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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2020‒12‒07
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | The rising trend in the capital-output ratio and the productivity slowdown have put capital back in the economist's agenda. This paper contributes to the debate by providing new estimates of net capital stock and services for Spain over the last 170 years. The net capital (wealth) stock-GDP ratio rose over time and doubled in the last half-a-century. Capital services grew fast over the long-run accelerating in the 1920s and from the mid-1950s to 2007. Until 1975 its acceleration was helped by an increase in the 'quality' of capital. Capital deepening proceeded steadily, accelerating during 1955-1985, and slowing down thereafter for expanding sectors attracted less investment-specific technological progress. Although capital consumption rose over time, the rate of depreciation fell from 1970 to 2007 as new capital goods' relative prices declined due to embodied technological change. |
| Keywords: | Spain; Capital-Output Ratio; Capital Deepening; Capital Stock And Services |
| JEL: | N34 N33 E22 E01 D24 |
| Date: | 2020–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:31464&r=all |
| By: | Paolo Buonanno; Elena Esposito; Giorgio Gulino |
| Abstract: | Disease and epidemics have been a constant presence throughout the history of humanity. In order to mitigate the risks of contagion, societies have long "adapted" to diseases, implementing an array of coping strategies that, in the long run, have had considerable economic and social consequences. This article advances the hypothesis, and documents empirically, that the need to alleviate the dangers of malaria shaped all aspects of life in agricultural communities, from where and how people settled, to how and what they could farm. As larger farms were better equipped to adopt these risk-mitigating strategies, centuries of exposure to malaria had important implications for inequality and wealth distribution. |
| Keywords: | land concentration, Inequality, malaria, diseases, human capital, long-run development |
| JEL: | O40 O13 O15 N30 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1755&r=all |
| By: | Paolo Buonanno; Elena Esposito; Giorgio Gulino |
| Abstract: | Disease and epidemics have been a constant presence throughout the history of humanity. In order to mitigate the risks of contagion, societies have long “adapted” to diseases, implementing an array of coping strategies that, in the long run, have had considerable economic and social consequences. This article advances the hypothesis, and documents empirically, that the need to alleviate the dangers of malaria shaped all aspects of life in agricultural communities, from where and how people settled, to how and what they could farm. As larger farms were better equipped to adopt these risk-mitigating strategies, centuries of exposure to malaria had important implications for inequality and wealth distribution. |
| Keywords: | land concentration, Inequality, malaria, diseases, human capital, long-run development |
| JEL: | O40 O13 O15 N30 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1220&r=all |
| By: | Daniel Cassidy (National University of Ireland, Galway); Nick Hanley (University of Glasgow) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the integration of regional Scottish grain markets from the early seventeenth century until the end of the long eighteenth century in 1815. The Scottish economy developed rapidly in this period, with expansion driven by improvements in market structures and specialisation in agricultural production. We test for price convergence and market efficiency using grain prices collected from Scotland's fiars courts' records. Our results suggest that price convergence increased across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but experienced a number of setbacks in times of famine and war. The civil war and Cromwellian occupation of the Scottish Lowlands in the 1640s and 1650s, the famine years of the 1690s, the American War of Independence, and the French/Napoleonic wars all caused declines in price convergence. Using a dynamic factor model, we find that market efficiency increased substantially in regional Scottish markets from the late seventeenth century. This analysis suggests that sub-national markets existed in the late seventeenth century, in the east and west of the country, but merged in the eighteenth century to form a unified national grain market. |
| Keywords: | Market integration, development, prices |
| JEL: | N13 F15 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0200&r=all |
| By: | Irarrázaval, Andrés |
