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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2019‒05‒13
34 papers chosen by |
| By: | Hippe, Ralph Thomas Klaus; Fouquet, Roger |
| Abstract: | The knowledge economy provides huge opportunities for economic growth and to become the cornerstone of future economic development by turning data into wisdom or human capital. Education, one aspect of the knowledge economy, exhibits a history divided into three stages: the apprenticeship era, the universal schooling era and the (future) life-long learning era. The spread of knowledge has accelerated owing to the different stages of knowledge production, in particular the printing press and now the internet |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2018–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100206&r=all |
| By: | Sebastian Doerr; Stefan Gissler; José-Luis Peydró; Hans-Joachim Voth |
| Abstract: | Do financial crises radicalize voters? We analyze a canonical case – Germany during the Great Depression. After a severe banking crisis in 1931, caused by foreign shocks and political inaction, radical voting increased sharply in the following year. Democracy collapsed six months later. We collect new data on pre-crisis bank-firm connections and show that banking distress led to markedly more radical voting, both through economic and non-economic channels. Firms linked to two large banks that failed experienced a bank-driven fall in lending, which caused reductions in their wage bill and a fall in city-level incomes. This in turn increased Nazi Party support between 1930 and 1932/33, especially in cities with a history of anti-Semitism. While both failing banks had a large negative economic impact, only exposure to the bank led by a Jewish chairman strongly predicts Nazi voting. Local exposure to the banking crisis simultaneously led to a decline in Jewish-gentile marriages and is associated with more deportations and attacks on synagogues after 1933. |
| Keywords: | financial crises, banking, Great Depression, democracy, Anti-Semitism |
| JEL: | E44 G01 G21 N20 P16 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1092&r=all |
| By: | Chwieroth, Jeffrey M.; Walter, Andrew |
| Abstract: | The co-evolution of democratic politics and mass, financialized wealth has destabilized highly integrated financial systems and the socio-political underpinnings of neoliberal policy norms at domestic and global levels. Over the long run, it has increased the political pressure on governments to undertake bailouts during major banking crises and, by raising voters’ attentiveness to wealth losses and distributional inequities, has sharply raised the bar for government performance. The result has been more costly bailouts, greater political instability and the sustained politicization of wealth cleavages in crisis aftermaths. We underline the crucial importance and modernity of this phenomenon by showing how the high concentration of wealth in pre-1914 Britain and America among elites was associated with limited crisis interventions and surprisingly tranquil political aftermaths. By contrast, the 2007–2009 crises in both countries epitomise the political dilemmas facing elected governments in a new world of mass financialized wealth and the impact on political polarization and democratic politics. We show that these dilemmas were embryonic in the interwar period and highlight how the evolutionary forces shaping policy and political outcomes reveal the importance of time, context and the effects of long cycles in the world economy and global politics. |
| Keywords: | crisis; financialization; global finance; globalization; international history; political economy |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2019–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100765&r=all |
| By: | Manuel Martín Rodríguez (Universidad de Granada, Spain) |
| Abstract: | In 1945, two years after the creation of the first School of Economics and Political Science in Spain, La Biblioteca de Ciencias Económicas, Políticas y Sociales (Library of Economic, Political and Social Sciences) from the publishing house Aguilar was born. The Economics section was headed by Professor Manuel de Torres Martínez until his death in 1960. In this work, this Publication is studied during the years in which it was under his supervision. Throughout this time, together with the publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica from Mexico, it became the main bibliographic resource for the first promotions of Spanish economists and for the students of economics of all the Spanish-speaking countries in the world. |
| Keywords: | Torres, Aguilar, Library, Latin America |
| JEL: | N01 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1908&r=all |
| By: | Steven Sprick Schuster; Matthew Jaremski; Elisabeth Ruth Perlman |
| Abstract: | Seeking to reach the unbanked, the United States Postal Savings System provided a federally insured savings alternative to traditional banks. Using novel datasets on postal deposits, demographic characteristics, and banks, we study how and by whom the System was used. We find the program was initially used by non-farming immigrant populations for short-term saving, then as a safe haven during the Great Depression, and finally as long-term investment for the wealthy during the 1940s. However, even during the earliest period, Postal Savings was only a partial substitute for traditional banks, as locations with banks often still heavily used postal savings. |
