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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒04‒30
28 papers chosen by |
| By: | Gazeley, Ian (University of Sussex); Holmes, Rose (University of Sussex); Lanata Briones, Cecilia (Queen Mary, University of London); Newell, Andrew T. (University of Sussex); Reynolds, Kevin (University of Brighton); Rufrancos, Hector Gutierrez (University of Stirling) |
| Abstract: | The article reports an analysis of the findings of a search for household budget surveys for Latin America for the period from the earliest surveys to the late 1960s. Over one hundred studies were located. References to these surveys are available at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/globalincomeinequality/. In Appendix 1 we offer a synopsis of the history, context and contents of all the surveys, including those that did not contain useable data. We discuss the comparability of each country's surveys in turn, offering a table for each country with indicator of size, scope and other features. Our final work is to model the progress of inequality, as reflected in Gini coefficients, 90/10 and 50/10 percentile ratios in the region. We find that the bulk of the measured rise is inequality from the 1930s to the 1960s is due to changing survey methods and objectives, in particular the expansion of the scope of the surveys from a narrow focus on urban manual worker-headed households to a later broad focus on the population. Finally, we predict the pattern of inequality over time that might have been found had the earlier surveys been unrestricted in terms of target population and randomly sampled. We find a modest increase from the early years to the 1960s in Gini inequality. |
| Keywords: | inequality, working households, Latin America, 20th century |
| JEL: | N36 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11430&r=his |
| By: | Leandro Prados de la Escosura (Universidad Carlos III and CEPR); Carlos Santiago-Caballero (Universidad Carlos III) |
| Abstract: | The Napoleonic Wars had dramatic consequences for Spain’s economy. The Peninsular War had higher demographic impact than any other military conflict, including civil wars, in the modern era. Farmers suffered confiscation of their crops and destruction of their main capital asset, livestock. The shrinking demand, the disruption of international and domestic trade, and the shortage of inputs hampered industry and services. The loss of the American colonies, a by-product of the French invasion, seriously harmed absolutism. In the long run, however, the Napoleonic Wars triggered the dismantling of Ancien Régime institutions and interest groups. Freed from their constraints, the country started a long and painful transition towards the liberal society. The Napoleonic Wars may be deemed, then, a watershed in Spanish history. |
| Keywords: | Napoleonic Wars, Peninsular War, Spain, Institutional Change, Growth |
| JEL: | E02 F54 N13 N43 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0130&r=his |
| By: | Toshiki Kawashima |
| Abstract: | This article sheds new light on the economic globalization in Europe and Asia from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, with a special focus on the role of bilateral commercial treaties and import tariffs. Countries concluded a number of treaties in those days, and they came to form an extensive ‘conventional tariff network’. This mechanism contributed to the stabilization of international economic-political space by facilitating reciprocal tariff concessions. The extent of this conventional tariff network was both temporally and geographically larger than has been assumed. First, as the recent scholarship has shown, the network, which emerged in the 1860s, survived the political turbulence of the 1890s and spanned Central European countries such as Germany and Italy by the early 1910s. Second, the network spread outside Europe and reached East Asia by the 1910s, when Japan renegotiated its commercial treaties and became a new member of the network. The network embodied so strong a mechanism of self-maintenance based on the coordination of economic interests that it was resilient to a major political shock such as the First World War. While the tariff systems in Europe and in East Asia around 1900 have been separately discussed in the literature, this paper focuses on the treaty partnership between these two areas to show how the mechanism of the conventional tariff network enabled the countries to cooperate for mutual concessions on international trade. |
| Keywords: | Commercial treaty; network; international space; conventional tariff; global economic history; Central Europe and East Asia. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:069&r=his |
| By: | Acheson, Graeme G.; Coyle, Christopher; Turner, John D. |
| Abstract: | Using a novel dataset where all traders are identifiable, we examine trading in the shares of a major company on the London Stock Exchange before 1920. Our main finding is that bid-ask spreads increased in the presence of informed trades. However, we also find that spreads narrowed during periods of informed trading when such trades were timed to periods of large uninformed volume and that professional traders consistently timed larger volume to such periods. We also find that spreads increased during the 1914 closure of the Stock Exchange. Our results provide support for the classical microstructure theories of informed trading. |
