|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2019‒04‒08
thirty-two papers chosen by |
| By: | Potjagailo, Galina; Wolters, Maik H. |
| Abstract: | We analyze cyclical co-movement in credit, house prices, equity prices, and long-term interest rates across 17 advanced economies. Using a time-varying multi-level dynamic factor model and more than 130 years of data, we analyze the dynamics of co-movement at different levels of aggregation and compare recent developments to earlier episodes such as the early era of financial globalization from 1880 to 1913 and the Great Depression. We find that joint global dynamics across various financial quantities and prices as well as variable-specific global co-movements are important to explain fluctuations in the data. From a historical perspective, global co-movement in financial variables is not a new phenomenon, but its importance has increased for some variables since the 1980s. For equity prices, global cycles play currently a historically unprecedented role, explaining more than half of the fluctuations in the data. Global cycles in credit and housing have become much more pronounced and longer, but their importance in explaining dynamics has only increased for some economies including the US, the UK and Nordic European countries. We also include GDP in the analysis and find an increasing role for a global business cycle. |
| Keywords: | financial cycles,global co-movement,dynamic factor models,time-varying parameters,macro-finance |
| JEL: | C32 C38 E44 F44 G15 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2122&r=all |
| By: | Johan Fourie (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University); Nonso Obikili (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University) |
| Abstract: | Our understanding of Africa's economic past -- the causes and consequences of precolonial polities, the slave trade, state formation, the Scramble for Africa, European settlement, and independence -- has improved markedly over the last two decades. Much of this is the result of the cliometric turn in African economic history, what some have called a `renaissance'. Whilst acknowledging that cliometrics is not new to African history, this chapter examines the major recent contributions, noting their methodological advances and dividing them into four broad themes: persistence of deep traits, slavery, colonialism and independence. We conclude with a brief bibliometric exercise, noting the lack of Africans working at the frontier of African cliometrics. |
| Keywords: | Africa, history, poverty, reversal of fortunes, sub-Saharan, trade, slavery, colonialism, missionaries, independence |
| JEL: | N01 N37 O10 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers316&r=all |
| By: | Isabella M. Weber (Goldsmiths, University of London) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a comparative and connected history of the debates over transition to a market economy in West-Germany after World War II and in China during the first decade of reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping (1978-1988). At both historical moments the political aim was to reintroduce market mechanisms into a dysfunctional command economy. The question what kind of price reform this required was subject to heated debates among economists. This paper shows how the West-German 1948 currency and price reform was introduced into the Chinese reform debate by German ordoliberals and neoliberals like Friedman. It traces how the West-German case study was mystified as “Erhard Miracle” and became a metaphor for the shock therapy of universal overnight price liberalisation in China. |
| Keywords: | Ordoliberalism, price reform, socialism, China, market transition, Ludwig Erhard |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:1903&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Fenoaltea (Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino; Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis" University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that we cliometricians have failed as economists, because we did not drag the profession out of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth; that we have failed as historians, because we do not take measurement seriously, and misapprehend “the data”; and that we failed signally as economic historians, because we backcast “GDP” as if it measured gross domestic product. |
| Keywords: | economics, economic history, cliometrics |
| JEL: | A10 B40 N01 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_44&r=all |
| By: | Hills, Thomas; Illushka Seresinhe, Chanuki; Proto, Eugenio; Sgroi, Daniel |
| Abstract: | In addition to improving quality of life, higher subjective wellbeing leads to fewer health problems, higher productivity, and better incomes. For these reasons subjective wellbeing has become a key focal issue among scientific researchers and governments. Yet no scientific investigator knows how happy humans were in previous centuries. Here we show that a new method based on quantitative analysis of digitized text from millions of books published over the past 200 years captures reliable trends in historical subjective wellbeing across four nations. This method uses psychological valence norms for thousands of words to compute the relative proportion of positive and negative language, indicating relative happiness during national and international wars, financial crises, and in comparison to historical trends in longevity and GDP. We validate our method using Eurobarometer survey data from the 1970s onwards and in comparison with economic, medical, and political events since 1820 and also use a set of words with stable historical meanings to support our findings. Finally we show that our results are robust to the use of diverse corpora (including text derived from newspapers) and different word norms. |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13636&r=all |
