|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2018‒11‒26
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Patrice Baubeau; Eric Monnet; Angelo Riva; Stefano Ungaro |
| Abstract: | Despite France's importance in the interwar world economy, the scale and consequences of the French banking crises of 1930–1931 were never assessed quantitatively due to lack of data in the absence of banking regulation. Using a new dataset of individual balance sheets from more than 400 banks, we show that the crisis was more severe and occurred earlier than previously thought, and it was very asymmetric, without affecting main commercial banks. The primary transmission channel was a flight-to-safety of deposits from banks to savings institutions and the central bank, leading to a major, persistent disruption in business lending. In line with the gold standard mentality, cash deposited with savings institutions and the central bank was used to decrease marketable public debt and increase gold reserves, rather than pursue countercyclical policies. Despite massive capital inflows, France suffered from a severe, persistent credit crunch. |
| Keywords: | Great Depression, flight-to-safety, France, banking panics, Savings Banks, gold standard. |
| JEL: | N14 N24 G01 G21 G23 G33 E44 E51 E58 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:698&r=his |
| By: | John Komlos |
| Abstract: | The socio-economic impact of Reaganomics and its long-run deleterious legacy is documented. The preponderance of data indicate that economic growth was not particularly impressive in the wake of the tax cuts of 1981 or 1986. GDP did snap back to potential but failed to accelerate beyond the rates achieved in prior or subsequent decades. The supposed incentives of supply-side economics failed to materialize. People did not work more, they did not save or invest more than they did before, and the benefits trickled down like molasses and got stuck at the very top of the income distribution. Instead, Reagan’s presidency was a watershed in U.S. economic development in the sense that it reversed many of the accomplishments of the New Deal and inaugurated an era in which low-skilled men’s wages began a long period of decline, and labor’s share of GDP continued to fall. Reagan’s true legacy is a dual economy that accompanied the hollowing out of the middle class, a more business-friendly regulatory and oversight framework for Wall Street that ultimately led to the financial crisis, a stupendous increase in the national debt from 30% to 50% of GDP that put it on a path such that by 2012 it exceeded 100%, anti-statism that contributed to the rise of Trumpism, a remarkable rise in inequality that gave rise to an oligarchy, and the benign neglect of blue-collar workers who eventually became Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables.” Reagan put the economy on a trajectory to ultimately, even if not inevitably, led to the triumph of Trumpism and an economy of malaise. |
| Keywords: | reaganomics, Trumpism, tax cuts, supply-side economics, trickle-down economics |
| JEL: | B52 D69 H29 H69 N12 P16 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7301&r=his |
| By: | Geoffrey Brooke (School of Economics, Auckland University of Technology); Anthony Endres (Department of Economics, University of Auckland); Alan Rogers (Department of Economics, University of Auckland) |
| Abstract: | In spite of the existence of several monetary and central bank histories, the emergence of monetary thought in New Zealand after 1914 has not been subject to extensive analysis. This paper remedies this deficit for the interwar period. The focus is upon the propagation of monetary ideas in New Zealand and their intellectual sources. We apply a heuristic in which different monetary doctrines are situated along a continuum between extreme monetary policy ‘activism’ and extreme ‘minimalism’. In the 1920s, New Zealand economists betrayed a minimalist bias across several dimensions: money supply regulation, the role of money and the international monetary transmission process in the business cycle, and the operation of bank-credit allocation mechanisms. Incipient activism in the work of Condliffe and Belshaw was countered by Niemeyer’s case for a minimalist central bank. Fisher adopted an anti-reflationist, forced savings approach to the 1930s crisis; he underscored the deleterious monetary and real consequences of Government exchange rate management after 1933. Copland, Tocker, Belshaw and Hight downplayed these consequences. Extended debate over the original Reserve Bank legislation and perennial amendments thereafter, generated new meanings for the phrase ‘monetary policy independence’; it also turned most economists against extreme activism (or the policy of monetary nationalism) that prevailed from 1938. Throughout the interwar period, New Zealand entertained a vigorous contest of monetary ideas; most of those ideas were inherited from the work of Keynes (as early as 1923), Hawtrey, Cannan, Robbins, and Hayek, though adapted to local conditions. |
| Keywords: | New Zealand, population policy, migration, history of thought |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:201809&r=his |
| By: | Johansson, Dan (Örebro University School of Business); Stenkula, Mikael (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Wykman, Niklas (Örebro University School of Business) |