| Keywords: | Informed Trading,Uninformed Trading,Liquidity,Effective Spread,Adverse Selection,Stock Exchange Closure |
| JEL: | G12 N23 N24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:201805&r=his |
| By: | Gazeley, Ian (University of Sussex); Holmes, Rose (University of Sussex); Newell, Andrew T. (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | We trace the development of the household expenditure survey from its conception during the Napoleonic Wars until the 1960s. We have compiled the first historical bibliography of household budget surveys in Western Europe and, using the surveys themselves as source material, have traced the development of their practice and methodology. First developed by private and academic researchers, and subsequently co-opted by governments, the surveys used the domestic consumption of working households to draw conclusions about the condition of labour. Their methodology evolved through international co-operation by researchers, and with informing the labour requirements of international trade as a priority. We argue that international networks and trans-national political structures exerted a strong influence on the development of surveys over time. |
| Keywords: | budget studies, household expenditure surveys, living standards, cost of living inequality, working households, Europe, 20th century |
| JEL: | N33 N34 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11429&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Sébastien Lenfant (CLERSE - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - Université de Lille, Sciences et Technologies - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes an overview of early reflections on the issue of quality in economics in the 20th century, within a context of mass production and rising demands from the consumers about product quality. This context (notably the New Deal era) fostered a number of studies and reflections on the part of agricultural economists, home economists, lawyers and reformers about the best way to account for quality uncertainty and quality variations in the economy. This literature is of interest to help us understand the way quality would be involved in analytical economics after WWII and the various rationale of the pro and con the use of official standards to coordinate economic activities. |
| Keywords: | Quality, Agricultural economics, New Deal, Consumer movement, Coordination, Standards |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01763828&r=his |
| By: | Quintín Quílez Pedro |
| Abstract: | El tema de la herencia constituye un asunto menor dentro de la sociología desarrollada por Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). Sin embargo, su apuesta por la eliminación legal de la herencia familiar fue, para este autor, no solo la oportunidad de ofrecer una interpretación sociológica de su origen, función y evolución, sino sobre todo de situarse políticamente en los debates políticos del momento. Como resultado, Durkheim formuló una predicción sobre su futura desaparición. La herencia sería substituida por otras formas de transmisión de bienes más pertinentes para las sociedades modernas caracterizadas por una cada vez mayor división y especialización del trabajo. Si El capital en el siglo XXI (2013), el exitoso libro del economista Thomas Piketty, ha vuelto a poner sobre la mesa el papel jugado por el capital económico heredado en el actual incremento de la desigualdad social, vale la pena recordar lo que al respecto dijo uno de los padres fundadores de la sociología y de quien estamos conmemorando los cien años de su muerte. |
| Keywords: | Sociología clásica, Sociología económica, Herencia |
| Date: | 2018–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000149:016209&r=his |
| By: | Frédéric Docquier (UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain, FNRS - Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique [Bruxelles], FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International); Riccardo Turati (UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain); Jérome Valette (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Chrysovalantis Vasilakis (Bangor Business School - forTANK) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically revisits the impact of birthplace diversity on economic growth. We use panel data on US states over the 1960-2010 period. This rich data set allows us to better deal with endogeneity issues and to conduct a large set of robustness checks. Our results suggest that diversity among college-educated immigrants positively affects economic growth. We provide converging evidence pointing at the existence of skill complementarities between workers trained in different countries. These synergies result in better labor market outcomes for native workers and in higher productivity in the R&D sector. The gains from diversity are maximized when immigrants originate from economically or culturally distant countries (but not both), and when they acquired part of their secondary education abroad and their college education in the US. Overall, a 10% increase in high-skilled diversity raises GDP per capita by about 6%. On the contrary, low-skilled diversity has insignificant effects. |
