nep-his New Economics Papers
on Business, Economic and Financial History
Issue of 2019‒02‒18
twenty-six papers chosen by



  1. "Economic Planning under Capitalism: The New Deal and Postwar France Experiments" By Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho
  2. Always Egalitarian? Australian Earnings Inequality c1870 By Laura Panza; Jeffrey G. Williamson
  3. Real wages, labour conditions and the standard of living in Denmark: 1500-1900 By Radu, Cristina Victoria
  4. Análisis demográfico de la Violencia en Colombia By Julio E. Romero-Prieto; Adolfo Meisel-Roca
  5. Housing Rent Dynamics and Rent Regulation in St. Petersburg (1880-1917) By Konstantin A. Kholodilin; Leonid E. Limonov; Sofie R. Waltl
  6. Karl Brunner and U.K. Monetary Debate By Edward Nelson
  7. From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration By Vasiliki Fouka; Soumyajit Mazumder; Marco Tabellini
  8. Technological Progress and Health Convergence: The Case of Penicillin in Post-War Italy By Marcella Alsan; Vincenzo Atella; Jay Bhattacharya; Valentina Conti; Iván Mejía-Guevara; Grant Miller
  9. The year 1819 epitomizing the issues and challenges of modernity after the Revolution and Empire By Hubert Bonin
  10. The Effects of Lender of Last Resort on Financial Intermediation during the Great Depression in Japan By Masami Imai; Tetsuji Okazaki; Michiru Sawada
  11. Human capital at the beginnings of the 18th century Catalonia: age-heaping and numeracy in a changing economy By Èric Gómez-i-Aznar
  12. The Monetary and Fiscal History of Peru, 1960-2017: Radical Policy Experiments, Inflation and Stabilization By Marco Vega; César Martinelli
  13. MIGRATION OF RUSSIAN SETTLERS AND THE LEGACY OF INTER-REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN By Akan Kadyrbekov; Dmitry Veselov
  14. Equity finance: matching liability to power By Goodhart, C. A. E.; Lastra, Rosa M.
  15. The Consequences of Invention Secrecy: Evidence from the USPTO Patent Secrecy Program in World War II By Daniel P. Gross
  16. Nationalist Thought in Prewar Japan By Atsushi Tsuneki
  17. Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo By Josefin Meyer; Carmen M. Reinhart; Christoph Trebesch
  18. Higher Education Supply, Neighbourhood Effects and Economic Welfare By Elena Cottini; Paolo Ghinetti; Simone Moriconi
  19. Predictors of Bank Distress:The 1907 Crisis in Sweden By Grodecka, Anna; Kenny, Seán; Ögren, Anders
  20. Interview with Charles Goodhart By Lindé, Jesper; Goodhart, C. A. E.
  21. Money and Modernization in Early Modern England By N. Palma
  22. Fading Stars By Germán Gutiérrez; Thomas Philippon
  23. Intelligence and Slave Exports from Africa By Simplice A. Asongu; Oasis Kodila-Tedika
  24. Financial Constraints and Self-Employment in France, 1945-2014 By A. BAUER; B. GARBINTI; S. GEORGES-KOT
  25. Narratives about Technology-Induced Job Degradations Then and Now By Robert J. Shiller
  26. Linked Inventor Biography Data 1980-2014 : (INV-BIO ADIAB 8014) By Dorner, Matthias; Harhoff, Dietmar; Gaessler, Fabian; Hoisl, Karin; Poege, Felix

  1. By: Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho
    Abstract: By the beginning of the 20th century, the possibility and efficacy of economic planning was believed to have been proven by totalitarian experiments in Germany, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser degree, Fascist Italy; however, the possibilities and limitations of planning in capitalist democracies was unclear. The challenge in the United States in the 1930s and in postwar France was to find ways to make planning work under capitalism and democratic conditions, where private agents were free to not accept its directives. This paper begins by examining the experience with planning during the first years of the New Deal in the United States, centered on the creation and operation of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), and continues with a discussion of the French experience with indicative planning in the aftermath of World War II. A digression follows, touching on the proximity between the matters treated in this paper and Keynes's view that macroeconomic stabilization could require a measure of socialization of investments, following James Tobin's hunch that French indicative planning, as well as some social democrat experiences in Northern Europe, could be playing precisely that role. The paper concludes by identifying the lessons one can draw from the two experiences.
