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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2022‒04‒18
39 papers chosen by |
| By: | Bellani, Luna; Hager, Anselm; Maurer, Stephan E. |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the persistence of Southern slave owners in political power after the American Civil War. Using data from Texas, we show that former slave owners made up more than half of all state legislators until the late 1890s. Legislators with slave-owning backgrounds were more likely to be Democrats and voted more conservatively even conditional on party membership. A county's propensity to elect former slave owners was positively correlated with cotton production, but negatively with Reconstruction-era progress of blacks. Counties that elected more slave owners also displayed worse educational outcomes for blacks in the early twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Ph.D. scholarship and the Young Scholar Fund at the University of Konstanz. |
| JEL: | N31 N41 |
| Date: | 2022–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114372&r= |
| By: | Berbée, Paul; Braun, Sebastian Till; Franke, Richard |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that 19th-century industrialization is an important determinant of the significant changes in Germany's economic geography observed in recent decades. Using novel data on regional economic activity, we establish that almost half of West Germany's 163 labor markets experienced a reversal of fortune between 1926 and 2019, i.e., they moved from the lower to the upper median of the income distribution or vice versa. Economic decline is concentrated in northern Germany, economic ascent in the south. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in access to coal, we show that early industrialization turned from an advantage for economic development to a burden after World War II. The (time-varying) effect of industrialization explains most of the decline in regional inequality observed in the 1960s and 1970s and about half of the current North-South gap in economic development. |
| Keywords: | Industrialization,Economic development,Regional Inequality |
| JEL: | N91 N92 O14 R12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:250876&r= |
| By: | Mohamed Saleh (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | The second volume of The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World explores the development of modern economic growth from 1870 to the present. Leading experts in economic history offer a series of regional studies from around the world, as well as thematic analyses of key factors governing the differential outcomes in different parts of the global economy. Topics covered include human capital, capital and technology, geography and institutions, living standards and inequality, trade and immigration, international finance, and warfare and empire. |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03546704&r= |
| By: | Kumon, Yuzuru |
| Abstract: | Despite its sophistication, Early Modern Japan, 1600-1868, had among the lowest real wage levels ever recorded, half of those in pre-industrial England. This paper resolves this puzzle by considering the more equal landownership distribution in Japan relative to Europe. Due to institutional differences in land transmission, most of the rural population were landless in England but only 16% in Japan circa 1800. Using a Malthusian model, I show landownership equality in Japan paradoxically generated lower wages and GDP per capita. This is due to the concavity in the positive income-fertility curve resulting in greater equality generating greater population pressures. I provide evidence of the mechanism at the cross-country level and at the individual level using Japanese village censuses. If, as many historians believe, high wages in western Europe explain the onset of the Industrial Revolution, then Japan’s failure to industrialize first could have been shaped by its unusual pre-industrial equality. |
| Date: | 2022–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:126841&r= |
| By: | William J. Collins; Nicholas C. Holtkamp; Marianne H. Wanamaker |
| Abstract: | The US Civil War ended in 1865 without the distribution of land or compensation to those formerly enslaved—a decision often seen as a cornerstone of racial inequality. We build a dataset to observe Black households’ landholdings in 1880, a key component of their wealth, alongside a sample of White households. We then link their sons to the 1900 census records to observe economic and human capital outcomes. We show that Black landowners (and skilled workers) were able to transmit substantial intergenerational advantages to their sons. But such advantages were small relative to the overall racial gaps in economic status. |
| JEL: | N0 N21 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29858&r= |
| By: | Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (The American University of Paris - The American University of Paris) |
| Abstract: | In November 1779, the group of Irish militias known as the Volunteers rallied around a statue of King William III in Dublin protesting for free trade between Ireland and Britain. The episode kickstarted a series of political negotiations around the topic that culminated in the abortive proposal for the establishment of a free trade area in 1785. From the Irish perspective, free trade was regarded as a strategy for eliminating the restrictions and regulations, emanating from London, which had so far stifled the development of local industry. In Britain, however, the proposal faced hostilities due to the expected dislocations for established manufacturing interests. Newly appointed prime minister William Pitt tried to justify the case for free trade with Ireland before the British public by appealing to its beneficial effects for a unified and coherent imperial trade policy. This, in turn, proved unacceptable to Irish politicians and agitators, who regarded free trade as a step in the route to more -- not less -- political autonomy. Exploring public arguments on this topic, the paper investigates the economic and political meanings associated with free trade during the later decades of the 18th century, while discussing how these notions related to the literature on political economy circulating at the time. |