| Abstract: | The tax system has at times favoured firm control through private foundations, which has been argued to inhibit high-impact entrepreneurship and economic growth. However, research has been hampered due to a lack of systematic historical tax data. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, we describe the evolution of tax rules for private foundations in Sweden between 1862 and 2018. Second, we calculate the marginal effective tax rate on capital income. Third, we examine the incentives to use private foundations as a means for corporate control by comparing the taxation of private foundations and of high-impact entrepreneurs. Tax incentives help explain why economically significant private foundations were founded between World War I and the 1960s. |
| Keywords: | family firms; foundations; high-impact entrepreneurship; owner; taxation |
| JEL: | H20 K34 L26 N44 |
| Date: | 2018–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2018_010&r=his |
| By: | Hubert Bonin |
| Abstract: | Société Générale vacillated under the influence of a grave crisis in 1913-1914. To think about the configuration and the management of its economic model allows to wonder about the strategic choices, the quality of the mode of management, the compared virtues of mixed or universal bank. The intertwining of the methods of study of the business history and economic history with those of the institutional management allows stimulating questionings. |
| Keywords: | Banking history; banks; companies’ crisis; business model of a firm; management of balance sheet equilibrium; mixed banking |
| JEL: | D D78 G21 N23 N83 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2018-23&r=his |
| By: | Stepan Dzhundzhuzov (Orenburg State Pedagogical University); Larisa Polshkova (Orenburg Theological Seminary) |
| Abstract: | The settlement of baptized Kalmyks in the Middle Volga region, received the name Stavropol, was established in 1737. At the initiative of the first Orenburg governor Neplyuyev, it was transformed into an irregular army. The creation of the Kalmyk settlement took place in an environment where the Russian state fought decisively to establish its presence in the interfluve of the Volga and Yaik. Baptized Kalmyks significantly increased both the strength and the combat capability of Russian troops deployed in the Orenburg region. The first documented mention of the involvement of the Stavropol Kalmyks in military service dates back to 1739. As part of the government troops, they participated in punitive operations aimed at suppressing popular unrest in Bashkortostan. The military Cossack service became the main duty of baptized Kalmyks. Until 1815, it was expressed not only in the protection of state borders and the performance of police duties within the country but also in participating in wars with Prussia, Sweden, and Napoleonic France. Long-term interaction in combat conditions with Russian soldiers and Cossacks, a subordination of Kalmyk contingents to army officers exerted a strong accultural influence on the world view of the Kalmyks. However, later, in the conditions of the further modernization of the Russian army, the inefficiency of preserving the Stavropol Kalmyk regiment as a separate military unit became more evident for the authorities. In the 1830s, the commanders of the Orenburg Corps began to draw the government's attention to the unsatisfactory level of military training of Kalmyk servicemen, the lack of military education and combat experience among the command staff, and the lack of the Stavropol Kalmyk regiment. The noted shortcomings eventually gave rise to the disbandment of both the regiment itself and the entire Kalmyk army. After the annexation of the Stavropol Kalmyks to the Orenburg army, until 1917 they performed military service jointly and on common grounds with the Orenburg Cossacks. This was an important step in the development of the imperial policy of acculturation of baptized Kalmyks, aimed at their full "exposure". The research is executed at the expense of a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 17-18-01008) in the Orenburg State Pedagogical University. |
| Keywords: | acculturation, Cossack army, Kalmyks, politics, Orenburg region |
| JEL: | F22 N90 N93 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:8108881&r=his |
| By: | Thomas Palley |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the evolution of money and the monetary system. The origins of money debate is framed in terms of functionalism versus chartalism. Endogenous Schumpeterian dynamics apply to the evolution of money and monetary systems, and those dynamics are supportive of the functionalist perspective. A functionalist Schumpeterian lens shows "Gresham's law" should be relabeled "Gresham's fallacy" because good money drives out bad. The Gresham dynamic is also supportive of the functionalist perspective. Lastly, the paper shows monetary history over the past millennium does not support chartalist public finance claims as represented by modern money theory (MMT). |
| Keywords: | Money, functionalism, chartalism, Gresham’s law, Schumpeterian dynamics, modern monetary theory |
| JEL: | E4 E44 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:34-2018&r=his |
| By: | Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi; Vaturi, Anat |