| Abstract: | This research exploits novel evidence on current and historical inequality dynamics, as well as an instrumental variable (IV) strategy (founded on historical settler mortality à la Acemoglu et al.), to document the fundamental role of income redistribution through taxes and transfers in accounting for differences in inequality across regions and historical periods. This research challenges the conventional wisdom about the origins of world-leading inequality levels in Latin America, India or Africa, arguing that inequality is not rooted in the colonial period nor are current inequality levels explained by supposedly persistent “extractive” economic institutions maintaining an unequal playing field. De facto, Latin America, Africa and India have had, in most cases, lower inequality levels than Western countries (i.e. Western Europe and its Offshoots) until the early 20th century. Before this period, no different than in colonized nations, Western countries had a regressive fiscal system which required the poorest taxpayers to fund public services that benefited richer households. The IV strategy, and the evidence on inequality dynamics, both indicate that contemporary inequality differences are a product of the 20th century. The emergence of redistributive policies due to democratization, which have taken place in the past century, have led to an exceptional inequality reduction in Western countries. Despite that Latin America and India have converged towards “inclusive” economic institutions, high inequality has persisted through a regressive fiscal equilibrium which still is largely in place due to a slower democratization process. |
| Keywords: | inequality; redistribution; institutions; colonialism; Latin America; India |
| JEL: | D02 D31 D63 D72 F54 H23 N30 O15 O17 P16 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107491&r=all |
| By: | Bogle, David A.; Coyle, Christopher; Turner, John D. |
| Abstract: | What shapes and drives capital market development over the long run? In this paper, using the asset portfolios of UK life assurers, we examine the role of regulation, historical contingency and political reactions to events on the long-run development of the UK capital market. Government response to events such as war, hegemonysecured peace, and the wider macroeconomic environment was the ultimate determinant of major changes in asset allocation since 1800. Furthermore, when we compare the UK with the United States, we find that regulation played a limited role in shaping the asset portfolios of the UK life assurance industry. |
| Keywords: | Capital markets,asset management,life assurance,mutuals,mergers,regulation,United Kingdom,United States |
| JEL: | G11 G22 N20 N40 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202009&r=all |
| By: | Kenny, Seán; Lennard, Jason; O'Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj |
| 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: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107427&r=all |
| By: | Alexey G. Vasilyev (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper is focused on Stefan Czarnowski (1879-1937), early Polish sociologist, one of the founders of professional sociology in Poland, and author of an original concept in the historical sociology of culture. His ideas about forms and ways of functioning of the past in the present as well as mechanisms of nation-building (using the example of St. Patrick as a resource of formation of national identity of Irish people) are considered in the context of history of memory studies and nationalism studies. |
| Keywords: | Stefan Czarnowski, memory studies, nationalism studies, the past, history, historiography, national hero, nation-building, national identity. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:195/hum/2020&r=all |
| By: | Staccioli, Jacopo; Virgillito, Maria Enrica |
| Abstract: | This paper, relying on a still relatively unexplored long-term dataset on U.S. patenting activity, provides empirical evidence on the history of labour-saving innovations back to early 19th century. The identification of mechanisation/automation heuristics, retrieved via textual content analysis on current robotic technologies by Montobbio et al. (2020), allows to focus on a limited set of CPC codes where mechanisation and automation technologies are more prevalent. We track their time evolution, clustering, eventual emergence of wavy behaviour, and their comovements with long-term GDP growth. Our results challenge both the general-purpose technology approach and the strict 50-year Kondratiev cycle, while provide evidence of the emergence of erratic constellations of heterogeneous technological artefacts, in line with the developmentblock approach enabled by autocatalytic systems. |
| Keywords: | Labour-Saving Technologies,Search Heuristics,Industrial Revolutions,Wavelet analysis |
| JEL: | O3 C38 J24 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:721&r=all |
| By: | Jacopo Staccioli; Maria Enrica Virgillito |
| Abstract: | This paper, relying on a still relatively unexplored long-term dataset on U.S.~patenting activity, provides empirical evidence on the history of labour-saving innovations back to early 19th century. The identification of mechanisation/automation heuristics, retrieved via textual content analysis on current robotic technologies by Montobbio et al. (2020), allows to focus on a limited set of CPC codes where mechanisation and automation technologies are more prevalent. We track their time evolution, clustering, eventual emergence of wavy behaviour, and their comovements with long-term GDP growth. Our results challenge both the general-purpose technology approach and the strict 50-year Kondratiev cycle, while provide evidence of the emergence of erratic constellations of heterogeneous technological artefacts, in line with the development-block approach enabled by autocatalytic systems. |
