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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2017‒11‒26
43 papers chosen by |
| By: | Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri (Banco de la República de Colombia); Adolfo Meisel-Roca; María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo (Banco de la República de Colombia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-term trends observed in the standard of living of the Colombian population during the past one hundred years, with special attention on health. We construct a historical index of human development for Colombia (HIHDC) for the 19th and 20th centuries by gender. We find that there were no major advances in living standards during the nineteenth century due to the stagnation of Colombia’s GDP per capita as a result of the lack of dynamism in exports. On the contrary, significant advances in all components of the HIHDC were seen in the twentieth century, especially those for women. During the first half of the century, improvements in the quality of life were mainly driven by a higher per capita income, while improvements after the 1950s were driven by greater public investment, for example, in education and health. Next, we analyze health achievements, considering health is one of the components of the HIHDC that has been less studied in the Colombian economic history literature. We construct a new dataset using statistics reported by the Colombian government, which included annual information on the main diseases and causes of mortality during the period of 1916-2014 disaggregated by territorial units. The data show that the percentage of deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal diseases decreased significantly throughout the century. On the contrary, deaths caused by cancer and heart diseases have increased considerably in recent decades. Results from difference-in-difference models show that the decline in the total mortality rate and in the mortality rate for waterborne diseases was largely related with the expansion in the provision of public goods, namely aqueducts and sewerage services. **** Este trabajo examina las tendencias a largo plazo observadas en el nivel de vida de la población colombiana durante los últimos cien años, con especial atención en la salud. Construimos un índice histórico de desarrollo humano para Colombia (IHDHC) para los siglos XIX y XX por género. Encontramos que no hubo avances importantes en los niveles de vida durante el siglo XIX debido principalmente al estancamiento del PIB per cápita de Colombia. Por el contrario, se observaron avances significativos en todos los componentes del IHDHC en el siglo XX, especialmente los de las mujeres. Durante la primera mitad del siglo, las mejoras en la calidad de vida se debieron principalmente a un mayor ingreso per cápita, mientras que las mejoras posteriores a la década de 1950 se debieron a una mayor inversión pública, por ejemplo, en educación y salud. A continuación, analizamos los logros de salud, considerando que la salud es uno de los componentes del IHDHC que ha sido menos estudiado en la literatura de historia económica colombiana. Construimos un nuevo conjunto de datos utilizando estadísticas reportadas por el gobierno colombiano, que incluyeron información anual sobre las principales enfermedades y causas de mortalidad durante el período de 1916-2014 desagregadas por departamentos. Los datos muestran que el porcentaje de muertes por tuberculosis, neumonía y enfermedades gastrointestinales disminuyó significativamente a lo largo del siglo. Por el contrario, las muertes causadas por cáncer y enfermedades del corazón han aumentado considerablemente en las últimas décadas. Los resultados de los modelos de diferencia en diferencias muestran que la disminución en la tasa de mortalidad total y en la tasa de mortalidad por enfermedades transmitidas por el agua estuvo relacionada en gran medida con la expansión en la provisión de servicios de acueductos y alcantarillado. Classification JEL: I00, I15, I18, N36, O10 |
| Keywords: | Human Development, Mortality, Waterborne Diseases, Sewerage, Aqueducts, Public Health, Difference in Difference **** Desarrollo Humano, Mortalidad, Enfermedades, Acueducto, Alcantarillado |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:1027&r=his |
| By: | O'Brien, Patrick |
| Abstract: | This revised and reconfigured essay surveys a range of printed secondary sources going back to publications of the day (as well as includes research in primary sources) in order to revive a traditional and unresolved debate on economic connexions between the French and Industrial Revolutions. It argues that the costs flowing from the reallocation of labour, capital and technical knowledge to wage warfare from 1793-1815 have been overstated in relation to a range of benefits that accrued from: crowding out a potential invasion by Napoleon’s armies; improvements to the skills and discipline of the workforce; the integration of Ireland into a national market; the accelerated diffusion of technologies associated with coal and iron; the circumvention of diminishing returns to agriculture and above all from a victory that provided the economy with a more efficient State, Navy and Merchant Marine that, for a century, retained most of the gains from trade and servicing the international economy obtained at the expense of rivals during these long wars with France. My conclusion is that the costs and benefits (derived from participation in a global war from 1793 to 1815, that was integral to the era’s geopolitical and mercantilist international economic order) cannot be measured. But in the context and history of that order it is difficult to represent their outcome as anything other than positive and significant for the consolidation and progress of Britain’s famous transition to become Europe’s First Industrial Nation. |
| Keywords: | industrial revolution; French revolution; revolutionary and Napoleonic wars; warfare and economic growth; fiscal states; sovereign debts; balance payments; naval hegemony; mercantilism; |
| JEL: | O52 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:82411&r=his |
| By: | Michael Bordo; Eric Monnet; Alain Naef |
| Abstract: | The Gold Pool (1961-1968) was one of the most ambitious cases of central bank cooperation in history. Major central banks pooled interventions – sharing profits and losses – to stabilize the dollar price of gold. Why did it collapse? From at least 1964, the fate of the Pool was in fact tied to sterling, the first line of defense for the dollar. Sterling’s unsuccessful devaluation in November 1967 spurred speculation and massive losses for the Pool. Contagion occurred because US policies were inflationary and insufficiently credible as well. The demise of the Pool provides a striking example of contagion between reserve currencies. |
