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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2017‒04‒23
thirty papers chosen by |
| By: | Kevin H. O'Rourke |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys independent Ireland’s economic policies and performance. It has three main messages. First, the economic history of post-independence Ireland was not particularly unusual. Very often, things that were happening in Ireland were happening elsewhere as well. Second, for a long time we were hampered by an excessive dependence on a poorly performing UK economy. And third, EC membership in 1973, and the Single Market programme of the late 1980s and early 1990s, were absolutely crucial for us. Irish independence and EU membership have complemented each other, rather than being in conflict: each was required to give full effect to the other. Irish independence would not have worked as well for us as it did without the EU; and the EU would not have worked as well for us as it did without political independence. |
| Keywords: | Ireland; Economic history; Trade policies; Growth; Brexit |
| JEL: | N14 N74 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201620&r=his |
| By: | Batiz-lazo, Bernardo; del Angel, Gustavo |
| Abstract: | In this paper we discuss the emergence of the credit card in Mexico (1968) and Spain (1970) to document the importance of the institutional framework for the adoption and takeoff of this innovation in the system of payments. Our research compares the dissemination of a relatively homogeneous product in totally different environments and explains how this innovation was transformed from a technology with a closed system to a global network. With this we also seek to show some lessons in financial history to better understand contemporary phenomena, such as the adoption of innovations that are expected to be disruptive in the retail financial markets. |
| Keywords: | credit card, means of payment, banks, Mexico, Spain |
| JEL: | E5 L5 N0 N2 |
| Date: | 2016–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78004&r=his |
| By: | Gómez González, José Eduardo; Jaramillo Echeverri y, Juliana; Meisel Roca, Adolfo |
| Abstract: | In this document we present an analysis on the use of cash as well as debit and credit cards in Colombia, emphasizing the historical evolution of its use. We also discuss some factors that explain the high use of cash that persists in the country. Additionally, using the first Oportunidades Banking Demand Study (Estudio de Demanda de Banca de las Oportunidades, 2015), we carried out a Probit type exercise, which identifies that the demand for credit depends on the labor status, region, age and confidence in the system of each individual. On the other hand, the demand for deposit accounts depends on the area (rural / urban), income level, education level, belong to the SISBEN system and confidence in the individual's financial system. |
| Keywords: | cash, means of payment, probabilistic models, banks, Colombia |
| JEL: | D12 E4 L81 |
| Date: | 2016–07–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78005&r=his |
| By: | Effosse, Sabine |
| Abstract: | ¿Hasta qué punto el uso del cheque en Francia está inmerso en una cronología contradictoria en relación a su uso en otros países europeos? Ciertamente, mientras que la mayoría de los países europeos habían abandonado el uso del cheque, Francia todavía constituía una excepción: en 2014 un 60% de uso en Francia, frente al 3% en España. Sin embargo, pese a la extensa legislación y a la nacionalización del crédito en 1945, el uso del cheque permaneció a un nivel muy bajo durante medio siglo. A finales de la década de 1960, y principalmente a mediados de los setenta, se produjo un cambio decisivo. El uso del cheque estuvo fomentado por medidas que introducían el pago mensual de los salarios y la difusión de las cuentas bancarias. Con la liberalización del crédito, los bancos comerciales condujeron vigorosas campañas publicitarias hacia los hogares con especial énfasis en la clientela femenina. El cheque triunfó en Francia, libre de comisiones y muy ligado a la apertura de cuentas bancarias, mientras que la sociedad sin ese medio de pago empezaba a desarrollarse en otros países. Basándose en los grandes bancos y en los archivos del regulador, este artículo pone de manifiesto la paradoja cronológica francesa debida a la específica regulación del crédito y al tardío uso de los servicios bancarios por parte de los hogares. |
| Keywords: | sistema de pagos, cheque, bancos, hogares, Francia |
| JEL: | N0 N2 P0 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78003&r=his |
| By: | Bruce Sacerdote |
