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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2018‒03‒19
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Bátiz-Lazo, Bernardo |
| Abstract: | This short note is a description of the dataset compiled during the drafting of Cash and Dash: How ATMs and Computers Changed Banking (Oxford University Press, 2018). The full dataset is deposited with the European Association for Banking and Financial History, and is available for download from the association's website. |
| Keywords: | banking and technology,datasets |
| JEL: | G21 N20 N22 N24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:1801&r=his |
| By: | Robert C. Allen (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | Judy Stephenson’s claim that institutional wage series like of those Greenwich Hospital overstate the earnings of building workers by 20-30% is examined, and, it is argued here, the conclusion is unpersuasive. Whatever adjustments to existing wage series are necessary in view of her new evidence would have no significant implications for real wages in England compared to the rest of the world. Consequently, Judy Stephenson’s findings do not call into question the high wage high wage explanation of the Industrial Revolution. |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170006&r=his |
| By: | Robert C. Allen (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | Schumpeter’s ‘perennial gale of creative destruction’ blew strongly through Britain during the Industrial Revolution, as the factory mode of production displaced the cottage mode in many industries. A famous example is the shift from hand loom weaving to the use of power looms in mills. As the use of power looms expanded, the price of cloth fell, and the ‘golden age of the hand loom weaver’ gave way to poverty and unemployment. This paper argues that the fates of the hand and machine processes were even more closely interwoven. With the expansion of factory spinning in the 1780s, the demand for hand loom weavers soared in order to process the newly available cheap yarn. The rise in demand raised the earnings of hand loom weavers, thereby, creating the ‘golden age’. The high earnings also increased the profitability of developing the power loom by raising the value of the labour that it saved. This meant that less efficient–hence, cheaper to develop--power looms could be brought into commercial use than would have been the case had the golden age not occurred. The counterfactual possibilities are explored with a model of the costs of weaving by hand and by power. The cottage mode of production was an efficient system of producing cloth, but it self-destructed as its expansion after 1780 raised the demand for sector-specific skills, thus providing the incentive for inventors to develop a power technology to replace it. The power loom, in turn, devalued the old skills, so poverty accompanied progress. |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170004&r=his |
| By: | Gerardo della Paolera; Xavier H. Duran Amorocho; Aldo Musacchio |
| Abstract: | We use new manufacturing GDP time series to examine the industrialization in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia since the early twentieth century. We uncover variation across countries and over time that the literature on industrialization had overlooked. Rather than providing a single explanation of how specific shocks or policies shaped the industrialization of the region, our argument is that the timing of the industrial take off was linked to initial conditions, while external shocks and macroeconomic and trade policy explain the variation in the rates of industrialization after the 1930s and favorable terms of trade and liberalization explain de-industrialization after 1990. |
| JEL: | N66 N86 O14 O24 O25 O4 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24345&r=his |
| By: | Robert C. Allen (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | This paper measures the size and incomes of six major social classes across the Industrial Revolution using social tables for England and Wales in 1688, 1759, 1798, 1846, and 1867. Lindert and Williamson famously revised these tables, and this paper extends their work in three directions: First, servants are removed from middle and upper class households in the tables of King, Massie, and Colquhoun and tallied separately. Second, estimates are made for the same tables of the number and incomes of women and children employed in the various occupations, and, third, incomes are broken down into rents, profits, and employment income. These extensions to the tables allow variables to be computed that can be checked against independent estimates as a validation exercise. The tables are retabulated in a standardized set of six social groups to highlight the changing structure of society across the industrial revolution. Gini coefficients are computed from the social tables to measure inequality. These measures confirm that Britain traversed a ‘Kuznets curve’ in this period. Changes in overall inequality are related to the changing fortunes of the major social classes. |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170002&r=his |
| By: | Engelbert Stockhammer; Joel Rabinovich; Niall Reddy |
