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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2018‒08‒20
35 papers chosen by |
| By: | Neill Marshall; Stuart Dawley; Andy Pike; Jane Pollard; Mike Coombes |
| Abstract: | Developing an evolutionary perspective towards the changing anatomy of the banking sector reveals the enduring tensions and contradictions between spatial centralisation and the possibilities for decentralisation before, during and after the British banking crisis. The shift from banking boom to crisis in 2007 is conceptualised as a significant and on-going moment in the long-term evolution of the historical institutional-spatial dominance of London over other city-regions in Britain. The analysis demonstrates the importance of the institutional and geographical legacies of the British national political economy and variegation of capitalism established in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in shaping contemporary geographical outcomes. Regulatory changes combined with financial innovation in the latter years of the twentieth century to create an opportunity for English regional and Scottish banks excluded from previous institutional-spatial centralisation to expand excessively and consequently several failed in the banking crisis. The paper considers the future trajectory of institutional-spatial centralisation in the banking sector amidst the continued spatial restructuring of the banking crisis, involving a re-drawing of organisational boundaries, overlapping institutional and technological changes and unprecedented uncertainty about the impact of Brexit on Britain?s wider political and economic landscape. |
| Keywords: | Banking crisis, evolutionary geographical political economy, cities and regions, uneven development |
| JEL: | R10 R12 R23 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1833&r=his |
| By: | Remi Jedwab; Felix Meier zu Selhausen; Alexander Moradi |
| Abstract: | One of the most powerful cultural transformations in modern history has been the dramatic expansion of Christianity outside Europe. Recent, yet extensive, literature uses Christian missions established during colonial times as a source of exogenous variation to study thelong-term effects of religion, human capital and culture in Africa, the Americas and Asia. We argue that the endogeneity of missionary expansion may be underestimated, thus questioning the link between missions and economic development. Using annual panel data on missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana as well as cross-sectional data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries in 1900 and 1924, we show that: (i) locational decisions were driven by economic factors, as missionaries went to healthier, safer, and more accessible and developed areas, privileging the best locations first; (ii) these factors may spuriously explain why locations with past missions are more developed today, especially as most studies rely on historical mission atlases that tend to only report the best mission locations. Our study identifies factors behind the spatial diffusion of religion. It also highlights the risks of omission and endogenous measurement error biases when using historical data and events for identification. |
| Keywords: | Path Dependence; Economic Development; Economics of Religion; Human Capital; Compression of History; Measurement Error; Christianity; Colonization; Africa |
| JEL: | F54 L31 N37 O15 O17 Z12 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2018-07&r=his |
| By: | Johan Fourie (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University) |
| Abstract: | African economic history is experiencing a renaissance, and South African economic history likewise. Combining newly transcribed large historical datasets with econometric techniques now standard in the economics literature, economic historians have greatly improved our understanding of South Africa's development over the centuries. Yet many questions remain. This paper reviews the most recent contributions, and outlines the road ahead. |
| Keywords: | economic history, historical economics, cliometrics, econometric history, South Africa, Cape Colony |
| JEL: | N01 N37 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers307&r=his |
| By: | Sascha O. Becker; Irena Grosfeld; Pauline Grosjean; Nico Voigtländer; Ekaterina Zhuravskaya |
| 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. |
| JEL: | D74 I25 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24704&r=his |
| By: | Raphael Franck; Oded Galor |
| Abstract: | This research explores the effect of industrialization on the process of development. In contrast to conventional wisdom that views industrial development as a catalyst for economic growth, the study establishes that while the adoption of industrial technology was conducive to economic development in the short-run, it has detrimental effects on the standard of living in the long-run. Exploiting exogenous geographic and climatic sources of variation in the diffusion and adoption of steam engines across French departments during the early phases of industrialization, the research establishes that intensive industrialization in the middle of the 19th century increased income per capita in the subsequent decades but diminished it by the turn of the 21st century. The analysis further suggests that the adverse effect of earlier industrialization on long-run prosperity can be attributed to the negative impact of the adoption of unskilled-intensive technologies in the early stages of industrialization on the long-run level of human capital and thus on the incentive to adopt skill-intensive technologies in the contemporary era. Preferences and educational choices of second generation migrants within France indicate that industrialization has triggered a dual techno-cultural lock-in characterized by a reinforcing interaction between technological inertia, reflected by the persistence predominance of low-skilled-intensive industries, and cultural inertia, in the form of a lower predisposition towards investment in human capital. These findings suggest that the characteristics that permitted the onset of industrialization, rather than the adoption of industrial technology per se, have been the source of prosperity among the currently developed economies that experienced an early industrialization. Thus, developing economies may benefit from the allocation of resources towards human capital formation and skilled intensive sectors rather than toward the promotion of traditional unskilled-intensive industrial sectors. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2018-7&r=his |