| JEL: | G21 H42 N22 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25812&r=all |
| By: | Cervellati, Matteo; Lazzaroni, Sara; Prarolo, Giovanni; Vanin, Paolo |
| Abstract: | We present a theory of the drivers, and a measurement of the patterns, of the evolution of historical sovereign polities over time and space in Europe, and we study their impact on pre-industrial urban development. We model changing state capacity and rule of law over space as resulting from strategic interactions between ruling elites. We characterize the endogenous evolution of equilibrium number, size, borders and type of polities. The framework characterizes the timing and location of appearance (and disappearance) of city states and the transition from domain reigns to modern territorial states. The model predicts the emergence of hard borders and a reversal in the role of locations' centrality for development. We measure the territorial evolution of sovereign polities by assembling geo-referenced yearly panel data on the political geography of each location in Europe for the period 1000-1850 and we investigate its implications for pre-industrial urban growth. Results document a changing role of polity size and type and a reversal of centrality from across to within polities which is associated to increasing importance of domestic market potential after the XVII century. |
| Keywords: | Borders; Centrality and Location; market potential; Pre-Industrial Development; Sovereign Polities; Space and Territorial Control |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13719&r=all |
| By: | Jacks, David S.; Novy, Dennis |
| Abstract: | What precisely were the causes and consequences of the trade wars in the 1930s? Were there perhaps deeper forces at work in reorienting global trade prior to the outbreak of World War II? And what lessons may this particular historical episode provide for the present day? To answer these questions, we distinguish between long-run secular trends in the period from 1920 to 1939 related to the formation of trade blocs (in particular, the British Commonwealth) and short-run disruptions associated with the trade wars of the 1930s (in particular, large and widespread declines in bilateral trade, the narrowing of trade imbalances, and sharp drops in average traded distances). We argue that the trade wars mainly served to intensify pre-existing efforts towards the formation of trade blocs which dated from at least 1920. More speculatively, we argue that the trade wars of the present day may serve a similar purpose as those in the 1930s, that is, the intensification of China- and US-centric trade blocs. |
| Keywords: | Commonwealth; distance; Gravity; interwar period; Trade Blocs; trade wars |
| JEL: | F1 F3 N7 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13716&r=all |
| By: | Adrien Montalbo (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The French Revolution had a substantial impact on the functioning of primary schools as it suppressed one of their major funding sources, taxes collected by the clergy. Nonetheless, the geographical distribution of schools and enrolment rates remained relatively stable until late into the nineteenth century. In this article, I show that understanding the reorganisation of primary schooling after the Revolution is essential in accounting for these long-lasting variations in educational attainment. By using a new database at the level of primary schools, I first show that municipalities took over the control of instruction in areas well-endowed in economic resources and where schools were more concentrated before the revolutionary time period. Secondly, I demonstrate that, by subsidising schools, municipal authorities acted in favour of a fall in schooling fees, lowering the average cost of education and therefore increasing enrolment rates. Finally, I show that teaching conditions were better and human capital accumulation higher in the schools provided with municipal grants. Public investment in primary schooling is therefore a key element to understand the uneven distribution of schools, enrolment rates and knowledge accumulation in France during the nineteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Public investment,Nineteenth-century France,Primary education |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02093546&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Lucarelli (UniBG - Università degli studi di Bergamo); Alfonso Giuliani (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Hervé Baron (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| 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:journl:hal-02063397&r=all |
| By: | Nayyar Deepak |
