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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2022‒07‒11
27 papers chosen by |
| By: | Andrew Seltzer; Martin Shanahan; Claire Wright |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the history of the economic history discipline in Australia. While the discipline’s main focus over time has been Australia, we trace its evolution from its English-influenced roots through its concern with colonial development, and dalliance with business history to its later incorporation of cliometrics, comparative studies and more recently Asian topics. The origins of the discipline date back to the early-1900s. After the Second World War, there was a rapid expansion, with free-standing economic history departments established in several leading Australian universities. From the beginnings, quantitative economic history was relatively strong in Australia, largely because of excellent colonial and post-Federation records. However, from the 1980’s, a more corporatist approach to university management led to a decline in Australian economic history and particularly cliometric work. In the 1990s and early-2000s, the free-standing departments were all closed, and the hiring of economic historians virtually ceased. In the past decade, there has been something of a revival, with economic history increasingly seen as a core subject in both history and economics departments. In addition to examining the history of the discipline, we also look at some challenges for the future, focussing on the collection of still unextracted historical data and its usefulness in addressing various topics. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:104&r= |
| By: | Andres Irarrazaval |
| Abstract: | What explains exceptional inequality across Latin America, Africa, and India? By exploiting analytical, historical, and empirical tools, this research revisits the literature on inequality and long-term development. The findings challenge the colonial origins thesis, showing that significant inequality in Latin America, Africa, and India is not rooted in the colonial period nor explained by allegedly persistent “extractive†economic institutions. Instead, the empirical strategy that builds on Acemoglu et al. (2001) instrument variable (IV) method, consistent with historical evidence, indicates that current inequality differences only materialised during the 20th century following divergent fiscal patterns. In Western countries, progressive fiscality led to tangibly lower inequality since the 1920s. Whereas in Latin America, Africa, and India, despite post-colonial convergence toward “inclusive†economic institutions, inequality persists through a regressive fiscal equilibrium. In these developing regions, limited democratic accountability has undermined the formation of the credible commitments necessary to raise substantial direct (i.e., progressive) taxes and the political pressure required to mobilize such resources towards redistribution. |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp531&r= |
| By: | Antonin Bergeaud; Cyril Verluise |
| Abstract: | Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of data, especially in Europe. In this paper, we introduce PatentCity, a novel dataset on the location and nature of patentees from the 19th century using information derived from an automated extraction of relevant information from patent documents published by the German, French, British and US Intellectual Property offices. This dataset has been constructed with the view of facilitating the exploration of the geography of innovation and includes additional information on citizenship and occupation of inventors. |
| Keywords: | history of innovation, patent, text as data |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1850&r= |
| By: | Toke Aidt; Jean Lacroix; Pierre-Guillaume Méon |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a new mechanism that allows political elites from a non-democratic regime to survive a democratic transition: connections. We document this mechanism in the transition from the Vichy regime to democracy in post-World War II France. The parliamentarians who had supported the Vichy regime were purged in a two-stage process where each case was judged twice by two different courts. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we show that Law graduates, a powerful social group in French politics with strong connections to one of the two courts, had a clearance rate that was 10 percentage points higher than others. This facilitated the persistence of that elite group. A systematic analysis of 17,589 documents from the defendants' dossiers is consistent with the hypothesis that the connections of Law graduates to one of the two courts were a major driver of their ability to avoid the purge. We consider and rule out alternative mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | purges, political transitions, elite persistence, connections |
| JEL: | D73 K40 N44 P48 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9760&r= |
| By: | Jaramillo-Echeverri, Juliana; Ã lvarez, Andrés; Bro, Naim |
