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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2019‒05‒20
37 papers chosen by |
| By: | Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay (Centre Walras-Pareto - UNIL - Université de Lausanne, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The ancient Greek conception of oikonomia is often dismissed as irrelevant for making sense of the contemporary economic world. In this paper, I emphasise a tread that runs through the history of economic thought connecting the oikos to modern public economics. By conceptualising the public economy as a public household, Richard A. Musgrave (1910-2007) set foot in a long tradition of analogy between the practically oriented household and the state. Despite continuous references to the domestic model by major economists throughout the centuries, the analogy has clashed with liberal values associated with the public sphere since the eighteenth century. Musgrave's conceptualization of public expenditures represents one episode of this continuing tension. His defence of merit goods, in particular, was rejected by many American economists in the 1960s because it was perceived as a paternalistic intervention by the state. I suggest that the accusation of paternalism should not come as a surprise once the ‘domestic' elements in Musgrave's conceptualisation of the public sector are highlighted. I develop three points of the analogy in Musgrave's public household (the communal basis, a central direction, and consumption to satisfy needs) which echo recurring patterns of thought about the state. |
| Abstract: | On admet souvent que la définition originale de l'économie - oikonomia : les lois de la gestion domestique - n'est pas pertinente pour le monde économique moderne. Dans cet article, je tisse un fil dans l'histoire de la pensée économique qui connecte l'oikos à l'économie publique moderne. En conceptualisant l'économie publique comme un ménage (household), Richard A. Musgrave (1910-2007) s'inscrit, en partie sans le savoir, dans une longue tradition d'analogie entre le ménage et l'État. Malgré les références continuelles au modèle domestique par des économistes et des penseurs politiques à travers les siècles, l'analogie se heurte aux valeurs libérales associées à la sphère publique depuis le XVIIe siècle. La théorisation des dépenses publiques de Musgrave représente un épisode de cette tension continuelle. C'est le cas en particulier de son concept de besoin méritoire (besoin sous tutelle) qui a été rejeté par plusieurs économistes américains dans les années 1960, parce qu'il légitimait des interventions paternalistes de l'État. Or, l'accusation de paternalisme n'est guère surprenante lorsqu'on met au jour les éléments ‘domestiques' de la conceptualisation musgravienne du secteur public. Je développe trois points de l'analogie présents dans la conceptualisation du ménage public de Musgrave (la base communautaire, une direction centrale, la consommation pour satisfaire des besoins) qui font écho à des modes de conceptualisation de l'État récurrents dans la pensée politique et économique occidentale. |
| Keywords: | public household,paternalism,liberalism,merit wants,merit goods,besoins méritoires,ménage public,paternalisme,biens méritoites,Richard A. Musgrave |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01560189&r=all |
| By: | Gwaindepi, Abel (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | The resource curse literature underscores the fact that extractive economies face challenges in diversifying their economies. What is less explored are the public finance challenges encountered in these economies when the extractive industries are completely privatized. Using a recently compiled dataset on public revenues, expenditures and debt, this paper explores the nexus between the privatized extractive sector operations and public finance policies of the Cape Colony between 1810 and 1910. The paper finds that despite the natural resource endowment, the Cape Colony became heavily indebted and had huge budget deficits by the time it joined the Union of South Africa in 1910. After the discovery of diamonds, competition for resource-rents caused a slowdown and in some instances reversed the progress made in consolidating state institutions. The drive towards a national program of development inherent in self-governing colonies was overpowered when the competition for resource-rents culminated in rent-seeking led by the interests in the monopolized extractive sector. Rather than being the main source of government revenues and a basis for inclusive economic progress, as expected in a selfgoverning settler colony, diamonds became a trap through the operations of what I call a ‘Minerals-Railway complex’. The insights from the study have important implications for our understanding of both settler colonialism in Sub-Sahara Africa as well as the management of natural resources in developing economies. |
| Keywords: | Resource curse; rent-seeking; South Africa; railways; economic history |
| JEL: | N17 N27 N37 N47 N57 N77 |
| Date: | 2019–03–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2019_044&r=all |
| By: | Young Aboagye, Prince (African Economic History Network); Bolt, Jutta (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to a growing literature on understanding drivers of pre-industrial inequality by constructing social tables for colonial Ghana. Ghana is generally perceived as fairly equal in terms of income distribution, both historically and today. We show, however, that income inequality rose rapidly during the colonial period, to inequality levels comparable to many contemporary African countries. We argue that the introduction and expansion of cocoa cultivation at the end of the 19th century in the forest belt of the country marked the most important development that shaped both national and regional inequality trends. Initial land abundance in the forest area provided opportunities for its population to engage in cocoa growing which increased the overall standards of living in the forest area. Areas where soil quality did not favour cocoa growing fell behind in terms of living standards, resulting in increasing national income inequalities from the 1930s onwards. Due to high set up costs of cocoa farms and increasingly polarized access to economic resources, only a wealthy minority was able to establish substantial cocoa farms, gaining much more than other social classes. The capital intensity of the export crop along with access to economic resources such as land seems an important factor driving inequality trends in Africa. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; social tables; Ghana; economic history |