| By: | Philipp Ager; Leah Platt Boustan; Katherine Eriksson |
| Abstract: | The nullification of slave-based wealth after the US Civil War (1861-65) was one of the largest episodes of wealth compression in history. We document that white southern households with more slave assets lost substantially more wealth by 1870 relative to households with otherwise similar pre-War wealth levels. Yet, the sons of these slaveholders recovered in income and wealth proxies by 1880, in part by shifting into white collar positions and marrying into higher status families. Their pattern of recovery is most consistent with the importance of social networks in facilitating employment opportunities and access to credit. |
| JEL: | J62 N11 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25700&r=all |
| By: | Geoffrey Brooke (School of Economics, AUT University); Lydia Cheung (School of Economics, AUT University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we report on the heights and weights of New Zealand soldiers who served in the Second Boer War (1899-1902). Adult heights are widely used as evidence on the standard of living. Interpreted as such, our results support the view that the standard of living in New Zealand was among the highest in the world at the turn of the twentieth century. One problem in using the heights of soldiers to make inferences about the population is the reliance on self-reported ages. When we use self-reported ages in our analysis we find that the youngest soldiers are also the shortest. This finding is common in the literature, and has been interpreted as evidence for a general decline in the standard of living. To explore the implication of using reported ages, we match 53% of the soldiers in our sample to their birth records to establish their true age. We document that young soldiers exaggerate their age and old soldiers under-state their age. When we use true ages in our analysis, the apparent shortness of the youngest soldiers disappears. |
| Keywords: | stature, Second Boer War, historic birth records, nineteenth century New Zealand |
| JEL: | I10 N37 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:201905&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Lucarelli (UniBG - Università degli studi di Bergamo); Alfonso Giuliani (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne); Hervé Baron (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The paper argues that Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Sozialwissenschaften (The Past and Future of the Social Sciences), a contribution not always well understood in the literature, is important to an understanding of Schumpeter's concept of development as applied to the field of the social sciences. To this end, it addresses three key questions. First, can the book be taken as a starting point to reconstruct a Schumpeterian theory of scientific development? Second, is Vergangenheit und Zukunft merely ‘a brief outline of what first became the Epochen [der Dogmen- und Methodengeschichte] and finally the History of Economic Analysis', as Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter wrote in her Editor's Introduction (July 1952) to the latter work (p. XXXII), or should it be read as a complement to Epochen and perhaps the History? Third, is the eminent Japanese scholar Shionoya right to claim that Schumpeter's work pursued the ambitious goal of developing a ‘comprehensive sociology'? |
| Keywords: | method,scientific development,Schumpeter,social sciences |
| Date: | 2019–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-02063397&r=all |
| By: | Buckle, Robert A. |
| Abstract: | Nearly thirty years ago New Zealand ushered in a revolutionary approach to monetary policy. This was formalised by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 which specified price stability as the primary function of monetary policy and provided operational independence for New Zealand’s central bank. This innovation spawned the spread of more central banks around the world with a mandate to prioritise inflation targeting. This paper explains the historical origins of the RBNZ Act, its design and the ideas that influenced its design. It reviews how the practice of inflation targeting and the choice of policy instruments have evolved. The paper includes a review of research evaluating the impact of inflation targeting in New Zealand and concludes with a discussion of contemporary issues including a proposal before the New Zealand Parliament to introduce significant changes to the Act which could have important implications for future monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy, Inflation targeting, Central bank governance,, Accountability, Transparency, Credibility, Sustainability, |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vuw:vuwcpf:8086&r=all |
| By: | Robert J. Gordon; Hassan Sayed |
