|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2017‒03‒26
23 papers chosen by |
| By: | Aparajith Ramnath (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the beginnings of aircraft manufacture and maintenance in India through a study of Hindustan Aircraft Limited (est. 1940). Promoted by industrialist Walchand Hirachand, HAL was set up with the help of capital (initially fifty per cent) from the Mysore Government, which also provided land and other facilities for the company’s factory in Bangalore. Historians of science and technology have yet to study in depth the early history of this specialised industry in India. Further, scholars of 1940s India have, following the point of view of actors like Walchand, seen the aircraft industry primarily as an example of colonial imperatives subjugating indigenous entrepreneurship and skill. This is in line with the larger historiography, which often sees S&T in India as being either ‘colonial’ or ‘nationalist’. However, recent work by historians has begun to emphasise the need to understand Indian S&T as an integral part of broader, often extra-imperial, networks. This paper will further develop this historiographical approach by placing the technical practitioners of HAL centre stage. The plant in Bangalore was commissioned by a team of American engineers under W.D. Pawley, who would arrange for manufacturing licences, machinery and materials through his American company, Intercontinent Corporation. These American experts supervised a team of Indian engineers and technicians; the factory was run by the US Army during the latter years of World War II. Using a variety of sources (including the biography of Walchand Hirachand; official records and correspondence in the British Library, and printed material in the Karnataka State Archives), this paper examines the politics surrounding the founding of HAL, and the training and recruitment of its technical experts. It argues that at a time when colonial institutions were still geared primarily towards teaching civil engineering, American (and British) collaboration, Indian capital, the policies of the princely state of Mysore, and German expertise played an important role in the birth and development of aircraft manufacturing in India. |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iik:wpaper:205&r=his |
| By: | MORIKAWA Masayuki |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a historical overview of the growth of the service sector and policies toward the service industries from the 1920s to the present. Looking back since the early 20th century, the evolution of the industrial structure in Japan toward the service economy can be separated into three phases. In the first phase, from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the share of the service sector gradually increased in parallel with the growth of the manufacturing sector, with an interruption under the tightly controlled industrial activities during the wartime economy. In the second phase, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, manufacturing share to gross domestic product (GDP) peaked out and the expansion of service sector accelerated. The third phase beginning from the "lost decade" is characterized as structural changes in the service sector stemming from the IT revolution, globalization, and deregulation. In principle, the change in the industrial structure in Japan is consistent with the pattern observed in major advanced countries. Although the service sector was unimportant as the target of industrial policy in the early stage of economic development, it has gradually attracted attention from policymakers. Change in the industrial structure toward the service economy has been closely linked with the development of socio-economic structure such as urbanization and female labor participation. |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rpdpjp:17003&r=his |
| By: | Katherine Eriksson; Gregory T. Niemesh; Melissa Thomasson |
| Abstract: | Accurate vital statistics are required to understand the evolution of racial disparities in infant health and the causes of rapid secular decline in infant mortality during the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, infant mortality rates prior to 1950 suffer from an upward bias stemming from a severe underregistration of births. At one extreme, African-American births in Southern states went unregistered at the rate of 15 to 25 percent. In this paper, we construct improved estimates of births and infant mortality in the United States for the 1915-1940 period using recently released complete count decennial census microdata combined with the counts of infant deaths from published sources. We check the veracity of our estimates with a major birth registration study completed in conjunction with the 1940 Decennial Census, and that the largest adjustments occur in states with less complete birth registration systems. An additional advantage of our census-based estimation method is the extension back of the birth and infant mortality series for years prior to published estimates of registered births, enabling previously impossible comparisons and estimations. Finally, we show that underregistration can bias effect estimates even in a panel setting with specifications that include location fixed effects and place-specific linear time trends. |
| JEL: | I19 J11 N32 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23263&r=his |