| JEL: | N17 N37 N57 |
| Date: | 2018–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2018_038&r=all |
| By: | Doyle, Shane (African Economic History Network); Meier zu Selhausen, Felix (African Economic History Network); Weisdorf, Jacob (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | This paper sheds new light on the impact and experience of western biomedicine in colonial Africa. We use patient registers from Western Uganda’s earliest mission hospital to explore whether and how Christian conversion and mission education affected African health behaviour. A dataset of 18,600 admissions permits analysis of patients’ age, sex, residence, religion, diagnoses, duration of hospitalisation, and treatment outcomes. We document Toro Hospital’s substantial geographic reach, trace evolving treatment practices, and highlight significant variation in hospital-based disease incidence between the early colonial and early postcolonial periods. We observe no relationship between numeracy and health outcomes, nor religion-specific effects concerning hygiene-related infections. Christian conversion was associated with superior cure rates and shorter length of stay, and with lower incidence of skin diseases and sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). However, our findings indicate that STI-incidence was linked to morality campaigns and that clinicians’ diagnoses were influenced by assumptions around religious groups’ sexual behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Africa; Medical History; Missionary Medicine; Religion; Sexually-Transmitted Infections |
| JEL: | N01 N37 N47 |
| Date: | 2019–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2019_045&r=all |
| By: | Martins, Igor (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | Few could have foreseen the consequences when the British Parliament, in 1807, passed the Slave Trade Act that sought to abolish slave imports into the British Empire. From population decreases in the British Caribbean to increased prices in the Cape Colony, historical evidence suggests that the effects of the Act were felt far and wide even though commercialization of slaves was still possible within colonial territories. Using newly digitized historical datasets covering more than 40 years in two different districts of the British Cape Colony, this paper measures changes in slave ownership and acquisition patterns from a longitudinal perspective. This approach allows me to tease out the effects of the Act on farmers with different types of agricultural outputs, most notably crop and livestock farming, agricultural types with very different labor demands. The results show that livestock farmers, surprisingly, were more inelastic to the import ban in comparison to crop farmers. These results suggest that slaveholders could extract rents from the enslaved in a multitude of ways beyond agriculture production and calls for a broader theory of slavery as capital investment. |
| Keywords: | Slavery; abolition; Cape Colony; economic history |
| JEL: | N01 N27 N37 |
| Date: | 2019–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2019_043&r=all |
| By: | Juif, Dácil (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | This study adds the case of a Belgian colony to a literature that has mainly focused on differences in school enrollment between French and British African territories. While most studies emphasize the supply- side, especially the constraints on missionary activity, we highlight the role of demand from the colonial mining industry. We use various primary sources to assess quantitatively and qualitatively the development of school enrollment in the Congo since 1920. We show that the regional inequality in education that crystallized in colonial times persisted decades after independence. The provincial disparities are used as a point of departure to explain how the mining industry worked as a catalyst for the expansion of primary school enrolment. The paternalistic policy of “stabilization”, i.e. of permanent settlement of workers and their families near the work sites, introduced by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga as well as by most concessionary companies in the Belgian Congo in the mid-1920s, went hand in hand with high investments in primary schooling. The aim of the industry was to save expenses on recruitment and European labour, and to make investments in miners’ and their children’s education profitable. |
| Keywords: | Education; colonial Africa; the Congo; regional inequality |
| JEL: | N27 N37 N47 N57 N97 |
| Date: | 2019–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2019_046&r=all |
| By: | Wade Robert |
| Abstract: | Few non-western countries have reached the general prosperity of Western Europe and North America in the past two centuries. The core–periphery structure of the world economy created in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution has proved robust, even after seven decades of self-conscious ‘development’ following the Second World War.Just about all the countries which were in the periphery in 1960 remain in the periphery today. The clearest exceptions are in capitalist Northeast Asia, namely, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; to which the island states of Singapore and Hong Kong might be added. How did they escape? |