| Abstract: | Despite the large increase in U.S. income inequality, consumption for families at the 25th and 50th percentiles of income has grown steadily over the time period 1960-2015. The number of cars per household with below median income has doubled since 1980 and the number of bedrooms per household has grown 10 percent despite decreases in household size. The finding of zero growth in American real wages since the 1970s is driven in part by the choice of the CPI-U as the price deflator; small biases in any price deflator compound over long periods of time. Using a different deflator such as the Personal Consumption Expenditures index (PCE) yields modest growth in real wages and in median household incomes throughout the time period. Accounting for the Hamilton (1998) and Costa (2001) estimates of CPI bias yields estimated wage growth of 1 percent per year during 1975-2015. Meaningful growth in consumption for below median income families has occurred even in a prolonged period of increasing income inequality, increasing consumption inequality and a decreasing share of national income accruing to labor. |
| JEL: | D6 E2 E31 I3 J0 J3 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23292&r=his |
| By: | Angi Roesch; Bertrand Blancheton; Harald Schmidbauer |
| Abstract: | The goal of our study is to measure historical stock market connectedness in the network consisting of three stock markets, namely the USA, France, and Germany, in the period between WW 1 and WW 2. This casts further light on international economic links during an important phase of world history. The stock markets are represented by their respective stock market indices, dji (USA), cac40 (France), and "Aktienindex des Statistischen Reichsamtes" (Germany). While data for dji are available on a weekly basis, this is not the case for the other two indices. Therefore, in a first step, our methodology involves the consistent movement-preserving disaggregation of monthly to weekly returns in a procedure which uses weekly dji data as indicator and takes deviations of first and second differences into account. In a second step, weekly spillover matrices are computed based on fevds from VAR models. Finally, results are aggregated to monthly measures: a monthly spillover index of the network's connectedness, and monthly propagation values to assess each market's relative importance for the creation of volatility in the network. The contribution of shocks to the creation of volatility across the network can be investigated from an historical perspective. It appears that during the interwar period, national debates concerning fiscal or monetary policy monetary policy explain a large part of network volatility. For instance, in the 1920s German shocks created volatility across the network, and French shocks became important during the Poincaré Stabilization 1926-1928. |
| Keywords: | USA, France, Germany, Finance, Modeling: new developments |
| Date: | 2016–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:009007:9683&r=his |
| By: | André De Palma (ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan); Yorgos Papageorgiou (McMaster University [Hamilton, Ontario]) |
| Abstract: | We provide a bare–bones account concerning the circumstances that led to the emergence of the first permanent human settements, the spatial arrangement of such emerging settlement patterns on a linear world, and how the macro–morphology of those patterns reflected spatial interaction attributes of their inhabitants. |
| Keywords: | emergence of spatial order, cities, non-linear systems,Agglomeration economies, spatial stability |
| Date: | 2016–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01436106&r=his |
| By: | Igor Santos Tupy (Cedeplar-UFMG); Fernanda Faria Silva (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to analyze the economic resilience of Brazil’s semiarid region to the phenomenon of droughts. Specifically, the work proposal was to use Hirschman and Furtado analysis about economic development and the issues of droughts in Brazilian Northeast to build a notion of evolutionary resilience to droughts on the region. The paper focus on political and institutional aspects as determinants of the regional resilience by studying the governmental action against this environmental shock. It shows how this economy have become a vulnerable and few resistant system, non-able to learn and adapt from shocks, that is, a non-resilient regional economy. |
| Keywords: | Droughts; Brazil’s Semiarid; Celso Furtado; Albert Hirschman; Regional Resilience |
| JEL: | B31 O10 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td549&r=his |
| By: | Watzinger, Martin (University of Munich); Fackler, Thomas A. (University of Munich); Nagler, Markus (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We study the 1956 consent decree against the Bell System to investigate whether patents held by a dominant firm are harmful for innovation and if so, whether compulsory licensing can provide an effective remedy. The consent decree settled an antitrust lawsuit that charged Bell with having foreclosed the market for telecommunications equipment. The terms of the decree allowed Bell to remain a vertically integrated monopolist in the telecommunications industry, but as a remedy, Bell had to license all its existing patents royalty-free. Thus, the path-breaking technologies developed by the Bell Laboratories became freely available to all US companies. We show that in the first five years compulsory licensing increased follow-on innovation building on Bell patents by 17%. This effect is driven mainly by young and small companies. Yet, innovation increased only outside the telecommunications equipment industry. The lack of a positive innovation effect in the telecommunications industry suggests that market foreclosure impedes innovation and that compulsory licensing without structural remedies is ineffective in ending it. The increase of follow-on innovation by small and young companies is in line with the hypothesis that patents held by a dominant firm act as a barrier to entry for start-ups. We show that the removal of this barrier increased long-run U.S. innovation, corroborating historical accounts. |