| Abstract: | Economists growingly highlight the fundamental role that human capital formation, institutions, cultural transmission, and religious norms may each distinctively play in shaping health, knowledge, and wealth. We contribute to this debate by studying one of the most remarkable instances in which religious norms and child care practices had a major impact on demographic and economic patterns: the history of the Jews in central and eastern Europe from 1500 to 1930. After documenting that the Jewish population in Poland Lithuania increased at a strikingly high annual rate of 1.37 percent during this period, we investigate the engines of this exceptional growth. We show that while Jewish and non-Jewish birth rates were about the same, infant and child mortality among Jews was much lower and account for the main difference (70 percent) in Jewish versus non-Jewish natural population growth. Our contribution stems from documenting that Jewish families routinely adopted childcare practices that recent medical research has shown as enhancing infants' and children's well-being. These practices, deeply rooted in Talmudic rulings, account for the lower infant and child mortality among Jews, and in turn, for the higher Jewish population growth rate in eastern and central Europe between 1500 and 1930. The key insight of our work is that once Judaism became a "literate religion," infant and child care, as well as enhancing offspring's' cognitive skills, became focal activities of Jewish households. |
| Keywords: | Child Care; Eastern Europe; infant mortality; Jewish history; population growth; religious norms |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N33 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13178&r=his |
| By: | Sergey Polskoy (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we attempt to trace the semantic changes two key concepts of the Modern period - fundamental law and constitution underwent at the 18th century and investigates how these European concepts were adapted and used in the Russian political language. The concept of the constitution and fundamental laws in eighteenth-century political discourse had differing connotations: while the constitution was used mainly to describe the form of government, the concept of fundamental laws referred to historically developing legal traditions which have been adopted as norms of political law. The most radical vision of constitution in the 18th century went further than identify it with the fundamental law, demanding that the latter should enshrine the principles of civil rights and liberties of the Nation, and the legal guarantees thereof. However, this radical view, arising at the end of the century, was far from universal, and the discussion around various understandings of this concept was still to continue for many years |
| Keywords: | constitution, fundamental laws, XVIIIth century, Enlightenment, Russia |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:169/hum/2018&r=his |
| By: | Auke Rijpma (Utrecht University); Jan Luiten van Zanden (Utrecht University); Marco Mira d’Ercole (OECD) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes development patterns beyond GDP in a long-term historical perspective. It revisits the discussion on the goals of development in light of the current discussions on ‘Beyond GDP’, provides evidence on GDP and well-being outcomes since 1820 in a broad range of developing and emerging countries, and compares the experience of early industrialising countries and more recently emerging ones. |
| Keywords: | beyond GDP, economic history, well-being |
| JEL: | I31 N00 |
| Date: | 2018–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stdaaa:2018/10-en&r=his |
| By: | Konstantin A. Kholodilin (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Sebastian Kohl; Yulia Prozorova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Julien Licheron (LISER) |
| Abstract: | In the shadow of homeownership and public housing, social policy through the regulation of private rental markets is a neglected and underestimated eld of social policy. This paper, therefore, presents unique new data on the development of private tenancy legislation through the binary coding of rent control, the protection of tenants from eviction, and rental housing rationing laws across more than 25 countries and 100 years. This long-run perspective reveals the dynamic eects of rent control on the rise of homeownership as the dominant tenure during the 20th century. We nd that both rent regulation and rationing legislation eectively increased homeownership, but only up to a certain threshold. We suggest that the short-term lure of an inexpensive social policy for tenants has led to the long-term marginalization of rental markets in many countries |
| Keywords: | Homeownership, rent control, tenure security, housing rationing, dynamic panel data model. |
| JEL: | C23 O18 R38 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:202/ec/2018&r=his |
| By: | Elena V. Besschetnova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In the face of political rhetoric about Russia being outside of Europe both in the West and in Russia itself, it is all the more necessary to remember that European and Russian culture grew out of the same source: Christianity. Therefore, inter-confessional dialogue between Russian Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church is particularly relevant today. In this context, scholars have focused attention on the Russian philosopher Vl.S. Solovyov, who has been described as the forerunner of the ecumenical movement. The current article seeks to enrich accounts of Solovyov’s thought by shining a spotlight on the context of spiritual thought in Russia in his day. The article also shows how Russian emperors (particularly Alexander III) promoted the idea of a rapprochement with the Holy See. The author argues that these mutual initiatives of the Holy See and the Russian government were the political foundation for Vl. S. Solovyov’s famous theocratic project. The author worked with the funds of Vatican Secret Archive, concerning relationships between Russian government and the Holy See at the end of XIX century (State Secretary fund 247), personal fund of Leo XIII and the Holy See connection’s with Slavic religious figures (State Secretary fund 283, 248, 1D). |