    Keywords: New Deal; National Recovery Act (NRA); National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA); Economic Planning; Economic Cooperation
    JEL: E02 E65 N12 N32 O21
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_923&r=all
  2. By: Laura Panza; Jeffrey G. Williamson
    Abstract: Trends in Australian inequality across the twentieth century are now well documented and they closely replicate trends in every other advanced economy: from WW1 to the 1970s, inequality fell steeply everywhere, and from the 1970s to the present, it rose just as steeply. Despite following a similar trajectory, Australia remained more egalitarian throughout. Why has it been exceptional and what are its origins? Previous work has found no evidence documenting any rise in Australian income and earnings inequality from 1820 to 1870. But what was the level of inequality around 1870? Was it more or less egalitarian than other New World countries and Europe then? Using an array of primary and secondary sources we construct social tables for Victoria and New South Wales (about 75 percent of Australia’s 1870 GDP) to estimate the Australian earnings distribution. We find that Australia was far more equal than in the United States, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe during the same period. We speculate on the causes and whether the same estimates can be constructed for 1901 or 1911, thus documenting earnings distribution trends during Australia’s poor growth decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:073&r=all
  3. By: Radu, Cristina Victoria (Department of Business and Economics)
    Abstract: It is well established that Denmark is one of the richest economies in the world nowadays with high living standards and wages. But what about earlier times? This paper makes three contributions: firstly, it creates and describes a new and rich data set on historical wage developments in Denmark, based on data gathered by the Danish Price History Project for the period 1660‐1800; secondly, it tests the traditional view of Denmark being very poor during that period by offering insight into eighteenth century Danish living standards; and thirdly, it tests whether the country followed the traditional story of the Little Divergence by constructing a long run real wage series for 1500‐1900. Comparing real wages across Europe, I find incomes in the countryside actually converged in the sixteenth century. In this context, Denmark moved from being poor, to an average income level, becoming rich only in the nineteenth century. An analysis of the eighteenth century shows that the value of the skill premium was higher than that of leading countries in Europe, but the gender wage gap tended to close towards the end. Married women in skilled occupations earned more than unmarried ones, but no difference was seen for unskilled occupations.
    Keywords: Little Divergence; Denmark; consumer price index; real wages; skill premium; gender gap; casual and full time workers; married/unmarried women; urban/rural workers; living standards
    JEL: J30 J40 J80 N33 N93
    Date: 2019–02–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2019_002&r=all
  4. By: Julio E. Romero-Prieto; Adolfo Meisel-Roca
    Abstract: En este artículo se argumenta que en la historiografía colombiana existe falta de consenso en cuanto a la duración y al número de víctimas de la Violencia de mediados del siglo XX. Ambas controversias son resueltas analizando las características demográficas de la población colombiana. A partir de censos y registros vitales de la época, se estimaron algunos componentes básicos: tablas de vida, tasas de natalidad y tasas específicas de muertes violentas. Considerando el tamaño y la distribución de la población colombiana, se estimó un máximo de 57.737 víctimas mortales en el periodo 1949-58. Teniendo en cuentas que no todas las muertes violentas tendrían una causa política, esta cifra se reduce a 39.142 bajo supuestos más conservadores. Por lo tanto, las cifras estimadas en este artículo controvierten las más de 200 mil víctimas que usualmente se citan en la literatura, pero que carecen de soporte cuantitativo. Aunque fueron menos muertes que las usualmente aceptadas, los avances que permitieron reducir la mortalidad durante el siglo XX se vieron parcialmente atenuados por el exceso de mortalidad durante los años de la Violencia. **** ABSTRACT: This paper argues that there is a lack of consensus in the Colombian historiography regarding the duration and the number of victims of the political violence of the mid-twentieth century. Demographic characteristics of the Colombian population were analyzed in order to examine both controversies. Based on population censuses and vital records of the time, some basic components were estimated: life tables, birth rates, and specific rates of violent deaths. Considering the size and distribution of the Colombian population, a maximum of 57,737 deaths were estimated for the period 1949-58. Inasmuch as not all violent deaths would have a political cause, the death toll is estimated to be 39,142 people under more conservative assumptions. Therefore, the figures estimated in this paper rebut the more than 200 thousand victims that are usually cited in the literature without quantitative support. Although there were fewer deaths than those usually accepted, the advances that allowed reducing mortality during the 20th century were partially attenuated by the excess mortality during the years of la Violencia.