| Keywords: | ; |
| JEL: | O30 O33 O34 K21 L40 |
| Date: | 2017–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:4&r=his |
| By: | Sandra Sequeira; Nathan Nunn; Nancy Qian |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of European immigration to the United States during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1920) on economic prosperity today. We exploit variation in the extent of immigration across counties arising from the interaction of fluctuations in aggregate immigrant flows and the gradual expansion of the railway network across the United States. We find that locations with more historical immigration today have higher incomes, less poverty, less unemployment, higher rates of urbanization, and greater educational attainment. The long-run effects appear to arise from the persistence of sizeable short-run benefits, including greater industrialization, increased agricultural productivity, and more innovation. |
| JEL: | N31 N32 N61 N62 N71 N72 N91 N92 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23289&r=his |
| By: | Johannes C. Buggle |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the historical origins of collectivist cultural norms and their longterm economic consequences. In its first part, I test the hypothesis that collectivism emerged historically in pre-industrial agricultural economies in which group effort was crucial for subsistence. I find a positive and significant association between the traditional use of irrigation - a production mode that required extensive collaboration and coordination within groups of farmers - and collectivist norms today. Instrumenting traditional irrigation by the environmental suitability for irrigated agriculture lead to similar results that point at a causal interpretation of the findings. I find that the effects persist in migrants, and investigate factors that hinder the transmission of collectivism. The second part of the paper shows that by affecting culture, past irrigated agriculture continues to influence contemporaneous innovation at the national and individual level. While irrigated agriculture is associated with greater technological progress in pre-modern societies, this relationship is reversed in the long-run. In addition, by favoring attitudes towards obedience, past irrigation also predicts patterns of job specialization and selection into routine-intensive jobs of countries and individuals. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture; Culture, Collectivism, Persistence, Innovation, Job Tasks |
| JEL: | N00 O10 O30 Z10 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:17.06&r=his |
| By: | Kanbur, Ravi (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the question of structural transformation and income distribution through the eyes of the pioneer in such analysis, Simon Kuznets. It argues that his 1955 paper stands the test of time in providing insights which are relevant to understanding current phenomena like the evolution of Chinese inequality. The paper shows how the Kuznetsian framework can be used, for example, in predicting the differential relationship between urbanization and inequality in India versus China, in assessing the detail of the contribution of sectoral mean and inequality evolution to overall inequality change, and in linking the recent inequality of opportunity literature to rural-urban migration. Thus the original Kuznets framework has the seeds of getting us beyond Kuznets as sometimes (mis)understood in the literature on structural transformation and income distribution. |
| Keywords: | Kuznets curve, inequality and development, rural-urban migration, Chinese inequality, place of birth and equality of opportunity |
| JEL: | O41 O14 D31 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10636&r=his |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | By the late 1960s, real effective taxation of income from individual firm ownership in Sweden approached 100 percent. A series of tax reforms initiated in the late 1970s reversed this situation. This paper has a threefold purpose: (1) to elucidate the thinking behind the vision of creating a largely market-based system without wealthy capitalists and how that vision guided the design of the tax system; (2) to outline and evaluate the numerous changes in the tax code made since the late 1970s, the empirical and intellectual basis of these changes, and the implications of these changes for the taxation of individual firm ownership; and (3) to compare the size of the largest individual wealth holdings in the mid-1960s to their equivalents in the 2010s and discuss in what sense and to what extent the general public’s views have changed regarding sizeable individual income streams and wealth derived from business activity. Today, the tax code favors already wealthy individuals. By contrast, high labor income taxation combined with a high valuation of existing assets renders wealth accumulation difficult for persons with no initial wealth. |