| Keywords: | Immigration,Culture,Birthplace Diversity,Growth |
| Date: | 2018–03–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01743780&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo (Rutgers University, NBER and Hoover Institution, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the co-evolution of monetary policy and financial stability for a number of countries across four exchange rate regimes from 1880 to the present. Historical evidence is presented on the incidence, costs and determinants of financial crises along with some empirical evidence on the relationship between credit booms, asset price booms and serious financial crises. The results suggests that financial crises have many causes, including credit driven asset price booms, which have become more prevalent in recent decades, but that in general financial crises are very heterogeneous and hard to categorize. Two key historical examples stand out in the record of serious financial crises which were linked to credit driven asset price booms and busts: the 1920s and 30s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. The question that arises is whether these two 'perfect storms' should be grounds for permanent changes in the monetary and financial environment. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, financial stability, financial crises, credit driven asset price booms |
| JEL: | E3 E42 G01 N1 N2 |
| Date: | 2017–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2018_05&r=his |
| By: | Lefranc, Arnaud (University of Cergy-Pontoise) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes long-term trends in intergenerational earnings persistence in France for male cohorts born between 1931 and 1975. This time period has witnessed important changes in the French labor market and educational system, in particular an important compression of earnings differentials as well as a large expansion in access to secondary and higher education. Using a two-sample instrumental variables approach, I estimate two measures of intergenerational economic persistence: the intergenerational earnings elasticity (IGE) and the intergenerational correlation (IGC). Over the period, the IGE exhibits a V-shaped pattern. It falls from a high of value of .6 for cohorts born in the 1930s to around .4 for those born in the 1950s, but subsequently rises to a level close to the beginning of the period. In contrast, the IGC remains relatively stable over the period. This suggests that changes in the IGE are partly driven by transitory responses to changes in cross-sectional inequality rather than long-term changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, intergenerational persistence, earnings, inequality, trends, elasticity, corre-lation, education, France |
| JEL: | D1 D3 J3 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11406&r=his |
| By: | Pawel Bukowski; Filip Novokmet |
| Abstract: | This paper combines national accounts, survey and tax data to provide consistent series on income distribution in Poland over the 1983-2015 period. We find that official survey-based inequality estimates substantially underestimate the rise of inequality since the end of Communism. The top 10% income share increased from 23% to 40% and the top 1% income share from 4% to 14% between 1989 and 2015. Frequently quoted Poland’s transition success has largely benefited top income groups. Over this period, top 1% has captured almost twice as large portion of the total income growth than the bottom 50% (24% versus 13%). We also find that inequality has continued to grow after the initial upward adjustment during the transition in the 1990s, especially since the early 2000s, and today has reached levels found in more unequal European countries. However, the transition from communism to capitalism has led to lower income concentration in Poland than in Russia. We relate this to different transition policies, institutions and natural resources endowments. |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:731&r=his |
| By: | Jon D. Wisman; |
| Abstract: | Ever since capitalism came to be recognized as a new economic system, its principal institutions of private property and markets have had vociferous critics, of whom none was more wide-ranging and influential than Karl Marx. Marx claimed that not only were private property and markets critical to creating an ideological patina of freedom behind which, as in slavery and feudalism, a small class extracted from the mass of producers practically all output above that necessary for bare subsistence, they were also corrupting. Yet Marx recognized that capitalism, unlike earlier exploitative systems, was radically dynamic, producing unprecedented wealth, while transforming not only all it inherited from the past, but also its own nature so as to eventually empower even the producers, who he believed would abandon these capitalist institutions. This article claims Marx was correct in identifying the core problem of capitalism to be its extreme inequality in the ownership and control of the means of production, but that finding fault with private property and markets has been a mistake that has impeded the generation of an attractive and viable alternative to capitalism. It concludes with an outline of an alternative which would eliminate the core problem of exploitation due to unequal ownership and control of the means of production, while retaining roles for private property and markets. It would entail two components: Guaranteed employment at living wages and democratic worker control of firms. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Exploitation, Markets, Private property, Marx |
