could be observed after the 2nd World War, during collectivization. In the years after the fall of communism, and during the reprivatisation process, the structure of agriculture and land use has changed again dramatically. Now, the functions of farms are also scattered, including healthcare, tourism and secondary residence. In our comparative study we analyse the mental cognition of scattered farms in Hungary and in Serbia. We compare the mental maps of different populations (people living on farms, agriculture related students, and not related people). The differences of cognition can be observed on the drawings (elaboration, number of objects, their relative location); and we offer a typology based on spatial statistical analysis. |
| Keywords: | rural areas; scattered farms; mental map |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p746&r=his |
| By: | de la Croix, David; Schneider, Eric; Weisdorf, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Previous work has shown that England's pre-industrial elites had more surviving offspring than their lower-class counterparts. This evidence was used to argue that the spread of upper-class values via downward social mobility helped England grow rich. We contest this view, showing that the lower classes outperformed the rich in terms of reproduction once singleness and childlessness are accounted for. Indeed, Merchants, Professionals and Gentry married less, and their marriages were more often childless. Many died without descendants (decessit sine prole). We also establish that the most prosperous socio-economic group in terms of reproduction was the middle class, which we argue was instrumental to England's economic success because most of its new industrialists originated from middle-class families. |
| Keywords: | European Marriage Pattern; Evolutionary Advantage; Fertility; industrial revolution; Marriage; Middle class |
| JEL: | J12 J13 N33 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11752&r=his |
| By: | Claude Diebolt (BETA, University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France); Faustine Perrin (Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden) |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:03-17&r=his |
| By: | Kanbur, Ravi |
| Abstract: | All those who know Ghana know about the association of Nobel Laureate W. Arthur Lewis with the country's economic policy making before independence and in its early years as a free nation. But there is less appreciation in development economics more generally of the central role that Ghana played in Lewis's thinking as a development economist, and there is less appreciation among Ghanaians of how the Ghana experience left an indelible mark on Lewis in the second half of his career. In this sixtieth year of Ghana's independence, this paper attempts to set out the deep connections between this giant of development economics and the evolution of Ghanaian Economic Policy. |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11720&r=his |
| By: | Martin Shubik (Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This essay is the third of three. The first is nontechnical and in part autobiograhpical describing the evolution of my approach to developing a microeconomic theory of money and.financial institutions. The second essay was devoted to a more formal sketch of a closed economic exchange system with no other externalities beyond money and markets. This essay builds on the existence of monetary exchange but also context, and active government with nonsymmetric information and many externaties indicate that the views of Keynes, Hayek and Schumpeter are all consistent with the next stages of complexity as the logic requires many different arrays of institutions to provide the necessary economic functions and adjust to the variety of socio-economic contexts. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter, Keynes, aggregation, information, disequilibrium, minimal institutions, innovation, playable games |
| JEL: | C7 D50 E4 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2067&r=his |
| By: | Hirose, Yasuo; Kurozumi, Takushi; Van Zandweghe, Willem (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the question of how the Federal Reserve achieved macroeconomic stability after the Great Inflation of the 1970s. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; Great inflation; Equilibrium indeterminacy; Generalized New Keynesian Phillips curve; Sequential Monte Carlo algorithm |
| JEL: | C11 C52 C62 E31 E52 |
| Date: | 2017–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp17-01&r=his |
| By: | Nikolaos Antonakakis (Webster Vienna Private University and University of Portsmouth); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, South Africa); Christos Kollias (University of Thessaly); Stephanos Papadamou (University of Thessaly) |
| Abstract: | Markets are invariably influenced and affected not only by the usual array of economic and financial factors but also by uncertainty inducing shocks. Using monthly stock and oil real returns data that spans over a century, this study takes a long historical perspective on whether the time-varying stock–oil covariance, their returns and their variances are affected by geopolitical risk as encapsulated and quantified by a recently developed index (Caldara and Iacoviello, 2016). To address the issue, a VAR(p)-BEKK-GARCH(1,1) model is used. The results reported herein indicate that the geopolitical risk index introduced in the estimations triggers a negative effect mainly in case of oil returns and volatility and to a smaller degree reduces the covariance between the two markets with a time lag. |
| Keywords: | Geopolitical Risk, Stock and Oil markets, BEKK-GARCH models |
