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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2021‒09‒20
33 papers chosen by |
| By: | L. DeBenedictis; V. Licio; AM. Pinna |
| Abstract: | An integrated and widespread road system, like the one built during the Roman Empire in Italy, plays an important role today in facilitating the construction of new infrastructure. It first influenced the growth of cities, regardless of the variety of historical paths after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the unification of the country. Through this channel Roman roads have been the main determinant of both motorways and railways in the country. Even the Italian North-South divide can be ascribed, among other factors, to the way the ancient infrastructure had an influence on the modern one. |
| Keywords: | Roman roads;Railways;Provinces;Motorways;Long-term effects of history;italy |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:202102&r= |
| By: | Juan Acosta; Beatrice Cherrier (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we build on data on officials of the Federal Reserve System, oral history repositories, and hitherto underresearched archival sources to unpack the tortuous path toward crafting an institutional and intellectual space for postwar economic analysis within the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. We show that growing attention to new macroeconomic research was a reaction to both mounting external criticisms against the Fed's decision-making process and the spread of new macroeconomic theories and econometric techniques. We argue that the rise of the number of PhD economists working at the Fed is a symptom rather than a cause of this transformation. Key to our story are a handful of economists from the Board of Governors' Division of Research and Statistics (DRS) who did not hold a PhD but envisioned their role as going beyond mere data accumulation and got involved in large-scale macroeconometric model building. We conclude that the divide between PhD and non-PhD economists may not be fully relevant to understand both the shift in the type of economics practiced at the Fed and the uses of this knowledge in the decision-making process. Equally important was the rift between different styles of economic analysis. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03334659&r= |
| By: | Kendal Lowrey; Jennifer Van Hook; James D. Bachmeier; Thomas B. Foster |
| Abstract: | During the early twentieth century, industrial-era European immigrants entered the United States with lower levels of education than the U.S. average. However, empirical research has yielded unclear and inconsistent evidence about the extent and pace of their integration, leaving openings for arguments that contest the narrative that these groups experienced rapid integration and instead assert that educational deficits among lower-status groups persisted across multiple generations. Here, we advance another argument, that European immigrants may have “leapfrogged” or exceeded U.S.-born non-Hispanic white attainment by the third generation. To assess these ideas, we reconstituted three-generation families by linking individuals across the 1940 Census, years 1973, 1979, 1981-90 of the Current Population Survey, the 2000 Census, and years 2001-2017 of the American Community Survey. Results show that most European immigrant groups not only caught up with U.S.-born whites by the second generation, but surpassed them, and this advantage further increased in the third generation. This research provides a new understanding of the time to integration for 20th century European immigrant groups by showing that they integrated at a faster pace than previously thought, indicative of a process of accelerated upward mobility. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, European immigrants, education, integration |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:21-20&r= |
| By: | Diego Castañeda Garza (ITESM-CSF); Alice Krozer (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | This paper’s contribution is a reconstruction of the distribution of wealth employing a sample of wills from El Colegio de Sonora database for the years 1871-1910. We show that the rapid industrialisation/modernisation process that ensued in northern Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th century lead to a continuous increment in wealth concentration at the top of the distribution, going from a Gini index measure of 0.48 in 1871 to 0.79 in 1910. Rather than a fundamental (kuznetsian) necessity, however, our data suggests a critical role played by the political economy at the time in a gerschenkronian fashion and highlight the importance of the control of natural resources on inequality dynamics. The paper hereby engages with and contributes to the ongoing discussion about the role of economic and political elites in inequality dynamics and their reproduction over time. |
| Keywords: | inequality, wealth inequality, elites, Mexico, wills, Sonora, social structure |
| JEL: | D63 E01 I3 N36 P16 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2020-04&r= |