| Keywords: | Ecclesiastical unity, Idea of Empire, European humanity, The Holy See, Russian Empire, Ecumenism, universal theocracy |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:170/hum/2018&r=his |
| By: | Angel De la Fuente |
| Abstract: | En esta nota se describe brevemente la ultima actualizacion de RegData, una base de datos que recoge los principales agregados economicos y demograficos de las regiones españolas durante las ultimas seis decadas. En su mayoria, las series comienzan en 1950 o 1955 y se extienden hasta 2017. |
| Keywords: | Documento de Trabajo , Economía Global , España |
| JEL: | E01 R1 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbv:wpaper:1814&r=his |
| By: | Mohamed Ali Dakkam (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - UO - Université d'Orléans - Université de Tours - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This study looks at different paradigms in accounting history to understand the emergence, development, uses and functions of accounting. Firstly, we gave an overview of the various works that have examined the question of the evolution of accounting practices and theories. This first work allowed us to elaborate a theoretical grid allowing to go beyond the reducing typologies of the research in history of the accounting. Then we looked at the possibility of mobilizing neoclassical, Foucaldian and Marxist framworks to study and explain the developmenet and uses of accounting practices. To do so we propose to use a transversal approach that allows both to mobilize the postulates of these works but without fishing in a determinism of any kind. This approach is inspired by Flichy's work, it must make it possible to grasp both the rationalist functions and the social uses of accounting. This framework of theoretical reflection on the uses and the functions of a technique proposed by Flichy obviously requires to test its heuristic capacity to study the evolution of the accounting practices within the companies and in the literature. |
| Abstract: | Ce travail s'intéresse aux différents paradigmes en histoire de la comptabilité pour comprendre l'émergence, le développement, les usages et les fonctions de la comptabilité. Dans un premier temps nous avons réalisé un tour d'horizon sur les différents travaux qui se sont penchés sur la question de l'évolution des pratiques et théories comptables. Ce premier travail nous a permis d'élaborer une grille de lecture théorique permettant de dépasser les typologies réductrices de la recherche en histoire de la comptabilité pour aboutir à une typologie valorisante. Ensuite nous nous sommes penchés sur la possibilité de mobiliser des explications à la fois néo-classiques, foucaldiennes et marxistes pour décrire et expliquer les pratiques comptables d'une entreprise. Pour se faire nous proposons d'utiliser une approche transversale qui permet à la fois de mobiliser les postulats de ces travaux mais sans pour autant pêcher dans un déterminisme de quelque sorte soit-il. Cette approche est inspirée des travaux de Flichy, elle doit permettre de saisir à la fois les fonctions rationalistes et les usages sociaux de la comptabilité. Ce cadre de réflexion théorique sur les usages et les fonctions d'une technique proposé par Flichy nécessite bien évidement de tester sa capacité heuristique pour étudier l'évolution des pratiques comptables au sein des entreprises et dans la littérature. |
| Keywords: | accounting,management control,history,comptabilité,contrôle de gestion,histoire,théories |
| Date: | 2018–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01907865&r=his |
| By: | Sergey Lyubichankovskiy (Orenburg State Pedagogical University); Elena Godovova (Orenburg State Pedagogical University) |
| Abstract: | This research is about features of a policy of acculturation for Christian sectarians in the territory of Orenburg region of XIX ? the beginnings of the 20th centuries. The subject of the relationship of the Orthodox Russian Empire with Christian sectarians repeatedly rose in modern scientific literature. However the situation in the huge suburban Eurasian region on the border of Europe and Asia ? the Orenburg region ? wasn't analyzed systemically. The purpose of our research ? to study a question on the basis of primary sources from the local archive. The government sought to provide stability in the Orenburg province and incorporation of the region in the structure of the Empire by means of acculturation policy. This policy concerned not only the Muslims living here but also Christian sectarians. Christian sectarianism in a mass look has appeared in the Orenburg region from the second half of the 19th century. The activity of Russian Orthodox Church in the Orenburg diocese has been directed to the identification of sectarians and "their return to a bosom of a church" through explanations and education. If efforts of the church didn't result in desirable results, then more drastic measures with an involvement of the Orenburg provincial administration and police were taken. As a result in the region, steady process of formal transition to Orthodoxy at a secret observance of former ceremonies was supported. The factor complicating work of the Orthodox Church with sectarians in the territory of the Orenburg province was her status of the territory in large quantities accepting immigrants among whom sectarians have been presented in a large number. The research is executed at the expense of a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 17-18-01008) in the Orenburg State Pedagogical University. |