| Keywords: | free trade,protection,British Empire,Ireland,Josiah Tucker,Adam Smith |
| Date: | 2022–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03586046&r= |
| By: | Felix Schaff (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | What was the impact of urban political structure on economic inequality in preindustrial times? I document that more closed political institutions were associated with higher economic inequality in a panel of early modern German cities. To investigate the mechanisms behind that macro-relationship, I construct a unique individual-level panel-dataset, containing c.27,000 observations on personal wealth and political office-holding in the city state of Nördlingen from 1579 to 1700. I employ a difference-in-differences setting to show that political elites enriched themselves substantially after entering office. Individuals with higher political power enriched themselves more. These private gains from public office contributed to economic inequality. To mitigate concerns about reverse causality, I exploit the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) as a plausibly exogenous shock to elites' potential for rent-seeking. Political office-holders manipulated this crisis to enrich themselves further, contributing to an unequal wealth distribution. The results are hard to square with a common historical narrative suggesting that urban political elites were "civic-minded" guardians of the common good. |
| Keywords: | Wealth, Inequality, Elites, Political Economy, Rent-Seeking, Cities |
| JEL: | D31 D72 H20 N43 N93 P48 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0225&r= |
| By: | Franck, Raphaël; Galor, Oded; Moav, Omer; Özak, Ömer |
| Abstract: | This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered a process of adaptation reducing mortality from infectious diseases while increasing the propensity for autoimmune and in ammatory diseases. Exploiting an exogenous source of variation in the timing of the Neolithic Revolution across French regions, the analysis establishes the presence of these con icting forces - the beneficial effects on life expectancy before the second epidemiological transition and their adverse effects thereafter. |
| Keywords: | Life Expectancy,Health,Mortality,Neolithic Revolution,Epidemiological Transition,Infectious Disease,Autoimmune Disease,Diabetes,Crohn's Disease,HIV,COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I10 I15 J10 N00 N30 O10 O33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1071&r= |
| By: | Omang O. Messono (University of Douala, Douala, Cameroon); Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé, Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of the historical prevalence of infectious diseases on contemporary entrepreneurship. Previous studies reveal the persistence of the effects of historical diseases on innovation, through the channel of culture. Drawing on the epidemiological origin of institutions, we propose a framework which argues that the impact of infectious disease prevalence on contemporary entrepreneurship is mediated by property rights. The central hypothesis posits that a guarantee of property rights reduces the effect of past diseases on entrepreneurship. Using data from 125 countries, we find strong and robust evidence on the proposed hypothesis and other results. Property rights are higher in countries where the prevalence of diseases was low, which leads to good entrepreneurship scores. In contrast, countries with high disease prevalence did not have time to develop strong institutions to secure property rights. This explains their low level of entrepreneurship today. These results are robust to alternative methods and measures of property rights. Furthermore, our results also confirm the level of development, culture and the digitalization of economies as transmission channels between past diseases and the current level of entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; institutions; diseases; property rights |
| JEL: | I0 J24 I21 I31 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abh:wpaper:21/096&r= |
| By: | Ignacio Lago; Santiago Lago-Peñas |
| Abstract: | Relying on global data from democratic elections in 80 countries from 1800 to 2016, we examine whether the general process of nationalization of voting behavior is driven by country size. We argue that in the early stages of democracies in the nineteenth century, local concerns were more diverse and prominent for voters as countries became larger. As a result, national integration should have a stronger effect on the nationalization of electoral politics in large countries. The results from a longitudinal analysis confirm that the process of nationalization is a large-country phenomenon that took place mainly until World War I. |
| Keywords: | country size; democracy; elections; nationalization. |
| JEL: | H72 H74 H77 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:2202&r= |
| By: | Royle, Camilla |
| Abstract: | In this essay, I address the question of how Marxism influences our thought and action as radical intellectuals by focusing on Friedrich Engels’ work, Dialectics of Nature, the way it has been taken up in critical environmental studies and how Engels’ thinking has influenced me. In later life, Engels made important contributions on topics that are distinct from Marx's economic work. He attempted to apply dialectical methods to the “natural sciences” and he also used his knowledge of anthropology to produce a study of the historical origins of private property and women's oppression. In both cases he has been accused of adopting a positivist approach that lacks the emphasis on human agency found in Marx. Here, I challenge this view by showing how Engels’ work has been of use to practicing scientists – particularly to Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin in their book The Dialectical Biologist. I further argue that this understanding of dialectics is fully commensurable and actually advances an approach to Marxism that is based on human self-emancipation. As an undergraduate biology student these scientists inspired me with their approach to their subject as well as their activism. The essay concludes with some brief thoughts on the importance and limitations of adopting a Marxist method when considering socio-environmental change. |