| JEL: | E42 F31 F33 N14 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24016&r=his |
| By: | Arthur Brackmann Netto; Marcelo Milan |
| Abstract: | The existing connotation of models in economics emerged only in the XXth century, substituting the previous methodological terms: ‘scheme’, ‘diagram’ and ‘system’. This immature characteristic of economic models provokes important questions: when exactly and why schemes, diagrams, and systems became models? The purpose of the present paper is to look into the history of economic thought, searching for some explanations regarding these changes. The problem will be observed from a semantic point of view, reformulating a broad view of how the term was introduced. Considering this, the paper analyzes how the combination of cartesian and newtonian mathematics with psychological and empirical economics occurred, paving the way for the insertion of the term model into the jargon of economists in two different manners. The review shows that there were two semantic pioneers: Tinbergen (1935) and Von Neumann (1945). Both were the first economists to use the term ‘model’ for pure abstract reasoning in each of their respective methodologies. |
| Keywords: | Economic Models; Semantic; Tinbergen; Von Neumann |
| JEL: | B23 B31 |
| Date: | 2017–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon22&r=his |
| By: | Vasilios Plakandaras (Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); Mark E. Wohar (College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha USA, and School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University) |
| Abstract: | Breaking ground from all previous studies, we estimate a time-varying Vector Autoregression model that examines the time-period 1270-2016 - the entire economic history of the U.K. Focusing on permanent and transitory shocks in the economy, we study the fluctuation in conditional volatilities and time-varying long-run responses of output growth and inflation. Unlike all previous studies that use time invariant linear models, our approach reveals that the pre 1600 period is a turbulent economic period of high volatility that is only repeated in the 20th century. The repeating patterns in the conditional volatilities follow the approach of aggregate supply shocks, while most of the inflation responses follow from aggregate demand shocks. Thus, we uncover that despite the technological growth and the various changes in the structure of the U.K. economy in the last century, the recurring patterns call for an examination of the true impact of the various policies to the economy. |
| Keywords: | Time-Varying VAR, Macroeconomic Shocks |
| JEL: | C32 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201779&r=his |
| By: | Schneider, Eric B.; Ogasawara, Kota |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses how the disease environment in interwar Japan influenced children’s growth and health. The data is drawn from government records from 1929 to 1939 which report the average heights of boys and girls in school at each age (6-21) for each of Japan’s 47 prefectures. We test the influence of disease in two ways. First, we test the influence of the disease environment at birth, proxied by the infant mortality rate, on the cohort growth pattern of children using the SITAR model to parameterise the growth pattern. In addition, we use a bilateral-specific fixed effects model to understand how disease instantaneously influenced growth controlling for prefecture-birth cohort effects. Our results suggest that health conditions in early life did not have a strong influence on the growth pattern of children in Japan. However, we do find a significant and economically meaningful instantaneous effect of the infant mortality rate on child height at ages 6-11 for both boys and girls. This suggests that child morbidity was very important to the increase in stature during interwar Japan, but it also suggests that the emphasis placed on preventing child stunting in the first thousand days in the modern development literature may be misplaced. The secular increase in height in interwar Japan was more strongly influenced by cumulative responses to the health environment across child development rather than being simply the outcome of improving cohort health. |
| Keywords: | child growth; disease; health transition |
| JEL: | O53 N0 I1 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:84066&r=his |
| By: | Ulrike Steins (University of Bonn); Moritz Schularick (University of Bonn); Moritz Kuhn (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Income and wealth inequality in the United States are at historical highs. This paper introduces data from historical waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for the entire post-WW2 period from 1949 to 2013. The new data allow us to add important new aspects to the inequality debate. As the historical household surveys cover the entire balance sheet of households, we can study income and wealth inequality jointly. The data gives us a detailed picture of inequality trends among the bottom 90 %. We document a substantial hollowing out of the middle class as income and wealth concentration at the top was accompanied by losses concentrated in the middle of the distribution. For the first time we can directly contrast the evolution of income and wealth inequality. We show that the income inequality rose earlier and more strongly. We explain this finding by differences in household portfolios. The typical middle-class portfolio is both highly concentrated in housing and highly leveraged. Until the crisis, rising house prices compensated for relative income losses and the growing concentration of financial wealth at the top. Rising middle-class housing wealth gains mitigated the rise in wealth inequality relative to income inequality. The documented differential trends in the evolution of income and wealth inequality provide important information to discriminate between different sources of rising inequality in structural macroeconomic models. Our results highlight the importance of price effects and differences in portfolio composition to understand trends in wealth inequality. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:931&r=his |