| Abstract: | Most empirical macroeconomic research limited to the period since World War II. This paper analyses the effects of changes in income distribution and in private wealth on consumption and investment covering a period from as early as 1855 until 2010 for the UK, France, Germany and USA, based on the dataset of Piketty and Zucman (2014). We contribute to the post-Keynesian debate on the nature of demand regimes, mainstream analyses of wealth effects and the financialisation debate. We find that overall domestic demand has been wage-led in the USA, UK and Germany. Total investment responds positively to higher wage shares, which is driven by residential investment. For corporate investment alone, we find a negative relation. Wealth effects are found to be positive and significant for consumption in the USA and UK, but weaker in France and Germany. Investment is negatively affected by private wealth in the USA and the UK, but positively in France and Germany. |
| Keywords: | historical macroeconomics, demand regimes, Bhaduri-Marglin model, wealth effects, financialisation |
| JEL: | B50 E11 E12 E20 E21 N10 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1805&r=his |
| By: | Alicia Gómez-Tello (Universitat de València, Spain); Alfonso Díez-Minguela (Universitat de València, Spain); Julio Martínez-Galarraga (Universitat de València, Spain); Daniel A. Tirado-Fabregat (Universitat de València, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores regional price variation in early twentieth-century Spain. Using consumer price information from the bulletins published by the Instituto de Reformas Sociales between 1910 and 1920, we build a dataset with a total of 40,581 quotes covering 22 items for each of the 49 provinces. We then estimate provincial price levels following a country-product-dummy (CPD)approach. Our preliminary findings suggest that substantial spatial price variation existed. In line with the Balassa-Samuelson conjecture, it appears that price and productivity levels were somewhat related. Nevertheless, spatial price variation prevails among the less industrialised provinces, and this calls for further research and discussion. |
| Keywords: | Spain, Prices, Living Standards, Economic Development |
| JEL: | E01 N00 N9 O11 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1802&r=his |
| By: | Green, Georgina (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether movements in the Bank of England’s interest rate hindered the development of the United States by transmitting or amplifying crises during the first age of financial globalisation. Evidence that US monetary and financial developments entered into the Bank’s reaction function implies that a Bank Rate series must include some endogenous rate changes. In order to clean Bank Rate of such movements the narrative approach is applied to a previously unexploited source in the Bank’s archives, ‘The Record of Outstanding Events’. The Bank also followed a known rule of adjusting Bank Rate to preserve its reserves to liabilities ratio. Bank Rate is also cleaned of the contemporaneous impact of this ratio in order to control for any reflex policy movements that could have been anticipated. This ensures that only true monetary policy shocks to the United States are identified. Estimates derived from this new measure indicate that although the Bank was able, via abrupt rate rises, to attract gold to the United Kingdom and replenish its reserves ratio, it was not responsible for causing or aggravating US crises. This result runs counter to conventional wisdom in the literature and contradicts the hypothesis that many US financial crises extended directly back to Threadneedle Street. |
| Keywords: | Bank of England; monetary policy; business cycles; financial crises; international economic history; central banking |
| JEL: | E52 E58 F44 G01 G20 N10 N12 |
| Date: | 2018–03–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:0718&r=his |
| By: | Peter Stamatov (Division of Social Science) |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170009&r=his |
| By: | Ã’scar JordÃ; Katharina Knoll; Dmitry Kuvshinov; Moritz Schularick; Alan M. Taylor |
| 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. |
| Keywords: | return on capital, interest rates, yields, dividends, rents, capital gains, risk premiums, household wealth, housing markets |
| JEL: | D31 E44 E10 G10 G12 N10 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6899&r=his |
| By: | Isabel Schnabel; Hyun Song Shin |
| Abstract: | Money is a social convention where one party accepts it as payment in the expectation that others will do so too. Over the ages, various forms of private money have come and gone, giving way to central bank money. The reasons for the resilience of central bank money are of particular interest given current debates about cryptocurrencies and how far they will supplant central bank money. We draw lessons from the role of public deposit banks in the 1600s, which quelled the hyper-in‡flation in Europe during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). As the precursors of modern central banks, public deposit banks established trust in monetary exchange by making the value of money common knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Gresham's Law; debasement; common knowledge; central banks |