| By: | Paolo Di Martino (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper reconstructs the history of direct interventions to support the exchange rate performed by Italian banks of issue between 1880 and 1913. The paper, based on coeval documents, shows how in Italy "central banks" played an active role over the whole period targeting, in particular, the price of public bonds traded internationally as the difference between this price and the one in domestic markets could activate arbitrages able to influence the exchange rate. The paper shows that the end- result of these interventions depended on the interconnection between three variables: the volume of Italian bonds traded internationally, the amount of forex reserves held by "central banks", and the trust in the Italian public finances. |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tur:wpapnw:072&r= |
| By: | Christopher Esposito; ; |
| Abstract: | Over the 20th century, the geography of breakthrough innovation in the United States – defined as the spatial distribution of the production of patents that are both novel and impactful – underwent three broad changes. At the start of the 20th century, breakthrough innovation was concentrated in populous and knowledge-diverse metropolitan areas. By the 1930s, breakthroughs were created less frequently across the entire country and so their invention had a less distinct geography. The substantial creation of breakthroughs resumed in the 1960s and was once their invention was concentrated in large and knowledge metropolitan areas. However, during the latter part of the century the invention of breakthroughs also frequently involved long-distance collaborations between inventors. In this paper, I document these historical changes to the geography of breakthrough innovation and propose a model to explain why they occurred. The model suggests that the geography of breakthroughs is established by four factors: (1) the prevailing knowledge intensity of breakthrough inventions, (2) the distance- based frictions incurred by technologies used for collaboration, (3) the distance-based frictions incurred by the technologies used for knowledge-sourcing, and (4) the disruptiveness of the regime of technological change. I generate support for the model, and conclude the paper by discussing lessons that the 20th century’s geography of breakthrough innovation provide for anticipating possible futures for the geography of innovation in the 21st century, including in the years beyond COVID-19. |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2126&r= |
| By: | Nicos Christodoulakis (Athens University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Using long term statistical series for Greece, the study locates and discusses the adjustments that took place in Greece during the 19th century in order to stabilize the economy, accumulate foreign reserves to support the viability of the currency regime and, thus, regain access to international markets. Most of the time the effort was fruitless and, finally led to bankruptcy in 1893. Then, in 1898 the International Economic Control was imposed to redress public finances and prepare the country for a more credible and lasting participation in the Gold Standard that finally takes place in 1910. Despite the fact that the Banking system and the process of accumulating foreign exchange reserves were following sensible rules, accumulation was so weak that the inability to achieve creditworthiness and trust among the more developed economies in Europe became endemic and left Greece without the precious access to capital and bond markets in Western Europe. |
| Date: | 2021–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:2110&r= |
| By: | Seltzer, Andrew J.; Wadsworth, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the consequences of the commuter transport revolution on working class labour markets in 1930s London. The ability to commute alleviated urban crowding and increased workers’ choice of potential employers. Using GIS-based data constructed from the New Survey of London Life and Labour, we examine the extent of commuting and estimate the earnings returns to commuting. We obtain a lowerbound estimate of two percent increase in earnings per kilometre travelled. We also show that commuting was an important contributor to improving quality of life in the early-twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Commuting; public transport; labour markets; New Survey of London Life and Labour |
| JEL: | N34 N94 J31 |
| Date: | 2021–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111900&r= |
| By: | Antonin Aviat; Frédérique Bec; Claude Diebolt; Catherine Doz; Denis Ferrand; Laurent Ferrara; Eric Heyer; Valérie Mignon; Pierre-Alain Pionnier |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a reference quarterly chronology for periods of expansion and recession in France since 1970, carried out by the Dating Committee of the French Economic Association (AFSE). The methodology used is based on two pillars: (i) econometric estimations from various key data to identify candidate periods, and (ii) a narrative approach that describes the economic background that prevailed at that time to finalize the dating chronology. Starting from 1970, the Committee has identified four economic recession periods: the two oil shocks 1974-75 and 1980, the investment cycle of 1992-93, and the Great Recession 2008-09 spawned by the Global Financial Crisis. The peak before the Covid-19 recession has been identified in the last quarter of 2019. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles, French economy, Dating, Narrative approach, Econometric modeling. |
| JEL: | E32 E37 C24 N14 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2021-33&r= |
| By: | Buscha, Franz; Gorman, Emma; Sturgis, Patrick |
