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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2019‒05‒27
twenty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Hubert BONIN |
| Abstract: | Luxury-specific production systems have expanded through upstream-downstream integration, from commodities (silk, precious metals, etc.) to processing industries and luxury houses themselves. Banks financed companies, trade, foreign exchange and flows of means of payment. Starting in the 1980s, business bankers supported companies building a capitalism of luxury firms: they helped them to integrate the game of financial markets. For managers of companies in the luxury sector, the challenge has always been to create strong self-financing capacities in order to be able to distribute dividends ensuring the loyalty of family shareholders, finance investments (workshops, shop networks), and contain indebtedness. When tensions were encountered, the dependence on bankers and investors, in the event of a stock exchange listing, often led to the takeover of control by leading groups. |
| Keywords: | Luxury, family business, Bernard Arnault, François Pinault, investment banking, cash-flow, capitalistic restructurings. |
| JEL: | N14 N24 N80 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2019-06&r=all |
| By: | Douglas L. Campbell (New Economic School (NES)); Lester Lusher (UC Davis) |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of large real exchange rate shocks on workers in sectors initially more exposed to international trade using the Current Population Survey’s (CPS) Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (MORG) from 1979 to 2010 combined with new annual measures of imported inputs, a proxy for offshoring. We find that in periods when US relative prices are high, and imports surge relative to exports, workers in sectors with greater initial exposure to international trade were more likely to be unemployed or exit the labor force a year later, but did not experience significant declines in wages conditional on being employed. Contrary to the usual narrative, we find negative wage effects for higher-wage, but not lower-wage workers, particularly for those who are lesseducated. |
| Keywords: | Real Exchange Rates, Labor Market Impact of Trade Shocks, Inequality, American Manufacturing |
| JEL: | F10 F16 F41 N60 L60 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0223&r=all |
| By: | Mariscal de Gante, Álvaro; Rodríguez, Víctor |
| Abstract: | This work aims to expose three of the main demographic theories, Demographic, Epidemiologic and Sanitary Transition theories, and explore its explanatory capacity. The content is structured in four sections. In the first we briefly review these theories. Secondly, we elaborate a diagnosis of the demographic structure of India and Spain, through its contextualization in the Asian and European context, respectively, and the use of several indicators. Next, we value the relationship between the evidence on these case studies and the hypotheses exposed. Finally, we outline possible theoretical critics based on these two cases |
| Keywords: | Demographic transition, natality, mortality, India, Spain |
| JEL: | A12 A13 A14 C0 C00 J0 J00 J01 J1 J10 J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2018–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:94007&r=all |
| By: | Antônio Marcos de Queiroz (PPE/FACE-UFG); Cleidinaldo de Jesus Barbosa (PPE/FACE-UFG); Edson Roberto Vieira (PPE/FACE-UFG); Sabrina Faria de Queiroz (PPE/FACE-UFG) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this work will be to revisit the ideas from the orthodox authors, Lewis, Nurkse and Rostow, from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and from Celso Furtado about development and underdevelopment. The first authors who discussed the themes mentioned above had a liberal approach to analysis, linking the concept of development with that of economic growth, while the CEPAL and Furtadian analysis began to consider historical, structural and, above all, social aspects within a perspective of Latin American countries. The original of Cepal thought emerged as an alternative line of discussion of development from the point of view of its own elements that were incorporated into Furtadian thought. The paper does not pretend to exhaust such discussion on such a broad theme, but rather to try to link the theme, showing the main characteristics of each line of thought |
| Keywords: | Development, underdevelopment, orthodoxy, Cepal, Celso Furtado |
| JEL: | O1 O10 |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufb:wpaper:076&r=all |
| By: | Carlo Ciccarelli (CEIS & DEF University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Matteo Gomellini (Bank of Italy); Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Population ageing and lack of productivity growth characterize most western countries. We focus on Italy and investigate whether the availability of a young population represents a determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. We follow a historical comparative analysis and provide evidence of the strength of this relation in the past (1861-1911) and today (1961-2011). To account for the sizeable regional heterogeneity characterizing historically the country we use data disaggregated at the provincial level. Our analysis suggests that the availability of a young population represents indeed one of the determinant of manufacturing productivity growth. The strength of the relation was higher in the past than today, but ageing is still nevertheless a factor that cannot be neglected from a policy perspective. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing, productivity, population ageing, Italy. |
