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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒01‒01
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Giulia Mancini |
| Abstract: | The economic history of women in Italy is still very much in its infancy. Not only there are few quantitative historical interpretations that explicitly include women, but there is also close to no evidence on many key variables describing women’s evolving economic role, wellbeing, and inequality relative to men throughout the country’s history. This paper takes the first step toward filling this gap: it builds a new time series of female labor force participation for post-Unification Italy, that adjusts census-based estimates using both aggregate and micro-data from alternative sources, including historical household budget surveys. Women’s work before the Second World War was more pervasive than previously thought, and female labor supply has a decidedly asymmetric U-shape throughout Italy’s history. These findings prompt new questions on the consequences of economic development on women’s wellbeing in Italy. |
| Keywords: | female work, gender, historical household budgets, INEA, Italy, labor force participation, marriage records |
| JEL: | J16 N22 N34 |
| Date: | 2017–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:8&r=his |
| By: | Michael Bordo; Robert N McCauley |
| Abstract: | Triffin gained enormous influence by reviving the interwar story that gold scarcity threatened deflation. In particular, he held that central banks needed to accumulate claims on the United States to back money growth. But the claims would eventually surpass the US gold stock and then central banks would inevitably stage a run on it. He feared that the resulting high US interest rates would cause global deflation. However, we show that the US gold position after WWII was no worse than the UK position in 1900. Yet it took WWI to break sterling's gold link. And better and feasible US policies could have kept Bretton Woods going. This history serves as a backdrop to our critical review of two later extensions of Triffin. One holds that the dollar's reserve role required US current account deficits. This current account Triffin is popular, but anachronistic, and flawed in logic and fact. Nevertheless, it pops up in debates over the euro's and the renminbi's reserve roles. A fiscal Triffin holds that global demand for safe assets will either remain dangerously unsatisfied, or force excessive US fiscal debt. Less flawed, this story posits implausibly inflexible demand for and supply of safe assets. Thus, these stories do not convince in their own terms. Moreover, each lacks Triffin's clear cross-over point from a stable system to an unstable one. Triffin's seeming predictive success leads economists to wrap his brand around dissimilar stories. Yet Triffin's dilemma in its most general form correctly points to the conflicts and difficulties that arise when a national currency plays a role as an international public good. |
| Keywords: | Triffin dilemma, foreign exchange reserves, gold, US current account, safe assets, world's banker |
| JEL: | F32 F33 F34 F41 H63 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:684&r=his |
| By: | Farquet, Christophe |
| Abstract: | Based on original sources from national and international organizations archives, this paper offers a new perspective on debates on tax evasion in multilateral arenas during the whole 20th Century. A closer look at the cycles of emergence and disappearance of this topic enables to understand why these discussions were raised inside international organizations and why they constantly failed. This paper focuses in particular on the foundation of tax multilateralism at the League of Nations (1922-1928) and the early activities of the OEEC Fiscal Committee (1956-1963), as well as on OECD efforts to increase international cooperation against tax evasion practices from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. In three cases, multilateral initiatives against tax evasion faced unyielding opposition by business interests and tax haven countries such as Switzerland. However, in order to explain the failure of the regulations, we have also to take into account the interests of big countries in maintaining offshore activities. Ultimately, the paper demonstrates how international organizations served as multipliers for dominant power relations on issues of international taxation. |
| Keywords: | History, Taxation, Tax havens, Switzerland, International organizations, OECD |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:88348&r=his |
| By: | Nicolas Vallois (CRIISEA - Centre de Recherche sur l'Industrie, les Institutions et les Systèmes Economiques d'Amiens - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne); Dorian Jullien (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | Experimental economists increasingly apply econometric techniques to interpret their data, as suggests the emergence of " experimetrics " in the 2000s. Yet statistics remains a minor topic in historical and methodological writings on experimental economics (EE). This article aims to address this lacuna. To do so, we analyze the use of statistical tools in EE from early economics experiments of the 1940s-1950s to the present days. Our narrative is based on qualitative analysis of papers published in early periods and quantitative analysis of papers published in more recent periods. Our results reveal a significant change in EE' statistical methods, namely an evolution from purely descriptive methods to more sophisticated and standardized techniques. We also highlight that, despite the decisive role played by statistics in the way EE estimate the rationality of individuals or markets, statistics are still considered as involving non-methodological issues, i.e., as involving only purely technical issues. Our historical analysis shows that this technical conception was the result of a long-run evolution of the process of scientific legitimization of EE, which allowed experimental economists to escape from psychologist's more reflexive culture toward statistics. |
