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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2019‒10‒28
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Arthur Mustafin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This article uses the records of monastic account books to assess the level of prices in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The data from these books allow us to construct salt and rye price series, and identify prices of other goods for single years. The resulting numbers demonstrate that the prices remained largely unchanged. The exceptions were the mid-1640s and the early 1660s, when the price fluctuations were driven by the failed financial reforms. The available data shows the prices did not change synchronically in Russia and Europe. Our assumption, therefore, is that Russia stood apart from the price revolution of Western Europe in the seventeenth century |
| Keywords: | price revolution, monastic account books, price lists, price series, Alexei Mikhailovich’s reforms |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:179/hum/2019&r=all |
| By: | Guillaume Blanc (Brown University) |
| Abstract: | This research identifies the origins of the early demographic transition in France, before the French Revolution and more than a century before the rest of Europe. We provide strong empirical evidence suggesting that secularization accounts for the bulk of the decline in fertility and document large, significant, and robust results across specifications, datasets, and estimation methods. We draw on a novel individual-level historical dataset crowdsourced from publicly available genealogies to establish a causal interpretation. This dataset allows to control for time-varying unobservables, to study the effect of secularization before and after demographic change, and to exploit the choice of migrants in the aftermath of the decline in religiosity. Finally, we discuss the roots of the rapid and early process of secularization and suggest that the strength of the Counter Reformation following the demise of Protestantism in France played an important part. Our findings demonstrate that cultural change and the transition to modernity and away from tradition can shape development. |
| Keywords: | fertility,modernization,development,secularization |
| Date: | 2019–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02318180&r=all |
| By: | Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech); Antoine Missemer (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Energy efficiency can be considered as a central pillar of global warming mitigation, with important co-benefits, including productivity gains, resource conservation or national security. It is also a subject of controversy between engineers and economists, who have divergent conceptions of the notion of optimality that delineates energy efficiency potentials. Modern surveys hardly go back beyond the 1970s and do not fully explore the reasons and conditions for the persistent differences between economists' and engineers' views. This paper provides such a historical account, investigating the positioning of economic analysis in contrast to the technical expertise on key energy efficiency topics – the rebound effect, the energy efficiency gap, and green nudges, from the 19th century to the present day. It highlights the permanence and evolution in the relationship that economists have had with technical expertise. An extension of the current conceptual framework is finally provided to connect our historical findings with avenues for future research. |
| Keywords: | engineering,nudge,history of economic thought,energy efficiency,market barriers and failures |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:ciredw:halshs-02301636&r=all |
| By: | José A Peres-Cajías (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a general assessment of the economic activity in Bolivian regions thanks to an estimation, for the first time, of regional GDPs in Bolivia from 1950 onwards. The new quantitative evidence shows the economic upsurge and consolidation of new regions beyond the traditional economic zones, which were located to the west of the country since colonial times. This process is in stark contrast with most Latin American experiences, where economic activity has tended to be concentrated continuously in the same regions since the mid-19th century. This changing pattern is firstly explained by the availability of natural resources endowments. However, given the landlocked nature of the country, the vibrant set of ecological regions and the consequent relevance of transports costs, it is argued that natural resources may act as potent engines of regional economic growth only when a minimum network of public infrastructure is available. |
| Keywords: | Natural Resources, Regional convergence, Regional inequality, Landlockness, Bolivia |
| JEL: | N16 N56 N96 R12 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0169&r=all |
| By: | Jagjit S Chadha; Ana Rincon-Aznar; Sylaja Srinivasan; Ryland Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an inventory of the available macroeconomic statistics in the UK for the last hundred years or so. The focus is on documenting the higher frequency (daily, monthly and quarterly) macroeconomic data that are available after the World War 1, rather than longer run annual time series which has been the focus of other collections. It discusses some of the challenges that need to be overcome in order to create a continuous historical dataset over this period. The inventory follows the structure of the Economic Trends Annual Supplement (ETAS) that was produced for many years by the Office for National Statistics. It covers statistics on National Accounts, prices, labour market indicators, selected demand and output indicators and financial market data (including money and credit aggregates). Using this structure the paper explores to what extent it is possible to create a consistent, usable and comprehensive high frequency macroeconomic dataset back to the 1920s and earlier. |