| Abstract: | In the last two years, Colombia and Chile have witnessed strong social protests, characterized by slogans against inequality and the lack of social mobility. In this study we propose a comparative study on social mobility and the persistence of structural social inequalities in both countries. We collect evidence on the level of social immobility and test if it is rooted in historical forms of social segregation in both countries. We base our analysis in surname based methods. We conclude that there are clear indications of a significant persistence of upward immobility of the groups that were originally segregated during the colonial period: Afro-descendants (Colombia) and indigenous people (in both). Furthermore, we find that the downward social immobility of the elites shows an important persistence in both countries. However, in Chile the colonial elites (encomenderos and landowners) present greater persistence in their privileged status, while in Colombia those early elites seem to have converged more quickly to the mean. In both countries, there is a clear persistence of the elites of the second half of the 19th century in todays highest position of the social ladder. |
| Keywords: | Desarrollo, Desarrollo social, Economía, Investigación socioeconómica, Políticas públicas, |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1848&r= |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University); Chi Hyun Kim (University of Bonn); Moritz Kuhn (University of Bonn); Moritz Schularick (University of Bonn, Sciences Po Paris) |
| Abstract: | The racial wealth gap is the largest of the economic disparities between Black and white Americans, with a white-to-Black per capita wealth ratio of 6 to 1. It is also among the most persistent. In this paper, we construct the first continuous series on white-to-Black per capita wealth ratios from 1860 to 2020, drawing on historical census data, early state tax records, and historical waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances, among other sources. Incorporating these data into a parsimonious model of wealth accumulation for each racial group, we document the role played by initial conditions, income growth, savings behavior, and capital returns in the evolution of the gap. Given vastly different starting conditions under slavery, racial wealth convergence would remain a distant scenario, even if wealth-accumulating conditions had been equal across the two groups since Emancipation. Relative to this equal-conditions benchmark, we find that observed convergence has followed an even slower path over the last 150 years, with convergence stalling after 1950. Since the 1980s, the wealth gap has widened again as capital gains have predominantly benefited white households, and income convergence has stopped. |
| Keywords: | Racial inequality, income and wealth inequality |
| JEL: | J15 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:168&r= |
| By: | Samuel Garrido (Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Cooperative wineries are one of the cornerstones of the wine industry in Europe today. To understand how they reached this condition, I use the case of Spain and pay special attention to the period in which they took off in the country, namely, during the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975). Wine economists often believe that cooperatives produce mediocre wines because they cannot avoid the opportunistic behavior of their members. I argue that they can and that the poor quality of their wine in some regions was the result of the perverse stimuli provided by a badly designed wine market regulation policy. |
| Keywords: | wine, cooperative wineries, market regulation, Franco’s Spain, European Union |
| JEL: | D40 L66 N34 Q13 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2022/11&r= |
| By: | Bautista, Maria Angelica; Gonzalez, Felipe; Martinez, Luis R.; Prem, Mounu; Munoz, Pablo |
| Abstract: | We study the transmission of higher education across generations using the arrival of the Pinochet dictatorship to Chile in 1973 as natural experiment. Pinochet promoted a large contraction in the number of seats opened for new students across all universities. Using census data, we find that parents who reached college age shortly after 1973 experienced a sharp decline in college enrollment. Decades after democratization, we observe that their children are also less likely to enroll in higher education. The results imply large and persistent downstream effects of educational policies implemented half a century ago. |
| Date: | 2022–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:127027&r= |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University); Chi Hyun Kim (University of Bonn); Moritz Kuhn (University of Bonn); Moritz Schularick (University of Bonn, Sciences Po Paris) |
| Abstract: | The racial wealth gap is the largest of the economic disparities between Black and white Americans, with a white-to-Black per capita wealth ratio of 6 to 1. It is also among the most persistent. In this paper, we construct the first continuous series on white-to-Black per capita wealth ratios from 1860 to 2020, drawing on historical census data, early state tax records, and historical waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances, among other sources. Incorporating these data into a parsimonious model of wealth accumulation for each racial group, we document the role played by initial conditions, income growth, savings behavior, and capital returns in the evolution of the gap. Given vastly different starting conditions under slavery, racial wealth convergence would remain a distant scenario, even if wealth-accumulating conditions had been equal across the two groups since Emancipation. Relative to this equal-conditions benchmark, we find that observed convergence has followed an even slower path over the last 150 years, with convergence stalling after 1950. Since the 1980s, the wealth gap has widened again as capital gains have predominantly benefited white households, and income convergence has stopped. |