| JEL: | O14 J11 N33 N93 |
| Date: | 2019–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:457&r=all |
| By: | Masami Imai; Tetsuji Okazaki; Michiru Sawada |
| Abstract: | The interwar Japanese economy was unsettled by chronic banking instability, and yet the Bank of Japan (BOJ) restricted access to its liquidity provision to a select group of banks, i.e. BOJ correspondent banks, rather than making its loans widely available "to merchants, to minor bankers, to this man and to that man" as prescribed by Bagehot (1873). This historical episode provides us with a quasi-experimental setting to study the impact of Lender of Last Resort (LOLR) policies on financial intermediation. We find that the growth rate of deposits and loans was notably faster for BOJ correspondent banks than the other banks during the bank panic phase of the Great Depression from 1931-1932, whereas it was not faster before the bank panic phase. Furthermore, BOJ correspondent banks were less likely to be closed during the bank panics. To address possible selection bias, we also instrument a bank's corresponding relationship with the BOJ with its geographical proximity to the nearest branch or the headquarters of the BOJ, which was a major determinant of a bank's transaction relationship with the BOJ at the time. This instrumental variable specification yields qualitatively same results. Taken together, Japan's historical experience suggests that central banks' liquidity provisions play an important backstop role in supporting the essential financial intermediation services in time of financial stringency. |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e129&r=all |
| By: | Samuel Bazzi (Boston University, NBER and CEPR); Martin Fiszbein (Boston University and NBER); Mesay Gebresilasse (Boston University) |
| Abstract: | The presence of a westward-moving frontier of settlement shaped early U.S. history. In 1893, the his- torian Frederick Jackson Turner famously argued that the American frontier fostered individualism. We investigate the Frontier Thesis and identify its long-run implications for culture and politics. We track the frontier throughout the 1790–1890 period and construct a novel, county-level measure of to- tal frontier experience (TFE). Historically, frontier locations had distinctive demographics and greater individualism. Long after the closing of the frontier, counties with greater TFE exhibit more perva- sive individualism and opposition to redistribution. This pattern cuts across known divides in the U.S., including urban–rural and north–south. We provide suggestive evidence on the roots of fron- tier culture: selective migration, an adaptive advantage of self-reliance, and perceived opportunities for upward mobility through effort. Overall, our findings shed new light on the frontier’s persistent legacy of rugged individualism. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Individualism, Preferences for Redistribution, American Frontier, Persistence |
| JEL: | D72 H2 N31 N91 O43 P16 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-302&r=all |
| By: | Thierry Kirat; Frédéric Marty |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the late convergence process from US economists that led them to support a strong antitrust enforcement in the late thirties despite their long standing distrust toward this legislation. The 1945 Alcoa decision crafted by Judge Hand embodied the results of this convergence. The purpose of antitrust law enforcement does not consist in promoting economic efficiency, as today’s more economic approach advocates, but in searching for a reasonable compromise aiming at preventing improper uses of economic power. This paper presents the path from which institutionalist economists, on one side, and Chicagoan neoliberals, on the other one, have converged on supporting the President F.D. Roosevelt administration towards reinvigorating antitrust law enforcement as of 1938, putting aside their initial preferences for a regulated competition model or for laissez-faire. |
| Keywords: | Antitrust,efficiency,economic power,institutional economics,Chicago School, |
| JEL: | B25 K21 L40 N42 |
| Date: | 2019–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2019s-12&r=all |
| By: | Pilar Beneito (University of Valencia. ERI-CES); José Joaquin García-Gómez (University of Almeria) |
| Abstract: | What role did women play during industrialization? Interpretations of this key period of our history have been largely based on analyses of male work. In this paper, we offer evidence of the effects of women's involvement in the industrialization process that took place in Alcoy, Spain, over the period 1860-1914. Using data drawn from historical sources, we analyse labour-force participation rates and wage series for women and men in the textile industry and three other sectors of activity (education, health and low-skill services). We then connect the gender pay gaps with life expectancy indicators. Our results suggest that women's contribution to household income might have favoured the female life-expectancy advantage, an effect that seems to have been channelled through a reduction in the relative mortality rates of female infants and girls, at the expense of a higher mortality rate of working-age women. |
| Keywords: | Industrialization, gender wage gap, female mortality advantage |
| JEL: | J16 J31 N33 O14 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0119&r=all |
| By: | Maja Korica (WBS - Warwick Business School - University of Warwick [Coventry]); Yoann Bazin (Métis Lab EM Normandie - EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie) |