| Keywords: | national accounts, macroeconomics, UK Statistics |
| JEL: | C82 E01 N1 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesrd:509&r=all |
| By: | Jane Humphries; Benjamin Schneider |
| Abstract: | In our earlier paper we used archival and printed primary sources to construct the first long-run series of wages for hand spinning in early modern Britain. Our evidence challenged Robert Allen’s claim that spinners were part of the ‘High Wage Economy’, which he sees as motivating invention, innovation, and mechanisation in the spinning section of the textile industry. Here we respond to Allen’s criticism of our argument, sources and methods, and his presentation of alternative evidence. Allen contends that we have understated both the earnings and associated productivity of hand spinners by focussing on part-time and low-quality workers. His rejoinder is found to rest on an ahistorical account of spinners’ work and similarly weak evidence on wages as did his initial claims. We also present an expanded version of the spinners’ wages dataset, which confirms our original findings: spinners’ wages were low even compared with other women workers and did not follow a trajectory which could explain the invention and spread of the spinning jenny. |
| Keywords: | hand spinning, women's wages, Industrial Revolution, textiles, Great Divergence, induced innovation, High Wage Economy |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J42 J46 N13 N33 N63 O14 O31 |
| Date: | 2019–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_174&r=all |
| By: | David Escamilla-Guerrero |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces and analyses the Mexican Border Crossing Records (MBCRs), an unexplored data source that records aliens crossing the Mexico-United States land border at diverse entrance ports from 1903 to 1955. The MBCRs identify immigrants and report rich demographic, geographic and socioeconomic information at the in¬dividual level. These micro data have the potential to support cliometric research, which is scarce for the Mexico-United States migration, especially for the beginnings of the flow (1884–1910). My analysis of the MBCRs suggests that previous literature might have inaccurately described the initial patterns of the flow. The results diverge from historical scholarship because the micro data capture better the geographic composition of the flow, allowing me to characterize the initial migration patterns with more precision. Overall, the micro data reported in the MBCRs offer the opportunity to address topics that concern the economics of migration in the past and present. |
| Keywords: | migration, micro data, Mexico |
| JEL: | N01 N36 |
| Date: | 2019–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_173&r=all |
| By: | Carolyn Sissoko (University of the West of England, Bristol) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that Britain’s monetary system at the start of the Napoleonic Wars was substantially different from its monetary system at their end, and that the Restriction and the Bank of England’s discount policy during the Restriction played a determining role in the transformation of the monetary system. Specifically, I argue that Britain’s monetary system through the second half of the 18th century was built on transaction-based credit, and that by the end of the war this monetary system had been transformed into one based on personal credit. I find that the Bullion Committee deliberately reset the public’s inflation expectations in order to stabilize the monetary system. And that the Bank was acting as a lender of last resort with an explicit duty to support commercial interests in the crisis of 1810-11. |
| Date: | 2019–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwe:wpaper:20191906&r=all |
| By: | Victor Ginsburgh; Stamos Metzidakis |
| Abstract: | Arthur Rimbaud’s sonnet Vowels presents a poetic vision based ostensibly on a quasi-psychedelic or synesthetic experience. It has inspired writers, critics, painters, and singers for over a century mainly because of its often obscure form and content. From the first verse of the text, for instance, the author juxtaposes each of the normal five French vowels printed in capital letters with what appears to be a random choice of an "appropriate" color. As a result, the majority of readers assume that these colors somehow correspond, semantically speaking, to the selected vowels. In making such connections, however, our poet suggests that his specific fusion of basic colors and sounds is capable of generating not just one but multiple significations, be they religious, erotic, aesthetic, even anthropological. Yet the poem itself - an irregular French sonnet - already derives much of its obscurity from another odd feature: the faulty order of French vowels used by Rimbaud: A to O instead of A to U or Y. Formal explanations are often cited to justify this so-called "mistake." This paper demonstrates that his poem hides a different interpretation of the words used to expand upon these sound/color combinations. After all, vowels are metonymically linked to sounds, since they constitute the minimal elements