| By: | Zhou, Qingtian |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of food prices on children’s cognitive development by exploiting historical price and census data in the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century United States. I explicitly model the relationships among food prices, nutrition, and cognitive development for both non-farm and farm households and use the model to motivate my empirical strategy. My empirical results confirm that there exist statistically significant differences between the two types of households in terms of the partial effects of food prices on children’s cognitive development. Using the preferred specification of this paper, I find that on average, a 1% increase in food price level reduces children’s probability of literacy by 0.44% for non-farm households and 0.37% for farm households; the average food price effect for farm households is 5/6 of that for non-farm households, after controlling for nonfood prices, household wages, demographic characteristics, household environments, and agricultural production inputs. These results send an important message to policymakers who want to address childhood nutrition and cognitive skill issues in developing countries—policy prescriptions need to take the population composition into consideration. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty |
| Date: | 2017–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umapmt:261505&r=his |
| By: | Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I show that political opposition to immigration can arise even when immigrants bring significant economic prosperity to receiving areas. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration to US cities between 1910 and 1930 induced by World War I and the Immigration Acts of the 1920s, and instrument immigrants' location decision relying on pre-existing settlement patterns. Immigration increased natives' employment and occupational standing, and fostered industrial production and capital utilization. However, despite these economic benefits, it triggered hostile political reactions, such as the election of more conservative legislators, higher support for anti-immigration legislation, and lower public goods provision. Stitching the economic and the political results together, I provide evidence that natives' backlash was, at least in part, due to cultural differences between immigrants and natives, suggesting that diversity might be economically beneficial but politically hard to manage. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; Political Backlash; Age of Mass Migration; Cultural Diversity |
| JEL: | J15 J24 N32 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:19-005&r=his |
| By: | Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | Accounts of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s career as an economist usually focus either on the brilliance of his pioneer contributions to mathematical economics during the 1930s, or more frequently, on his later conversion to a critical approach to economic theory anchored on the centrality of the entropy law in a dynamic setting. These two disparate moments, however, were connected by Georgescu-Roegen’s strong attraction to the study of the problems afflicting underdeveloped societies. This began with his work on the agricultural economy of his native Romania, produced under the auspices of Harvard’s Russian Research Center in the late 1940s. Thenceforth, he embarked on a journey that spawned his early interest in Leontief-type linear models, an extended tour of Southeast Asia commissioned by Vanderbilt University’s Graduate Program in Economic Development, and several visits to Brazil during the 1960s to assist in the development of academic economics in the country. The paper highlights these lesser-known aspects of Georgescu-Roegen’s intellectual trajectory, while using his case to illustrate some of the paths open for inquiry during the heyday of development economics. |
| Keywords: | Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, development economics, Vanderbilt University, economic programming, modernization. |
| JEL: | B31 B25 O10 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td584&r=his |
| By: | Patrick Meyer (Lab-STICC_TB_CID_DECIDE - Lab-STICC - Laboratoire des sciences et techniques de l'information, de la communication et de la connaissance - ENIB - École Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Brest - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO - Université de Brest - Télécom Bretagne - IBNM - Institut Brestois du Numérique et des Mathématiques - UBO - Université de Brest - UEB - Université européenne de Bretagne - ENSTA Bretagne - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LUSSI - Département Logique des Usages, Sciences sociales et Sciences de l'Information - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - Télécom Bretagne - UEB - Université européenne de Bretagne); Grégory Ponthière (ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12, PSE - Paris School of Economics, 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) |
| Abstract: | Although it is widely acknowledged that life is risky, it is difficult to provide an intuitive indicator of the riskiness of life, whose metric would have a concrete counterpart for the layman. This paper uses the Shannon entropy index to the base 2 to quantify, in terms of bits (i.e. the amount of information revealed by tossing a fair coin), the risk relative to the age at death in 37 countries from the Human Mortality Database. We identify 5 major stylized facts: (1) over the last two centuries, (period) life entropy at birth exhibits an inverted U shape pattern with a maximum in the first half of the 20th century (at about 6 bits); (2) over the last 150 years, Western countries have converged in terms of (period) life entropy at birth towards levels of 5.6 bits for men and 5.5 bits for women; (3) curves of (period) life entropy at birth for men and women crossed during the 20th century; (4) the entropy age profi le shifted from a non-monotonic profi le (in the 18th and 19th centuries) to a strictly decreasing pro file (in the 20th and 21th centuries); (5) men exhibit a higher life entropy than women below ages 50-55, and a lower one after ages 50-55. |
