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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2020‒01‒20
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Agnès Festré (Université Côte d'Azur, France; GREDEG CNRS) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses Michael Polanyi’s vision of economics. We stress two major features: first, the radical opposition to central planning and his defence of self-organization as a superior mechanism for coordinating individual plans that he shared with Hayek; second, the strong support for state interventionism in order to fight unemployment and limit income inequalities that he borrowed from Keynes. Polanyi blended these two apparently contradictory influences and provided an original institutionalist approach, which has unfortunately been underrated in the economics literature. We argue that this approach is consistent with Polanyi’s intellectual background and more specifically, his view on tacit knowledge and his critical approach of liberalism. |
| Keywords: | Michael Polanyi, Hayek, Keynes, spontaneous order, State intervention, liberalism, tacit knowledge, public liberty |
| JEL: | B25 B31 B41 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2019-41&r=all |
| By: | Wolfe, Michael (Duke University School of Law) |
| Abstract: | Timothy Wu’s book, The Curse of Bigness, offers a brief history on and critical perspective of antitrust law's development over the last century, calling for a return to a Brandeisian approach to the law. In this review-essay, I use Wu's text as a starting point to explore antitrust law’s current political moment. Tracing the dynamics at play in this debate and Wu’s role in it, I note areas underexplored in Wu’s text regarding the interplay of antitrust law with other forms of industrial regulation, highlighting in particular current difficulties in copyright law as one of the underlying tensions driving popular discontent with the major technology firms or “tech trusts.” I consider the continuing influence of Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox, now more than forty years old, and how the current reform movement might execute a shift as lasting and substantial as the one Bork spearheaded with his book. |
| Date: | 2019–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarx:k7axf&r=all |
| By: | Noemí Girbal-Blacha |
| Abstract: | A brief historical run from the formation of Argentine State (1880) to mid-twentieth century can contribute some knowledge to understand the main aspects of the northeast marginalization of the country in the long run, especially calling not only for the study of the forestry exploitation, its characteristics, its actors and interests but also for its features and effects of poor protective legislation of natural resources and its regional economies. The emphasis of this work is on the expression of an absent State or devoid of inclusive and protective public policies, at least on average 30 years and get to the late Forestry Regime of 1948 encouraged by Peronism from the national government. Characterising and interpreting these legislative aspects of the state action in marginal and bordering territories, beyond the interventionism, the planning and the popular nationalism, turn out the main objectives of this research about the power, the territory and the forestry exploitation. |
| Keywords: | territory, public policies, Argentina, forestry regime |
| JEL: | Q23 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:1906&r=all |
| By: | Volckart, Oliver |
| Abstract: | The article uses new sources to review the hypotheses that Charles V's currency bill of 1551 failed because of the electoral-Saxon resistance against the undervaluation of the taler that it stipulated, or because the emperor was too weak to overcome the estates' resistance to collective action in monetary policies. The study shows that these issues were overshadowed by the dispute about whether a bimetallic currency should be established. Charles V's currency bill failed because the Diet of Augsburg (1550–51) asked the emperor to publish it before all open issues had been resolved. This request placed the emperor in a dilemma where he had to make a decision but could not do so without antagonising important parties. It was the result of a coordination failure at the level of the Empire, which in turn was a consequence of a lack of continuity among those personnel involved in shaping monetary policies. |
| Keywords: | monetary politics; currency unions; coinage; bimetallism; early modern history |
| JEL: | E50 H10 H60 N10 N40 |
| Date: | 2018–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:90507&r=all |
| By: | Cécile Edlinger (Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée); Maxime MERLI (Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)); Antoine Parent (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we propose an original analysis of advice given by financial analysts prior to WW1. Our article focuses on the writings of A. Neymarck, one of the most popular French analysts in the early 20th Century. The creation of portfolios from a new database composed of the monthly returns of all the security types listed on the official Paris Stock Exchange from 1903 to 1912 has provided results demonstrating that Neymarck correctly identified the risk in a number of sectors. The performances of these portfolios, which were built according to Neymarck’s guidelines, confirm Neymarck’s ranking in terms of both risk and return: the richer the investor, the riskier and the more profitable his portfolio was seen to be. Finally, the Modern Portfolio Theory enables us to pinpoint the few imperfections in Neymarck’s advice, which globally appears to be driven by reliable financial analysis. |