    Keywords: Historia de Colombia, mortalidad, violencia, métodos demográficos, censos y registros vitales, History of Colombia, mortality, violence, demographic methods, censuses and vital records
    JEL: N36 N46 J10
    Date: 2019–02–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000101:017130&r=all
  5. By: Konstantin A. Kholodilin (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Leonid E. Limonov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Sofie R. Waltl (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research)
    Abstract: This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from a local newspaper, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world’s earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced in response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: before the regulation rents were increasing at a similarly rapid pace to other consumer prices; the policy reversed that trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability for workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the dominating problems.
    Keywords: Rental Market; Rent Regulation; Intra-Urban Rent Dynamics; Hedonic Rent Price Index; Economic History; Pre-Soviet Russia; October Revolution.
    JEL: C14 C43 N93 O18
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:213/ec/2019&r=all
  6. By: Edward Nelson
    Abstract: Although he was based in the United States, leading monetarist Karl Brunner participated in debates in the United Kingdom on monetary analysis and policy from the 1960s to the 1980s. During the 1960s, his participation in the debates was limited to research papers, but in the 1970s, as monetarism attracted national attention, Brunner made contributions to U.K. media discussions. In the pre-1979 period, he was highly critical of the U.K. authorities’ nonmonetary approach to the analysis and control of inflation-an approach supported by leading U.K. Keynesians. In the early 1980s, Brunner had direct interaction with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on issues relating to monetary control and monetary strategy. He was unsuccessful in persuading her to use the monetary base-instead of a short-term interest rate-as the instrument for implementing monetary policy. However, following his interventions, the U.K. authorities during the 1980s assigned weight to the monetary b ase as an indicator and target of monetary policy. Brunner’s imprint on U.K. monetary policy has also been felt in the twenty-first century. Brunner’s analysis, with Allan Meltzer, of the monetary transmission mechanism helped provide the basis for the policy of quantitative easing followed by the Bank of England.
    Keywords: Karl Brunner ; U.K. monetary policy ; Monetarism ; Monetary base control ; Transmission mechanism
    JEL: E51 E58 E52
    Date: 2019–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2019-04&r=all
  7. By: Vasiliki Fouka (Stanford University); Soumyajit Mazumder (Harvard University); Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School)
    Abstract: How does the appearance of a new out-group affect the economic, social and cultural integration of previous outsiders? We study this question in the context of the first Great Migration (1915-1930), when 1.5 million African Americans moved from the US South to urban centers in the North, where 30 million Europeans had arrived since 1850. We test the hypothesis that black inflows led to the establishment of a binary black-white racial classification, and facilitated the incorporation of - previously racially ambiguous - European immigrants into the white majority. We exploit variation induced by the interaction between 1900 settlements of southern-born blacks in northern cities and state-level outmigration from the US South after 1910. Black arrivals increased both the effort exerted by immigrants to assimilate and their eventual Americanization. These average effects mask substantial heterogeneity: while initially less integrated groups (i.e. Southern and Eastern Europeans) exerted more assimilation effort, assimilation success was larger for those that were culturally closer to native whites (i.e. Western and Northern Europeans). These patterns are consistent with a framework in which changing perceptions of out-group distance among native whites lower the barriers to the assimilation of white immigrants.
    Keywords: Immigration, assimilation, Great Migration, race, group identity.
    JEL: J11 J15 N32
    Date: 2019–02–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:445&r=all
  8. By: Marcella Alsan; Vincenzo Atella; Jay Bhattacharya; Valentina Conti; Iván Mejía-Guevara; Grant Miller
    Abstract: Throughout history, technological progress has transformed population health, but the distributional effects of these gains are unclear. New substitutes for older, more expensive health technologies can produce convergence in population health outcomes, but may also be prone to “elite capture” leading to divergence. This paper studies the case of penicillin using detailed mortality statistics and exploiting its sharply-timed introduction in Italy after World War II. We find penicillin reduced both the mean and standard deviation of infectious diseases mortality, leading to substantial convergence across disparate regions of Italy. Our results do not appear to be confounded by competing risks or mortality patterns associated with World War II.