| Keywords: | entropy,measurement,mortality risk,longevity,age at death |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01409679&r=his |
| By: | Javier Rodríguez Weber (Programa de Historia Económica y Social, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | In recent years, a dense and fruitful debate on the history of inequality in Latin America has developed. The central points of the debate are: 1) the origin of Latin American inequality; 2) the role of the region’s colonial legacy; 3) whether the continent went through a period of “levelling” between 1930 and 1980; and 4) the sustainability of the recent trend towards inequality reduction. In this context, this paper has two main objectives. First, to evaluate the merits and empirical base of different positions under debate. Second, and most important, to offer a brief history of income inequality in Latin America based on the best evidence available. Thus, the paper presents an analytical narrative centered on the linkages between peripheral capitalism -to which Latin American economies moved in nineteenth century- and the institutional heritage, much of it of colonial origin. The main argument is that both changes and persistent features of inequality can be explained by the way in which the price cycles of exports interact with a political-institutional framework. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Latin America, Institutions, History, Peripheral capitalism |
| JEL: | N36 O54 B52 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:doctra:51&r=his |
| By: | Richard N. Langlois (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | In 1919, General Motors acquired a non-controlling equity interest in the Fisher Body Company and signed a ten-year contract stipulating the terms under which Fisher would be the exclusive supplier of car bodies to GM. In 1926, GM acquired the remaining equity in Fisher Body. In 1978, Benjamin Klein, Robert Crawford, and Armen Alchian used the GM acquisition of Fisher Body as an illustration of the asset-specificity or “holdup” theory of vertical integration. Their paper became widely influential, and the Fisher case quickly developed into an omnipresent meme in the economics of organization. In the year 2000, however, the meme suddenly exploded into a cause célèbre. No fewer than five papers appeared attacking both the theory and the history in the Klein et al. account – including a paper by Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, who entered into an often-contentious debate with Klein. This paper tells the story of the Fisher Body acquisition and of the academic controversy it spawned. The controversy has lessons – including some surprising and ironic lessons – for the economic history of the American automobile industry, for the economics of organization, and for the conduct of inquiry in economics. |
| Keywords: | transaction costs, vertical integration, asset specificity, automobile industry |
| JEL: | B2 D23 D86 L14 L24 L62 N62 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2018-13&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Baptiste Fleury (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Alain Marciano (MRE - Montpellier Recherche en Economie - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | This article studies the few works James Buchanan wrote on education from the end of the 1950s to the early 1970s. These neglected works tell us important things about how Buchanan's ideas on constitutions evolved through time, because they provided Buchanan with the opportunity to apply his ideas about constitutions and, in return, nurture his theoretical thinking. Two historical developments were of importance in the evolution of Buchanan's thinking: the Southern reactions to the Supreme Court's injunction to desegregate public schools in the late 1950s, and, in the late 1960s, university unrest. We argue that Buchanan moved from a rather optimistic conception that constitutions complement market mechanisms, and constitutional manipulation can be tolerated if market mechanisms were sufficiently important to nonetheless let individuals do what they want, to a really pessimistic view – a constitution is absolutely necessary to control and even coerce behaviors. Behind these claims stands Buchanan's conception of what is a " good society " and of the role of the economist in its defense. |
| Keywords: | Warren Court, Liberalism, University, Education, Constitutional economics,James Buchanan,Brown vs Board of education,History of Economic Thought,History of Political Economy |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01835036&r=his |
| By: | Ariell Zimran |
| Abstract: | After adjusting for sample-selection bias, I find a net decline in average stature of 0.64 inches in the birth cohorts of 1832--1860 in the US. This result supports the veracity of the Antebellum Puzzle—a deterioration of health during early modern economic growth in the US. However, this adjustment alters the trend in average stature, validating concerns over bias in the historical heights literature. The adjustment is based on census-linked military height data and uses a two-step semi-parametric sample-selection model to adjust for selection on observables and unobservables. |
| JEL: | I15 N11 N31 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24815&r=his |
| By: | Cook, Adam (State University of New York); Ehrlich, Isaac (University at Buffalo, SUNY) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a thesis for why the US overtook the 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." This paper assesses 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. The higher education movement appears to have spearheaded a higher long-term rate of growth in per capita income in the US relative to the UK and other major European countries. |
