|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2020‒11‒30
thirty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | de Jong, Abe; Jonker, Joost; Röell, Ailsa; Westerhuis, Gerarda |
| Abstract: | Trust offices (administratiekantoren) that repackage securities have been a central institution in Dutch finance since the late eighteenth century. Their basic form and functioning have remained largely the same, but over time, the repackaging has come to serve a variety of very different purposes. We argue that trust offices have been reinvented several times to adapt to changing circumstances. Originally set up for administrative convenience, they helped to create liquidity, notably for foreign securities. As from the 1930s, their most prominent purpose became to shield directors of large corporation from shareholder influence and hostile takeover threats. This is still their most common function in their current reincarnation as dedicated foundations, each tied to a particular company and largely controlled by its board and executives. |
| Keywords: | trust offices,corporate governance,financial innovation,the Netherlands |
| JEL: | G23 N23 N24 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:2004&r=all |
| By: | Wang, Ivy (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was established through the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon. The institution was a combination of a commercial and central bank for the region and provided economic stability. By studying the bank’s balance sheets, this paper provides an analysis of its assets and liabilities. An accompanying spreadsheet workbook provides all the balance sheet data from the bank’s annual reports as most of this data has never been digitized or analyzed in English. Using historical analysis of the financial situations of Syria and Lebanon at the time, several observations are made about the bank’s influence from 1919 to 1963, as well as about how it evolved into Lebanon’s central bank. |
| Keywords: | Syria; Lebanon; banking; colonialism; French mandate; Bank of Syria and Lebanon |
| JEL: | E58 N15 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0147&r=all |
| By: | Kenny, Seán (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Lennard, Jason (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Hjortshøj O’Rourke, Kevin (NYU Abu Dhabi) |
| Abstract: | We construct an annual index of Irish industrial output for 1800-1921, the period during which the entire island was in a political Union with Great Britain. We also construct a new industrial price index. Irish industrial output grew by an average of 1.4 per cent per annum over the period as a whole, and by 1.8 per cent per annum between 1800 and the outbreak of World War I. Industrial growth was more rapid than previously thought before the Famine, and slower afterwards. While Ireland did not experience deindustrialization either before the Famine or afterwards, its industrial growth was disappointing when considered in a comparative perspective. |
| Keywords: | Ireland; Industrial production; Famine; Historical national accounts |
| JEL: | E01 N13 N14 |
| Date: | 2020–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0215&r=all |
| By: | Abrohms, Spencer (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Schuler, Kurt (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | The CFA franc zone was established in 1945 and linked France’s African colonies to the French franc while at the same time allowing for some degree of separation. Reflecting a cleavage that had developed during World War II, the zone consisted of a West African and a Central African component, represented today by two regional central banks, BCEAO and BEAC, respectively. Despite the technical distinction between the currencies, their parities with the French franc and later the euro have remained identical for over 70 years; thus, the currencies can be treated together. This paper reviews the history of the CFA franc zone and highlights the major shifts it has undergone. Next, it analyzes the various components of the two central banks’ balance sheets, with a focus on each bank’s composition of assets and liabilities and how these have evolved over time. Subsequently, it applies statistical approaches to the balance sheets to assess to what extent the CFA franc zone resembles a currency board. An accompanying spreadsheet workbook digitizes certain balance sheet data for the first time. |
| Keywords: | central bank; balance sheet; French Equatorial Africa; French West Africa |
| JEL: | E58 N17 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0143&r=all |
| By: | Flood, John (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a rendition of Madagascar’s history as seen through the eyes of the balance sheets of the Banque de Madagascar (later the Banque de Madagascar et des Comores). The banque was formed with a dual charter that gave it the ability to function as both a bank of issue (central bank) and a commercial bank. Like other French Colonial banks, the Banque initially functioned primarily as a bank of issue, helping to monetize Madagascar’s fledgling economy. As the Malagasy economy grew, the Banque issued increasing amounts of credit to the Malagasy private sector. At the end of the Banque’s lifespan, a separate central bank was formed, removing the Banque’s note-issuing privilege. From that point until its closure in 1977, the Banque solely functioned as a commercial enterprise. The evolution of the Banque is traced via an analysis of its balance sheets. |