| Abstract: | Although frequently perceived as inconsequential and frivolous, fashion is a central interdisciplinary concept and a substantial global industry. This necessitates taking it seriously, both as a set of theoretical tensions, and as a concrete empirical phenomenon of rich potential interest to organization studies. Our essay outlines and further develops fashion's conceptual and empirical expressions, and suggests subsequent avenues for valuable research. In particular, we commence with a discussion of three key definitions, namely fashion as individual manner, fashion as organizing of dress and fashion as a system. This enables us to problematize its industry and economy, from their historical roots and evolutions, to their varied organizational frictions, forms and practices today. We then conclude by examining the ongoing, substantial changes within the fashion industry as we have known it since the nineteenth century, and considering its potential implications and openings for organization studies scholars. |
| Keywords: | Fashion,aesthetics,aesthetic economy,dress |
| Date: | 2019–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02108885&r=all |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Johansson, Dan (Örebro University School of Business); Stenkula, Mikael (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Private foundations became a vehicle for the corporate control of large listed firms in Sweden during the post-war era, but in the 1990s, they were replaced by wealthy individuals who either directly own controlling blocks or who own them through holding companies. We study potential explanations for this change and propose two taxation-related candidates: shifts in the relative effective taxation across owner types and the dismantling of the inheritance taxation that prevented the generational transfer of the ownership of large controlling blocks. Our analysis exploits newly computed marginal effective capital income tax rates across capital owners, accounting for all relevant factors, including rules governing tax exemptions. We show that the 1990–91 tax reform, abolition of the wealth tax for controlling owners in 1997, 2003 tax exemption of dividends and capital gains on listed stock for holding companies with a voting or equity share of at least 10 percent, and abolition of the inheritance and gift taxes in 2004 reversed the rules of the game. Recently, control has largely been wielded through direct ownership, and the role of foundations is rapidly declining. These findings point to the importance of tax incentives for the use of foundations as the control vehicles of listed firms. |
| Keywords: | Corporate governance; Entrepreneurship; Family firms; Foundations; Owner-level taxation |
| JEL: | H20 K34 L26 N44 |
| Date: | 2019–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1279&r=all |
| By: | Tim Johnson; Dalton Conley |
| Abstract: | Since at least T.H. Marshall, scholars have recognized military service as a form of sacrifice that warrants compensation from the state. Indeed, some see the very genesis of the modern welfare state as compensation for wartime sacrifice. War-widow pensions, expansion of the franchise, and subsidized higher education are all examples of rights and benefits “bestowed” in return for wartime mobilization. Similarly, in the U.S., governments have hired veterans preferentially for civilian public jobs as recompense for active military service. Although oft-overlooked, those policies appear influential: the percent of job holders identifying as veterans in the civilian U.S. executive branch exceeds the proportion in the wider population by several multiples. This century-old pattern suggests a significant means by which wartime mobilization has influenced the state. Yet efforts to understand it have struggled to rule out the possibility that those who serve in the armed forces are predisposed to work for the state in both military and civilian capacities (for example, preferring the stability of government employment). Here we rule out this possibility by examining whether birthdates randomly called for induction in the Vietnam-Era Selective Service Lotteries (VSSL) appear disproportionately in the population of non-sensitive personnel records of the civilian U.S. executive branch. We find that birthdates called for induction appear with unusually high frequency among employees who were draft eligible and at risk of induction, but not among other employees. This finding suggests a treatment effect from military service, thus dovetailing with the hypothesis that wartime mobilization has substantially and continually influenced who works in the contemporary administrative state. |
| JEL: | J01 J45 J48 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25859&r=all |
| By: | Jacques Fontanel (CESICE - Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes - UPMF - Université Pierre Mendès France - Grenoble 2 - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes) |