| By: | Mike Anson; David Bholat Author-Name-First: David; Miao Kang; Ryland Thomas (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | We use daily transactional ledger data from the Bank of EnglandÕs Archive to test whether and to what extent the Bank of England during the mid-nineteenth century adhered to Walter BagehotÕs rule that a central bank in a financial crisis should lend cash freely at a high interest rate in exchange for ÔgoodÕ securities. The archival data we use provides granular, loan-level insight on the price and quantity of credit, and information on its distribution to particular counterparties. We find that the BankÕs behaviour during this period broadly conforms to BagehotÕs rule, though with variation across the crises of 1847, 1857 and 1866. Using a new, higher frequency series on the BankÕs balance sheet, we find that the Bank did lend freely, with the number of discounts and advances increasing during crises. These loans were typically granted at a rate above pre-crisis levels and, in 1857 and 1866, typically at a spread above Bank Rate, though we also find some instances in the daily discount ledgers where individual loans were made below Bank rate in 1847. Another set of customer ledgers shows that the securities the Bank purchased were debts owed by a geographically and industrially diverse set of debtors. And using new data on the BankÕs income and dividends, we find the Bank and its shareholders profited from lender of last resort operations. We conclude our paper by relating our findings to contemporary debates including those regarding the provision of emergency liquidity to shadow banks. |
| Keywords: | Bank of England, lender of last resort, financial crises, financial history, central banking |
| JEL: | E58 G01 G18 G20 H12 N2 N4 N8 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0117&r=his |
| By: | Wallis, Patrick; Colson, Justin; Chilosi, David |
| Abstract: | Structural transformation is a key indicator of economic development. We present the first time series of male labour sectoral shares for England and Wales before 1800, using a large sample of probate and apprenticeship data to produce national and county-level estimates. England experienced a rapid decline in the share of workers in agriculture between the early seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, associated with rising agricultural and especially industrial productivity; Wales saw few changes. Our results show that England experienced unusually early structural change and highlight the mid-seventeenth century as a turning point. |
| JEL: | N0 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2017–09–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:84510&r=his |
| By: | Melissa Dell; Benjamin A. Olken |
| Abstract: | Colonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the long-run, exerting countervailing effects. We examine these in the context of the Dutch Cultivation System, the integrated industrial and agricultural system for producing sugar that formed the core of the Dutch colonial enterprise in 19th century Java. We show that areas close to where the Dutch established sugar factories in the mid-19th century are today more industrialized, have better infrastructure, are more educated, and are richer than nearby counterfactual locations that would have been similarly suitable for colonial sugar factories. We also show, using a spatial regression discontinuity design on the catchment areas around each factory, that villages forced to grow sugar cane have more village owned land and also have more schools and substantially higher education levels, both historically and today. The results suggest that the economic structures implemented by colonizers to facilitate production can continue to promote economic activity in the long run, and we discuss the contexts where such effects are most likely to be important. |
| JEL: | N55 N65 N75 O53 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24009&r=his |
| By: | N. Gregory Mankiw (Department of Economics Harvard University); Ricardo Reis (Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); Economics Department London School of Economics (LSE)) |
| Abstract: | This essay discusses the role of Milton Friedman's presidential address to the American Economic Association, which was given half a century ago and helped set the stage for modern macroeconomics. We discuss where macroeconomics was before this address, what insights Friedman offered, where researchers and central bankers stand today on these issues, and (most speculatively) where we may be heading in the future. |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1732&r=his |
| By: | Bakker, Gerben; Crafts, Nicholas; Woltjer, Pieter |
| Abstract: | We develop new aggregate and sectoral Total Factor Productivity (TFP) estimates for the United States between 1899 and 1941 through better coverage of sectors and better-measured labor quality, and find TFPgrowth was lower than previously thought, broadly based across sectors, and strongly variant intertemporally. We then test and reject three prominent claims. First, the 1930s did not have the highest TFP-growth of the twentieth century. Second, TFP-growth was not predominantly caused by four ‘great inventions’. Third, TFPgrowth was not driven indirectly by spillovers from great inventions such as electricity. Instead, the creativedestruction-friendly American innovation system was the main productivity driver |
| Keywords: | productivity growth; total factor productivity; great inventions; spillovers; United States — history |
| JEL: | O51 N0 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:85081&r=his |
| By: | Aaberge, Rolf; Bourguignon, François; Brandolini, Andrea; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Gornick, Janet C.; Hills, John; Jäntti, Markus; Jenkins, Stephen P.; Micklewright, John; Marlier, Eric; Nolan, Brian; Picketty, Thomas; Radermacher, Walter J.; Smeeding, Timothy M.; Stern, Nicholas; Stiglitz, Joseph; Sutherland, Holly |
| Abstract: | Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and expertise, and he made contributions right across economics. His death on 1 January 2017 deprived the world of both an intellectual giant and a deeply committed public servant in the broadest sense of the term. This collective tribute highlights the range, depth and importance of Tony’s enormous legacy, the product of over fifty years’ work. |
| Keywords: | Anthony B. Atkinson; inequality; poverty; public economics |
| JEL: | N0 E6 |
| Date: | 2017–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83658&r=his |
| By: | Nuno Palma (University of Manchester) |
| Abstract: | PhD dissertation summary forthcoming at: European Review of Economic History |
| Keywords: | Early modern monetary injections, liquidity effects, monetary non- neutralities, historical money supply, economic growth |
| JEL: | E40 E50 N13 O40 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0116&r=his |
| By: | Accominotti, Olivier |