| Keywords: | Comoros; Madagascar; central bank; balance sheet |
| JEL: | E58 N27 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0152&r=all |
| By: | Metin M. Cosgel (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | Persecution and Toleration offers a novel and superb analysis of the birth of religious freedom. Rather than seek an ideational account of the rise of religious freedom, Johnson and Koyama investigate changes in the institutional environment that governed the relationship between religion and the state. These changes made it in the interest of policy makers in modern Europe to grant greater religious freedom by transitioning from identity rules to impersonal laws in maintaining order. The book introduces a new thought-provoking conceptual framework that can be extended to examine the complicated history of the state’s interaction with religion, comparative analysis of the relationship between state capacity and political legitimacy, and various other issues concerning the treatment of minorities and heterodox practices around the world. |
| Keywords: | Persecution and Toleration, religious freedom, state capacity, political legitimacy, legal order, identity rules, general laws, heterodox practices, minorities |
| JEL: | H10 K4 N4 O57 P48 Z12 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2020-18&r=all |
| By: | Gupta, Eashan (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Auran, Matthew (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Frankenfield, Dylan (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | We describe the history of Jamaica’s currency board system, which existed from 1920 to 1961; test how orthodox the currency board was; and compare some features of the currency board and the Jamaican economy during the currency board period to the Bank of Jamaica and to the Jamaican economy under central banking. |
| Keywords: | Jamaica; currency board; central bank |
| JEL: | E52 N16 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0136&r=all |
| By: | Nogues-Marco, Pilar |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the relationship between capitalism and colonialism by examining the case of British India under East India Company rule (1757-1858). The Marxist-nationalist historiography claims that colonialism generated a steady drain of wealth and that this drain was responsible for Indian famines, poverty, inequality, and economic retardation. I use the East India Company budgets to measure the extent of the wealth that was drained through three direct channels: oppressive land taxes, unproductive expenditures on the imperial army and civil administration, and the unrequited export of commodities from India to Britain. I conclude that available figures lend empirical support to the Marxist interpretation. There was a drain of wealth, and its effect on the underdevelopment of former European colonies deserves further research. |
| Keywords: | India, Colonialism, Drain of wealth, East India Company, Marxism |
| JEL: | B14 F54 N45 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:144406&r=all |
| By: | Gavin Wright (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | The Voting Rights Act of 1965 revolutionized politics in the American South. These changes also had economic consequences, generating gains for white as well as Black southerners. Contrary to the widespread belief that the region turned Republican in direct response to the Civil Rights Revolution, expanded voting rights led to twenty-five years of competitive two-party politics, featuring strong biracial coalitions in the Democratic Party. These coalitions remained competitive in most states until the Republican Revolution of the 1990s. This abrupt rightward shift had many causes, but critical for southern voters were the trade liberalization measures of 1994, specifically NAFTA and the phase-out of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement which had protected the textiles and apparel industries for decades. The consequences of Republican state regimes have been severe, including intensified racial polarization, loss of support for public schools and higher education, and harsh policies toward low-income populations. |
| Keywords: | African Americans, American South, deindustrialization, voting |
| JEL: | D72 J15 N32 N92 |
| Date: | 2020–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp135&r=all |
| By: | Silvano Cincotti (UNIGE - University of Genoa); Wolfram Elsner (University of Bremen); Nathalie Lazaric (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (France)); Anastasia Nesvetailova (City University London); Engelbert Stockhammer (King‘s College London) |