    JEL: I10 J10 N00
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25541&r=all
  9. By: Hubert Bonin
    Abstract: After the recess imposed by the intensification of Napoleonic wars and defeat in 1810-1815, the Restauration regime had to restart the leverage forces of growth. Economic and academic elites struggled to conceive the paths of renewal of innovative and entrepreneurial spirits, in order to foster French competitiveness. The philosophy of liberalism was renewed; calls for innovation, for spreading new techniques across industry, and to stimulate refreshed flows of savings and banking loans constituted a package able to renew with the hopes of the 1795-1810 years. Thus the 1819 year could be inserted into intercrossing schemes of narrative and business histories as it gathered so many signs of such a renewal and of the move towards the first industriel and banking revolutions.
    Keywords: First industrial revolution, Merchant banking, economic take-off, liberalism, philanthropy, entrepreneurialism, innovation
    JEL: N13 N23 N33 N53 N63
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2019-02&r=all
  10. By: Masami Imai; Tetsuji Okazaki; Michiru Sawada
    Abstract: The interwar Japanese economy was unsettled by chronic banking instability, and yet the Bank of Japan (BOJ) restricted access to its liquidity provision to a select group of banks, i.e. BOJ correspondent banks, rather than making its loans widely available "to merchants, to minor bankers, to this man and to that man" as prescribed by Bagehot (1873). This historical episode provides us with a quasi-experimental setting to study the impact of Lender of Last Resort (LOLR) policies on financial intermediation. We find that the growth rate of deposits and loans was notably faster for BOJ correspondent banks than the other banks during the bank panic phase of the Great Depression from 1931-1932, whereas it was not faster before the bank panic phase. Furthermore, BOJ correspondent banks were less likely to be closed during the bank panics. To address possible selection bias, we also instrument a bank's corresponding relationship with the BOJ with its geographical proximity to the nearest branch or the headquarters of the BOJ, which was a major determinant of a bank's transaction relationship with the BOJ at the time. This instrumental variable specification yields qualitatively same results. Taken together, Japan's historical experience suggests that central banks' liquidity provisions play an important backstop role in supporting the essential financial intermediation services in time of financial stringency.
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:19-002e&r=all
  11. By: Èric Gómez-i-Aznar (University of Barcelona, Spain)
    Abstract: This article examines numeracy levels in Catalonia in the first years of the 18th century. The age-heaping methodology is applied to a source, the municipal registers of inhabitants (padrons), which is less biased than other sources commonly used in the literature. Moreover, this source allows considering a large number of observations (over 6,700) and offers a substantial geographical coverage. The study of the Catalan case is particularly appealing due to the scarce information available for human capital in the 18th-century, a crucial period in the transition from a preindustrial to an industrial society. The results show high levels of arithmetic capacity at the beginning of the century, mainly in urban areas and among the middle classes, with values close to those of other parts of Western Europe. In addition, they point to changes in occupational groups as a potential key factor in the positive evolution of this capacity, possibly making it a good indicator of learning in the workplace. Partial indicators of wealth also appear to link numeracy levels with access to equal opportunities.
    Keywords: Human Capital, Numeracy, Economic Growth, Inequality, Catalonia
    JEL: I21 J24 N33 O10
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1904&r=all
  12. By: Marco Vega (Departamento de Economía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú); César Martinelli
    Abstract: We show that Peru’s chronic inflation through the 1970s and 1980s was the result of the need for inflationary taxation in a regime of fiscal dominance of monetary policy. Hyperinflation occurred when debt accumulation became unavailable, and a populist administration engaged in a counterproductive policy of price controls and loose credit. We interpret the fiscal difficulties preceding the stabilization as a process of social learning to live within the realities of fiscal budget balance. The credibility of the policy regime change in the 1990s may be linked ultimately to the change in public opinion giving proper incentives to politicians, after the traumatic consequences of the hyperstagflation of 1987-1990. JEL Classification-JEL: E52 , E58 , E62
    Keywords: Hyperstagflation, Inflation, Fiscal policy, Monetary policy
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pcp:pucwps:wp00468&r=all
  13. By: Akan Kadyrbekov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Dmitry Veselov (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: The paper explores the e ect of migration of Russian settlers on the intra-regional development in Kazakhstan. We use the 1897 census dataset of the Russian Empire and modern economic data to provide links between Russian settlements in Kazakhstan in 1897 and the current level of economic development. Exploiting exogenous geographic and geopolitical sources of variation across twenty-six districts (uyezd) we provide the empirical evidence of positive impact of the migration of Russians in XVIII-XIX centuries on the current level of development. The paper discusses several channels of such in uence: human capital formation channel and the Soviet Union industrialization policy.