| Abstract: | In May-July 1931, a series of financial panics shook Central Europe before spreading to the rest of the world. This paper explores how the 1931 Central European crisis propagated to the London and New York financial centers; it also examines the role of cross-border banking linkages in international crisis transmission. Using archival bank-level data, I document US and British banks' asset-side exposure to the crisis region. The Continental crisis disturbed few US banks but endangered several British financial institutions and triggered severe stress in the London money market. Central European credits were mostly held by large and diversified commercial banks in the United States and by small and geographically specialized financial institutions in Britain. Differences in the market structure of the trade finance industry explain why the 1931 Central European crisis infected London banks but not New York banks. |
| Keywords: | international contagion; cross-border banking; trade finance; 1931 crisis |
| JEL: | N0 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2016–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:84581&r=his |
| By: | Markus Lampe (Vienna University of Economics and Business); Paul Sharp (University of Southern Denmark, CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We argue that Danish agriculture provides an ideal opportunity to understand how and why modern accounting emerged. Denmark underwent an unusually rapid and successful agricultural transformation in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely based on dairying, for which we present unique Ôreal timeÕ data on the process of the development of accounting. We observe that economic actors first argued for the introduction of modern accounting at a time of crisis during the Napoleonic Wars and immediately after, when the proscriptive arguments offered failed to take hold. Then, in the 1850s and 1860s, a group of Ôrational farmersÕÐ owners and administrators of landed estates Ð made a second attempt. During this latter period, they succeeded in spreading their ideas: initially to their peers, but later even to the peasantry through the cooperative movement, thus transforming agricultural practice in their wake. We analyze this within a theoretical framework borrowed from the international relations literature, and see the rational farmers as an example of the creation of an Ôepistemic communityÕ: they emerged during a period of uncertainty, offered interpretations based on their normative understanding of reality, and finally institutionalized praxis through for example scientific journals and schooling. |
| Keywords: | Accounting, bookkeeping, dairies, Denmark |
| JEL: | M41 N53 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0115&r=his |
| By: | O'Brien, Patrick |
| Keywords: | industrial revolution; great divergence; global economic history; China; agricultural development; overseas trade; external security; naval hegemony; mercantilism; warfare; taxation; national debt; technological innovation |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:84126&r=his |
| By: | Jose Manuel Aburto Flores (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Alyson A. van Raalte (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Central and Eastern Europe have experienced considerable instability in mortality since the 1960s. Long periods of stagnating life expectancy were followed by rapid increases in life expectancy and in some cases even more rapid declines before more recent periods of improvement. These trends have been well documented but to date, no study has comprehensively explored trends in lifespan variation. We improve such analyses by incorporating life disparity as a health indicator alongside life expectancy. We analyzed how lifespan variation has changed since the 1960s for 12 countries from the region and determined the ages which have contributed the most to the observed variability in age at death. Furthermore, we quantified the effect of mortality related to alcohol consumption on life disparity since 1994. Our results showed that life disparity was high and strongly fluctuating over the time period. Life expectancy and life disparity moved independently from one another, particularly during periods of life expectancy stagnation. Fluctuations in mortality were, to a large extent, directly or partially attributable to changes in alcohol consumption. These trends run counter to the common patterns observed in most developed countries and contribute to the life expectancy-disparity discussion by showing that expansion/compression levels do not necessarily mean lower/higher life expectancy or mortality deterioration/improvements. |
| Keywords: | Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, age at death, alcoholism, causes of death, differential mortality, inequality, life expectancy |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2017-018&r=his |
| By: | Matheus Assaf |
| Abstract: | Textbook narratives usually describe the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model of optimal growth as an important development over Solow’s model. The constant saving rate rule of the latter is replaced by an endogenous determination of savings rates based on utility maximization behaviour of the former. However, neither Tjalling Koopmans nor David Cass were trying to upgrade Robert Solow’s modelling of savings with their contributions. Koopmans was pushing for utilitarian analysis to study economic growth within the activity analysis community, with the help of Edmond Malinvaud. Cass and his colleagues at Stanford’s graduate program were exploring the multiple applications of the maximum principle on economic growth models, influenced mostly by Hirofumi Uzawa. When the group of Stanford students graduated and moved to different departments, Karl Shell brought his interest on optimal growth and technical progress to the MIT. There, he organized a conference in 1965-66 that united his Stanford colleagues and MIT young scholars to discuss optimal growth theory. The conference represented the formation of a scientific community that consolidated optimal growth theory in the second half of the 1960 decade. The link between optimal growth theory and Solow’s model was consolidated by this community of young students. Most of them were advised by Solow. This paper plans to shed some light on the importance of the MIT in the history of optimal growth theory and to show how the standard textbook narrative is a MIT-only story. |
| Keywords: | Optimal growth; History of Economic Thought; David Cass; Robert Solow. |
| JEL: | B22 B23 B29 |
| Date: | 2017–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon20&r=his |