| By: | Hanedar, Avni Önder; Hanedar, Elmas Yaldız |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use new historical data on the most popular stocks traded at the Istanbul bourse between 1910 and 1914, to examine the effect of wars on stock market prices. During this period, the Ottoman Empire was involved in the Turco-Italian and the Balkan wars, leading to massive land losses before the First World War. The data are manually collected from the available volumes of two daily Ottoman newspapers, Tercüman-ı Hakikat and Tanin. Our findings are quite surprising, as we observe only a temporary and small drop of prices, indicating little perceived risk by stock investors of the Istanbul bourse. |
| Keywords: | the Istanbul stock exchange,stocks,the Turco-Italian war,the Balkan wars,structural breaks |
| JEL: | G1 N25 N45 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:1702&r=his |
| By: | Ramón García Fernández (Universidade Federal do ABC-UFABC); Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | Brazilian academic economics has been traditionally characterized by its openness to different strands of economic theory. In contrast to the standards prevailing in most of Europe and North America, economics in Brazil can be justly described as pluralistic, with competing schools of thought enjoying relatively secure institutional positions. One of the reasons frequently ascribed for this outcome is the role played by ANPEC, the Brazilian economics association, in mediating conflicts among graduate programs affiliated to different research traditions. A crucial episode in this respect took place in the early 1970s, when the recently born association chose to adopt an inclusive stance towards its membership, welcoming the filiation of the strongly heterodox program at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) even against threats of withdrawal from one of its most prestigious members, the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV). Using a host of primary sources related to the early years of Brazilian academic economics, the paper uncovers the processthat led ANPEC, with strong support from the Ford Foundation, to adopt an inclusive and ‘pluralistic’ attitude, and how it related to the political context prevailing in Brazil during the 1970s. |
| Keywords: | pluralism, ANPEC, FGV, Unicamp, Ford Foundation, sociology of the economics profession. |
| JEL: | B20 A14 A23 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td545&r=his |
| By: | Adolfo Meisel Roca; Julio E. Romero Prieto |
| Abstract: | La Guerra de los Mil Días fue la más letal y costosa guerra civil de Colombia. Hay cierto consenso sobre las consecuencias materiales, pero menos atención ha recibido la pérdida de vidas humanas. Aunque muchos historiadores repiten la cifra de 100.000 víctimas, no está respaldada por un análisis formal. Dado que la población apenas superaba los 4 millones, es una cantidad elevada que amerita una revisión cuidadosa. Utilizando los censos colombianos y los registros del Human Mortality Database, este documento estima el patrón de edad de la mortalidad y evalúa el aumento que estaría relacionado con la guerra. Observando la experiencia de otros países, los modelos ayudan a estimar un valor máximo posible de pérdidas humanas. Si la mortalidad colombiana hubiera aumentado tanto como en Francia durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, el número de víctimas no superaría los 100.000. En un caso mucho menos extremo, si hubiera aumentado tanto como en Inglaterra y Gales durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, el número de muertos sería de 38.724. ******ABSTRACT: The War of the Thousand Days was the most deadly and costly civil war in Colombian history. There is some consensus about the material consequences, but less attention has been paid to human losses. Although the figure of 100,000 casualties is repeated, no support has been provided by formal analysis. Since the population barely exceeded 4 million, it is a high figure deserving a careful reexamination. Using Colombian censuses and the Human Mortality Database, this paper estimates the age-pattern of mortality and assesses the increase that would be related to war. Observing the experience of other countries, models help to estimate maximum possible human losses. If the Colombian mortality had increased as much as in France during World War I, the number of casualties would not exceed the 100,000. In a far less extreme case, if the it had increased as much as in England and Wales during WWI, the death toll would be as high as 38,724. |
| Keywords: | Historia de Colombia; censos de Colombia; estimación demográfica, modelos de mortalidad. |
| JEL: | N46 J10 |
| Date: | 2017–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000101:015452&r=his |
| By: | Thilo Albers |
| Abstract: | The devaluations of the 1930s facilitated a faster recovery from the Great Depression in the countries depreciating, but their unilateral manner provoked retaliatory commercial policies abroad. This paper explores the importance of the retaliatory motive in French trade policy during the 1930s and its effects on trade. Relying on a novel dataset of bilateral tariff rates and a difference in differences approach, the quantification of the protectionist response suggests that retaliation was an important motive behind increasing tariffs. The resulting beggar-myneighbour penalty reduced trade to a similar degree that modern regional trade agreements foster trade. Furthermore, the analysis of contemporary newspapers reveals that the devaluations of the early 1930s triggered a lasting Anglo-French trade conflict marked by titfor-tat protectionist policies. Overall, the quantitative and qualitative results indicate that the unilateral currency depreciations came at a high price in political and economic terms. |