| Keywords: | Experimental Economics, Statistics, Econometrics, History of Economic Thought, Methodology |
| Date: | 2017–11–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01651070&r=his |
| By: | Rochat, Jean |
| Abstract: | The corporation (société anonyme) first appeared in French law in the code de commerce promulgated in 1807. Until 1863-1867, a special authorization granted by the government was needed for any creation of a SA. The literature generally emphasizes the importance of these two dates: the first one as the birth of a fundamental institution for the development of industrial capitalism; the second one as the triumph of private capitalism over the state and the liberalization of the SA. This paper challenges this narrative and shows that these changes in formal law were in reality vehicles for the continuity of practices. On the contrary, the stability of the law between 1807 and 1867 disguises radical change in the meaning of the SA. More generally, this paper highlights the importance of the actors' interpretation of the institutions they activate and, consequently, the limits of the approaches that are limited to observing the formal characteristics of the institutions. |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:90196&r=his |
| By: | Maravall Buckwalter, Laura |
| Abstract: | The adaptation of crops, agricultural techniques, and farm size to the new environments ushered in by colonialism help identify the sources of long-term development. This paper is a simplified approach to this adaptation process. It analyzes the relative factor endowments (land and labor) based on the timing of settlement to study the regional differences in the adoption of improved agricultural techniques in Constantine at the beginning of the 1900s. During the colonial years, the Algerian farming system diverged into large estates reliant on indigenous wage labor and sharecropping. As fertile land became increasingly scarce, the ability to participate in the grain export market depended on the capability of engaging in new and non-labor saving agricultural techniques. The results demonstrate that innovation in cash-crop production depended on the abundance of indigenous labor but also required a significant capital investment to offset the worse land quality. Thus, access constraints to agricultural advancement help explain the Algerian origins of colonial land inequality and the failure of colonial institutions to create a small-peasant settler economy. |
| Keywords: | North Africa; Land Use; Land Ownership and Tenure; Adaptation; Technological Change; Economic Development; Agriculture |
| JEL: | Q16 Q15 O1 N5 |
| Date: | 2017–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:26085&r=his |
| By: | Hoadley, Mason (Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University); Hatti, Neelambar (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Studies of relations binding ruled and ruler over the form and content of revenue assessment during the colonial era are not lacking. Rather, the intellectual challenge lies in ascertaining the degree to which the relevant economic institutions of the subjected regions in southern Asia constituted continuity of tradition, modifications thereof, or completely alien constructs. Meeting that challenge is hindered by inequality of information revealing ‘before’ and ‘after’ conditions; an embarrassment of riches in information on the latter contrasts to poverty of the former. The present paper aims at least partially filling that gap by ascertaining in comparative perspective the basis of the revenue assessment systems prevailing in South India (Karnataka) and Central Java (Yogyakarta) during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. What makes such an undertaking not only desirable from a scholarly point of view but also possible in practice is the near unique finds of virtually untapped original source materials deriving from the respective institutions’ function. |
| Keywords: | Revenue assessment; Land tenure; Inequality; Archival sources; Kaditas; South India; Central Java; Local administrative traditions; Colonial policy |
| JEL: | H71 N35 N45 N95 Q15 |
| Date: | 2017–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0169&r=his |
| By: | Jorda, Oscar (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco); Knoll, Katharina (Deutsche Bundesbank); Kuvshinov, Dmitry (University of Bonn); Schularick, Moritz (University of Bonn); Taylor, Alan M. (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the long-run? Which particular assets have the highest long-run returns? We answer these questions on the basis of a new and comprehensive dataset for all major asset classes, including—for the first time—total returns to the largest, but oft ignored, component of household wealth, housing. The annual data on total returns for equity, housing, bonds, and bills cover 16 advanced economies from 1870 to 2015, and our new evidence reveals many new insights and puzzles. |
