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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒04‒23
35 papers chosen by |
| By: | Garbinti, Bertrand; Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan; Piketty, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper presents "Distributional National Accounts" (DINA) for France. That is, we combine national accounts, tax and survey data in a comprehensive and consistent manner to build homogenous annual series on the distribution of national income by percentiles over the 1900-2014 period, with detailed breakdown by age, gender and income categories over the 1970-2014 period. Our DINA-based estimates allow for a much richer analysis of the long-run pattern found in previous tax-based series, i.e. a long-run decline in income inequality, largely due to a sharp drop in the concentration of wealth and capital income following the 1914-1945 capital shocks. First, our new series deliver higher inequality levels than the usual tax-based series for the recent decades, because the latter miss a rising part of capital income. Growth incidence curves look dramatically different for the 1950-1983 and 1983-2014 sub-periods. We also show that it has become increasingly difficult in recent decades to access top wealth groups with labor income only. Next, gender inequality in labor income declined in recent decades, albeit fairly slowly among top labor incomes E.g. female share among top 0.1% earners was only 12% in 2012 (vs. 7% in 1994 and 5% in 1970). Finally, we find that distributional changes can have large impact on comparisons of well-being across countries. E.g. average pre-tax income among bottom 50% adults is 30% larger in France than in the U.S., in spite of the fact that aggregate per adult national income is 30% smaller in France. |
| Keywords: | income distribution; Income inequality; National Accounts |
| JEL: | D31 E01 H2 N34 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12799&r=his |
| By: | Doerr, Sebastian; Gissler, Stefan; Peydró, José Luis; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | Do financial crises radicalize voters? For identification, we analyze the canonical case of Germany in the 1930s exploiting a large bank failure in 1931 caused by fraud, foreign shocks and political inaction. We use detailed bank-firm connections on banks that (unlike the US) served the whole country. We provide causal evidence from banking crisis to economic distress and extreme radical voting, while the literature in general has found no clear effect of economic distress on Nazi Party support. We show that, first, the failure of Jewish-led Danatbank induced a strong reduction in the wage bill for connected firms. This led to increasing city-level unemployment in cities with more Danat-connected firms. The effects are notably stronger in cities with a higher share of non-exporting firms, where local demand spillovers are higher. Second, Danat exposure significantly increased Nazi Party support between 1930 and 1933 elections, but not between 1928 and 1930 -before the banking crisis but after the start of the Great Depression and high unemployment. The financial crisis increased support for the Nazi party the most in areas with both deep-seated historical anti-Semitism, and more net savers than borrowers. Not only did the banking crisis help the Nazis rise to power, but cities with higher Danat exposure saw fewer marriages between Jews and gentiles after the banking crisis. Also, after 1933, there were more attacks on Jews and their property in Danat-exposed cites, and deportation rates were higher. |
| Keywords: | extremism; Financial crises; Germany; Great Depression; Nazi Party; Polarisation; Real effects |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12806&r=his |
| By: | Cédric Poivret (IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12) |
| Abstract: | Management sciences, conversely to the other social sciences, have not developed in France research about the French history of their discipline. In this communication, we try to this prove this weakness, and to find elements of explanation. |
| Abstract: | En France, les sciences de gestion, contrairement aux autres sciences sociales, n’ont pas développé de recherche bien établie concernant l’histoire française de leur discipline. Dans ce travail, nous essayons de démontrer cette faiblesse –qui n’a pas empêché la réalisation d’un certain nombre de travaux de qualité-, et de trouver des éléments d’explication. |
| Keywords: | history of management thought in France,organization science,forgetting of history,histoire de la pensée managériale en France,sciences de gestion,oubli de l’histoire |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01702014&r=his |
| By: | Mikhailova, Tatiana (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)) |
| Abstract: | Quantitative studies of long-term trends in the spatial evolution of the Russian economy make it possible to better understand the factors that have affected the geographic structure of the economy in the past and to predict the consequences of regional policy in the future. The economic geography of modern Russia bears the consequences of the decisions of the planned Soviet economy for 70 years, and the impact of events in Russian history. The most significant of the historical factors affecting the geography of industry and population is the Great Patriotic War. However, studies of the consequences of the Second World War, based on real data on the distribution of population and enterprises, are still small due to the long period of inaccessibility of secret data. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:031835&r=his |