| Keywords: | Wealth gap, Racial wealth gap, inequality, historical data |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2022-6&r= |
| By: | Raffaele Danna; Martina Iori; Andrea Mina |
| Abstract: | The accumulation of knowledge and its application to a variety of human needs is a discontinuous process that involves innovation and change. While much has been written on major discontinuities associated, for instance, with the rise of new technologies during industrial revolutions, other phases of economic development are less well understood, even though they might bring into even sharper focus the mechanisms through which growth is generated by the systematic application of human knowledge to practical problems. In this paper, we investigate the transmission of new mathematical knowledge from the 13th to the end of the 16th century in Europe. Using an original dataset of over 1050 manuals of practical arithmetic, we produce new descriptive and quasi-experimental evidence on the economic importance of the European transition from Roman to Hindu-Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). This numerical revolution laid the foundations for the commercial revolution of the 13th century, and the diffusion of knowledge through organised learning had positive and significant effects on the growth of pre-modern European economies. |
| Keywords: | Human capital; knowledge diffusion; learning; economic growth. |
| Date: | 2022–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2022/18&r= |
| By: | Jean-Pierre Aubry |
| Abstract: | State and local policymakers face increasing pressure to manage pension costs, as unfunded liabilities continue to grow relative to budgets. However, policymakers often lack a historical perspective on the root causes of pension underfunding, which is an obstacle to developing effective solutions. In 2015, the Center for Retirement Research(CRR) performed its first forensic analysis of pension funding for the Connecticut State Employees Retirement System (CT SERS) and Teachers Retirement System (CT TRS). This analysis uncovered two major contributors to underfunding. The first was a legacy debt from the period before SERS and TRS were actuarially funded – retirement benefits had been promised since the 1930s, but were not actuarially pre-funded until the 1980s. The second was inadequate contributions made by the State once it decided to pre-fund, perhaps partly motivated by the sheer size of the legacy burden and its associated amortization payments. After the CRR released its forensic study, Connecticut adopted a new method that increased the cash flow to its plans. And the State began debating options for managing the system’s legacy debt. In short, the CRR study provided actionable insights to Connecticut policymakers. The analysis for Connecticut highlighted factors that likely play a role elsewhere as well. Therefore, to support the policy debate in more locations with poorly funded plans, the CRR performed forensic analyses for retirement systems in five other states: Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. This brief – the first of two – summarizes the results of these forensic analyses. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section untangles the roots of unfunded pension liabilities and explains why the legacy debt from many decades ago continues to impact the finances of plans today. The second section quantifies the size of the legacy burden. The third section discusses how this burden may have encouraged questionable policies for managing later liabilities. The final section concludes that the lack of understanding of legacy debt is hindering progress on pension funding and that moving forward requires a new framework for managing these unfunded liabilities, which will be the topic of a second brief. |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:slpbrf:slp83&r= |
| By: | Antoine Missemer (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The energy transition towards a low-carbon regime is a critical challenge for the 21st century. It is not only a matter of techniques, but also of social organization and cultural representations. This article explores how the ordinary economic representations of energy have been developed since the 19th century, and how they have influenced public decision-making. Through the examples of forecasting and of the distinction renewable vs. exhaustible resources, this article suggests that path dependencies still weight upon those views. When thinking about the low-carbon transition, getting out of these dependencies seems essential. |
| Abstract: | La transition d'un régime énergétique fossile vers un régime bas-carbone est l'un des grands défis du XXIe siècle. Le sujet n'est pas seulement technique, mais aussi organisationnel et culturel, touchant aux représentations et aux usages de l'énergie. Cet article revient sur la façon dont se sont construites les représentations économiques conventionnelles de l'énergie depuis le XIXe siècle, influençant ici et là la décision publique. À travers les exemples de la prospective et de la distinction renouvelables vs. épuisables, cet article suggère que des dépendances au sentier pèsent toujours sur ces représentations, et qu'à l'heure de penser la transition bas-carbone, sortir de ces dépendances semble essentiel. |
| Keywords: | energy,history of economic thought,forecasting,energy transition,path dependency,performativity,énergie,histoire de la pensée économique,prospective,transition énergétique,dépendance au sentier,performativité |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03657637&r= |
| By: | Jeremy B. Rudd |