| Keywords: | Growth,state capacity |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-101&r=all |
| By: | Findlay Ronald |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the political and economic evolution of trade and international relations of the nations and regions of Asia between themselves and the rest of the world over the past millennium, paying particular attention to: the Pax Mongolica and overland trade during the Middle Ages; the European intrusion at the turn of the fifteenth century and the impact of the New World; the spread of European imperialism and the rise of nationalism and the achievement of independence.A final section discusses the comparative evolution of Europe and Asia and the question of why the Industrial Revolution did not first occur in Asia. |
| Keywords: | Catchup,Dynastic cycle,Malthus-Ricardo model,Globalization |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-85&r=all |
| By: | Tatsuki Inoue |
| Abstract: | This study examines the role of pawnshops as a risk-coping strategy in Japan in the prewar period when poor people were highly vulnerable. Using data on pawnshop loans in more than 250 municipalities and the 1918--1920 influenza pandemic as a natural experiment, we find that the total loan amount increased because of the pandemic shock. Our results suggest that those who regularly relied on pawnshops borrowed from them more money than usual to cope with the adverse health shock, whereas others did not take out pawnshop loans. In addition, further analyses reveal that loans from pawnshops prevented an increase in the unemployment rate due to the pandemic. Pawnshops thus served as an informal social insurance mechanism in early twentieth-century Japan. |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1905.04419&r=all |
| By: | Basu Kaushik |
| Abstract: | This paper is a short history of the Indian economy since 1968.India today is a changed country from what it was half a century ago, when Myrdal published his Asian Drama. The stranglehold of low growth has been broken, its population below the poverty line has fallen markedly, and India has joined the pantheon of major players globally.This paper analyses the economic policies and the politics behind this transformation; and uses that as a backdrop to take stock of the huge challenges that lie ahead. |
| Keywords: | Growth,Gunnar Myrdal,Political economy,Technological innovations,Corruption |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-124&r=all |
| By: | Braun, Sebastian Till; Franke, Richard |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of railways on the spatial economic development of a German economy, the Kingdom of Württemberg, during the Industrial Revolution. Our identification strategy compares the economic development of `winning' municipalities that were connected to the railway in 1845-54 to the development of `losing' municipalities that were the runners-up choice for a given railway line between two major towns. Estimates from both differences-in-differences and inverse-probability-weighted models suggest that railway access increased annual population growth by 0.4 percentage points over more than half a century. Railways also increased wages, income and housing values, in line with predictions of economic geography models of transport infrastructure improvements, reduced the gender wage gap, and accelerated the transition away from agriculture. We find little evidence that these effects are driven by localised displacement effects. |
| Keywords: | Railway access, growth, sectoral employment, Industrial Revolution, Württemberg |
| JEL: | N73 N93 O14 R12 R40 |
| Date: | 2019–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93644&r=all |
| By: | David S. Jacks; Dennis Novy |
| 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. |
| JEL: | F1 F3 N7 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25830&r=all |
| By: | Thorbecke Erik |
| Abstract: | This paper is essentially autobiographical and describes Erik Thorbecke’s journey through the history of development economics between the 1950s and the present.The paper consists of four parts. First, an introduction reviews briefly his professional career as a development economist and his research interactions with major contributors to the discipline. The next three parts review critically his contributions to research on and training in, respectively, (i) the ongoing process of African development; (ii) income distribution, inequality, and poverty; and (iii) economic structure, interdependence, and quantitative development analysis. |
| Keywords: | Development doctrine,Economic structure,Inequality,Poverty |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-138&r=all |
| By: | Duara Prasenjit |
| Abstract: | This paper identifies historic patterns in the dialectic between nationalism and development across various East, South, and Southeast Asian nations. Nationalism as the rationale for development is used by regimes to achieve high levels of growth, but also generates exclusivism and hostilities, often in order to integrate a political core.Popular nationalism has also dialectically reshaped the goals and patterns of development during the post-Second World War period. The region is divided into zones shaped by twentieth-century historical and geo-political conditions.Colonial and Cold War conditions were as important as internal political and ethnic circumstances. Turning points in the dialectical relationship were common within a region. More recently, a common transregional pattern has emerged with neoliberal globalization being accompanied by exclusivist nationalism. |
| Keywords: | Colonialism,Nationalism,War |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-95&r=all |