| By: | Adeel Malik; Rinchan Ali Mirza |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a novel illustration of the political economy of religion and development by empirically examining the impact of religious shrines on development. Compiling a unique database covering the universe of holy Muslim shrines across Pakistani Punjab, we show that historically embedded religious power shapes persistent differences in literacy. Using the 1977 military take-over as a universal shock, our difference-in-differences analysis suggests that areas with a greater concentration of shrines recognized by the British colonial administration experienced a substantially retarded growth in literacy. We argue that this literacy disadvantage in shrine-dominated regions is largely attributable to a growingly prominent role of shrine elites in electoral politics and their direct control over allocation of public goods since the 1977 military coup. Our analysis suggests that shrines in these regions represent the confluence of three forces—religion, land and politics —that together constitute a powerful structural inequality with potentially adverse consequences for development. |
| JEL: | I25 N55 Z12 O15 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2018-04&r=his |
| By: | Vitola, Alise; Grigoriadis, Theocharis |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the long-run effects of cultural and imperial legacies in the Baltic region. Drawing evidence from the 1897 population census in the Russian Empire, we find that localities with a higher share of German historical population are inclined to be more developed in contemporary Latvia and Estonia. Furthermore, based on the Life-In-Transition Survey (LiTS), we use robust regression discontinuity and identify persistent differential patterns of socioeconomic and political preferences across the borders of the former imperial territories of Estland, Livonia (Swedish Livonia), Letgallia (Polish Livonia) and Courland. Hence, we argue for the persistence of legacies as drivers of divergent development paths in the regions of Latvia and Estonia. |
| Keywords: | Baltic Germans,diversity,empire,development,culture |
| JEL: | N43 O57 P51 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:20186&r=his |
| By: | Dmitry Poldnikov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Comparative legal history is a fashionable new discipline which aims at a better understanding of the law's past by comparing similarities and differences of legal phenomena in two or more jurisdictions beyond the limits of national legal histories. Despite its popularity in Europe, it still lacks comparative projects that cover both Western and Eastern areas of the Continent, not least because the methodology of such comparison requires proper consideration and cannot be simply copied from comparative law or national legal histories. The present article evaluates the applicability of the dominant method of today's comparative law (the functional one) in the domain of the general contract law of the first codifications in the major jurisdictions of Continental Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Russia) during the 'long 19th century'. This subject matter is chosen by way of example as a 'legal cross-road' of legal concepts and models, more susceptible to changes, innovations, borrowings, and closely l inked to social needs. In the main part of the article, it is argued that the adaptation of the functional method to the needs of comparison in legal history becomes plausible due to at least two factors. First, comparatists mitigated the rigid assumptions of the 'classical' functionalism of the 20th century (rejecting its privileged status and purely functional perception of law, irrebuttable presumptions of similarity and unification of compared legal systems etc.). Second, many legal historians, like the drafters of the first civil codes in Western and Eastern Europe, also believe that law is more than minimally connected to social problems and manifests itself primarily through its actual application. On the basis of such premises, the author of this article discusses potential benefits and limitations of researching general contract law in the selected jurisdictions with the functional method. At the preparatory (descriptive) stage, it can be useful to assure comparability of contract law in the selected civil codes, to identify omissions in the codified general rules on contracts, and to arrange legal provisions around practically relevant issues. At the stage of analysis, functionalism can be coupled with teleological interpretation of legal norms to enable us to understand better the link between the application of the legal rules, their legal purposes, and the practical social problems serving as tertium comparationis for all the compared jurisdictions. A sketch of such an analysis in the final part of the article allows to conclude that a research with the help of the functional method narrows our perception of law as a cultural phenomenon and breaks the inner doctrinal logic, but in return, it offers a starting point for a much needed dialogue of legal historians with a wider legal community. |
| Keywords: | comparative legal history, contract law in Europe, functional method, tertium comparationis, codification of civil law |
| JEL: | K10 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:80/law/2018&r=his |
| By: | Frank Veneroso |