| By: | Christian Lumpe (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen); Claudia Lumpe (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the oversea emigration of German passengers via the port of Bremen in the period of the Weimar Republic (1920–1932). We use a novel micro-dataset of digitalized passengers lists including about 181,000 emigrants as an estimation of the outflow of Germans from the German Reich. The descriptive analysis shows that the dataset is overall representative compared to official statistics except for the years 1924 and 1929 in which the data loss is huge. Furthermore, we deduce the skill level of the emigrating working population on the basis of information about occupations in the dataset. We find that male migrants had higher skills than female migrants and that South American countries attracted a relatively better skill distribution than the United States although the latter represented the main destination country for emigrants of any skill level in absolute numbers. |
| Keywords: | Bremen, migration accounting, migratory outflows, skill level |
| JEL: | F22 N33 N34 O15 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201753&r=his |
| By: | Kukić, Leonard |
| Abstract: | Beyond the recent past, and beyond the Soviet Union, we know little about the performance of Eastern European economies. This paper fills the knowledge void by analyzing socialist Yugoslavia using a diagnostic tool that identifies the mechanisms that drive economic growth - business cycle accounting. The analysis provides novel findings. During the “Golden Age" of economic growth, total factor productivity became gradually more important in sustaining economic growth. Distorted labour incentives were a major constraint on growth since the mid-1960s, and explain the slowdown of the economy during the 1980s. Socialist growth was primarily handicapped by poor incentives to work, rather than by poor incentives to innovate or to imitate. In an attempt to liberalise the economy, economic power was delegated to the labour-managed firms. These firms were maximising income per worker, which I hypothesise hindered the ability of Yugoslavs to work. |
| Keywords: | economic growth; economic history; Yugoslavia; socialism |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:85079&r=his |
| By: | Michael França; Eduardo Haddad |
| Abstract: | There is a growing literature linking fertility and development. In certain contexts, fertility may become an important mechanism to enhance intergenerational propagation of socioeconomic inequalities. In this paper, we sought to explore the evidence provided by Ferrara, Chong, and Duryea (2012) that soap operas had a significant impact on women’s fertility and used the variation of the time of the entry of the Globo Network in different areas to test whether the impact generated on fertility had some repercussion in the evolution of income inequality in Brazil. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Inequality; Gini; Theil. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 L82 O15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon30&r=his |
| By: | James Bessen; Alessandro Nuvolari |
| Abstract: | The diffusion of innovations is supposed to dissipate inventors' rents. Yet in many documented cases, inventors freely shared knowledge with their competitors. Using a model and case studies, this paper explores why sharing did not eliminate inventors' incentives. Each new technology coexisted with an alternative for one or more decades. This allowed inventors to earn rents while sharing knowledge, attaining major productivity gains. The technology diffusion literature suggests that such circumstances are common during the early stages of a new technology. |
| Keywords: | technological change, technology diffusion, knowledge sharing, collective invention, patents |
| Date: | 2017–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2017/28&r=his |
| By: | Carmona Pidal, Juan Antonio; Simpson, James |
| Abstract: | Spanish farm cooperatives were limited in number and performed poorly before the Civil War. Rather than a lack of trust and social capital, this paper advances two alternative arguments. First, cooperatives often failed to offer the optimal level of scale to farmers for their day-to-day activities. In some case cooperatives were too large, which encouraged more informal forms of organization. When they were too small, greater scale could only be obtained by integrating cooperatives into federations. These required top-down support, which was provided in many European countries by landowners and the Church, as a result of competitive politics, that required them to build mass parties and organize small farmers politically. By contrast in Spain this was not forthcoming, as the Restoration political settlement (1876-1923) removed the need for party competition, and consequently left the needs of small farmers unattended. Only in Cataluña, and to a lesser extent Valencia, did regional party politics create these necessary conditions. |
| Keywords: | Catholic Church; Rural elites; Spanish agriculture; Farm cooperatives; Social capital |
| JEL: | N54 N24 N23 H41 |
| Date: | 2017–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:25803&r=his |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | I analyze the adult age at death of 115,650 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violent deaths from battle contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect other changes in individual behavior. There are historic spatial contours to European elite mortality; Northwest Europe achieved greater adult lifespans than the rest of Europe even by 1000 ad. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–06–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83576&r=his |
| By: | Stephanie Campbell (Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne); Lars Coenen (Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | It is often assumed that a transition to a low-carbon future will have highly disruptive and potentially devastating effects on coal regions and their communities. However, evidence from the experience of industrial decline and attempted renewal in Europe’s old industrial regions demonstrates that successful regional transition is—while not inevitable—indeed possible. Fundamental transformation of existing industrial, institutional, social and technological structures is not an easy nor straightforward process but fraught with the challenges of creative destruction: while new industrial activities and structures emerge, existing ones are broken down. Drawing on the literature of regional resilience and innovation, the paper offers lessons, insights and cautionary warnings from the experience of renewal initiatives in Europe’s old industrial regions and illustrates the ways in which some of the seeds for a ‘just’ regional transitions to zero-carbon economies may, in fact, lie in a careful understanding of the potential to build on the specific historical context of the regions industrial development and capabilities. |
