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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒07‒16
35 papers chosen by |
| By: | Claude DIEBOLT; Karine PELLIER |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the structural and spatial dynamics of patents in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The time series are extracted from an international, comparative and historical database on the long term evolution of patents in 40 countries from the 17th century to 1945 and in more than 150 countries from 1945 to present (Diebolt and Pellier, 2010). We found strong proof of infrequent large shocks resulting essentially from the major economic and political events formed by the two World Wars in the twentieth century. Our results question the autonomous process, i.e. the internal dynamic of the patent systems. Wars seem to push innovation and finally the economic growth process itself. We further investigated the role of innovation in economic growth through a causality analysis between patents and GDP per capita. Our major findings support the assumption that the accumulation of innovations was a driving force only for France, the United Kingdom and the United States during the post World War II period. |
| Keywords: | database, cliometrics, shock analysis, patents, causality, comparisons in time and space. |
| JEL: | C22 C82 N70 O34 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2018-20&r=his |
| By: | Jane Humphries; Benjamin Schneider |
| Abstract: | Abstract: The prevailing explanation for why the Industrial Revolution occurred first in Britain is Robert Allen’s (2009) ‘high†wage economy’ view, which claims that the high cost of labour relative to capital and fuel incentivized innovation and the adoption of new techniques. This paper presents new empirical evidence on hand spinning before the Industrial Revolution and demonstrates that there was no such ‘high†wage economy’ in spinning, a leading sector of industrialization. We quantify the working lives of frequently ignored female and child spinners who were crucial to the British textile industry in the Early Modern period with evidence of productivity and wages from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Our results show that spinning was a widespread, low†wage, low†productivity employment, in line with the Humphries (2013) view of the motivations for the factory system. |
| Keywords: | Hand spinning, Womenʹs wages, Industrial Revolution, Textiles, Great Divergence, High Wage Economy interpretation of invention and innovation |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J42 N13 N33 N63 O14 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_145&r=his |
| By: | Denis Cogneau (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Yannick Dupraz (University of Warwick [Coventry]); Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme, PSL - Paris Sciences et Lettres, IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) |
| Abstract: | A novel data collection provides comparative evidence on colonial states of the ‘second' French colonial Empire, since their foundation to their devolution in the 1960s. Colonial states were neither omnipotent Leviathans nor casual night watchmen. On the one hand, we emphasize the extractive efficiency and capacity of adaptation of colonial states to varied socioeconomic contexts and to varying historical conditions. On the other hand, we put forward dualism as the main common feature and legacy. |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01818700&r=his |
| By: | Mongin, Philippe |
| Abstract: | French Abstract: Les économistes ont coutume de distinguer entre une composante positive et une composante normative de leurs travaux, ce qui est une singularité de leur discipline, car cette distinction n'a pas de répondant exact dans les autres sciences sociales. Elle a fortement évolué au cours du temps et les différentes manières de la concevoir aujourd'hui en reflètent l'histoire. On se propose ici d'en retracer les origines et les premières formes, de l'économie politique classique anglaise de la première moitié du XIXe siècle jusqu'à l'apparition de l'économie du bien-être dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Ce parcours séquentiel vise aussi à identifier les positions les plus représentatives et les arguments invoqués pour les soutenir, en préparant ainsi une discussion qui serait moins historique et plus strictement conceptuelle. English Abstract: Economists are accustomed to distinguishing between a positive and a normative component of their work, a distinction that is peculiar to their field, having no exact counterpart in the other social sciences. The distinction has substantially changed over time, and the different ways of understanding it today are reflective of its history. Our objective is to trace the origins and initial forms of the distinction, from the English classical political economy of the first half of the 19th century to the emergence of welfare economics in the first half of the 20th century. This sequential account will also serve to identify the main representative positions along with the arguments used to support them, and it thus prepares the ground for a discussion that will be less historical and more strictly conceptual. |
| Keywords: | économie positive et économie normative; jugements de valeur; thèse de Hume; objectivité au sens de Weber; économie du bien-être; John Stuart Mill; John Neville Keynes; Lionel Robbins; positive economics and normative economics; value judgments; Humes thesis; objectivity in |
