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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2021‒03‒08
34 papers chosen by |
| By: | Ma, Debin |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the phenomenal transformation of banking and finance, public debt, and monetary regimes during 1900–37, a period of great political instability in Chinese history. To understand why growth in these strategic sectors occurred, I highlight the role of the institutional nexus of Western treaty ports (with Shanghai being the most important) and China Maritime Customs service, a relatively autonomous tax bureaucracy. My new interpretation on the importance of this mechanism sheds new light on the role of Chinese political institutions, the impact of the West and the ongoing Great Divergence debate. |
| Keywords: | China; credible commitment; public debt; financial revolution |
| JEL: | N15 N25 N45 E42 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100280&r=all |
| By: | Sebastián Enrique Acosta Madiedo Aranzalez |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses how Prussia’s public education policy was intentionally guided by economic principles that modern economists have formalized and modelled. The essay takes two particular economic models and compares its results with the primary sources available from that time and the research results of current academics and historians who have tackled the subject from their discipline’s point of view. The general conclusion is that the Prussian policy of Public Education was strongly guided by economic principles, which are congruent, intuitively, with the chosen economic models' theoretical and empirical results. *** Este artículo discute hasta qué punto la política pública en torno a la educación en Prusia fue guiada por principios económicos que los economistas modernos han formalizado y modelado. El ensayo analiza dos modelos económicos particulares y compara los resultados obtenidos por los economistas con fuentes primaras de la época y las conclusiones de las investigaciones realizadas por académicos e historiadores que han abordado el tema desde sus respectivas áreas del conocimiento. La conclusión general a la que llega el presente texto es que la política educativa en Prusia fue guiada de forma significativa por principios económicos congruentes, de forma intuitiva, con los resultados teóricos y empíricos de los modelos seleccionados. |
| Keywords: | Prussia, education, expenditure, intentions |
| JEL: | N33 N43 H30 H71 I20 |
| Date: | 2021–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000176:018924&r=all |
| By: | Luzardo-Luna, Ivan |
| Abstract: | This article estimates the matching function of the British labour market for the period of 1921-1934. Changes in matching efficiency can explain both employment resilience during the Great Depression and the high structural unemployment throughout the interwar period. Early in the 1920s, matching efficiency improved due to the development of the retail industry. However, the econometric results show a structural break in March 1927, related to a major industrial reshuffling that reduced the demand for workers in staple industries. Since these industries were geographically concentrated, there was an increase in the average distance between the unemployed and vacancies, and matching efficiency declined. |
| JEL: | N34 |
| Date: | 2020–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105707&r=all |
| By: | Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | The study of international well-being and its distribution remains focused on income. This paper addresses multidimensional well-being from a capabilities perspective during the last one-and-a-half centuries. Relative inequality (population-weighted) fell in health and education since the late 1920s, due to the globalisation of mass schooling and the health transition, but only dropped from 1970 onwards in terms of political and civil liberties, and declined since 1900 for augmented human development. These results are at odds with per capita income inequality that rose over time and only shrank from 1990 onwards. Relative and absolute well-being distribution behaved differently, with the distance between countries shrinking in relative terms but widening in absolute terms. Countries in the middle and lower deciles of the world distribution achieved the largest relative gain over the last century. Education and political and civil liberties were the main contributors to the evolution of augmented human development inequality, although longevity made a substantial contribution until the 1920s. |
| Keywords: | Augmented Human Development; GDP; Civil And Political Liberties; Schooling; Life Expectancy; Well-Being; Inequality |
| JEL: | O50 O15 N30 I00 |
| Date: | 2021–02–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:32049&r=all |