| Keywords: | Labour-Saving Technologies; Search Heuristics; Industrial Revolutions; Wavelet analysis. |
| Date: | 2020–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2020/34&r=all |
| By: | Luis Angeles |
| Abstract: | The history of money can be characterized into four major phases, from the earliest written records during the 3rd millennium BC to the present day. This characterization sheds light on both the nature and the evolution of money, and helps us to understand today’s monetary arrangements. Money evolves over time as the preferred means of payment shift from metal to coinage and from coinage to different forms of debt, and as the unit of account becomes more or less linked to the value of a commodity, in particular gold or silver. |
| JEL: | E51 E58 G21 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2020_24&r=all |
| By: | Doerr, Sebastian; Gissler, Stefan; Peydró, José-Luis; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | Do financial crises radicalize voters? We study Germany's banking crisis of 1931, when two major banks collapsed and voting for radical parties soared. We collect new data on bank branches and rm-bank connections of over 5,500 firms and show that incomes plummeted in cities affected by the bank failures; connected firms curtailed their payrolls. We further establish that Nazi votes surged in locations exposed to failing Danatbank, led by a prominent Jewish manager and targeted by anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. Our results suggest a synergy between cultural and economic factors: Danatbank's collapse boosted Nazi support especially in cities with deep-seated anti-Semitism; and the Nazis gained few additional votes in cities exposed to collapsing Dresdner Bank, which was not the target of Nazi hate speech. Danat-exposed and non-exposed cities were similar in their pre-crisis characteristics and exhibited no differential pre-trends; firms borrowing from Danat had lower leverage before the crisis than other rms. Unobservables are unlikely to account for the results. |
| Keywords: | financial crises,political extremism,anti-Semitism,Great Depression,populism |
| JEL: | E44 G01 G21 N20 P16 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:226220&r=all |
| By: | Kalyagin Grigory (Department of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University) |
| Abstract: | This article is an attempt to find the answer to the question of what determines the choice of the method of providing different goods. Why is one good given as private good, the other as a club good, the third as a practically pure public good, the fourth as a mix of different forms. In fact, this question includes the question of what the state should (and should not) do. The main part of the article is devoted to a review of the discussion concerning the good, which played a special role in economic theory - the lighthouses. Although the classics of political economy XIX - early XX centuries. considered them as striking examples of pure public goods, the famous article by R. Coase [Coase, 1974] concludes that the services of lighthouses in Eng-land and Wales were not funded from general taxes, that is, they were not provided as public goods until the second third XIX century. Further development of this discussion, which is still incomplete and actual, leads to the understanding that lighthouse services are provided in dif-ferent countries and / or at different times as goods of various types. The same applies to al-most any other goods. The concrete way of providing this good depends not only on the country and time, but also on how to counter what specific offenses it provides. We conclude that there are no private, public, etc. the benefits themselves do not exist, and a socially effective way of delivering benefits depends on the technologies and institutions available in the society. |
| Keywords: | public good; lighthouse; market failures; Coase; Stiglitz. |
| JEL: | B41 D61 H41 H42 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upa:wpaper:0032&r=all |
| By: | Lonsky, Jakub |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). Using a unique web scraped dataset containing detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders, I first show that the Russian mafia originated in the Soviet Gulag archipelago, and could be found near the gulags' initial locations in mid-1990s Russia, some three decades after the camps were officially closed down. Then, using an instrumental variable approach that exploits the proximity of the Russian mafia to the gulags, I show that Russian communities with mafia presence in the mid-1990s experienced a dramatic rise in crime driven by elite violence which erupted shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The violence – initially confined to the criminal underworld – eventually spilled over, leading to indiscriminate attacks against local businessmen, managers of state-owned enterprises, judges, and members of the state security apparatus. However, there was no increase in politically-motivated violence, suggesting a widespread collusion between the mafia and local politicians in the early post-Soviet Russia. |