| Abstract: | The dominant postwar tradition in economics assumes the utility maximization of economic agents drives markets toward stable equilibrium positions. In such a world there should be no endogenous asset bubbles and untenable levels of private indebtedness. But there are. There is a competing alternative view that assumes an endogenous behavioral propensity for markets to embark on disequilibrium paths. Sometimes these departures are dangerously far reaching. Three great interwar economists set out most of the economic theory that explains this natural tendency for markets to propagate financial fragility: Joseph Schumpeter, Irving Fisher, and John Maynard Keynes. In the postwar period, Hyman Minsky carried this tradition forward. Early on he set out a “financial instability hypothesis†based on the thinking of these three predecessors. Later on, he introduced two additional dynamic processes that intensify financial market disequilibria: principal–agent distortions and mounting moral hazard. The emergence of a behavioral finance literature has provided empirical support to the theory of endogenous financial instability. Work by Vernon Smith explains further how disequilibrium paths go to asset bubble extremes. The following paper provides a compressed account of this tradition of endogenous financial market instability. |
| Keywords: | Financial Instability; Joseph Schumpeter; Irving Fisher; John Maynard Keynes; Hyman Minsky; Financial Markets; Macroeconomics |
| JEL: | D53 E44 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_903&r=his |
| By: | Zuijderduijn, Jaco (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | In 1553-1554 one Pieter Bruegel purchased a corrody in Sint-Janshuis, a retirement home for former employees of the Marquises of Bergen, where he would receive necessities of life and a place to stay until he would pass away. The paper reconstructs the early financial history of the retirement home, demonstrating how it was unable to cope with inflation, and struggled to provide for the inmates. It is suggested therefore Bruegel did not merely retire into Sint-Janshuis, but purchased an extra ration of food, clothes and fuel: apparently his background as a barber-surgeon at one of the most prestigious courts of the Low Countries allowed him to pay for a relatively decent old age. Further evidence corroborates that compared to his fellow-inmates, Bruegel was relatively wealthy. The paper also discusses evidence linking the barber-surgeon to the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose origins are almost completely unknown. Based on his name, estimated year of birth, and residence in Bergen op Zoom, the barber-surgeon is a strong candidate for the father of the famous painter. If we are correct in this, the latter would have come from an urban middle-class background with close ties to one of the most important courts in the Low Countries: the Renaissance palace Markiezenhof in Bergen op Zoom. |
| Keywords: | retirement; investment behaviour; financial history; art history |
| JEL: | G23 N23 N83 N93 |
| Date: | 2018–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0174&r=his |
| By: | Charles W. Calomiris; Elliot S.M. Oh |
| Abstract: | We study factors influencing individuals’ decisions to purchase Citibank stock during the 1920s. Citibank stock had a very high price per share and was only an investment option for wealthy people. The willingness to own shares was encouraged by proximity to New York, but constraints related to wealth and location were not the only barriers to stockholding. Lack of familiarity was also a barrier. Only a tiny fraction of the wealthy business elite living in the New York City metropolitan area owned Citibank shares. Individual characteristics related to wealth, knowledge, and one’s influence within the New York City business network increased the probability of becoming a Citibank shareholder. Those factors became less important during the stock price boom after 1927, and highly influential people became less likely than others to purchase Citibank shares during the price boom. Network connections were an important influence on purchase decisions. Having business connections with Citibank officers and directors, or with people who had such connections, increased the probability of buying Citibank shares. Furthermore, having business connections with other Citibank shareholders also increased the probability of buying Citibank shares. Thus network influence reflected more than the transmission of inside information; executives imitated each other’s stock buying behavior, which provides further evidence of the importance of familiarity for purchases. The role of network influences, like other identifiable influences, became less important during the price boom after 1927, likely reflecting the rising importance of other means of increasing familiarity during the price boom (i.e., media coverage). |
| JEL: | G02 G11 G21 N12 N22 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24431&r=his |
| By: | Avni önder Hanedar (Sakarya University, Faculty of Political Sciences); Talat Ulussever (Capital Markets Board of Turkey); Murat Ertuğrul (Under Secretariat of the Turkish Treasury) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests how default of a government is reflected in a bond market prior to its declaration to the public. There was an unsettled discussion on that the Ottoman moratorium was not surprise. The price of the General debt bond traded at the İstanbul bourse of the Ottoman Empire between 1874 and 1883 is manually collected. To identify the default risk of the Ottoman state, the paper analyses volatility jumps in return of the bond, using the ICSS and SWARCH methodology. Our results indicate higher volatility with decreasing price before the official declaration of the moratorium. This corresponds to increasing intensity of the rebellions in the Ottoman Empire, implying higher budget deficits and risks on the redemption of debts. The findings suggest the presence of a leading event for the default, as it can be seen that by the default announcement in October 1875 the bond price displays a significant and continuous decrease. This supports the lack of the dissemination of news on the moratorium prior to the declaration. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tek:wpaper:2018/1&r=his |