| Abstract: | Recently, the experience of the 1960s—when the U.S. inflation rate rose rapidly and persistently over a comparatively short period—has been invoked as a cautionary tale for the present. An analysis of this period indicates that the inflation regime that prevailed in the 1960s was different in several key regards from the one that prevailed on the eve of the pandemic. Hence, there are few useable lessons to be drawn from this experience, save that monetary policymaking remains a difficult undertaking. |
| Keywords: | Great Inflation; Martin Fed; Volcker disinflation; Inflation dynamics |
| JEL: | E52 N12 E31 |
| Date: | 2022–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2022-29&r= |
| By: | Lyndon Moore; Gertjan Verdickt |
| Abstract: | The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Public Works Administration loaned 45 railroads over $802 million between 1932 and 1939. The government goal was to decrease the likelihood of bond defaults and increase employment. Bailed-out railroads did not increase profitability or employment. Instead, they reduced leverage. Bailing out a railroad had little effect on its stock price, but it resulted in an increase in its bond prices and reduced the likelihood of a ratings downgrade. However, bailouts did not help railroads avoid defaulting on their debt. We find some evidence that manufacturing firms located close to railroads benefited from the bailouts. |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2205.13025&r= |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | The negative association of education and fertility, over time and between countries, is a central stylized fact of social science. Yet we have scant evidence on whether this is, or is not, causal. Using the universe of vital registration index data from England, 1912 to 2007, I first show that it is possible, using unique names, to construct a demographically and socioeconomically representative sample of 1.5 million women. Historical record linkage of women is typically not attempted but is possible here because of the unique characteristics of English civil registration. I then exploit the natural experiment of sharp discontinuities in who was affected by compulsory schooling law changes in 1947 and in 1972, which exogenously and effectively raised the minimum school leaving age. A Regression Discontinuity design, executed on the individual data, identifies the causal effect of education on age at marriage and fertility. Education may have raised age at marriage in 1972. However one extra year of education at 15 or 16 has a zero causal effect on marital fertility. |
| Keywords: | fertility; education; causal effects; demography; economic history; labor economics |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:115400&r= |
| By: | Masato Shizume (Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University and Research Fellow, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the socioeconomic consequences of the 1918-1920 Great Influenza Pandemic (GIP) in Japan. First, it reviews the chronological and geographical patterns of the disease’s spread and policy responses by the government. It then employs panel analyses to test the quantitative effects of the pandemic on socioeconomic indicators such as population growth, factory employment, and capital formation. The study finds that 1) Japan was hit by the pandemic twice, once in the winter of 1918-1919 and again in the winter to spring of 1919-1920, with the urban population facing a greater risk to life because of greater exposure to the virus, while the rural population was more likely to succumb to the disease when infected, 2) a rise in the case fatality rate seemed to have a noticeable effect on socioeconomic activities in the short and medium terms, suggesting a trigger of population outflows and substitution of labor by capital, and 3) the government response included medical and public health measures but not economic measures. Though the GIP was similar to COVID-19 in terms of epidemiological patterns, it was very different in terms of human agency and socioeconomic consequences. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2022-27&r= |
| By: | Diana Moreira; Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | Does screening applicants using exams help or hurt the chances of lower-SES candidates? Because individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds fare, on average, worse than those from richer backgrounds in standardized tests, a common concern with this "meritocratic" approach is that it might have a negative impact on the opportunities of lower-SES individuals. However, an alternative view is that, even if such applicants underperformed on exams, other (potentially more discretionary and less impersonal) selection criteria might put them at an even worse disadvantage. We investigate this question using evidence from the 1883 Pendleton Act, a landmark reform in American history which introduced competitive exams to select certain federal employees. Using newly assembled data on the socioeconomic backgrounds of government employees and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that, although the reform increased the representation of "educated outsiders" (individuals with high education but limited connections), it reduced the share of lower-SES individuals. This decline was driven by a higher representation of the middle class, with little change in the representation of upper-class applicants. The drop in the representation of lower-SES workers was stronger among applicants from states with more unequal access to schooling as well as in offices that relied more heavily on connections prior to the reform. These findings suggest that, although using exams could help select more qualified candidates, these improvements can come with the cost of increased elitism. |