| JEL: | B51 P11 P16 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amu:wpaper:2018-04&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Roulac |
| Abstract: | It is broadly recognized that real estate has been subjected to a veritable tsunami of change forces dramatically impacting:Property use: Air BnBRetail shopping – AmazonWorkspaces – WeWork and other co-working modelsCapital access – FinTech innovations and crowd fundingUrbanization – prospectively accelerated by autonomous vehicles and proliferating high-rise constructionThese changes are not necessarily reflected in the focus of research topics investigated by the property research community. Mainstream real estate textbooks are even more innocent of these forces. Consequently, the academy is not well serving students studying property.This paper explores implications of change influence the concerns of property scholars and the contents of property curriculums. The study emphasis is on textbooks for introductory real estate principles. This research updates and extends prior research published in Journal of Real Estate Literature two decades ago ("Foundation of the Knowledge Structure: Review of Real Estate Principles Texts,") and a decade ago ("Shifting Foundations of the Real Estate Knowledge Structure").While the majority of real estate textbooks evaluated in the 1994 review were no longer in the market a decade later, significantly, the books that survived were more traditional. The survivors had become more non-traditional, placing greater emphasis on topics other than law and brokerage. Books not in the market in 1994, were even more traditional. Strikingly, economics was less emphasized in 2004 than a decade earlier. While the economy represented real-time empirical validation of Schumpeter’s classic principle of creative destruction, the same conclusion does not apply to the real estate principles textbooks.This paper provides a contemporary 2017 perspective on what is covered in introductory real estate principles textbooks, compares and contrasts that coverage to contemporary discovery research, and considers how topic emphasis has changed.At a time when the economy is more complex and factors that influence future performance of property goods and services are greater rather than fewer, many studying real estate principles are likely to find that their textbooks are less than adequate. Those pursuing real estate careers, whose initial knowledge foundation is built upon deficient, rather than superior professional services, shall be more likely to miscalculate in their decision-making and in making capital commitment. |
| Keywords: | Education; Innovation; Textbooks |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2017_400&r=his |
| By: | Elsner, Benjamin (University College Dublin); Wozny, Florian (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term effect of radiation on cognitive skills. We use regional variation in nuclear fallout caused by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which led to a permanent increase in radiation levels in most of Europe. To identify a causal effect, we exploit the fact that the degree of soil contamination depended on rainfall within a critical ten-day window after the disaster. Based on unique geo-coded survey data from Germany, we show that people who lived in highly-contaminated areas in 1986 perform significantly worse in standardized cognitive tests 25 years later. This effect is driven by the older cohorts in our sample (born before 1976), whereas we find no effect for people who were first exposed during early childhood. These results are consistent with radiation accelerating cognitive decline during older ages. Moreover, they suggest that radiation has negative effects even when people are first exposed as adults, and point to significant external costs of man-made sources of radiation. |
| Keywords: | environment, human capital, radioactivity, cognitive skills |
| JEL: | J24 Q53 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11408&r=his |
| By: | Konstantin Büchel; Stephan Kyburz |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of railway access on population growth in 19th century Switzerland. Our analysis is based on geo-referenced railway network information and an inconsequential units IV approach. Gaining direct railway access increased annual population growth by 0.4 percentage points, while municipalities in close vicinity but no direct access (i.e. 2{10 km distance) experienced a growth slump of similar magnitude. We interpret these findings as evidence of highly localised displacement effects related to railway connections. |
| Keywords: | railway access, population growth, displacement effects |
