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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2019‒12‒23
24 papers chosen by |
| By: | Bukowski, Pawel; Novokmet, Filip |
| Abstract: | How has Polish inequality evolved between communism and capitalism to reach one of the highest levels in Europe today? To address this question, we construct the first consistent series on the long-term distribution of income in Poland by combining tax, household survey and national accounts data. We document a U-shaped evolution of inequalities from the end of the 19th century until today: (i) inequality was high before WWII; (ii) abruptly fell after the introduction of communism in 1947 and stagnated at low levels during the whole communist period; (iii) experienced a sharp rise with the return to capitalism in 1989. Between 1989 and 2015 the top 10% income share increased from 23% to 35% and the top 1% income share from 4% to 13%. We find that official survey-based measures strongly under-estimate the rise of inequality since 1989. Our new estimates show that frequently quoted Poland’s transition success has largely benefited top income groups. We find that inequality was high in the first half of the 20th century due to strong concentration of capital income at the top of the distribution. The secular fall after WW2 was largely to a combination of capital income shocks from war destructions with communist policies both eliminating private ownership and forcing wage compression. The rise of inequality after the return to capitalism in the early 1990s was induced both by the rise of top labour and capital incomes. However, the strong rise in inequality in the 2000s was driven solely by the increase in top capital incomes, which is likely related to current globalization forces. Yet overall, the unique Polish inequality history speaks about the central role of policies and institutions in shaping inequality in the long run. |
| JEL: | D31 E01 J30 N34 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:102834&r=all |
| By: | Zachary Ward |
| Abstract: | A large body of evidence suggests that intergenerational mobility in the United States has declined over the past 150 years. However, research that finds high relative mobility in America’s past is based on data with few or no black families, and therefore does not account for the limited opportunities available for African Americans. Moreover, historical studies often measure the father’s economic status with error, which biases estimates towards greater mobility. Using new early 20th century data, I show that the persistence of economic status from father to son is over twice as strong after accounting for racial disparities and for measurement error. After addressing these two issues, I estimate that relative mobility has increased over the 20th century. The results imply that there is greater equality of opportunity today than in the early 20th century, mostly because opportunity was never that equal. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, measurement error, persistence |
| JEL: | J62 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:082&r=all |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | Sharp declines in wealth-concentration occurred across Europe and the US during the 20th century. But this stylized fact is based on declared wealth. It is possible that today the richest are not less rich but rather that they are hiding much of their wealth. This paper proposes a method to measure this hidden wealth, in any form. In England, 1920-1992, elites are concealing 20-32% of their wealth. Among dynasties, hidden wealth, independent of declared wealth, predicts appearance in the Offshore Leaks Database of 2013-6, house values in 1999, and Oxbridge attendance, 1990-2016. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates one-third of the observed decline of top 10% wealth-share over the past century |
| Keywords: | hidden wealth; inequality; economic history; big data; tax evasion |
| JEL: | N00 N33 N34 D31 H26 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:102830&r=all |
| By: | Schneider, Nathan (University of Colorado Boulder) |
| Abstract: | for Care for the World: Laudato Si’ and Catholic Social Thought in an Era of Climate Crisis, edited by Frank Pasquale (Cambridge University Press, 2019) At several key moments in Laudato Si’, Pope Francis makes passing reference to cooperative economics – when speaking of a more human relationship with technology, for instance, and in relation to sustainable energy production. Reading these in light of his past statements on economic cooperation, it is evident that “cooperative,” for him, is no vague nicety; rather, he is referring to a robust tradition of Catholic economic thought grounded in distributed ownership of the means of production and the precedence of persons over capital. This essay reviews the contours of the tradition that the pope is referring to, beginning with his own past statements on cooperative enterprise. It considers the foundations in biblical narratives of the early church; notions of the commons in early canon law; economic practices in monastic cultures; Catholic leadership in the emergence of modern cooperation; and the current, complex interactions between Catholic thought and the secular resurgence of cooperative economics. In addition to tying together historical threads, it draws from reporting on contemporary cooperative enterprise and on Francis’s pre-papal history with cooperativism in Argentina. Cooperative economics is a central yet under-appreciated backdrop to what the pope attempted to accomplish in Laudato Si’, and a vital component of the hope for “integral ecology” that he envisions. |