| By: | Kenichi Tomobe (Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University,) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the VD effect on fertility based on the village and town data in Gunma prefecture from 1910s to 1920s investigated by the bureau of public health and hygiene in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Gunma prefecture was the pioneer where the Japan fs licensed prostitute system was earliest abolished in 1893. Beside it, however, the private prostitute system called gKashi zashiki h prevaile d into the whole area of Gunma prefecture by the Taisho period, ca.1910s. The prostitute system in the modern Japan encountered the socioeconomic change derived from both urbanization and factory industrialization, which was stimulated by the state policy and the problem of population increase happened in the north eastern Japan since the late 19th century. |
| Keywords: | Sexually Transmitted Disease; Syphilis; Infertility; Stillbirth; Miscarriage; Fertility |
| JEL: | I15 N35 N55 N95 R12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:2022&r=all |
| By: | Santori, Paolo; Assistant, JHET |
| Abstract: | In the eighteenth-century Scottish and British cultural context, idleness was a central issue for religion, literature, art, and philosophy. This paper analyzes the reflections of David Hume and Adam Smith on idleness and commercial society. Hume advanced his most provocative view on the subject in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), where idleness is represented as the endowment made by the “very sparing hand” of the “author of nature” to humanity. My argument is that Smith’s view on idleness advanced in the Wealth of Nations (1776) is connected to Hume’s Dialogues, as Smith’s invisible hand defeats idleness through a combination of self-interest, the propensity to exchange, and the division of labor. The broader aim of this study is to add to the philosophical relationship between the Scottish philosophers. |
| Date: | 2021–02–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:r2uje&r=all |
| By: | Karlson, Kristian B. (University of Copenhagen); Landerso, Rasmus (Rockwool Foundation Research Unit) |
| Abstract: | We study intergenerational educational mobility in Denmark over the 20th century during which the comprehensive Danish welfare state was rolled out. While mobility initially was low, schooling reforms benefiting children from disadvantaged backgrounds led to dramatic increases in mobility for cohorts born between 1940 and 1960. However, the college expansion affecting cohorts born from 1970 onward has mainly benefited children from affluent backgrounds, resulting in rapidly declining mobility. Comparisons to educational mobility trends in the U.S. reveal that the two countries converge in mobility levels for the most recent cohorts despite the dramatically different welfare policies in place. |
| Keywords: | educational mobility, inequality, schooling reforms, skills |
| JEL: | H0 I0 J0 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14135&r=all |
| By: | Remi Jedwab (George Washington University, Department of Economics); Felix Meier zu Selhausen (Wageningen University); Alexander Moradi (Free University of Bolzano‐Bozen, Faculty of Economics and Management) |
| Abstract: | How did Christianity expand in Africa to become the continent’s dominant religion? Using annual panel census data on Christian missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana, and pre-1924 data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries, we estimate causal effects of malaria, railroads and cash crops on mission location. We find that missions were established in healthier, more accessible, and richer places before expanding to economically less developed places. We argue that the endogeneity of missionary expansion may have been underestimated, thus questioning the link between missions and economic development for Africa. We find the endogeneity problem exacerbated when mission data is sourced from Christian missionary atlases that disproportionately report a selection of prominent missions that were also established early. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Religion; Religious Diffusion; Human Capital; Economic Persistence; Measurement; Historical Data; Atlases; Missions; Christianity; Africa |
| JEL: | O10 O40 Z12 I20 N30 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bzn:wpaper:bemps78&r=all |
| By: | James M. Nason (North Carolina State University); Gregor W. Smith (Queen's University) |
| Abstract: | Historians have suggested there were waves of inflation or price revolutions in the UK (and earlier England) in the 13th, 16th, and 18th centuries, prior to the ongoing inflation since 1914. We study retail price inflation since 1251 and model its forecasts. The model is an AR(n) but allows for gradually evolving or drifting parameters and stochastic volatility. The long-horizon forecasts suggest only one inflation wave, that of the 20th century. We also use the model to measure inflation predictability and price-level instability from the beginning of the sample and to provide measures of real interest rates since 1695. |