| JEL: | N33 N73 O18 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1538&r=his |
| By: | Wang, Lili; Wen, Yi (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | With rapid industrial upgrading along the global value chain of manufactured goods, China has transformed, within one generation, from an impoverished agrarian society to a middle-income nation as well as the largest manufacturing powerhouse in the world. This article identifies the pattern of China’s industrial upgrading and compares it with those of other successfully industrialized economies and the failed ones. We find that (i) China (since 1978) followed essentially the same path of industrial upgrading as that of Japan and the “Asian Tigers.” These economies succeeded in catching up with the developed western world by going through three developmental stages sequentially; namely, a proto-industrialization in the rural areas, a first industrial revolution featuring mass production of labor-intensive light consumer goods, and then a second industrial revolution featuring mass production of the means of mass production (i.e., capital-intensive heavy industrial good s such as steel, machine tools, electronics, automobiles, communication and transport infrastructures). (ii) In contrast, economies stuck in the low-income trap or middle-income trap did not follow the above sequential stages of industrialization. For example, many Eastern European and Latin American countries after WWII jumped to the stage of heavy industrialization without fully developing their labor-intensive light industries, and thus stagnated in the middle-income trap. Also, there is a clear lack of proto-industrialization in the rural areas for many African economies that have remained in the low-income trap. We believe that laissez-faire and “free market” alone is unable to trigger industrial upgrading. Instead, correct government-led bottom-up industrial policies are the key to escaping the low- and middle-income traps. |
| Keywords: | China’s Economic Development; Industrial Revolution; Middle-Income Trap; New Institutional Theory; New Stage Theory; New Structural Economics |
| JEL: | F02 N10 O11 O40 |
| Date: | 2018–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2018-001&r=his |
| By: | Pillai N., Vijayamohanan |
| Abstract: | The present paper argues that the expansion of the the vector of human capabilities in Kerala has tended to belie the Pythagorean dictum as well as the Marxian dialectics on a one-to-one correspondence between quantity and quality: the quantity increase has by no means led quality improvement, leaving her just with some apparent achievements in capability. We introduce in the paper an integrated theory of governance, public action and development in the framework of Sennian capability approach and human rights perspective and discusses the experience of Kerala in decentralization ventures, and evaluates the programme in the context of the implications for human development. We also attempt to develop a theory of quality and freedom on the premise that development as freedom from deprivation consists in realising both availability (including accessibility) and utilisability (or simply, utility) of those, the public provision of which constitutes freedom from deprivation. In other words, realisation of development implies that in its truest sense of this duality. Then the right to development, being a human right, is a right to both; even with availability, development is denied and unfreedoms exist if utility is denied. In this light we argue that such apparent capability enhancement in quantitative terms sans utilisability which we call ‘a-capability enhancement’, however, is of neither intrinsic nor instrumental value. |
| Keywords: | Human Development, Decentralization, Quality,Freedom, Kerala Model, education, health care, transportation |
| JEL: | H1 I3 O1 O15 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85618&r=his |
| By: | Camilo García-Jimeno; Angel Iglesias; Pinar Yildirim |
| Abstract: | How do social interactions shape collective action, and how are they mediated by the availability of networked information technologies? To answer these questions, we study the Temperance Crusade, one of the earliest instances of organized political mobilization by women in the U.S. This wave of protest activity against liquor dealers spread between the winter of 1873 and the summer of 1874, covering more than 800 towns in 29 states. We first provide causal evidence of social interactions driving the diffusion of the protest wave, and estimate the roles played by information traveling along railroad and telegraph networks. We do this by relying on exogenous variation in the rail network links generated by railroad worker strikes and railroad accidents. We also develop an event-study methodology to estimate the complementarity between rail and telegraph networks in driving the spread of the Crusade. We find that railroad and telegraph-mediated information about neighboring protest activity were main drivers of the diffusion of the protest movement. We also find strong complementarities between both networks. Using variation in the types of protest activities of neighboring towns and in the aggregate patterns of the diffusion process, we also find suggestive evidence of social learning as a key mechanism behind the effect of information on protest adoption. |