| Keywords: | Owner-level taxation; Entrepreneurship; Institutions; Sweden; Tax policy |
| JEL: | H20 H32 L26 N44 |
| Date: | 2017–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1164&r=his |
| By: | José-Ignacio Antón; Enrique FERNÁNDEZ-MACÍAS; Rafael MUÑOZ DE BUSTILLO |
| Abstract: | Using a recently developed aggregate indicator of job quality and three waves of the European Survey of Working Conditions (2000, 2005 and 2010) this paper explores the evolution job quality in the EU15 during the first decade of the 21st century, including the initial impact of the Great Recession. After a careful study of the evolution of job quality across the different dimensions and components of the proposed job quality index, differentiating between changes in the composition and changes in the means, we do not detect any major decline in job quality during the period, even during the early years of the economic crisis. The most significant change is a small increase in job quality in peripheral European countries, suggesting some convergence which may be undone in later years. We compare our findings with the conclusions of other authors and discuss several hypotheses for explaining the remarkable stability of job quality during such turbulent times. |
| Keywords: | job quality, working conditions, measurement, economic crisis, transformation of work, Europe. |
| JEL: | J00 J81 J82 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2015_09&r=his |
| By: | Andrey Yu. Vinogradov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Intrenational Postion of Christian Alania in the 10th Century |
| Keywords: | Alania, Caucasus, Byzantium, Abkhazia, Christianity, Khazars, church architecture |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:147/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Anna E. Afanasyeva (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A series of plague outbreaks that occurred in the Kazakh steppe between 1899 and 1910s, with several thousand people dead, made the region a focus of medical, state and public attention of the period. The epidemics initiated a wide-scale research on the ways of life and conditions of living of the local population, resulting in the largest amount of texts ever written on the Kazakh steppe. The region turned into an arena of cutting-edge medical research performed by the leading bacteriologists of Russia, whose findings played an important role in the development of plague epidemiology worldwide. This paper concentrates on both the scope of the measures undertaken by Russian medical administration to control the disease, and the range of explanatory theories produced by the doctors in their attempts to identify the cause of the recurrent epidemic and provide the means of its eradication. |
| Keywords: | Russian empire, epidemiology, anti-plague campaigns, medical administration, knowledge |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:145/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Harry X. Wu; Eric Girardin |
| Abstract: | The recent slowdown in Chinese growth is often viewed as a new (lower) growth normal. The prior three decades of catching-up-based accelerated growth would be followed by regression to the world mean growth (Prittchett and Summers, 2014). While other observers view this slowdown as a mere temporary deviation from the previous trend (Justin Lin) a consensus seems to exist on the persistence of accelerated growth during the previous three decades, as documented in official Chinese macroeconomic activity data. Increasing doubts have been raised on the reliability of such data in the most recent period (the slowdown would be much larger than officially reported) which make necessary to reassess the validity of the three-decade long episode of accelerated growth to determine if this was indeed China’s old normal. Second in order to account for the intermingling of trend and cycle (typical of emerging countries, Aguiar and Gopinah, 2007) we use a parametric regime-dependent approach to determine the timing and magnitude of growth phases. We find that contrary to conventional wisdom, accelerated catching-up industrial growth in China did not last thirty years after the reforms but started only with WTO entry in the early 2000s, and was twice shorter, but faster, than in Japan or South Korea. The ‘old’ normal (moderate) growth, typical of the 1980s and 1990s, resurfaced after 2010. |
| Keywords: | China in comparison with Japan and Korea, Business cycles, Growth |
| Date: | 2016–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:009007:9721&r=his |
| By: | Bruce Caldwell |
| Abstract: | The paper offers a number of vignettes surrounding Friedrich A. Hayek’s receipt of the Nobel Prize. It examines Hayek’s life before he got the prize, describes the events in Stockholm, and offers a summary of the main themes of his Prize Lecture. It then examines the subsequent impact on Hayek’s life and career. It concludes by looking at the impact of the Prize on scholarship about Hayek and the Austrian movement. |