| Keywords: | Portfolio advice; Diversification before WW1; Financial markets prior WW1 |
| JEL: | G11 N23 N83 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5uiggte9218fho46bb53jr7m8a&r=all |
| By: | Roy, Tirthankar (London School of Economics and Political Science) |
| Abstract: | This article says that climate shaped the long-term pattern of economic change in India and that the climatically conditioned economic change generated a distinct set of environmental consequences in the region. From the nineteenth century, political and economic processes that made scarce and controlled water resources more accessible to more people, enhanced welfare, enabled more food production and sustained urbanization. The same processes also raised water stress. These propositions carry lessons for comparative economic history and the conduct of discourses on sustainability in the present times. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:445&r=all |
| By: | Kumar, Rishabh (California State University (San Bernardino)) |
| Abstract: | This article is about the metamorphoses of aggregate Indian wealth over fifteen politically transformative decades. Based on a comprehensive new database, I find that wealth-income ratios have fluctuated by large margins in the twentieth century. In emerging India of the twenty first century, wealth is steadily approaching the same disproportionate size (relative to national income) that was seen during sharp economic downturns in interwar colonial India. The long run 1939-2012 U shaped trajectories of wealth-income ratios are reasonably explained by a mid century asset price slowdown and the return of high land shares in national wealth. These results corroborate the secular increase of wealth-income ratios in most large economies since the 1980s. The manifestation of this phenomena appears to be independent of the stage of development. |
| Date: | 2019–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sj6h2&r=all |
| By: | Benkart, Elizabeth |
| Abstract: | Existing research suggests that patterns of both men and women serial killers are hyper-gendered. In American society, however, gender norms for women have dramatically changed over time. This study proposes that the patterns of women serial killers reflect the femininity ideals of the time period in which they operated in. The shifts in gender norms are operationalized by three time periods representative of the waves of feminism. The Radford/Florida Gulf Coast University’s serial killer database is used to establish a sample of 1,321 serial killers. Using multivariate regression analyses and controlling for age of last kill, which could potentially alter the kill method but be unrelated to gender, women serial killers do appear to be impacted by the femininity ideals of their time period but not as clearly as initially anticipated. Men serial killers were also found to be affected by changes in femininity ideals. Both women and men serial killers had more feminine kill patterns during the first wave of feminism, but men serial killers had a very violent, hyper-masculine peak during the second wave of feminism that women serial killers did not have. |
| Date: | 2018–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:pcqk6&r=all |
| By: | Rota, Mauro (Sapienza University of Rome); Weisdorf, Jacob (Sapienza University of Rome) |
| Abstract: | In explaining the Industrial Revolution, the so-called high-wage hypothesis argues that mechanisation served to replace expensive labour. Supporting evidence comes from daily wages of urban construction workers and shows that these were higher in northwest Europe than in the south. We argue that casual urban wages overestimate the cost of early-industrial labour. Early factories were rural and thus did not pay an urban wage premium. Moreover, early factories employed stable rather than casual workers and thus did not pay a premium for job insecurity. We present novel premia-free wages paid to stable workers in rural Italy, which we compare to wages paid to similar workers in England. We find that English workers earned only 20 per cent more than their Italian counterparts in 1650, but a staggering 150 per cent more in 1800. Although our empirical evidence shows that the precondition for the high-wage hypothesis is still in place, it is no longer clear – because growing English wages and early industrialisation coincide – whether it was high wages that drove mechanisation or the other way around. |
| Keywords: | Stable Employment, Economic Growth, Industrial Revolution, Great Divergence; Living Standards, Prices, Wages. JEL Classification: J3, J4, J8, I3, N33 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:442&r=all |
| By: | Cummins, Neil (London School of Economics); Gráda, Cormac Ó (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | The role of skills and human capital during England’s Industrial Revolution is the subject of an old but still ongoing debate. This paper contributes to the debate by assessing the artisanal skills of watchmakers and watch tool makers in southwest Lancashire in the eighteenth century and their links to apprenticeship. The flexibility of the training regime and its evolution are discussed, as is the decline of the industry. |
| Keywords: | apprenticeship, Industrial Revolution JEL Classification: N00, N33 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:440&r=all |
| By: | Boehnke, Jörn; Gay, Victor |
| Abstract: | Using spatial variation in World War I military fatalities in France, we show that the scarcity of men due to the war generated an upward shift in female labor force participation that persisted throughout the interwar period. Available data suggest that increased female labor supply accounts for this result. In particular, deteriorated marriage market conditions for single women and negative income shocks to war widows induced many of these women to enter the labor force after the war. In contrast, demand factors such as substitution toward female labor to compensate for the scarcity of male labor were of second-order importance. |