| JEL: | E42 E58 N13 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:698&r=his |
| By: | Colvin, Christopher L.; Henderson, Stuart; Turner, John D. |
| Abstract: | Cooperatively-owned Raiffeisen banks first emerged in the Netherlands in the late 1890s and spread rapidly across the country. Using a new dataset, we investigate the determinants of their market entry and early performance. We find that the cooperative organisational form, when allied to a change in the structure of Dutch agriculture and the socioreligious pillarisation of Dutch society, was an important factor explaining their entry into rural financial markets. While religious organisations provided a necessary impetus for the emergence of Raiffeisen banks, the economic advantages associated with the cooperative organisational form ensured the subsequent survival and success of these banks. |
| Keywords: | Cooperative banking,the Netherlands,Raiffeisen,religion |
| JEL: | G21 N23 N83 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201803&r=his |
| By: | Quentin Couix (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a historical and epistemological account of one of the key controversy between natural resources economics and ecological economics, lasting from early 1970s to the end of 1990s. It shows that the theoretical disagreement on the scope of the economy's dependence to natural resources, such as energy and minerals, has deep methodological roots. On one hand, Solow's and Stiglitz's works are built on a “model-based methodology”, where the model precedes and supports the conceptual foundations of the theory and in particular the assumption of “unbounded resources productivity”. On the other hand, Georgescu-Roegen's counter-assumption of “thermodynamic limits to production”, later revived by Daly, rest on a methodology of “interdisciplinary consistency” which considers thermodynamics as a relevant scientific referent for economic theory. While antagonistic, these two methodologies face similar issues regarding the conceptual foundations that arise from them, which is a source of confusion and of the difficult dialogue between paradigms. |
| Keywords: | natural resources,thermodynamics,growth,sustainability,model,theory,methodology |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01702401&r=his |
| By: | Yolanda Blasco-Martel (Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain); Joaquim Cuevas (Universitat de València, València, Spain); M. Carme Riera i Prunera (Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Public credit in Spain was organized around the Official Credit Institute (ICO) from 1971 onwards. The importance of the public credit as part of the total credit has been decreasing from 1971 until 2015. Considering that public credit is an economic policy instrument, the role it played during expansions and recessions may be of major significance to stabilize the economy. This paper analyzes the behavior of the credit in relation to the economic cycle during the last forty years through the application of the à la Bry and Boschan algorithm that allows to date the peaks and troughs during the cycle. This helps us observe whether the public credit has been procyclical or countercyclical with respect to the private credit cycle and the GDP cycle as well, thus offering a meaningful explanation linked to the ICO history. Besides, there is evidence of a certain degree of synchronization between the credit cycle -both public and private- and the economic cycle, with the private credit showing the largest synchronization, both in the economic upswing and downswing. The public credit behaviour, on the contrary, tends to be more countercyclical during the recessive part of the cycle, thus exerting a buffer function of the economic situation. |
| Keywords: | Public credit, Crisis, Economic cycle, Credit cycle, Spain |
| JEL: | N24 G23 G28 H12 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1801&r=his |
| By: | Claude Diebolt (BETA, University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France); Charlotte Le Chapelain (Centre Lyonnais des Historiens du Droit et de la Pensée Politique, Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée, Université de Lyon 3); Audrey Rose Menard (Laboratoire d’Economie et de Management Nord-Atlantique) |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:02-18&r=his |
| By: | Richard S.J. Tol (Department of Economics, University of Sussex; Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam; Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam; CESifo, Munich) |
| Abstract: | The paper presents the professor-student network of Nobel laureates in economics. 72 of the 77 Nobelists belong to one family tree. The remaining 5 belong to 3 separate trees. There are 350 men in the graph, and 4 women. Karl Knies is the central-most professor, followed by Wassily Leontief. Harvard is the central-most university, followed by Chicago and Berlin. Most candidates for the Nobel prize belong to the main family tree, but new trees may arise for the students of Terence Gorman and Denis Sargan. |
| Keywords: | social network; professor-student relationship; Nobel Prize |
| JEL: | A14 B20 B31 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:0518&r=his |