| Keywords: | Russian mafia,Gulag,Post-socialist transition,Crime,Elite violence |
| JEL: | K42 N40 P16 P37 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:711&r=all |
| By: | Sophie Panel (IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes); Antoine Pietri (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - FRE2010 - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Warfare has been found to have detrimental impacts on biodiversity due to its long-lasting economic and social consequences. Yet, much less is known about the amount of biodiversity loss directly resulting from the use of military technology. This paper analyzes the environmental consequences of one of the largest aerial and naval conflicts of the late 20st century, namely the 1982 Falklands War. As an indicator of the marine ecosystem status, we analyze population trends of king penguins breeding on the Falkland Islands over the period 1963-1997. Using interrupted time series analysis, we find that the war significantly slowed the growth rate of king penguins' population. To take better account of time-varying confounders, we complement this analysis using a synthetic control group based on data from other Sub-Antarctic colonies and find similar results. . |
| Keywords: | King penguins,Falklands War,Ecological warfare |
| Date: | 2020–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpceem:hal-03009238&r=all |
| By: | Daniel Levy (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Department of Economics, Emory University, USA; Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis); Andrew T. Young (College of Business Administration, Texas Tech University, USA) |
| Abstract: | We study the cost of breaching an implicit contract in a goods market. Young and Levy (2014) document an implicit contract between the Coca-Cola Company and its consumers. This implicit contract included a promise of constant quality. We offer two types of evidence of the costs of breach. First, we document a case in 1930 when the Coca-Cola Company chose to avoid quality adjustment by incurring a permanently higher marginal cost of production, instead of a one-time increase in the fixed cost. Second, we explore the consequences of the company’s 1985 introduction of “New Coke” to replace the original beverage. Using the Hirschman's (1970) model of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, we argue that the public outcry that followed New Coke’s introduction was a response to the implicit contract breach. |
| Keywords: | Invisible Handshake, Implicit Contract, Customer Market, Long-Term Relationship, Cost of Breaching a Contract, Cost of Breaking a Contract, Coca-Cola, New Coke, Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Nickel Coke, Sticky/Rigid Prices, Cost of Price Adjustment, Cost of Quality Adjustment |
| JEL: | E31 K10 L11 L16 L66 M20 M30 N80 N82 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:20-26&r=all |
| By: | John B. Davis (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | Care is central to the human experience and part of the social provisioning process. Adam Smith recognized this, associating care with sympathy. Later contributions in the political economy tradition also provide scope for an analysis of care, but none as developed as Smith�s. With the emergence of the current mainstream, care is marginalized. Kenneth Boulding�s analysis provides an opportunity to interrogate care in the economy, but he fails to explicitly acknowledge care. It is left to feminist economics to highlight the centrality of care. An implication is that it challenges the conventional rubric of economic organization predicated on self-interest. |
| Keywords: | care, Smith, feminist economics, Boulding, social provisioning |
| JEL: | B10 B54 I00 Z00 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2019-02&r=all |
| By: | , AISDL |
| Abstract: | To celebrate Vietnam Teachers' Day, the VIASM SciMath Database Project team members have completed the first working draft, depicting the 80-year development history of Vietnam mathematical research. |
| Date: | 2020–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:748js&r=all |
| By: | Kronenberg, Christoph |
| Abstract: | I analyze the relationship between state‐level economic shocks and suicides using historical US gold discoveries (1840‐1860) as a large unexpected economic shock. Gold discoveries were an unexpected and large economic shock of up to 3.5% of GDP. They provide as good as random variation to the local economy, that I use to estimate the effect of economic changes on suicides. Comprehensive mortality data by state and year does not exist for the US for 1840 to 1860. I thus make use of web scraped data from a newspaper archive and use suicide mentions per 100,000 pages as a proxy for suicides. Results show that overall gold discoveries are linked with a clear reduction in newspaper suicide mentions. The results indicate that an economic shock changes the suicide rate by one for every $136,659 to $251,145. This is estimate implies a higher cost‐effectiveness than previous research but is still seven to fourteen times the size of modern, cost‐effective suicide prevention method. |