| Abstract: | Recent studies of social mobility have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, substantially influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study social mobility in England and Wales, in three post-war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility, as well as how these have changed over time. While upward mobility increased in every region between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, this shift varied across different regions and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore how domestic migration is related to social mobility, finding that those who moved out of their region of origin had higher rates of upward mobility compared to those who stayed, although this difference narrowed over time. |
| Keywords: | ES/R00627X/1; ES/V003488/1 |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111605&r= |
| By: | Jeremy Greenwood (University of Pennsylvania); Nezih Guner (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros); Ricardo Marto (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | The 20th century beheld a dramatic transformation of the family. Some Kuznets style facts regarding structural change in the family are presented. Over the course of the 20th century in the United States fertility declined, educational attainment waxed, housework fell, leisure increased, jobs shifted from blue to white collar, and marriage waned. These trends are also observed in the cross-country data. A model is developed, and then calibrated, to address the trends in the US data. The calibration procedure is closely connected to the underlying economic logic. Three drivers of the great transition are considered: neutral technological progress, skilled-biased technological change, and drops in the price of labor-saving household durables. |
| Keywords: | Average weekly hours, blue-collar jobs, calibration, college premium, education, family economics, fertility, housework, Kuznets, leisure, market work, marriage, neutral technological progress, price of labor-saving household durables, skilled-biased technological change, white-collar jobs. |
| JEL: | D10 E13 J10 O10 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2021_2105&r= |
| By: | Isabella M Weber (Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst); Gregor Semieniuk (Political Economy Research Institute and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst); Tom Westland (Department of History, University of Cambridge); Junshang Liang (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst) |
| Abstract: | Does what you exported matter? We build a new global commodity-level export database for the previous era of globalization and find persistence in productive capabilities proxied by economic complexity, export diversification, and sophistication across a century. We also show that productive capabilities at the turn of the 20th century are a powerful predictor of today’s income levels. We demonstrate that our results are not driven by persistence in geography or institutions. The persistence mechanism is the complementarity between past and future productive capabilities with one important qualification, the persistent negative effect of European overseas colonization. We also study shocks that undermined persistence, confirm the resource curse hypothesis for the long run and find a positive but slow effect of democratization. |
| JEL: | F14 F63 N10 O10 O50 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2021-02&r= |
| By: | Kukic, Leonard |
| Abstract: | The existing studies usually find that technical change was very important in constraining the economic growth of the Soviet Union. While these studies have been successful in quantifying the extent of technical change, they have been less successful in quantifying its nature. This paper probes the essence of technical change by analysing its direction and bias. I find that the Soviet Union achieved strong increases in labour efficiency until the 1960s. Although the labour efficiency growth subsequently slowed down, it is capital efficiency that drove the postwar slowdown in economic growth. I argue that labour shortages, combined with an inadequate investment policy, retarded the Soviet capital efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Soviet Union; Economic Growth; Technical Change; Economic History |
| JEL: | O47 O33 N14 P27 |
| Date: | 2021–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:33259&r= |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Stenkula, Mikael (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | William J. Baumol was one of the most prolific economists of his generation, analyzing a broad range of central economic issues addressing real problems of the world. In this essay, we present and critically evaluate Baumol’s research contributions in entrepreneurship economics and point to areas for future research. Baumol contributed an impressive number of important insights, increasing our understanding of entrepreneurship from both a macro and a micro perspective. He also devoted a large part of his writings to discussing public policy, linking his theoretical insights with policy issues in practice. His analyses are rooted in contemporary mainstream neoclassical economics, and one of his main objectives was to integrate the entrepreneur into this tradition. Today, Baumol is best known for his tripartite distinction between productive, unproductive, and destructive entrepreneurship and his associated idea that the institutional framework, “the