| Keywords: | inflation, price revolutions, stochastic volatility, time-varying parameters |
| JEL: | E31 E37 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1454&r=all |
| By: | Benjamin Lessing |
| Abstract: | “Adoptada como política, la ‘represión condicional’ no es un eslogan tan emocionante como ‘¡pongan fin a la guerra contra las drogas!’, pero bien podría salvar miles de vidas. Benjamin Lessing construye un caso de lo más convincente a lo largo de las páginas de este libro. Solo podemos tener la esperanza de que algunas personas en cargos gubernamentales presten atención.†Mark A. R. Kleiman (1951-2019), autor de Cuando la fuerza bruta fracasa A lo largo de los últimos treinta años una nueva forma de conflicto ha devastado los países más grandes de América Latina: carteles armados combaten no solo entre ellos sino contra los gobiernos nacionales. En Colombia, Brasil y México, las autoridades han procurado desmantelarlos con el fin de restaurar la ley y el monopolio de la fuerza por parte del Estado. Sin embargo, los carteles han respondido con brutalidad, valiéndose de balas y sobornos, lo que ha desatado espirales de violencia y corrupción que convierten en bromas los intentos de los gobernantes de construir país. Por fortuna, algunas reformas políticas han reducido el conflicto entre los carteles y el Estado, pero resultan muy difíciles de sostener a lo largo del tiempo. ¿Por qué los carteles luchan contra un gobierno, si no es para derrocarlo o separarse de este? ¿Por qué algunas medidas represivas estatales desencadenan o exacerban el conflicto entre carteles y Estado, mientras que otras lo disminuyen? En Violencia y paz en la guerra contra las drogas, Benjamin Lessing argumenta que la represión de la fuerza bruta incentiva una respuesta defensiva por parte de los carteles, mientras que las políticas de represión condicional pueden aligerar eficazmente dicho conflicto. Sin embargo, la guerra contra las drogas hace que las políticas de represión condicional sean demasiado frágiles. La revista Choice incluyó la edición en inglés de este libro, Making Peace in Drug Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2018), en su selección Outstanding Academic Titles del 2018 y el Annual Book Prize del International Association for the Study of Organized Crime le otorgó una mención meritoria en el 2019. |
| Date: | 2020–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000490:018920&r=all |
| By: | Sandra García-Uribe; Hannes Mueller; Carlos Sanz |
| Abstract: | This article exploits two newspaper archives to track economic policy uncertainty in Spain in 1905-1945, a period of extreme political polarization. We find that the outbreak of the civil war in 1936 was anticipated by a striking upward level shift of uncertainty in both newspapers. We study the dynamics behind this shift and provide evidence of a strong empirical link between increasing uncertainty and the rise of divisive political issues at the time: socio-economic conflict, regional separatism, power of the military, and role of the church. This holds even when we exploit variation in content at the newspaper level. |
| Keywords: | economic policy uncertainty, Civil War, political polarization, social conflict, agrarian reform, natural language processing, tf-idf |
| JEL: | D72 D74 N14 N24 N44 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1240&r=all |
| By: | Congressional Budget Office |
| Abstract: | CBO examined the threat that land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs) might pose to the U.S. homeland and analyzed defensive systems capable of providing a wide-area defense of the contiguous United States. CBO found that such a defense would be feasible but expensive. |
| JEL: | D74 F51 F52 F53 H41 H56 H57 L64 N40 N42 N44 N62 N64 N72 N74 Q48 |
| Date: | 2021–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbo:report:56950&r=all |
| By: | David Cuberes; Klaus Desmet; Jordan Rappaport |
| Abstract: | Does a location's growth benefit or suffer from being geographically close to large economic centers? Spatial proximity may lead to competition and hurt growth, but it may also improve market access and enhance growth. Using data on U.S. counties and metro areas for the period 1840-2017, we document this tradeoff between urban shadows and urban access. Proximity to large urban centers was negatively associated with growth between 1840 and 1920, and positively associated with growth after 1920. Using a two-city spatial model, we show that the secular evolution of inter-city and intra-city commuting costs can account for this. Alternatively, the long-run decline in inter-city shipping costs relative to intra-city commuting costs is also consistent with these observed patterns. |
| JEL: | N91 N92 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28476&r=all |