| By: | Miguel Cantillo Simon (Universidad de Costa Rica) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes and measures the value that American private banks added as directors of non financial companies. Using data between 1874 and 1913, and an event study from 1906, I find that bank directors added about 20% of a firm’s market capitalization. Collusive practices encouraged by private banks accounted for 65% of this value, and were the equivalent of creating a three player market among railroads. About 35% of the value added by banks came from better governance. I argue that although policymakers were partly right in sidelining private banks as activist investors, this helped entrench managers. |
| Keywords: | Antitrust, Collusion, Corporate Governance, Financial History |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fcr:wpaper:201701&r=his |
| By: | Nicolás Steven Escobar Forero |
| Abstract: | El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo lograr un acercamiento a las dificultades sociales y políticas por las cuales atravesó el modelo de Industrialización por Sustitución de Importaciones (ISI) en Colombia. A lo largo del texto se realiza un recorrido por diversos problemas afrontados en el país entre 1950 y 1980, periodo durante el cual el problema agrario, el conflicto armado y la falta de una élite económica que propiciara un proceso de industrialización aparecen como razones generadoras de dificultades en el proceso de industrialización colombiano. Finalmente, se concluye que estos motivos generan consecuencias que no permiten consolidar un mercado interno fuerte, factor fundamental para el proceso de industrialización. |
| Keywords: | industrialización, desarrollo económico, modelo económico de Colombia, economía colombiana, historia económica de Colombia |
| JEL: | B25 J21 O14 O18 Q15 |
| Date: | 2018–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000176:016181&r=his |
| By: | Minns, Chris; Rosés, Joan R. |
| Abstract: | Economic historians have long signalled the importance of location-specific resource booms in the Canadian development experience, but a full analysis of the dynamics of Canada's internal income dynamics is conspicuously absent. This article presents comprehensive estimates of regional inequality in Canada from 1890 to 2006 and assesses the sources of convergence and divergence across Canadian provinces. Our convergence decompositions support the central role of resource booms in accounting for regional income dynamics, and show that structural change contributing relatively little to the development process. Our findings are in sharp contrast to the historical experience of other countries, including the United States. |
| Keywords: | Canada; random growth theory; Regional Inequality; resource booms; structural change |
| JEL: | N91 N92 R12 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12803&r=his |
| By: | Nicolas Pinsard; Yamina Tadjeddine |
| Abstract: | Le marché de la dette souveraine constitue l’un des secteurs les plus actifs et recherchés en matière de transaction financière. Pourtant, l’échange d’un titre de dette publique n’est en rien naturel et résulte d’un long processus social et politique. Notre thèse est de considérer l’instauration de la paulette en 1604 comme un acte fondateur de cette marchandisation, car elle modifie les règles liées à l’octroi et la transmission des offices, augurant de la possibilité d’un marché où s’échangent librement des charges et surtout parce qu’il permet la mise en place d’une évaluation publique régulière de cette charge. L’article s’appuie sur un travail d’archives et de récoltes de données originales dans le fonds Sully des Archives nationales. Le concept d’agencement marchand proposé par Callon (2017) constitue notre référence théorique en cela qu’il nous permettra de caractériser la nature des relations marchandes instituées. |
| Keywords: | offices; Ancien régime; finances publiques; agencement marchand. |
| JEL: | N23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2018-18&r=his |
| By: | Blanche Segrestin (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Date: | 2017–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01736509&r=his |
| By: | Balcilar, Mehmet; Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin; Ozdemir, Huseyin; Shahbaz, Muhammad |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to analyze the time-varying effects of renewable energy consumption on economic growth and vice versa for the G-7 countries. To this end, the historical decomposition method with bootstrap is utilized. The findings show that the effect of economic growth on renewable energy consumption is highly time-varying and strongly positive during the whole analysis period for Germany, Italy and the United States. Although the result is usually analogous in most periods for Canada, France, Japan and the United Kingdom, the contribution of economic growth on renewable energy consumption is reversed in some periods. Additionally, the effect of renewable energy consumption on economic growth shows remarkable time-variations for all the G-7 countries, but does not produce a consistent direction of effect over the entire analysis period. For Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, renewable energy consumption appears to be a driving force for economic growth during nearly in the whole time period after early 1990s. |