| Keywords: | biology; dialectics; environment; friedrich Engels; Karl Marx |
| JEL: | B14 B24 P2 P3 |
| Date: | 2021–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114326&r= |
| By: | Rancan, Antonella |
| Abstract: | In the article I examine how model builders from academia and from the Federal Reserve Board confronted the Phillips curve in the construction and subsequent modifications of the Federal Reserve, MIT and University of Pennsylvania macroeconometric model. It is argued that academic debates on Friedman's and Phelps' accelerationist hypothesis, and the evolution of the macroeconomics discipline, did not affect the model building agenda at the Division of Research and Statistics of the Board over the 1970s and 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Phillips curve, Natural rate hypothesis, Federal Reserve-MIT-University of Pennsylvania model |
| JEL: | B22 B23 E12 |
| Date: | 2022–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mol:ecsdps:esdp22080&r= |
| By: | Jean-Luc Demeulemeester (Dulbéa - Département d'économie appliquée de l'université libre de Bruxelles - ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles, SKOPE, Economics - University of Oxford [Oxford]); Claude Diebolt (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UL - Université de Lorraine - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Humboldt University of Berlin, LAMETA - Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - Montpellier SupAgro - Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | In the introduction of the Handbook of Health Economics, Anthony Cuyler and Joseph Newhouse (2000) have contended that the economics of education was not very successful as a field and that it was comparatively lagging behind health economics. The latter had been much more active and able to accumulate much firmer results. Indeed, "whereas the economics of education seems to have atrophied, however, health economics has flourished and provided practical answers to practical questions as well as developing its own distinctive theoretical modes. Education economists have largely failed to resolve their own research agenda (the determination of earnings differentials, the contribution of education to economic growth, the social rate of return to training and education, the optimal size of schools and classes, the use of primitive outcome measures...). Blaug (1998, p.S66) comments that virtually all of the 100 articles in the 1985 International Encyclopaedia of Education devoted to the economics of education could just as well have been written in 1970 or even 1960" (Cuyler and Newhouse, 2000, p.3). Is it a provocative stance, or does it embody at least some elements of truth ? The objective of this special issue of the Brussels Economic Review is to present a series of pieces of research, both theoretical and applied, even policy-oriented, in order to let the reader judge by himself. In this very short introduction, we would like to remind the history of the field of economics of education, and then situate the various contributions in this context. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Education,Health economics,Education |
| Date: | 2022–03–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00279007&r= |
| By: | Youssef Ghallada; Alexandre Girard; Kim Oosterlinck |
| Abstract: | In theory credit booms, and the crises associated to these booms, should occur more frequently in Fiat monetary regimes than in regimes, such as the Gold Standard, where money creation is constrained. In this note, we investigate whether the importance of the credit boom factor, as an early warning indicator (EWI) of systemic financial crises, varies across monetary regimes for a sample of 17 developed countries over the 1870-2016 period. We find no evidence of a difference between monetary regime for credit-driven crises and this both for the occurrence and the severity of crises. |
| Date: | 2021–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/335337&r= |
| By: | Kolev, Stefan; Horn, Karen |
| Abstract: | This paper provides, after a contextualizing introduction, the first-time translation of Walter Eucken's presentation during the first session of the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, April 1-10, 1947. Eucken was the only scholar based in Germany to attend the conference and took an active part already in its preparation, especially through his extensive exchange with Friedrich A. Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke. While Eucken participated in several subsequent sessions, his intervention in the session ''Free' Enterprise and Competitive Order' is of particular interest with regard to the political economy of the Freiburg School. It reveals strong parallels to Hayek's contemporaneous research program and the 'Old Chicago' School. |
| Keywords: | Mont Pèlerin Society,neoliberalism,ordoliberalism,Walter Eucken,Friedrich A. Hayek,Chicago School |
| JEL: | A11 B25 B31 B41 H11 P16 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:2203&r= |
| By: | Ekaterina Travova |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the influence of the Orthodox Church network in Post-Soviet Russia on individual political preferences and election results. I use the numbers of monks and nuns from Orthodox monasteries operated in the Russian Empire before the Revolution as historical religious markers to construct a Bartik-style instrument (1991). I find that a denser Church network increases the average local approval rating for the current president and the share of votes cast for the government candidate in presidential elections. Further analysis of mechanisms shows that, today, the extending Church network is increasingly less able to attract people to attend church and to substantially increase the share of practicing believers. However, it does affect the political preferences of those who, regardless of their faith in God, self-identify as Orthodox. The potential channel for persuasion is media. |