of the latter. Contemporary linguists have discovered, however, that in almost all languages, colors come in the same fixed order of words - Black, White, Red, Green and Blue - that Rimbaud proposes. Indeed, in countless documents created over millennia, people in dissimilar societies have tended to identify the same basic colors in the same sequence, for reasons we can only begin to explore here. This previously unnoticed coincidence thus provides further proof that Rimbaud’s sonnet thematically conflates ideas about the historical Beginnings and Endings of various civilizations. Thanks to this chronological conflation, the poem also develops more effectively than previously thought three major themes: the Apocalypse, the Final Judgment, and the future of poetic language. Through its form and content, it thus specifically illustrates the future of French poetry, which Rimbaud compares elsewhere, paradoxically, to Ancient Greek poetry. |
| Keywords: | ancient languages, Arthur Rimbaud, clairvoyance, symbolist poetics, synaesthesia, the Apocalypse of St. John |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/294516&r=all |
| By: | Maya Lavrinovich (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with a collection of portraits that used to be located at the Moscow Archive of the College of Foreign Affairs and has not previously attracted attention of scholars. The Archive’s administrator Nikolai Bantysh-Kamenskii began putting this collection together in the 1780s on. The portraits presented all the heads of Posol’skii prikaz and the College of Foreign Affairs beginning from the 1660s. The portraits were placed in the Archive's chambers and served to visually represent the involvement of Archive's administrators in the highest politics of the empire. At the same time, creating this gallery involved the mechanics used a decade earlier by Catherine II as she worked on setting up the gallery at the Chesme Palace. Whereas she supplied her gallery with a literary description, the secretary of the Archive Aleksei Malinovskii composed the biographies of the administrators portrayed at the Archive's gallery – from Afanasii Ordyn-Nashchokin to Mikhail Vorontsov. The composition of the manuscript, subsequently presented to the emperor Alexander I, echoed the structure of the gallery as it existed in the 1780s – the decade which was a turning point in the Archive's institutional development, and in Aleksei Malinovskii’s career as well. |
| Keywords: | visuality, spatial turn, Russia, 18th century, portrait gallery, Moscow Archive of the College of the Foreign Affairs, the heads of the Russian foreign policy, officialdom, career strategies |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:180/hum/2019&r=all |
| By: | Anthony Edo; Jacques Melitz |
| Abstract: | We perform the first econometric test to date of the influences of inflows of precious metals and population growth on the “Great Inflation” in Europe following the discovery of the New World. The English evidence strongly supports the near-equivalent importance of both influences. For 1500-1700, silver is the only relevant precious metal in the estimates. The study controls for urbanization, government spending, mortality crises and climatic changes. The series for inflows of the precious metals into Europe from America and European mining are newly constructed based on the secondary sources. |
| Keywords: | The “Great Inflation”;Demography;Precious Metals;European Economic History 1500-1700 |
| JEL: | E31 F00 J10 N13 N33 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2019-10&r=all |
| By: | Giulio Mellinato |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the process of politicization of the highest levels of the global commercial connectivity network, during its formative decades. The paper highlights the role played by the differences among the national approaches, along with some of the key mechanisms driving the development of the maritime sector during the considered period. As the preferred instrument for the development of the national system of long-range maritime connectivity, the shipping subsidies were diffused almost everywhere. However, the interactions with the institutional, sociotechnical and commercial national environments produced very dissimilar outcomes in different countries, with direct reflections in the construction of the commercial connectivity conditions, acting indirectly also over the evolution of the geopolitical scenario. |
| JEL: | F02 F14 F52 N40 N70 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:421&r=all |
| By: | Mohajan, Haradhan |
| Abstract: | The First Industrial Revolution began in England in about 1750–1760 that lasted to sometime between 1820 and 1840. It is one of the most distinguished turning points in human history. During this period human and animal labour technology transformed into machinery, such as the steam engine, the spinning jenny, coke smelting, puddling and rolling processes for making iron, etc. Industrial Revolution is renewed for global economic growth, increase in production and consumption of common people. The system of transportation communication through canals, road and rails had improved. Also banking and other financial systems improved to run the industries and business firms smoothly. Child and infant mortality rate decreased and fertility rate increased. As a result, population growth had dramatically changed. On the other hand, women and child labour has increased in dangerous and unhygienic condition. Factory workers have to work sixteen hours in a day merely to save the family from starvation. Industrial Revolution created a wide gap between the rich and the poor. An attempt has taken here to describe the various effects of Industrial Revolution. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution, Technological Change, Human Capital, Economic Development |