| Keywords: | Gold Rush, Economic Shock, Suicide, Newspaper |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajt:wcinch:73382&r=all |
| By: | , Stone Center (The Graduate Center/CUNY); Ranaldi, Marco; Milanovic, Branko |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the relationship between capitalism systems and their levels of income and compositional inequality (how the composition of income between capital and labor varies along income distribution). Capitalism may be seen to range between Classical Capitalism, where the rich have only capital income, and the rest have only labor income, and Liberal Capitalism, where many people receive both capital and labor incomes. Using a new methodology and data from 47 countries over the past 25 years, we show that higher compositional inequality is associated with higher inter-personal inequality. Nordic countries are exceptional because they combine high compositional inequality with low inter-personal inequality. We speculate on the emergence of homoploutic societies where income composition may be the same for all, but Gini inequality nonetheless high, and introduce a new taxonomy of capitalist societies. (Stone Center Working Paper Series) Revised |
| Date: | 2020–11–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:du4y7&r=all |
| By: | Colin Weiss |
| Abstract: | Recent stress episodes in U.S. short-term dollar funding markets have brought renewed attention to the functioning of these markets and how they interact with capital markets more generally. The history of U.S. money markets and stock and bond markets before the founding of the Federal Reserve offer a unique perspective on how the structure of money markets can contribute to broader asset price fluctuations. |
| Date: | 2020–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfn:2020-11-09-4&r=all |
| By: | Claridge, Jordan; Gibbs, Spike |
| Keywords: | medieval; agriculture; property rights; livestock; law; federalism |
| JEL: | N00 N01 N53 N43 N73 O13 O31 P11 P14 P16 P20 P21 Q00 Q15 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107440&r=all |
| By: | Chanelle Duley; Prasanna Gai |
| Abstract: | We extend the canonical global game model of currency crises to allow for macroeconomic tail risk. The exchange rate peg is attacked if fundamentals reach a critical threshold, or if there is a sufficiently large public shock. Large shocks generate doubt amongst investors about both the state of the world and about what others know, giving rise to multiple equilibria. We ï¬ nd a non-monotonic relationship between tail risk and the probability of (a fundamentals-based) crisis and show how this effect depends on the magnitude and direction of public shocks. Our analysis sheds new light on the way in which international ï¬ nancial contagion played a part in the sterling crisis of 1931. |
| Keywords: | Global games, currency crises, rank beliefs, inter-war gold standard, sterling crisis of 1931 |
| JEL: | F31 G01 E44 N24 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesrd:520&r=all |
| By: | Riza Demirer (Department of Economics and Finance, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026- 1102, USA); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa); Jacobus Nel (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa); Christian Pierdzioch (Department of Economics, Helmut Schmidt University, Holstenhofweg 85, P.O.B. 700822, 22008 Hamburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We extend the literature on the effect of rare disaster risks on commodities by examining the effect of the El Nino- Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on crude oil via the recently developed k-th order nonparametric causality-in-quantiles framework, utilizing a long range historical data set spanning the period 1876:01 to 2020:10. The methodology allows us to test for the predictive role of ENSO over the entire conditional distribution of not only real oil returns but also its volatility, by controlling for misspecification due to uncaptured nonlinearity and regime-changes. Empirical findings show that the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), measuring the ENSO cycle, not only predicts real oil returns, but also volatility, over the entirety of the respective conditional distributions. The findings highlight the role of rare disaster risks over not only financial markets, but also commodities with significant implications for policymakers and investors. |
| Keywords: | El Nino-Southern Oscillation, Real Oil Returns and Volatility, Higher-Order Nonparametric Causality in Quantiles Test |
| JEL: | C22 Q41 Q55 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:2020104&r=all |