| Keywords: | History of acculturation, Identity, Christian sectarianism, Russian Empire |
| JEL: | N90 Z12 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:8108632&r=his |
| By: | Atkinson, Anthony B. (Nuffield College, Oxford); Jenkins, Stephen P. (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top. We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2. |
| Keywords: | inequality, tax unit, household, Gini coefficient, income tax data, household survey data |
| JEL: | C46 C81 D31 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11884&r=his |
| By: | Heblich, Stephan; Redding, Stephen J.; Sturm, Daniel M |
| Abstract: | Modern metropolitan areas involve large concentrations of economic activity and the transport of millions of people each day between their residence and workplace. We use the revolution in transport technology from the invention of steam railways, newly-constructed spatially-disaggregated data for London from 1801-1921, and a quantitative urban model to provide evidence on the role of these commuting flows in supporting such concentrations of economic activity. Steam railways dramatically reduced travel times and permitted the first large-scale separation of workplace and residence. We show that our model is able to account for the observed changes in the organization of economic activity, both qualitatively and quantitatively. In counterfactuals, we find that removing the entire railway network reduces the population and the value of land and buildings in Greater London by 20 percent or more, and brings down commuting into the City of London from more than 370,000 to less than 60,000 workers. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration; Transportation; Urbanization |
| JEL: | O18 R12 R40 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13170&r=his |
| By: | Akcigit, Ufuk; Grigsby, John; Nicholas, Tom; Stantcheva, Stefanie |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the twentieth century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920; a dataset of the employment, location and patents of firms active in R&D since 1921; and a historical state-level corporate tax database since 1900, which we link to an existing database on state-level personal income taxes. Our analysis focuses on the impact of taxes on individual inventors and firms (the micro level) and on states over time (the macro level). We propose several identification strategies, all of which yield consistent results: i) OLS with fixed effects, including inventor and state-times-year fixed effects, which make use of differences between tax brackets within a state-year cell and which absorb heterogeneity and contemporaneous changes in economic conditions; ii) an instrumental variable approach, which predicts changes in an individual or firm's total tax rate with changes in the federal tax rate only; iii) event studies, synthetic cohort case studies, and a border county strategy, which exploits tax variation across neighboring counties in different states. We find that taxes matter for innovation: higher personal and corporate income taxes negatively affect the quantity and quality of inventive activity and shift its location at the macro and micro levels. At the macro level, cross-state spillovers or business-stealing from one state to another are important, but do not account for all of the effect. Agglomeration effects from local innovation clusters tend to weaken responsiveness to taxation. Corporate inventors respond more strongly to taxes than their non-corporate counterparts. |
| Keywords: | business taxation; Corporate taxation; firms; Income taxes; Innovation; inventors; R&D tax credits; state taxation |
| JEL: | H24 H25 H31 J61 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13167&r=his |
| By: | Anderson, Kym |
| Abstract: | Despite favourable growing conditions, Australia's production or exports of wine did not become significant until the 1890s. Both grew in the 1920s, but only because of government support. Once that support was removed in the late 1940s, production plateaued and exports diminished: only 2% of wine production was exported during 1975-85. Yet over the next two decades Australia's wine production quadrupled and the share exported rose to two-thirds – before falling somewhat in the next ten years. This paper explains why it took so long for Australia's production and competitive advantage in wine to emerge, why it took off spectacularly after the mid-1980s and why it fell in the ten years to 2015. It concludes that despite the recent downturn in the industry's fortunes, the country's international competitiveness is now firmly established and commensurate with its ideal wine-growing climate, notwithstanding the likelihood of further boom-slump cycles in the decades ahead. |