| JEL: | D31 E10 E44 G12 N10 |
| Date: | 2017–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2017-25&r=his |
| By: | Mireille Razafindrakoto (LEDa - Université Paris Dauphine (Paris 9)); François Roubaud (LEDa - Université Paris Dauphine (Paris 9)); Jean-Michel Wachsberger (DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme) |
| Abstract: | This article aims at supplying an interpretative frame of the long-term Malagasy trajectory by redrawing the structuring knots of its political economy. The concomitance of periods of economic expansion and political crises leash indeed to suppose that one of the essential sources of the difficulties met by the country is its weak capacity to establish a stable political consensus around the processes of accumulation and the way of wealth distribution. In this hypothesis, the understanding of the Malagasy trajectory passes by a proofreading of the long history to highlight, for every period, the elements of system regulation and the contradictions which it faces. From precolonial period to our days, we identify the main actors, the sources of power and wealth, the modes of economic and social regulation and the contradictions of the system. This modelled proofreading of the history leads us to distinguish six big periods marking each a clear break with the one that came before without managing to solve all the main contradictions. |
| Abstract: | Cet article vise à fournir un cadre interprétatif de la trajectoire malgache de long terme en retraçant les nœuds structurants de son économie politique1. La concomitance de périodes d’expansion économique et de crises politiques laisse en effet supposer qu’une des sources essentielles des difficultés rencontrées par le pays est sa faible capacité à instaurer un consensus politique stable autour des processus d’accumulation et des modes de répartition des richesses. Dans cette hypothèse, la compréhension de la trajectoire malgache passe par une relecture de l’histoire longue en vue de mettre en évidence, pour chaque période, les éléments de régulation du système et les contradictions auxquelles il fait face. De la période précoloniale à nos jours, nous identifions les principaux acteurs, les sources de pouvoir et de richesse, les modes de régulation économique et sociale et les contradictions du système. Cette relecture modélisée de l’histoire nous conduit à distinguer six grandes périodes marquant chacune une nette rupture avec celle qui précède sans réussir pour autant à en résoudre les principales contradictions. |
| Keywords: | Political economy,Long-term history,rents,growth,économie politique,Madagascar,histoire longue,élites,rentes,coalitions,institutions,croissance |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01653648&r=his |
| By: | Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This research note updates selected charts from three previous papers. The new data present a rather startling picture, suggesting that the Middle East – and the global political economy more generally – might face an important crossroads. Our assessment here rests on the analysis of capital as power, or CasP. Beginning in the late 1980s, we suggested that, since the late 1960s, the Middle East was greatly influenced by the capitalized power of a Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition – a loose coalition comprising the leading oil companies, the OPEC cartel, armament contractors, engineering firms and large financial institutions – whose differential accumulation benefitted from and in turn helped fuel and sustain Middle East ‘energy conflicts’. These conflicts, we argued, reverberated far beyond the region: they affected the ups and downs of global growth, the gyrations of inflation and, in some important respects, the very evolution of the capitalist mode of power. And this impact, it seems to us, is now being called into question. |
| Keywords: | conflict,differential accumulation,energy,Middle East |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:172198&r=his |
| By: | Flores Zendejas, Juan |
| Abstract: | Loans by the IMF are considered to have “preferred creditor status”. However, given the potential distortions for the allocation of resources in IMF lending, the current debt crisis in Greece has raised new questions about the need for such treatment. This paper brings a historical dimension to the debate and analyzes the link between a multilateral’s preferred creditor status and its capacity to support countries in financial distress. During the early 1930s, the League of Nations attempted to secure a preferred status for the loans it promoted. At the onset of the Great Depression, while these loans were not legally senior, governments granted the League loans a de facto preferred status under the assumption that averting default would foster renewed support from the League. However, when support did not materialize, the loans’ exceptional treatment vanished, further weakening the position of the League to secure emergency lending. |
| Keywords: | sovereign defaults, preferred creditor status, IMF, sovereign debt markets |
| JEL: | N24 F34 F42 F55 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:98451&r=his |
| By: | Feng Hou |