| Abstract: | The present REPE issue 2-2020 is the second part of our inaugural "double pack". We were lucky to receive more papers for the inaugural issue than we could accommodate in one issue. So please enjoy another set of challenging original research papers gauging the field of evolutionary political economy. In Financialisation and the periodisation of capitalism: appearances and processes, Jan Toporowski argues that the analysis of financial processes is essential for understanding changes in the financial system. Only these processes give rise to appearances such as the statistical data that are the basis of most studies of financialization. Those processes are fundamentally determined by the structure of the financial system. Following Minsky, Toporowski focuses on corporate finance which, through its effect on business investment, influences the dynamics of the capitalist system. As financial structures change, this gives rise to particular phases of capitalist development. The paper thus builds on Minsky's historical institutional analysis, but offers a more systematic analysis. It offers a periodization of capitalism through mercantile capitalism, classic, bank-based capitalism, finance capital, state finance capitalism, to pension fund capitalism and capital market inflation. It shows how each period ends with financial difficulties that are overcome with financial innovation leading to a new financial structure with corresponding changes in financial processes. Specifically, the paper argues that the phase of capital market inflation, inaugurated by funded pension schemes in the last decades of the twentieth century, has come to an end in the illiquidity of capital markets that lies behind the 2008 financial crisis. The paper suggests that the measures of "unconventional monetary policy", or "Quantitative Easing", mark a new period of state finance capital with a return to the state support of a structurally illiquid capital market that already had prevailed in Europe and North America from the 1930s to the 1960s. The discipline of International Political Economy-IPE has been flirting with evolutionary approaches for the past decade or so. So far, attempts to develop a take on evolutionary theory have proceeded in a rather unstructured way: They range from potential applications of Darwinian theory of selection to more recent efforts to draw on ecological approaches and complexity theory when analysing crises and transformations. There has also been a renewed interest in institutionalist approaches and heterodox tradition, but this too, has been a fragmented process. Ronen Palan's article An Evolutionary Approach to International Political Economy: The Case of Corporate Tax Avoidance aims to offer a pathway to a more systemic framework of evolutionary political economy, in order to rethink the changes in the regulation on the contemporary system of states. Palan develops his approach by distinguishing between a tradition of political economy based on action of discreet entities (this reflects the roots of IPE in neoclassical economics) and a tradition of thought centred around a concept of transaction (taking root in original institutional economics). This framework |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02933700&r=all |
| By: | Baker, Zackary (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Gulino, George (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Javat, Adil (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Schuler, Kurt (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | The Bank of the United States was the closest the United States came to having a central bank before establishing the Federal Reserve System. What was later called the First Bank of the United States operated from 1791 until its charter lapsed in 1811. After bad experience without a national bank during the War of 1812, the federal government chartered what was termed the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. When its charter lapsed in 1836, the bank continued as the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, which failed in 1841 following recessions and financial panics. We present digitized balance sheet data for all three institutions. |
| Keywords: | First Bank of the United States; Second Bank of the United States; United States Bank of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Bank of the United States; balance sheet; assets; liabilities; central banking |
| JEL: | E50 N11 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0132&r=all |
| By: | Peres-Cajías, José (Universitat de Barcelona, Departament d’Història Economica, Institucions, Política i Economia Mundial, Barcelona, Spain); Torregrosa-Hetland, Sara (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Ducoing, Cristián (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The resource curse literature has established that the taxation of natural resources might limit the long-term development of fiscal capacity in resource-rich countries. This article explores if, and how, natural resource abundance generates fiscal dependence on natural resource revenues. We compare five peripheral economies of Latin America (Bolivia, Chile, Peru) and Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden) over a period of 90 years, between 1850 and 1939. Both groups were natural resource abundant, but in the latter natural resource dependence decreased over time. By using a novel database, we find that fiscal dependence was low in Norway and Sweden, while high and unstable in Bolivia, Chile and Peru. This suggests that natural resource abundance should not be mechanically linked to fiscal dependence. An accounting identity shows that sudden increases in fiscal dependence were related to both economic and political factors: countries’ economic diversification, and attitudes of the relevant political forces about how taxation affects the companies operating in the natural resource sector. |