| Keywords: | Female labor, World War I, Sex ratio, Marriage market, Labor supply |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J22 N34 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:123953&r=all |
| By: | Turchin, Peter; Currie, Thomas E.; Collins, Christina; Levine, Jill; Oyebamiji, Oluwole; Edwards, Neil R.; Holden, Philip.B.; Hoyer, Daniel (Evolution Institute); Feeney, Kevin; Francois, Pieter |
| Abstract: | This article reports the results of a collaborative research project that aims to estimate agricultural productivities of the past societies in the Seshat World Sample-30. We focus on 30 Natural Geographic Areas (NGAs) distributed over 10 major world regions (Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Eurasia, North America, South America, and Oceania). The conceptual framework that we use to obtain these estimates combines the influences of the production technologies (and how they change with time), climate change, and effects of artificial selection into a Relative Yield Coefficient, indicating how agricultural productivity changed over time in each NGA between the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions. We then use estimates of historical yield in an NGA to translate the Relative Yield Coefficient into an Estimated Yield (tons per hectare per year) trajectory. We tested the proposed methodology in two ways. For eight NGAs, in which we had more than one historical yield estimate, we used the earliest estimate to anchor the trajectory and compared the ensuing trajectory to the remaining estimates. We also compared the end points of the estimated NGA trajectories to the earliest (the 1960s decade) FAO data on crop productivities in the modern countries encompassing Seshat NGAs. |
| Date: | 2019–01–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jerza&r=all |
| By: | Brian A'Hearn; Stefano Chianese; Giovanni Vecchi |
| Abstract: | A problem for both historical and contemporary research on inequality is a scarcity of high quality data on wealthy households. In this paper we explore a rich source of such data for historical periods: the account books of aristocratic households preserved in their family archives. We make three contributions: i) a survey of the nobility in Italy and of their publicly accessible archives; ii) an assay of the type and quality of budget data they contain; and iii) an assessment of the impact of adding upper-tail families to a household budget sample on inequality estimates. In a nutshell, our assessment is that the data are relatively abundant, accurate, and highly impactful. An enhanced sample of noble families will enable us to significantly improve estimates of Italian inequality right back to the country’s founding in 1861. There is no reason to think the approach would be any less feasible or fruitful in other European countries. |
| Keywords: | aristocracy, extreme values, household budgets, inequality, Italy, outliers |
| JEL: | I3 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2020–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbu:wpaper:18&r=all |
| By: | Yogyakarta, Perpustakaan STIPRAM; Vangelisca, Zita |
| Abstract: | Jogjakarta is worth mentioning as a city rich in culture and history. Sonobudoyo Museum is one that has its own charm for tourists. Sonobudoyo Museum stores various collections that are closely related to culture and other historical objects. In addition, the architecture of the museum building is also a classic Javanese style is very unique and beautiful. The location of Sonobudoyo Museum is divided into two parts: Unit I is located at Jalan Trikora No 6 Yogyakarta, while Unit II is located in Ndalem Condrokiranan Wijilan near North Square of Yogyakarta. In this Sonobudoyo Museum, tourists can find interesting collections related to Indonesian culture, as well as collections from prehistoric times until the entry of Islam to Indonesia. Visitors can also get to know the culture and history of Indonesia by visiting this museum, so it is suitable if the Museum Sonobudoyo dubbed as a tourist attraction area of Indonesian cultural heritage. |
| Date: | 2019–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:3pxuw&r=all |
| By: | Kodila-Tedika, Oasis; Khalifa, Sherif |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the association between the length of experience with statehood, or state history, on the likelihood of state fragility. The argument is that the accumulation of knowledge by state personnel, and the build up of experience within state institutions, allows the state to avoid the exposure to recurrent crises, which is considered a symptom of weakness. The paper focuses on sub-Saharan African countries and uses Probit estimation techniques. The analysis shows that state history has a negative and statistically significant effect on the state fragility index. This result is robust after the inclusion of a variety of economic, political, institutional and historical variables. We also use extreme fragility as our dependent variable. The Probit and Relogit estimations also show a statistically significant negative effect of state history on extreme fragility. This is the case even after the inclusion of control variables |
| Keywords: | history, institutions, fragility, Africa |
| JEL: | N00 O55 P5 |
| Date: | 2019–12–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:97871&r=all |
| By: | Claudio Borio |