| Keywords: | human capital, endogenous growth, Morrill Act, higher education, treatment effects, US |
| JEL: | H1 I2 N1 N3 O0 O4 C21 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11648&r=his |
| By: | Abel Brodeur (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON); Joanne Haddad (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants behind the spatial distribution of the LGBT population in the U.S. We relate the size of the present-day LGBT population to the discovery of gold mines during the 19th century gold rushes. Comparing the surroundings of these gold mines to other current and former mining counties, we find that there are currently 10-15% more same-sex couples in counties in which gold discoveries were made during the gold rushes. We also provide empirical evidence that residents of gold rush counties still have more favorable attitudes toward homosexuality nowadays. Our findings are consistent with two mechanisms. First, gold rushes led to a large (temporary) increase in the male-to-female ratio. Second, we show that gold rush counties were less likely to house a notable place of worship at the time of the discovery (and in the following decades) and are currently less religious, suggesting a role of institutions in shaping attitudes and norms. |
| Keywords: | persistence, LGBT, attitudes, institutions, religion. |
| JEL: | O13 O18 J10 R23 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ott:wpaper:1808e&r=his |
| By: | Nicolas Pinsard (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Yamina Tadjeddine (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Abstract : The edict of Paulette (1604) is an important legal act, which produced many institutional changes. Offices appeared in the XIIIth century in France, thus earlier than the edict. However, by giving property rights and inalienable handover to officeholders, in return of paying a tax that is valued at 1/60th of the office value, the edict had an important impact on office nature. Through data and documents that we picked up at Archives nationales and in the Sully collection, our article dwells on the consequences of financialization of offices, that is to say economic modifications (in terms of public finances), social and political transformations (by the emergence of a new social class). |
| Abstract: | L'édit de Paulette de 1604 est un acte juridique important dont nous proposons ici d'analyser les conséquences institutionnelles. Cet édit ne crée pas les offices qui existaient depuis le XIIIe siècle, mais il modifie leur nature en conférant des droits de propriété et de transmission inaliénables à l'officier dès lors qu'un impôt (1/60ème de la valeur de l'office) est payé annuellement. À partir des archives du fonds de Sully complétées par des données publiées, notre article met en exergue les modifications économiques (en termes de finances publiques), les transformations socio-politiques (avec l'apparition d'une nouvelle classe sociale) induites par cette financiarisation des offices. |
| Keywords: | Offices,Finances Publiques,Financiarisation,Histoire financière,France,Ancien Régime |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01512176&r=his |
| By: | Quentin Couix (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Despite his early contribution to the rise of mathematics in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's later methodological criticism of models has received little attention from historians and philosophers of economics. This paper attempts to fill this gap following two lines. First, I examine his explicitly methodological claims and connect them with related topics in economic methodology. Building on the distinction between dialectical and arithmomorphic concepts, I characterise his approach to theory-making as a three steps process of idealisation, isolation and arithmetisation. In this framework, models perform two functions, checking for logical consistency and facilitating understanding, which can be related to the idea of modelling as theorising. I then confront these general principles with Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund model of production. I use the methodology as a reading grid of this theory, while examining its limits and complementary principles in practice. This shows a great deal of consistency, where idealisation provides conceptual foundations, isolation determines the relevant problems, and models are built according to structural consistency. The two functions of models are then illustrated by the logical derivation of older principles formulated by Babbage and Smith, and the understanding of the different organisational patterns of production. But some slightly different functions also appear when specific configurations of the model enable to check the conceptual consistency of other theories, or the understanding provided by the model contributes to the formation of new concepts. Hence, the consistency and the complementarity between Georgescu-Roegen's methodology and practice of theory-making provide interesting insights and a useful background for further investigations. |
| Abstract: | Malgré l'importante contribution de Georgescu-Roegen à l'économie mathématique, sa critique méthodologique ultérieure des modèles a reçu peu d'attention de la philosophie économique. Cet article comble ce vide en examinant en premier lieu sa méthodologie explicite et en la reliant à la littérature. Partant de la distinction entre les concepts dialectiques et arithmomorphiques, je caractérise son rapport à l'élaboration théorique comme un processus en trois étapes d'idéalisation, d'isolement et d'arithmétisation. Dans ce cadre, les modèles remplissent deux fonctions, de validation de la cohérence logique et de facilitation de la compréhension. Je confronte ensuite ces principes au modèle flux-fonds de production de Georgescu-Roegen. Sa méthodologie sert de grille de lecture de la théorie, qui révèle en retour limites et principes complémentaires. L'idéalisation fournit les fondements conceptuels, l'isolement délimite les problèmes pertinents, et la cohérence structurelle est rigoureusement respectée, tandis que les deux fonctions des modèles sont illustrées par la dérivation de principes antérieurs et la compréhension des modes d'organisation. Mais d'autres fonctions apparaissent : la validation de la cohérence conceptuelle et la contribution à la formation de nouveaux concepts. Par conséquent, la méthodologie de Georgescu-Roegen et sa pratique de la théorie fournissent un point de vue utile pour mieux comprendre sa pensée. |