| Keywords: | Friedrich A. Hayek; Nobel Prize; Gunnar Myrdal; pretence of knowledge; Austrian economics |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:65455&r=his |
| By: | Solon, Gary (University of Arizona) |
| Abstract: | Multigenerational mobility refers to the associations in socioeconomic status across three or more generations. This article begins by summarising the longstanding but recently growing empirical literature on multigenerational mobility. It then discusses multiple theoretical interpretations of the empirical patterns, including the one recently proposed in Gregory Clark's book The Son Also Rises. |
| Keywords: | multigenerational mobility |
| JEL: | D1 D31 D63 J62 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10623&r=his |
| By: | Gary, Kathryn (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper combines new archival data on women’s wages from southern Sweden with published series from Stockholm in order to create a series of early modern female construction workers’ wages between the middle of the sixteenth and middle of the eighteenth centuries. This paper finds that women had relatively high relative wages in the later part of the sixteenth century, with an increasing wage gap into the eighteenth century, and that the changes in women’s relative remuneration are connected to changes in demand factors. This paper challenges assumptions about women’s participation in manual labor, in many cases finding a lack of differentiation between female and male unskilled workers as well as and unskilled labor force comprised of from forty to sixty percent women and high work intensity for female construction workers. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap; wages; women; Scandinavia; Sweden; early modern period |
| JEL: | N33 N64 |
| Date: | 2017–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0158&r=his |
| By: | Alexander Dobrokhotov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The article is dedicated to the philosophical reaction offered by several Russian symbolists to the revolution of 1917. It demonstrates the “re-grouping” of the Silver Age Symbolism, which laid bare the underlying differences in its value foundations. The article considers this refracted unity in the ideational world of Symbolism in the journalistic writings of Vyach. Ivanov, Blok, and Bely |
| Keywords: | philosophy, revolution, Russian Symbolism, Vyach. Ivanov, Andrey Bely, A. Blok |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:148/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Volker Grossman; Thomas Steger |
| Abstract: | There are, by now, several long term, time series data sets on important housing & macro variables, such as land prices, house prices, and the housing wealth-to-income ratio. However, an appropriate theory that can be employed to think about such data and associated research questions has been lacking. We present a new housing & macro model that is designed specifically to analyze the long term. As an illustrative application, we demonstrate that the calibrated model replicates, with remarkable accuracy, the historical evolution of housing wealth (relative to income) after World War II and suggests a further considerable increase in the future. The model also accounts for the close connection of house prices to land prices in the data. We also compare our framework to the canonical housing & macro model, typically employed to analyze business cycles, and highlight the main differences. |
| Date: | 2017–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:17/80&r=his |
| By: | Laurie Bréban (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Economiques - UNIVERSITE PARIS 1 PANTHEON-SORBONNE - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Jean Dellemotte (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Economiques - UNIVERSITE PARIS 1 PANTHEON-SORBONNE - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on Sophie de Grouchy’s French translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759-1790), published in 1798 and praised, from the very moment of its publication. It aims at emphasizing Grouchy’s reading of Smith’s moral philosophy on some particular points as it might have influence her translation of the TMS. Indeed, one important aspect of Grouchy’s Lettres, which concerns their reevaluation of Smithian sympathy, has been usually ignored by commentators. Curiously, whereas most contributions deals with the Marchioness’ translation, there is scarce any comment on her reading of Smith’s analysis (on the notable exception of Forget 2001). Yet, this could help to explain the distances that she sometimes took with Smith original vocabulary in her translation. In order to fulfill our aim, we first discuss the main features of this translation in the light of what has been pointed out by scholars. Most commentators agree that, despite its particular respect for the original text, Grouchy’s translation is not completely literal (Biziou, Gautier and Pradeau 1999). However, we only partially share some existing interpretations of these modifications such as the one of Bernier (2010) or Britton (2009). Our interpretation relies on the critics that Grouchy addresses to Smith’s moral philosophy in her Lettres. This leads us, in a second time, to emphasizes major philosophical differences between both authors; differences that Grouchy unfortunately underestimate. The reason that we put to the fore is the following: Grouchy analyzes Smith’s thinking in the light of a philosophical framework inconsistent with his moral philosophy as it precisely corresponds to the kind of system that he criticizes. To conclude, we open the path to alternative interpretations of some Grouchy’s choices of translation. |