| Abstract: | Since the Great Financial Crisis, central banks have been facing a triple challenge: economic, intellectual and institutional. The institutional challenge is that central bank independence - a valuable institution - has come in for greater criticism. This essay takes a historical perspective and draws parallels with the previous waxing and waning of central bank independence. It suggests that this institution is closely tied to globalisation, as both spring from the same fountainhead: an intellectual and political environment that supports an open system in which countries adhere to the same principles and governments remain at arm′s length from the functioning of a market economy. This suggests that the fortunes of independence are also tied to those of globalisation. The essay then proceeds to explore ways that can help safeguard independence. A key one is to narrow the growing expectations gap between what central banks are expected to deliver and what they can actually deliver. In that context, it also considers and dismisses the usefulness of recently proposed schemes that involve controlled deficit monetisation. |
| Keywords: | central bank independence, globalisation, business cycles, fiscal dominance |
| JEL: | E5 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:829&r=all |
| By: | Kelly, Morgan (University College Dublin); Gráda, Cormac Ó (University College); Solar, Peter (VUB, Brussels) |
| Abstract: | Shipping was central to the rise of the Atlantic economies, but an extremely hazardous activity: in the 1780s, roughly five per cent of British ships sailing in summer for the United States never returned. Against the widespread belief that shipping technology was stagnant before iron steamships, in this paper we demonstrate that between the 1780s and 1820s, a safety revolution occurred that saw shipping losses and insurance rates on oceanic routes almost halved thanks to steady improvements in shipbuilding and navigation. Iron reinforcing led to stronger vessels while navigation improved, not through chronometers which remained too expensive and unreliable for general use, but through radically improved charts, accessible manuals of basic navigational techniques, and improved shore-based navigational aids. |
| Keywords: | shipping, insurance, Industrial Revolution JEL Classification: N, N73, G22 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:439&r=all |
| By: | Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio; Özak, Ömer (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. Exploiting a variety of identification strategies and a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it shows that higher levels of intra-ethnic diversity were conducive to economic specialization in the pre-modern era. The findings are robust to a host of geographical, institutional, cultural and historical confounders, and suggest that variation in intra-ethnic diversity is a key predictor of the division of labor in pre-modern times. |
| Date: | 2018–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:z3ngq&r=all |
| By: | McGaughey, Ewan (King's College, London) |
| Abstract: | Can there be democracy in America at work? The historical division between democracy in politics and hierarchy in the economy is under strain. Hierarchical interests in the economy are shifting their model of power into politics, and yet a commitment to revive the law is resurgent. Central examples are the proposed Accountable Capitalism Act, Reward Work Act, Workplace Democracy Acts, and Employees’ Pension Security Acts. They would create a right for employees to elect 40% of directors on $1 billion company boards, a right for employees to elect one-third of directors on other listed company boards, and require one-half employee representation on single-employer pension plans. All challenge long held myths: that labor’s involvement in corporate governance is foreign to American tradition, that when codified in law labor voice is economically inefficient, that the legitimate way to have voice in the economy is by buying stocks, or that labor voice faces insurmountable legal obstacles. This article shows these myths are mistaken by exploring the history and evidence from 1861. The United States has one of the world’s strongest traditions of democracy at work. Economic democracy has not been more widespread primarily because it was suppressed by law. Americans favor voice at work, while asset managers who monopolize shareholder votes with ‘other people’s money’ enjoy no legitimacy at all. The article concludes that, even without federal government, and by recreating themselves as laboratories of democracy and enterprise, states can adapt the current proposals and rebuild a living law. (2019) 42 Seattle University Law Review 697. |
| Date: | 2018–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarx:sb3zp&r=all |
| By: | María-Isabel Ayuda; Vicente Pinilla |
| Abstract: | The objective of this article is to study the evolution of Spanish agricultural exports, their share of agricultural production as a whole, the determinants of their expansion and, finally, the contribution that they have made to economic development. Our results show considerable dynamism in agricultural exports, which however faced certain obstacles that limited any further expansion. Their share on production varied greatly, but for some relevant products it was fundamental, substantially contributing to its growth. The increase in external demand but also the comparatively high profitability of export products and a high level of competitiveness in the international market generated highly dynamic behaviour in supply. The contribution of the export sector to Spanish economic growth was positive although moderate. It contributed to financing necessary imports during the industrialisation process, favoured a more efficient allocation of resources and produced intersectoral linkages. However, the geographical concentration of production for export limited its spatial impact on the Spanish economy. |