| Keywords: | methodology,philosophy,models,flow-fund,production function,input-output,Georgescu-Roegen,méthodologie,philosophie,modèles,flux-fond,fonction de production,entrée-sortie,substitution |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01854031&r=his |
| By: | Alabrese, Eleonora (Department of Economics, University of Warwick); Becker, Sascha O. (Department of Economics,and CAGE (Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy), University of Warwick, CEPR,CESifo, ifo,IZA and ROA); Fetzer, Thiemo (Department of Economics, University of Warwick & SERC); Novy, Dennis (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CEPR, CESifo and CEP/LSE) |
| Abstract: | Previous analyses of the 2016 Brexit referendum used region-level data or small samples based on polling data.The former might be subject to ecological fallacy and the latter might suffer from small-sample bias. We use individual-level data on thousands of respondents in Understanding Society, the UK’s largest household survey, which includes the EU referendum question. We find that voting Leave is associated with older age, white ethnicity,low educational attainment, infrequent use of smart phones and the internet,receiving benefits, adverse health and low lifesatisfaction. These results coincide with corresponding patterns at the aggregate level of voting areas.We therefore do not find evidence of ecological fallacy. In addition, we show that prediction accuracy is geographically heterogeneous across UK regions,with strongly pro-Leave and strongly pro-Remain areas easier to predict. We also show that among individuals with similar socioeconomic characteristics, Labour supporters are more likely to support remain while Conservative supporters are more likely to support Leave |
| Keywords: | Aggregation ; Ecological Fallacy ; European Union ; Populism ; Referendum ; UK |
| JEL: | D72 I10 N44 R20 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1172&r=his |
| By: | Michela Carlana (Harvard Kennedy School); Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the effects of immigration on natives' marriage, fertility, and family formation across US cities between 1910 and 1930. Instrumenting immigrants' location decision by interacting pre-existing ethnic settlements with aggregate migration flows, we find that immigration raised marriage rates, the probability of having children, and the propensity to leave the parental house for young native men and women. We show that these effects were driven by the large and positive impact of immigration on native men's employment and occupational standing, which increased the supply of "marriageable men". We also explore alternative mechanisms - changes in sex ratios, natives' cultural responses, and displacement effects of immigrants on female employment - and provide evidence that none of them can account for a quantitatively relevant fraction of our results. |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J61 N32 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:19-004&r=his |
| By: | Olivier Gergaud (KEDGE Business School [Talence] - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche); Morgane Laouenan (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Etienne Wasmer (ECON - Département d'économie - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes a database of 1,243,776 notable people and 7,184,575 locations (Geolinks) associated with them throughout human history (3000BCE-2015AD). We first describe in details the various approaches and procedures adopted to extract the relevant information from their Wikipedia biographies and then analyze the database. Ten main facts emerge. 1. There has been an exponential growth over time of the database, with more than 60% of notable people still living in 2015, with the exception of a relative decline of the cohort born in the XVIIth century and a local minimum between 1645 and 1655. 2. The average lifespan has increased by 20 years, from 60 to 80 years, between the cohort born in 1400AD and the one born in 1900AD. 3. The share of women in the database follows a U-shape pattern, with a minimum in the XVIIth century and a maximum at 25% for the most recent cohorts. 4. The fraction of notable people in governance occupations has decreased while the fraction in occupations such as arts, literature/media and sports has increased over the centuries; sports caught up to arts and literature for cohorts born in 1870 but remained at the same level until the 1950s cohorts; and eventually sports came to dominate the database after 1950. 5. The top 10 visible people born before 1890 are all non-American and have 10 different nationalities. Six out of the top 10 born after 1890 are instead U.S. born citizens. Since 1800, the share of people from Europe and the U.S. in the database declines, the number of people from Asia and the Southern Hemisphere grows to reach 20% of the database in 2000. Coïncidentally, in 1637, the exact barycenter of the base was in the small village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises (Champagne Region in France), where Charles de Gaulle lived and passed away. Since the 1970s, the barycenter oscillates between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. 6. The average distance between places of birth and death follows a U-shape pattern: the median distance was 316km before 500AD, 100km between 500 and 1500AD, and has risen continuously since then. The greatest mobility occurs between the age of 15 and 25. 7. Individuals with the highest levels of visibility tend to be more distant from their birth place, with a median distance of 785km for the top percentile as compared to 389km for the top decile and 176km overall. 8. In all occupations, there has been a rise in international mobility since 1960. The fraction of locations in a country different from the place of birth went from 15% in 1955 to 35% after 2000. 9. There is no positive association between the size of cities and the visibility of people measured at the end of their life. If anything, the correlation is negative. 10. Last and not least, we find a positive correlation between the contemporaneous number of entrepreneurs and the urban growth of the city in which they are located the following decades; more strikingly, the same is also true with the contemporaneous number or share of artists, positively affecting next decades city growth; instead, we find a zero or negative correlation between the contemporaneous share of "militaries, politicians and religious people" and urban growth in the following decades. |