| By: | Akyeampong, Emmanuel (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | Ralph Austen in African Economic History (1987) noted how few African countries explicitly choose capitalism on independence, and for those who did it was a default model or a residual pattern. ‘African socialism’ was popular in the early decades of independence and pursued by several countries, including Ghana, Guinea, Senegal and Tanzania, the cases considered in this paper. The term had multiple meanings, and its advocates were quick to stress that they were not communist, and some said they were not even Marxist. This paper explores the argument that African socialism was a search for an indigenous model of economic development for a generation that was justifiably ambivalent about capitalism, but wary of being put in the communist camp in the Cold War era. Importantly, advocates of African socialism often proposed bold and transformative visions for their countries. These visions might be worth revisiting, devoid of the paradigm of socialism. |
| Keywords: | Socialism; capitalism; independence; Africa; economic history |
| JEL: | N17 N27 N47 |
| Date: | 2017–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2017_036&r=all |
| By: | Daimon Anusa |
| Abstract: | Illegal African migration into South Africa is not uniquely a post-apartheid phenomenon. It has its antecedents in the colonial/apartheid period.The South Africa colonial economy relied heavily on cheap African labour from both within and outside the Union. Most foreign migrant labourers came from the then Nyasaland (Malawi) and Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) through official channels of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA). WNLA was active throughout Southern Africa and competed for the same labour resources with other regional supranational ‘native’ labour recruitment agencies, providing various incentives to lure and transport potential employees to its bustling South African gold and diamond mining industry. However, not all migrant labourers found their way through formal WNLA channels.Using archival material from repositories in Harare (Zimbabwe), Zomba (Malawi), Grahamstown (South Africa), London, and Oxford (UK), the paper casts light on illicit migration mainly by Malawian labourers (Nyasas) through Southern Rhodesia into South Africa between the 1920s and 1950s. It argues that many transient Nyasas subverted the inhibitive WNLA contractual obligations by clandestinely migrating independently into the Union. They also exploited the labour recruitment infrastructure used by the state and labour bureaus to swiftly move across Southern Rhodesia.In essence, Nyasas settled in motion, using Southern Rhodesia as a stepping-stone or springboard en-route to the more lucrative Union of South Africa. An appreciation of such informal migration opens up space for creating a more comprehensive historiography of labour migration in Southern Africa. Likewise, illicit migration is not confined to the contemporary African diaspora, but early diasporas as well. Consequently, this narrative acts as a background for understanding the precursors of the rampant illegal African migration into post-apartheid South Africa. |
| Keywords: | Archival,Migration,Rhodesia,WNLA |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-41&r=all |
| By: | La Croix, Sumner (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | Fourie and Green construct estimates of the Khoikhoi population over the 1652- 1780 period using benchmarks for the initial and terminal Khoi populations and benchmarks for the punctuated population declines from smallpox epidemics in 1713 and 1755. I review the evidence underlying each of the four population benchmarks and argue for a revised 1780 benchmark. Qualitative evidence also points to a higher rate of population decline between 1652 and 1723 and a smaller rate of decline between 1723 and 1780. Using the Fourie-Green methodology and adopting 3 of their 4 population benchmarks, I develop two revised estimates of the Khoi population to supplement the original Fourie and Green estimates |
| Keywords: | Demography; Cape colony; Khoi |
| JEL: | N01 N37 N57 |
| Date: | 2018–09–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2018_039&r=all |
| By: | Kanbur Ravi |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to understand Asian Drama in the context of the development debates of its time, and in terms of the sensibilities that Gunnar Myrdal—the brilliant economic theorist and philosopher of knowledge, and Swedish politician—brought to the conceptualization of the problems and prospects of development.The paper covers: (1) what Gunnar Myrdal brought to the analysis of development from his long, varied, and distinguished academic and practitioner career; (2) the development terrain in the mid-twentieth century; and (3) how Asian Drama lay on that terrain and in the remaining years of Gunnar Myrdal’s continued eventful life.The two central questions posed in the paper are: (1) How did Gunnar Myrdal’s broad experience and perspective influence Asian Drama? (2) How did Asian Drama influence the development debate? |
| Keywords: | States and elites,Elites,Gunnar Myrdal |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-102&r=all |
| By: | Bolt, Jutta (African Economic History Network); Gardner, Leigh (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | How states acquire the ability to raise taxes is a central question in the study of institutions and economic development in economic history. This paper uses new data on ‘Native Authorities’, or African local governments, to investigate tax compliance under indirect rule in British Africa. In theory, Native Authorities represented the integration of indigenous institutions into colonial rule. However, the relationships of African states with the colonial government varied, and African communities experienced considerable political and economic change during the colonial period. The paper investigates the relationship between tax compliance, the autonomy of African states within the colonial system, local levels of income and education, and Native Authority institutions. Understanding the dynamics of Native Authority tax collection helps address wider questions about African processes of state-building, the emergence of an ‘uneven topography’ of sub-national institutions during the colonial period, and the ways in which Africans shaped colonial rule. |