| Keywords: | Renewable Energy, Growth, G7 |
| JEL: | A1 |
| Date: | 2018–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85473&r=his |
| By: | Agustina Rayes |
| Abstract: | The literature dedicated to the study of Argentine commercial policy during the period 1870-1913 has alternately established it as liberal, protectionist or fiscalist. In this research, we propose to study it mainly from the customs laws - although we also use other dispositions, resolutions and decrees related to the subject. Our hypothesis is that the Argentine trade policy cannot easily be categorized, because it showed both signs of liberalization and protectionism, and fiscal intentions. In effect, sectors with interests, sometimes similar and sometimes dissimilar, influenced the evolution of trade policy. This paper has been divided into four parts. It begins by presenting which the tax-free exports and imports were. It then goes on to observe which products paid export and import duties, what was the weight of customs duties on state revenues, what the average tariff levels were, and what the difference between nominal protection and implicit protection was. In the next section, we present what elements should be studied in order to reach a complete analysis of the commercial policy, which includes the reconstruction of the effective tariffs of the period, both for exports and for imports. Finally, we make a balance (still provisional) based on the main findings of this research. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:067&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Philippe Luis (CHEC - Centre d'Histoire "Espaces et Cultures" - UBP - Université Blaise Pascal - Clermont-Ferrand 2) |
| Abstract: | Publicado en M. Bertrand, F. Andujar, T. Glesener (eds.), Gobernar y reformar la monarquía. Los agentes políticos y administrativos en España y América.Siglos XVI-XIX, Valencia, Albatros, 2017, p. 81-‐94. La celebración del bicentenario de la guerra de la Independencia y de las independencias hispanoamericanas han impuesto en sus mejores estudios una visión de la guerra como una ruptura, un abismo abierto de repente por el derrumbe brutal de la monarquía imperial hispánica, consecuencia de la invasión de la Península por las tropas napoléónicas en 1808. De ahí el final de un mundo que, a pesar de todas sus contradicciones internas y de todas las tensiones que existían en su seno, seguía todavía en pié a principios del siglo XIX. Los estudios publicados desde quince años han situado el episodio en un marco atlántico que era antes casi totalmente ignorado. La similitud de la reacción de ambos lados del Atlántico frente a la caida de la monarquía, y los caminos distinctos recorridos luego por los dos espacios a partir de una misma cultura política constituyen otro aspecto fundamental de esta lectura renovada del trauma de la guerra de la Independencia. En un océano editorial relacionado con la guerra de la Independencia, ha salido en 2010 un pequeño libro (un texto de 180 páginas), titulado Après le Roi, en que el autor, Jean-Pierre Dedieu, proponía una lectura totalmente inovadora de los acontecimientos del punto de vista metodológico y heurístico. El libro es una síntesis brillante de lo ocurrido con una interpretación fundada en el uso de teorías forjadas en una rama heterodoxa de la economía, la economía de las convenciones. De este modo, este libro constituye una experiencia interdisciplinar única, realizada por uno de los historiadores más destacados del PAPE, para interpretar la salida del Antiguo Régimen y el advenimiento de las sociedades liberales en el mundo hispánico. Este libro no pretende a la exhaustividad (por ejemplo se trata poco de los aspectos económicos) pero propone un análisis centrado en el político en un sentido amplio, es decir sobre las modalidades de distribución y repartición del poder tanto como sobre las representaciones en que estas estan fundadas. Cinco reseñas, todas muy positivas, han sido publicadas, pero ninguna dio cuenta suficientemente de lo nuevo de la herramienta metodológica 1. Après le Roi describe una sociedad del Antiguo Régimen estructurada por dos convenciones principales, la convención real y la convención religiosa, entendiendo la noción de convención como el conjunto de las « reglas arbitrarias relativas al gobierno de los hombres, que constituyen el marco en que se sitúan las actuaciones, sin necesidad de que los actores se refieran a ellas de manera explícita » (p. 2). La invasión de la península en 1808 desencadenó el derrumbe de la monarquía y, con ella, de las convenciones dominantes, a las que se sustituiron poco a poco dos nuevas convenciones, la convención nacional y la convenión laíca. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01736537&r=his |
| By: | Djankov, Simeon; Nikolova, Elena |
| Abstract: | We show that Eastern Orthodox believers are less happy compared to those of Catholic and Protestant faith using data covering more than 100 countries around the world. Consistent with the happiness results, we also find that relative to Catholics, Protestants and non-believers, those of Eastern Orthodox religion have less social capital and prefer old ideas and safe jobs. In addition, Orthodoxy is associated with left-leaning political preferences and stronger support for government involvement in the economy. Compared to non-believers and Orthodox adherents, Catholics and Protestants are less likely to agree that government ownership is a good thing, and Protestants are less likely to agree that getting rich can only happen at the expense of others. These differences in life satisfaction and other attitudes and values persisted despite the fact that communist elites sought to eradicate church-going in Eastern Europe, since communists maintained many aspects of Orthodox theology which were useful for the advancement of the communist doctrine. The findings are consistent with Berdyaev's (1933, 1937) hypothesis of communism as a successor of Orthodoxy. |