| Keywords: | coal transition, old industrial regions, regional development, regional innovation |
| JEL: | O38 R11 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:ccepwp:1709&r=his |
| By: | Angel De la Fuente |
| Abstract: | En el presente trabajo se completa la construccion de una base de datos de renta y empleo regional que cubre el periodo 1955-2014. En el se construyen, en particular, series homogeneas de ocupados, puestos de trabajo y ocupados asalariados, remuneracion de asalariados y rentas totales del trabajo para 1955-2014 y series mas cortas de otras variables de empleo. |
| Keywords: | Documento de Trabajo , Analisis Regional , Analisis Macroeconomico , España |
| JEL: | E01 R1 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbv:wpaper:1722&r=his |
| By: | Bryan Stuart (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-run effects of the 1980-1982 recession on education and income. Using confidential Census data, I estimate difference-in-differences regressions that exploit variation across counties in recession severity and across cohorts in age at the time of the recession. For individuals age 0-10 in 1979, a 10 percent decrease in earnings per capita in their county of birth reduces four-year college degree attainment by 9 percent and income in adulthood by 3 percent. Simple calculations suggest that, in aggregate, the 1980-1982 recession led to 1-3 million fewer college graduates and $64-$145 billion less earned income per year. |
| Keywords: | human capital, education, income, recessions |
| JEL: | E32 I20 I30 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2017-25&r=his |
| By: | AlShehabi, Omar |
| Abstract: | This paper traces the historical evolution of the transparency, independence and accountability of public revenues and expenditures in each of the GCC countries. Beginning with the discovery of oil in 1932, specific focus is placed on that part of oil revenues that are treated as undisclosed allocations, including military expenditures, overseas transfers and royal allowances. It argues that with the exception of Kuwait, there is strong evidence to suggest that significant amount of oil revenues are undeclared, which go either into private hands or into undisclosed government transactions. |
| JEL: | N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2017–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:84521&r=his |
| By: | Schalk, Ruben; Wallis, Patrick; Crowston, Clare; Lemercier, Claire |
| Abstract: | Pre-industrial apprenticeship is often considered more stable than its nineteenth- and twentieth-century counterparts, apparently because of the more durable relationships between masters and apprentices. Nevertheless, recent studies have suggested that many of those who started apprenticeships did not finish them. New evidence about more than 7,000 contracts across several cities in three countries finds that, for a number of reasons, a substantial minority of youths entering apprenticeship contracts failed to complete them. By allowing premature exits, cities and guilds sustained labor markets by lowering the risks of entering long training contracts. Training flexibility was a pragmatic response to labor-market tensions. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:84555&r=his |
| By: | Kukić, Leonard |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the patterns of regional growth and development in Yugoslavia, under the most decentralised socialist system that ever existed. My analysis reveals that despite government efforts to the contrary, socialist economic development in Yugoslavia resulted in divergence rather than in convergence between the constituent regions. I find that regional income divergence was caused by the failure of the less developed regions to converge towards the employment rates and total factor productivities of the more developed regions. I interpret these failures as symptoms of a single underlying problem: a capital intensity bias inherent to the governing objective of labour-managed firms. Socialist Yugoslavia moved from having one central plan, to having many mutually competitive plans. While on aggregate this may have created a net positive productivity outcome compared to other socialist economies, it created unique distortions. The decentralisation policies were implemented with the aim of enhancing regional cohesion and social stability. They led, however, to exactly opposite outcomes |
| Keywords: | economic growth; regional development; economic history: Yugoslavia; socialism |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:85078&r=his |
| By: | Hannah, Leslie |
| Abstract: | Newly-assembled datasets on the size and composition of the London Stock Exchange present some results contradicting conventional wisdom. A forensic examination of one study of corporate equities in the Investor’s Monthly Manual between 1869 and 1929 suggests both idiosyncratic mistakes and generic biases which users of this source need to consider. |
| Keywords: | London Stock Exchange; provincial exchanges; junior market; Investor's Monthly Manual; securities; equities; Walter Bagehot |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:82404&r=his |
| By: | Dyson, Tim; Cetorelli, Valeria |
| Abstract: | In August 1990, Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait and consequently the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. In 1991, an international military alliance expelled the Iraqi army from Kuwait during a short war. Nevertheless, the economic sanctions remained in place—their removal required that Iraq should destroy its weapons of mass destruction. Subsequent years saw reports of acute suffering in Iraq. The sanctions undoubtedly greatly reduced the country’s ability to import supplies of food and medicine. Particular concerns arose about the state of young children. These concerns crystalised in 1999 when, with cooperation from the Iraqi government, Unicef conducted a major demographic survey. The results of the survey indicated that the under-5 death rate in Iraq had increased hugely between 1990 and 1991 and had then continued at a very high level. The survey results were used both to challenge and support the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And they were cited by Tony Blair in 2010 in his testimony to the Iraq Inquiry established by the British government. Indeed, the results of the 1999 Unicef/Government of Iraq survey are still cited. Since 2003, however, several more surveys dealing with child mortality have been undertaken. Their results show no sign of a huge and enduring rise in the under-5 death rate starting in 1991. It is therefore clear that Saddam Hussein’s government successfully manipulated the 1999 survey in order to convey a very false impression—something that is surely deserving of greater recognition. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:73136&r=his |