| Keywords: | agricultural development, agricultural trade, Spanish economic history, first wave of globalisation |
| JEL: | N53 N73 O13 Q17 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2001&r=all |
| By: | Mwabukojo, Edson |
| Abstract: | The Tanzanian development roadmap is categorized into four main phases; development attain during the Post-colonial period; socialism era development; development pace during the transition to liberalism era; and the currently development situation. Based on the data presented, it is now clear that development situation in Tanzania was promising during post-colonial capitalist period, declined during the Ujamaa socialism, worsen during the period of paradigm shift dilemma, but regained a tremendous improvement during contemporary liberalization era. Contemporary, Tanzania as the low-income countries is currently characterized by the number of development constraints including the high rate of poverty, low per capita income, inadequacy of human capital and poor standard of living. This study is concluding by stressing that Tanzania is still backward or undeveloped because the nation had been stacked in the development bottleneck for a quite long time from 1977 to 1995, almost two decades. Since the trend of human and economic development in Tanzania since independence has been successfully established, the policy makers as well as the development stakeholders can apply the findings as the basis to judge the past for the better future. |
| Keywords: | Tanzania; Post-colonial Development; Ujamaa socialism development; Development in paradigm shift dilemma |
| JEL: | O1 O13 O15 O2 |
| Date: | 2019–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:97534&r=all |
| By: | Podshivalov, Georgii |
| Abstract: | The principal purpose of the given work is to summarize certain observations on the evolution of thought in macroeconomic theory with the original (rather than conventional) notation where appropriate. The observations are organized by topic and supplied with respective references. |
| Keywords: | Economic Though, Economic History, Macroeconomic Models, Models Derivation, Notation, Expectations, Growth, Consumption, Unemployment, Inflation, Random Walk Hypothesis, Money, Natural Rate |
| JEL: | B20 E12 E19 E21 E24 E31 E43 E49 E52 |
| Date: | 2019–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:97657&r=all |
| By: | Galor, Oded; Özak, Ömer (Southern Methodist University); Sarid, Assaf |
| Abstract: | This research explores the geographical origins of the coevolution of cultural and linguistic traits in the course of human history, relating the geographical roots of long-term orientation to the structure of the future tense, the agricultural determinants of gender bias to the presence of sex-based grammatical gender, and the ecological origins of hierarchical orientation to the existence of politeness distinctions. The study advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that: (i) geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher natural return to agricultural investment contributed to the existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense, (ii) the agricultural determinants of gender gap in agricultural productivity fostered the existence of sex-based grammatical gender, and (iii) the ecological origins of hierarchical societies triggered the emergence of politeness distinctions. |
| Date: | 2018–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:me2g7&r=all |
| By: | Marvin Suesse; Nikolaus Wolf |
| Abstract: | What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit cooperatives in the 236 eastern counties of Prussia between 1852 and 1913. This setting is attractive as it provides a free market benchmark scenario without public ownership, subsidization, or direct regulatory intervention. Furthermore, we exploit features of our historical set-up to identify causal effects. The results show that declining agricultural staple prices, as a feature of structural transformation, leads to the emergence of credit cooperatives. Similarly, declining bank lending rates contribute to their rise. Low asset sizes and land inequality inhibit the regional spread of cooperatives, while ethnic heterogeneity has ambiguous effects. We also offer empirical evidence suggesting that credit cooperatives accelerated rural transformation by diversifying farm outputs. |
| Keywords: | microfinance, credit cooperatives, rural transformation, land inequality, Prussia |
| JEL: | G21 N23 O16 Q15 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7990&r=all |
| By: | Dalton, John; Logan, Andrew |
| Abstract: | Film and video clips have been used in the classroom to bring economic concepts to life. We use the 2015 film Joy to animate Joseph Schumpeter's The Theory of Economic Development, a foundational text on the theory of innovation and entrepreneurship which remains relevant for students today. We outline Schumpeter's theory of innovation and entrepreneurship and connect it to various scenes in Joy that illustrate the key points Schumpeter seeks to make. Beyond its value as a teaching tool for making sense of Schumpeter's often dense prose, we argue teaching Joy can also have a positive effect for undergraduate women in economics through its strong female protagonist. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Joseph Schumpeter; Education; Movies |
| JEL: | A20 B31 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:97635&r=all |
| By: | Hockett, Robert C.; Library, Cornell |