| Keywords: | boom-plateau wine cycles; comparative advantage; wine competitiveness; wine trade specialization |
| JEL: | D12 F15 L66 N10 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13201&r=his |
| By: | Lekfuangfu, Warn N. (Chulalongkorn University); Lordan, Grace (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We consider the extent to which societal shifts have been responsible for an increased tendency for females to sort into traditional male roles over time, versus childhood factors. Drawing on three cohort studies, which follow individuals born in the UK in 1958, 1970 and 2000, we compare the magnitude of the shift in the tendency of females in these cohorts to sort into traditionally male roles as compared to males, to the combined effect of a set of childhood variables. For all three cohorts we find strong evidence of sorting along gendered lines which has decreased substantively over time. We also find that there has been no erosion of the gender gap in the tendency to sort into occupations with the highest share of males. Within cohort, we find little evidence that childhood variables change the tendency for either the average or highest ability female to sort substantively differently. Our work underlines the importance of societal shifts, over and above childhood variables, in determining the sorting patterns we have seen over the last number of decades, and also those that remain today. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, gender, societal change, childhood influences |
| JEL: | J16 J4 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11872&r=his |
| By: | Guillaume Bazot (Université Paris 8) |
| Abstract: | Calculation of the unit cost of financial intermediation for 20 countries from 1970 to 2015 has produced the following results. (i) Most countries’ unit costs decline and converge in the long run. (ii) Unit costs were much higher in the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with high nominal rates, as confirmed by panel cointegration tests. (iii) Countries’ unit cost aggregation suggests a slight decrease in international unit cost whatever the set of hypotheses used in the calculation. (iv) The break down of unit costs into labor costs, capital costs, and profits shows that most of the decrease stems from reduced input costs. Gross operating surplus and total compensation per output tend to decline while distributed profit per output rises, suggesting increasing intermediation rents per output. (v) The productivity of labor in finance compared to other sectors tends to increase in most countries. (vi) The evidence suggests that most productivity gains have been captured by the financial sector in Canada, the UK, and the US. Elsewhere, productivity gains have benefited the nonfinancial sector through unit cost reduction. (vii) Deregulation is either negatively or not correlated with unit cost. In other words, deregulation is not related to unit cost increases. Finally, the paper discusses the consequences of those results for current debates about finance relative wage changes and inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Unit cost, deregulation, convergence |
| JEL: | E3 E4 F3 G2 N2 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0141&r=his |
| By: | Margarita Fernández Mier |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the main lines of research developed in medieval Rural History in the last twenty years in the Iberian Peninsula, both in the Andalusian society and in the Christian kingdoms. We present special attention to the take-off of agrarian archeology, the characterization of the medieval peasantry and the study of livestock. |
| Keywords: | Middle Ages, Rural History, Agrarian Archaeology |
| JEL: | Q15 N50 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1805&r=his |
| By: | Claire Garnier (HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal) |
| Abstract: | The paper operationalizes the concept of identity conversion to account for the process of becoming an audit partner in a Big 4 Firm. So far, literature has sought to document the identity construction of auditors based on field auditors or managers, overlooking the population of partners. The interactionist concept of career enables us to consider cooption as the turning point of a process that began the first day at work, and continues throughout the individual's career inside the firm. Through 25 life stories and 16 in-depth interviews, we show that auditors need an identity conversion to become partners, both from an individual perspective and through other auditors' eyes. It requires from them to solve conflicting expectations and to master informal ways of promotion, to finally complete the process of the making of a partner in a Big 4 Firm. |
| Keywords: | Audit partners,careers,promotion-to-partner process,identity conversion,symbolic interactionism |
| Date: | 2018–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01907933&r=his |
| By: | Stefan Ederer; Miriam Rehm |