| By: | Arthur Brackmann Netto |
| Abstract: | Starting on the 1950s, the philosophy of science rearranged its methods. Logic gradually lost space as philosophers’ exclusive tool of analysis, whereas case-studies and historical methods emerged as viable instruments. However, the methodological transposition concealed a double-edged knife. The approximation of philosophy and scientific practice happened at the expense of exponentially widening the list of possible philosophical definitions for scientific concepts, creating numerous incomparable explanations. The present paper thus advocates in favor of the use of more objective tools for defining scientific concepts, looking to reduce incomparability of definitions. From this point of view, framing proposals are presented as suitable mechanisms for reasoned definitions, given that frames’ exemplar-dependency entail the necessity of organized selections of case-studies. In this context, community targeting understood as a limit of time and discipline for the selections of case-studies stood out as an organizational criterion. Considering this criterion, the present paper selected as case-studies, for defining the concept of an economic model, the first two cases where the term ‘model’ was utilized for referring to abstract economic reasoning. The proposed frame presented the following attributes: mathematical structure, adaptability, simplification, neutrality and purpose. |
| Keywords: | Frames; Economic Models; Case-Studies; Conceptual Pragmatism; Models |
| JEL: | B23 B31 B40 |
| Date: | 2017–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon21&r=his |
| By: | Maurer, Stephan E. |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether the German National Socialists used economic policies to reward their voters after coming to power in 1933. Using newly-collected data on public employment from the German censuses in 1925, 1933, and 1939 and addressing the potential endogeneity of the NSDAP vote share in 1933 by way of an instrumental variables strategy based on a similar party in Imperial Germany, I find that cities with higher NSDAP vote shares experienced a relative increase in public employment: for every additional percentage point in the vote share, the number of public employment jobs increased by around 2.5 percent. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–07–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83589&r=his |
| By: | Mansell, Robin |
| Abstract: | Handbook on the Economics of the Internet Bauer Johannes M & Latzer Michael (eds) Handbook on the Economics of the Internet, Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham and Northampton, MA, 2016; 590 pp.: £205.00. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:69391&r=his |
| By: | Gaston Navarro (Federal Reserve Board); Axelle Ferriere (European University Institute); Daniel Feenberg (NBER) |
| Abstract: | We provide a statistical description of the evolution of tax progressivity and income inequality in the U.S. for the period 1960-2008, using tax revenue data. We document a large and steady increase of tax progressivity over our sample, with brief exceptions during the early 1980’s and early 2000’s. We provide flexible – parametric and non-parametric – yearly estimates of the tax distribution. We then use a canonical heterogeneous households model (Aiyagari, 1994) to compare the optimal tax progressivity to the current U.S. tax system. Our findings are threefold. First, under the joint assumptions of a linear capital capital tax and an intensive labor supply choice, the optimal progressivity is very close to the one measured in the data. However, if the labor supply choice is on the extensive margin only, optimal tax progressivity is much larger than in the data. Third, preliminary results suggest that the optimal tax system should allow for a non-zero cross-term between capital and labor income taxes: there are welfare gains in allowing the marginal capital tax rate to be increasing in labor income. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:989&r=his |
| By: | Aidt, T.; Leon, G.; Satchell, M. |
| Abstract: | Social unrest often erupts suddenly and diffuses quickly. What drives people to overcome their collective action problem and join a riot or protest, turning what is initially a small event into a widespread movement? We address this question by examining the Swing riots of 1830-31. The communication constraints of the time induced spatio-temporal variation in exposure to news about the uprising, allowing us to estimate the role of contagion in the spread of the riots. We find that local (rather than national) sources of information were central in driving contagion, and that this contagion magnified the impact that social and economic fundamentals had on riots by a factor of 2.65. Our historical data allow us to overcome a number of econometric challenges, but the Swing riots are of independent interest as well: they contributed to the passage of the Great Reform Act, a key step in Britain's institutional development. |
| Keywords: | Riots, diffusion, conflict, contagion, Captain Swing. |
| JEL: | D72 D74 O16 |
| Date: | 2017–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1751&r=his |
| By: | Evan Taylor (University of Chicago); Bryan Stuart (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effect of social connectedness on crime across U.S. cities from 1960- 2009. Migration networks among African Americans from the South generated variation across destinations in the concentration of migrants from the same birth town. Using this novel source of variation, we find that social connectedness considerably reduces murders, robberies, assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts, with a one standard deviation increase in social connectedness reducing murders by 13 percent and motor vehicle thefts by 9 percent. Our results appear to be driven by stronger relationships among older generations reducing crime committed by youth. |
| Keywords: | crime, social connectedness, Great Migration |
| JEL: | K42 N32 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2017-24&r=his |