| Abstract: | I show that the intimate functional links among states, monies, and financial systems, ubiquitous across history and geography as they are, are not accidental. I do so by analytically 'deriving' first the polity, then money and finance, from a temporally extended implicit covenant that is both grounded in and facilitative of ongoing joint agency among persons. This lends to state and money alike their shared normative and, once formally systematized, legal character. I indicate throughout how this shared genesis, function, and normative character keep state, money, and ultimately finance practically ‘joined at the hip,’ and manifest how polity and economy, indeed our political and productive selves, are thus joined as well. To recognize and to ‘own’ this, I conclude, is in a sense finally to own our own selves. |
| Date: | 2018–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarx:f754d&r=all |
| By: | Hockett, Robert C.; Library, Cornell |
| Abstract: | I argue that crypto-currencies will soon go the way of the ‘wildcat’ banknotes of the mid-19th century. As central banks worldwide upgrade their payments systems, the Fed will begin issuing a ‘digital dollar’ that leaves no licit function for what I call ‘wildcat crypto.’ But the imminent change heralds far more than a shakeout in ‘fintech.’ It will also make possible a new era of what I call ‘Citizen Central Banking.’ The Fed will administer a national system of what I call ‘Citizen Accounts.’ This will not only end the problem of the ‘unbanked,’ it also will simplify monetary policy. Instead of working through private bank ‘middlemen’ that it hopes will lend QE money to borrowers during a downturn, the Fed will be able to do ‘helicopter drops’ directly into Fed Citizen Accounts. And rather than rely solely on interbank lending rate hikes or countercyclical capital buffering during periods of froth, the Fed will be able to impound money through the more ‘carrot-like’ measure of interest credited to those accounts. We are at last on the verge of establishing a true ‘Fed for the People.’ |
| Date: | 2019–02–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarx:s9jb6&r=all |
| By: | Tebboth, M.G.L.; Conway, D.; Adger, W.N. |
| Abstract: | In economically marginal rural areas, choice in livelihood strategy such as decisions to move location mediates levels of individual and household resilience under conditions of environmental change. It is widely recognised that endowments associated with mobility and the entitlement to mobility are unevenly distributed across populations. This paper integrates these insights and conceptualises location choice as a set of mobility endowments and mobility entitlements. Through focussing on endowments and entitlements, the paper explores how choice affects the ability to be mobile and its role in mediating levels of resilience to livelihood shocks associated with changing environmental conditions. The research design involves measuring the impact of different climatic perturbations in rural locations in Anhui Province, China. Mixed methods of rural appraisal, life history interviews, and a household survey generate objective and perceived elements of individual and household responses to risks. These data are augmented by biophysical observations on the nature of the climatic perturbations. The results show that mobility endowments and mobility entitlements are important in determining the impact of mobility on resilience. The life history interview data highlight significant individual agency within the structures that impact on individual choices. Further, individuals and households who possess the ability to decide and to subsequently enact decisions about mobility, are shown to be more resilient compared to other individuals and households that lack such ability. Moreover, households practicing short-term, circular mobility are more resilient than those households that practice long-term mobility. The study confirms that, in these instances, choice and the ability to enact those choices mediates resilience and highlights the implications of location decisions but also the conditions in which those decisions are made. |
| Keywords: | Mobility; Choice; Resilience; Adaptation; China |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2019–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100210&r=all |
| By: | Ela, Nate (American Bar Foundation) |
| Abstract: | Use-based welfare achieves redistribution by reallocating rights to use and benefit from idle resources, rather than via tax and transfer. How and why has this form of welfare provision emerged as an urban institution, and what affects whether it endures? This article compares projects to grant poor and unemployed Chicagoans access to land for gardens and small farms between 1895 and 1935, explaining how this form of social support came about through experiments with rules, norms, and forms of property. While social policy is typically understood as emerging through the realization of rights to public support, use-based welfare turns instead on efforts to create a legal privilege for the needy to use idle resources. During the Progressive Era and the Great Depression, this form of relief was pitched as both an alternative and a complement to welfare based on tax and transfer. Yet efforts to establish it as a permanent institution repeatedly failed, due to implementation challenges, opposition from people committed to treating land and food as commodities, and the non-emergence of a social movement to defend land access. Recognizing the historical dynamics of use-based welfare offers a new perspective on the contemporary resurgence of urban farming as a strategy for addressing unemployment and poverty. |
| Date: | 2018–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5qpa6&r=all |