| By: | Gaurav Datt; Cun Liu; Russell Smyth |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs long-run estimates of total missing women (including missing girls at birth and excess female deaths) in China and India over seven decades from 1950 to 2020. We find that the number of missing women in India has been higher than in China throughout the seven decades. Over time, missing girls at birth grew faster in China than India, but China has made more rapid progress in reducing excess female deaths. Since the 1980s, there has been a rapid rise in the share of female birth deficits in both countries, while the composition of excess female deaths in both countries has shifted from younger to older age groups. Our estimated trends for missing girls are consistent with the introduction and spread of sex-determination (ultrasound) technology in China and India; the timing and pace of fertility decline associated with demographic transition in both countries; and the introduction, relaxation and discontinuation of the One Child Policy in China. Our estimated time pattern of excess female deaths in China, relative to India, is consistent with high female mortality during the Great Famine of 1958-1961 in China, but later the more universalistic improvement in social indicators in China than in India. |
| Keywords: | missing women; sex ratio; gender discrimination; China; India |
| JEL: | J11 J13 J16 N35 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2020-12&r=all |
| By: | Bertrand Garbinti (CREST); Frédérique Savignac (Banque de France) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the intergenerational correlation in homeownership status between two generations for cohorts covering the 20th century. First, we find higher intergenerational correlation in France compared to previous results obtained for the U.K. for similar cohorts. Second, the intergenerational correlation is increasing across cohorts, with a relatively stable probability of being a homeowner for children of homeowners over time, and a decreasing probability for children whose parents were not homeowners. Third, the effect of parents’ tenure status is persistent over the children’s life cycle. Fourth, when isolating two subpopulations based on the receipt of intergenerational transfers, we find significant intergenerational correlation in tenure status for children who did not receive any gift or inheritance, as well as for children who received intergenerational transfers, suggesting that other factors such as intergenerational income correlation or the transmission of preferences might also explain this intergenerational correlation. |
| Keywords: | housing, intergenerational wealth mobility, cohorts |
| JEL: | G51 J62 R21 |
| Date: | 2021–02–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpaper:2021-04&r=all |
| By: | Anjan K. Saha; Vinod Mishra |
| Abstract: | The relationship between economic growth and income inequality remains a puzzle in the literature. The main problem has been finding a way to account for the endogeneity of growth. Using century-long data of 14 OECD countries, this study disentangles the growth–inequality relationship. In doing so, our main contribution is employing genetic and geographical distances as instruments for economic growth. The instruments are constructed on the premise that the growth of one country spills over to the others if they are connected through trade and other forms of exchange; however, the genetic and geographical distances between countries represent barriers to such spill overs. Using alternative specifications and measures, we find that growth reduces the inequality measured by top income shares. Another important finding is that the effect of growth on top income shares is more significant among the highest income groups. We also find that growth, by reducing inequality, neutralises the inequality-enhancing nature of capital, hence confirming the prediction of Thomas Piketty regarding the pervasive nature of capital. |
| Keywords: | Genetic distance, top income shares, income inequality, economic growth. |
| JEL: | D31 O11 O15 N10 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2020-06&r=all |
| By: | Julián Costas-Fernández; José-Alberto Guerra; Myra Mohnen |
| Abstract: | Can transport infrastructure promote intergenerational mobility? This paper estimates the causal impact of the railroad network on intergenerational occupation mobility in nineteenth century England and Wales. We create a new dataset of father and son pairs by linking individuals across the 100% censuses of 1851, 1881 and 1911. By geolocating individuals down to the street level, we measure access to the railroad network using the distance to the nearest train station. To address the non-random access to the railroad network, we create a hypothetical railway map based solely on geographic cost consideration. We fi nd that sons who grew up one standard deviation (roughly 5 km) closer to the train station are 6 percentage points more likely to work in a different occupation than their father and 5 percentage points more likely to be upward mobile. Access to the railroad network bene tted families at the top and bottom of the occupational ranking. Through a decomposition exercise, we fi nd that the majority of upward mobility is driven by improvements in local labour opportunities |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, infrastructure, spatial mobility |