| By: | Roses Vendoiro, Juan Ramon; Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | The current productivity slowdown has stimulated research on the causes of growth. We investigate here the proximate determinants of long-term growth in Spain. Over the last 170 years output per hour worked raised nearly 24-fold dominating GDP growth, while hours worked per person shrank by one-fourth and population trebled. Half of labour productivity growth resulted from capital deepening, one-third from total factor productivity, and labour quality contributed the rest. In phases of acceleration (the 1920s and 1954-85), TFP was labour productivity's main driver complemented by capital deepening. Since Spain's accession to the European Union(1985), labour productivity has sharply decelerated as capital deepening slowed down and TFP stagnated. Up to the Global Financial Crisis (2008) GDP growth mainly resulted from an increase in hours worked per person and, to a less extent, from sluggish labour productivity coming mostly from weak capital deepening. Institutional constraints help explain the labour productivity slowdown. |
| Keywords: | Spain; Total Factor Productivity; Labour Quality; Capital Deepening; Labour Productivity; Growth |
| JEL: | N14 N13 O47 E01 D24 |
| Date: | 2020–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:31465&r=all |
| By: | Simone Pellegrino (Università di Torino) |
| Abstract: | Il saggio ripercorre le tappe fondamentali, e analizza le motivazioni teoriche, che hanno influito sulla definizione dell'indice di Gini così come viene applicato ai giorni nostri. In particolare, partendo dal concetto di differenza media semplice proposta da Corrado Gini nel 1912 per le applicazioni in ambito statistico ed economico, si evidenziano le diversità tra il rapporto di concentrazione proposto dallo stesso Gini nel 1914 e l'indice di Gini usualmente utilizzato oggi, alla luce della sua interpretazione geometrica con la spezzata di Lorenz proposta da Gaetano Pietra nel 1915. |
| Keywords: | Indice di Gini, Curva di Lorenz |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipu:wpaper:101&r=all |
| By: | Marcel Fratzscher; Tobias Heidland; Lukas Menkhoff; Lucio Sarno; Maik Schmeling |
| Abstract: | We construct a novel database of monthly foreign exchange interventions for 49 countries over up to 22 years. We build on a text classification approach that extracts information about interventions from news articles and calibrate our procedure to data about actual interventions. Our new dataset allows us to document stylized facts about the use of foreign exchange interventions for countries that neither publish their data nor make them available to researchers. Moreover, we show that foreign exchange interventions are used in a complementary way with capital controls and macroprudential regulation. |
| Keywords: | Foreign exchange intervention; capital controls; macroprudential regulation; international capitalflows |
| JEL: | F31 F33 E58 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1915&r=all |
| By: | Scobie, Grant M |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this essay is to address the question: “Are there elements of Phillip's work that are still relevant today for macroeconomic policymaking today?†In undertaking this task, I will draw on the summary of his work from the second part of Allan Bollard's book "A Few Hares to Chase: The Economic Life and Times of Bill Phillips". But I will also cast the net a little wider to draw on the writings of others who have reviewed and built on the work of Phillips; and naturally, I will call on a number of the original papers by Phillips. However, any suggestion that I will fully capture all that has been written about Phillips, his life and work, must be summarily dismissed. Put “AWH Phillips economist†into Google search and one gets 201,100 links; for “Phillips curve†a mere 717,000. The essay proceeds as follows. Phillips’ work is grouped into four broad areas: - Inflation and Unemployment - Dynamic Stabilisation and Optimal Control - Economic growth - Econometrics This is followed by a brief discussion of forecasting and policy models with a sketch of their use in selected countries. A concluding section follows. |
| Keywords: | Phillips, Bill, Macroeconomic policy, New Zealand, |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vuw:vuwcpf:9368&r=all |
| By: | Chau, Ngo Bao; Vuong, Quan-Hoang; La, Viet-Phuong; Le, Tuan-Hoa; Le, Minh-Ha; Giang, Trinh Thi Thuy; Hiep, Pham Hung; Huyen, Nguyen Thanh Thanh; Nguyen, Thanh-Dung; Linh, Nguyen Thi |
| Abstract: | Starting with the first international publication of Le Van Thiem (Lê Văn Thiêm) in 1947, modern mathematics in Vietnam is a longstanding research field. However, what is known about its development usually comes from discrete essays such as anecdotes or interviews of renowned mathematicians. We introduce SciMath—a database on publications of Vietnamese mathematicians. To ensure this database covers as many publications as possible, data entries are manually collected from scientists’ publication records, journals’ websites, universities, and research institutions. Collected data went through various verification steps to ensure data quality and minimize errors. At the time of this report, the database covered 8372 publications, profiles of 1566 Vietnamese, and 1492 foreign authors since 1947. We found a growing capability in mathematics research in Vietnam in various aspects: scientific output, publications on influential journals, or collaboration. The database and preliminary results were presented to the Scientific Council of Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM) on November 13th, 2020. |
| Date: | 2020–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:zceqx&r=all |