rules of the game,” will determine how entrepreneurs allocate their time and effort across different—productive or unproductive—activities. An institutional environment that encourages productive entrepreneurship and spontaneous experimentation while disincentivizing unproductive activities becomes, through this insightful lens, the driving force of economic growth. As an economist, Baumol was knowledgeable and well acquainted with earlier scholars and their writings about entrepreneurship. Baumol’s writings were greatly inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s views on entrepreneurship, and he made several attempts to formalize Schumpeter’s concept of the innovative entrepreneur. Baumol was in all senses an innovative contributor to entrepreneurship economics. His work has inspired the research community of entrepreneurship scholars, but like all great scientists, he also encountered criticism. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Institutions; Rent seeking |
| JEL: | B41 D02 J48 L26 L53 O31 Z10 |
| Date: | 2021–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1403&r= |
| By: | Mosca, Irene; Wright, Robert E. |
| Abstract: | A Marriage Bar is the requirement that women working in certain jobs must leave that job when they marry. In the twentieth century, Marriage Bars were not unusual internationally. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, legislative provisions that required women to resign at marriage were introduced in several countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. Spill-overs to jobs not strictly covered by the Marriage Bar were also common. This chapter critically reviews, from an economics perspective, the background, the history and the impacts of Marriage Bars. This chapter has four aims. The first is to summarise the arguments provided by government officials and employers to justify both the introduction and the retention of Marriage Bars. The second is to provide a cross-country comparison of Marriage Bars. The third is to investigate the potential impacts of the Marriage Bar on women's behavior with respect to employment, marriage and education. The fourth is to highlight potential avenues for future research. Although Marriage Bars do not exist anymore, they are still a serious topic of current debate. Much more can be learned about important topics, such as discrimination, from carrying out research focused on Marriage Bars. |
| Keywords: | Marriage Bar,international,women,behavior |
| JEL: | J2 J4 J7 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:933&r= |
| By: | Peter Skott (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst); Paul Auerbach (Kingston University) |
| Abstract: | A vision of universalised human freedom, equality, security and democracy emerged in the wake of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the British Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. This vision, not even approximately practicable at the time, is now well within reach. A viable socialist strategy will not be oriented around an encompassing central plan, but rather an agenda of human-centered goals – the creation of preconditions for all individuals to fully realise their personal capacities and to function as free citizens, exercising control individually and collectively, at the workplace and in society. Central to the realisation of such a programme will be a focus on the crucial role played by the first years of life in shaping human development and in the formation of class hierarchies. |
| Keywords: | Phillips curve, underemployment, distributional conáict, structuralist model |
| JEL: | B51 H40 P16 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2021-15&r= |
| By: | Catron, Peter; Loria, Maria Vignau |
| Abstract: | Research on immigrant economic integration generally focuses on the influence of human capital on later occupational success. This research, however, often ignores other individual-level and contextual-level influences on later attainment and when in settlement they are likely to matter. We therefore create a unique panel dataset that follows a Mexican refugee population from arrival and through settlement in the early twentieth century. This novel data source allows us to examine both individual and contextual characteristics on occupational attainment at different points in time. Our analyses show that individual characteristics beyond human capital measures are likely to matter at first arrival, but their effects attenuate over time. This is especially true for perceived skin complexion, persons travelled with, and age which hold large effects on occupational outcomes at first arrival, but smaller effects after longer settlement. Furthermore, we are able to explore the role context of settlement plays on economic attainment. Consistent with previous research, we find that more favorable contexts are associated with better outcomes than less favorable contexts. This research has implications for the understanding of the adaptation and integration of refugee and immigrant populations by shedding light on what and when different variables influence later attainment. |
| Date: | 2021–09–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qgj3p&r= |
| By: | Steve J. Bickley; Ho Fai Chan; Benno Torgler |