| By: | Stefano Gagliarducci; Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Francesco Sobbrio; Guido Tabellini |
| Abstract: | What is the role of the media in coordinating and mobilizing insurgency against a foreign military occupation? We analyze this question in the context of the Nazi- fascist occupation of Italy during WWII. We study the effect of BBC radio counter- propaganda (Radio Londra) on the intensity of internal resistance to the Nazi-fascist regime. Using variation in monthly sunspot activities affecting the sky-wave propagation of BBC broadcasting towards Italy, we show that BBC radio had a strong impact on political violence. We provide further evidence to prove that BBC radio played an important role in coordinating resistance activities, but had no lasting role in motivating the population against the fascist regime. |
| Keywords: | Media, BBC, Counter-propaganda, Insurgency, Violence, WWII, Sunspots. |
| JEL: | D74 L82 N44 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def066&r=his |
| By: | Claire Giordano (Bank of Italy); Gianni Toniolo (Luiss University and CEPR); Francesco Zollino (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Based on updated datasets of value added and of labour and capital inputs, this paper provides a reassessment of the proximate causes of Italy’s economic development since its political unification in 1861 to 2016. Italy’s pre-WWII economy featured weak productivity growth, with the exception of the Giolitti era and the 1920s. Italy then embarked on an exceptional catching-up process relative to the technological leaders during the Golden Age. Compared with the pre-WWII years, when the Italian economy was held back by slow productivity growth in the large agricultural sector, the catching-up process during the Golden Age was propelled by the rapid shift of labour out of agriculture. As in many countries, this rapid growth in productivity could not be sustained after 1973, but the further slowdown since the 1990s has been more pronounced in Italy than elsewhere. The disappointing performance of the Italian economy since the early 1990s is largely explained by slow labour productivity growth in the now dominant services sector and by sluggish aggregate total factor productivity. Labour productivity developments actually turned negative during the protracted crisis following the global financial turmoil, due to the decline in capital accumulation and in total factor productivity. Since the start of the recovery in 2013, while total factor productivity has returned to a moderately positive trend, the capital stock has not fully overcome the legacy of the crisis. |
| Keywords: | labour productivity, sectorial reallocation, growth accounting |
| JEL: | N10 N30 O47 O57 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_406_17&r=his |
| By: | Nicola Fontana; Tommaso Nannicini; Guido Tabellini |
| Abstract: | The Italian civil war and the Nazi occupation of Italy occurred at a critical juncture, just before the birth of a new democracy. We study the impact of these traumatic events by exploiting geographic heterogeneity in the duration and intensity of civil war, and the persistence of the battlefront along the “Gothic line” cutting through Northern-Central Italy. We find that the Communist Party gained votes in postwar elections where the Nazi occupation lasted longer, mainly at the expense of centrist parties. This effect persists until the late 1980s and appears to be driven by equally persistent changes in political attitudes. |
| JEL: | N00 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6838&r=his |
| By: | Axenciuc, Victor; Georgescu, George |
| Abstract: | Starting from the importance and need to investigate one of the most relevant issues regarding the structure and dynamics of the economic and social development of all countries in the world, the book focuses on Romania, from the perspective of certain synthetic indicators, aggregated at macroeconomic level, i.e. the Gross Domestic Product and the National Income, on long data series over the past 150 years, also taking into account the comparative international context, in terms of purchasing power parity. The Part One contains a synthesis, developed and completed, of GDP data for each year of the period 1862 – 2010 and also indicators resulting from the GDP, as Net Domestic Product, Net National Product and National Income. The historical research has adopted and applied, with maximum attention, criteria that substantiated the calculations, through rigorous techniques and methods of data aggregation, in order to remove certain errors that would lead to distorted results, focusing on the accuracy of evaluations, so that they would express, in the most genuine manner, the real dimension of the statistical indicators, allowing for a correct interpretation of the economic phenomena. The operations for compiling the indicators are accompanied by comments regarding the criteria and calculation methods, as well as by methodological explanations, so that the data would be able to be rebuilt in a better format, by the interested authors, should they have a more reliable and relevant statistical information about Romania. The Part Two of the book focuses on the international literature, dedicated to criticisms theoretical and methodological opinions regarding the GDP, as well as a comparative analysis of the GDP evolution in Romania, in various hypotheses, compared to other countries. |