| JEL: | H54 J62 N13 |
| Date: | 2020–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:018591&r=all |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (Monash University and University of Warwick); Lindenthal, Volker (University of Munich); Mukand, Sharun (University of Warwick); Waldinger, Fabian (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of professional networks in facilitating the escape of persecuted academics from Nazi Germany. From 1933, the Nazi regime started to dismiss academics of Jewish origin from their positions. The timing of dismissals created individual-level exogenous variation in the timing of emigration from Nazi Germany, allowing us to estimate the causal effect of networks for emigration decisions. Academics with ties to more colleagues who had emigrated in 1933 or 1934 (early émigrés) were more likely to emigrate. The early émigrés functioned as “bridging nodes†that helped other academics cross over to their destination. Furthermore, we provide some of the first empirical evidence of decay in social ties over time. The strength of ties also decays across space, even within cities. Finally, for high-skilled migrants, professional networks are more important than community networks. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1330&r=all |
| By: | Sascha O. Becker; Lukas Mergele; Ludger Woessmann |
| Abstract: | German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East toWest Germany before the building of theWall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles. |
| Keywords: | political systems, communism, preferences, culture, Germany |
| JEL: | D72 H11 P26 P36 N44 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2020-01&r=all |
| By: | Doran, Áine |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between pre-famine living conditions and famine severity. I digitise the parish-level returns of the Irish Poor Inquiry and use these to explain the co-variates of increasing poverty in the early nineteenth century and examine how they impacted the severity of The Great Famine. I find that income acted as a key co-variate of increasing poverty, with the poor becoming poorer. However, it is levels, not changes, of poverty which are found to be a key determinant of famine severity, alongside the structural features of parishes, such as their distance from the nearest navigable waterway. The paper also fails to find evidence of increasing poverty or famine severity being a result of overpopulation. |
| Keywords: | poverty,living conditions,famine,Ireland,demography |
| JEL: | J10 I32 N33 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202101&r=all |
| By: | Lence, Sergio H.; Plastina, Alejandro |
| Abstract: | Total factor productivity (TFP) has long been recognized as a major engine of growth for U.S. agriculture in the post-war period, despite the methodological differences in the approaches used to calculate it.1 Furthermore, TFP growth in the farm sector compares very favorably to similar measures of productivity growth in other sectors of the U.S. economy (Kendrick and Grossman 1980; Jorgenson, Gollop, and Fraumeni 1987; Jorgenson and Schreyer 2013; Jorgenson, Ho, and Samuels 2014; Garner and others 2019). In particular, Jorgenson, Ho, and Samuels (2014) find that although the farm sector ranked 15th out of 65 industries in its contribution to national value-added from 1947 to 2010, it ranked fifth in its contribution to national productivity growth, accounting for 7.5 percent of total U.S. TFP growth over the same period. Using a different data set, Garner and others (2019) find that the farm sector ranked fourth in TFP growth across 63 industries in the United States from 1987 to 2016. |
| Date: | 2020–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202001010800001066&r=all |
| By: | Alberto Bisin; Jared Rubin; Avner Seror; Thierry Verdier; Thierry Verdier |
| Abstract: | Recent theories of the Long Divergence between Middle Eastern and Western European economies focus on Middle Eastern (over-)reliance on religious legitimacy, use of slave soldiers, and persistence of restrictive proscriptions of religious (Islamic) law. These theories take as exogenous the cultural values that complement the prevailing institutions. As a result, they miss the role of cultural values in either supporting the persistence of or inducing change in the economic and institutional environment. In this paper, we address these issues by modeling the joint evolution of institutions and culture. In doing so, we place the various hypotheses of economic divergence into one, unifying framework. We highlight the role that cultural transmission plays in reinforcing institutional evolution toward either theocratic or secular states. We extend the model to shed light on political decentralization and technological change in the two regions. |