| Abstract: | Welcoming 60,000 Southeast Asian refugees in the 1979–80 period has become a celebrated part of Canada’s history, but the eventual integration of these refugees into Canadian society has received insufficient attention. This study provides a comprehensive overview of Vietnamese refugees’ economic outcomes over the three decades after their arrival. This study also explores how regional contexts contributed to shaping economic outcomes. Based on analyses of the 1981, 1991, and 2001 census and the 2011 National Household Survey, this study finds that adult Vietnamese refugees arrived with little human capital, but they had high employment rates, and over time they closed their initial large earnings gap with other immigrants. Childhood Vietnamese refugees out-performed other childhood immigrants and similar-aged Canadian-born individuals in educational attainment and earnings when they reached adulthood. The geographic region of residence was associated with some large variations in refugees’ socioeconomic outcomes; and regional differences in refugees’ human capital characteristics, ethnic enclave, and economic conditions played varying roles depending on the outcome measure and length of residence. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-188&r=his |
| By: | Carlos Julio Martínez Becerra |
| Abstract: | El sueño de Integración Latinoamericano se inicia en 1815 con el manifiesto al continente conocido como “La Carta de Jamaica”, continuaría con el congreso anfictiónico de Panamá en 1826; pero solo en la cumbre de la CELAC en 2014 fue posible reunir a todos los países latinoamericanos y del caribe. Por diferentes razones Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Paraguay estuvieron ausentes de los intentos en el siglo XIX y parte del siglo XX. Desde la carta de Chapultepec en 1945 los procesos de integración toman forma a partir de la década de los 50, con experiencias que se inspiraron en la teoría pura del Comercio Internacional y específicamente en la experiencia de Europa Occidental. En el Siglo XXI con la caída del muro de Berlín y el afianzamiento del aperturismo económico se inicia un proceso nuevo de integración que modificó el mapa del poder político del continente, condicionado por la política exterior de Estados Unidos y con el surgimiento de los BRICS como una alternativa hacia el multilateralismo. |
| Keywords: | Carta de Jamaica, CELAC, Integración latinoamericana, geopolítica, recursos naturales. |
| JEL: | F01 F59 |
| Date: | 2017–12–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000178:015893&r=his |
| By: | Bjørnskov, Christian (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | This paper starts with the observation that almost all military dictatorships that democratize become presidential democracies. I hypothesize that military interests are able to coordinate on status-preserving institutional change prior to democratization and therefore prefer political institutions with strong veto players. Parallel civilian interests conversely suffer from coordination failure by being more diverse and les cohesive. The hypothesis therefore implies that most military democratizations are partially planned while most democratization events from civilian autocracy are either unforeseen or poorly planned. Exploring the characteristics of 111 democratization episodes between 1950 and 2015, I find a number of features broadly consistent with further theoretical predictions. |
| Keywords: | Dictatorship; Democracy; Political institutions |
| JEL: | D72 D74 P16 |
| Date: | 2017–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1194&r=his |
| By: | Marcel Boyer; Thomas W. Ross; Ralph A. Winter |
| Abstract: | Competition policy in Canada and elsewhere has changed remarkably over the last fifty years – in large measure due to advances in economics. In this article we trace the impact of developments in industrial organization on the three central areas of competition policy: cartels, single firm conduct and mergers. We focus on Canadian competition policy, but draw comparisons with developments in the United States and Europe. La politique de concurrence s’est remarquablement transformée au cours des derniers 50 ans au Canada, en grande partie à cause des avancées en science économique. Dans ce texte, nous retraçons l’impact des développements en organisation industrielle sur les trois zones centrales de la politique de concurrence : les cartels, la conduite de la firme, et les fusions. Nous mettons l’accent sur la politique de concurrence canadienne, mais en référant aux développements aux États-Unis et en Europe. |
| JEL: | L40 L41 K21 |
| Date: | 2017–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2017s-26&r=his |
| By: | Lungu, Ioana |
| Abstract: | The narratives in the media with respect to EU external policies and their effects on developing countries generally paint a picture of unequal power dynamics and negative externalities, particularly with respect to international trade and land grabbing. In this paper, I use trade data to argue that reality is more nuanced and aim to provide a preliminary sketch of the institutional dynamics between the EU and Africa. I focus on agricultural relationships to highlight the interplay between historical path dependencies, colonialism, trade policy and domestic institutions on the EU and African side. While trade is often portrayed in an overly simplified manner as the main factor hindering agricultural development, African countries are often plagued by a long history of extractive institutions, both politically and economically, which lead to a vicious cycle of unequally distributed resources, exploitation, insecure human rights and a lack of incentives for innovation. This becomes apparent when examining phenomena such as land-grabbing, which often involve African elites partnering with foreign investors to conclude controversial deals. Overall, this paper aims to highlight the necessity of building institutional capacity particularly in countries with a long history of extractive institutional continuity, and to underline the importance of state centralisation for agricultural development, so that African partners can fully take advantage of the preferential trade regime with the EU and improve their position with respect to power dynamics. |