| Keywords: | System of National Accounts; International Comparison Program; wellbeing; GDP criticism; Romania. |
| JEL: | B15 B41 C82 E01 N10 O11 |
| Date: | 2017–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84614&r=his |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Roy Mill; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | Linking individuals across historical datasets relies on information such as name and age that is both non-unique and prone to enumeration and transcription errors. These errors make it impossible to find the correct match with certainty. We suggest a fully automated method for linking historical datasets that enables researchers to create samples that minimize type I (false positives) and type II (false negatives) errors. The first step of the method uses the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm, a standard tool in statistics, to compute the probability that each two observations correspond to the same individual. The second step uses these estimated probabilities to determine which records to use in the analysis. We provide codes to implement this method. |
| JEL: | C10 J01 J10 N00 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24324&r=his |
| By: | Dewan, Torun; Meriläinen, Jaakko; Tukiainen, Janne |
| Abstract: | Much of what we know about the alignment of voters with parties comes from mass surveys of the electorate in the postwar period or from aggregate electoral data. Using individual elector level panel data from the 19th century UK poll books, we reassess the development of a party-centred electorate in the United Kingdom. We show that (i) the electorate was party-centred by the time of the extension of the franchise in 1867; (ii) a decline in candidate-centred voting is largely attributable to changes in the behaviour of the working class and (iii) the enfranchised working class aligned with the Liberal left. This early alignment of the working class with the left cannot entirely be explained by a decrease in vote buying. The evidence suggests instead that the alignment was based on the programmatic appeal of the Liberals. We argue that these facts can plausibly explain the subsequent development of the party system. |
| Keywords: | Candidate-vs-party-oriented voting, party development, partisan alignment, Local public economics, C23, D72, N33, |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:103&r=his |
| By: | Aaronson, Daniel (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago); Davis, Jonathan (University of Chicago); Schulze, Karl (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Between 1907 and 1914, the “Galveston Movement,” a philanthropic effort spearheaded by Jacob Schiff, fostered the immigration of approximately 10,000 Russian Jews through the Port of Galveston, Texas. Upon arrival, households were given train tickets to pre-selected locations west of the Mississippi River where a job awaited. Despite the program’s stated purpose to locate new Russian Jewish immigrants to the Western part of the U.S., we find that almost 90 percent of the prime age male participants ultimately moved east of the Mississippi, typically to large Northeastern and Midwestern cities. We use a standard framework for modeling location decisions to show destination assignments made cities more desirable, but this effect was overwhelmed by the attraction of religious and country of origin enclaves. By contrast, there is no economically or statistically significant effect of a place having a larger base of immigrants from other areas of the world and economic conditions appear to be of secondary importance, especially for participants near the bottom of the skill distribution. Our paper also introduces two novel adjustments for matching historical data – using an objective measure of match quality to fine tune our match scores and a deferred acceptance algorithm to avoid multiple matching. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants; Moving to Opportunity (MTO) |
| JEL: | J1 J6 J61 |
| Date: | 2018–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2018-04&r=his |
| By: | Victor Court (CERES-ERTI - Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche sur l'Environnement et la Societé / Environmental Research and Teaching Institute - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris); Emmanuel Bovari (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This article provides a knowledge-based and energy-centered unified growth model of the economic transition from limited to sustained growth. In an overlapping generation framework, we introduce final energy as a production factor of a composite final good sector, along with human capital, a learning-by-doing technology, and a Schumpeterian technology. Final energy results from a CES aggregation of energy inputs that come from renewable (biomass, wind, water) and exhaustible (coal, oil, gas) primary resources. The production of those inputs also requires human capital along with specific learning-by-doing and Schumpeterian technologies. Furthermore, with