| Abstract: | Gunnar Myrdal published Asian Drama in 1968, a work which made important analytical contributions to our understanding of development but was deeply pessimistic about Asia’s future prospects.Since then, contrary to Myrdal’s expectations, Asia’s development has been remarkable, although transformations have been uneven across countries and unequal between people.This paper explains the conception and design of the UNU-WIDER study on Asian Transformations, which seeks to analyse the amazing story of economic development in Asia over the past 50 years. It begins with reflections on Gunnar Myrdal, the author, and rethinking Asian Drama, the book, in retrospect 50 years later. It goes on to outline the rationale and objective of the study.It then discusses some critical issues and lessons that emerge—diversity in development, history and context, economic growth and structural change, wellbeing of people, markets and governments, economic openness, and institutions and policies—to serve as a teaser.It concludes with some brief reflections on Asia’s future prospects over the next 25 years. |
| Keywords: | Gunnar Myrdal,Transformation,History (Economics) |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-150&r=all |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena; Popova, Olga; Otrachshenko, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | We show that current differences in trust levels within former Soviet Union countries can be traced back to the system of forced prison labor during Stalin's rule, which was marked by high incarceration rates, repression, and harsh punishments. We argue that those exposed to forced labor camps (gulags) became less trusting and transferred this social norm to their descendants. Combining contemporary individual-level survey data with historical information on the location of forced labor camps, we find that individuals who live near former gulags have low levels of social and institutional trust. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks, which suggests that the relationship we document is causal. We outline several causal mechanisms and test whether the social norm of mistrust near gulags developed because of political repression or due to fear that inmates bring criminality. As such, we provide novel evidence on the channels through which history matters for current socio-economic outcomes today. |
| Keywords: | social trust,institutional trust,trustworthiness,forced labor,economic history,former Soviet Union |
| JEL: | D02 H10 N94 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:344&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:wpaper:hal-02073247&r=all |
| By: | Ritschl, Albrecht |
| Abstract: | Nazism got to power with the stated goal of destroying the economic livelihood of Germany’s Jewish population. For the most part, dispossession of Germany’s Jews was a highly bureaucratic process. This paper identifies the main fiscal instruments used in this process and assesses the quantitative impact. The principal finding is that the fiscal booty from the dispossession of Germany’s Jews was small: the Jewish share of Germany’s real wealth matched the Jewish population share quite well. I also find that together with prohibitive bureaucratic obstacles, punitive taxes on emigrants provided a substantial disincentive to emigrate and often rendered emigration outright impossible. This incentive was only mitigated when confiscatory capital levies were imposed also on the resident Jewish population in 1938. Nevertheless the spoils from Jewish dispossession were nowhere nearly large enough to warrant an economic interpretation of the Holocaust as in (Aly, 2007). Germany’s Jews were on the whole better trained than the average German but not necessarily much richer |
| Keywords: | Capital levy; extortionary taxation; persecution; antisemitism; Nazi Germany |
| JEL: | N14 N34 N44 |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100727&r=all |
| By: | Gareth Campbell (Queen’s University Centre for Economic History, Queen’s University Belfast); Richard S.Grossman (Department of Economics, Wesleyan University); John D. Turner (Queen’s University Centre for Economic History, Queen’s University Belfast) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new monthly capital gains, dividend yield, and total return indices for common equities quoted on British stock exchanges from 1829 to 1929. As well as creating an all-share index, we create a blue-chip index of the 30 largest companies, which we splice to the Financial Times 30 index to create a near-two-century-long (1829-2018) monthly share index. We use the new indices to examine the timing of British business cycles and compare the returns on home and foreign UK investment. We also construct indices for 22 domestic sectors, and calculate CAPM betas for each sector. |
| JEL: | G10 N13 N14 N23 N24 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wes:weswpa:2019-003&r=all |
| By: | Luis Chirosa (Universidad de Granada, Spain); Juan A. Rubio-Mondéjar (Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain); Josean Garrués-Irurzun (Universidad de Granada, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Literature has highlighted the key role of business schools in spreading US management in Europe after the Second World War, but has not found how to quantify its impact on the economy. With such purpose, this article examines the relations between the two main Spanish private business schools, IESE and ESADE, and the national corporate elite. By combining an institutional approach and social networks analysis, it shows the incidence of business schools on the board of directors of the largest Spanish corporations during the second half of the 20th century, and explains their role as centers for elite reproduction. |