| Keywords: | Orthodoxy; Church; Approval; Election; National Identity; Media; |
| JEL: | D83 N33 N34 P16 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp722&r= |
| By: | Luis Bauluz (University of Bonn, World Inequality Lab); Filip Novokmet (University of Bonn, World Inequality Lab); Moritz Schularick (Sciences Po, University of Bonn, CEPR) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a household-level perspective on the rise of global saving and wealth since the 1980s. We calculate asset-specific saving flows and capital gains across the wealth distribution for the G3 economies – the U.S., Europe, and China. In the past four decades, global saving inequality has risen sharply. The share of household saving flows coming from the richest 10% of household increased by 60% while saving of middle class households has fallen sharply. The most important source for the surge in top-10% saving was the secular rise of global corporate saving whose ultimate owners the rich households are. Housing capital gains have supported wealth growth for middle-class households despite falling saving and rising debt. Without meaningful capital gains in risky assets, the wealth share of the bottom half of the population declined substantially in most G3 economies. |
| Keywords: | Income and wealth inequality, household portfolios, historical micro data |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E44 N32 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:161&r= |
| By: | David de la Croix; Pauline Morault (Université de Cergy-Pontoise, THEMA) |
| Abstract: | Using a new database of European academics,we provide a global view of the eect of the Protestant Reformation on the network of universities and on their individual importance within the network (centrality). A connection (edge) between two universities (nodes) is dened by the presence of the same scholar in both universities. Protestantism strongly impacted the structure of the network. Dyadic regressions conrm that geography was important as well, but does not substitute for the eect of religion. We isolate the eect of religion on each university centrality comparing simulated networks with and without religious identity. The reorganization of the network induced by the Reformation harmed Protestant universities less than Catholics. As the number of publications per university is strongly correlated with centrality, our simulations lend credence to the view that the loss of connectedness of the Southern European universities after the (Counter-)Reformation was important in triggering their scientic demise. |
| Keywords: | Upper-Tail Human Capital, Universities, Network, Centrality, Publications, Fragmentation. |
| JEL: | N33 O15 I25 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2022-11&r= |
| By: | Acosta, Juan; Rancan, Antonella; Sergi, Francesco |
| Abstract: | In 1979, Paolo Ranuzzi, a senior economist within the Commission's Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG II), led the development of "EUROLINK", a short-term macroeconometric multi-country model of the European Economic Community (EEC). EUROLINK was used by the Commission for a few years, for producing macroeconomic forecasts, the EEC budget, and various studies about the dynamics of the EEC economy. However, after two years of intense criticisms, the use and development of EUROLINK was abandoned in 1983. This article documents the history of the short-lived EUROLINK model. We highlight the reasons pushing the DG II to develop such a multi-country model, then the reasons bringing to its abandonment. We argue that, compared to single-country macroeconometric models, multi-country models were considered more suitable to analyse, theoretically and quantitatively, interdependencies across national economies and spillover effects of national policies. To address these issues, EUROLINK combined, via original bilateral trade equations, four heterogeneous large-scale macroeconometric models of European countries, developed by national modelling teams. We characterise this methodology as the "decentralised approach". Thanks to original archives, we show how this approach was deemed overly complicated and costly by the DG II. After EUROLINK, DG II economists shifted to a different modelling approach (the "centralised approach"), in which the multi-country model (COMPACT, then QUEST) combines identical models of national economies, all entirely built by the DG II team. This approach was considered as one preserving DG II's "intellectual command" over the modelling activities. |
| Keywords: | Multi-Country Models, European Macroeconomics, Commission of the European Communities, Eurolink |
| JEL: | B22 B27 F41 |
| Date: | 2022–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mol:ecsdps:esdp22081&r= |
| By: | Myers, Caitlin Knowles |
| Abstract: | An expansive empirical literature estimates the causal effects of policies governing young women's confidential and legal access to contraception and abortion. I present a new review of changes in the historical policy environment in the United States that serve as the foundation of this work. I consult primary sources including annotated statutes, judicial rulings, attorney general opinions, and advisory articles in medical journals, as well as secondary sources including newspaper articles and snapshots of various policy environments prepared by scholars, advocates, and government organizations. Based on this review, I provide a suggested coding of the policy environment over the past 60 years. I also present and compare the legal coding schemes used in the empirical literature and where possible I resolve numerous and substantial discrepancies. |
| Keywords: | Contraception,abortion,policy |
| JEL: | J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1073&r= |