| JEL: | N0 N5 |
| Date: | 2019–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96644&r=all |
| By: | Graziella Bertocchi; Monica Bozzano |
| Abstract: | This chapter reviews the growing body of research in economics which concentrates on the education gender gap and its evolution, over time and across countries. The survey first focuses on gender differentials in the historical period that roughly goes from 1850 to the 1940s and documents the deep determinants of the early phase of female education expansion, including preindustrial conditions, religion, and family and kinship patterns. Next, the survey describes the stylized facts of contemporaneous gender gaps in education, from the 1950s to the present day, accounting for several alternative measures of attainment and achievement and for geographic and temporal differentiations. The determinants of the gaps are then summarized, while keeping a strong emphasis on an historical perspective and disentangling factors related to the labor market, family formation, psychological elements, and societal cultural norms. A discussion follows of the implications of the education gender gap for multiple realms, from economic growth to family life, taking into account the potential for reverse causation. Special attention is devoted to the persistency of gender gaps in the STEM and economics fields. |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:142&r=all |
| By: | Lebdioui, Amir |
| Abstract: | Conventional wisdom has proclaimed Chile's recent economic development a ?free market miracle?. In an examination of Chile's export diversification experience, this article departs from that view. By analysing the dynamics underlying the emergence of the salmon, fruit, forestry and wine sectors in Chile's export basket since the 1960s, the study sheds light on the crucial role of industrial policy in the process of capability accumulation that shapes new industries. The article undertakes a qualitative historical analysis of the scope and nature of policy interventions in each of the four sectors and conducts a quantitative policy evaluation using the difference-in-difference method. It finds that public institutions are essential in overcoming market failures inhibiting the emergence of new industries. Specifically, it shows that the government has a key role to play as a catalyst of human capital accumulation, as a venture capitalist, in trade promotion, and in ensuring ?national? sector reputation through a strong regulatory and quality control role. By elaborating on the dynamic process of structural transformation and capability accumulation, this article contributes to theoretical debates on the role of vertical policies in the emergence of new competitive sectors, and debates relating to static versus dynamic approaches to comparative advantage. |
| Keywords: | Chile; exports; forestry; wine; salmon; fruit; industrial policy; difference in difference method |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2019–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:101885&r=all |
| By: | Palma, J. G. |
| Abstract: | The main hypothesis of this paper is that the Chilean economy's poor performance over the last two decades (e.g., average productivity growth collapsed by three quarters vis-à-vis the previous cycle) results from its development strategy having run its course -being now in desperate need of a full “upgrade” (one capable of generating new engines of productivity growth; e.g., the industrialisation of commodities, a “green new deal”, or the spread of the new technological paradigm to the four corners of the economy). The same can be said of the neo-liberal ideology at its foundations, as most of its “absolute certainties” are being shaken to the core. However, neither the (not so) invisible hand of distorted markets, nor centre-left or centre-right governments have had much of a clue as to how to bring this change about. There is also (unlike, say, in some Asian economies) a generalised lack of nerve to do anything about it. Consequently, the Chilean economy is now jammed in a rather transparent -and self-made- “middle-income trap”. In fact, change has come in the opposite direction: in order to reinforce the growingly fragile status quo, a new policy-straightjacket has been added in the form of the Transpacific Treaty, or TPP-11, which gives large corporations (foreign and domestic) a de facto veto against any change in policy. In turn, the advanced countries’ “reverse catching-up” isn’t helping either, as this also helps reinforce the convictions of those in Chile defending the status quo. We are all now indeed converging in the West, north and south, but towards Latin American features such as mobile élites creaming off the rewards of economic growth, and ‘magic realist’ politics that lack self-respect if not originality. In fact, it is now even tempting to say to those in the high-income OECD “Welcome to the Third World”. |
| Keywords: | Chile, Latin America, emerging Asia, Catching-up, “Reverse catching-up”, Export “upgrading”, Productivity, Immigration, “premature” de-industrialisation, Keynes, Hirschman, Foucault, Neo-liberalism, Inequality, Rent-seeking |
| JEL: | B52 E20 F13 F53 H54 J20 L52 N16 N66 O16 O40 P50 |
| Date: | 2019–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1991&r=all |