| Abstract: | The United States obtained the leadership on the market economy and capitalism at the end of the World War I, which will give birth, with the USSR, to an antagonistic economic system. In spite of the economic crisis of 1929, the World War II is going to give in Washington the opportunity to reorganize the global economy and to be the undisputed political, economic, military and moral leader of the western developed countries in the face of the planned economy of Soviet Union. After the collapse of this one, the period 1990-2014 is going to be marked by the passage of the hyperpower of the end of the XXth century in the emergence of world economic, political and moral crisis situations favored by the financial speculation, the international debts or the debates on climate change, but also supported by the rise of a confrontational international terrorism and armed conflicts. At the time D. Trump settled in the White House, the Washington leadership is in question because several constituent lines of American power, collecting less the support of its allies and the globalized economic system led to expansion new inequalities which become important in social protest and social factors. |
| Abstract: | Les États-Unis ont obtenu le leadership sur l'économie de marché et le capitalisme à la fin de la Première guerre mondiale, laquelle accouchera, avec l'URSS, d'un système économique antagonique. Malgré la crise économique de 1929, la deuxième guerre mondiale va donner à Washington l'occasion de réorganiser l'économie mondiale et d'être le leader politique, économique, militaire et moral incontesté des pays développés occidentaux face à l'économie planifiée de l'Union Soviétique. Après l'effondrement de celle-ci, la période 1990-2014 va être marquée par le passage de l'hyperpuissance de la fin du XXe siècle à l'émergence de situations de crises économiques, politiques et morales mondiales favorisées par la spéculation financière, l'endettement international ou les débats sur le changement de climat, mais aussi soutenues par l'essor d'un terrorisme international contestataire des valeurs libérales et les conflits armés. Au moment où D. Trump s'installe à la Maison Blanche, le leadership de Washington est en question car plusieurs axes constitutifs de la puissance américaine, ne recueillent plus l'adhésion de ses alliés et le système économique globalisé conduit à l'essor de nouvelles inégalités qui deviennent des facteurs importants de contestation sociale et sociétale. |
| Keywords: | Capitalism,American Leadership,War,Social inequalities,Protectionism,Power,Innovation,Dollar,Economic policy,Economy of market,Environment,Debt,Financial crises,Puissance,Protectionnisme,Politique économique,Leadership américain,Inégalités sociales,Guerre,Environnement,Endettement,Economie de marché,Crises financières,Capitalisme |
| Date: | 2017–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02092002&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: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:633&r=all |
| By: | J. Paul Dunne (School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Ron P Smith (School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the issues involved in estimating the effect of military expenditure on growth and the reasons for the lack of consensus in the literature. It briefly reviews the economic theory, emphasising the difficult identification issues involved in determining the interaction between military expenditure and output and discusses econometric methods for panels. It then takes advantage of the extended SIPRI military spending to construct a relatively large balanced panel of countries for the period 1960-2014. Rather than the usual focus on the direct relation between military spending on growth, it focusses upon the investment channel. It provides estimates of various models examining the interaction between the three variables and finds that the data do not suggest any strong relations between military expenditure and either investment or growth. This is not unexpected given the theoretical and econometric problems identified. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctn:dpaper:2019-01&r=all |
| By: | Aurov, Oleg (Ауров, Олег) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses upon the specific way in which some key events of classical history are presented in medieval Western historiography. This specifics is demonstrated by analyzing the description of Roman Civil war in the medieval “History of Spain” written under the auspices of Alfonso X the Wise (1252-1284), king of Castile and Leon. In the chronicle the main attention is paid to the conflict between G. Iulius Cesar and Gn. Pompey the Great, who were competing for the highest supremacy over the Roman Republic. The chronicle treats the conflict (which had no connection with the local history of Spain) as an important achievement in the history of the united Spain, and the participants of the conflict are represented as important characters of this history (if not its heroes). The paper combines formal and historical approach emphasizing the links existing between the literary forms and political message of the text that is deeply related to the initial phase of the development of the unified Spanish state that finally came into existence by the end of the Middle Ages - beginning of the Modernity. The first part of the paper focuses on the contents of chronicle’s chapters 91-100 and explores the perception of the civil political institutions of the antiquity by the medieval author, who tried to describe it in the terms of medieval political agenda stressing the relations between lords and vassals. The second part deals with chapters 106-120 dedicated to the culmination and the last stage of the conflict. The main attention is paid to the description of the political history of Roman kingdom and Roman Republic and the characteristics of particular political institutions (origin, functions etc.). |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:041914&r=all |