| Keywords: | Big Data,notable people |
| Date: | 2017–01–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01440325&r=his |
| By: | Mohajan, Haradhan |
| Abstract: | The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group in Rakhine, are considered among the most persecuted, vulnerable, and oppressed minorities in the world. Recently, the persecution on the Rohingya Muslims has increased due to Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar. The Rohingya continue to suffer from several forms of restrictions and human rights violations in Myanmar due to them being denied Myanmar citizenship. They are victims of various forms of oppression, such as arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, destruction of mosques, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions, restrictions on movements, forced eviction and house destruction, forced laborers on roads and at military camps, and financial restrictions on marriage. Since the 1970s, a number of crackdowns on the Rohingya in Rakhine have forced them to flee to neighboring countries. More than one million Rohingyas have migrated to refugee camps in the Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar. This article deals with the origin of the Rohingya, the form of their citizenship, and recent oppression in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. |
| Keywords: | Myanmar, Rohingya, Refugee, Citizenship, Persecution. |
| JEL: | B3 I3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:88186&r=his |
| By: | Òscar Jordà; Moritz Schularick; Alan M. Taylor; Felix Ward |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the synchronization of financial cycles across 17 advanced economies over the past 150 years. The comovement in credit, house prices, and equity prices has reached historical highs in the past three decades. The sharp increase in the comovement of global equity markets is particularly notable. We demonstrate that fluctuations in risk premiums, and not risk-free rates and dividends, account for a large part of the observed equity price synchronization after 1990. We also show that U.S. monetary policy has come to play an important role as a source of fluctuations in risk appetite across global equity markets. These fluctuations are transmitted across both fixed and floating exchange rate regimes, but the effects are more muted in floating rate regimes. |
| JEL: | E50 F33 F42 F44 G12 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24677&r=his |
| By: | Svizzero, Serge; Tisdell, Clem |
| Abstract: | After a long period of prosperity, the Únĕtice (2300-1600 B.C.) – a Central European Early Bronze Age culture – collapsed in few decades without obvious reason. Since Únĕtice was the first bronze metalworkers of Central Europe, we examine whether the reduced availability of bronze could have triggered the social collapse. We claim that it could have been so since such reduction could have implied changed trade routes, socio-economic turmoil and severe disruption of the social stratification. We provide a detailed analysis of two reasons related to shortages of inputs used to produce bronze which could explain the demise of bronze production. The first is about tin ores which could have been exhausted or become extremely scarce since only alluvial deposits of tin were used by followers of the Únĕtice culture. The second is about wood since the production of bronze requires huge quantities of wood and charcoal used as fuel, leading to deforestation. Both reasons are complementary, and combined with the reduced productivity of agriculture implied by the anthropogenic pressure on ecosystems, all three may have led to a bronze crisis, and the demise of the Únĕtice culture. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use |
| Date: | 2017–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uqseee:262289&r=his |
| By: | Kota Ogasawara |
| Abstract: | I analyze Osaka factory worker households in the early 1920s, whether idiosyncratic income shocks were shared efficiently, and which consumption categories were robust to shocks. While the null hypothesis of full risk-sharing of total expenditures was rejected, factory workers maintained their households, in that they paid for essential expenditures (rent, utilities, and commutation) during economic hardship. Additionally, children's education expenditures were possibly robust to idiosyncratic income shocks. The results suggest that temporary income is statistically significantly increased if disposable income drops due to idiosyncratic shocks. Historical documents suggest microfinancial lending and saving institutions helped mitigate risk-based vulnerabilities. |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1807.05737&r=his |
| By: | Stefania Marcassa (Université de Cergy-Pontoise); Jérôme Pouyet (ESSEC Business School); Thomas Trégouët (Université de Cergy-Pontoise THEMA) |
| Abstract: | We use a unique dataset to analyze marriage and union patterns of the European nobility from the 1500s to the 1800s. Historical evidence shows that: nobles tended to marry nobles with identical title; and, German marriages, whose dowry rules were more rigid, were characterized by a higher degree of homogamy in titles than English marriages. Moreover, we show that German data exhibit lower odds of intermarriage than English among high ranked titles, and hence provide evidence of a more stratified society. We propose a matching model that rationalizes our empirical findings: it predicts homogamy in title, and that more stringent constraints on the dowries lead to a higher degree of homogamy. |