| JEL: | H56 G1 G15 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201702&r=his |
| By: | Shoumitro Chatterjee; Tom Vogl |
| Abstract: | Despite being key to theories of economic growth and the demographic transition, evidence on how fertility responds to aggregate income change is mixed. We analyze economic growth and fertility change in the developing world over six decades, using data on 2.3 million women from 255 surveys in 81 countries. We find that fertility responds differently to fluctuations and long-run growth, and the nature of these responses varies over the lifecycle. Fertility is procyclical, falling during recessions, but also declines with long-run growth. Lifetime fertility is affected by fluctuations near the end of the reproductive period but not those at prime reproductive age. Our results are consistent with models linking demography, human capital, and long-run growth, extended to include a lifecycle with liquidity constraints. |
| JEL: | E32 J13 O47 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23000&r=his |
| By: | Michel De Vroey (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | This paper is an assessment of Claveau and Gingras’s paper, “Macrodynamics of Economics: A Bibliometric History”. Its contention is that for all its innovative character, bibliometric history cannot replace inside-knowledge history. To make my point, I examine the particular case of the history of macroeconomics by confronting what their paper can say about this history with what an inside-knowledge approach has to offer. |
| Date: | 2016–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2016033&r=his |
| By: | Raphaël Hekimian |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to provide new insights on the French banking crisis of the1930’s. This crisis is usually considered in the literature to have been relatively more limited in France than in other European countries. One feature of the French banking system at that time was the specialization of its activities: French banks were, for the most part, either deposit or business banks. The literature highlights the fact that business banks faced the greatest difficulties because they invested in foreignmarkets. The purpose of this article is to test this hypothesis with a new dataset of stock prices by estimating the risk on i) the aggregated banking sector; ii) on two subsamples, one including only deposit banks and the other one, only business banks and iii) on the individual series. We find that during the 1930’s, business banks were indeed more risky than deposit banks, relative to the overall market |
| Keywords: | Banking crisis, Financial History, Great Depression |
| JEL: | G21 G01 N20 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2017-3&r=his |
| By: | Lorenzo Cuocolo |
| Abstract: | European history has always been characterized by a strong link between banks and States and, more generally, between banks and politics. National banking systems, therefore, have always been one of the forms of expression of sovereignty. This setting is seriously called into question by the Banking Union project, which has been recently implemented in Europe. Given the importance of the issue, this should be studied not only from the perspective of economics and regulatory studies, but also from the perspective of constitutional law. The paper is divided into eleven parts. The first part aims at reconstructing the historical and economic conditions that have led to design a project of Banking Union.The second part highlights the regulatory asymmetry between euro-area countries and non-euro-area countries. While, in fact, some institutions (such as the EBA) operate across the whole Europe, the Banking Union concerns only those countries that have adopted the euro as their currency. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp1510&r=his |
| By: | Magali Jaoul-Grammare (BETA, University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France); Faustine Perrin (Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden) |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:10-16&r=his |
| By: | Gerlach, Stefan |
| Abstract: | This paper follows Baltensperger and Jordan (1998) and studies the output-inflation trade-off in Switzerland, over the period 1915-2015. We estimate a standard Phillips curve model and provide estimates using a moving window. These show that the parameter on lagged inflation has risen gradually over time and that on import prices has declined. The impact of the output gap rose over time until the 1990s, when it lost all importance. Finally, we test for shifts of the parameters at unknown points in time. We identify four separate sample periods: 1916-1936; 1937-1971; 1971-1993 and 1994-2015. |
| Keywords: | output-inflation trade off; Phillips curve; structural break; Switzerland |
| JEL: | E5 F31 N1 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11714&r=his |
| By: | Bignon, Vincent; Jobst, Clemens |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that a central bank can more efficiently mitigate economic crises when it broadens eligibility for its discount facility to any safe asset or solvent agent. We use difference-in-differences panel regressions and emulate crises by studying how defaults of banks and non-agricultural firms were affected by the arrival of an agricultural disease. We exploit the specificities of the implementation of the discount window to deal with the endogeneity of the access to the central bank to the arrival of the crisis and local default rates. We find that broad eligibility reduced significantly the increase in the default rate when the shock hit the local economy. A counterfactual exercise shows that defaults would have been 10% to 15% higher if the central bank would have implemented the strictest eligibility rule. This effect is identified independently of changes in policy interest rates and the fiscal deficit. |