| JEL: | J15 J62 M5 N21 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30113&r= |
| By: | Prem, Mounu |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between political regimes, education, and redistribution, fo-cusing on the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. We show that the Pinochet dictatorship’s aims of political control and fiscal conservatism led to a sharp reduction in openings for new students in all universities in the country. Individuals who reached college age shortly after the coup experienced a large decline in college enrollment, had worse labor mar-ket outcomes throughout their lives, and struggled to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. This suggests a negative link between dictatorship and social mobility. We further show that limited educational opportunities affect political behavior, as those affected by the educational contraction increasingly voted against Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite that triggered Chile’s return to democ-racy. Hence, policies that foster regime survival in the short run may prove detrimental over a longer time horizon if a democratic window of opportunity arises. |
| Keywords: | Chile; Pinochet, education; redistribution; democratization |
| Date: | 2022–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:127021&r= |
| By: | Eric C. Edwards; Walter N. Thurman |
| Abstract: | Tile drainage was first demonstrated in the United States in 1835 as a method to adapt agriculture to excessive water in soils. Subsequently, innovations in coordinated drainage enterprises, engineering, and tile manufacture led to drainage over large portions of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast. Of the 215 million acres of wetlands estimated to have existed in the contiguous United States at colonization, 124 million have been drained, 80-87% for agricultural purposes. In this paper we argue that a key institutional innovation, the drainage management district, facilitated local investment in drainage. States in our sample adopted drainage laws between 1857 and 1932, and after adoption each state saw an increase in improved agricultural land in counties with poorly drained soils relative to well drained counties. We estimate artificial drainage increased the value of agricultural land in each of the worst-drained counties of the eastern United States by 13.5-30.3%, a total increase in these counties of $7-17B (2020 dollars). With the increasing likelihood of extreme precipitation events across the entire U.S., technical innovation in drain tile will be a key component of adaptation to climate change. Our paper points as well to the importance of institutional innovation and its associated costs. |
| JEL: | N51 N52 Q1 Q15 Q54 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30081&r= |
| By: | Jean-Pierre Aubry |
| Abstract: | This brief – the second of two – takes a historical view of public pension underfunding to motivate a more transparent funding policy going forward. It builds on a key finding from the first brief – that some pension funds are still burdened by unfunded liabilities accumulated before modern actuarial funding.1 This so-called “legacy debt†poses a different policy challenge than other sources of unfunded liability because it reflects the cost from an older way of managing promised retirement benefits. And, because it stems from a much earlier era, it does not fit well within the modern framework that is designed to allocate costs to the period when benefits were earned Given the challenges that legacy debt poses, this brief presents a new approach that separates the funding of legacy liabilities from other pension liabilities, while valuing liabilities in a manner more consistent with modern accounting and finance. Hopefully, the new approach provides a clearer way forward for government employers, employees, and taxpayers. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:slpbrf:slp84&r= |
| By: | David Ratner; Jae W. Sim |
| Abstract: | Is the Phillips curve dead? If so, who killed it? Conventional wisdom has it that the sound monetary policy since the 1980s not only conquered the Great Inflation, but also buried the Phillips curve itself. This paper provides an alternative explanation: labor market policies that have eroded worker bargaining power might have been the source of the demise of the Phillips curve. We develop what we call the "Kaleckian Phillips curve", the slope of which is determined by the bargaining power of trade unions. We show that a nearly 90 percent reduction in inflation volatility is possible even without any changes in monetary policy when the economy transitions from equal shares of power between workers and firms to a new balance in which firms dominate. In addition, we show that the decline of trade union power reduces the share of monopoly rents appropriated by workers, and thus helps explain the secular decline of labor share, and the rise of profit share. We provide time series and cross sectional evidence. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining power; Profits; Inflation dynamics |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E52 |
| Date: | 2022–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2022-28&r= |
| By: | Gandelman, Néstor; Lluberas, Rodrigo |