| By: | Bobo B. Kabungu (Bircham International University, INTS - Institut National du Travail Social, CRESH - Centre de Recherche en Sciences Humaines) |
| Abstract: | Social protection is a duty of the community to its members in penalizing situation despite their willingness to contribute to the progress of society. Using a documentary review and an historical and comparative analysis, this article presents, through a descriptive way, how this phenomenon evolved during the last century in the developed countries in general and in France mainly. It also connects the notion of poverty and inequality and shows how France is positioning itself in new social risks. It appears that French architecture rules out some of them. However, the reforms of the social protection system initiated in France since the beginning of the 1980s attest to the willingness of civil society and public authorities to integrate the transformations of the social environment into policies. |
| Abstract: | La protection sociale est un devoir de la communauté vis-à-vis de ses membres en situation pénalisante malgré leur disposition à contribuer au progrès de la société. Grâce à une revue documentaire et à une analyse historico-comparative, cet article présente, via un schéma descriptif, comment ce phénomène a évolué durant le siècle dernier dans les pays développés en général et en France principalement. Il fait également un trait d'union entre la notion de pauvreté et celle des inégalités et montre comment la France se positionne face aux enjeux liés à aux nouveaux risques sociaux. Il en ressort que l'architecture française dans le domaine en laisse certains hors du système formel. Cependant, les réformes du système de protection sociale engagées en France depuis le début des années 1980 attestent de la volonté de la société civile et des autorités publiques à intégrer les transformations de l'environnement social dans les politiques au niveau national. |
| Keywords: | France,new social risks,poverty,Social protection,inequality,inégalité,pauvreté,Protection sociale,nouveaux risques sociaux |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02314590&r=all |
| By: | Lee, Jongkwan (Korea Development Institute); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis); Yasenov, Vasil (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | We examine the labor market consequences of an extensive campaign repatriating around 400,000 Mexicans in 1929-34. To identify a causal effect, we instrument county level repatriations with the existence of a railway line to Mexico interacted with the size of the Mexican communities in 1910. Using individual linked data we find that Mexican repatriations reduced employment of native incumbent workers and resulted in their occupational downgrading. However, using a repeated cross section of county level data, we find attenuated and non-significant employment effects and amplified wage downgrading. We show that this is due to selective in- and out-migration of natives. |
| Keywords: | Mexican repatriations, Great Depression, employment, immigration, railway |
| JEL: | J15 J21 J61 N32 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12689&r=all |
| By: | Linda Dezsö; George Loewenstein |
| Abstract: | The existence of an asymmetric history between bargaining partners can trigger self-serving beliefs about the fair settlement of a subsequent dispute, ultimately leading to bargaining impasse. In a two-stage bargaining experiment, we demonstrate that dyads who share a history that produced wealth asymmetries between them are less likely to settle in a subsequent negotiation than when the same wealth asymmetry stems from partners’ independent histories. When partners share an asymmetric history, the individual who previously lost out in the first stage believes that s/he deserves compensation in the second-stage, but the individual who prevailed in the first stage believes that compensation is not called for. These divergent, self-serving, views about a fair settlement – and the resulting irreconcilable demands – lead to bargaining impasse. We find, further, that unbiased spectators side with the losers in the first stage; they believe that it is fair for them to be compensated in the second stage. Indeed, this is true albeit to a lesser extent, even if the winner and loser had not directly interacted with one-another – i.e., if the history is not shared. |
| JEL: | C78 D91 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vie:viennp:1906&r=all |
| By: | Chad P. Bown (Peterson Institute for International Economics); Jennifer A. Hillman (Georgetown University Law Center) |
| Abstract: | The United States, European Union, and Japan have begun a trilateral process to confront the Chinese economic model, including its use of industrial subsidies and deployment of state-owned enterprises. This paper seeks to identify the main areas of tension and to assess the legal-economic challenges to constructing new rules to address the underlying conflict. It begins by providing a brief history of subsidy disciplines in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) predating any concerns introduced by China. It then describes contemporary economic problems with China's approach to subsidies, their impact, and the apparent ineffectiveness of the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) to address them. Finally, it calls for increased efforts to measure and pinpoint the source of the problems--in a manner analogous to how the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) took on agricultural subsidies in the 1980s--before providing a legal-economic assessment of proposals for reforms to notifications, evidence, remedies, enforcement, and the definition of a subsidy. |