| Abstract: | By merging KLEMS data sets and aggregating over the ten largest Western European nations (EU-10), we are able to compare and contrast productivity growth up through 2015 starting from 1950 in the U.S. and from 1972 in the EU-10. Data are provided at the aggregate level, as well as for 16 industry groups within the total economy and 11 manufacturing sub-industries. The analysis focuses on outcomes over four time intervals: 1950-72, 1972-95, 1995-2005, and 2005-15. We interpret the EU-10 performance as catching up to the U.S. in stages, with its rapid growth of 1950-72 representing a delayed adoption of the inventions that propelled U.S. productivity growth in the first half of the 20th century, and the next EU-10 stage for 1972-95 as imitating the U.S. outcome for 1950-72. We show that both the pace of aggregate productivity growth during 1972-95 for the EU-10 as well as its industrial composition matched very closely the growth record of the U.S. in the previous 1950-72 time interval. A striking finding is that for the total economy the “early-to-late” productivity growth slowdown from 1972-95 to 2005-15 in the EU-10 (-1.68 percentage points) was almost identical to the U.S. slowdown from 1950-72 to 2005-15 (-1.67 percentage points). There is a very high EU-U.S. correlation in the magnitude of the early-to-late slowdown across industries. This supports our overall theme that the productivity growth slowdown from the early postwar years to the most recent decade was due to a retardation in technical change that affected the same industries by roughly the same magnitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. |
| JEL: | E01 E24 O33 O47 O51 O52 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25703&r=all |
| By: | Philippe Batifoulier (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); Nicolas Da Silva (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); Mehrdad Vahabi (ROSES - Réformes et Ouverture des Systèmes Economiques post-Socialistes - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we argue that the welfare state is an outcome of modern mass (total) warfare. The total war economy requires the participation of all citizens, erasing the difference between the military and citizens. Consequently, the war economy benefits from supporting the civilian population. The total war effect explains why a predatory state undertakes welfare programs. This is one of the contributions of the present paper. While welfare state is closely related to total warfare, social welfare is not. Fraternal social welfare in the United States preceded the New Deal and the rise of welfare state. Similarly, the French welfare system was born as citizen welfare and not state welfare. In fact, welfare programs were initiated in 1871 during the Paris Commune by workers under the name of la sociale, and it was established as a self-managed citizen welfare in 1945 before being displaced by government welfare programs. A second contribution of this paper is to explore the reap-propriating effect or the way self-managed citizen welfare was transformed into a welfare state through a three stage process of reforms in 1946, 1967, and 1996. |
| Keywords: | Welfare state,Total war effect,Citizen welfare,La Sociale,Predatory state,State reappropriation effect |
| Date: | 2019–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-02073247&r=all |
| By: | Ager, Philipp; Eriksson, Katherine; Hansen, Casper Worm; Lønstrup, Lars |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-run effects of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake on the spatial distribution of economic activity in the American West. Using variation in the potential damage intensity of the earthquake, we show that more severely affected cities experienced lower population increases relative to less affected cities until the late 20th century. This long-lasting effect is largely a result of individuals' high geographical mobility at that time. Less affected areas became more attractive migration destinations in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, which permanently changed the spatial distribution of economic activity in the American West. |
| Keywords: | American West; Economic Geography; Location of Economic Activity; migration; Natural Disasters |
| JEL: | N9 O15 O40 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13632&r=all |
| By: | Joanna Niedźwiedzińska (Narodowy Bank Polski) |
| Abstract: | New Zealand was the first country to introduce a monetary strategy known as inflation targeting (IT) in 1989. Since then, many other countries have adopted an inflation targeting regime. The paper discusses in detail the key institutional features of an IT strategy, as practiced by central banks. It includes an overview of mandates, inflation targets, decisionmaking processes and accountability mechanisms of inflation targeters. Instead of only describing the current state of IT, in many instances the paper indicates changes introduced in the past years to central banks’ practices. The historical perspective relates to such aspects as reformulations of inflation targets and the evolution of decision-making processes. The paper analyses more than 40 IT central banks and indicates similarities and differences among advanced and emerging market economies. The main finding is that the reviewed institutional features have not been homogenous – neither across time, nor across central banks. In particular, when comparing advanced and emerging market inflation targeters, while in many aspects there is hardly any difference to be noted, in some cases the approach of advanced economies differs significantly from that of emerging market economies. This holds especially for the key feature of the strategy – namely defining the inflation target. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy, Central Banking, Policy Design |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E58 E61 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:299&r=all |
| By: | Hal Hill |