| Keywords: | resourcecurse; taxation; Latin America; Scandinavia; rentier state; fiscal contract |
| JEL: | H20 N40 N50 O13 Q32 |
| Date: | 2020–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0216&r=all |
| By: | Carlos Esteban Posada |
| Abstract: | La política favorable al crecimiento económico se basa en la teoría económica de una sociedad descentralizada (de mercado) cuya actividad productiva se expande en el largo plazo en medio de altibajos gracias al cambio técnico y al surgimiento, una y otra vez, de diversos obstáculos al proceso de crecimiento. En el caso colombiano de los últimos 70 años las tasas de crecimiento económico y de cambio técnico se han asociado a la movilización intersectorial de los recursos productivos, es decir, a lo que se denomina “cambio estructural”, y esto, a su turno, a políticas económicas (no siempre favorables). |
| JEL: | E13 E32 N16 O11 O30 O33 |
| Date: | 2020–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:018506&r=all |
| By: | Adam Brzezinski; Roberto Bonfatti; K. KıvançKaraman; Nuno Palma |
| Abstract: | Monetary capacity refers to a state’s capacity to circulate money that is accepted by the public, while fiscal capacity refers to its capacity to tax. We argue that monetary and fiscal capacity, and by extension, markets and states are complements. The long-run European evidence since antiquity shows money stocks and tax revenues moving in close synch. History also offers a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of monetary capacity on fiscal capacity. The discovery of silver in the New World increased money stocks followed by tax revenues, a finding that is robust to controlling for economic growth. |
| Keywords: | monetary capacity, fiscal capacity, monetization, inflation, taxation, quantity theory of money, monetary non-neutrality |
| JEL: | E50 E60 H21 N10 O11 |
| Date: | 2020–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:926&r=all |
| By: | Bennett, Jonah (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | Since 1967, Brunei Darussalam has employed a currency board, capable of regulating inflation and government spending, as its monetary system. This paper examines the history and formation of the currency board in Brunei Darussalam and analyzes its orthodoxy throughout its existence. A workbook with balance sheets compiled from 1967-1987 and 1998-2020 accompanies this paper. An appendix of the legislative history of Brunei Darussalam’s currency board can also be found at the end of this paper. |
| Keywords: | Brunei; currency board; orthodox |
| JEL: | E59 N15 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0162&r=all |
| By: | Arsen, Celia |
| Abstract: | This thesis examines the relationship between gender-based occupational segregation and gender-based residential patterns. Specifically, it finds that that Irish-born immigrants were more likely to be employed in highly gender-segregated occupations than their German-born counterparts. This had a spatial impact on the residential patterns of Irish-born men and women. Because Irish-born immigrants tended to work in highly gender-segregated occupations that were located in different parts of the city, Irish-born men and women disproportionately lived in different areas. The paper discusses some of the historical and contextual factors that explain why Irish-born women were more likely than German-born women to go into highly gender-segregated occupations. Lastly, it shows how this relationship between occupational segregation and geography impacted the economic life cycles of these immigrant women. In particular, it identifies the rate at which women left the workforce after getting married or having children. |
| Date: | 2020–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:s4jvz&r=all |
| By: | Jon Frost; Hyun Song Shin; Peter Wierts |
| Abstract: | This paper draws lessons on the central bank underpinnings of money from the rise and fall of the Bank of Amsterdam (1609-1820). The Bank started out as a "stablecoin": it issued deposits backed by silver and gold coins, and settled payments by transfers across deposits. Over time, it performed functions of a modern central bank and its deposits took on attributes of fiat money. The economic shocks of the 1780s, large-scale lending and lack of fiscal support led to its failure. Using monthly balance sheet data, we show how confidence in Bank money gave way to a run equilibrium, where the fall of the premium on deposits over coins ("agio") into negative territory was swift and precipitous. This holds lessons for the governance of digital money. |
| Keywords: | stablecoins; crypto-assets; central banks; money |
| JEL: | E42 E58 N13 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:696&r=all |