| Abstract: | The history of AI in economics is long and winding, much the same as the evolving field of AI itself. Economists have engaged with AI since its beginnings, albeit in varying degrees and with changing focus across time and places. In this study, we have explored the diffusion of AI and different AI methods (e.g., machine learning, deep learning, neur al networks, expert systems, knowledge- based systems) through and within economic subfields, taking a scientometrics approach. In particular, we centre our accompanying discussion of AI in economics around the problems of economic calculation and social planning as proposed by Hayek. To map the history of AI within and between economic sub- fields, we construct two datasets containing bibliometrics information of economics papers based on search query results from the Scopus database and the EconPapers (and IDEAs/RePEc) repository. We present descriptive results that map the use and discussion of AI in economics over time, place, and subfield. In doing so, we also characterise the authors and affiliations of those engaging with AI in economics. Additionally, we find positive correlations between quality of institutional affiliation and engagement with or focus on AI in economics and negative correlations between the Human Development Index and share of learning-based AI papers. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Economics; Scientometrics; Science of Science; Bibliometrics |
| JEL: | B40 N01 A14 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2021-28&r= |
| By: | Francesca Caselli; Matilde Faralli; Paolo Manasse; Ugo Panizza |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether countries benefit from servicing their debts during times of widespread sovereign defaults. Colombia is typically regarded as the only large Latin American country that did not default in the 1980s. Using archival research and formal econometric estimates of Colombia's probability of default, we show that in the early 1980s Colombia's fundamentals were not significantly different from those of the Latin American countries that defaulted on their debts. We also document that the different path chosen by Colombia was due to the authorities' belief that maintaining a good reputation in the international capital market would have substantial long-term payoffs. We show that the case of Colombia is more complex than what it is commonly assumed. Although Colombia had to re-profile its debts, high-level political support from the US allowed Colombia do to so outside the standard framework of an IMF program. Our counterfactual analysis shows that in the short to medium run, Colombia benefited from avoiding an explicit default. Specifically, we find that GDP growth in the 1980s was higher than that of a counterfactual in which Colombia behaved like its neighboring countries. We also test whether Colombia's behavior in the 1980s led to long-term reputational benefits. Using an event study based on a large sudden stop, we find no evidence for such long-lasting reputational gains. |
| JEL: | F34 F32 H63 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1163&r= |
| By: | María Alejandra Chávez Báez |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how trust on institutions and organizations are shaped according to age and exposure to violence during La Violencia. It also evaluates how people's actual trust on different groups (out-group trust) changes in municipalities that were exposed to violence in comparison to municipalities that were not exposed. From 1950's to the mid 1960's, Colombia experienced a period of intense civil wars and conflicts between social classes known as La Violencia. Using evidence on the index of violence built by Guzman et al. (2006) during this period and the Political Culture Survey of 2019, the main objective of this paper is to find whether people trust on State's institutions and people from different groups in municipalities that were mostly affected by violence. To complement the analysis, I analyzed press articles and news by the newspaper El Tiempo from 1950 to 1990 to find how is the perception of the State's legitimacy. After gathering information on 13,413 interviewees, I found that people who live during La Violencia trust less on government institutions and more on certain groups of people (neighbours). Moreover, people over 84 years-old living in municipalities that were exposed to La Violencia trust less on strangers and immigrants than younger people living in the same municipalities. These findings are supported in two mechanisms: deficient government-citizens relationship over time and risk aversion. That is, people who live in municipalities affected by violence during the bipartisan conflict are more risk averse and therefore show less trust on different groups of people. The revision of press articles suggest that there is a tendency of mistrust on State's actions, at least among high educated individuals. |
| Keywords: | mistrust, violence, institutions, political participation, out-group trust |
| JEL: | N30 N36 N46 |
| Date: | 2021–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:019558&r= |
| By: | Cheliotis, Leonidas |