| Date: | 2019–02–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:jhrmd&r=all |
| By: | Claude Diebolt; Tapas Mishra; Faustine Perrin |
| Abstract: | Recent theoretical developments of growth models, especially on unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off has been a central element of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to sustained growth. Using a unique census-based dataset, this article explores the role of gender on the trade-off between education and fertility across 86 French counties during the nineteenth century, as an empirical extension of Diebolt and Perrin (2013, 2019a). We first test the existence of the child quantity-quality trade-off in 1851. Second, we explore the long-run effect of education on fertility from a gendered approach. Two important results emerge: (i) significant and negative association between education and fertility is found, and (ii) such a relationship is non-uniform over the distribution of education/fertility. While our results suggest the existence of a negative and significant effect of the female endowments in human capital on the fertility transition, the effects of negative endowment almost disappear at a low level of fertility. |
| Keywords: | Gender difference; Cliometrics; Individuals’ choice; Education; Fertility; ; Quantile regression; Unified growth theory; Nineteenth century France; Quality-Quantity trade-off. |
| JEL: | C22 C26 C32 C36 C81 C82 I20 J13 N01 N33 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2019-44&r=all |
| By: | Prak, Maarten; Crowston, Clare; De Munck, Bert; Kissane, Christopher; Minns, Chris; Schalk, Ruben; Wallis, Patrick |
| Abstract: | One of the standard objections against guilds in the premodern world has been their exclusiveness. Guilds have been portrayed as providing unfair advantages to the children of established masters and locals, over immigrants and other outsiders. Privileged access to certain professions and industries is seen as a source of inequality and a disincentive for technological progress. In this paper we examine this assumption by studying the composition of guild masters and apprentices from a large sample of European towns and cities from 1600 to 1800, focusing on the share who were children of masters or locals. This data offers an indirect measurement of the strength of guild barriers, and by implication their monopolies. We find very wide variation between guilds in practice, but most guild masters and apprentices were immigrants or unrelated locals: openness was much more common than closure, especially in larger centres. Our understanding of guild ‘monopolies’ and exclusivity is in need of serious revision. [157 words] |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2019–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100506&r=all |
| By: | Catherine Haeck; Giulia Meloni; Jo Swinnen |
| Abstract: | Previous studies on the value of terroir, or more generally geographical indications (GI), used hedonic techniques. We use historical data and exploit temporal and geographical variations in the introduction of wine GIs in early twentieth century France to study the impact on the price of specific wines in the years and decades following their introduction. We find large effects of GIs on prices of some Champagne wines, but no significant impact on Bordeaux or other Champagne wines. |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:licosp:634338&r=all |
| By: | Erminia Florio (University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | I analyze the effect of historical emigration on today’s attitudes towards immigration in Italy. To do so, I collect data on Italian emigrants by municipality from the Ellis Island archives in the period 1892-1924. I estimate, then, the causal effect of emigration on a series of outcomes used to measure attitudes towards immigrants through an IV strategy, by exploiting exogenous variation in proximity to train stations active during years 1892-1924 and in the timing of construction of stations to historical emigration. I find that emigration has a negative and significant long-run effect on attitudes towards immigration. In particular, a one-standard deviation increase in the share of past emigrants reduces the propensity to have a SPRAR in municipalities by roughly 9%. A higher historical emigration also reduces social expenditures, share of votes for center-left parties and non-profit organizations, while increasing the share of votes for center-right parties. |
| Keywords: | Italian Emigration; Attitudes towards Immigration; Age of Mass Migration. |
| JEL: | J15 N32 N34 Z1 |
| Date: | 2019–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:478&r=all |
| By: | Robert W. Dimand (Department of Economics, Brock University) |
| Abstract: | Commitment to the behaviorist approach to utility theory, to the usefulness of mathematics in economic analysis and to equalization of the marginal utility of income as a principle of just taxation brought Irving Fisher and Ragnar Frisch to attempt to measure the marginal utility of income, and led them to collaborate in forming the Econometric Society and sponsoring the establishment of the Cowles Commission, institutions advancing economic theory in connection to mathematics and statistics. To be presented at a symposium at the University of Oslo, December 3, 2019, honoring the 50th anniversary of the award to Ragnar Frisch of the Royal Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel and the 30th anniversary of the award of that prize to Trygve Haavelmo. |