an endogenous sequence of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), we explicitly feature pure technological externalities that foster the efficiency of both learning-by-doing and R&D-based technological progress. This setting allows us to distinguish two economic regimes: (i) a pre-modern organic regime dominated by limited growth in per capita output, high fertility, low levels of human capital, technological progress generated by learning-by-doing, and rare GPT arrivals; and (ii) a modern fossil regime characterized by sustained growth of per capita output, low fertility, high levels of human capital, technological progress generated by profit-motivated R&D, and increasingly frequent GPT arrivals. Most importantly, these economic, technological and demographic regimes' changes are associated with an energy transition. This transition results from the endogenous shortage of renewable resources availability and the arrival of new GPTs, which redirect technological progress towards the exploitation of previously unprofitable exhaustible energy carriers. Calibrations of the model are currently in progress and will allow a simulation of the historical experience of England for the period 1560-2010. In a second step, we plan to reiterate these simulations to compare the different trajectories of Western Europe and Eastern Asia. |
| Keywords: | Unified Growth Theory,Useful Knowledge,Energy Transition,Demography |
| Date: | 2018–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-01698755&r=his |
| By: | Cilliers, Jeanne (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Mariotti, Martine (Research School of Economics, Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | Using South African Families (SAF), a new database of settler genealogies, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of women’s fertility in settler South Africa between 1700 and 1900. Differences in parity rates across geographic regions suggest couples knew how to limit fertility prior to the global onset of the first fertility transition. We date the start of South Africa’s fertility transition to cohorts born in the 1850s, having children from the 1870s. This timing is similar to other settler communities and earlier than many European countries despite somewhat different economic and social circumstances. |
| Keywords: | South Africa; Fertility; Genealogies; Settler demography |
| JEL: | J13 N01 N37 |
| Date: | 2018–03–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0173&r=his |
| By: | Maurício C. Coutinho (Universidade de Campinas); Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (Cedeplar/UFMG) |
| Abstract: | Though contemporaries, Adam Smith and Sir James Steuart are commonly portrayed as men belonging to different eras. Whereas Smith went down in history both as founder of Classical Political Economy and patron of economic liberalism, Steuart became known as the last, outdated advocate of mercantilist policies in Britain. Smith himself was responsible for popularizing the notion of the ‘system of commerce’ as an approach to political economy that dominated British thought during the early modern period. As it evolved into a historiographical concept, the mercantile system came to be seen as an international trade theory grounded upon the fallacious doctrine of the favorable balance of trade. In the Wealth of Nations, however, Smith puts limited emphasis on international trade as a theoretical concern. His analysis of the subject, moreover, was marred by lack of analytical clarity, which caused him to be chastised by some among his followers who adhered more enthusiastically to the free trade cause. Given Smith’s doubtful credentials as a free trade theorist, in this paper we try to analyze the reasons that led him and Steuart to be historically placed on opposite sides of the mercantilist divide. To do so, we analyze the works of both authors in depth, showing that their disagreements in matters of economic policy have chiefly to do with different views about the role of money in the economy. Additionally, we explore how early-19th century writers helped forge the intellectual profiles of both Steuart and Smith. |
| Keywords: | Free trade, money, mercantilism, Adam Smith, James Steuart |
| JEL: | B11 B12 E40 F10 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td575&r=his |
| By: | William Coleman |
| Abstract: | In 1901 Australia abolished six internal, state-based tariff walls, and replaced them with a common external tariff. What was the impact of this establishment of a custom union (CU) of the six newly federated states? The presumption then, and today, is that it would have fostered intra-Australian trade, while inhibiting Australian international trade. The paper seeks to scrutinise this presumption through using previously unutilised quantitative evidence, deployed in the form of various analytical measures of the strength of trade relationships. In doing so the paper contributes to a topic that has been left relatively unexamined. Although there exists a literature that draws near the question of the impact of the Federation customs union on Australia’s trade relations (Patterson 1968; Lloyd 2008, 2015, 2016), with one prominent exception (Irwin 2006), the topic itself has not been