| Keywords: | Africa; tax compliance; economic history |
| JEL: | N01 N27 N37 N47 |
| Date: | 2018–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2018_040&r=all |
| By: | Thu Dao (UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain, Bielefeld University); Frédéric Docquier (UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain, FNRS - Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique [Bruxelles], FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International); Mathilde Maurel (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International); Pierre Schaus (UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain) |
| Abstract: | This paper sheds light on the global migration patterns of the past 40 years, and produces migration projections for the 21st century, for two skill groups, and for all relevant pairs of countries. To do this, we build a simple model of the world economy, and we parameterize it to match the economic and socio-demographic characteristics of the world in the year 2010. We conduct a backcasting exercise which demonstrates that our model fits the past trends in international migration very well, and that historical trends were mostly governed by demographic changes. We then describe a set of migration projections for the 21st century. In line with backcasts, our world migration prospects and emigration rates from developing countries are mainly governed by socio-demographic changes: they are virtually insensitive to the technological environment. As far as OECD countries are concerned, we predict a highly robust increase in immigration pressures in general (from 12 in 2010 to 17-19% in 2050 and 25-28%in 2100), and in European immigration in particular (from 15% in 2010 to 23-25% in 2050 and 36-39% in 2100). Using development policies to curb these pressures requires triggering unprecedented economic takeoffs in migrants countries of origin. Increasing migration is therefore a likely phenomenon for the 21st century, and this raises societal and political challenges for most industrialized countries. |
| Keywords: | international migration,migration prospects,world economy,inequality |
| Date: | 2018–03–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01743799&r=all |
| By: | Aurélien Goutsmedt (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, Chaire Energie & Prospérité - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE ParisTech - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Institut Louis Bachelier); Erich Pinzón-Fuchs (Universidad de los Andes [Bogota]); Matthieu Renault (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne); Francesco Sergi (University of Bristol [Bristol]) |
| Abstract: | We illustrate how the Lucas Critique was called into question by Keynesian macroeconomists during the 1970s and 1980s. Our claim is that Keynesians' reactions were carried out from a pragmatic approach, which addressed the empirical and practical relevance of the Critique. Keynesians rejected the Critique as a general principle with no relevance for concrete macroeconometric practice; their rejection relied on econometric investigations and contextual analysis of the U.S. 1970s stagflation and its aftermath. Keynesians argued that the parameters of their models remained stable across this period, and that simpler ways to account for stagflation (such as the introduction of supply shocks into their models) provided better alternatives to improve policy evaluation. |
| Keywords: | History of macroeconomics,Lucas Critique,Keynesian macroeconometrics,Stagflation |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01625169&r=all |
| By: | Quentin Couix (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a historical and epistemological account of one of the key controversy between natural resources economics and ecological economics, lasting from early 1970s to the end of 1990s. It shows that the theoretical disagreement on the scope of the economy's dependence to natural resources, such as energy and minerals, has deep methodological roots. On one hand, Solow's and Stiglitz's works are built on a "model-based methodology", where the model precedes and supports the conceptual foundations of the theory and in particular the assumption of "unbounded resources productivity". On the other hand, Georgescu-Roegen's counter-assumption of "thermodynamic limits to production", later revived by Daly, rest on a methodology of "interdisciplinary consistency" which considers thermodynamics as a relevant scientific referent for economic theory. While antagonistic, these two methodologies face similar issues regarding the conceptual foundations that arise from them, which is a source of confusion and of the difficult dialogue between paradigms. |
| Keywords: | natural resources,thermodynamics,growth,sustainability,model,theory,methodology |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01702401&r=all |
| By: | Grytten, Ola Honningdal (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Koilo, Viktoriia (HSM/NLA) |