| By: | Pierre Baudry (GSRL - Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités - EPHE - École pratique des hautes études - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Tours, PSL - PSL Research University) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Mercantilism is certainly one of the oldest concepts of political economy. However, its use to describe pre-liberal and pre-industrial Western capitalism has been highly disputed due to the apparent vagueness of its definition. This paper tackles this issue by developing a historical vision of mercantilism, which rests on a heuristic ideal-type. My goal is to developed mercantilism as a complementary concept to Kindelberger's of Hegemonic Stability Theory. The pro-free-trade ‘benevolent hegemon' goes hand in hand with mercantilist states, which need a high level of good export and capital import. The question is then to understand two forms of mercantilism: I call the first one ‘early capitalism', which is typical for developing countries, while ‘late mercantilism' is to be found among aging and developed countries, which maintain a mercantilist policy. Empirically, I focus on Germany's economy since 1945 to illustrate and test this conceptual distinction. I intend to show that West Germany has been an ‘early mercantilist' power and benefited from the much-needed help by the USA after WWII, while it appears more and more as ‘late mercantilist' power since the 2000s. This empirical case shall help illustrate my general framework and shed light on the structural reasons for the disputes over trade between Berlin and Washington under Donald Trump. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: Mercantilism,Hegemonic stability theory,free trade,Kindelberger,Merkel,Trump,USA,Germany,capitalism |
| Date: | 2019–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02105531&r=all |
| By: | Pavelescu, Florin Marius (Institutul de Economie Na?ionala al Academiei Române) |
| Abstract: | The paper shows the evolution of Romania's education system during a century after the 1918 Great Union and identifies four great phases, determinated by external shocks and by transformations of economic and social-political system, namely: a) 1919-1939 (interwar period), b) 1940-1947 (period of the World War Two and of the first post war years), c) 1948-1989 (period of command economy) and d) 1990-2017 (period of reimplementation of market mechanisms and integration into European Union). The chapters of the paper are related to the above-mentioned phases and emphasize the relevant aspects of the changes of the institutional-legislative framework and of the features of governmental education policies, on the one hand, the dynamics of the school population, of graduates and of the teaching staff, on the other hand. A special attention is paid to the development of the tertiary education. It also estimates the average school years of potential active population during the 1966-2011 period. In this context, we are able to identify the conditioning factors of successful implementation of the education reforms and their positive outcomes for economic and social development in the long run. |
| Keywords: | Education reforms, school population, teaching staff, compulsory education, tertiary education, massification, average school years |
| JEL: | I22 I23 I25 I28 N34 |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ror:seince:181221&r=all |
| By: | Ian Coelho de Souza Almeida (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | In the Germany of the last quarter of the nineteenth-century, the dispute between the German Historical School of Economics and the newly founded Austrian school dominated economic discourse. In this environment, one author stood out in his criticism of both sides: Heinrich Dietzel. Dietzel proposed a theory and method, his Sozialökonomik (social economics), as a solution for the Methodenstreit. This reformulation, while correcting the mistakes of classical political economy, nonetheless followed what he saw the same direction, i.e. of a theoretical discipline with its object of study clearly delimited within the moral/social sciences. The intention was detaching from the latest developments (such as John Stuart Mill’s) as well as from what he saw as other erroneous criticism that, at the time, existed in German-speaking countries. This paper presents Dietzel’s work as relates to all these concerns and to the idea of social science as existed at the time. |
| Keywords: | Heinrich Dietzel; Sozialökonomik; Social Economics; Methodenstreit; Value Theory; History of Economic Thought; Wilhelm DiltheyClassification-JEL: O3 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td602&r=all |
| By: | Pavon-Prado, David |
| Abstract: | Unlike the standard and erroneous practice of using the federal funds rate or another intermediate target to measure the monetary policy stance, a new procedure is developed using the actual Federal Reserve’s instruments and the spread between short-term rates and the discount rate. Accordingly, I estimate a time-varying coefficient Bayesian SVAR for the interwar period and 1958- 2007. The new technique unveils a new mechanism operating between Fed’s policies and the real economy. The results show that monetary policy was mostly irrelevant for the interwar period, but the situation changed after 1958. For this last case, however, the new mechanism, which focuses on the cost at which banks obtain reserves, explains that positive spreads between the federal funds rate and the discount rate contributed to increasing inflation, revealing that the “price puzzle” is non-existent. |
| Keywords: | Federal Reserve; monetary policy |
| JEL: | E58 E52 E51 E43 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:28342&r=all |