| Abstract: | Notwithstanding the significant advances made over the last twenty years in terms of charting and explaining the ways in which state punishment is influenced by economic and political forces, little is still known about the penal effects of conditions of economic crisis and about the role the incumbent government’s political orientation plays in this regard. Because the few available studies on these questions have been preoccupied with the Anglo-American sphere and only in the context of recent decades at that, even less is known either about the implications that different types or experiences of economic crisis carry for state punishment, or about the influence exerted in this respect by government political orientations other than those found in established democracies. Irrespective of geographical or temporal scope, moreover, the impact that different extranational factors and actors may have in terms of economic, political or directly penal matters domestically remains poorly understood. With a view to helping fill these gaps in the literature, this article explores the effects on state punishment that economic crisis and government political orientation had in interaction with one another in the context of interwar Greece. Attention is first paid to the various ways in which global capitalism was decisive in creating within Greece an environment conducive to increased punitiveness on the part of the state. The focus is on the economic, social and political consequences of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and Britain’s exit from the gold standard in 1931, as these were exacerbated by Greece’s long-term exposure to predatory lending, speculative investing and external interference in her domestic affairs in the context of engaging international capital markets. The article then proceeds to discuss how the Liberal government of 1928-1932 sought to handle the situation, particularly the approach it took towards punishment. |
| Keywords: | economic crisis; global capitalism; interwar Greece; government political orientation; political economy of punishment |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111864&r= |
| By: | Gold, Natalie |
| Abstract: | “Das Adam Smith Problem” is the name given by eighteenth-century German scholars to the question of how to reconcile the role of self-interest in the Wealth of Nations with Smith’s advocacy of sympathy in Theory of Moral Sentiments. As the discipline of economics developed, it focused on the interaction of selfish agents, pursuing their private interests. However, behavioral economists have rediscovered the existence and importance of multiple motivations, and a new Das Adam Smith Problem has arisen, of how to accommodate self-regarding and pro-social motivations in a single system. This question is particularly important because of evidence of motivation crowding, where paying people can backfire, with payments achieving the opposite effects of those intended. Psychologists have proposed a mechanism for the crowding out of “intrinsic motivations” for doing a task, when payment is used to incentivize effort. However, they argue that pro-social motivations are different from these intrinsic motivations, implying that crowding out of pro-social motivations requires a different mechanism. In this essay I present an answer to the new Das Adam Smith problem, proposing a mechanism that can underpin the crowding out of both pro-social and intrinsic motivations, whereby motivations are prompted by frames and motivation crowding is underpinned by the crowding out of frames. I explore some of the implications of this mechanism for research and policy. |
| Keywords: | altruism; Das Adam Smith Problem; framing; institutions; markets; moral sentiments; motivation crowding; pro-sociality; self-interest; self-regard; trust |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2020–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:109218&r= |
| By: | Falch, Morten |
| Abstract: | This paper look at surveillance capitalism as described in the book by Shoshana Zubof, and discuss whether surveillance capitalism represents a new stage of capitalist development. This is done by using the theory of techno-economic paradigms as a theoretical framework. |
| Keywords: | Surveillance Capitalism,Techno-economic paradigm,artificial intelligence,big data |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb21:238019&r= |
| By: | Aliz Bertoloni Díaz |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo examina el impacto de la institución colonial de la Encomienda sobre la violencia del conflicto armado del siglo XX en Colombia. A pesar de haber sido una institución extractiva, hay evidencia que muestra que las regiones en donde estuvo presente desarrollaron capacidad estatal más temprano, desembocando en Estados locales más fuertes. El análisis muestra que estos Estados tuvieron menor cantidad de ataques violentos por parte de grupos insurgentes, paramilitares y estatales durante el conflicto interno de fines del siglo pasado. Se encontró que este efecto fue el resultado de la mayor capacidad estatal expresada en provisión de bienes públicos, explicada en gran parte por la presencia de la Encomienda en el siglo XVI y por el efecto de esta institución en la presencia de Estados coloniales locales a finales del siglo XVIII. Los resultados aquí presentes muestran la importancia de analizar la capacidad estatal a nivel sub-nacional, que explica resultados distintos del conflicto entre regiones del mismo país. |
| Keywords: | Encomienda, capacidad estatal, instituciones, conflicto armado, Colombia, colonialismo |
| JEL: | H12 H79 N36 N46 N9 |
| Date: | 2020–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:019553&r= |
| By: | Hannah, Leslie; Bennett, Robert J. |