| JEL: | B20 B41 D60 D70 |
| Date: | 2018–01–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1259&r=his |
| By: | Hendricks, Lutz (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); Herrington, Christopher (Virginia Commonwealth University); Schoellman, Todd (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) |
| Abstract: | We harmonize the results of 42 different data sets and studies dating back to the early 20th century to construct a time series of college attendance patterns for the United States. We find an important reversal around the time of World War II: before that time, family characteristics such as income were the better predictor of college attendance; afterwards, academic ability was the better predictor. We construct a model of college choice that can explain this reversal. The model's central mechanism is an exogenous rise in the demand for college that leads better colleges to become oversubscribed. These colleges institute selective admissions and raise their quality relative to the remaining colleges, as in Hoxby (2009). Rising quality at better colleges attracts high-ability students, while falling quality at the remaining colleges dissuades low-ability students, generating the reversal. |
| Keywords: | College access; Intergenerational mobility; Human capital |
| JEL: | E24 I24 N32 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–07–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmoi:0010&r=his |
| By: | Buchner, Michael |
| Abstract: | This article provides the first in-depth account on the organisational history of the Berlin Bourse based on archival evidence. It demonstrates that the microstructures of the Berlin Bourse basically corresponded to the needs and activities of the largest commercial banks and, consequently, argues that these large banks played a 'gatekeeping' role in securities trading. Moreover, the Berlin example perfectly illustrates the close ties which existed between banks and financial markets and the resulting amalgamation of banking and stock-broking activities in imperial Germany. The comparison to the London Stock Exchange also shows that both stock exchanges fulfilled different economic roles within the overall financial system. |
| JEL: | N20 N23 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:0118&r=his |
| By: | Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a long-run view of well-being inequality at world scale based on a new historical dataset. Trends in social dimensions alter the view on inequality derived from per capita GDP. While in terms of income, inequality increased until the third quarter of the twentieth century; in terms of well-being, inequality fell steadily since World War I. The spread of mass primary education and the health transitions were its main drivers. The gap between the West and the Rest explains only partially the evolution of well-being inequality, as the dispersion within the developing regions has increasingly determined its evolution. |
| Keywords: | Well-being ; Inequality ; Life Expectancy ; Health Transition ; Education ; per capita GDP |
| JEL: | O50 O15 N30 I00 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:27073&r=his |
| By: | Brandon Tucker (Fordham University) |
| Abstract: | Luther’s rejection of papal authority was never really about papal authority. Luther’s revolutionary theological route was led by another, more important motivation: his fundamental, all-important “quest for the absolute.†Luther was animated by an obsessive desire to find a sure, certain, and unfailing basis for the Christian life- “the absolute.†This was his primary spiritual impulse, which he had acquired during his days as an anxious, guilt-ridden monk. Knowing his own sin, Luther despaired of finding an absolute basis for salvation in himself. Likewise, discovering the Church to be “merely human,†he found it necessary to untether the Christian life from any reliance upon the institutional Church. It was then only natural for Luther to reject the claims of absolute authority made by that Church’s head, the pope. This essay examines Luther’s radically changing views on the papacy during the critical period between October 31, 1517 (Luther’s publication of the Ninety-Five Theses) and December 10, 1520 (Luther’s burning of Exsurge Domine- the papal bull of excommunication). This transformation was not so much an evolution into something new, but the unfolding realization of something already present. Luther’s ultimate rejection of papal authority was implicated in his restless commitment to finding an absolute basis for the spiritual life and salvation. Historical circumstances merely provided the external occasion for him to flesh out the logic of this internal quest. This paper employs philosophical, theological, psychological, and historical insight to get at this deep, largely ignored component of Luther’s attitude towards the papacy. |