| Keywords: | Currency Manipulation; Great Depression; Tariff Retaliation; Beggar-my-neighbour Policies |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:69925&r=his |
| By: | Quamrul H. Ashraf; Francesco Cinnirella; Oded Galor; Boris Gershman; Erik Hornung |
| Abstract: | This paper advances a novel hypothesis regarding the historical roots of labor emancipation. It argues that the decline of coercive labor institutions in the industrial phase of development has been an inevitable by-product of the intensification of capital-skill complementarity in the production process. In light of the growing significance of skilled labor for fostering the return to physical capital, elites in society were induced to relinquish their historically profitable coercion of labor in favor of employing free skilled workers, thereby incentivizing the masses to engage in broad-based human capital acquisition, without fear of losing their skill premium to expropriation. In line with the proposed hypothesis, exploiting a plausibly exogenous source of variation in early industrialization across regions of nineteenth-century Prussia, capital abundance is shown to have contributed to the subsequent intensity of de facto serf emancipation. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2017-1&r=his |
| By: | Gay, Victor; Hicks, Daniel L.; Santacreu-Vasut, Estefania |
| Abstract: | Our paper investigates whether historical trends in the labor market participation of immigrant women in the U.S. can be explained in part by variation in the grammatical structure of their language spoken. Using individual-level census data on the labor market behavior of first generation immigrants to the U.S. from 1910 to the present, we show that the presence or absence of grammatical gender in the linguistic structure of a language spoken by an immigrant influences sex-specific behaviors. The originality of our approach is to consider language as a repository for accumulated ancestral culture in an epidemiological framework. Because female labor force participation has greatly increased, institutions have transformed, and motivations and compositions of immigrant flows have changed, studying a long time horizon allows us to more clearly isolate the role of linguistic structure as a cultural institution. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Immigrants, Female labor participation, Language structure, Grammar |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J61 N32 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:77565&r=his |
| By: | David F. Hendry (University of Oxford); Peter C.B. Phillips (Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | During his period at the LSE from the early 1960s to the mid 1980s, John Denis Sargan rose to international prominence and the LSE emerged as the world’s leading centre for econometrics. Within this context, we examine the life of Denis Sargan, describe his major research accomplishments, recount the work of his many doctoral students, and track this remarkable period that constitutes the Sargan era of econometrics at the LSE. |
| Keywords: | John Denis Sargan, London School of Economics, Econometrics, Asymptotic theory, Small-sample distributions, Dynamic models, Autocorrelated errors, Empirical modelling, Doctoral training |
| JEL: | A14 B23 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2082&r=his |
| By: | Konstantin A. Kholodilin; Julien Licheron |
| Abstract: | Despite rather skeptical attitude of the economists toward the state intervention in the housing markets, the policy makers and general public typically are supporting it. As a result, in many European countries, since World War I the rent and eviction controls as well as social housing policies remain an important element of the government economic policies. Nevertheless, the macroeconomic effects of such regulations are largely unknown. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of government rental market regulations on real house prices, price-to-rent, and price- to-income ratios, real rents, and new housing construction in Germany in 1950_2015. The regulations are measured by the indices developed by the authors based on a thorough analysis of the legal acts issued mostly by the central government but also by the regional authorities between 1914 and 2015. |
| Keywords: | Housing market, government regulations, Germany, housing prices and rents, new residential construction |
| JEL: | C22 O18 R38 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1649&r=his |
| By: | Dalgaard, Carl-Johan; Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | It is a well known fact that economic development and distance to the equator are positively correlated variables in the world today. It is perhaps less well known that as recently as 1500 C.E. it was the other way around. The present paper provides a theory of why the 'latitude gradient' seemingly changed sign in the course of the last half millennium. In particular, we develop a dynamic model of economic and physiological development in which households decide upon the number and nutrition of their offspring. In this setting we demonstrate that relatively high metabolic costs of fertility, which may have emerged due to positive selection towards greater cold tolerance in locations away from the equator, would work to stifle economic development during pre-industrial times, yet allow for an early onset of sustained growth. As a result, the theory suggests a reversal of fortune whereby economic activity gradually shifts away from the equator in the process of long-term economic development. |