| Abstract: | This paper presents harmonized indicators for household wealth, its components, and its determinants (including intergenerational mobility) in four Latin American countries (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay), using Spain as a comparison benchmark. It is based on recently-available microdata from financial surveys. The paper analyzes the relationship between wealth indicators and sociodemographic characteristics of household heads (age, education, gender, marital status). |
| Keywords: | Desarrollo, Economía, Familia, Investigación socioeconómica, Políticas públicas, |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1904&r= |
| By: | César Ducruet; In Joo Yoon |
| Abstract: | The North Korean economy is experiencing a deepening economic and political crisis since the early 1990s. Although North Korea is not commonly seen as a shipping nation, its major cities are coastal, and it hosts nine international trading ports. However, little is known about the role of maritime transport in its development. This article uses vessel movement data to reconstitute the maritime network linking North Korean ports and other ports, over the period 1977-2021. Besides the drastic connectivity loss, main results conclude about a limited role of maritime transport in economic development, except for its participation to China's increasing grip on North Korea. This research brings new knowledge about North Korea and contributes to advance maritime network studies in general. |
| Keywords: | multivariate analysis, international trade, maritime connectivity, network analysis |
| JEL: | R40 N75 P20 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2022-12&r= |
| By: | Fedorov Sergei (Department of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University) |
| Abstract: | The protection and the development of economic competition always take place in the context of the institutional environment. In particular, the influence of this context manifests itself in the form of differences in approaches to industrial regulation, in variations of the administrative barriers to economic activity, and in distortions of antitrust practicies after their cross-country transplantation. This article analyzes the impact exerted by institutional environment on the economic competition by combining two approaches within the framework of the New institutional economics («social orders» by D. North et al. and O. Williamson's «mechanisms of governance»). The analysis allows us to conclude that the opportunism of politicians, along with the opportunism of market players, can cause restrictions on economic competition. |
| Keywords: | protection and development of competition, institutional environment, mechanisms of governance |
| JEL: | L50 L51 L40 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upa:wpaper:0041&r= |
| By: | Barragán, Jonathan; Anda, María; Molina, Eduardo; Solís, Andrea |
| Abstract: | The article summarises the main reasons that led Ecuador to opt for dollarization, which enabled the country to overcome and reduce the economic crisis that it was experiencing between 1998 and 2000. It analyses the consequences on the economy after the adoption of the dollar and some of the variations that have occurred during the period of adoption of the current currency. It also analyses the changes that have occurred in macroeconomic indicators, and the causes and consequences that led Ecuador to dollarization |
| Keywords: | Dollarization, GDP, Inflation, Monetary policy, Macroeconomics |
| JEL: | A30 E0 H30 N46 P0 P5 |
| Date: | 2021–09–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113258&r= |
| By: | Duque Garcia, Carlos Alberto |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to identify the average cycles of the Colombian economy between 1967-2019 and to evaluate, through a time series analysis, investment, average rate of profit and mass of profits as their determinants. Our analytical framework is based on Marx's economic theory where the profitability of capital determines investment and, consequently, the dynamics of output. From the cyclical deviations of real GDP, estimated with the Hodrick-Prescott filter, six cycles with an average duration of 8.3 years were identified. Employing a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model, and Granger causality tests, evidence was found in favor of Marx's hypothesis: both the rate of profit and the mass of profits determine investment while this, in turn, is co-determined by the business cycle. On the contrary, no evidence was found that investment determines either the rate of profit or the mass of profits. Thus, for the Colombian economy, the dynamics of the profitability of capital is the key to the business cycle. |
| Keywords: | Ciclo económico; Tasa de ganancia; Masa de beneficios; Modelos VAR; Cycles; Rate of profit; Mass of profits; VAR model |
| JEL: | B51 C32 E32 N16 |
| Date: | 2022–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113272&r= |
| By: | INUI Tomohiko; OKUDAIRA Hiroko |
| Abstract: | Parents often increase private investment in their children when they fear the negative effects of an adverse event. However, such an endogenous response makes it difficult to identify the cost of the adverse event and those disadvantaged by the shock. This study investigates the nature of an adverse shock that leads to endogenous responses by parents. Relying on the types of damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, we find that parents exposed to intense ground motion increased their investment in children’s cognitive skills. This positive response survives or becomes even larger after accounting for physical destruction and radioactive contamination. |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22049&r= |