| Keywords: | Irving Fisher, Ragnar Frisch, Measurable utility, Axiomatic approach to utility |
| JEL: | B1 B23 B31 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2206&r=all |
| By: | Ljunge, Martin (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Individuals with ancestry from countries with advanced information technology in 1500 AD, such as movable type and paper, adopt the internet faster than those with less advanced ancestry. The analysis illustrates persistence over five centuries in information technology adoption in European and U.S. populations. The results hold when excluding the most and least advanced ancestries, and when accounting for additional deep roots of development. Historical information technology is a better predictor of internet adoption than current development. A machine learning procedure supports the findings. Human capital is a plausible channel as 1500 AD information technology predicts early 20th century school enrollment, which predicts 21st century internet adoption. A three-stage model including human capital around 1990, yields similar results. |
| Keywords: | Internet; Technology diffusion; Information technology; Intergenerational transmission; Printing press |
| JEL: | D13 D83 J24 N70 O33 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1312&r=all |
| By: | Grodecka-Messi, Anna (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, a unique event is studied: the opening of Bank of Canada in 1935, the central bank note issuance monopoly and its impact on the note issuing chartered banks. Between 1935-1950, Canadian chartered banks had to gradually withdraw their notes from circulation. In a difference-in-differences analysis, I show that chartered banks constrained by new issuance limits experienced higher volatility of return-on-equity in the short run and lower Z-scores and return-on-assets in the longer horizon, suggesting that note issuance was an important source of revenue for private banks and allowed them to smooth the profits. The effect on lending is either non-significant or ambiguous. This study of central bank cash implementation can offer lessons for the current debates on a new form of central bank money - central bank digital currencies - and their potential impacts on commercial banks. |
| Keywords: | Banknote Monopoly; Banknote Issuance; Cash; Central Bank Digital Currencies; Double Liability; Canadian banks; Financial Stability; Bank of Canada |
| JEL: | E42 E50 G21 G28 N22 |
| Date: | 2019–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2019_021&r=all |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Lucas and Sargent’s “After Keynesian Macroeconomics” is considered as a cornerstone of macroeconomics history and is supposed to have seriously undermined “Keynesian” approach to macroeconometric modelling. I study the context of this article, its writing, its presentation in a conference with many advocates of large-scale models and the debates that followed. I demonstrate that the issue of stagflation was closely linked to Lucas and Sargent’s argument, and the opposition of “Keynesians” relied on their different interpretation of stagflation. I show this interpretation of stagflation led to a different research program, which has been overlooked by history of macroeconomics. |
| Date: | 2019–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:y364t&r=all |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (Duke University); Pinzón-Fuchs, Erich (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Sergi, Francesco; Renault, Matthieu |
| Abstract: | In 1976, Robert Lucas explicitly criticized Keynesian macroeconometric models for their inability to correctly predict the effects of alternative economic policies. Today, most contemporary macroeconomists and some historians of economics consider that the Lucas’s critique led forcefully to immediate disqualification of the Keynesian macroeconometric approach. This narrative is based on the interpretation of the Lucas Critique as a fundamental principle for economic reasoning that was (and still is) logically unquestionable. We consider that this narrative is problematic both in terms of historiography and of the effects that it can have in the field as a way of assigning importance and credit to particular macroeconomists. Indeed, the point of view of the Keynesian economists is missing despite the fact that they were the target of Lucas’s paper and that throughout the 1970s and 1980s they produced a fierce reaction against it. In this paper, we analyze the reactions by a broad set of authors (that we label as “Keynesians”) that disputed the relevance of the critique. In spite of their diversity in methodological, theoretical, and policy issues, these reactions were characterized by their common questioning of the empirical and practical relevance of the Lucas critique. |
| Date: | 2019–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:qxh46&r=all |
| By: | Abby E. Alpert; William N. Evans; Ethan M.J. Lieber; David Powell |