directly addressed. In some respects the results of the present paper’s investigation are mildly corroborative of the presumption that Federation customs union ‘nationalised’ trade: in the decade subsequent to the formation of the Australian customs union in 1901 the export ties of the larger states with the rest of Australia strengthened, while their trade with the rest of the world tended to stagnate. In the same vein, the export relations of the rest of the world to Australia also tended to falter. But, pointing to a conclusion of a very different character, the export orientation of the three smaller states to the rest of the world actually increased in the wake of Federation, and the exports of most of the smaller states to the larger states actually waned. The impacts of the Federation Customs union, then, seem to present a fractured picture rather than a simple one. |
| Keywords: | customs union, federation, tariff |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F15 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:dpaper:701&r=his |
| By: | Biyase, Mduduzi |
| Abstract: | This paper uses archival data from colonial South Africa over the 1859–1910 period to investigate the impact of education on economic growth. The analysis applies fixed effect to account for unobserved colony-level heterogeneity and minimise the omitted variable bias. It also employs fixed effects two-stage least squares (FE-2SLS) estimator to account for a possible endogeneity bias due to reverse causation between economic growth and education or other forms of endogeneity problem. The results suggest that levels of education (proxied by spending on education) have a robust positive impact on economic growth. Results are robust to addressing the potential reverse causality of education influencing economic growth and using alternative measures of education (proxied by enrolment rate). |
| Keywords: | FE-2SLS; colonies; education; South Africa, growth and fixed effect |
| JEL: | N0 N9 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84910&r=his |
| By: | Emma Mishel; Paula England; Jessie Ford; Mónica L. Caudillo (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | We examine change across U.S. cohorts born between 1920 and 1998 in their probability of having had sex with same-sex partners last year and since age 18. We explore how trends differ by gender, race and class background. We use data from the 1988-2016 General Social Surveys. We find steady increases across birth cohorts in the proportion of men and women who have had both male and female sexual partners since age 18. A key finding is a race-gender intersection: black men and women of all races had similar increases— increases which were much steeper than those observed for white men. We suggest that women’s increase is rooted in a long-term asymmetry in gender change, in which nonconformity to gender norms in many arenas is more acceptable for women than men. As the increase for men is largest among black men—and this is the population most affected by the rise of mass incarceration—we suggest the latter may be a contributing factor. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20180014&r=his |
| By: | Mario Chacon; Jeffrey Jensen (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | We use the Southern secession movement of 1860-1861 to study how elites in democracy enact their preferred policies. Most states used specially convened conventions to determine whether or not to secede from the Union. We argue that although the delegates of these conventions were popularly elected, the electoral rules favored slaveholders. Using an original dataset of representation in each convention, we first demonstrate that slave-intensive districts were systematically overrepresented. Slave-holders were also spatially concentrated and could thereby obtain local pluralities in favor of secession more easily. As a result of these electoral biases, less than 10% of the electorate was sucient to elect a majority of delegates in four of the six original Confederate states. We also show how delegates representing slave-intensive counties were more likely to support secession. These factors explain the disproportionate in uence of slaveholders during the crisis and why secessionists strategically chose conventions over statewide referenda. |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170001&r=his |
| By: | Acheson, Graeme G.; Coyle, Christopher; Jordan, David P.; Turner, John D. |
| Abstract: | Using a hand-collected dataset, we examine share trading activity over the period 1882 to 1920 for the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, one of the largest UK companies of the time. Our main finding is that the steady flow of rentiers into the shareholding constituency of this company stymied share trading activity. Another important finding is that share trading still occurred during the closure of the Stock Exchange in 1914, but on a much-reduced scale. We also find that there was a substantial boom in share trading and in insurance stock prices after World War I. |
| Keywords: | Share trading,London Stock Exchange,Insurance,Investor,Rentier,World War I |
| JEL: | G12 N23 N24 N83 N84 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201804&r=his |