| Keywords: | Luther, Reformation, Authority, Anxiety, Philosophy, Theology, Psychology, History |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:ppaper:017&r=his |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (University of Warwick); Grosfeld, Irena (Paris School of Economics); Grosjean, Pauline (UNSW); Voigtländer, Nico (UCLA); Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We exploit a unique historical setting to study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, the Polish borders were redrawn, resulting in large-scale migration. Poles were forced to move from the Kresy territories in the East (taken over by the USSR) and were resettled mostly to the newly acquired Western Territories, from which Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey data to show that, while there were no pre-WWII differences in education, Poles with a family history of forced migration are significantly more educated today. Descendants of forced migrants have on average one extra year of schooling, driven by a higher propensity to finish secondary or higher education. This result holds when we restrict ancestral locations to a subsample around the former Kresy border and include fixed effects for the destination of migrants. As Kresy migrants were of the same ethnicity and religion as other Poles, we bypass confounding factors of other cases of forced migration. We show that labor market competition with natives and selection of migrants are also unlikely to drive our results. Survey evidence suggests that forced migration led to a shift in preferences, away from material possessions and towards investment in a mobile asset – human capital. The effects persist over three generations. |
| Keywords: | Poland, Forced Migration, Uprootedness, Human Capital JEL Classification: N33, N34, D74, I25 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:374&r=his |
| By: | Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Özak, Ömer (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that intra-ethnic diversity had a positive effect on the division of labor across ethnicities in the pre-modern era. Exploiting a variety of identification strategies and a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it establishes that higher levels of intra-ethnic diversity were conducive to economic specialization in the pre-modern era. The findings are robust to a host of geographical, institutional, cultural and historical confounders, and suggest that variation in intra-ethnic diversity is the main predictor of the division of labor in pre-modern times. |
| Keywords: | comparative development, division of labor, economic specialization, intra-ethnic diversity, cultural diversity, population diversity, genetic diversity, linguistic diversity |
| JEL: | D74 F10 F14 J24 N10 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11554&r=his |
| By: | Jérémy Ducros (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FFJ - Fondation France-Japon de l'EHESS - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales); Angelo Riva (FFJ - Fondation France-Japon de l'EHESS - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales, European Business School Paris - European Business School Paris) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we look back at the XIX century France to shed light on effect of competition in the stock exchange industry. During the XIX century the Paris financial centre plays a central role in the French financial markets. Nevertheless, six organized regional exchanges do exist along all the second half of the century. A recent literature started to study the complex functioning of the Paris financial centre as well as the interaction between its two components, the official Paris Bourse and its OTC rival, the Coulisse. Nevertheless, a very small literature is devoted to the regional French exchanges. By studying the interactions between Paris and Lyon, we find that, after the 1881-1882 boom and burst, the Lyon stock exchange has to struggle for surviving facing fierce competition from the Paris Bourse and main national banks particularly after the 1898 reorganisation of the Paris financial centre, while the strong activity of Coulisse before the 1895 gold mines crash had a positive effect on the Lyon one. After the 1898 reorganisation, the Lyon stock exchange survived thanks to a new listing policy favourable to SMEs and the development of second tiers market for both these unofficially traded SMEs and unlisted risky (mainly foreign) stocks. On the other side, the progressive homogenisation of the official market imposed by regulators to enhance their control over the French securities market acted as force driving trading to Paris: only the facilities the Lyon exchange gave to the main banks of the financial centre maintained some activity. |
| Keywords: | Lyon stock exchange,Paris stock exchange,Coulisse,competition,exchanges |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01800720&r=his |
| By: | Tristan Jacques (IDHES - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Économie et de la Société - ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Erich Pinzón Fuchs (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the construction of quantitative data for the French national trade between 1945 and the 1970s. Our purpose is to provide an account of the establishment of a statistical system specific to this economic sector. By statistical system we imply the apparatus and devices that were put together in order to produce statistical information, in particular political willpower, the professional and institutional actors involved, the accounting frameworks, and the tools and classifications used. In the first section we provide an overview of the transformations of French trade during the period studied, while in the second section We examine the production of statistical data for this sector. In the third section, we study the conditions of emergence of these data, examining the role that particular merchants and political regimes might have had to provoke biases, and questioning the possible political use of these statistics. We show that the construction of a statistical system is not exclusively an institutional or a technical matter, but also that political decisions and particular interests play an important role in the construction of such a system. |