| By: | Leone Walters (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa); Carolyn Chisadza (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa); Matthew W. Clance (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that contrary to previous findings, present-day education outcomes in Africa cannot be independently attributed to colonial or pre-colonial ethnic institutions. We propose that it is instead the complementarity or contention between colonial and precolonial institutions that result in education outcomes we observe today. Using geolocated DHS literacy outcomes for Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, our findings suggest that the positive effect of British rule on contemporary literacy is diminished in centralised ethnic regions. This paper contributes to debates on colonial and pre-colonial ethnic influences on African development, moving beyond country-level analysis. |
| Keywords: | Africa, Ethnic Institutions, Education |
| JEL: | I25 N17 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:2020102&r=all |
| By: | Moritz Schularick (Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Department of Economics, University of Bonn; and CEPR); Lucas ter Steege (Department of Economics, University of Bonn); Felix Ward (Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam; and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | Can central banks defuse rising stability risks in financial booms by leaning against the wind with higher interest rates? This paper studies the state-dependent effects of monetary policy on financial crisis risk. Based on the near-universe of advanced economy gonancial cycles since the 19th century, we show that discretionary leaning against the wind policies during credit and asset price booms are more likely to trigger crises than prevent them. |
| Keywords: | financial stability, monetary policy, local projections |
| JEL: | E44 E50 G01 G15 N10 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:041&r=all |
| By: | M.Venkata Raamasrinivas (MSE); Naveen Srinivasan (Professor, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India) |
| Abstract: | We build an adaptive learning model where policymakers use constant gain learning algorithm to update their knowledge/estimates of the model every time period. The optimal policy is enacted every time period by policymakers assuming their current knowledge of the model to be perfect. This framework is used to study the behavior of post war US inflation and unemployment. The model accurately explains the Great Inflation- while the rational expectations equilibrium is characterized by low inflation, learning leads to disequilibrium dynamics when initial knowledge of the model is incorrect. Specifically, under estimation of the natural rate, persistence of inflation and slope of Phillips Curve by policymakers explains the high and persistent nature of inflation from 1963 to 1980. The convergence of learning to rational expectations equilibrium explains the subsequent disinflation. We further show that, within the learning framework, policymakers exposed themselves to the time consistency problem. Between 1960-1979, they pursued an artificially low target for the unemployment rate. Since Volcker, policymakers have accepted the natural rate hypothesis and hence have avoided the inflationary bias arising from time consistency problem. |
| Keywords: | natural rate of unemployment, persistence, stagflation, time inconsistency, state space, kalman filter, maximum likelihood estimation, constant gain (CG) learning |
| JEL: | E32 E37 E58 E52 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2020-194&r=all |
| By: | Xintong Wang (Department of Accounting, Economics, and Finance, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania); Carlos A. Flores (Orfalea College of Business, California Polytechnic State University); Alfonso Flores-Lagunes (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the short- and long-term effects of the U.S. Vietnam-era military service on veterans’ health outcomes using a restricted version of the National Health Interview Survey 1974-2013 and employing the draft lotteries as an instrumental variable (IV). We start by assessing whether the draft lotteries, which have been used as an IV in prior literature, satisfy the exclusion restriction by placing bounds on its net or direct effect on the health outcomes of draft avoiders. Since we do not find evidence against the validity of the IV, we assume its validity in conducting inference on the health effects of military service for individuals who comply with the draft-lotteries assignment (the “compliers”), as well as for those who volunteer for enlistment (the “always-takers”). The causal analysis for volunteers, who represent over 75% of veterans, is novel in this literature that typically focuses on the compliers. Since the effect for volunteers is not point-identified, we employ bounds that rely on a mild mean weak monotonicity assumption. We examine a large array of health outcomes and behaviors, including mortality, up to 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War. We do not find consistent evidence of detrimental health effects on compliers, in line with prior literature. For volunteers, however, we document that their estimated bounds show statistically significant detrimental health effects that appear 20 years after the end of the conflict. As a group, veterans experience similar statistically significant detrimental health effects from military service. These findings have implications for policies regarding compensation and health care of veterans after service |