| Keywords: | development; institutional economics; international trade; Economic Partnership Agreement; European Union; Africa; agricultural development; |
| JEL: | F19 H8 O1 O13 O2 O20 O24 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:83112&r=his |
| By: | Saverio M. Fratini |
| Abstract: | Absolute rent, in Marx’s view, has an upper limit represented by the difference between the value and the price of production of agricultural commodities. The actual relevance of this limit was questioned by Bortkiewicz and other scholars because of the difficulties concerning the argument which Marx based it on. The lack of this upper limit prompted a number of scholars to claim that there is no difference between absolute rent and a rent paid by a monopoly price. Referring to the classical/Marxian theory of monopoly price, we shall argue that is still possible— notwithstanding the missing upper limit—to distinguish absolute rent from a rent actually due to a monopoly price. In particular, the difference between the two rests on the removability (in the case of absolute rent) or the persistency (in the case of monopoly rent) of the obstacle to the expansion of agricultural production. |
| Keywords: | Marx, Bortkiewicz, absolute rent, monopoly price, effectual demand |
| JEL: | B12 B14 B51 Q15 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0229&r=his |
| By: | Mireille Razafindrakoto (LEDa - Université Paris Dauphine (Paris 9)); François Roubaud (LEDa - Université Paris Dauphine (Paris 9)); Jean-Michel Wachsberger (DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme) |
| Abstract: | The classical and more recent theories on development all fail to explain Madagascar’s long-running economic underperformance. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of Malagasy history based on the analytical framework of political economy. Our analyses point to the fact that, despite deep-rooted blockages, Madagascar has shown an unexpected capacity to transform and modernise: economic transition (with the emergence of a new entrepreneurial class) and political transition (with democratic alternation of power); the setting up of sound institutions that characterise “modern” societies; control of violence; and the Malagasy people’s expression of their economic and civic aspirations. However, three structural constraints hinder the country’s development. Firstly, social fragmentation, an atomised population and the atrophy of intermediary bodies foster a high concentration of power in the hands of a few elites who are neither compelled nor encouraged to develop a medium- or long-term vision and take the interests of the vast majority into consideration. Secondly, although the Malagasy people lay claim to democratic principles, they remain torn between the demands of democratic and meritocratic nature and the traditional values that impose respect for the real and symbolic hierarchies they have inherited from the past. Finally, although the policies promoted and sometimes imposed by international donors may have had some positive effects, they have also had a hugely negative impact on the State’s capacity to regulate society. |
| Abstract: | Les théories classiques et récentes du développement sont impuissantes à expliquer la contreperformance économique malgache sur longue période. Cet article propose une relecture de l'histoire malgache en mobilisant le cadre d’analyse de l’économie politique. Nos analyses pointent qu’en dépit de facteurs de blocage profonds, Madagascar a fait montre d'une capacité de transformation d'une modernité inattendue : transitions économique (avec l'arrivée d'une classe d'entrepreneurs nouveaux) et politique (avec les alternances démocratiques) ; mise en place d'institutions solides caractéristiques des sociétés « modernes » ; contrôle de la violence ; expression des aspirations économiques et citoyennes de la population. Trois entraves structurelles s’opposent en revanche au développement du pays : la fragmentation de la société, l'atomisation de la population et l'atrophie des corps intermédiaires favorisent une forte concentration du pouvoir aux mains d'une poignée d'élites qui n'est ni contrainte ni incitée à avoir une vision de moyen/long terme et à prendre en compte les intérêts de la grande majorité ; malgré sa revendication des principes démocratiques, la population reste tiraillée entre des revendications citoyennes de type démocratique et méritocratique et des valeurs traditionnelles qui imposent le respect de hiérarchies réelles et symboliques héritées du passé ; enfin, les politiques promues, voire imposées, par les bailleurs de fonds, si elles ont pu avoir des effets positifs, ont également eu un impact négatif majeur sur la capacité de l’État à réguler la société. |
| Keywords: | Political economy,long term growth,social structure,Rents,Elite,Madagascar,Economie politique,Elites,Croissance de long terme,structure sociale,Rentes,Violence |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01653670&r=his |