| Abstract: | This paper selectively surveys Southeast Asian economic development over the past half-century and anticipates some of the region’s challenges if it is to progress to the ranks of developed countries. In the long sweep of development, three key features stand out. First, the region’s “initial conditions” in the early post-independence period appeared to be quite unfavorable. The literature at this time reflected the resulting pessimism. But, second, several countries belong to the very small group to have achieved historically unprecedented growth since the 1960s. The drivers of rapid growth remain contested. But the common feature has been a strong commitment to reasonably broad-based economic growth. Moreover, third, the propensity for growth in the region has spread as countries have progressively joined the regional and global mainstream. Policy regimes that favored outward orientation and prudent macroeconomic management have generally resulted in faster growth. The accurate forecasting of crises and growth decelerations has proven to be elusive, reinforcing the view that an eclectic, historical, and multi-disciplinary framework is necessary to understand the region’s long-term development dynamics. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, global economy, Southeast Asia Association of Southeast Asian Nations |
| JEL: | N15 O53 P52 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2018-12&r=all |
| By: | Huning, Thilo; Wolf, Nikolaus |
| Abstract: | We analyze the foundation of the German Zollverein as an example of how geography can shape institutional change. We show how the redrawing of the European map at the Congress of Vienna 1815, notably Prussia's control over the Rhineland and Westphalia, affected the incentives for policymakers to cooperate. Our argument comes in three steps. First, we show that the new borders were not endogenous to trade. They were at odds with the strategy of Prussia in 1815, but followed from Britain's intervention at Vienna regarding the Polish-Saxon question. Second, we develop a theoretical framework, where state planners set tariffs on imports and transits to maximize revenue. We show that in a world with transit tariffs a revenue-maximizing state planner faces a trade-off between benefits from cooperation and the cost of losing geographical advantage. In a third step we calibrate the model combining historical data on prices, freight rates, and market sizes with GIS data on lowest costs routes under endogenous tariffs. We then run counterfactuals to show how borders affected incentives: if Prussia would have succeeded with her strategy to gain the entire Kingdom of Saxony instead of the western provinces, the Zollverein would not have formed. We conclude that geography can shape institutional change. To put it differently, as a collateral damage to her intervention at Vienna, Britain unifed Germany. |
| Keywords: | Customs Union; Economic Geography; Germany; Trade agreements; Transit Trade |
| JEL: | D74 F13 F15 F55 N73 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13634&r=all |
| By: | Giorgio Canarella (Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154-6005, United States); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); Stephen M. Miller (Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154-6005, United States); Tolga Omay (Department of Economics, Atilim University, 06830 Kızılçaşar, Gölbaşı Ankara, Turkey) |
| Abstract: | We employ the nonlinear unit-root test recently developed by Omay et al. (2018), as well as other linear and nonlinear tests, to examine the stationarity of five multi-century historical U.K. series of real output compiled by the Bank of England (Thomas and Dimsdale, 2017). Three series span 1270 to 2016 and two series span 1700 to 2016. These datasets represent the longest span of historical real output data available and, thus, provide the environment for which unit-root tests are most powerful. A key feature of the Omay et al. (2018) test is its simulataneous allowance for two types of nonlinearity: time-dependent (structural breaks) nonlinearity and state-dependent (asymmetric adjustment) nonlinearity. The key finding of the test, contrary to what other more popular nonlinear unit-root tests suggest, provides strong evidence that the main structure of the five series is stationary with a sharp trend break and an asymmetric nonlinear adjustment. This finding is highly significant from the perspective of current macroeconomic debate because it refutes, for the historical U.K. series at least, the most stylized fact that real output follows a non-stationary process. |
| Keywords: | Unit Root, Structural Break, Smooth Transition, Fourier Approximation, State-Dependent Nonlinearity |
| JEL: | C12 C22 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201926&r=all |
| By: | Uwe Jirjahn; Cornelia Struewing |
| Abstract: | Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that single women in East Germany are significantly more likely to give birth to a child than single women in West Germany. This applies to both planned and unplanned births. Our analysis provides no evidence that the difference between East and West Germany can be explained by economic factors or the higher availability of child care in East Germany. This suggests that the difference in out-of-partnership births is rather driven by behavioral and cultural differences. However, these behavioral and cultural differences do not only reflect different gender role models that evolved under the former communist regime in East Germany and the democratic one in West Germany. Partly, they also reflect a long historical divide that predates the 1945 separation of Germany. |
| Keywords: | Unpartnered birth, gender role models, culture, East Germany, West Germany, politico-economic systems |
| JEL: | J12 J13 P20 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:201906&r=all |
| By: | Jin, Gu; Zhu, Tao |