| Abstract: | Cet article examine l'élaboration de données quantitatives pour le commerce intérieur entre 1945 et les années 1970 en France. L'objectif est de documenter la mise en place d'un système statistique spécifique à ce secteur économique. Par système statistique, on désigne l'ensemble des dispositifs mobilisés afin de produire de l'information statistique, tel que la volonté politique, les acteurs professionnels et institutionnels impliqués, les cadres de comptage, les outils utilisés et la nomenclature retenue. La première partie de l'article propose un aperçu des transformations du commerce au cours de la période étudiée, et la seconde partie étudie la production de données statistiques pour le secteur. La troisième partie s'intéresse aux condition d'élaboration de ces statistiques ; elle examine le rôle de certains commerçants, interroge les biais des données en fonction du régime de production et s'intéresse à leur usage politique. Cet article illustre bien que la construction d'un système statistique n'est pas seulement une question technique et institutionnelle, mais que les décisions politiques et les intérêts particuliers y jouent un rôle très important. |
| Keywords: | Construction of a statistical system,history of national trade in France,political regime,history of statistical tools,régime politique,Construction d'un système statistique,histoire du commerce intérieur en France,histoire des outils statistiques |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01390869&r=his |
| By: | Nashihah, Faidah |
| Abstract: | The capitalist and socialist economy throughout the history of economic thought can not factually bring about market justice and even tends to be distorted due to the weakening of economic ethics and the absence of the institutions that oversee the market. This article uses the method of content analysis and critical historical method in revealing the history of Islamic economic thought about the issue. The conclusion of this paper asserts that the state, economy, and market are inseparable in creating economic justice, one of which is al-Mawardi's idea of the institution of hisbah which plays a role in controlling and overseeing economic activity. |
| Keywords: | country, market, economy, hisbah, Islamic economy |
| JEL: | B0 B31 D40 P0 |
| Date: | 2018–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:87412&r=his |
| By: | Cook, Adam (Asian Development Bank Institute); Ehrlich, Isaac (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | We offer a thesis for why the United States (US) overtook the United Kingdom (UK) and other European countries in the 20th century in both aggregate and per capita GDP as a case study of recent models of endogenous growth, where “human capital” is the engine of growth. By human capital we mean an intangible asset, best thought of as a stock of embodied and disembodied knowledge comprising education, information, entrepreneurship, and productive and innovative skills, which is formed through investments in schooling, job training, and health as well as through research and development projects and informal knowledge transfers (cf. Ehrlich and Murphy 2007). The conjecture is that the ascendancy of the US as an economic superpower in the 20th century owes considerably to its faster human capital formation relative to that of the UK and “old Europe.” We assess whether the thesis has legs to stand on through both stylized facts and a supplementary quasi-experimental empirical analysis. The stylized facts indicate that the US led other major developed countries in schooling attainments per adult population member, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century and lasting throughout the 20th century, especially at the secondary and tertiary levels. The quasi-experimental analysis constitutes the first attempt to test the hypothesis that the US’s ascendancy to a major economic power stems largely from the impact of the first Morrill Act of 1862, which launched the public higher education movement in the US through the establishment of land grant colleges and universities across the nation during the latter part of the 19th century. |
| Keywords: | human capital; endogenous growth; Morrill Act; higher education; treatment effects; US |
| JEL: | C21 H10 I20 N10 N30 O00 O40 |
| Date: | 2018–03–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0820&r=his |