| Abstract: | If Piketty's main theoretical prediction (r>g leads to rising wealth inequality) is taken to its radical conclusion, then a small elite will own all wealth if capitalism is left to its own devices. We formulate and calibrate a Post-Keynesian model with an endogenous distribution of wealth between workers and capitalists which permits such a corner solution of all wealth held by capitalists. However, it also shows interior solutions with a stable, non-zero wealth share of workers, a stable wealth-to-income ratio, and a stable and positive gap between the profit and the growth rate determined by the Cambridge equation. More importantly, simulations show that the model conforms to Piketty's empirical findings during a transitional phase of increasing wealth inequality, which characterizes the current state of high-income countries: The wealth share of capitalists rises to over 60%, the wealth-to-income ratio increases, and income inequality rises. Finally, we show that the introduction of a wealth tax as suggested by Piketty could neutralize this rise in wealth concentration predicted by our model. |
| Keywords: | Post-Keynesian, model, wealth, saving, inequality, Piketty, simulation |
| JEL: | C63 D31 E12 E21 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:35-2018&r=his |
| By: | Joel Perlmann |
| Abstract: | The Trump administration is facing a legal challenge to its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census-a question that was first included in 1890, but has not been asked of the entire population since 1950. If the citizenship question was asked in the past, why not reinstate it? Senior Scholar Joel Perlmann explains how the characteristics of both immigration and the census itself have changed radically since 1890 and, as a result, how the inclusion of this question on the once-a-decade census would not only be redundant, but would threaten the integrity of the census count. |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levyop:op_58&r=his |
| By: | Isabella M Weber; Gregor Semieniuk (Institute of Management Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK) |
| Abstract: | American radical economists in the 1960s perceived China under Maoism as an important experiment in creating a new society, aspects of which they hoped could serve as a model for the developing world. But the knowledge of ‘actually existing Maoism’ was very limited due to the mutual isolation between China and the US. This paper analyses the First Friendship Delegation of American Radical Political Economists (FFDARPE) to the People’s Republic of China in 1972, consisting mainly of Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) members, which was the first visit of a group of American economists to China since 1949. Based on interviews with trip participants as well as archival and published material, this paper studies what we can learn about the engagement with Maoism by American radical economists from their dialogues with Chinese hosts, from their on-the-ground observations, and their reflection upon return. We show how the visitors’ own ideas conflicted and intersected with their perception of the Maoist practice on gender relations; workers’ management and life in the communes. We also shed light on the diverging conceptions of the role for economic expertise between URPE and late Maoism. As the first in-depth study on the FFDARPE we provide rich empirical insights into an ice-breaking event in the larger process of normalization in the Sino- U.S relations, that ultimately led to the disillusionment of the Left with China. |
| Keywords: | China; socialism and capitalism; transition economics; Maoism |
| JEL: | B24 N15 N45 O10 P21 P32 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soa:wpaper:212&r=his |
| By: | Antoine Fabre; Pierre Labardin (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris-Dauphine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to pursue the work of Asdal (2011), focusing on limitations of accounting to act at a distance. Drawing on insights offered by notions of accounting inscription and territorialization, we identify such factors that inhibit the efficiency of action at a distance exploring daily quantification practices in organizations. Drawing on the introduction of accounting in French Guiana penal colonies in mid-nineteenth century, we highlight series of choices and effects faced by actors in charge of accounting. We point out combinations of such effects and choices that lead to emergence of inefficiency factors of action at a distance. Recording procedures may entrench preexisting practices that they are supposed to prevent. Monetary valuation and data aggregation processes, isolating quantified objects from larger causal relationships, may generate unexpected effects than those planned initially |
| Abstract: | Cet article s'inscrit dans la lignée des travaux de Asdal (2011), sur les limites de la comptabilité à agir efficacement à distance. En combinant les notions d'inscription comptable et de territorialisation, nous montrons comment des facteurs d'inefficacité de l'action à distance peuvent émerger des pratiques de quantification quotidiennes. A partir d'un cas historique de l'introduction d'un système comptable dans les bagnes de Guyane au XIXe siècle, nous avons détaillons un ensemble de choix et d'effets auxquels étaient confrontés les acteurs en charge de la comptabilité. Nous montrons comment des combinaisons de certains choix et effets réduisent l'efficacité de l'action à distance. Les procédures d'enregistrement comptable peuvent favoriser la pérennisation de pratiques préexistantes qu'elles étaient censées modifier. Les processus de valorisation monétaire et d'agrégation des données, en isolant les objets quantifiés d'autres relations de causalité, génèrent des effets inattendus par rapport à ceux prévus. |
| Keywords: | action at a distance,territorialization,quantification practices,accounting history,nineteenth century,action à distance,territorialisation,pratiques de quantification,histoire de la comptabilité,XIXe siècle |