| By: | Goodhart, Charles; Lastra, Rosa |
| Abstract: | The consensus that surrounded the granting of central bank independence in the pursuit of a price stability oriented monetary policy has been challenged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, in the light of the rise of populism on the one hand and the expanded mandates of central banks on the other hand. After considering the economic case for independence and the three Ds (distributional, directional and duration effects), the paper examines three different dimensions in the debate of how the rise in populism - or simply general discontent with the status quo - affects central bank independence. Finally, the paper examines how to interpret the legality of central bank mandates, and whether or not central banks have exceeded their powers. This analysis leads us in turn to consider accountability and, in particular, the judicial review of central bank actions and decisions. It is important to have in place adequate mechanisms to ‘guard the guardians’ of monetary and financial stability. |
| Keywords: | central bank independence; populism; mandates; accountability; legitimacy; Judicial Review |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2017–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:85159&r=his |
| By: | Patrick Kanda (Laboratoire THeorie Economique, Modelisation et Applications (THEMA), Universite de Cergy-Pontoise, France); Michael Burke (Modelling and Digital Science, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | We analyse the dynamics of the causal interaction between the stock and foreign exchange markets for the United Kingdom using monthly data going as far back as 1791. First, we consider static causality tests, yielding mixed results. Given the evidence of structural breaks in the relationship between equity and currency returns, we use next the Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heterosckedasticity time-varying tests for Granger causality. The time-varying testing strategy we implement allows us to detect whether any causal relationship exists at each point in time between stock price and exchange rates returns. We find overwhelming evidence of time-varying information spillovers between the equity and currency returns. We check the robustness of our findings by running the entire battery of tests for two emerging market economies, namely, India and South Africa starting in 1920 and 1910 respectively. On the whole, the United Kingdom results are comparable to those in India and South Africa. As such, our results encompass the fragmented findings from our static tests as well as those in the extant literature. |
| Keywords: | Time-varying Granger causality, equity returns, currency returns |
| JEL: | C12 C18 C32 F31 G15 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201778&r=his |
| By: | Yves Jégourel |
| Abstract: | Traiter de la dynamique du prix des matières premières impose de caractériser trois phénomènes auxquels ils sont soumis : les tendances de (très) long terme, les cycles de moyen/long terme et la variabilité/volatilité à court terme (Jacks, 2013). Influençant fortement les économies des pays exportateurs, chacun d’entre eux appelle à la mise en œuvre de stratégies spécifiques, notamment en termes de politiques publiques. Ainsi, alors que la volatilité interroge sur la disponibilité des outils de couverture et sur les techniques financières permettant de les utiliser efficacement, la cyclicité des cours des produits de base appelle à la définition de politiques de stabilisation visant, notamment, à assurer la continuité de la politique budgétaire. La question des tendances de long-terme que suivent les matières premières considérées individuellement ou dans leur globalité est probablement plus fondamentale encore. Faisant en large partie référence à l’hypothèse de Prebisch-Singer formulée dans les années 1950, elle pose en effet la question de la pertinence d’une spécialisation sectorielle sur les matières premières et, consécutivement, des moyens éventuels à engager pour assurer la diversification économique des pays producteurs de matières premières. Actant de l’importance des travaux scientifiques portant sur cette hypothèse, ce policy brief rappelle dans un premier temps quels en sont les fondements théoriques et idéologiques avant d’évoquer succinctement les conclusions des principaux travaux empiriques qui s’y rattachent. Nous précisons dans un dernier temps les questions qu’ils soulèvent et proposons quelques pistes de recherche qui, nous l’espérons, permettraient de contribuer utilement au débat public relatif à la spécialisation des économies exportatrices de matières premières. |
| Keywords: | matières premières, cyclicité, Prebisch-Singer, prix, volatilité |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:ppaper:pb-1732&r=his |
| By: | Michel GARENNE (Institut Pasteur) |
| Abstract: | L’étude présente divers cas d’impacts démographiques et sanitaires des grandes crises économiques, politiques, épidémiologiques et climatiques qui se sont produites en Afrique sub-Saharienne depuis 1960. Les paramètres étudiés sont la mortalité de l’enfant, la fécondité des femmes, l’urbanisation, le niveau d’instruction des adultes, la nuptialité, et la taille adulte des femmes. Les données proviennent pour l’essentiel des enquêtes démographiques et sanitaires (DHS surveys). L’approche est une perspective historique, et les évolutions africaines sont replacées dans le cadre des évolutions correspondantes de l’Europe au 19ème et 20ème siècle. Les diverses crises africaines, très particulières, ont en effet induit des inversions de tendance des paramètres étudiés: hausse inattendue de la mortalité (11 pays), baisse inattendue de la fécondité (2 pays), perturbations de l’urbanisation (2 pays), baisse du niveau d’instruction (2 pays), et baisse de l’âge au mariage (2 pays). Certains pays en crise sévère ont cumulé les handicaps, en particulier Madagascar, le Rwanda, et la Zambie. Pour ce qui concerne l’anthropométrie, c’est la majorité des pays qui ont été touchés par la réduction de la taille des adultes, hormis les pays les plus riches d’Afrique australe et les pays du Sahel moins vulnérables à ce risque. Pour ce qui concerne la nuptialité, il convient d’ajouter les énormes changements qui se sont produits ces dernières décennies en Afrique australe, dus à une profonde crise sociale. |
| Keywords: | Crise économique, Recession, Crise politique, Epidémie, Changement climatique, Choc externe, Resilience, VIH/sida, Urbanisation, Niveau d’instruction, Mortalité, Fécondité, Age au mariage, Anthropométrie, Taille adulte |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fdi:wpaper:3893&r=his |