| Abstract: | The present paper applies the financial instability hypothesis in order to explain the financial crises of 2008-2010 in eleven emerging Eastern European economies Also, it seeks to map if institutional frameworks of these countries enabled them to stand against the factors leading into the financial crisis. The paper maps cycles of three macroeconomic indicators representing the real economy, and four indicators representing financial markets. A cycle analysis is conducted with the help of a Hoderick-Prescott filter, made to isolate cycles from trends in time series. The paper concludes that there were substantial positive financial cycles previous to the financial crisis mirrored by similar cycles in the real economy. Similarly, the results show negative cycles in the same parameters during the years of crisis. It seems as an uncontrolled increase in money and credit caused the economy to overheat and thereafter contract in both substantial financial and real economy crises. Also, the paper compiles twelve different indices of institutional development. These are standardized and presented in an institutional development matrix, showing that the institutional framework for the eleven economies was weak previous to and under the melt down of the economy. The construction of an integrated institutional development index on the basis of the same twelve parameters confirm institutional shortcomings, which may have made the economies less able to guard themselves from a crisis initiated by both domestically and internationally financial instability. |
| Keywords: | Financial Crisis; Financial Instability Hypothesis; Institutional Development; Crisis Anatomy; Financial History; Eastern European Economies; Emerging Economies |
| JEL: | E32 E44 E51 E52 G15 N14 N24 |
| Date: | 2019–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2019_008&r=all |
| By: | Edith Archambault (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01956757&r=all |
| By: | Links, Calumet (African Economic History Network); Green, Erik (African Economic History Network); Fourie, Johan (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | The flexibility of slave labour as an economic institution has often been assumed as a given. In general, some capital investment is necessary to retrain novice slaves but essentially they could be substituted for any other form of labour. This paper refutes the claim of the flexibility of slave labour through employing a longitudinal study for the Graaff-Reinet region of the Cape colony. We calculate Hicksian elasticity of complementarity coefficients for each year of a 21-year combination of cross-sectional tax datasets (1805-28) in order to test whether slave labour was substitutable with other forms of labour. We find that khoe, family and slave labour are not substitutable over the period of the study. This lends credence to the finding that slave and settler family labour were two different inputs in the agricultural production process. Indigenous Khoe and slave labour also remain complements throughout the period of study even when Khoe labour becomes scarce after the frontier conflicts, confirming the notion that slave labour at Graaff-Reinet was not a flexible labour source. We argue that the lack of substitutability of slave labour was due to the need of the settlers to acquire labour with location-specific skills such as the indigenous Khoe. |
| Keywords: | Slavery; Africa; Labour; Institutions; Human capital |
| JEL: | N01 N27 N37 N57 |
| Date: | 2018–12–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2018_042&r=all |
| By: | Liu, Yong; Ker, Alan P. |
| Abstract: | The Federal Crop Insurance Program -- operated by the United States Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency (RMA) -- offers various types of insurance, covers a multitude of crops, carries significant liability, and is the cornerstone of domestic farm policy. Currently, RMA uses county yield data from the 1950s onwards to set guarantees and estimate premium rates for their area yield and revenue insurance products but trims yield data prior to 1991 in rating their newer shallow loss products. The past 70 years reflect very significant innovations in both seed and farm management technologies; innovations that have likely moved mass all around the support of the yield distribution. Although the RMA rating methodology corrects for time-varying movements in the first two moments, it is unclear whether using the entire yield series remains appropriate. We use distributional tests and an out-of-sample retain-cede rating game to answer if RMA should or should not historically trim yields in estimating their premium rates. Despite small sample sizes and the need to estimate tail probabilities, the historical data appears to be sufficiently different such that trimming is justified. While we caution against extrapolation of our results, they do give cause for consideration in other empirical analyses using historical yield data. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2019–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uguiwp:288449&r=all |
| By: | Andersson, Jens (African Economic History Network) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary African fiscal systems are usually portrayed as being subject to significant instability, which has negative consequences for public spending and development. However, this paper documents significant long-term fiscal stabilisation in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger and Senegal as measured by reductions in tax revenue instability and the responsiveness of tax revenue to trade over a 120-year period. This historical process of long-term fiscal stabilisation in francophone West Africa has not been properly acknowledged in the contemporary fiscal policy literature that tends to focus on recent decades. Moreover, it is shown qualitatively and econometrically that this fiscal stabilisation has been accompanied with a longterm reduction in the volatility of trade, a change in tax composition away from trade taxes to indirect domestic taxes, and major shifts in development policy paradigms. This points to the value of studying African fiscal systems over long periods of time to identify relationships not apparent from a short-term perspective and understand the intricate mechanisms and dynamics that characterize the development process. |
| Keywords: | Financial capacity; tax stabilisation; French West Africa; economic hitsory |