| Keywords: | Marriage, nobility, class, elite, history, assortative matching |
| JEL: | C78 J12 J16 N34 Z10 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2018-053&r=his |
| By: | Bakker, Jan; Maurer, Stephan E; Pischke, Jörn-Steffen; Rauch, Ferdinand |
| Abstract: | We study the causal connection between trade and development using one of the earliest massive trade expansions: the first systematic crossing of open seas in the Mediterranean during the time of the Phoenicians. We construct a measure of connectedness along the shores of the sea. This connectivity varies with the shape of the coast, the location of islands, and the distance to the opposing shore. We relate connectedness to local growth, which we measure using the presence of archaeological sites in an area. We find an association between better connected locations and archaeological sites during the Iron Age, at a time when sailors began to cross open water very routinely and on a big scale. We corroborate these findings at the level of the world. |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13060&r=his |
| By: | Alain Marciano (MRE - Montpellier Recherche en Economie - UM - Université de Montpellier); Steve Medema |
| Abstract: | The University of Chicago occupies a central place in the history of law and economics. To this point, however, scant attention has been given in the literature to how the prospect of an economic analysis of law was received within the Law School at Chicago when the subject was in its infancy. In this paper we focus on the work of two prominent dissenters: Law professors Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr. We show that, although immersed in economics and interacting with the main actors of the law and economics movement in the early 1950s, Blum and Kalven largely rejected economics as a possible and useful help for solving legal problems, both because of their concerns about the utility of economics in the legal realm and because of their sense that economics and law are grounded in fundamentally incompatible normative visions. |
| Keywords: | History of Economic Thought through 1925,History of Economic Ideas,History of Political Economy,accidents, Automobile, Tort Law,Economic analysis of law, Chicago, Blum, Kalven, Liability |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01836082&r=his |
| By: | Petrović, Dragan; Bukvić, Rajko |
| Abstract: | The authors offer a view on the current state of industry and contemporary tendencies in its development in Serbia and the world. Particularly, this academic paper analyzes the state of Serbian industry, which collapsed at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, after having gone through three waves of industrialization. Serbian economy and industry have not recovered from deindustrialization even after two decades of unsteady development in the current century. Lastly, it presents some possibilities to revitalize the industry and achieve its harmonious development. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing, Serbia, transition, crisis, re-industrialization |
| JEL: | N60 N64 O14 O25 P27 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:87793&r=his |
| By: | Pierre Salama (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The marginalization of the Argentina comes from far away. While in 1913, income per head of the Argentina correspond to 65% of that of Britain, in 1945 it was still 60% to spend in 2001 to 39 percent. Comparison with income per head of the Spaniards is even more eloquent: 393% in 1913, 290% in 1945 and 51% in 2001. The per capita income for the Argentine went thus from four times that of the Spaniards to a little more than half. Today it is again in crisis and same time inflation starts rising. Its gross domestic product (GDP) growth is negative. Despite the rebound, the Argentina's deindustrializes. The level of labour productivity, growth are very low, especially when compared to those of other emerging Asian countries. Worse, the dispersion around the average is very pronounced, rather than those observed in developed countries. It is also the same wages. The purpose of this article is to analyze the causes of marginalization and the persistance of inflation during the last 15 years. |
| Abstract: | La marginalisation de l'Argentine vient de loin. Alors qu'en 1913, le revenu par tête de l'Argentine correspondait à 65% de celui de la Grande-Bretagne, en 1945 il se situait encore à 60% pour passer en 2001 à 39%. La comparaison avec le revenu par tête des espagnols est encore plus éloquente : 393% en 1913, 290% en 1945 et 51% en 2001. Le revenu par tête des argentins est passé ainsi du quadruple de celui des espagnols à un peu plus de la moitié. Aujourd'hui elle est de nouveau en crise et en même temps l'inflation repart à la hausse. La croissance de son produit intérieur brut (PIB) est négative. Malgré des rebonds, l'Argentine se désindustrialise. Le niveau de la productivité du travail, sa croissance sont très faibles, surtout si on les compare à ceux d'autres pays asiatiques émergents. Pire, la dispersion autour de la moyenne est très prononcée, bien plus que celles observées dans les pays avancés. Il en est également de même des salaires. L'objet de cet article est d'analyser les causes de cette marginalisation et de la persistance de l'inflation. |
| Keywords: | economic development,trade policy,industrialization,comparatives studies of countries,poverty,middle class,économie du développement,politique commerciale,insertion internationale,industrialisation,étude comparative,pauvreté,classes moyennes |
| Date: | 2016–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01413265&r=his |
| By: | Rajshree Agarwal; Serguey Braguinsky; Atsushi Ohyama |