| By: | Giovanni Caggiano; Efrem Castelnuovo; Olivier Damette; Antoine Parent; Giovanni Pellegrino |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a nonlinear Threshold-VAR to investigate if a Keynesian liquidity trap due to a speculative motive was in place in the U.S. Great Depression and the recent Great Recession. We find clear evidence in favor of a breakdown of the liquidity effect after an unexpected increase in M2 in the 1921-1940 period. This evidence, which is consistent with the Keynesian view on a liquidity trap, is shown to be state contingent. In particular, it emerges only when a speculative regime identified by high realizations of the Dow Jones index is considered. A standard linear framework is shown to be ill-suited to test the hypothesis of a Keynesian liquidity trap. An investigation performed with the same data for the period 1991-2010 confirms the presence of a liquidity trap just in the speculative regime. This last result emerges significantly only when we consider the federal funds rate as the policy instrument and we model the Divisia M2 measure of liquidity. |
| Keywords: | Keynesian liquidity trap, Threshold-VAR, monetary and financial cliometrics, Great Depression, Great Recession |
| JEL: | B22 C52 E52 N12 N22 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7096&r=his |
| By: | Michael Bordo, Klodiana Istrefi |
| Abstract: | Narrative records in US newspapers reveal that about 70 percent of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members who served during the last 55 years are perceived to have had persistent policy preferences over time, as either inflation-fighting hawks or growth-promoting doves. The rest are perceived as swingers, switching between types, or remained an unknown quantity to markets. What makes a member a hawk or a dove? What moulds those who change their tune? We highlight ideology by education and early life economic experiences of members of the FOMC from 1960s to 2015. This research is based on an original dataset. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy Committees; Federal Reserve; Policy Preferences |
| JEL: | E50 E61 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:683&r=his |
| By: | Giorgio Canarella (University of Nevada Las Vegas, US); Luis A. Gil-Alana (University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); Stephen M. Miller (University of Nevada Las Vegas, US) |
| Abstract: | We propose a modeling approach for the historical series of real and nominal house prices in the United States and the United Kingdom that permits the simultaneous estimation of persistence at zero frequency (trend) and at frequency away from zero (cycle). We also consider the separate cases of a standard I(d) process, with a pole at the zero frequency, and a cyclical I(d) model that incorporates a singularity at a non-zero frequency. We use annual data from 1830 to 2016 for the United States and 1845 to 2016 for the United Kingdom. We find, in general, that the degree of fractional integration associated with the long run or zero frequency is less than one, but greater than 0.5, while the degree of fractional integration associated with the cyclical frequency is greater than zero and less than 0.5. Thus, the long-run component of house prices is nonstationary but mean reverting, while the cyclical component is stationary. This contrasts with the results of the standard model and much of the empirical literature, where the rejection of the unit root seldom occurs. Some policy implications of the results appear in the conclusion. |
| Keywords: | Long memory, house prices, fractional integration, cycles |
| JEL: | C22 H21 H31 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201838&r=his |
| By: | Gunarso, Gatot Hadi |
| Abstract: | This article writes about the thinking of Al-Maqrizi Islamic economic figure. The method used in the concept of money according to Al-Maqrizi is literature study. Al-Maqrizi is in the second phase in the history of Islamic economic thought, a phrase that begins to show signs of slowing innovative intellectual activities in the Islamic world. Al-Maqrizi is an Islamic economic thinker who conducts special studies on money and inflation. The socio-economic phenomenon and the effects of inflation depend on the nature of income and wealth of each group. If income is fixed or rising, but lower than the rate of inflation then the condition declines. Conversely, if their income rises higher than the rate of inflation, then their material welfare increases. |
| Keywords: | : Islamic Economics, Inflation, Al-Maqrizi |
| JEL: | B00 B22 B30 B31 |
| Date: | 2018–06–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:87565&r=his |
| By: | Juan Francisco Martínez; José Miguel Matus; Daniel Oda |
| Abstract: | The measurement of financial fragility is a key element but still an ongoing task for monetary, financial authorities and international financial institutions. This is specially relevant when applying financial policies that are contingent on the behavior of a particular economy or try to anticipate disruptive events. However, there are several dimensions that complicate the precise definition of financial fragility and the identification of these periods; some examples are: the distinction of causes, symptoms, effects and policy management measures. The current literature points out to a few key elements that have a broad impact on the financial system. In particular, it highlights the role of materialized credit risk, profits and credit activity of banks as signs of instability. In this paper, we combine these elements to identify and delimit historical financial fragility periods for the Chilean economy. In doing so, we build a novel monthly database that includes the 1980's local banking crisis period. |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchwp:822&r=his |