| By: | William N. Goetzmann; Akiko Watanabe; Masahiro Watanabe |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the retrieved context model of Wachter and Kahana (2019) using a long-term panel of economic forecasts by participants in the Livingston Survey. Events in historical time contribute additional explanatory power to a relative time series model. Historical precedents for current macroeconomic conditions appear to be more relevant for extreme quantile forecasts. The results are consistent with the use of the retrieved context mechanism for formulating expectations about asset prices. They also suggest that historical events, not just lagged variables in relative time, matter in economic forecasting. |
| JEL: | G02 G17 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29849&r= |
| By: | Carlo Gubitosa |
| Abstract: | Today's use of comics as a new language in journalism was preceded by some "notable failures" of magazines which lasted just a few issues, but still left their mark on the foundation of a new type of storytelling. Magazines like Joe Sacco's Yahoo, which ran 6 issues from 1988 to 1992, paved the way for other international episodes in comics journalism, as did the magazine Mamma! which was printed in Italy, as well as other digitally published "tablet magazines" in the USA and Europe. The American tablet magazine Symbolia, published online from 2013 to 2015, and previous examples of web comics seem to have reached the diffusion limits of media trying to found their way into popular culture. At the same time, comics journalism pioneers succeeded in creating a new readership that led renowned international magazines like Le Monde Diplomatique (in October 2010) and The New York Times Magazine (in June 2017) into running issues entirely based on comics and "bandes dessinées". The French magazine La Revue dessinée, and the US magazines The Nib and World War 3 Illustrated, which are still in print and reach only a select audience of readers, are the most recent attempts to support the struggling industries of newspaper and book publishers with a new form of visual storytelling based on the language of comics. This paper examines multiple case studies, background materials and interviews with people directly involved in comics journalism magazines in Italy, France, and the USA, to construct a broad overview of this form of publishing. In 2002 Joe Sacco declared that "the fifth issue of Yahoo remained his favorite comic book of all time since it was the one where his writing was the least restricted" (Marshall 2004). Is there still space for this kind of creative freedom at the crossroads between comics and journalism? This exploratory inquiry will contribute to a better understanding of the extent to which the legacy of comics journalism pioneers outlived the life of their magazines, and still persists in the use of comics as a language in journalism. |
| Keywords: | Comics Journalism; Journalism; Self-publishing; Digital publishing; Comics Journalism Magazines |
| Date: | 2021–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/339266&r= |
| By: | Bertsch, Christoph (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Hull, Isaiah (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Zhang, Xin (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden) |
| Abstract: | According to Shiller (2017), economic and financial narratives often emerge as a con sequence of their virality, rather than their veracity, and constitute an important, but understudied driver of aggregate fluctuations. Using a unique dataset of newspaper articles over the 1950-2019 period and state-of-the-art methods from natural language processing, we characterize the properties of business cycle narratives. Our main finding is that narratives tend to consolidate around a dominant explanation during expansions and fragment into competing explanations during contractions. We also show that the existence of past reference events is strongly associated with increased narrative consolidation. |
| Keywords: | Natural Language Processing; Machine Learning; Narrative Economics |
| JEL: | C63 D84 E32 E70 |
| Date: | 2021–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0401&r= |
| By: | João Ferreira do Amaral |
| Abstract: | This paper develops concepts and theoretical models that can prove useful for the study of technological revolutions both from the point of view of economic growth theory and of economic history. The basic concepts are innovative capital, technological wave and technological revolution and a comparison is made with other concepts such as industrial revolution and social revolution in the Marxian sense. |
| Keywords: | economic growth; digital revolution; technological progress; innovation. |
| JEL: | E10 E11 E22 N10 O30 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp02202022&r= |
| By: | Javier San Julian Arrupe (University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | In 1894 the American Congress passed a 2% tax on incomes over 4,000 US dollars, as part of a bill seeking to reduce tariffs. Transformations in the American society after the Civil War triggered an increasing role of the State, calling for a tax reform. Concerned for tax justice, progressive economists sponsored a tax system grounded on ability to pay, demanding an income tax. Farmers and the working class joined this demand, feeling that American tax system was harmful to them. The decade of 1890 consolidated this opinion, leading a majority of lawmakers at the House to embrace the idea of a federal income tax. Even if struck down by the Supreme Court, the federal income tax of 1894 was an economic milestone in the Progressive Era, mirroring new social concerns. This paper examines the debates on the income tax in the House, with a twofold conclusion. First, representatives accepted the arguments of progressive economists for tax reform and used them in the discussion. Second, political economy played a central role in the debate as an instrument to confer legitimacy and reputation to representatives’ arguments for the income tax, and crucially aided in the building of consensus for the reform. |
| Keywords: | Tax policy, income tax, progressive era, progressivism. |
| JEL: | B15 H20 H71 N11 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewp:wpaper:418web&r= |