| Abstract: | This paper draws quantitative implications for some historical coinage issues from an existing formulation of a theory that explains the society's demand for multiple denominations. The model is parameterized to match some key monetary characteristics in late medieval England. Inconvenience for an agent due to a shortage of a type of coin is measured by the difference between his welfare given the shortage and his welfare in a hypothetical scenario that the mint suddenly eliminates the shortage. A small coin has a more prominent role than small change. Because of this role, a shortage of small coins is highly inconvenient for poor people and, the inconvenience may extend to all people when commerce advances. A debasement may effectively supply substitutes to small coins in shortage. Large increase in the minting volume, cocirculation of old and new coins, and circulation by weight, critical facts constituting the debasement puzzle, emerge in the equilibrium path that follows the debasement. |
| Keywords: | The debasement puzzle; Gresham's Law; Medieval coinage; Commodity money; Coinage; Shortages of small coins |
| JEL: | E40 E42 N13 |
| Date: | 2019–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93057&r=all |
| By: | Works, Richard; Meharenna, Ruth |
| Abstract: | In this Beyond the Numbers, we review the evolution of private industry health and retirement plans (with a focus on defined contributions and savings and thrift retirement plans) and provide an analysis using recent estimates from the National Compensation Survey (NCS). Where applicable, we refer back to a 1990 article by George Stelluto and Deborah Klein in the Monthly Labor Review in which they discussed historical trends in employee compensation from the 1930s through 1980s and offered information on future expectations for compensation developments. |
| Keywords: | health, retirement, pension, compensation |
| JEL: | J01 |
| Date: | 2019–03–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:92904&r=all |
| By: | Taku Yukawa (Associate Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University); Kaori Kushima (Ph.D. Student, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University); Kaoru Hidaka (Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | Coups are inherently illegal actions and are outside the conventional rules of political engagement. How, then, have the military organizations that staged coups justified their actions? What were the objectives cited for these coups? We have created a unique dataset of justifications for all the successful coups that had occurred between 1975 and 2014. The results show that while “democracy” began to be cited as a justification for coups after the Cold War, this justification became redundant in the latter half of the 2000s. This article demonstrates how the rise and fall of the anti-coup sentiment in the international community led to the redundancy of the aforementioned justification. These findings may support the existence of “democratic coups,” an issue that has been debated vigorously in recent years, although such coups have already become less frequent. |
| Keywords: | coups, justification, democracy |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:19e003&r=all |
| By: | Zsófia L. Bárány; Christian Siegel |
| Abstract: | We study the origins of labor productivity growth and its differences across sectors. In our model, sectors employ workers of different occupations and various forms of capital, none of which are perfect substitutes, and technology evolves at the sector-factor cell level. Using the model we infer technologies from US data over 1960-2017. We find sector-specific routine labor augmenting technological change to be crucial. It is the most important driver of sectoral differences, and has a large and increasing contribution to aggregate labor productivity growth. Neither capital accumulation nor the occupational employment structure within sectors explains much of the sectoral differences. |
| Keywords: | biased technological change; structural transformation; labor productivity |
| JEL: | O41 O33 J24 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1901&r=all |
| By: | David E. Allen (School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, Department of Finance, Asia University, Taiwan, and School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Australia.); Michael McAleer (Department of Quantitative Finance National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan and Econometric Institute Erasmus School of Economics Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Department of Quantitative Economics Complutense University of Madrid, Spain And Institute of Advanced Sciences Yokohama National University, Japan.) |
| Abstract: | This paper features an analysis of President Trump's two State of the Union addresses, which are analysed by means of various data mining techniques including sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. In order to provide a contrast and some parallel context, analyses are also undertaken of President Obama's last State of the Union address and Hitler's 1933 Berlin Proclamation. The structure of these four political addresses is remarkably similar. The three US Presidential speeches are more positive emotionally than Hitler's relatively shorter address, which is characterized by a prevalence of negative emotions. However, it should be said that the economic circumstances in contemporary America and Germany in the 1930s are vastly different. |
| Keywords: | Text Mining, Sentiment Analysis, Word Cloud, Emotional Valence. |
| JEL: | C19 C65 D79 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doicae:1916&r=all |