| Abstract: | We present the first available - and near-complete - list of large UK manufacturers in 1881, by complementing the employer data from that year’s population census (recovered by the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs project) with employment and capital estimates from other sources. The 438 largest firms with 1,000 or more employees accounted for around one-sixth of manufacturing output. Examples can be found in most industries. Exploiting powered machinery, intangible assets, new technologies and venture capital, and generally operating in competitive markets, their exports about equalled domestic sales. The more capital-intensive accessed stock markets, more - and in larger firms - than in follower economies. Some alleged later causes of UK decline relative to the US or Germany cannot be observed in 1881. Indeed, contemporary overseas observers - capitalist and socialist - correctly recognized the distinctive features of UK manufacturing as its exceptional development of quoted corporations, professional managers and “modern,” scalable, factory production. |
| Keywords: | large manufacturers; capital intensity; industrial concentration; stock exchanges |
| JEL: | L60 N63 N83 |
| Date: | 2021–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:111895&r= |
| By: | Leila Davis (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston); Joao de Souza (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston) |
| Abstract: | This paper establishes that entry and exit regulate the top half of the profitability distribution in the post-1970 U.S. economy. We, first, document stability in the distribution of total profits earned on tangible, intangible, and financial capital. Whereas a narrower measure of returns on tangible capital, instead, suggests rising dispersion, it fails to capture post-1970 growth in intangible and financial assets. Second, we use quantile decompositions to show that churning – specifically, exit for cause – regulates median and top-end profitability. Thus, the process by which competition drives out unprofitable firms acts to stabilize profit rates in the U.S. economy. |
| Keywords: | Profit rates, competition, entry and exit dynamics |
| JEL: | B5 L1 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2021-06&r= |
| By: | Vladimir Gligorov (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Richard Grieveson (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Peter Havlik; Gabor Hunya (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Olga Pindyuk (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Leon Podkaminer (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Sandor Richter (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Hermine Vidovic (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | To mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this paper aims to assess developments in Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) over the past three decades, and to look forward to what the next 30 years might bring. First, we measure the convergence of per capita income, wages and life expectancy in CESEE with Western Europe since 1989, and examine demographic trends. We find that, after a difficult start, many countries have become significantly wealthier and their populations much healthier. However, for others, the outcomes of the first 30 years are less positive, and a large number of countries in CESEE have already experienced significant population decline. Second, our experts look back at the situation in 1989, and to what extent their expectations have played out, reflecting on both successes and disappointments. Third, we analyse current trends in the region, and attempt to project what will come next. Here, we focus on automation, digitalisation, institutions, demographics and geopolitics. We find evidence of institutional regression, demographic challenges, and a changing geopolitical backdrop that will have important implications for much of the region. However, we also see reasons for optimism, including the opportunities provided by digitalisation and automation, and an active civil society that could in time force positive change. |
| Keywords: | CESEE, Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, transition, convergence, demographics |
| JEL: | E00 E02 F02 J11 P20 P30 O52 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:eopape:4&r= |
| By: | Richard Arena (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Muriel Dal-Pont Legrand (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Roger Guesnerie (CdF (institution) - Collège de France) |
| Date: | 2021–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03325544&r= |
| By: | Jin, Zhangfeng |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether and how China's adoption of Soviet-aided industrialization programs in the 1950s has affected its long-run innovation. Focusing on 156 major industrial projects aided by the Soviet Union, combined with an instrumental variable approach, I find that the adoption of these programs substantially discourages local firms to innovate in the long run. A causal mediation analysis of instrumental variable settings shows that the negative effect is entirely driven by local firms' lower intensity of incentive pay. This evidence suggests disadvantages of Soviet-aided industrialization programs for long-run innovation due to firms adopting incentive-incompatible management technology. |
| Keywords: | Soviet Aid,Technology Transfers,Incentive Pay,Innovation,China |
| JEL: | O10 O30 L20 M52 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:932&r= |
| By: | Mateo Hoyos (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst); Emiliano Libman (University of General San Martín); Arslan Razmi (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst) |