| JEL: | N01 N17 N27 N47 |
| Date: | 2018–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:afekhi:2018_041&r=all |
| By: | Stewart Frances |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the main methodological innovations in Asian Drama. It considers whether Myrdal’s perspectives have been adopted by development analysts, and where fresh thinking is needed, particularly in the light of changes occurring in the half-century since he wrote Asian Drama.The paper concludes that many of his ideas have been accepted, especially among heterodox economists, some themselves putting forward similar arguments. Mainstream economics has, in general, been the least responsive, and renewed emphasis is needed—especially with regard to the effects of positionality on concepts, theories, and policies; and on the inappropriateness of some advanced country economic concepts.In Asian Drama, Myrdal fails to consider that some concepts are inappropriate for the analysis of advanced economies, too. The critical need to take into account environmental considerations in the 21st century provides an additional reason for seeking alternative frameworks for everywhere, whether North or South. |
| Keywords: | Gunnar Myrdal,Institutions |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-109&r=all |
| By: | Francisco J. Medina-Albaladejo (Universidad de Valencia, Spain); Salvador Calatayud (Universidad de Valencia, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Unequal access to food is one of the main issues in nutritional history, but scarcity of sources has hampered the quantification of this phenomenon. This work proposes using hospital diets to address this gap. We have used records from 1853 to 1923 concerning hospital diets in the psychiatric section of the Hospital General de Valencia (Spain) and we have inferred the actual intake of nutrients for six groups of patients and members of staff. The results reveal considerable differences in terms of diet and nutrition. While the most-favoured group (nuns and well-off patients) had by 1853 reduced their relative intake of cereals and increased that of meat, in line with the general trend of the nutritional transition, the poor and orphans were still behind the trend by 1923. On the other hand, hospital staff were on a high-calorie diet that was adequate for undertaking heavy tasks, yet still suffered from a significant deficit in nutrient intake. These inequalities indicate that the nutritional transition was an uneven and non-linear process, with substantial differences according to social groups. |
| Keywords: | Nutritional Transition, Inequality, Hospital Diets, Nutrient Intake, Spain |
| JEL: | N33 N34 I12 I31 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1909&r=all |
| By: | Bhaduri Amit |
| Abstract: | Macroeconomic strategies and policies have differed significantly among Asian countries over the last fifty years, and yet some common issues recur despite their immense diversity in inherited historical initial conditions, differences in political systems, geo-political situations, location and size, and natural resource endowments.The present paper examines from a comparative perspective some of the issues like unemployment, role of the state and market, domestic versus foreign market, degree of openness in trade, investment and finance, industrial and technology policy, and economic and social inequality. We attempt to ascertain why some countries have been more successful in dealing with these issues through policy and institutional innovations.Our comparative perspective presents developmental choices and challenges as moving targets requiring flexible institutional and policy response at each stage of development, which makes uniform guidelines misleadingly over-simplistic. |
| Keywords: | Decentralization,Economic inequality,Labour market,Unemployment,State |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-91&r=all |
| By: | Singhal Saurabh |
| Abstract: | This paper provides causal evidence on early-life exposure to war on mental health status in adulthood. Using an instrumental variable strategy, the evidence indicates that early-life exposure to bombing during the American war in Vietnam has long-term effects.A one percent increase in bombing intensity during 1965–75 increases the likelihood of severe mental distress in adulthood by 16 percentage points (or approximately 50 percent of the mean) and this result is robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. The negative effects of war are similar for both men and women. These findings add to the evidence on the enduring consequences of conflict and identify a critical area for policy intervention. |
| Keywords: | Conflict,Health outcomes,Mental health,War |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-65&r=all |
| By: | Ricardo Robledo Hernández |
| Abstract: | Social conflictivity and the chance to sustain collective actions confronting antagonic interests grew at the end of the First World War. After briefly presenting the international context of “fin d’ époque” to place the frame of conflictivity, a reading of the most famous work of Juan Diaz del Moral is put forward. This reading differs slightly from the one used more commonly to interpret the social conflictivity between 1918 and 1920. In the first place, this conflictivity is contextualized within the frame of inequality created by the First World War. Even though the number of casualties is not the only argument for the violence of a collective action, an estimate recount is offered. Diaz del Moral often boasted himself of having been a direct witness of these events in order to disqualify other versions of them. The present work questions the impartiality of the person who believes himself to be close to the facts. Finally, the main ideas of his agrarist vision are presented. They are an exception in the Spanish agrarist thought, especially due to the panglossian vision of social conflicts. The following are debatable thesis: the general agricultural progress in the countryside, the spreading of small properties and the raising in the standard of living of salary earners. |