| By: | Aurélien Goutsmedt (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The article shows that Sargent's view of macroeconomics is in contrast with Lucas' one. According to the latter, assumptions in a model are un-realist, the model do not aim at representing reality. It is rather a simulation tool to enable the evaluation of different economic policies. The Lucasian ideal reflects a belief in a macroeconomist who is an engineer in charge of the production of a "software for economic policies" used by governmental authorities. And he is the one who handles the software to help policy choices on a scientific basis. Concerning Sargent, he believed that in order to replace the Keynesian paradigm, New Classical Economics had to be able to succeed in the same tasks. And one of these tasks was to advise political power by bringing some telescope to read current economic phenomenon and some intuitive ideas to debate on economic policy. Sargent sought to implement what he called the Rational Expectations Theory to some concrete cases (Poincaré Stabilization, German Hyperinflation, Thatcher and Reagan policies) to show the relevance of such a framework to think about current economic issues. |
| Abstract: | L'idée est de montrer que la vision de la macroéconomie de Sargent contraste avec celle de Lucas. Pour Lucas, les hypothèses d'un modèle sont « a-réalistes », le modèle ne vise pas à représenter la réalité. Il est un outil de simulation qui doit permettre de simuler différentes politiques économiques. L'idéal « lucassien » est celui d'un macroéconomiste qui a donc vocation à devenir un ingénieur chargé de fournir un « logiciel de politiques économiques » aux autorités publiques, logiciel qu'il manipule afin d'aiguiller les choix de politiques sur une base scientifique. Sargent, quant à lui, considère que pour suppléer le paradigme keynésien, la nouvelle économie classique doit être capable de remplir les mêmes tâches, et l'une de ces tâches est de conseiller le pouvoir en lui fournissant une grille de lecture des phénomènes économiques et des outils intuitifs pour d&eaute;battre des politiques économiques à mettre en place. Sargent cherche à appliquer ce qu'il nomme la théorie des anticipations rationnelles à un ensemble de cas concrets (stabilisation Poincaré, hyperinflation allemande, politique de Thatcher et Reagan) pour montrer la pertinence de ce cadre d'analyse pour penser les problèmes économiques contemporains. |
| Keywords: | Rational Expectations,New Classical Economics,Macroeconomics History,Histoire de la macroéconomie,Nouvelle Economie Classique,Anticipations rationnelles |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01489232&r=his |
| By: | Fetzer, Thiemo (University of Warwick); Kyburz, Stephan (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict? Are cohesive institutions better in managing distributive conflicts? We study these questions exploiting exogenous variation in revenue disbursements to local governments together with new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria. We make three contributions. First, we document the existence of a strong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the actual resource. Second, we show that distributive conflict is highly organized involving political militias and concentrated in the extent to which local governments are non-cohesive. Third, we show that democratic practice in form having elected local governments significantly weakens the causal link between rents and political violence. We document that elections (vis-a-vis appointments), by producing more cohesive institutions, vastly limit the extent to which distributional conflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the available rents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data.Keywords: conflict, ethnicity, natural resources, political economy, commodity prices. JEL Classification: Q33, O13, N52, R11, L71 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:377&r=his |
| By: | Gerlach, Stefan; Stuart, Rebecca |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the information content of the slope of the term structure for recessions, using monthly US data spanning 1857-1913. We find that the term spread predicts future recessions up to about 12 months ahead, as does the current value of the recession dummy. We also find that stock prices are significant in the probit models we use to predict future recessions, but that business failures and growth in industrial production are generally insignificant. Overall, the results give broad support to the findings of Bordo and Haubrich (2004, 2008a, 2008b), who use quarterly data from 1875 to study the ability of the term structure to forecast real GNP growth. C25 |
| Keywords: | Federal Reserve; Recessions; term structure |
| JEL: | C25 E00 E43 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13013&r=his |
| By: | Dang, Hai-Anh H.; Hoang, Trung X.; Nguyen, Ha |
| Abstract: | Very few studies currently exist on the long-term impacts of schooling policies in developing countries. We examine the impacts—half a century later—of a mass education program conducted by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the occupied areas during the First Indochina War. Difference-in-difference estimation results suggest that school-age children who were exposed to the program obtained significantly higher levels of education than their peers who were residing in French-occupied areas. The impacts are statistically significant for school-age girls and not for school-age boys. We find beneficial spillover and inter-generational impacts of education: affected girls enjoyed higher household living standards, had more educated spouses, and raised more educated children. We discuss various robustness checks and extensions that support these findings. |