    Keywords: Intra-regional development · migration ows · historical development
    JEL: N13 N33 O1 O15
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:210/ec/2019&r=all
  14. By: Goodhart, C. A. E.; Lastra, Rosa M.
    Abstract: There is widespread concern that the bonus culture for senior managers in limited liability companies is having adverse effects, e.g. on risk-taking, leverage and lower longer-term investment. The moral hazard of limited liability was appreciated in the 19th century, when unlimited or multiple liability, especially for bankers, was widely adopted. Whereas outside, notably retail, investors still need the protection of limited liability, we advocate moving towards a two-tier equity system, primarily for banks, with insiders, senior managers and others with influence over corporate decisions, becoming subject to multiple liability. But the transition costs of doing so suddenly would be great, so our proposal is to start by applying this initially just to Systemically Important Financial Intermediaries.
    Keywords: banking; banks; corporate governance; institutional investors; limited liabiltiy; Senior Management Regime; Tow Tier Equity
    JEL: G30 G32 G39 K20 K22 L14 M14 N20 N22 N23 P10
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100058&r=all
  15. By: Daniel P. Gross
    Abstract: This paper studies the effects of the USPTO's patent secrecy program in World War II, under which approximately 11,200 U.S. patent applications were issued secrecy orders which halted examination and prohibited inventors from disclosing their inventions or filing in foreign countries. Secrecy orders were issued most heavily in areas important to the war effort — such as radar, electronics, and synthetic materials — and nearly all rescinded en masse at the end of the war. I find that compulsory invention secrecy was effective at keeping affected technology out of the public domain, but it appears to have reduced and delayed follow-on invention, reduced entry into patenting, and restricted commercialization. The results shed light on the consequences of invention secrecy, which is widely used by inventors to protect and appropriate the returns to innovation, and yield lessons for ongoing policy debates over potential measures to protect U.S. invention against the growing incidence of foreign IP theft today.
    JEL: N42 N72 O31 O32 O34 O38
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25545&r=all
  16. By: Atsushi Tsuneki
    Abstract: This study clarifies the nature and political effect of nationalist political thought in prewar Japan (1800-1941). A common belief that Japanese nationalism is of a particular nature unique to Japan, and that it is anti-liberal-democratic, feudal, hierarchical, and militaristic is denied. My study instead argues that Japanese nationalism was highly modern in the flexible way it maintained substantial influence throughout the Meiji-to-1945 period, whether the ruling power and order were more liberal-democratic or more totalitarian-militaristic at a given time.
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1049&r=all
  17. By: Josefin Meyer; Carmen M. Reinhart; Christoph Trebesch
    Abstract: This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in equity markets, the returns on external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to compensate for risk. Real ex-post returns averaged 7% annually across two centuries, including default episodes, major wars, and global crises. This represents an excess return of around 4% above US or UK government bonds, which is comparable to stocks and outperforms corporate bonds. The observed returns are hard to reconcile with canonical theoretical models and with the degree of credit risk in this market, as measured by historical default and recovery rates. Based on our archive of more than 300 sovereign debt restructurings since 1815, we show that full repudiation is rare; the median haircut is below 50%.
    JEL: F30 F34 G12 G15 N10 N20
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25543&r=all
  18. By: Elena Cottini; Paolo Ghinetti; Simone Moriconi
    Abstract: This paper uses an own built dataset on the history of universities in Italy during 1861-2010 to estimate neighbourhood effects in the local supply of higher education, and incorporate them in a welfare analysis. We implement an instrumental variables approach that exploits initial conditions in the pre-unitarian Italian states, interacted with post-unification university reforms. We provide robust evidence of local displacement between higher education supply in neighbouring provinces. These effects are mostly concentrated within the same field of study, the same region, and a spatial reach of 90 Km. We show that accounting for these displacement forces is important to evaluate the local economic returns related to higher education supply. On average, this explains more than 4% of local value added per capita. Economic returns are very localised, and larger in provinces that host university hubs.