| Keywords: | Business Schools,Business Elite, Managerial Capitalism, Corporate Network, Interlocking Directorates |
| JEL: | N14 O12 L1 M5 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1907&r=all |
| By: | Sangyup Choi (Yonsei University); Chansik Yoon (Yonsei University) |
| Abstract: | What has been the effect of uncertainty shocks in the U.S. economy over the last century? What are the historical roles of the financial channel and monetary policy channel in propagating uncertainty shocks? Our empirical strategies enable us to distinguish between the effects of uncertainty shocks on key macroeconomic and financial variables transmitted through each channel. A hundred years of data further allow us to answer these questions from a novel historical perspective. This paper finds robust evidence that financial conditions have played a crucial role in propagating uncertainty shocks over the last century, supporting many theoretical and empirical studies emphasizing the role of financial frictions in understanding uncertainty shocks. However, heightened uncertainty does not amplify the adverse effect of financial shocks, suggesting an asymmetric interaction between uncertainty and financial shocks Interestingly, the stance of monetary policy seems to play only a minor role in propagating uncertainty shocks, which is in sharp contrast to the recent claim that binding zero-lower-bound amplifies the negative effect of uncertainty shocks. We argue that the contribution of constrained monetary policy to amplifying uncertainty shocks is largely masked by the joint concurrence of binding zero-lower-bound and tightened financial conditions. |
| Keywords: | uncertainty shocks; financial channel; counterfactual VARs; local projections; zero-lowerbound |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E44 G10 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2019rwp-142&r=all |
| By: | Yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes how the historical work status of women contributed to subjective views about female labor participation in Japan. We matched historical and individual-level data. Based on a sample size of almost 10,000, we examined the long-term effect of female teachers’ wage level relative to that of male teachers in the 1930s. We find higher female teachers’ wages in the 1930s leads to positive views about women’s labor participation in 2016; this effect is only observed in the male sample (and not the female sample). By contrast, female teachers’ wages in 2013 did not influence the views in 2016. |
| Keywords: | Historical wage rate, norm, subjective view, labor participation |
| JEL: | I25 J16 Z18 |
| Date: | 2019–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93677&r=all |
| By: | Mazhar Mughal (ESC Pau); Charlotte Sers (ESC Pau) |
| Abstract: | South Asia is one of the remaining major strongholds of hunger in the world. This is in spite of the fact that countries of the region went through the Green revolution during the second half of the 20th century which led to tripling of cereal production. This study examines the role this increase in cereal production has played in improving the region's food security situation. Controlling for various economic, demographic, social and climatic factors that drive food security, we study the association between different aspects of food security and cereal production prevalent in South Asia over the past 25 years. We find a beneficial role of production and yield of cereals and the extent of undernourishment. This impact is visible for the availability, stability and utilization aspects of food security but not for the access aspect. The positive effect is in particular present in the case of rice and maize production. The beneficial effect on food security persists up to three years. These findings are robust to alternative empirical specifications and techniques. The results explain, in part, the means by which South Asian nations have succeeded in reducing the extent of undernourishment. |
| Abstract: | L'Asie du Sud est l'une des régions du monde où l'insécurité alimentaire est la plus forte. Cela est malgré le fait que les pays de cette région ont lancé dans la deuxième partie du XXème siècle la Révolution verte qui a permis de tripler la production de céréales. Cet article cherche à étudier le rôle qu'a pu jouer la hausse de la production de céréales dans l'amélioration de la sécurité alimentaire en Asie du Sud. En intégrant plusieurs facteurs économiques, démographiques, sociaux et climatiques qui influencent la sécurité alimentaire, notre étude tient compte de la relation entre différents aspects de la sécurité alimentaire et de la production de céréales qui a pu existé pendant les 25 dernières années. Nos résultats indiquent un rôle positif joué par l'évolution de la production et du rendement de céréales sur le nombre de personnes sous-alimentées. Cet impact est vérifié pour différentes dimensions de la sécurité alimentaire (la disponibilité physique des aliments, la stabilité dans le temps et l'utilisation des aliments) mais pas pour l'accès économique et physique des aliments. De plus, la relation positive est particulièrement forte pour les productions de riz et de maïs. L'effet bénéfique sur la sécurité alimentaire perdure jusqu'à trois ans. Ces résultats sont robustes, ayant été testés par différentes spécifications et techniques empiriques. Ils expliquent, en partie, comment les pays d'Asie du Sud ont réussi à réduire l'insécurité alimentaire. |