| Keywords: | Adam Smith, Sophie de Grouchy, Sympathy, Enlightenment |
| Date: | 2016–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01435828&r=his |
| By: | Béatrice Hibou (Centre de recherches internationales); Boris Samuel; Laurent Fourchard (Centre de recherches internationales) |
| Abstract: | This book, composed of articles first published in the journal Politique africaine, proposes an original interpretation of neoliberalism in Africa. Instead of seeing neoliberal reforms as intrinsically destructive of the post-colonial state, the authors, who include some of Africa’s best-known social scientists, focus on the resilience and adaptability of African state structures, economic systems, and social survival mechanisms and examine the diversity of responses to neoliberalism in what the editors call the “everyday politics of the state.” In essays that range from diverse theoretical or historical discussions to close studies of the dynamics of specific reforms in particular places, they argue against univocal interpretations of the effects of neoliberalism. They show that the African state, far from disappearing, is adapting and reconfiguring itself in fascinating new social realities “co-constructed” by state action as well as by the improvisations of communities and other private actors. (Publisher's abstract) |
| Keywords: | Africa; Neoliberalism; Reform |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/30kmq6u4m9e8p7sgquj5pscja&r=his |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Leopoldo Fergusson; Simon Johnson |
| Abstract: | Medical and public health innovations in the 1940s quickly resulted in significant health improvements around the world. Countries with initially higher mortality from infectious diseases experienced greater increases in life expectancy, population, and - over the following 40 years - social conflict. This result is robust across alternative measures of conflict and is not driven by differential trends between countries with varying baseline characteristics. At least during this time period, a faster increase in population made social conflict more likely, probably because it increased competition for scarce resources in low income countries. |
| JEL: | J01 O11 O15 Q56 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23322&r=his |
| By: | Nani Gelovani (Tbilisi State University, Georgia) |
| Abstract: | Nearly hundred years (1783-1878) lasted the process of integration of the Caucasus into Russia. Territory of the Caucasus was officially called the Caucasus region or Krai (Caucasus region was divided into the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasia), with its center in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, capital of Georgia). The Head of the Caucasus region was Viceroy (1844-1882, 1905-1917), in 1882-1905 - Vicegerent (namestnik) of civil part of the Caucasus. A third of Caucasian population represented Muslims, who tried to preserve their religious identity. They abstained from gaining an education at the state schools and restrained themselves only with a religious education. The Russian administration decided to take under its control an education for Muslims. The Viceroy of the Caucasus Mikhail Vorontsov (1844-1854) launched an initiative to establish Muslim schools, that would be state-approved education in Russian for Muslims. In 1847-1849 two schools were opened in Tiflis ? for Sunni (Muslim school of the Teachings of Umar) and for Shia Muslims (Muslim school for Aliev sect) where Russian language, arithmetic, history and geography were also taught. After 2 years more 6 schools were opened: two of them for Sunni in Derbend and Shemakha and for Shia Muslims in Baku, Shemakha, Shusha and Elizavetpol. In 1853 separate Caucasian Education District was created and subordinated to the Ministry of Education of Russian Empire along with the other districts. At that time there were 1917 Muslim schools (25742 pupils) in the Caucasian Education District. However, in Georgia only from 1882 the activity of the Muslim community began to open schools for Muslim girls.In the previous work, a history of Muslim women education and first schools in Tiflis will be discussed based on Georgian archives (Caucasus Islamic society in Georgian archives 1800-1917) relative to Caucasian Muslim community and protected materials in the periodical press. |
| Keywords: | Transcaucasia; Tiflis; Muslim women; education; school |