| Keywords: | WTO, subsidy, state-owned enterprise, dispute settlement |
| JEL: | F13 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp19-17&r=all |
| By: | M.J. Boumans |
| Abstract: | This survey is written to show historians of economics what is happening in history of econometrics, and is the second survey I did with this aim. The first survey, published in 2011, concluded that interest in the history of econometrics has arisen primarily from within econometrics itself and that its histories have been written mainly by econometricians. After the publication of the first survey, history of econometrics remained mainly the interest of econometricians. More recently, however, one can observe an increasing interest in the history of econometrics among historians of economics and historians of science. It seems that if the subject of study is econometrics as a discipline it remains to be of interest only to the econometricians, but if the subject is the artefacts created by econometricians, such as econometric models, it caught the attention of historians of science. |
| Keywords: | history of econometrics, metaphors, scientific revolution, discipline, crediting, science practice |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1810&r=all |
| By: | Jose García-Quevedo (Universitat de Barcelona & Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB)); Xavier Massa-Camps (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The motives that firms have for investing in energy efficiency have been widely analysed in the literature. Particularly, there is a huge literature on barriers to energy efficiency investment and adoption. This paper reviews the econometric analyses carried out in this field. The main objective is to provide a general overview of the state of the econometric literature on the barriers and drivers of energy efficiency. We examine the main features of these studies and particularly the results of the explanatory variables used. We have classified them into three groups, barriers, drivers and firm characteristics. The paper ends with some suggestions for further analysis in order to improve our knowledge of energy efficiency investment. |
| Keywords: | Energy efficiency, Literature review |
| JEL: | Q40 C01 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2019-07&r=all |
| By: | Françoise Delmez (UNamur - DeFiPP) |
| Abstract: | Using an dynamic panel of 15 developed countries over the 1960-2010 period, this paper compares employment and hours recovery paths after financial vs. non-financial crises. We show that post financial crises recoveries display a stronger uplift of individual hours and a weaker one of the employment rate. The results are robust to controlling for the strength of the recovery in terms of GDP growth per capita, the depth of the preceeding recession, labour-market institutions differences potentially correlated with financial vs non-financial crises and for dynamic panel bias. In conclusion, we argue that considering both margins of employment, in particular the role of extended hours in coping with rising output, improves our understanding of financial crises as a source of jobless recoveries. |
| Keywords: | Financial crises, jobless recoveries, employment, working time |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2019015&r=all |
| By: | Gaétan de Rassenfosse (Chair of Innovation and IP Policy, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland); Jan Kozak; Florian Seliger (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | The dataset provides geographic coordinates for inventor and applicant locations in 18.8 million patent documents spanning over more than 30 years. The geocoded data are further allocated to the corresponding countries, regions and cities. When the address information was missing in the original patent document, we imputed it by using information from subsequent filings in the patent family. The resulting database can be used to study patenting activity at a fine-grained geographic level without creating bias towards the traditional, established patent offices. |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:19-458&r=all |
| By: | Bakari, Sayef; Tiba, Sofien |
| Abstract: | This paper aimed at examining the tie between domestic investment, total consumption, and external debt in the case of Tunisia over the period 1970-2017. By applying the VECM, in the long-run, our findings recorded the fact that that external debt and domestic investment have a negative effect on total consumption. However, we found a significant negative impact of the total consumption and external debt on domestic investment. In the short run, we recorded that only total consumption and external debt cause domestic investment. Due to the importance of our insights, several lessons for Tunisia in terms of commitment towards the aims of the 14 January revolution and reforms should be undertaken. |
| Keywords: | Domestic investment, Total consumption, External debt, VECM, Tunisia. |
| JEL: | E21 E22 F34 O55 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96616&r=all |