| Keywords: | long divergence, cultural transmission, institutions, legitimacy, religion |
| JEL: | O10 P16 P48 N34 N35 Z12 O33 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8900&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Gagliarducci (University of Rome Tor Vergata, EIEF and IZA); Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of religious organizations on immigrants' assimilation. We focus on the arrival of Italian Catholic churches in the US between 1900 and 1920, when four million Italians had moved to America, and anti-Catholic sentiments were widespread. We combine newly collected Catholic directories on the presence of Italian churches across years and counties with the full count US Census of Population. We find that Italian churches reduced the social assimilation of Italian immigrants, lowering intermarriage rates and increasing ethnic residential segregation. We find no evidence that this was the result of either lower effort exerted by immigrants to “fit in” the American society or increased desire to vertically transmit national culture. Instead, we provide evidence for other two, non-mutually exclusive, mechanisms. First, Italian churches raised the frequency of interactions among fellow Italians, likely generating peer effects and reducing contact with other groups. Second, they increased the salience of the immigrant community among natives, thereby triggering backlash and discrimination. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eie:wpaper:2102&r=all |
| By: | Alberto Slaghekke (Universidad de Salamanca) |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the impact that dynamics of violence generate on the territory when they persist over time. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, is a good example, since in it there are two opposite conceptions: the thought of territory for ancestral peoples and the concept of it as an object of possession for illegal armed groups. The symbolic values generated have their origin in social practices around land tenure, since the construction of territoriality is the evidence that reflects the history and footprint of man on the land. |
| Abstract: | Este artículo analiza el impacto que sobre el territorio generan las dinámicas de violencia cuando persisten en el tiempo. La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, es un buen ejemplo, ya que en ella existen dos concepciones opuestas: el pensamiento de territorio para los pueblos ancestrales y la concepción del mismo como objeto de posesión para los grupos armados ilegales. Los valores simbólicos generados tienen su origen en las prácticas sociales en torno a la tenencia de la tierra, ya que la construcción de la territorialidad es la evidencia que refleja la historia y huella del hombre en la tierra. |
| Keywords: | Guerrillas Ancestral peoples,Settlers,Drug trafficking,Pueblos ancestrales,Colonos,Narcotráfico,Guerrillas |
| Date: | 2020–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03141071&r=all |
| By: | Martin Guzi; Martin Kahanec; Magdalena M. Ulceluse |
| Abstract: | This chapter provides the historical context for the past half-century in Europe focusing specifically on the link between migration and economic development and inequality. The literature review suggests that there are several channels through which migration affects economic inequality between countries in one or the other direction. The net effects are an open empirical question and are likely to depend on the economic, demographic and institutional and policy contexts; sources, types and selectivity of migration, as well as responses of the receiving societies as well as migrants themselves. We undertake an empirical analysis and find that immigration has contributed to reducing inequality within the 25 EU countries over the 2003-2017 period. As the EU attracted relatively highly qualified immigrants throughout this period, our results are consistent with the ameliorating effect of skilled migration on within-country inequality, as predicted by theory. |
| Keywords: | immigration, inequality, labour mobility, income distribution, EU enlargement |
| JEL: | D31 D60 O15 |
| Date: | 2021–03–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cel:dpaper:60&r=all |
| By: | Ranjan Ray; Parvin Singh |