| By: | Hull, Isaiah (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Sattath, Or (Department of Computer Science) |
| Abstract: | The properties of money commonly referenced in the economics literature were originally identified by Jevons (1876) and Menger (1892) in the late 1800s and were intended to describe physical currencies, such as commodity money, metallic coins, and paper bills. In the digital era, many non-physical currencies have either entered circulation or are under development, including demand deposits, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), in-game currencies, and quantum money. These forms of money have novel properties that have not been studied extensively within the economics literature, but may be important determinants of the monetary equilibrium that emerges in forthcoming era of heightened currency competition. This paper makes the first exhaustive attempt to identify and define the properties of all physical and digital forms of money. It reviews both the economics and computer science literatures and categorizes properties within an expanded version of the original functions-and-properties framework of money that includes societal and regulatory objectives. |
| Keywords: | Money; CBDC; Digital Currencies; Quantum Money; Currency Competition |
| JEL: | E40 E42 E50 E51 |
| Date: | 2021–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0406&r= |
| By: | Matej Belin; Tomas Jelinek; Stepan Jurajda |
| Abstract: | Survivor testimonies link survival in deadly POW camps, Gulags, and Nazi concentration camps to the formation of close friendships with other prisoners. We provide statistical evidence consistent with these fundamentally selective testimonies. We study the survival of the 140 thousand Jews who entered the Theresienstadt ghetto, where 33 thousand died and from where over 80 thousand were sent to extermination camps. We ask whether an individual’s social status prior to deportation, and the availability of potential friends among fellow prisoners influenced the risk of death in Theresienstadt, the ability to avoid transports to the camps, and the chances of surviving Auschwitz. Pre-deportation social status protected prisoners in the self-administered society of the Theresienstadt ghetto, but it was no longer helpful in the extreme conditions of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Relying on multiple proxies of pre-existing social networks, we uncover a significant survival advantage to entering Auschwitz with a group of potential friends. |
| Keywords: | social status; social networks; Holocaust survival; Nazi concentration camp; ghetto; Theresienstadt/Terezín; Auschwitz-Birkenau; |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp720&r= |
| By: | Samuel Jaramillo |
| Abstract: | Este texto se inscribe en los debates suscitados por el nuevo y creciente interés por las tesis económicas de Carlos Marx y, en especial, por su Teoría del Valor Trabajo. La noción que anima este texto sostiene que las múltiples objeciones que se han formulado sobre ella en realidad apuntan a versiones y formalizaciones que corresponden más a las elaboraciones de Ricardo. Marx consideraba que su versión sobre la teoría del valor no solo era distinta, sino mucho más avanzada y rigurosa que la de su predecesor. En este texto se plantea que las nuevas exploraciones sobre la teoría del valor, muy prometedoras para una interpretación crítica del capitalismo, se apoyan de manera decisiva en reinterpretaciones de Marx en las que se rescatan elementos de su reflexión que han sido eliminados por pensadores posteriores, tanto partidarios como contradictores, y su elaboración y desarrollo para épocas presentes. El texto consiste en una reconstrucción sucinta los principales hitos de la Teoría del Valor Trabajo, interpretados desde esta óptica, lo que suscita versiones diferentes a las más extendidas. Así se examinan las formulaciones de esta teoría elaboradas por Smith, Ricardo y Marx. Se analizan desde una perspectiva actual los cuestionamientos planteados alrededor del debate sobre la Transformación de Valores en Precios principalmente por Bortkiewicz y más tarde por Sraffa y la Escuela Neoricardiana. Se incluye una reflexión sobre las concepciones al respecto dominantes en el marxismo del siglo XX, que aquí se sostiene que de facto están más cercanas a Ricardo que a Marx. Se examinan dos corrientes neo-marxistas contemporáneas, la "Nueva Aproximación" y los "secuencialistas" (del Sistema Temporal Único) que pretenden precisamente elaborar nuevos desarrollos a partir de reinterpretaciones de las tesis de Marx. El texto termina con la presentación de algunos planteamientos originales que tienen esta misma perspectiva, que se apoyan parcialmente en las fromulaciones neomarxistas, pero también en re-elaboraciones de distintos momentos de esta tradición y que apuntan a la formulación de una Teoría del Valor Trabajo Abstracto. |
| Keywords: | teoría del valor trabajo, marxismo, economía marxista |
| JEL: | B51 |
| Date: | 2022–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:020029&r= |
| By: | Jean-Luc Gaffard (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | L'inflation qui avait quasiment disparue depuis quarante ans resurgit. La première réaction est de considérer ce phénomène comme transitoire comme si elle était le signe d'une rupture momentanée d'un équilibre de long terme. Cependant, elle se produit en un moment où des crises successives, financière, sanitaire, écologique deviennent le moteur de changements structurels importants et pourrait, de ce fait, être durable si les déséquilibres observés ne sont pas contenus. La comparaison avec les événements des années 1970, tant sur le plan des faits que sur celui de leur interprétation analytique, peut éclairer sur le sens de la question relative au caractère durable ou transitoire de l'inflation. |
| Keywords: | Anticipations,changement structurel,inflation,politique économique |
| Date: | 2022–02–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03588350&r= |
| By: | David Hugh-Jones (School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich); Mich Tvede (School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich) |