| Keywords: | education achievement,reading literacy,school policy,popular education,difference-in-difference,long-term impact,war |
| JEL: | H0 I2 O1 P3 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:223&r=his |
| By: | Le, Vo Phuong Mai (Cardiff Business School); Meenagh, David (Cardiff Business School); Minford, Patrick (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the world business cycle using unfiltered data from 1870 and looks for a theory that could account for the long wave commodity cycle in the world economy. We build a simple DSGE model that includes a long time-to-build constraint in the commodity sector. We find that this model can produce long cycles in output and commodity prices as introduced by Kontradieff (1925) and Schumpeter (1935). Our findings show that these long business cycles are produced by the long gestation of commodity capacity which causes very large swings in commodity prices. |
| Keywords: | Long waves; commodities; DSGE model; Indirect Inference |
| JEL: | E10 E32 E52 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2018/16&r=his |
| By: | François Facchini (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Deirdre McCloskey a formulé une critique puissante de la rhétorique économique. À l'occasion de la traduction française d'un de ses ouvrages, François Facchini revient sur ses travaux pour éclairer les débats actuels autour de la scientificité de l'économie. La traduction française du petit ouvrage The Secret Sins of Economics, publié en 2002 par Deirdre N. McCloskey, est l'occasion de revenir sur le parcours intellectuel et les positions épistémologiques de cette économiste américaine au savoir éclectique et encyclopédique. Cet ouvrage d'épistémologie économique reprend en effet des thèmes déjà abordés dans des ouvrages précédents (1994a, 1994b) et conduit à s'interroger sur l'apport de l'économétrie au savoir des économistes. Écrit comme une intrigue policière, Les péchés secrets de la science économique participe à la critique des tests de significativité statistique et se propose de remettre à sa juste place une bonne partie de la littérature économique. Le présent article entend ainsi profiter de la parution de ce petit ouvrage pour revenir sur quelques-unes des thèses d'épistémologie économique du Professeur McCloskey et pour proposer à leur lumière une lecture, qui se veut originale, de la controverse suscitée par l'ouvrage de Cahuc et Zylberberg (2016) dans le monde des économistes français. |
| Keywords: | épistémologie, sciences économiques, économétrie, négationnisme en économie |
| Date: | 2017–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01484830&r=his |
| By: | Thiele, Carl-Ludwig |
| JEL: | E58 G18 G28 N22 N24 N42 N44 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:1817&r=his |
| By: | Mina Mahmoudi; Mark Pingle |
| Abstract: | A standard growth model is modified in a straightforward way to incorporate what Keynes (1936) suggests in the "essence" of his general theory. The theoretical essence is the idea that exogenous changes in investment cause changes in employment and unemployment. We implement this idea by assuming the path for capital growth rate is exogenous in the growth model. The result is a growth model that can explain both long term trends and fluctuations around the trend. The modified growth model was tested using the U.S. economic data from 1947 to 2014. The hypothesized inverse relationship between the capital growth and changes in unemployment was confirmed, and the structurally estimated model fits fluctuations in unemployment reasonably well. |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1806.04228&r=his |
| By: | Santiago Caballero, Carlos; Fernández, Eva |
| Abstract: | The study of economic inequality in preindustrial economies has received recent attention by economic historians, who have tried to unlock the mysteries of the left side of the Kuznets curve. This paper will try to shed some light on the debate providing new estimations of economic inequality in the province of Madrid using a sample of rural locations around the capital. Estimates of inequality are based on fiscal records that are demonstrated in this paper to be adequate source for measuring differentials in wealth and income across individuals. We will offer not just an overview of the changes in economic inequality in the long run, but will also provide enough periodicity in our calculations to observe short and middle term changes to capture better the connection between changes in inequality and the economic cycle. The initial results seem to indicate that economic inequality in the province of Madrid rose between 1500 and 1840, although the pattern was not a linear one and was closely connected with the economic cycle, with inequality rising together with economic growth and viceversa. |
| Keywords: | Economic Inequality; Madrid; Spain; Wealth |
| JEL: | N93 D31 N33 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:27072&r=his |
| By: | Dombret, Andreas |