| Keywords: | Veteran Health, Treatment Effects, Bounds, Instrumental Variables |
| JEL: | I22 C31 C36 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:max:cprwps:234&r=all |
| By: | Hanke, Steve H. (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise); Tanev, Todor (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | The year 1997 was both the worst and best of years for Bulgaria. The year started badly. In February, Bulgaria’s hyperinflation peaked at the fantastic rate of 242% per month (Hanke and Krus, 2013). Then, things dramatically changed for the better. On July 1st, a currency board law was adopted, and the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), specifically its Issue Department, began to operate under currency board rules. These rules required the lev to be fully backed by Deutschemark reserves (now euro reserves) and to freely trade at a fixed exchange rate with the Deutschmark (Hanke, 2016). With that, the lev became a clone of the Deutschmark, and good news followed. |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0140&r=all |
| By: | Papadia, Andrea; Schioppa, Claudio A. |
| Abstract: | We show how elite capture affects optimal debt repatriations and management of official reserves under capital controls, bridging literature on debt buybacks and secondary markets. The model we provide guides our study of one of history's largest debt repatriations -in 1930s Germany. Authorities kept private repatriations under strict control -avoiding detrimental macroeconomic effects- while allowing discretionary repatriations so to reap internal political benefits. German assets exhibited large spreads between their domestic and foreign prices, granting arbitrage profits to those who had forex access. New data reveals that spread dynamics were affected by the impact of capital controls on secondary markets. |
| Keywords: | Sovereign risk,Capital controls,Elite capture,Germany,Nazi regime,Foreign debt,Secondary markets |
| JEL: | E65 F38 H63 N24 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:25&r=all |
| By: | Shea, R.A. |
| Keywords: | Public Economics |
| Date: | 2020–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:cantrf:305988&r=all |
| By: | Santiago Garcia-Couto |
| Abstract: | It is well documented that routine-biased technical change ("RBTC") led to labor market polarization during 1980-2000. In particular, the employment and wages of non-routine occupations, which include low-wage manual and high-wage cognitive ones, increased relative to routine occupations. I document that during 2000-2016, wage polarization stopped in that the wages of non-routine manual occupations fell in relative and absolute terms. I study the end of wage polarization through the lens of a dynamic general equilibrium model with RBTC, human capital accumulation, and occupational mobility. I find that during 2000-2016, RBTC continued to take place, but human capital accumulation and occupational mobility changed. In particular, compared to workers in routine occupations, workers in non-routine manual occupations had lower initial human capital and accumulated less human capital whereas workers in cognitive occupations had more initial human capital and accumulated more human capital than before. During 1980-2000 the changes in the human capital accumulation of the occupations were similar to those during 2000-2016, but during the second period mobility across occupations fell, which magnified the differences in human capital accumulation and led to the end of wage polarization. |
| JEL: | E24 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2020–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jmp:jm2020:pga567&r=all |
| By: | Ana Tomás; Nuno Valério |
| Abstract: | This working paper summarizes the evolution of the tobacco sector in Portugal, both from the perspective of the regime established by the government, and from the perspective of the entrepreneurs and firms that worked in the sector. This is the second working paper of a set started with working paper no. 68 on the railroad sector, with the final purpose of preparing a Business History of Portugal. |
| Keywords: | Portugal, tobacco sector, tobacco firms. JEL classification: L66 – tabaco / tobacco |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:gheswp:wp692020&r=all |
| By: | David Fettig; James A. Schmitz |