| Abstract: | Overdose deaths involving opioids have increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, leading to the worst drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history, but there is limited empirical evidence on the initial causes. In this paper, we examine the role of the 1996 introduction and marketing of OxyContin as a potential leading cause of the opioid crisis. We leverage cross-state variation in exposure to OxyContin’s introduction due to a state policy that substantially limited OxyContin’s early entry and marketing in select states. Recently-unsealed court documents involving Purdue Pharma show that state-based triplicate prescription programs posed a major obstacle to sales of OxyContin and suggest that less marketing was targeted to states with these programs. We find that OxyContin distribution was about 50% lower in “triplicate states” in the years after the launch. While triplicate states had higher rates of overdose deaths prior to 1996, this relationship flipped shortly after the launch and triplicate states saw substantially slower growth in overdose deaths, continuing even twenty years after OxyContin's introduction. Our results show that the introduction and marketing of OxyContin explain a substantial share of overdose deaths over the last two decades. |
| JEL: | I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26500&r=all |
| By: | Maxime Thomas (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Pascal Le Masson (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Benoit Weil (MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Innovation commercialization phase appears more and more as an issue for both marketing and innovation management literatures. This paper studies a particular aspect of innovation commercialization, namely the market-model design activities occurring during this phase. The paper builds on an underlying paradox of the literature. On a one hand consistent market models are useful for company to commercialize innovation and on the other hand marketization literature claims that the relevant variables depicting a market are countless and unknown. To sort out how market-modeling activities support innovation commercialization we conducted seven longitudinal historical case studies on commercial travellers. We looked for how 19 th century companies employing commercial travellers structured their market models to foster commercialization excellence. Our results indicate that these companies used representations of the market that can be define as ad hoc market models. The representations are models as they are built only on few coherent variables but they are ad hoc as they differ from one case to another. Given these results we discuss the specificities of the design of ad hoc market models and define the innovation commercialization phase as the market-model design phase. |
| Date: | 2019–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02321457&r=all |
| By: | Anek Belbase; Alice Zulkarnain |
| Abstract: | Throughout history, a familiar story has played out in societies undergoing rapid technological change. On one side, doomsday predictors have warned that laborsaving machines will make jobs obsolete and fuel social unrest. On the other side, utopians have preached a machine-powered era of abundance and leisure. Both sides have always thought that “this time is different” and that the world would never be the same. In a sense, both sides have been right (though not to the extremes predicted). Technological innovation has made workers more productive overall but has also displaced workers and periodically fed social unrest. Importantly, each wave of innovation and adoption has changed the nature of work and the relative value of workers’ skills in unique ways. Like prior generations trying to prepare for an uncertain future, current workers and policymakers are wondering how the rise of computers and robots – which can seemingly beat humans at any task from detecting tumors to driving – will change the nature of work. The stakes are particularly high for older workers, who increasingly need to work until their late 60s to afford to retire. This brief is the first of a three-part series investigating the impact of the current wave of automation on the job prospects of older workers. To place this automation wave in context, this brief reviews the literature on the effect of laborsaving technology over the past two centuries. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section explains how technology expands the economic pie. The second section describes how machines change the level and type of labor that is in demand. The third section focuses on the painful transitions that some workers have faced because of machines, and the fourth section compares the changes taking place today to past waves to assess whether this time is, in fact, different. The final section concludes that changes today, while qualitatively different from the past, are comparable in scope. It seems reasonable to expect that – at least for a few more decades – machines will continue to make some skills more valuable than others without making human skills obsolete. |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2019-12&r=all |
| By: | Anek Belbase; Anqi Chen |