| Abstract: | The period spanned by the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century has been characterised by political and economic developments on a scale rarely witnessed before over such a short period. This study on inequality within and between countries is based on a data set constructed from household unit records in over 80 countries collected from a variety of data sources and covering over 80 % of the world’s population. The departures of this study from the recent inequality literature include its regional focus within a ‘world view’ of inequality leading to evidence on difference in inequality magnitudes and their movement between continents and countries. Comparison between the inequality magnitudes and trends in three of the largest economies, China, India, and the USA is a key feature of this study. The use of household unit records allowed us to go beyond the aggregated view of inequality and provide evidence on how household based country and continental representations of the income quintiles have altered in this short period. A key message of this exercise in that, in glossing over regional differences, a ‘global view’ of inequality gives a misleading picture of the reality affecting individual countries located in different continents and with sharp differences in their institutional and colonial history. In another significant departure, this study compares the intercountry and global inequality rates between fixed and time varying PPPs and reports that not only do the inequality magnitudes vary sharply between the two but, more significantly, the trend as well. For example, the consensus on decline in global inequality based on time invariant PPPs is not sustained once we move to time varying PPPs as suggested by the ‘Penn effect’. |
| Keywords: | PPP, Gini Coefficient, Income Inequality, Global Income Shares, Penn effect. |
| JEL: | E01 E13 E31 F15 F61 F63 I31 O15 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2019-08&r=all |
| By: | Dev Patel (Harvard University); Justin Sandefur (Centre for Global Development); Arvind Subramanian (Ashoka University) |
| Abstract: | The central fact that has motivated the empirics of economic growth—namely unconditional divergence—is no longer true and has not been so for decades. Across a range of data sources, poorer countries have in fact been catching up with richer ones, albeit slowly, since the mid-1990s. This new era of convergence does not stem primarily from growth moderation in the rich world but rather from accelerating growth in the developing world, which has simultaneously become remarkably less volatile and more persistent. Debates about a “middle-income trap†also appear anachronistic: middle-income countries have exhibited higher growth rates than all others since the mid-1980s. |
| Keywords: | JEL codes: F43; N10; O47 Keywords: Unconditional convergence, economic growth, middle-income trap |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ash:wpaper:54&r=all |
| By: | Fabio Sanchez; Margarita Fajardo; María José Ospina; Jorge Bonilla |
| Abstract: | Este libro presenta y analiza las actividades de investigación del CEDE a lo largo de medio siglo (1958-2008). Se ofrece una mirada panorámica mediante algunos elementos de la cienciometría, de la producción de investigación del CEDE y del personal dedicado a esta tarea. Para ello, se utilizaron indicadores de producción en lo que tiene que ver con cantidad, temáticas abordadas y medios de difusión de la investigación. Igualmente, se proporcionan indicadores de cantidad y nivel de formación del capital humano vinculado al centro. Se espera que este libro enriquezca el debate sobre los logros del centro y sobre la visión y las tendencias de la investigación económica en Colombia hecha desde la universidad y que también abra nuevos pensamientos hacia la reflexión sobre la futura investigación en el mundo de hoy. |
| Date: | 2020–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000490:018922&r=all |
| By: | David, Blight |
| Abstract: | This paper synthesizes insights from new global data on the effectiveness of migration policies. It investigates the complex links between migration policies and migration trends to disentangle policy effects from structural migration determinants. The analysis challenges two central assumptions underpinning the popular idea that migration restrictions have failed to curb migration. First, post‐World War II global migration levels have not accelerated, but remained relatively stable while most shifts in migration patterns have been directional. Second, post‐World War II migration policies have generally liberalized despite political rhetoric suggesting the contrary. While migration policies are generally effective, substitution effects can limit their effectiveness, or even make them counterproductive, by geographically diverting migration, interrupting circulation, encouraging unauthorized migration, or prompting “now or never” migration surges. These effects expose fundamental policy dilemmas and highlight the importance of understanding the economic, social, and political trends that shape migration in sometimes counterintuitive, but powerful, ways that largely lie beyond the reach of migration policies. |
| Keywords: | migration, trends, determinants, policy, visa, refugee |
| JEL: | J1 J11 J15 J18 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:106307&r=all |
| By: | Juan Carlos de Pablo |