    Keywords: neighbourhood effects, higher education supply, historical data, initial conditions, economic welfare
    JEL: I23 I28 N00 R10
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7483&r=all
  19. By: Grodecka, Anna (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Kenny, Seán (Lund University); Ögren, Anders (Lund University)
    Abstract: This paper contributes to literature on bank distress using the Swedish experience of the international crisis of 1907, often paralleled with 2008. By employing previously unanalyzed bank-level data, we use logit regressions and principal component analysis to measure the impact of pre-crisis bank characteristics on the probability of their subsequent distress. The crisis was characterized by “creative destruction,” as those banks with weaker corporate governance structures, wider branching networks, operating with lower cost efficiency were more likely to experience distress. We find that poor credit allocation rather than foreign borrowing, as often stressed, were associated with ultimate demise.
    Keywords: Bank Distress; Financial Crises; Swedish Banks; Lender of Last Resort
    JEL: E58 G21 G28 H12 N23
    Date: 2018–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0358&r=all
  20. By: Lindé, Jesper; Goodhart, C. A. E.
    JEL: N0
    Date: 2018–12–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100069&r=all
  21. By: N. Palma
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:sespap:1903&r=all
  22. By: Germán Gutiérrez; Thomas Philippon
    Abstract: We study the evolution of super star firms in the U.S. economy over the past 60 years. Contrary to common wisdom, super stars firms have not become larger, have not become more productive, and the contribution of star firms to aggregate U.S. productivity growth has fallen by more than one third since 2000.
    JEL: D2 E22 E24 G3 L1 O3 O4
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25529&r=all
  23. By: Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroon); Oasis Kodila-Tedika (Department of Economics, The DRC)
    Abstract: This article examines the role of cognitive ability or intelligence on slave exports from Africa. We test a hypothesis that countries which were endowed with higher levels of cognitive ability were more likely to experience lower levels of slave exports from Africa probably due to comparatively better capacities to organise, corporate, oversee and confront slave traders. The investigated hypothesis is valid from alternative specifications involving varying conditioning information sets. The findings are also robust to the control of outliers.
    Keywords: Intelligence; Human Capital; Slavery
    JEL: I20 I29 N30
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:19/005&r=all
  24. By: A. BAUER (Insee, Crest); B. GARBINTI (Banque de France, Crest); S. GEORGES-KOT (Insee, Crest)
    Abstract: This paper studies the evolution over time of the effects on entry and survival into self-employment of inheritance receipt and real estate price variations. We focus on France over the period 1945-2014, and we estimate these effects by comparing (i) current inheritors with future inheritors and (ii) homeowners without a mortgage outstanding to renters or to those with a mortgage outstanding, for whom home equity extraction is not possible in France. Our main finding is that the effect of both wealth shocks on men’s entry into self-employment has decreased over time; we find no significant effect of either wealth shock since the mid-2000s. We discuss potential causes for this trend, including changes in the financial regulation and in the sectoral composition of the economy. We also find no evidence of an effect of wealth shocks on women’s entry into self-employment, at any point in time.
    Keywords: self-employment, credit constraints, inheritance, collateral channel
    JEL: L26 D31 G21 N24
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nse:doctra:g2018-08&r=all
  25. By: Robert J. Shiller
    Abstract: Concerns that technological progress degrades job opportunities have been expressed over much of the last two centuries by both professional economists and the general public. These concerns can be seen in narratives both in scholarly publications and in the news media. Part of the expressed concern about jobs has been about the potential for increased economic inequality. But another part of the concern has been about a perceived decline in job quality in terms of its effects on monotony vs creativity of work, individual sense of identity, power to act independently, and meaning of life. Public policy should take account of both of these concerns, inequality and job quality.
    JEL: B0 E02 J0 N3
    Date: 2019–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25536&r=all
  26. By: Dorner, Matthias (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Harhoff, Dietmar; Gaessler, Fabian; Hoisl, Karin; Poege, Felix
    Abstract: "This data report describes the Linked Inventor Biography Data 1980-2014 (INV-BIO ADIAB 8014), its generation using record linkage and machine learning methods as well as how to access the data via the FDZ." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Frequencies Auszählungen
    Keywords: Linked Inventor Biography Data, Datensatzbeschreibung, Patente, Datengewinnung, Datenaufbereitung, Datenqualität
    Date: 2019–02–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfda:201803_en&r=all

General information on the NEP project can be found at https://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.