| Abstract: | Laborsaving machines, from the cotton gin to automotive robots, have dramatically reduced the amount of human effort needed to produce goods and services. And despite anxiety about machine-driven mass unemployment, workers replaced by machines have not remained idle over the long term. Instead, they have found jobs in growing industries by learning to perform new tasks. But these transitions have not always been easy, especially for older workers Ð who have considerable knowledge tied to their current job and a shorter period over which to benefit from new skills. As machines rapidly take on new tasks, from serving coffee to diagnosing cancer, will older workers continue to find jobs that make use of their skills? For the many people who need to work into their late 60s to afford to retire, the stakes are high. This brief is the second in a three-part series on how increasingly capable machines might affect job prospects for older workers in the near future. The first brief reviewed the impact of different types of laborsaving machines over the past two centuries. Since computers are the machines that continue to define our times, this brief reviews their impact on older workers starting in the 1980s. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section explains how machines can create short-term winners or losers depending on the tasks that the machines take on. The second section describes how computers took on ÒroutineÓ tasks, which affected workers differently by their education level. The third section analyzes whether these effects extended to workers ages 55-64, and concludes that they did. Across age groups, computers have largely benefited workers with a college degree and computer skills, but made it harder for workers with less education to find good jobs. A shrinking gap between the education level and computer knowledge of young and old workers helps explain their similar outcomes. The final section looks ahead to the next brief, which addresses whether the current pattern will continue as computers become more sophisticated. |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2019-19&r=all |
| By: | Thomas Dallery (CLERSE - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Tristan Auvray (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This article revisits the history of the relationships between finance and industry in the United States, as it was first suggested by Hyman Minsky, but we refocus the analysis on shareholding so as to understand the current influence expressed by shares' owners on corporations. We examine the evolution of the two institutions allowing shareholders to weigh on firms' governance: market liquidity and voting power associated with shares' concentration. We underline that, despite the process of shareholding dispersion, a concentration has always been present. It is thus the existence of a constraint on liquidity which permits to managers to preserve a while the autonomy won during the XXth century. We suggest the hypothesis that this constraint relies on capital controls, internal or external to the United States. |
| Abstract: | Cet article relit l'histoire des relations entre la finance et l'industrie aux États-Unis proposée par Hyman Minsky en la recentrant sur l'actionnariat afin de comprendre l'influence actuelle qu'exercent les propriétaires de titres sur les entreprises. Nous examinons l'évolution des deux institutions qui permettent aux actionnaires de peser sur la gouvernance des firmes : la liquidité du marché, et le pouvoir de vote associé à la concentration des actions. Nous soulignons que malgré le processus de dispersion de l'actionnariat, une concentration a toujours existé. C'est donc l'existence d'une contrainte sur la liquidité qui a permis aux managers de préserver pour un temps une autonomie conquise au cours du XXe siècle. Nous avançons l'hypothèse que cette contrainte repose sur les contrôles de capitaux internes et externes aux États-Unis. |
| Date: | 2019–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02335680&r=all |
| By: | Alicia H. Munnell; Anqi Chen |
| Abstract: | The option to claim Social Security benefits at any age from 62 to 70 – with actuarial adjustments designed o keep lifetime benefits constant for an individual ith average life expectancy – is a key feature of the rogram. The actuarial adjustments, however, are decades old and do not reflect improvements in longevity or other important developments over that time. The option to claim early was introduced over 60 years ago, when Congress set 62 as the program’s Earliest Age of Eligibility. Those claiming at 62 receive 20 percent less in monthly benefits than if they had waited until 65 to claim. The option to claim between 65 and 70 on an actuarially fair basis stems from the 1983 Social Security amendments, which gradually increased the annual “delayed retirement credit” from 3 percent to 8 percent. Much has changed since these actuarial adjustments were introduced: interest rates have declined; life expectancy has increased; and longevity improvements have been much greater for higher earners than lower earners. In the wake of these developments, this brief explores whether the historical adjustments are still actuarially correct. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section provides a brief history of the Social Security benefit adjustments. The second section explains how increasing life expectancy and declining interest rates would call for smaller reductions for early claiming and a smaller delayed retirement credit for later claiming. The third section explores the extent to which existing adjustments deviate from actuarially fair magnitudes, finding that the reduction for early claiming – initially about right – is now too large, while the delayed retirement credit – initially too small – is now about right. The fourth section moves from the average worker to explore the impact of the actuarial adjustments on workers at various earnings levels given the disparity in longevity improvements. The final section concludes that the adjustment factors now favor delayed claiming and, as a result, increasingly benefit higher earners. |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2019-18&r=all |