| Keywords: | long-run growth,evolution,nutrition,fertility,education,comparative development |
| JEL: | O11 I12 J13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:306&r=his |
| By: | Matthew Gibbons (University of Waikato); Les Oxley (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | Existing research suggests that New Zealand was, on a per capita basis, the wealthiest and most prolific patenting nation during the late nineteenth century. By quantifying lapsed applications, patent renewals, and expenditure on patent fees, rather than just patent applications, we consider the real level of innovative activity. Our results show that while reductions in patent fees and required advertising in the early 1880s led to a sharp increase in applications by people living in New Zealand, overseas patent applications and total expenditure on New Zealand patents showed relatively steady growth between 1860 and 1899. Lower fees succeeded in increasing patenting by skilled New Zealand trades workers (although engineers still dominated), however, patenting by unskilled workers, such as labourers, remained low. People living in New Zealand made over sixty per cent of patent applications, but overseas patentees paid over half of patent fees because relatively fewer of their applications lapsed or were not renewed. Although women made greater use of the patent system over time, even in 1899 they accounted for only 2.5 per cent of patent applications. |
| Keywords: | bubbles; New Zealand patents; Granger causality; patent expenditure |
| JEL: | O31 N17 N37 |
| Date: | 2017–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:17/04&r=his |
| By: | Shubhasis Dey (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode) |
| Abstract: | Gold prices are quick to respond to world events. However, some of these events stand out, in the sense that they have had significant influence on the conditional mean and volatility of gold prices. In this paper, we have taken 30 historical events ranging from the suspension of dollar’s convertibility into gold in August 1971 to the end of the Quantitative Easing in the US in October 2014 and studied their impact on real gold prices. We find that the US economy and the current dollar-based monetary system is still the main driver of real gold prices. Our empirical exercise in this paper finds that the mean and variance of real gold prices have experienced significant changes primarily when the historical events in question either reinforced or challenged the economic dominance of the US and the role of dollar in the global monetary system. |
| Keywords: | Gold prices; historical events; hedge; safe haven |
| JEL: | E4 G1 C52 C58 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iik:wpaper:198&r=his |
| By: | Héctor Omar Noejovich (Departamento de Economía de la PUCP del Perú) |
| Abstract: | Una indudable herencia del Estado colonial, era el concepto de “regalías de la Corona”, aplicado a los bienes “sin dueño” (res nullius para el derecho romano). Las del Estado republicano siguieron la misma tónica, con las “rentas de aduana” y el tributo indígena; esos conceptos doctrinarios se aplicaron luego al guano y al salitre. Sobre esta base la ponencia persigue como objeto desarrollar y analizar las finanzas estatales hasta la guerra del Pacífico, por el período 1836-80, aproximadamente. JEL Classification-JEL: H20, H63, N46 |
| Keywords: | Deuda publica, Historia económica, Impuestos |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pcp:pucwps:wp00434&r=his |
| By: | Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates contemporary Russia's variety of capitalism. This variety of capitalism - peripheric, state-led, oligarchic and with managed democracy - resulted from a transition based on shock terapies. The choice of the type of transition was conditioned by the nature of the crisis of the command economy in the 1980s. This crisis was a result of inner contradictions of the command economy built between 1929 and 1953. This command economy generated a limited catch up process, industrialized the economy with great human cost, delivering a relatively backward economy with strong military capabilities. This paper reviews four issues: the nature of the economic system between 1929 and 1985, the critical point that ended the command economy in late 1980s, the type of transition and the main features of the variety of capitalism that emerged as a consequence of those processes. |
| Keywords: | Russia, command economy, types of transition, variety of capitalism |
| JEL: | P0 P2 P5 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td541&r=his |
| By: | Peter C.B. Phillips (Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Professor T.W. Anderson passed away on September 17, 2016 at the age of 98 years after an astonishing career that spanned more than seven decades. Standing at the nexus of the statistics and economics professions, Ted Anderson made enormous contributions to both disciplines, playing a significant role in the birth of modern econometrics with his work on structural estimation and testing in the Cowles Commission during the 1940s, and educating successive generations through his brilliant textbook expositions of time series and multivariate analysis. This article is a tribute to his many accomplishments. |