| Keywords: | cereal production,food security,South Asia |
| Date: | 2019–04–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02089616&r=all |
| By: | McArthur, Daniel; Reeves, Aaron |
| Abstract: | Recessions appear to coincide with an increasingly stigmatising presentation of poverty in parts of the media. Previous research on the connection between high unemployment and media discourse has often relied on case studies of periods when stigmatising rhetoric about the poor was increasing. We build on earlier work on how economic context affects media representations of poverty by creating a unique dataset that measures how often stigmatising descriptions of the poor are used in five centrist and right-wing British newspapers between 1896 and 2000. Our results suggest stigmatising rhetoric about the poor increases when unemployment rises, except at the peak of very deep recessions (e.g. the 1930s and 1980s). This pattern is consistent with the idea that newspapers deploy deeply embedded Malthusian explanations for poverty when those ideas resonate with the economic context, and so this stigmatising rhetoric of recessions is likely to recur during future economic crises. |
| Keywords: | poverty; print media; recession; stigma; unemployment |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2019–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100546&r=all |
| By: | Escamilla-Guerrero David; Lopez-Alonso Moramay |
| Abstract: | Using height as a proxy for physical productivity of labour, this paper estimates the selection of Mexican migration to the United States at the beginning of the flow (1906–08), and it exploits a natural experiment of history to evaluate the impact of random shocks on short-run shifts in selection into migration.The results suggest that the first Mexican migrants belonged to the upper ranks of the height distribution of the Mexican working class. Additionally, the financial crisis of 1907, an exogenous labour demand shock in the United States, significantly modified local migrant self-selection. Before the crisis, migrants were positively selected relative to the military elite of the time. During the crisis, migrants became negatively selected, but returned to a stronger positive selection after the crisis.The shift to a less positive selection was influenced by the absence of the enganche, an institution that neutralized mobility and job-search costs. The stronger positive selection in the post-crisis period was partially driven by persistent droughts in Mexico that increased the population at risk of migration. |
| Keywords: | International migration,Labour migration,random shocks,Self-selection |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-23&r=all |
| By: | Aïssa KADRI (UMR-LISE/CNAM/CNRS, Paris, France) |
| Abstract: | The functioning of the Algerian educational system today cannot be understood without taking into account its most distant history and especially the effects of the imposition of the French system during the colonial period. It is indeed less in the numerical weight of the local populations that have been taken over by the French system than in the process of its institutionalization, that the impact of the French school in Algeria is best captured. The history of this imposition was that of a contradictory process of adaptation of the teaching to the specific mode of colonization – this adaptation having always oscillated between assimilationist inclinations and segregationist convictions; this is reflected in the continual search for a type of “apart” education that would have allowed both to control the "civil society" and to establish the conditions for not questioning the colonial model. The forms of the implementation process in this respect were many and varied. The national system of education set up with the independence was achieved, in a certain continuity of the French system until the decade 1970-80, at the same time as started a policy of voluntarist Arabization doubled by all-out schooling. Under the effect of rapid and sloppy massification and a policy of Arabization not at all rigorous – answering more to political vested interests than rationally thought and applied – the malfunctions that are emerging show the contradictions and the conflicts between the old and the new brought through the reforms that will take place from the mid-1970s to the years 2000. The issues of teaching languages, such as content and transmitted values, the place of religion, teacher training, pedagogy, will be subject to a more open conflict that is radicalized around the more general purposes and functions of the educational system. This translates into a certain anomie of the education system, which will be bypassed by certain social groups seeking other ways for their children, particularly in private education or in institutions dependent on foreign countries. |