| Keywords: | attitudes,communism,Eastern Orthodoxy,religion |
| JEL: | D02 P35 Z12 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:192&r=his |
| By: | Kufenko, Vadim; Geloso, Vincent; Prettner, Klaus |
| Abstract: | We assess the effects of changes in household size on the long-run evolution of living standards and on cross-country convergence. When the observed changes in average household size across countries are taken into consideration, growth in living standards is slower throughout the 20th century as compared to a measure based on per capita GDP. Furthermore, the speed of divergence between different countries before 1950 is faster and the speed of convergence after 1950 is slower after adjusting for the evolution in household size. |
| Keywords: | divergence,convergence,long-run growth,changing household size,demography |
| JEL: | J11 O11 O47 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohdps:052018&r=his |
| By: | Camilo Andrés Orozco Vanegas; Nicolás Rivera Garzón |
| Abstract: | Este documento busca caracterizar la relación existente entre el crecimiento económico y el papel desempeñado por las instituciones en una economía, ya que determinan los incentivos y las limitaciones de los actores económicos, y dan forma a los resultados económicos. Para este fin se realizará una revisión de las teorías vigentes sobre desarrollo económico que incluyen o parten de una visión institucionalista y neoinstitucionalista desarrollando los aspectos de la ontología de las instituciones, la gobernanza, la corrupción como factor que limita el crecimiento económico, y la introducción de la distribución de la propiedad de la tierra como antesala al desarrollo equitativo. El documento se apoya principalmente en las publicaciones de Douglass North, Daron Acemoglu y James Robinson. |
| Keywords: | crecimiento económico, instituciones, corrupción, reforma agraria. |
| JEL: | H11 J24 O13 O15 O18 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000176:016197&r=his |
| By: | Caprettini, Bruno; Schmidt-Fischbach, Fabio; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | Why do people fight for their country? The risks are extreme, the payoff uncertain. In this paper, we argue that reciprocity is a key factor. Examining welfare spending in the US in the 1930s under the New Deal, we show that support for World War II became more common where welfare support had been more generous: war bonds were sold in greater volume, more men and women volunteered, and more soldiers performed heroic actions recognized by a medal. We use weather shocks in the form of droughts to instrument for agricultural emergency relief, and show that results hold. Because both war bond purchases and volunteering respond to welfare support, we argue that results cannot be driven by opportunity cost considerations. Data on World War I patriotic support shows that 1930s emergency spending is only predictive for World War II support. Pre-New Deal droughts are also not correlated with patriotism after 1941. |
| Keywords: | New Deal; volunteering; war bonds; warfare; Welfare state; World War II |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12807&r=his |
| By: | Marcela Sabaté; José María Serrano |
| Abstract: | This paper reconstructs the composition and activism of the Spanish free trade Asociación para la Reforma de los Aranceles de Aduanas (Association for the Reform of Customs Tariffs), whose archives have long been lost. The Asociación was created in 1859, dissolved in 1869 and reconstituted in 1879 as a response to the protectionist reaction. We study its procedures and arguments and link its strong activism in the 1880s, just when free trade organizations in continental Europe faded, with the delayed Spanish protectionist backlash. |
| Keywords: | Trade Policy and Diverse Paths of Globalization: Tariffs, Market Integration, and Political Economy in Europe, America, and Asia, 1870-1939) |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:066&r=his |
| By: | Nikolskiy, Boris (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)) |
| Abstract: | The work proposes a new description of the relationship between Euripides’ tragedies and the political life of the period, combining a formalist approach with historicism and stressing connections between their dramatic and poetic form and their political meaning. It argues for the thematic coherence of Euripides’ tragedies, and for their relation to particular events in the life of the polis. The work consists of two parts. The first part concerns Euripides’ Hecuba. This tragedy stresses the relativity of ordinary views on friendship and enmity, as well as on freedom and slavery, it suggests virtue as a new and absolute criteria of friendship and freedom, it contraposes the nobleness of the Trojans to the baseness of the Thracians, and it shows how the virtue generates friendship, while the outrage causes enmity. All those themes must have reflected the change of Athens’ relationships with two barbaric peoples, the Persians and the Thracians, that happened in the mid-420s. The tragedy might have been connected to the alliance with Persia in 423 BC. In the second part a new interpretation of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris is proposed. The main motif of the tragedy, the motif of barbarian human sacrifices, is constantly associated with intrafamilial murders in the house of Agamemnon, and the sacrifice of Orestes by Iphigenia is to join together the barbarian ritual and the tribulations of the Argos royal dynasty. The problem of human sacrifices in the barbarian land is in itself hardly of interest to Euripides; their constant comparison and drawing together with the events in Agamemnon’s family enables us to assume that this motif serves for symbolic expression of internal discords in the Hellenic world itself, that is, of the civil war in Argos solved with the help of Athens. It is possible to suppose that the tragedy celebrated an alliance between Athens and Argos made after the war in spring 416. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:031826&r=his |