| JEL: | E58 G18 G28 N22 N24 N42 N44 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:1917&r=his |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | Abstract The North of England is now poorer and less educated than the South. Using complete population data at the surname level 1837-2006, and a large sample of individuals born 1780-1929, this paper shows two things. First an important element in the decline of the North was selective outmigration of those with education and talent. This migration is evident even for the generation born 1780-1809, and continued to those born 1900-1929. There was also selective migration to the South of those with education and talent coming from outside England - Irish, Scottish, Pakistanis and others. However the migration of talent to the South created no significant external benefits to workers in the South, as would be predicted by the doctrines of the New Economic Geography. Surnames concentrated in the North do not show any national disadvantage in education, occupation or wealth. Also for workers of a given education or social background there is at most a very modest locational disadvantage associated with being born in the North. Thus there will be no efficiency gain from facilitating further migration south from the North, or from further efforts to bolster the economy of the North through government aid. |
| Keywords: | new economic geography; regional growth; sorting in labor market |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13023&r=his |
| By: | Greitens, Jan |
| JEL: | B31 E42 N13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:1517&r=his |
| By: | Franses, Ph.H.B.F.; van den Heuvel, W. |
| Abstract: | The available aggregated data on the Atlantic slave trade in between 1519 and 1875 concern the numbers of slaves transported by a country and the numbers of slaves who arrived at various destinations (where one of the destinations is “deceased”). It is however unknown how many slaves, at an aggregate level, were transported to where and by whom, that is, we know the row and column totals, but we do not known the numbers in the cells of the matrix. In this paper we use a simple mathematical technique to fill in the void. It allows us to estimate the trends in the deceases per transporting country, and also to estimate the fraction of slaves who went to own colonies or to others. For example, we estimate that of all the slaves who were transported by the Dutch only about 7 percent went to Dutch colonies, whereas for the Portuguese this number is about 37 percent. |
| Date: | 2018–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:eureir:107289&r=his |
| By: | Bindler, Anna; Hjalmarsson, Randi |
| Abstract: | A large behavioral economics literature is concerned with cognitive biases in individual and group decisions, including sequential decisions. These studies primarily find a negative path-dependency consistent with mechanisms such as the gambler's fallacy or contrast effects. We provide the first test for such biases in group decision making using observational data. Specifically, we study more than 27,000 verdicts adjudicated sequentially by over 900 juries for high-stakes criminal cases at London's Old Bailey Criminal Court in the 18th and 19th centuries. Using jury fixed effects to account for heterogeneity in their baseline propensity to convict, we find that a previous guilty verdict significantly increases the chance of a subsequent guilty verdict by 6.7-14.1%. This positive autocorrelation, which contrasts previous studies, is (i) robust to alternative estimation strategies, (ii) independent of jury experience and (iii) driven by the most recent lag and pairs of similar cases. Potential explanations of such positive path dependence include sequential assimilation effects, which may reflect a jury's desire to be internally consistent when deciding comparable cases and short-term 'emotional' impacts of the characteristics and/or outcome of one case on another. As in modern-day jury studies, our results highlight the possibility that factors independent of the facts and evidence of the current case affect jury behavior. |
| Keywords: | behavioral bias; crime; English history; jury; path dependency; sequential decision-making; verdict |
| JEL: | D7 K4 N43 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13012&r=his |
| By: | Rudolph, Bernd |
| JEL: | N24 O16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:1617&r=his |
| By: | Müller, Karsten (University of Warwick); Schwarz, Carlo (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the link between social media and hate crime using Facebook data. We study the case of Germany, where the recently emerged right-wing party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) has developed a major social media presence. We show that right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts violent crimes against refugees in otherwise similar municipalities with higher social media usage. To further establish causality, we exploit exogenous variation in major internet and Facebook outages, which fully undo the correlation between social media and hate crime. We further find that the effect decreases with distracting news events; increases with user network interactions; and does not hold for posts unrelated to refugees. Our results suggest that social media can act as a propagation mechanism between online hate speech and real-life violent crime.Keywords: social media, hate crime, minorities, Germany, AfD JEL Classification: D74, J15, Z10, D72, O35, N32, N34. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:373&r=his |