| Keywords: | Bagehot rule; Collateral; default rate; discount window |
| JEL: | E32 E44 E51 E58 N14 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11737&r=his |
| By: | Magali Jaoul-Grammare (BETA, University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France); Charlotte Le Chapelain (CLHDPP, BETA, University of Lyon 3) |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:01-17&r=his |
| By: | Luís Otávio Reiff; Eustáquio J. Reis |
| Abstract: | O estoque de capital em residências e a distribuição de sua apropriação entre as famílias são determinantes fundamentais da riqueza, bem-estar e produtividade da economia. Como parte de um projeto de pesquisa mais amplo sobre o estoque de capital da economia brasileira no século XX, este trabalho apresenta estimativas para o valor do estoque de residências no Brasil, de 1970 a 1999. O foco é macroeconômico, negligenciando aspectos distributivos e produtivos da propriedade residencial. A metodologia utiliza dados de aluguéis e características dos imóveis – número de cômodos e de banheiros, material de construção, acesso a água, eletricidade, entre outros − apurados nos Censos Demográficos e na Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (Pnad) para estimação dos preços dos seus atributos hedônicos. Após a introdução, o trabalho especifica o modelo dos preços hedônicos e as demais hipóteses utilizadas. Segue-se, na terceira seção, uma descrição dos dados. A quarta seção discute os problemas de estimação e simulação do modelo dos preços hedônicos para residências no Brasil. A quinta e última apresenta os principais resultados, mostrando que estes são bastante razoáveis na perspectiva internacional e que o acesso à infraestrutura de serviços públicos – água, eletricidade, coleta de lixo, entre outros − possui efeito significativo sobre o valor dos imóveis. À guisa de conclusão, o trabalho destaca a rentabilidade social dos investimentos em infraestrutura pública e, em particular, dos programas de financiamento e construção de habitação popular para populações de baixa renda cujos efeitos sobre a riqueza, a capacidade produtiva e a melhoria do bem-estar das famílias do país podem ser substanciais. Capital stock in residential structures, as well as the distribution of its appropriation and ownership among families are fundamental determinants of the wealth, welfare and productivity of the economy. As part of a broad project on the stock of capital of the Brazilian economy in the 20th Century, this paper presents estimates of the value of the stock in residential structures in Brazil from 1970 to 1999. The macroeconomic focus neglects the distributive and allocative effects of residential property and use. The model of hedonic prices is applied to data on the values of rents and other characteristic of the residences – number of rooms and bathroom, construction material, accesss to public servies such as electricity, water, garbage collection, among other – to estimate the hedonic prices of these attributes. After the introduction, the models discusss the specification of the hedonic model as well as of other hypothesis used in the estimation. The third section describes the database. The fourth section discusses estimation methods and problems. The fifth section analyses the results showing, on the one hand, that they seem to be quite reasonable in international perspective, and on the other that attributes related to the public infrastructure have fundamental impactos on the value to residential stock. The paper concludes calling attention to the high social return of public investments in infrastructure, and in particular of the investments and financing of housing projects for low income families which can have substantial effectos on the wealth, productive capacity, and welfare of Brazilian society. |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:2265&r=his |
| By: | liu, michelle yan |
| Abstract: | Abstract Institutional research should be ready to move to the next stage, a stage that is, as argued by this paper, characterized by a more comprehensive approach integrating economics, politics, and social culture. The theoretical foundation for such a move exists, as the interconnection between political institutions and economic institutions has been addressed by North, Fukuyama, and Acemoglu, and the influences of cultural heritage on institutional choices have further been mentioned by North and Huntington. Another shift in institutional research proposed by this paper is a change from general to specific solutions because the institutional characteristics become individualized after considering the impacts of culture heritage. This paper presents the correlations between political and economic institutions and the unique characteristics of political orders taking different developmental paths using a data analysis based on the World Governance Index (WGI) and other development indicators. The paper also discusses the influences of cultural heritage on institution’s choice of transformation path and proposes a institutional research framework. |
| Keywords: | Institutional Economics, Political Economy, Comparative Economic System, Comparative Political System, World Governance Index (WGI) |
| JEL: | P16 P26 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75939&r=his |
| By: | Akkermans, Henk (Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management) |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiutis:3023298f-db6e-4e61-a44b-42fadcd6e259&r=his |