| Keywords: | school, socialization, schooling, values, colonial elites, reformists, reforms, arabization, languages of instruction, massification, democratization, religion at school, training, public policy on education |
| JEL: | I20 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crc:wpaper:1811&r=all |
| By: | Elbers Chris; Lanjouw Peter |
| Abstract: | The North Indian village of Palanpur has been the subject of close study over a period of six decades from 1957/8 to 2015. Himanshu et al. (2018) have documented the evolution of the village economy over this period in an exhaustive study entitled How Lives Change: Palanpur, India and Development Economics, and point to two distinct, and staggered, drivers of growth and distribution of income.An early period of agricultural intensification associated with the green revolution saw an expansion of irrigation and the introduction of new agricultural technologies, leading to rising incomes accompanied by falling poverty and fairly stable, or even declining, income inequality. Subsequently, from about the mid-1970s onwards, a cumulative process of non-farm diversification took hold, and was accompanied by further growth and poverty decline, but also a significant rise in income inequality.This process of structural transformation is likely to be occurring more broadly in rural India. In this paper, we construct a simple model of a village economy that captures several of the salient elements of the Palanpur economy and society. We show that this basic model is readily able to reproduce the distributional outcomes observed in the village.We suggest that to the extent that there exist other villages in rural India with such features, similar distributional outcomes might be expected. We indicate, further, that while the non-farm diversification phase of the village growth story was accompanied by rising inequality, the counterfactual of no diversification might well have been associated with an even greater increase. We suggest that non-farm diversification has arguably helped to contain growth in inequality and has played a particularly pronounced role in reducing poverty. |
| Keywords: | non-farm employment,rural diversification,simulation model,Structural transformation,Income inequality,Poverty,Income distribution |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-33&r=all |
| By: | Mehdi El Herradi; Aurélien Leroy |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the distributional implications of monetary pol-icy from a long-run perspective with data spanning a century of modern economic history in 12 advanced economies between 1920 and 2015. We employ two complementary empirical methodologies for estimating the dynamic responses of the top 1% income share to a monetary policy shock: vector auto-regressions and local projections. We notably exploit the implications of the macroeconomic policy trilemma to identify exogenous variations in monetary conditions. The obtained results indicate that ex-pansionary monetary policy strongly increases the share of national income held by the top one percent. Our findings also suggest that this e?ect is arguably driven by higher asset prices, and holds irrespective of the state of the economy. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; Income inequality; Local projections; Panel VAR |
| JEL: | D63 E62 E64 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:632&r=all |
| By: | Peter Hooper; Frederic S. Mishkin; Amir Sufi |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews a substantial range of empirical evidence on whether the Phillips curve is dead, i.e. that its slope has flattened to zero. National data going back to the 1950s and 60s yield strong evidence of negative slopes and significant nonlinearity in those slopes, with slopes much steeper in tight labor markets than in easy labor markets. This evidence of both slope and nonlinearity weakens dramatically based on macro data since the 1980s for the price Phillips curve, but not the wage Phillips curve. However, the endogeneity of monetary policy and the lack of variation of the unemployment gap, which has few episodes of being substantially below zero in tis sample period, makes the price Phillips curve estimates from this period less reliable. At the same time, state level and MSA level data since the 1980s yield significant evidence of both negative slope and nonlinearity in the Phillips curve. The difference between national and city/state results in recent decades can be explained by the success that monetary policy has had in quelling inflation and anchoring inflation expectations since the 1980s. We also review the experience of the 1960s, the last time inflation expectations became unanchored, and observe both parallels and differences with today. Our analysis suggests that reports of the death of the Phillips curve may be greatly exaggerated. |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E65 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25792&r=all |
| By: | Vos Rob |