| Abstract: | We study the processes of firm growth in the evolution of the Japanese cotton spinning industry during 1883-1914 by integrating strategy and historical approaches and utilizing rich quantitative firm-level data and detailed business histories. The resultant conceptual model highlights growth outcomes of path dependencies as firms evolve across periods of single vs. shared leadership, establish stability in shared leadership, or experience repeated discord-induced TMT leader departures. While most firms do not experience smooth transitions to stable shared TMT leadership, a focus on value creation, in conjunction with talent recruitment and promotion, enabled some firms to achieve stable shared leadership in spite of discord-induced departures, engage in long term expansion, and emerge as “centers of gravity” for output and talent in the industry. |
| JEL: | L2 L25 L26 M12 M13 N85 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24742&r=his |
| By: | Timothy Guinnane (Economic Growth Center, Yale University); Jakob Schneebacher (Oxford University) |
| Abstract: | A considerable theoretical and empirical literature studies the corporation's capital structure. Economists have paid less attention to capital structure in other enterprise forms such as partnerships, which typically operate under different legal constraints and appeal to smaller enterprises. Yet partnerships were the dominant business organization for the period in which wealthy countries first experienced long-run economic growth, and they remain quantitatively significant in some important economies today. We use a series of simple models to study several aspects of the partnership's choice of capital structure. We show that common features of partnerships reflect the difficulty of raising capital for ventures whose prospects are hard to judge. We also consider the implications of a rule in partnership law that prevents limited partners from playing a role in management, and the implications of the partnership form for projects subject to hold-up. |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:1061&r=his |
| By: | Juan Carlos de Pablo |
| Abstract: | Se analiza la política económica desde la perspectiva de los procesos decisorios. Las cosas no “ocurren”, sino que alguien las hace ocurrir. A raíz de la necesidad de adoptar decisiones, la realidad puede ubicarse dentro de la frontera de posibilidades de producción, basada en las dotaciones y la tecnología en uso, y por consiguiente convertirse en la restricción operativa del sistema. Para ilustrar este enfoque, se seleccionan cuatro episodios, dos referidos al ámbito internacional, dos al local. En el plano internacional, se analiza la cuestión del tipo de cambio y la deuda pública en Francia e Inglaterra durante la década de 1920 y la política antiinflacionaria aplicada en Estados Unidos a fines de la década de 1970; en el plano local, los contratos petroleros firmados en 1958 y el dilema decisorio que Juan Vital Sourrouille y Domingo Felipe Cavallo enfrentaron 9 meses después de lanzados sus respectivos programas antiinflacionarios. En cada episodio primero se presentan los hechos, y particularmente el desafío que tuvo que enfrentar el responsable de la política económica; qué decisiones adoptó; y cuáles fueron los resultados. |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:642&r=his |
| By: | Richard Pomfret (University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | What is required for a poor country to turn a valuable resource endowment into a driver of development? The resource curse literature highlighted the importance of institutions and the nature of the resource, neither of which is a useful policy guide. A more recent literature views resource exploitation as a series of hurdles that must be negotiated: ensuring production, dividing revenues, and using the added public finance. The Kyrgyz Republic’s Kumtor gold mine is a useful case study in that the country cleared the first hurdle but over almost a quarter century was embroiled in negotiating the second hurdle. The paper assesses the extent to which such problems are inevitable for a small poor country, and the consequences of an extended conflictual process. |
| Keywords: | Resource curse, minerals, Kyrgyzstan |
| JEL: | Q32 O53 L72 N55 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ost:wpaper:372&r=his |
| By: | Jacques Rouillard (Département d'histoire, Université de Montréal); Jean-François Rouillard (Département d'économique, Université de Sherbrooke) |
| Abstract: | Dans cet article, nous examinons l’évolution des salaires réels au Québec en distinguant deux périodes : 1940-1977 et 1978-2016. La première est marquée par une augmentation substantielle de la rémunération des salariés qui suit de près la progression de la productivité du travail, alors que la deuxième voit leurs salaires croître à peu près au même rythme que l’augmentation des prix à la consommation. L’évolution de la productivité du travail se démarque alors de celle des salaires réels. Nous relevons également un renversement de la part du PIB provincial allouée à la rémunération du travail. Après avoir atteint un sommet à la fin des années 1970, cette part chute par la suite alors que les bénéfices des sociétés connaissent une envolée. Il nous apparaît que l'évolution des salaires réels est liée pour beaucoup au rapport de force que les salariés peuvent détenir sur le marché du travail et que le degré d’interventionnisme de l’État est un facteur déterminant dans la constitution de ce rapport de force. |
| Keywords: | salaires réels, productivité, histoire économique, part du travail dans le PIB, Québec. |
| JEL: | E24 J3 E25 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shr:wpaper:18-04&r=his |
| By: | Vértesy, László |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses and compares some constitutional examples, especially in the 29 NISPAcee countries, how the states settle the bases of the economy and public finance in their constitutions or fundamental laws. The main hypothesis can be formulated as, is there any correlation between the constitutional provisions (or other relevant law sources) and the performance of the economy (GDP growth), sound and sustainable fiscal policy (budgeting, government debt, taxation, audit), furthermore monetary policy (price and exchange rate stability); also after the amendments can any changes be identified or not. |
| Keywords: | law and economics, constitutional economics, fiscal policy, monetary policy, economics |
| JEL: | E30 K10 N14 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:88185&r=his |