| Keywords: | T. W. Anderson, Cowles Commission, Limited information maximum likelihood, Multivariate analysis, Time series |
| JEL: | A14 B23 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2081&r=his |
| By: | M.K. Nandakumar (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode) |
| Abstract: | A large number of empirical studies have been conducted examining the impact of strategic planning on organisational performance. Many studies have suggested that this relationship is influenced by various factors like the type of industry, environment, CEO characteristics and organisational systems. However researchers have not been able to provide conclusive evidence about the effectiveness of strategic planning to enhance performance. In order to examine the current state of the literature and to summarise the findings from various empirical studies, a comprehensive literature review has been conducted by reviewing sixty eight papers published in leading academic journals. The framework followed by Podsakoff and Dalton (1987) was adapted to conduct the literature review. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iik:wpaper:152&r=his |
| By: | Gay, Victor; Boehnke, Jörn |
| Abstract: | We explore the effect of military fatalities from World War I on female labor participation in post-war France. We build a unique dataset containing individual level information for all 1.3 million fallen soldiers, and find that the tightness of the marriage market along with negative income shocks generated by the scarcity of men induced many young single women and older widows to enter the labor force permanently after the war, especially in the industrial sector. These findings are robust to alternative empirical strategies, including an instrumental variables strategy based on idiosyncrasies generated by the recruitment process of the army. |
| Keywords: | female labor, labor supply, sex ratio, marriage market |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J22 N34 |
| Date: | 2017–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:77560&r=his |
| By: | Andrea Morrison; Ron Boschma |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the spatial evolution of the Italian motor cycle industry during the period 1893-1993. We find support for both the heritage theory of Klepper and the agglomeration thesis of Marshall. Indeed, being a spinoff company or an experienced firm enhanced the survival rates, but we also found a positive effect of being located in the Motor Valley cluster in Emilia Romagna. Interestingly, this beneficial effect of a cluster could not be found outside the Emilia Romagna region. This might indicate the importance of a favourable local institutional environment, as propagated by the Emilian district literature. |
| Keywords: | spinoff dynamics, agglomeration economies, clusters, industrial districts, Emilian model, evolutionary economic geography |
| JEL: | B15 B52 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1707&r=his |
| By: | Timo Teräsvirta (Aarhus University and CREATES, C.A.S.E., Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Clive Granger had a wide range of reseach interests and has worked in a number of areas. In this work the focus is on his contributions to nonlinear time series models and modelling. Granger's contributions to a few other aspects of nonlinearity are reviewed as well. JEL Classification: C22, C51, C52, C53 |
| Keywords: | cointegration, nonlinearity, nonstationarity, testing linearity |
| Date: | 2701 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2017-04&r=his |
| By: | José Díaz B.; Jeanne Gert Wagner |
| Abstract: | This paper reports sources and methods utilized when estimating Chilean gross investment and net capital stock of fixed assets between 1833 and 2010.Two types of assets are identified: (i)machinery and equipment and (ii)construction (total). The main source for machinery investments is imports and a price for such goods based on Chilean import structure and export data of providing countries. In the case of construction, we rely on public expenditure on infrastructure and indirect measures for private activity. From 1940 onwards all data is obtained from national accounts. Capital is generated applying the perpetual inventory method. Main findings are: (i)Chile starts from a quite low capital output ratio around 1830, (ii)in the second half of the 19th Century, and specially due to the expansion of construction, the economy reaches capital output ratios comparable with other countries, (iii)the relative importance of machinery and equipment in total investment starts at practically zero increasing along the 170 years, (iv)capital per laborer expands systematically but slowly. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:clabwp:26&r=his |
| By: | José Díaz B.; Constanza Gómez M.; Jeanne Gert Wagner |
| Abstract: | The aim of this working paper is twofold: first, to extend the series provided by Jofre, Lüders and Wagner (2000) until 2010 and second, check specific series in the light of additional information onthe subject. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ioe:clabwp:25&r=his |