| Abstract: | Over the past sixty years, most Asian countries have undergone relatively rapid agricultural transformations that helped jumpstart broader economic development. However, the changes have differed markedly in nature and speed across countries of the region.In much of East and Southeast Asia, the Green Revolution brought a quantum leap in yields of staple crops. Agricultural productivity growth facilitated labour exit and savings transfers, which helped jumpstart industrial growth and urbanization, which in turn induced deeper agrarian change and food system transformations.In South Asia, these transformative changes have lagged in part because of structural hurdles to agrarian change signalled by Gunnar Myrdal in his seminal book Asian Drama of 1968. More recently, South Asian economies also managed to overcome most of those obstacles, inducing accelerated growth of both agriculture and non-agricultural sectors.Vast challenges of still widespread poverty and food insecurity in this part of Asia remain. These challenges remain in a context of relatively advanced urbanization, strongly changed dietary patterns and agri-food systems, and pressing environmental constraints.Consequently, as this paper argues, moving forward, the role and nature of agricultural transformations and structural change in forging economic growth and poverty reduction in still disadvantaged regions of Asia will need to be different as well. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural productivity,Food policy,structural change,Rural development |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-87&r=all |
| By: | Angel de la Fuente |
| Abstract: | En esta nota se analiza la evolución de la renta per cápita en España en su conjunto y en cada una de sus regiones desde 1995 hasta la actualidad, así como la dinámica de la distribución territorial de la misma variable, que se ha caracterizado durante la mayor parte del período por una cierta tendencia a la convergencia entre comunidades autónomas, aunque a un ritmo descendiente. El trabajo es el primero de una serie sobre la evolución económica de las CCAA y sus factores determinantes. |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaeee:eee2019-14&r=all |
| By: | Prottoy A. Akbar; Sijie Li; Allison Shertzer; Randall P. Walsh |
| Abstract: | Housing is the most important asset for the vast majority of American households and a key driver of racial disparities in wealth. This paper studies how residential segregation by race served to erode black wealth. Using a novel sample of matched addresses from prewar American cities, we find that rental prices and occupancy soared by about 40 percent in blocks that transitioned from all white to majority black. However, home values fell on average by 10 percent over the first decade of racial transition and by a staggering 50 percent in major African American destinations such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. These findings suggest that, because of the segregated housing market, black families faced dual barriers to wealth accumulation: they paid more in rent for similar housing while the homes they were able to purchase rapidly declined in value. |
| JEL: | J15 N12 R31 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25805&r=all |
| By: | Saleh, Mohamed; Tirole, Jean |
| Abstract: | A ruler who does not identify with a social group, whether on religious, ethnic, cultural or socioeconomic grounds, is confronted with a trade-off between taking advantage of the out-group population's eagerness to maintain its identity and inducing it to ``comply'' (conversion, quit, exodus or any other way of accommodating the ruler's own identity). This paper first analyzes the ruler's optimal mix of discriminatory and non-discriminatory taxation, both in a static and an evolving environment. The paper then uses novel data sources to test the theory in the context of Egypt's conversion to Islam between 641 and 1200. The evidence is broadly consistent with the theoretical predictions. |
| Keywords: | identity taxation; Islam; Laffer Curve; Legitimacy; Poll tax |
| JEL: | D82 H2 N45 Z12 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13705&r=all |
| By: | Yves Roman (HiSoMA - Histoire et Sources des Mondes antiques - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon III - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | "People are born, live and die where God had them born". This statement from the past has often been put forward in a variety of forms, associated with images of people and objects circulating in a confined radius. This point of view, largely accepted until the late 20th century, turns out to be wholly incorrect and we must consider that goods have circulated over long distances since the dawn of time. A perfect illustration of this is the circulation of obsidian in the pre-historic age. This conclusion, which matured at the end of the 20th century, is no longer a matter of debate. Economic models have been elaborated on this subject, generating lively discussions on which we can now provide a report. |
| Keywords: | Pliny the Elder,China,Muziris,Economic models,immobilist vision,silk roads,Rome,Indians,Greeks,Periplus of the Erythraean Sea |
| Date: | 2019–01–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02104765&r=all |
| By: | Guo, Danqiao; Boyle, Phelim; Weng, Chengguo; Wirjanto, Tony |