| By: | Claudio Borio; Piti Disyatat; Mikael Juselius; Phurichai Rungcharoenkitkul |
| Abstract: | Prevailing explanations of the decline in real interest rates since the early 1980s are premised on the notion that real interest rates are driven by variations in desired saving and investment. But based on data stretching back to 1870 for 19 countries, our systematic analysis casts doubt on this view. The link between real interest rates and saving-investment determinants appears tenuous. While it is possible to find some relationships consistent with the theory in some periods, particularly over the last 30 years, they do not survive over the extended sample. This holds both at the national and global level. By contrast, we find evidence that persistent shifts in real interest rates coincide with changes in monetary regimes. Moreover, external influences on countries' real interest rates appear to reflect idiosyncratic variations in interest rates of countries that dominate global monetary and financial conditions rather than common movements in global saving and investment. All this points to an underrated role of monetary policy in determining real interest rates over long horizons. |
| Keywords: | real interest rate, natural interest rate, saving, investment, inflation, monetary policy |
| JEL: | E32 E40 E44 E50 E52 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:685&r=his |
| By: | Cornel Nesseler (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez (Facultad Derecho y CC. Soziales, University of Castilla-La Mancha); Helmut Dietl (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Julio del Corral (Facultad Derecho y CC. Soziales, University of Castilla-La Mancha) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine how the number of African American and White American coaches in college basketball evolved since 1947. Particularly, we focus on 1973 when the league split up. The separation created asymmetric regulatory requirements. This led to a significant difference in the number of African American coaches. The evidence suggests that less regulated institutions employ fewer African American coaches. The results are time consistent, not clustered geographically, and unrelated to specific institutions. Our results have policy implications for college sports as well as other industries which have similar working conditions. |
| JEL: | J16 J7 L83 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zrh:wpaper:371&r=his |
| By: | Bougette, Patrice; Budzinski, Oliver; Marty, Frédéric |
| Abstract: | This article aims to provide a detailed analysis of the concept of economic dependence and exploitative abuse through their evolution in competition law and economics and in European case law. First, while the theoretical roots of these concepts may be found in economic theory, we show that the issue has long been ignored or only reluctantly considered in competition law enforcement, mainly because of a lack of available and reliable economic criteria. Second, although its primary objective was to measure market power in an oligopoly context, we examine how current empirical industrial organization methodology allows a sophisticated measure of the economic dependence among suppliers and distributors. Third, we discuss the possibility of relying on the industrial organization approach to address these issues. |
| Keywords: | exploitative abuse,abuse of economic dependence,competition law,European Commission,effects-based approach |
| JEL: | K21 L12 L40 L42 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:111&r=his |
| By: | Giovanni Scarano |
| Abstract: | Subsequent to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 there has been a revival of theories on the possibility of a “secular stagnation”. Some of these theories hark back to Alvin Hansen’s doctrine, developed on Keynesian bases. Nevertheless, they have shifted attention toward a disproportion between saving and investment only explained on the basis of demographic and technological factors, typical of a neoclassical framework of growth theory. However, the idea that neo-capitalist economies have an inherent tendency to stagnation has also long been the main research objective of many heterodox economists, in particular Kaleckian and neo-Marxist, who found stagnation to be a major result of the monopolistic nature of big corporations and the features of their monopolistic forms of competition. The paper deals with some of these theories and focuses on the role that corporate governance in big corporations can play in producing growing corporate savings and putting them into financial channels. |
| Keywords: | Stagnation, Capacity Utilization, Corporate Savings, Financialisation, Financial Crises. |
| JEL: | B51 E11 E12 E32 G35 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0231&r=his |
| By: | Rochat, Jean |