| Keywords: | agrarian conflict, Juan Díaz del Moral, Bolshevik Triennium, agrarian reformism |
| JEL: | N44 O15 R15 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1901&r=all |
| By: | Jan Kregel |
| Abstract: | In the Western interpretation of democracy, governments exist in order to manage relations of property, with absence of property ownership leading to exclusion from participation in governance and, in many cases, absence of equal treatment before the law. Democratizing money will therefore ensure equal opportunity to the ownership of property, and thus full participation in the democratic governance of society, as well as equal access to the banking system, which finances the creation of capital via the creation of money. If the divergence between capital and labor--between rich and poor--is explained by the monopoly access of capitalists to finance, then reducing this divergence is crucially dependent on the democratization of money. Though the role of money and finance in determining inequality between capital and labor transcends any particular understanding of the process by which the creation of money leads to inequity, specific proposals for the democratization of money will depend on the explanation of how money comes into existence and how it supports capital accumulation. |
| Keywords: | Money; Finance; Financial History; Clearing Systems; Unit of Account |
| JEL: | E42 E51 E52 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_928&r=all |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Leah Platt Boustan; Katherine Eriksson; James J. Feigenbaum; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | The recent digitization of complete count census data is an extraordinary opportunity for social scientists to create large longitudinal datasets by linking individuals from one census to another or from other sources to the census. We evaluate different automated methods for record linkage, performing a series of comparisons across methods and against hand linking. We have three main findings that lead us to conclude that automated methods perform well. First, a number of automated methods generate very low (less than 5%) false positive rates. The automated methods trace out a frontier illustrating the tradeoff between the false positive rate and the (true) match rate. Relative to more conservative automated algorithms, humans tend to link more observations but at a cost of higher rates of false positives. Second, when human linkers and algorithms have the same amount of information, there is relatively little disagreement between them. Third, across a number of plausible analyses, coefficient estimates and parameters of interest are very similar when using linked samples based on each of the different automated methods. We provide code and Stata commands to implement the various automated methods. |
| JEL: | C81 N0 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25825&r=all |
| By: | Beni Kouevi Gath; Pierre-Guillaume Méon; Laurent Weill |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of banking crises on the level of democracy. We use an event-study method on a sample of up to 129 countries over the period 1975-2010 accounting for 94 systemic banking crises. We find that banking crises are followed by an improvement in democracy and report evidence suggesting that the relation is causal. The bulk of the improvement takes place between 3 and 10 year after the banking crisis. The impact of a banking crisis is greater in non-democratic countries and when the banking crisis is severe. We explain this finding by the fact that banking crises create windows of opportunity to contest autocratic regimes. |
| Keywords: | Banking crisis; Democracy; Regime change; Transitions |
| JEL: | D72 H11 |
| Date: | 2019–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/287172&r=all |
| By: | Osmani S. |
| Abstract: | The story of South Asia is a topsy-turvy one. Soon after independence from British rule, the region seemed to have a much better prospect than many other parts of the Third World; the prospects soon dimmed, however, as South Asia crawled while East and Southeast Asia galloped away.But a large part of the region seems finally to have turned a corner and is looking forward to a much better future—in terms of both growth and human development—than was deemed possible at the time Asian Drama was written.This paper describes and explains this story in terms of the economic strategies and political economy of the region and also looks ahead to identify the major challenges that remain—focusing on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. |
| Keywords: | Growth,Human development,Inequality,Poverty |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-105&r=all |
| By: | Arina Wischnewsky; David-Jan Jansen; Matthias Neuenkirch |
| Abstract: | This paper retraces how financial stability considerations interacted with U.S. monetary policy before and during the Great Recession. Using text-mining techniques, we construct indicators for financial stability sentiment expressed during testimonies of four Federal Reserve Chairs at Congressional hearings. Including these text-based measures adds explanatory power to Taylor-rule models. In particular, negative financial stability sentiment coincided with a more accommodative monetary policy stance than implied by standard Taylor-rule factors, even in the decades before the Great Recession. These findings are consistent with a preference for monetary policy reacting to financial instability rather than acting pre-emptively to a perceived build-up of risks. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, financial stability, Taylor rule, text mining |
| JEL: | E52 E58 N12 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:201908&r=all |