| Abstract: | Existing theories of the effects of the printing press treat it as speeding up the transmission of technical knowledge. This cannot explain why a large proportion of both manuscripts and early printed books was religious. We argue that books transmit prudential and moral rules as well as technical information. These culturally transmitted rules provide a foundation for economic rationality, and solve problems of trust in large markets. In Europe, cheaper book production stimulated not only scientific progress, but also new forms of religion, which used book reading to inculcate rules appropriate to the emerging modern economy. We model the effect of the printing press on economic growth. Initially religious works dominate, but as the stock of technical knowledge grows, the proportion of technical works increases. |
| Date: | 2022–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:ueaeco:2022-01&r= |
| By: | Laurent Linnemer (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | "Double marginalization" and "Elimination of Double marginalization" are catch-phrases commonly used in the IO literature. In this note, I trace back the origin of the idea to Chapter IX, on complementary goods monopolies, of Cournot (1838). Through the years Cournot's contribution remained a reference but ended being viewed as a special case of the bilateral monopoly model. Yet, it is worth wondering why the most cited paper on this issue is nowadays Spengler (1950) which contains only an informal treatment of the question. In addition to retracing the origin of the idea, I emphasize the elegant proof of Cournot for the simultaneous game and extend it to the sequential game. I also show that prices are usually higher in the sequential game but that they could be lower if demand is very convex. |
| Keywords: | JEL codes: B160,B210,K210,L120,L13,L420,Cournot,Complements,Successive monopolies |
| Date: | 2022–02–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03587415&r= |
| By: | Niftiyev, Ibrahim |
| Abstract: | Azerbaijan’s economy has been investigated within Dutch disease (DD) and Natural Resource Curse Theory (NRCT) several times during the last 20-22 years, but the studies relied on heavily aggregated data and speculative theoretical models. Opinions differ in academia as to how and to what extent these phenomena happened. However, we are still of the assertion that non-oil manufacturing, in general, has experienced adverse effects since the huge oil revenue found its way into the Azerbaijani economy because the cost of non-oil production rose and competitiveness declined due to the domestic inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, subsectoral and specific parts of non-oil economy have not been studied in more detail. This working paper invites to consider textile and chemical subsectors as de-industrialized economic subsectors due to the oil boom’s take over since 2005 and 2006 in Azerbaijan. The descriptive analysis shows that the textile subsector is less likely to be relevant from a de-industrialization standpoint after the collapse of the Soviet Union; however, certain chemical subsectors seem to strongly react to the oil boom. Still, this does not mean that we have nothing to worry about the output of the textile industry. These results can be supported by quantitative and empirical works, but not limited to. Qualitative methods can generate new insights on microeconomic levels (i.e., factory or industrial park) about non-oil manufacturing in the Azerbaijani economy to reveal potential adverse/positive effects of oil-led economic growth and development. This working paper and upcoming works can be a useful framework for the government officials and decisionmakers to follow more thorough industrial policies to recover non-oil industrial potential of the Azerbaijani economy in a short period. |
| Keywords: | Azerbaijan economy,chemical subsectors,de-industrialization,Dutch disease,economic subsectors,industrial output,natural resource curse theory,non-oil industry,textile subsectors |
| JEL: | D04 E32 L6 O14 O52 O53 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:250900&r= |
| By: | Tulkens, Henry (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium); Borissov, Kirill (European University at St. Petersburg); Eyckmans, Johan (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven); Lambrecht, Stéphane (Université Polytechnique des Hauts de France); Picard, Pierre M. (University of Luxembourg); Tsachev, Tsvetomir (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences); Veliov, Vladimir (Technische Universität Wien) |
| Abstract: | In this obituary we evoke a few of the many areas in which he worked, focusing on results and his personal contributions. In the last section we review the main stages of his career. |
| Date: | 2022–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2022010&r= |
| By: | Rainer Lippert (Departement d'économie - université de Mannheim) |
| Abstract: | In diesem Artikel wird die klassische Interpretation der Arbeitswerttheorie analysiert und eine zeitgemäße Interpretation vorgestellt. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Wertbildung, wie Marx sie beschreibt, vom Grundgedanken her richtig ist – der Wert basiert auf der Arbeit von Arbeitskräften. Doch im Detail weist sie Fehler auf. Das betrifft insbesondere den Ort der Wertbildung, den Marx in der Produktionssphäre lokalisiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass der Wert als ein gesellschaftliches Verhältnis zwischen Tauschpartnern erst auf dem Markt gebildet wird und nicht vorher geschöpft werden kann. Erst auf dem Markt wird der Wert den Tauschgütern zugeordnet. Es wird begründet, dass nur die Voraussetzungen für Wertbeziehungen und Werte produziert werden können – von Menschen, Maschinen und Teilen der Natur. Dazu muss die bekannte Wertformel von Marx präzisiert werden. Der Wert wird als gesellschaftlich relevante Anerkennung von Aufwendungen beschrieben und grafisch dargestellt. |
| Keywords: | Marx,Wert,Mehrwert,Werttheorie,Arbeitswerttheorie,Markt JEL-Klassifikation: A1,A19,E00,E11,E40,G10,P20,P22,value,surplus value,value theory,Labor Theory of Value |