| Abstract: | Cet article propose un cadre théorique et conceptuel renouvelé pour penser les institutions de l'économie. Faisant le constat des limites de l’endowment perspective - qui prédomine dans la littérature, et qui envisage les institutions comme des dotations produisant leurs effets, bons ou mauvais, de manière nécessaire - nous nous appuyons sur des outils théoriques forgés dans d’autres disciplines des sciences sociales pour proposer une perspective alternative sur les institutions. Fondamentalement, il s’agit de mettre la compréhension que les acteurs ont effectivement des institutions au centre de l’analyse. En nous appuyant sur le cas du droit de la société anonyme française au XIXe siècle, nous montrons qu’une même forme institutionnelle peut donner lieu à plusieurs interprétations (et ainsi engendrer des pratiques et des résultats différents) ou, au contraire, que des formes institutionnelles différentes peuvent donner lieu à des pratiques similaires, en fonction de la compréhension qu’en ont les acteurs. Cet article invite ainsi à nuancer la pertinence des approches postulant une valeur intrinsèque, bonne ou mauvaise, des institutions, pour mettre au coeur de l’analyse ce que les acteurs en font effectivement. |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:94467&r=his |
| By: | Florian Brugger (University of Graz, Austria); Joern Kleinert (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | In the Kreisky era (1970–1983), Austrian government debts increased strongly. Historically, the attitude of Kreisky and the Social Democrats towards Keynesian fiscal policy measures to fight unemployment during the oil crises has been held to be responsible for the successive budget deficits. Kreisky’s ideological debt policy has become a narrative that has strongly influenced Austrian fiscal policy until today. While this explanation for the strong increase in public debt during the Kreisky era is widely accepted, it is not necessarily true. In this paper, we assess a different explanation: the deficits might simply have resulted from forecast errors of GDP growth in those turbulent times. We find that about one-third of the increase in the debt-over-GDP ratio is directly explained by short-run forecast errors, i.e., the difference between the approved and the realized budget, and an additional one-fifth is the lower bound of forecast error regarding the long-run growth rate. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal policy; Government debt; Forecast errors; Narrative economics |
| JEL: | H62 H68 E37 E65 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2017-15&r=his |
| By: | Farquet, Christophe |
| Abstract: | Au travers d’une étude de cas sur les fuites de capitaux des pays extra-occidentaux en direction de la Suisse, le paradis fiscal par excellence au cours du XXe siècle, le présent article tente de démontrer comment il est possible de contourner au moins partiellement les difficultés liées à la recherche scientifique sur l'évasion fiscale internationale. Le papier exemplifie dans un premier temps l’intérêt des sources diplomatiques pour la problématique. Etant donné la proximité et la coopération entre le gouvernement, les diplomates et les banquiers helvétiques, les documents préservés aux Archives fédérales suisses (AF) fournissent un apport non-négligeable à l’établissement de l’ampleur et des formes des fuites illégales des fortunes avant l’éclatement du système de Bretton Woods, une période encore peu abordée y compris dans les études économétriques. L’article passe dans un second temps à l’analyse de la politique économique. Il démontre combien la nécessité pour les hauts fonctionnaires de se positionner face à la question récurrente des fuites illégales de capitaux des pays du Sud a participé en Suisse à l’établissement de stratégies nouvelles de défense pour préserver le secret bancaire dans l’après-guerre. La conclusion réintègre dans un troisième temps cette problématique au sein d’une discussion plus générale sur la nature et la particularité de l’impérialisme suisse. |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:93527&r=his |
| By: | Potter, Simon M. (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | Keynote remarks for the Commemoration of the Centennial of the Federal Reserve’s U.S. Dollar Account Services to the Global Official Sector, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City. |
| Keywords: | foreign central banks; dollar accounts |
| Date: | 2017–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsp:268&r=his |
| By: | Ignacio Briones (Escuela de Gobierno, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez) |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uai:wpaper:wp_047&r=his |
| By: | Farquet, Christophe |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:99423&r=his |
| By: | Costas Lapavitsas; Ivan Mendieta-MuÃ’oz (Department of Economics, SOAS, University of London, UK) |
| Abstract: | The ratio of financial to non-financial profits in the US economy has increased sharply since the 1970s, the period that is often called the financialisation of capitalism. By developing a two-sector theoretical model the ratio of financial to non-financial profits is shown to depend positively on the net interest margin and the non-interest income of banks, while it depends negatively on the general rate of profit, the non-interest expenses of banks, and the ratio of the capital stock to interest-earning assets. The model was estimated empirically for the post-war period and the results indicate that the ratio has varied mainly with respect to the net interest margin, although non-interest income has also played a significant role. The results confirm that in the course of financialisation the US financial sector has been able to extract rising profits through interest differentials and non-interest income, while the general rate of profit has remained broadly constant. |
| Keywords: | Rise in financial profits, financialisation, U.S. economy |
| JEL: | E11 E44 G20 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soa:wpaper:205&r=his |