| Abstract: | We study the extent to which countries undergo structural change during and after episodes of sustained investment surges. In particular, we explore the evolution of trade flows, considering (i) exports sophistication or complexity, (ii) exports diversification, and (iii) capital goods imports. Using the episodes identified by Libman et al. (2019), we document the heterogeneous nature of these episodes and find that, while imports of capital goods increase, they are not systematically related to changes in sophistication, complexity and diversification of exports, at least for the available sample of 130 episodes over the period 1962-2014. High investment may often be a necessary but not sufficient condition for structural change. |
| Keywords: | Capital accumulation, diversification, economic complexity, development. |
| JEL: | E22 F41 O11 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2021-09&r= |
| By: | Alain Marciano (MRE - Montpellier Recherche en Economie - UM - Université de Montpellier, UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | Buchanan did not write "An Economic Theory of Club" to complement Samuelson's analysis of public goods, but to develop a radically different, form of welfare economics – in which there is no social welfare function and individual utility functions cannot be "read" by external observers. It was the perspective Buchanan adopted to analyze the pricing of public goods and services, and from which he also envisaged clubs. The main feature Buchanan attributed to clubs was to implement a condition that made no sense in Samuelson's framework but that was crucial in Buchanan's and clubs made Samuelson's collective condition useless. Buchanan and Samuelson disagreed over the allocation of the costs of the public good on each individual. To Buchanan, it was by relying on individual's preferences. To Samuelson, by using a social welfare function. This has not much to do with the nature of the good, its "physical properties" to use Buchanan's words. |
| Date: | 2021–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03326422&r= |
| By: | Konstantin A. Kholodilin; Sebastian Kohl; Artem Korzhenevych; Linus Pfeiffer |
| Abstract: | Welfare is traditionally understood through social security decommodifying labor markets or social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes’ fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this paper introduces a novel yearly database of 37 countries between 1910 and 2020 to uncover the “hidden welfare state” of taxes on imputed rent, deductibility of mortgage payments, housing capital gains tax and VAT on newly built dwellings. Summary indices of homeownership attractiveness and neutrality of the tax code show that fiscal homeownership policies have been in decline until the 1980s and risen ever since. They are in place where finance is liberally and labor restrictively regulated. Contrary to the classical welfare state, they are not associated with an economic logic of industrialism or left-wing governments, but a rent-regulation alternative of Common-Law jurisdictions and smaller countries. As welfare for property owners, the logic of fiscal homeownership welfare diverges from the classical welfare for the laboring classes. |
| Keywords: | Homeownership taxation attractiveness, tenure neutrality, leximetrics, international longitudinal data |
| JEL: | C43 H24 K25 R38 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1972&r= |
| By: | Yifei Cai; Jamel Saadaoui |
| Abstract: | According to the Schumpeterian endogenous growth theory, the efficacy of R&D is lowered by the proliferation of products. To be consistent with empirical data, the ratio between innovative activity and product variety (also called R&D intensity) must be stationary. In this perspective, our contribution investigates whether the R&D intensity series are stationary when structural breaks are considered. Our sample of G7 countries is examined over the period spanning from 1870 to 2016. Our results indicate that traditional unit root tests (ADF, DF-GLS and KPSS) conclude that the R&D intensity series are non-stationary in contradiction with the Schumpeterian endogenous growth theory. The conclusions of these traditional unit root tests may be misleading, as they ignore the presence of structural breaks. Indeed, we use several types of Fourier Dickey-Fuller tests to consider the presence of structural breaks. In the Fourier Dickey-Fuller unit root tests using double frequency and fractional frequency, the R&D intensity is significantly stationary at least at the 5% level for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan when a deterministic trend is included in the tests. Nevertheless, the R&D intensity is non-stationary for the US, even when we consider structural breaks. Indeed, the integration analyses aimed at discriminating between competing theories of endogenous growth should be careful of the presence of structural breaks. Especially when historical data are used, traditional unit root tests may lead to erroneous economic interpretations. These findings may help to understand the true nature of long-run economic growth and may help to formulate sound policy recommendations. |
| Keywords: | R&D intensity; Schumpeterian growth model; Double frequency; Fourier DickeyFuller unit root test. |
| JEL: | C12 C22 O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2021-34&r= |