| Abstract: | The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the vast inequalities that exist within the US economy. As the virus has spread silently, it has laid bare other crises that face our nation---especially the economic vulnerabilities of the country's poor and marginalized. Many of these vulnerabilities can, in fact, be traced back to a single cause that itself has spread silently, but over the last several decades, not months: Monopolies. That monopolies are "silent spreaders of poverty and economic inequality" was well known to economic and legal scholars of the 1930s and 1940s. Wendell Berge, who was Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust in the 1940s, wrote: "Monopoly conditions have often grown up almost unnoticed by the public until one day it is suddenly realized that an industry is no longer competitive but is governed by an economic oligarchy." The harm caused by these monopolies that have mostly avoided detection often exist in markets with small firms, low concentration levels, and small price-cost margins, as in residential construction, or wreak their harm in public institutions, where prices and concentration have no meaning. While there has been a very welcome resurgence in the concern about monopolies in the last decade or so, this has primarily involved vast corporations, and often about their threat to democratic institutions. Though greatly welcomed, we should not let apprehension with these larger companies distract us from the many hidden monopolies that have silently spread harm to the poor for the last 100 years -- not just the last 10 or so. We should stand on the shoulders of giants that taught us this about monopolies, not only Berge, but Thurman Arnold, Henry Simons, and others. |
| Keywords: | Monopoly; Competition; Inequality; Cournot; Sabotage; Harberger; COVID-19; Thurman Arnold; Henry Simons; Silent spreaders; Housing |
| JEL: | D22 D42 K0 L0 L12 |
| Date: | 2020–09–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmwp:89028&r=all |
| By: | Maurizio Iacopetta (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques); Pietro Peretto (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Corporate governance distortions delay or even halt a country's transformation into a modern innovation economy. We investigate the mechanism through a growth model that allows for agency issues within firms. Governance distortions raise the cost of investment and depress the incentives to set up new firms. Modest differences in governance account for large gaps in income: A 32 percent investment cost differential can explain the secular decline of Latin America income relative to that of the USA, and implies an industrialization delay of a third of a century. We obtain similar results for a large number of countries and macro-regions. |
| Keywords: | Corporate governance; Income differences; Secular transition; Modern growth |
| JEL: | D58 O14 O16 O43 O57 |
| Date: | 2020–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7nn6fpcnia859pog8o084b54ct&r=all |
| By: | Juan J Dolado; Florentino Felgueroso; Juan F.Jimeno |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the experience so far of the Spanish labour market during the Covid‐19 crisisin the light of the existing institutions, its performance during past recessions, and the policymeasures adopted during the pandemic. Emphasis is placed on the role of worldwide trends inlabour markets, due to automation and AI, in shaping a potential recovery of this (hopefully)transitory shock through a big reallocation process of employment and economic activity. It alsohighlights some innovations to employment and social policies needed to smooth thereallocation process and lessen the rise in inequality associated to technological trends. |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaeee:eee2020-37&r=all |
| By: | Strezewski, John (The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise) |
| Abstract: | Provided is a bibliography of major and minor scholarly writings on currency boards up to mid2020, updating a previous version of this paper from 2013. In this paper, the author incorporates and expands on three previous bibliographies; by Kurt Schuler (compiled in 1992), Matthew Sekerke (compiled in 2001), and Thomas Gross, Joshua Heft, and Douglas A. Rodgers (compiled in 2012, updated in 2013, and working paper no. 1 in the Studies in Applied Economics series). |
| Keywords: | Bibliography; Currency Boards |
| JEL: | E59 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:jhisae:0163&r=all |
| By: | David de la Croix (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Pauline Morault (CY Cergy Paris Université, France) |
| Abstract: | Using a new database of European academics, we provide a global view of the effect of the Protestant Reformation on the network of universities and on their individual importance within the network. A connection (edge) between two universities (nodes) is defined by the presence of the same scholar in both universities. We first show that the emergence of Protestantism is strongly associated with rising fragmentation. Dyadic regressions confirm that geography is important as well, but does not substitute for the effect of religion. Considering eigenvector centrality as a measure of the importance of nodes in the network, we find that becoming Protestant or being a newly founded Protestant university is associated with higher centrality. Finally, the number of publications from universities is strongly correlated with centrality, lending credence to the view that the loss of connectedness of the Southern European universities after the (Counter-)Reformation was key in triggering their scientific demise. |
| Keywords: | Upper-Tail Human Capital, Universities, Network, Centrality, Publications, Fragmentation |
| JEL: | N33 O15 I25 |
| Date: | 2020–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2020029&r=all |