| JEL: | I29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:4707332&r=his |
| By: | Alina Bodrova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Kirill Zubkov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The study explores the narrative structure of Alexandr Nikitenko’s diary, one of the core sources for the history of Russian censorship, and on the role of the genre of anecdote in particular. Through an analysis of the ‘anecdotal’ entries about censorship in Nikitenko’s diary and their evolution (their number peaks during the years of Nicholas I’s reign, and plummets in the parts of the account dealing with Alexander II, particularly in the period of 1860-ies), the authors demonstrate the peculiarities of the ‘anecdotal’ frame in picturing the interactions between literary circles and censorship. The literary form of anecdote, whose strength is in picturing singular oddities and excesses, fails to account for the everyday quality of routine practices, the day-to-day modes of interaction between authors and censors, so that the ‘anecdotal’ narrative can only work as a segment of a more complex and multidimensional vision of how literary agency and censoring authorities interacted. |
| Keywords: | the history of censorship, Alexander Nikitenko, narrative forms and patterns, ego-documents |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:23/ls/2017&r=his |
| By: | De Simone, Lisa (Stanford University); Piotroski, Joseph D. (Stanford University); Tomy, Rimmy E. (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether anticipation of Congress enacting a reduction in repatriation taxes affects the amount of cash U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) hold overseas. Prior papers have focused on which U.S. MNCs repatriated foreign cash and how they deployed these funds following the repatriation tax holiday in 2004. We build on this literature and examine whether MNCs were willing to incur the costs of holding excess cash in response to anticipated but uncertain tax legislation. We find that U.S. MNCs most likely to benefit from this anticipated (yet not enacted) legislation began accumulating significant cash holdings once Congress initially proposed and began deliberating a second repatriation tax holiday. Further tests reveal that this cash accumulation was accompanied by two complementary activities designed to maximize expected tax benefits: tax-motivated income shifting and increases in permanently reinvested foreign earnings. The documentation of such preemptive behavior by corporations contributes to the literature on how firms respond to tax-induced incentives, provides a new explanation for the dramatic growth in cash holdings by U.S. MNCs over the last decade, and raises important questions about the long-run consequences of enacting temporary tax regulation. |
| JEL: | G30 G38 H25 M16 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:3507&r=his |
| By: | Andrey Yu. Vinogradov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The article is dedicated to the history of Christian Alania in the 10th century, including its Christianization in 914 and creation of the archbishopric. Narrative, sigillographic, epigraphic and archaeological sources are used. As result the history of Christian Alania in the 1st half of the 10th century is reconstructed |
| Keywords: | Alania, Caucasus, Byzantium, Abkhazia, Christianity, Khazars, church architecture |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:146/hum/2017&r=his |
| By: | Mongin, Philippe |
| Abstract: | Abstract: The paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it provides what appears to be the first game-theoretic modelling of Napoléon’s last campaign, which ended dramatically on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo. It is specifically concerned with the decision Napoléon made on 17 June 1815 to detach part of his army and send it against the Prussians, whom he had defeated, though not destroyed, on 16 June at Ligny. Military strategists and historians agree that this decision was crucial but disagree about whether it was rational. Hypothesizing a zero-sum game between Napoléon and Blücher, and computing its solution, we show that dividing his army could have been a cautious strategy on Napoléon’s part, a conclusion which runs counter to the charges of misjudgment commonly heard since Clausewitz. On the other hand, the paper addresses some methodological issues relative to “analytic narratives”. Some political scientists and economists who are both formally and historically minded have proposed to explain historical events in terms of properly mathematical game-theoretic models. We liken the present study to this “analytic narrative” methodology, which we defend against some of objections that it has aroused. Generalizing beyond the Waterloo case, we argue that military campaigns provide an especially good opportunity for testing this new methodology. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: Napoléon, Waterloo, military history, rational choice theories, game theory, zero-sum two-person games, analytical narrative |
| JEL: | B49 C72 N43 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78029&r=his |