| JEL: | D71 D83 N11 N31 N71 O18 Z12 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24495&r=his |
| By: | Tsoulfidis, Lefteris |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to shed light on some significant aspects of Ricardo's theory of value and on the other hand to show that Ricardo's insights about the explanatory power of the relative labour times on the movement of relative prices were in the right direction. For this purpose, Ricardo's theory of value is cast rigorously and in modern terms such that by using detailed intertemporal data from input-output tables of two major economies to show that Ricardo's insights are absolutely consistent with the facts. |
| Keywords: | David Ricardo; Value and distribution, Price-value deviations |
| JEL: | B12 B14 B16 B3 B4 B51 B52 C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C67 D3 D4 D46 D57 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85822&r=his |
| By: | Elizabeth Beasley (CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications); Êsther Raineau-Rispal (CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications); Mathieu Perona (CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications) |
| Abstract: | Dans de très nombreux pays, la moyenne des réponses à la question « Êtes-vous satisfait de la vie que vous menez ?» forme une courbe en U en fonction de l’âge : jeunes et jeunes retraités sont les plus satisfaits, les quadras les moins. Dans cette note, nous examinons la manière dont ce phénomène s’observe dans notre enquête au prisme de deux domaines, le travail et l’environnement quotidien. Dans ces deux domaines, la génération des quarantenaires, les « quadras », nés entre 1968 et 1978 dans notre enquête, se déclare particulièrement peu satisfaite. La satisfaction vis-à-vis du travail et celle vis-à-vis des relations de travail y est au plus bas, tandis que le sentiment d’exposition à l’agressivité et à l’insécurité y est au plus haut. À l’intérieur de cette crise globale, les cadres et les hommes sont particulièrement touchés par l’insatisfaction vis-à-vis de leur travail, tandis que les femmes sont les plus affectées par les sentiments d’agression et d’insécurité. |
| Keywords: | Bien-être, âge, Midlife low, Travail |
| Date: | 2018–02–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01735040&r=his |
| By: | DANIELLE GUIZZO; IARA VIGO DE LIMA |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2016:10&r=his |
| By: | LAURA VALLADÃO DE MATTOS |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2016:5&r=his |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | The Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 1860 Census of Population (one percent sample of free people) is used to study the occupational distribution and the determinants of socio-economic status of Jewish men (age 16 to 60) compared to other free men. Jews cannot be identified directly, but two versions of the Distinctive Jewish Name (DJN) technique are used to identify men with a higher probability of being Jewish. The men identified as likely to be Jewish are more likely to be in managerial, clerical, machine operator, and sales (especially as peddlers) occupations. They are less likely to be in farm related occupations as owners, tenants, managers, or laborers. Using multiple regression analysis to study the Duncan Socio-Economic Index (SEI), it is found that the index increases with age (at a decreasing rate), literacy, being married, and living in the South. It is lower among (free) non-whites, among the foreign-born, those with more children, and those living in rural areas (especially on farms). Other variables the same, US-born Jews do not differ significantly in SEI from other free, native-born men, but foreign-born Jews have a significantly higher SEI than other immigrants or even US-born non-Jews. |
| Keywords: | 1860 US Census, occupational status, Jews, foreign born, labor history |
| JEL: | N31 J62 J15 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11418&r=his |
| By: | Norman Loayza; Amine Ouazad; Romain Rancière |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the evolving literature that links financial development, financial crises, and economic growth in the past 20 years. The initial disconnect—with one literature focusing on the effect of financial deepening on long-run growth and another studying its impact on volatility and crisis—has given way to a more nuanced approach that analyzes the two phenomena in an integrated framework. The main finding of this literature is that financial deepening leads to a trade-off between higher economic growth and higher crisis risk; and its main conclusion is that, for at least middle-income countries, the positive growth effects outweigh the negative crisis risk impact. This balanced view has been revisited recently for advanced economies, where an emerging and controversial literature supports the notion of "too much finance," suggesting that there might be a threshold beyond which financial depth becomes detrimental for economic growth by crowding out other productive activities and misallocating resources. Nevertheless, the growth/crisis trade-off is alive and strong for a large share of the world economy. Recognizing the intrinsic trade-offs of financial development can provide a useful framework to design policies targeting financial deepening, diversity, and inclusion. In particular, acknowledging the trade-offs can highlight the need for complementary policies to mitigate the risks, from financial macroprudential policies to monetary policy frameworks that monitor the growth of credit and asset prices. |