| By: | Wolf-Fabian Hungerland |
| Abstract: | How were trade relations structured in the first globalisation? Previous literature has highlighted the strong activity of the extensive margin during the first globalisation, i.e. that here was substantial entry and exit. However, so far little is known about what happens between market entry and exit. Traditional narratives of the first globalisation relying on the Heckscher-Ohlin factor endowments or the gravity model are mute about these features of the data. In this paper I study the survival margin of international trade and wonder how long trade relationships lasted and what factors mattered for the duration ofexports. Using product-evel export data from 1889 to 1913, I find that the first years of an export were the most hazardous. The median length of an export spell was 2 years, only about 60 per cent survived the first year, and a mere third of exports lasted longer than 3 years. However, once exporters survived the first two years they face less hazard from year to year. I take Rauch and Watson’s (2003) search cost model of trade relationships and derive hypotheses that I test in order shed light on the duration of Germany’s exports. Key to this model is that a fraction of exports serve to learn about market conditions. I quantify this learning, and my findings suggest that search costs as well as reliability turn out to have been important for export survival, and so did prior export experience. In other words, learning to export was a salient feature of Germany’s experience in the first globalisation. |
| Keywords: | Survival margin, exports ,first globalisation, Imperial Germany |
| JEL: | F14 F19 N73 O14 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:065&r=his |
| By: | Schmucker, Alexandra (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Eberle, Johanna (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Ganzer, Andreas (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Stegmaier, Jens (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Umkehrer, Matthias (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "The Establishment History Panel (BHP) is composed of cross sectional datasets since 1975 for West Germany and 1992 for East Germany. Every cross section contains all the establishments in Germany which are covered by the IAB Employment History (BeH) on June 30th. These are all establishments with at least one employee liable to social security on the reference date. Establishments with no employee liable to social security but with at least one marginal part-time employee are included since 1999. The cross sections can be com-bined to form a panel.This datareport describes the Establishment-History-Panel (BHP) 1975-2016." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information englische Version Auszählungen Frequencies and labels |
| Date: | 2018–04–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfda:201801_de&r=his |
| By: | Hayat, Azmat; Mohd Shafiai, Dr Muhammad Hakimi; Latif Samian, Abdul |
| Abstract: | Francis Fukuyama has explained that searching a meaningful pattern in the past events of mankind will always show the clash of ideologies, in which each idea attempted to establish itself as the universal faith for organizing the society and institutions according to its specific blueprint. The triumph of liberalism over Marxism and Fascism, established the superiority of liberalism which brought history to an end-point of mankind ideological evolution and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human civilization. Have we in fact arrived at the end-point of mankind ideological evolution? Should we believe that neoliberalism is capable to provide greatest interest to the greatest number. Muslims believes that Islam already provided the best and everlasting ideology for the welfare of humanity. Islam is based on the logic of intervention in the socioeconomic affairs of mankind, while neoliberalist believes on non-intervention. On the basis of alcoholic drinks, this paper on one hand highlighted the relationship between public interest in case of neoliberalism and Islam, while on the other hand it also highlighted the internal contradiction. Results indicate that besides contradiction, neoliberalism is attributable to the greatest harm to the greatest number while in the dogma of Islam there is greatest benefits to the greatest number. |
| Keywords: | Islam, Neo-liberalism, alcoholic drinks, Human wellbeing |
| JEL: | P1 P16 P51 Y9 |
| Date: | 2018–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85492&r=his |
| By: | Cyprien Richer (Cerema Direction Nord-Picardie - Centre d'Etudes et d'Expertise sur les Risques, l'Environnement, la Mobilité et l'Aménagement - Direction Nord-Picardie - Cerema - Centre d'Etudes et d'Expertise sur les Risques, l'Environnement, la Mobilité et l'Aménagement) |