| By: | Christophe Blot (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | Cet article discute la notion d’indépendance des banques centrales en s’appuyant sur une analyse critique des fondements du modèle qui s’est imposée dans les années 1990 et en analysant son évolution récente. De fait, les banques centrales sont aujourd’hui fortement impliquées sur les questions de stabilité financière et ont des interactions croissantes avec la politique budgétaire. Nous suggérons alors que l’indépendance des banques centrales n’est pas une condition suffisante pour l’efficacité des politiques économiques. L’élargissement de leur mandat et les interactions avec la politique budgétaire et la régulation financière invitent plutôt à renforcer le contrôle démocratique des banques centrales et la coordination entre la politique monétaire, la politique budgétaire et la politique prudentielle. À cette fin, nous proposons de revoir la composition des comités en charge de la mise en œuvre des politiques monétaire et de régulation financière afin d’internaliser les externalités et de coordonner les décisions. |
| Keywords: | Banque centrale; Stabilité financière; Politique budgétaire; Politique monétaire |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5pkvq1illj8of8gekm6t6r0dg5&r=all |
| By: | Kasey Buckles (University of Notre Dame); Melanie E. Guldi (University of Central Florida); Lucie Schmidt (Williams College) |
| Abstract: | After roughly 10 years of decline, the U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2017. However, aggregate trends in fertility mask substantial heterogeneity across different demographic groups. Young women and unmarried women have seen the largest declines in fertility in recent years while women older than 30 and married women have actually experienced increases. In this paper, we explore the role of changes in unintended births in explaining fertility patterns in the U.S. from 1980 to 2017, with an emphasis on the fertility decline of the last decade. We begin by documenting heterogeneity in fertility trends across demographic groups, using data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Natality Detail Files. We then use data from the National Survey of Family Growth to describe trends in unintended births and to estimate a model that will identify the maternal characteristics that most strongly predict them. Finally, we use this model to predict the proportion of births in the Natality Detail Files that are unintended. We find that 35% of the decline in fertility between 2007 and 2016 can be explained by declines in births that were likely unintended, and that this is driven by drops in births to young women. |
| JEL: | I1 J10 J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2019-20&r=all |
| By: | Freeman, Dena |
| Abstract: | This article is concerned with the question of why economic inequality has increased so dramatically in recent decades and what can be done about it. It suggests that the fundamental cause of the recent rise in economic inequality, underlying all the more proximate factors, is a major process of de-democratisation that has taken place since the 1970s, which has increased the political representation of capital while reducing that of labour. The article pulls together a wide range of research from different disciplines in order to decisively show the ways in which economic governance has been de-democratised in this period. This analysis has important consequences with regard to policy attempts to reduce inequality and suggests that these must focus not on technical issues but on ways to strengthen democracy. And if the dynamics of de-democratisation are fundamentally global, then solutions must also be global. These conclusions are in stark contrast with current academic and policy approaches which tend to focus on technical, rather than political, solutions, and which focus overwhelmingly at the national, rather than the global, level. This article thus calls for a major rethinking of the causes of rising inequality and the policy changes needed to reduce it. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2018–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:88038&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: | Résumé : Les études philosophiques et religieuses ont dominé l'analyse économique jusqu'à l'essor de la réflexion mercantiliste. Celle-ci n'est pas une théorie unifiée, mais elle présente quelques caractéristiques communes comme la recherche de la puissance du Prince, le poids accordé aux métaux précieux pour définir la richesse d'un pays et la banalisation de la guerre comme processus de prédation et de la guerre économique. Les différences concernent la thésaurisation des métaux précieux, l'importance du secteur secondaire et du commerce. Plusieurs philosophes ont contesté ces analyses notamment Grotius, Hume, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau ou Montesquieu. L'analyse mercantiliste va être condamnée par Adam Smith en 1776, avec la publication de son célèbre ouvrage sur la « Richesse des Nations ». La guerre est une réalité ancienne, déjà conceptualisée par les philosophes grecs. Deux postulats philosophiques s'affrontent concernant les causes des guerres. Pour le déterminisme, si l'univers est mû par la guerre, les hommes ne sont que des pions qu'une volonté aveugle fait obéir. Dans ce contexte, l'homme n'est pas vraiment responsable et il est un acteur involontaire et irresponsable de la guerre. Au contraire, les philosophes de la liberté insistent sur le fait que la guerre est le produit d'un choix et d'une responsabilité des humains. Elle été progressivement justifiée comme une décision exceptionnelle des autorités politiques et religieuses, lourde de conséquences, qui proclament que le |
| Keywords: | Mercantilisme,Métaux précieux,manufactures,commerce,Actes de navigation,analyses économiques et politiques de Aristote,Platon,Colbert,Grotius,Hume,Hobbes,Spinoza,Locke,Rousseau ou Montesquieu |
| Date: | 2019–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02314440&r=all |