| By: | Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (Cedeplar-UFMG); Alexandre Mendes Cunha (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | When compared to the conditions currently prevailing internationally, the history of economics occupies a privileged position within Brazil. After discussing some of the dilemmas that have affected the field over recent decades, the paper examines the distinctive elements that characterize the Brazilian scholarly community. Using a few quantitative indicators, we then present an overview of the current state of Brazilian training and research on the history of economics, analyzing the contents covered in courses, the role played in graduate and undergraduate education, the level of internationalization and the choices among different methodological approaches. The paper concludes by discussing some implications of the results for the future of the field in Brazil. |
| Keywords: | History of economics; Teaching of economics; Internationalization; Historiography. |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td603&r=all |
| By: | Lloyd, S.; Solomou, S. |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effect of the 1932 British General Tariff on the output, labour productivity and employment growth of British industries. We provide a new disaggregated data set that matches industry-level Census of Production data with industry-specific tariff rates to accurately isolate treatment and control groups and estimate the effect of the General Tariff using difference-in-difference regressions. We evaluate a two-group comparison, between newly and non-newly protected industries, and a three-group comparison, between non-newly protected industries and newly protected industries further divided into those given a baseline 10 percent tariff rate and those given additional tariffs. In the two-group comparison, we identify a tariff effect that is large and statistically significant on output and productivity. In the three-group comparison, we show that the positive output and productivity effects of the tariff arise from the additional tariff protection, over and above the 10 percent level. These effects are observed over the periods 1930-35 and 1930-48, suggesting both short-run and medium-term effects on output and productivity of UK industries protected by the 1932 General tariff. |
| Keywords: | Trade Policy, General Tariff, Difference-in-Difference |
| JEL: | F13 N64 |
| Date: | 2019–01–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1940&r=all |
| By: | Shari Eli; Trevon D. Logan; Boriana Miloucheva |
| Abstract: | We estimate racial differences in longevity using records from cohorts of Union Army veterans. Since veterans received pensions based on proof of disability at medical exams, estimates of the causal effect of income on mortality may be biased, as sicker veterans received larger pensions. To circumvent endogeneity bias, we propose an exogenous source of variation in pension income: the judgment of the doctors who certified disability. We find that doctors appeared to discriminate against black veterans. The discrimination we observe is acute—we would not observe any racial mortality differences had physicians not been racially biased in determining pension awards. The effect of income on health was indeed large enough to close the black-white mortality gap in the period. Our work emphasizes that the large effects of physicians’ attitudes on racial differentials in health, which persist today amongst both veterans and the civilian population, were equally prominent in the past. |
| JEL: | I14 I3 N11 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25846&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. |
| 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:cep:cepdps:dp1620&r=all |
| By: | Tena Junguito, Antonio; Ayuso-Díaz, Alejandro |
| Abstract: | During the interwar years, Japanese industrialisation accelerated alongside the expansion of industrial exports to regional markets. Trade blocs in the interwar years were used as an instrument of imperial power to foster exports and as a substitute for productivity to encourage industrial production. The historiography on Japanese industrialisation in the interwar years describes heavy industries' interests in obtaining access to wider markets to increase economies of scale and reduce unit costs. However, this literature provides no quantitative evidence that proves the success of those mechanisms in expanding exports. In this paper we scrutinise how Japan—a relatively poor country—used colonial as well as informal power interventions to expand regional markets for its exports, especially for the most intensive human capital sector of the industrializing economy. |
| Keywords: | Interwar Years; Japan; Trade Blocs; Empires; International Trade |
| JEL: | N75 N15 F14 |
| Date: | 2019–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:28350&r=all |
| By: | John Asker; C. Scott Hemphill |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine exclusion accomplished by a coalition of firms—frequently, a coalition of suppliers and customers—that share the benefits of exclusion. As a particular historical example, we study the Canadian sugar industry of the 1880s, which was controlled by a complex coalition of refiners and wholesalers. We assess the incentives and conduct of the parties as revealed in the records of a House of Commons inquiry into anticompetitive practices in the industry. Drawing upon this example, we identify and evaluate several doctrinal approaches to establishing antitrust liability for anticompetitive exclusionary coalitions. |
| JEL: | D43 K21 L40 L41 L42 N81 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25856&r=all |