| JEL: | G01 G21 O0 O4 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24474&r=his |
| By: | Alesina, Alberto; Giuliano, Paola; Nunn, Nathan |
| Abstract: | We study the historical origins of cross-country differences in the male-to-female sex ratio. Our analysis focuses on the use of the plough in traditional agriculture. In societies that did not use the plough, women tended to participate in agriculture as actively as men. By contrast, in societies that used the plough, men specialized in agricultural work, due to the physical strength needed to pull the plough or control the animal that pulls it. We hypothesize that this difference caused plough-using societies to value boys more than girls. Today, this belief is reflected in male-biased sex ratios, which arise due to sex-selective abortion or infanticide, or gender-differences in access to family resources, which results in higher mortality rates for girls. Testing this hypothesis, we show that descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture today have higher average male-to-female sex ratios. We find that this effect systematically increases in magnitude and statistical significance as one looks at older cohorts. Estimates using instrumental variables confirm our findings from multivariate OLS analysis. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Transmission; gender roles; historical persistence; Sex ratio |
| JEL: | J1 N00 Z1 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12856&r=his |
| By: | German Forero-Laverde (PhDc in Economic History at Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Abstract We present new short, medium, and long-run indicators to date and characterise expansions and contractions in financial and economic time series. These Bull-Bear Indicators (BBIs) measure the risk-adjusted excess return with respect to average, to different time horizons, expressed in standard deviations. We illustrate the benefits of this measure by describing the boom-bust cycle in the UK stock market between 1922 and 2015. We compare our results with those obtained from frequently used methodologies in the literature and find that our measures contain substantially more information than the usual binary sequences that describe expansions and contractions and allow for a more granular and nuanced description of time series. |
| Keywords: | Boom-bust cycle; Bull and bear markets; Stock market; Time series analysis; Severity measures; Dating rules |
| JEL: | C1 C43 E32 G01 G1 N14 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0129&r=his |
| By: | Mohajan, Haradhan |
| Abstract: | This study aims to investigate the food production and poverty reduction of Bangladesh in brief. Although the country faces various problems for the economic progress since the independent in 1971, in the last forty eight years the increase of food production and poverty reduction of the country became remarkably. Bangladesh is a densely populated developing country in the southern Asia. The Government of Bangladesh is trying efficiently to reduce poverty of the country. In Bangladesh about 20% of the populations still live below the poverty line, heavily undernourished with inadequate access to safe and nutritious food for a healthy life. The data of the study were collected through the secondary sources of the country. In Bangladesh, during 2000 to 2005, income poverty reduced from 48.9% to 40.0%, 2010 to 2016 reduced from 31.50% to 20%, and in 2018 it is expected to reduce in 16%. An attempt has been taken here to show the ways to increase more food production and poverty reduction of the country. |
| Keywords: | Food, poverty reduction, inflation, GDP, subsidies in food, economic development |
| JEL: | N5 O1 |
| Date: | 2018–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85653&r=his |
| By: | Georgy Safonov (National Research University-Higher School of Economics); Sh. Enkhbayar (Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA)) |
| Abstract: | The Paris Climate Agreement established a new global target of combating global warming above 2 degrees Celsius. Over 180 countries have already committed to reduce or limit carbon emissions by 2030. This climatic goal will lead to the transformation and deep decarbonization of the global economy, with nearly zero carbon emissions soon after 2050. Northeast Asian countries are responsible for 40% of global CO2 emissions, and they have the technological and resource potential for decarbonization both domestically and within regional cooperation projects. |
| Keywords: | climate change mitigation; deep decarbonization pathways; low-carbon development; Northeast Asia |
| JEL: | Q43 Q54 Q56 Q58 N15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eri:dpaper:1701&r=his |