| Date: | 2018–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01907949&r=his |
| By: | Dale-Olsen, Harald (Institute for Social Research, Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Do unions promote creative destruction? In this paper we apply a shift-share approach and historical unionisation data from 1918 to study the impact of changes in regional unionisation on regional wage and productivity growth and job creation and destruction during the period 2003-2012. As local regional-industrial unionisation increases, wages grow. Lay-offs through plant closure and shrinking workplaces increase, but entry and new hires are unaffected. Overall, the increased unionisation yields a positive impact on regional productivity, exceeding the wage growth, partly due to the closure of less productive firms, but also enhanced productivity of the survivors and new entrants. |
| Keywords: | trade unions, entry/exit, creative destruction, wages, productivity, historical data |
| JEL: | J01 J08 J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11894&r=his |
| By: | Michaël Assous (Université Lyon 2, CNRS, Triangle); Muriel Dal Pont Legrand (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | Early developments of growth theory are seen widely as the result of a two-step process – the first represented by Harrod's Essay in Dynaamic Theory, and the second by Solow's 1956 model. Harrod is considered to be the first to highlight the pervasive instability in macrodynamics, which Solow showed disappeared with the inclusion of flexible-coefficient production functions. It has been recognized since that this is a misreading (Besomi 1995, 1998, Bruno and Dal-Pont Legrand 2014). Hoover and Halsmayer (2016) examined how this "culture of misunderstanding" guided both Solow's modelling work and his reading of Harrod. Our paper pays attention to the specific issue of the introduction of an (independent) investment function in those early growth models. Using new archival material, we examine this complex issue and show how macroeconomists of that period dealt with problems related to incorporating expectations, an a priori unavoidable step in order to build robust investment functions. Those elements were indeed discussed at length, in the early 1960s, by economists such as Sen, Samuelson and Solow as shown in his correspondence with Hahn. Our paper sheds light on some hidden foundations of growth models and examines the nature of the break Solow’s model introduced in the growth research program as initially defined by Harrod. |
| Keywords: | : growth, expectations, investment function, (in-)stability |
| JEL: | B2 B22 E1 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2018-30&r=his |
| By: | Nekoei, Arash; Seim, David |
| Abstract: | A recent literature has found that inheritances reduce relative measures of wealth inequality. Theoretically, we show that this surprising finding stems from high intergenerational wealth mobility or low inheritance inequality. Empirically, we show that this finding is only true in the short run using Swedish administrative data and exploiting randomness in the timing of death. The inheritance effect on wealth inequality is reversed within a decade due to less wealthy heirs depleting their inherited wealth in contrast to more affluent heirs. Investigating mechanisms behind this depletion, we find that inheritances generate a roughly constant increase in annual non-labor income. 60% of this increase is allocated to consumption of goods (half of which consists of car consumption) in the first years, compared to 80% in later years. The remaining labor supply responses reflect a considerable albeit declining inheritance labor-supply elasticity. In a second quasi-experimental design, we demonstrate that large windfall inheritances due to a inheritance tax repeal were sustained over time. Our findings suggest that inheritance taxation increases short-run wealth inequality but reduces it in the long run solely through taxation of very large inheritances. |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13199&r=his |
| By: | Peter Sandholt Jensen (University of Southern Denmark); Cristina Victoria Radu (University of Southern Denmark); Battista Severgnini (Copenhagen Business School); Paul Sharp (University of Southern Denmark, CAGE, CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence of how restrictions on labor mobility, such as serfdom and other types of labor coercion, impact labor market outcomes. To do so, we estimate the impact of a large negative shock to labor mobility in the form of the reintroduction of serfdom in Denmark in 1733, which was targeted at limiting the mobility of farmhands. Using a unique data source based on the archives of estates from the eighteenth century, we test whether serfdom affected the wages of farmhands more strongly than other groups in the labor market, and results based on a differences-in-differences approach reveal evidence consistent with a strong negative effect following its introduction. We also investigate whether one mechanism was that boys with rural backgrounds were prevented from taking up apprenticeships in towns, and find suggestive evidence that this was indeed the case. Thus, our results suggest that serfdom was effectively reducing mobility. |
| Keywords: | Serfdom, labor mobility, coercion |
| JEL: | J3 N33 P4 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0140&r=his |