| Abstract: | This paper starts from examining the performance of equally weighted 1/N stock portfolios over time. During the last four decades these portfolios outperformed the market. The construction of these portfolios implies that their constituent stocks are in general older than those in the market as a whole. We show that the differential performance can be explained by the relation between stock returns and firm age. We document a significant relation between age and returns. Since 1977 stock returns have been an increasing function of age apart from the oldest ages. For this period the age effect completely dominates the size effect. |
| Keywords: | Bootstrapped portfolio, rebalanced portfolio, age effect, size effect |
| JEL: | G10 G11 |
| Date: | 2019–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93653&r=all |
| By: | Ben-David, Itzhak (Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)); Palvia, Ajay A. (Government of the United States of America - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)); Stulz, Rene M. (Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)) |
| Abstract: | We explore the actions of financially distressed banks in two distinct periods that include financial crises (1985-1994, 2005-2014) and differ in bank regulations, especially concerning capital requirements and enforcement. In contrast to the widespread belief that distressed banks gamble for resurrection, we document that distressed banks take actions to reduce leverage and risk, such as reducing asset and loan growth, issuing equity, decreasing dividends, and lowering deposit rates. Despite large differences in regulation between periods, the extent of deleveraging is similar, suggesting that economic forces beyond formal regulations incentivize bank managers to deleverage when their banks are in distress. |
| JEL: | G11 G21 G33 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2019-10&r=all |
| By: | Cardoso-Marta Pinto-Machado, Matilde; Gomes, Pedro |
| Abstract: | In 1940, the Portuguese government approved a massive primary school construction plan that projected a 60% increase in the number of primary schools. Based on the collection of a new dataset, we describe the education in Portugal prior to the plan as well as the plan's strategy regarding the location of schools. We then estimate the causal impact of the increase in the number of schools between 1940 and the early 60s on enrolment and literacy, all at the county level. |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:28328&r=all |
| By: | Shikhar Sarin (Boise State University); Christophe Haon (MKT - Marketing - Grenoble École de Management (GEM), IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc); Mustapha Belkhouja (Grenoble École de Management (GEM)) |
| Abstract: | Since its inception in 1984, an emphasis on cross-functionality and interdisciplinary research was encrypted into the DNA of the Journal of Product and Innovation Management (JPIM). This essay explores the extent to which the journal has served as a platform for exchange of ideas between different disciplines by examining knowledge outflow and inflow with other scientific journals and disciplines over a 20-year period (1994-2013). Based on an extensive bibliometric database, we gain insights about how JPIM has evolved. We show that the journal has become a gatekeeper, importing knowledge mostly from the marketing and management literatures, and exporting knowledge to the technology and innovations management and the operations management domains. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01951637&r=all |
| By: | Benguria, Felipe; Taylor, Alan M. |
| Abstract: | Are financial crises a negative shock to demand or a negative shock to supply? This is a fundamental question for both macroeconomics researchers and those involved in real-time policymaking, and in both cases the question has become much more urgent in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis. Arguments for monetary and fiscal stimulus usually interpret such events as demand-side shortfalls. Conversely, arguments for tax cuts and structural reform often proceed from supply-side frictions. Resolving the question requires models capable of admitting both mechanisms, and empirical tests that can tell them apart. We develop a simple small open economy model, where a country is subject to deleveraging shocks that impose binding credit constraints on households and/or firms. These financial crisis events leave distinct statistical signatures in the empirical time series record, and they divide sharply between each type of shock. Household deleveraging shocks are mainly demand shocks, contract imports, leave exports largely unchanged, and depreciate the real exchange rate. Firm deleveraging shocks are mainly supply shocks, contract exports, leave imports largely unchanged, and appreciate the real exchange rate. To test these predictions, we compile the largest possible crossed dataset of 200+ years of trade flow data and event dates for almost 200 financial crises in a wide sample of countries. Empirical analysis reveals a clear picture: after a financial crisis event we find the dominant pattern to be that imports contract, exports hold steady or even rise, and the real exchange rate depreciates. History shows that, on average, financial crises are very clearly a negative shock to demand. |
| Keywords: | Deleveraging; exports; financial crises; Imports; local projections |
| JEL: | E44 F32 F36 F41 F44 G01 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13702&r=all |