| Date: | 2022–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03592387&r= |
| By: | Elise S. Brezis (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | The Economic Consequences of the Peace was first published in 1919, and since then, changed the economic discourse surrounding reparations and Carthaginian peace. This paper specifies how three elements hinted at in the introduction of the Economic Consequences of the Peace – social classes, national sovereignty, and the international political system – can explain Keynes’ assessment of Carthaginian peace. The paper analyzes the optimality of reparations in the context of these three elements. I show that in the situation of a hegemonic country, all classes - the working class as well as the elite - opt for no reparations. But, in a balance of power context, wherein no single actor on the international scene possesses hegemonic status, the working class will choose harsh reparations, while the transnational elite and Keynes will not. |
| Keywords: | Balance of Power, Carthaginian Peace, Hegemony, Reparations, National Sovereignty. |
| JEL: | B17 B27 E12 F30 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2022-04&r= |
| By: | Abhay Aneja; Guo Xu |
| Abstract: | We use newly digitized records from the U.S. Post Office to study how strengthening state capacity affects public service delivery and innovation in over 2,800 cities between 1875-1905. Exploiting the gradual expansion of a major civil service reform, cities with a reformed postal office experience fewer errors in delivery, lower unit costs and an increase in mail handled per worker. This improvement goes with greater information flow, as measured by increased volumes of mail and newspapers. We observe more joint patenting involving inventors and businesses from different cities, suggesting that a more effective postal service contributed to innovation and growth during the Gilded Age. |
| JEL: | D73 M5 N4 N41 O3 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29852&r= |
| By: | José Alves; João Quental Gonçalves |
| Abstract: | The present work offers a review on two divergent schools of thought regarding the subject of money and highlights why understanding it is important to grasp the workings and nature of the concept of money. We adopt a spontaneous order perspective on social institutions, considering money as one. Such framework allows for the construction of axioms from which we formulate our problem allowing us to ask how old forms of money such as Gold and Silver hold up in today’s world regarding their hedging properties. Moreover, we also do so for Bitcoin since we consider it an appropriate asset due to its specific characteristics and its (at the time of writing) more than 10-year life span. We resort to the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) methodology in order to study our three assets in the context of the US dollar and the US Economy for two different time periods. We analyse price dynamics from 1980 to 2020 for gold and silver resorting to annual data. Regarding bitcoin we employ quarterly data from 2009 to 2020. We conclude that the theories that explain what money is, how it comes to be so and how certain types of “money assets” may serve both as an indirect hedge against inflation in the two interpretations of the word and as a “stock of value” have merits that might deserve further investigation. |
| Keywords: | Money; Inflation; Gold; Silver; Bitcoin |
| JEL: | B25 D46 E42 E51 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp02222022&r= |
| By: | Roman, Monica; Zimmermann, Klaus F.; Plopeanu, Aurelian-Petruș |
| Abstract: | While under communism the identity-providing religion was suppressed, religiosity is strong today even among the youth in post-communist countries. This provides an appropriate background to investigate how external and internal religiosity relates to risky behaviors like smoking, drinking, and drugs among the young. This study shows that not religion as such or internal religiosity, but largely observable (external) religiosity prevents them from wallowing in those vices. While this is found strongly for both males and females, those females doubting or reflecting religion show a somewhat smaller risky activity. |
| Keywords: | addictive behavior,Orthodox,external and internal religiosity,youth,smoking,drinking,drugs,Romania |
| JEL: | I12 N34 Z12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:859pre&r= |
| By: | Jaiswal, Sreeja; Bensch, Gunther; Navalkar, Aniket; Jayaraman, T. |
| Abstract: | Railways are a key infrastructure that facilitates trade and regional integration with potential consequences on local development and the environment in hitherto backward regions. In this article, we study the medium- to long-term socio-economic and environmental infrastructure impacts for the case of the Konkan Railway, which is one of the biggest railway construction endeavours in independent India. We employ a quasi-experimental mixed-methods design to explore the impact of the Konkan Railway on population, workforce composition and land cover types using census and satellite data. We find that the Konkan Railway led to an increase in the female-to-male sex ratio and a negative effect on the share of male workers among the working population. In combination with qualitative evidence, this suggests that the railway access has reinforced the pre-existing pattern of high levels of male migration. We also find an increase in population and the workforce participation rate without disparate workforce effects across sectors suggesting that the railway had moderate effects across the local economies. In terms of land use, the analysis could not substantiate concerns regarding substantive loss of forest cover induced by the railways. The findings encourage policy makers - in assessing the effects of transport infrastructure - to take into consideration the impact on migration, labour mobility and labour market outcomes in sending and receiving regions. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure,railway access,migration,impact evaluation,mixed methods,India |
| JEL: | N75 O18 O40 R11 R41 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:936&r= |