| Abstract: | La economía de Perón se titula un reciente libro editado por Roberto Cortés Conde, Javier Ortiz Batalla, Laura D’ Amato y Gerardo Della Paolera. La obra citada, ¿se referirá a la economía de Perón o a la política económica implementada durante su primera y segunda presidencias?, me pregunté cuando llegó a mis manos. El interrogante merece ser generalizado en los siguientes términos: ¿qué cosmovisión económica tenían algunos presidentes argentinos, y de qué forma esto afectó la relación que tuvieron con sus ministros de economía? |
| Keywords: | Perón, política económica, cosmovisión económica |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:779&r=all |
| By: | Amory Gethin (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-run transformation of the structure of political cleavages in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Regional, linguistic, and religious identities inherited from nation-building processes have differentially shaped the representation of social inequalities in the former dominions. I discuss how the politics of "old minorities" – Catholics of Irish descent in Australia, French speakers of Québec in Canada, and the Māori in New Zealand – have interacted with the politics of class and the formation of electoral divides. In all three countries, higher-educated voters have become increasingly supportive of labor, social democratic, liberal, and green parties, while high-income voters have remained more likely to vote for conservative forces, leading to the emergence of "multi-elite party systems" comparable to that found in other Western democracies. Nonetheless, nativist cleavages remain more limited in these democracies than in Western Europe, as illustrated by the only moderate support of immigrants and new minorities for left-wing and liberal parties. |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03142214&r=all |
| By: | Enrico Bergamini; Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol |
| Abstract: | The authors thank Catarina Midões for her fundamental inputs and suggestions. The authors would like to thank Amandine Crespy, Francois Foret, Michael Leigh, N. Piers Ludlow, Francesco Papadia, Niclas Poitiers, Giuseppe Porcaro, Stefanie Pukallus, André Sapir and Guntram Wolff for their valuable comments and input. We thank Kurt Jansson and Ulla Siegenthaler at Der Spiegel for their kind and helpful collaboration. Furthermore, we thank Estelle Bunout, Marten During and Frédéric... |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bre:wpaper:41373&r=all |
| By: | Maleke Fourati; Victoire Girard; Jeremy Laurent-Lucchetti |
| Abstract: | This study highlights that armed groups may use sexual violence against civilians as a strategy to extort economic resources. We combine new and fine-grained data about local economic resources and sexual violence against civilians by armed groups in Africa from 1997 to 2018 at the 0.5 × 0.5 degree resolution. We show that an exogenous rise in the value of artisanal mining increases the incidence of sexual violence. We demonstrate how standard rationales of violence as a taxation strategy explain this finding. Theoretically, if the resource is labor-intensive, the armed group needs civilian labor to produce the resource. Sexual violence, a form of non-lethal violence that allows perpetrators to enforce high taxation while preserving local labor, will become more likely if (i) the price of the resource increases (rapacity effect), and (ii) the resource can be concealed easily (is difficult to tax). Our empirical findings align with our model: an increase of one standard deviation in the value of gold mined in artisanal mining areas – a labor-intensive resource that can easily be concealed – increases sexual violence by two thirds of the sample mean. In contrast, local resources that are either more capital-intensive than artisanal mining, or the production of which is harder to conceal than gold, have no relation to sexual violence. Moreover, we show that the relation between artisanal mining value and sexual violence is mostly driven by the presence of armed actors who are most likely to rely on illegal local taxation (rebel groups). |
| Keywords: | Conflict, sexual violence, artisanal mines, industrial mines, agriculture |
| JEL: | D74 J16 O13 Q34 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp2103&r=all |
| By: | Tanweer Akram; Syed Al-Helal Uddin |
| Abstract: | This paper presents empirical models of Mexican government bond (MGB) yields based on monthly macroeconomic data. The current short-term interest rate has a decisive influence on MGB yields, after controlling for inflation and growth in industrial production. John Maynard Keynes claimed that government bond yields move in lockstep with the short-term interest rate. The models presented in the paper show that Keynes's claim holds for MGB yields. This has important policy implications for Mexico. The empirical findings of the paper are also relevant for ongoing debates in macroeconomics. |
| Keywords: | Mexican Government Bonds; Long-Term Interest Rate; Short-Term Interest Rate; Monetary Policy; Banco de México (BdM); Banxico |
| JEL: | E43 E50 E58 E60 G10 G12 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_984&r=all |