| By: | Jakub Rybacki |
| Abstract: | In the recent years, the great majority of central banks have globally failed to realize inflation targets. We attempt to answer a question of whether such failure resulted from insufficient organization of economic research in those institutions. Our study shows a positive, but statistically weak, relationship between these issues. However, the analysis finds also a few adverse irregularities in major central banks' research organizations. The research of the European Central Bank, Bundesbank, and the Bank of England are relatively less diversified compared to the U.S. Federal Reserve. In the cases of Poland and Italy, economic departments are dominated by groups of researchers focused on narrow topics. On the other hand, the organization of research departments in France and Canada support a greater variety of topics and independence of researchers. |
| Keywords: | groupthink, network analysis, central banks, big data |
| JEL: | E58 D02 I23 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sgh:kaewps:2019045&r=all |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | L’article montre que la vision de la macroéconomie de Sargent contraste d'avec celle de Lucas. Pour Lucas, les hypothèses d'un modèle sont « a-réalistes », le modèle ne vise pas à représenter la réalité. Il est un outil de simulation qui doit permettre de simuler différentes politiques économiques. L'idéal « lucassien » est celui d'un macroéconomiste qui a donc vocation à devenir un ingénieur chargé de fournir un « logiciel de politiques économiques » aux autorités publiques, logiciel qu'il manipule afin d'aiguiller les choix de politiques sur une base scientifique. Sargent, quant à lui, considère que pour suppléer le paradigme keynésien, la nouvelle économie classique doit être capable de remplir les mêmes tâches, et l'une de ces tâches est de conseiller le pouvoir en lui fournissant une grille de lecture des phénomènes économiques et des outils intuitifs pour débattre des politiques économiques à mettre en place. Sargent cherche à appliquer ce qu'il nomme la théorie des anticipations rationnelles à un ensemble de cas concrets (stabilisation Poincaré, hyperinflation allemande, politique de Thatcher et Reagan) pour montrer la pertinence de ce cadre d'analyse pour penser les problèmes économiques contemporains. |
| Date: | 2019–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:eprxu&r=all |
| By: | Alejandra Reyes (The University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the evolution of Mexico City’s governance structure in relation to the pursuit of greater political and administrative autonomy. Although it is a federalist country, Mexico has had relatively centralized governments. The governance, finances, and legislation of the country’s capital, Mexico City (formerly the federal district), were in the hands of the federal government until recently. Yet since the 1980s, strong civic demands for greater local autonomy have led to significant victories, culminating in the first elections for Mexico City mayor in 1996. Twenty years later, in 2016, the federal district was dissolved to make Mexico City the 32nd state of the country. The first local Constitution was completed a year later, along with the formation of a local-state congress. Such shifts would not have been possible without the participation of sociopolitical movements and organizations. Nonetheless, further social and political mobilization will be required to consolidate and put to good use the city’s autonomy and address persistent challenges, such as metropolitan and regional coordination with neighbouring states and municipalities to promote inclusive and sustainable growth and development across the entire metropolis. |
| Keywords: | local governance; Mexico City |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mfg:perspe:25&r=all |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (Duke University); Sergi, Francesco; Guizzo, Danielle |
| Abstract: | This article explores Robert E. Lucas’s policy agenda and his engagement with the public debate between 1968 and 1987. It investigates how he interacted with the public debate by envisioning key principles of his macroeconomic theory and methodology, and how he promoted his policy agenda. An exploration of Lucas’s personal and professional archives sheds light on his participation in policy debates after the publication of his works, illustrating how Lucas built a discreet and cautious way of engaging with the public. Lucas did not envision an action plan, nor proposed a detailed program to implement his policy agenda. The article suggests that Lucas’s originality compared to his contemporaries was his belief on the ability of macroeconomics to scientifically devise binding policy rules that could be integrated in an economic constitution. |
| Date: | 2019–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7jpa9&r=all |
| By: | Jorge Barrientos Marín (Universidad de Antioquia) |
| Abstract: | La historia de Electricaribe comienza en 1998 cuando las electrificadoras de los departamentos de la costa Caribe conforman dos compañías: Electricaribe y Electrocosta, cuyo objeto era la distribución de energía. Por aquel entonces era habitual que las electrificadoras departamentales operaran con pérdidas. El fenómeno del Niño de 1997 agravó sus finanzas haciéndolas insostenibles |
| Keywords: | Electricaribe, Colombia, Sistema Energético, Economía de la Energía |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lde:grupom:078&r=all |