| Abstract: | Au moment où se déroulent les Assises nationales de la mobilité, le versement transport fait l’objet de nombreux débats. Instrument privilégié du financement des transports publics urbains en France depuis les années 1970, cet impôt a connu des évolutions complexes et contradictoires, au point d’être aujourd’hui vivement contesté. Cyprien Richer en retrace les principales étapes et dégage les enjeux attachés à sa transformation. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01678263&r=his |
| By: | Dower, Castaneda; Markevich, Andrei; Weber, Shlomo |
| Abstract: | We examine the value of a statistical life (VSL) in inter-war Soviet Union. Our approach requires to address the preferences of Stalin. We model these on the basis of the policy of statistical repression, which was an integral part of the Great Terror. We use regional variation in the victims generated by this policy to structurally estimate the value that Stalin would have been willing to accept for a reduction in citizens' fatality risk. Our estimate of this value is $43,151, roughly 6% of the VSL estimate in 1940's US and 29% of the VSL estimate in modern India. |
| Keywords: | Autocracy; Dictatorship; Great Terror; Stalin; Value of a Statistical Life |
| JEL: | I30 J17 N44 P51 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12814&r=his |
| By: | Juselius, Mikael; Takáts, Előd |
| Abstract: | Demographic shifts, such as population ageing, have been suggested as possible explanations for the recent decade-long spell of low inflation. We identify age structure effects on inflation from cross-country variation in a panel of 22 countries from 1870 to 2016 that includes standard monetary factors. We document a robust relationship that is in line with the lifecycle hypothesis: a larger share of dependent population is inflationary, whereas a larger share of working age population is disinflationary. This relationship accounts for the bulk of trend inflation, for instance, about 7 percentage points of US disinflation since the 1980s. It predicts rising inflation over the coming decades. |
| JEL: | E31 E52 J11 |
| Date: | 2018–04–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:2018_008&r=his |
| By: | Eva Rye Johansen (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark); Helena Skyt Nielsen (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark); Mette Verner (VIVE (The Danish Centre of Applied Social Science)) |
| Abstract: | Having children at an early age is known to be associated with unfavorable economic outcomes, such as lower education, employment and earnings. In this paper, we study the long-term consequences of early parenthood for mothers and fathers. Our study is based on rich register-based data that, importantly, merges all childbirths to the children’s mothers and fathers, allowing us to study the consequences of early parenthood for both parents. We perform a sibling fixed effects analysis in order to account for unobserved family attributes that are possibly correlated with early parenthood. The analysis is based on Danish men and women born between 1968 and 1977, from whom we identify brothers and sisters, respectively. We find that early parenthood reduces educational attainment and employment, and that the relationship is only slightly weaker for men than for women. One exception is earnings (and to lesser extent employment), as fathers appear to support the family, especially when early parenthood is combined with cohabitation with the mother and the child. Heterogeneous effects reveal that individuals with a more favorable socioeconomic background are affected more severely than individuals with a less favorable background. We interpret this as evidence of higher opportunity costs or stigma. |
| Keywords: | Teenage childbearing, long-term outcomes, heterogeneous effects |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2018-01&r=his |
| By: | Ricardo Reis (Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); London School of Economics (LSE)) |
| Abstract: | Central banks have sometimes turned their attention to long-term interest rates as a target or as a diagnosis of policy. This paper describes two historical episodes when this happened—the US in 1942-51 and the UK in the 1960s—and uses a model of inflation dynamics to evaluate monetary policies that rely on going long. It concludes that these policies for the most part fail to keep inflation under control. A complementary methodological contribution is to re-state the classic problem of monetary policy through interest-rate rules in a continuous-time setting where shocks follow diffusions in order to integrate the endogenous determination of inflation and the term structure of interest rates. |
| Keywords: | Taylor rule, Yield curve, Pegs, Ceilings, Affine models |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1810&r=his |
| By: | Alain Naef (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Using over 40,000 new observations on intervention and exchange rates, this paper is the first study of Bank of England foreign exchange intervention between 1952 and 1972. The main finding is that the Bank was unsuccessful in managing a credible exchange rate. By estimating a reaction function, I find that the Bank of England during most of the period refused to intervene on the forward market which was growing in importance. Analysing alternative exchange rates, I show how the Bank failed to maintain credibility in offshore markets. The Bank was eventually forced to manipulate the publication of its reserve figures to avoid a run on sterling. |
| Keywords: | Bretton Woods, Foreign exchange intervention, Bank of England, exchange rate |
| JEL: | F31 N24 E42 E58 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:32&r=his |
| By: | MARCO ANTONIO RIBAS CAVALIERI; JOSÉ FELIPE ARAÚJO DE ALMEIDA |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2016:1&r=his |