| By: | Mahembe, Edmore; Odhiambo, Nicholas M |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to examine whether official development assistance (ODA) or foreignaid has made developing countries worse off as alleged by a number of aid critics. ODAdisbursement to developing countries increased almost five-fold; from around US$36 billionin 1960 to US$176 billion in 2016. The study found that between the period 1970 and 2017: (i)a total of 17 countries have been added to the ODA list, (ii) 60 countries have graduated fromthe list, mainly due of increases in their per capita incomes; (iii) out of these 60 graduates, 45graduated between 1991 and 2018; and (iv) it is projected that another 24 countries andterritories will graduate by 2030. This suggest that, overall, a number of countries haveprospered over the years, and have therefore not been made worse by foreign aid. Globalpoverty, represented by headcount poverty rates (at US$1.90 a day) have been decreasingconsiderably from around 44 percent in 1981 to less than 10 percent in 2015. |
| Keywords: | Effectiveness of foreign aid; aid effectiveness literature (AET); graduation from official development assistancee(ODA);developing countries;millenium development goals (MDGs);sustainable development goals (SDG);povery reduction |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uza:wpaper:25342&r=all |
| By: | George Hall; Jonathan Payne; Thomas J. Sargent |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ste:nystbu:18-25&r=all |
| By: | W. Walker Hanlon |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ste:nystbu:18-21&r=all |
| By: | Oludele E. Folarin (University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria) |
| Abstract: | Nigeria adopted the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 after the crash in world oil price in the early 1980s. Financial reforms are part of the reforms implemented during the SAP. Since, industrialisation is seen as an engine of growth, we conduct an empirical assessment of the effects of financial sector reforms on industrialisation in Nigeria using an annual time series data over 1981 - 2015. Using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, our findings show that financial reforms have a positive and significant impact on industrialisation. |
| Keywords: | Financial reforms, Financial repression, Industrialisation, ARDL bounds test |
| JEL: | C32 E44 O14 O55 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:19/014&r=all |
| By: | Matteo Gomellini; Cormac Ó Gráda |
| Abstract: | Emigrants from Italy and Ireland contributed disproportionately to the Age of Mass Migration. That their departure improved the living standards of those they left behind is hardly in doubt. Nevertheless, a voluminous literature on the selectivity of migrant flows— both from sending and receiving country perspectives—has given rise to claims that migration generates both ‘brain drains’ and ‘brain gains’. On the one hand, positive or negative selection among emigrants may affect the level of human capital in sending countries. On the other hand, the prospect of emigration and return migration may both spur investment in schooling in source countries. This essay describes the history of emigration from Italy and Ireland during the Age of Mass Migration from these perspectives. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Brain Drain; Brain Gain; Human Capital; Italy; Ireland |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N33 O15 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:10197/9681&r=all |
| By: | Hasan, Iftekhar; Kiesel, Konstantin; Noth, Felix |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses whether Christian moralities and rules formed differently by Catholics and Protestants impact the likelihood of households to become overindebted. We find that over-indebtedness is lower in regions in which Catholics outweigh Protestants, indicating that Catholics' forgiveness culture and a stricter enforcement of rules by Protestants serve as explanations for our results. Our results provide evidence that religion affects the financial situations of individuals and show that even 500 years after the split between Catholics and Protestants, the differences in the mind-sets of both denominations play an important role for situations of severe financial conditions. |
| Keywords: | over-indebtedness,religion,forgiveness,enforcement |
| JEL: | D12 G11 Z12 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:82019&r=all |
| By: | Florian Bonnet (ENS Paris Saclay - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay) |
| Date: | 2019–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02067193&r=all |
| By: | Josef C. Brada; Paul Wachtel |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ste:nystbu:18-29&r=all |
| By: | Foreman-Peck, James (Cardiff Business School); Zhou, Peng (Cardiff Business School) |
| Abstract: | A dynamic stochastic unified growth model is estimated from English economy data for almost a millennium. At the core of the (seven) overlapping generations, rational expectations structure is household choice about target number and quality of children. The trends of births, deaths, population and, the real wage, are closely matched by the estimated model. In the 19th century English fertility transition, the model shows how the generalized child price relative to the child quality price rose. The rising opportunity cost of education was as decisive for the transition as the parental shift to child quality. |
| Keywords: | Economic Development, Demography, Unified Growth, Overlapping Generations, English Economy |
| JEL: | O11 J11 N13 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2019/8&r=all |
| By: | Frank Moulaert |
| Abstract: | Frank Moulaert commemorating Walter Stöhr |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwsre:sre-disc-2018_02&r=all |