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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2023‒01‒23
twenty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Thilo N H Albers (Humboldt University Of Berlin, Lund University [Lund]); Charlotte Bartels (DIW Berlin - Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics); Moritz Schularick (University of Bonn, ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | German history over the past 125 years has been turbulent. Marked by two world wars, revolutions and major regime changes, as well as a hyperinflation and three currency reforms, expropriations and territorial divisions, it provides unique insights into the role of country-specific shocks in shaping long-run wealth dynamics. This paper presents the first comprehensive study of wealth and its distribution in Germany since the 19th century. We combine tax and archival data, household surveys, historical national accounts, and rich lists to analyze the evolution of the German wealth distribution over the long run. We show that the top 1% wealth share has fallen by half, from close to 50% in 1895 to 27% today. Nearly all of this decline was the result of changes that occurred between 1914 and 1952. The interwar period and the wealth taxation in the aftermath of World War II stand out as the great equalizers in 20 th century German history. After unification in 1990, two trends have left their mark on the German wealth distribution. Households at the top made substantial capital gains from rising business wealth while the middle-class had large capital gains in the housing market. The wealth share of the bottom 50% halved since 1990. Our findings speak to the importance of historical shocks to the distribution and valuations of existing wealth in explaining the evolution of the wealth distribution over the long run. |
| Keywords: | Wealth inequality, Portfolio heterogeneity, Saving, Wealth taxation |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03881506&r=his |
| By: | Serge Benest (CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universitat de Barcelona, Department of Economic History, Institutions, Politics and World Economy) |
| Abstract: | Following World War II, the director of the social sciences division at the Rockefeller Foundation, the industrial economist Joseph H. Willits, thought it important to extend its activities to Europe, especially France. His agenda was to strengthen institutional economics and to create modern research centers with a view to stabilizing the political situation. In the postwar decade, almost all economic research centers in France were funded by the Foundation, which helped provide greater autonomy to French economists within academia but failed to reshape French economic training and research. |
| Date: | 2022–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03779060&r=his |
| By: | Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sergei Guriev (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Andrei Markevich (New Economic School - New Economic School) |
| Abstract: | This survey discusses recent developments in the growing literature on the Russian economic history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Using novel data and modern empirical methods, this research generates new insights and provides important lessons for development economics and political economy. We organize the discussion around four strands of this literature. First, we summarize and put in comparative perspective research on the long-term trends in economic development and living standards, which shows that throughout history Russia significantly underperformed advanced economies. We also compile reliable quantifications of the human cost of Stalin's dictatorship. Second, we discuss new studies of imperial Russia that partially confirm Gerschenkron's classic conjecture on the institutional explanation for Russia's relatively low level of economic development and on the causes of the revolution. The third strand of the literature focuses on the Soviet period and explains its slowdown over time and the eventual collapse of the system by the command economy's inability to provide incentives to individual agents. The fourth strand documents the long-term economic, social, and political consequences of large-scale historical experiments that took place during both the imperial and the Soviet periods. We conclude by discussing the lessons from these four strands of the literature and highlight open questions for future research. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03874282&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Paul Fitoussi (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LUISS - Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli [Roma]) |
| Abstract: | This article seeks to show how the impoverishment of language has changed the course of the evolution of economic theory, much as in 1984 the Newspeak changed the order of things and the course of the political regime. At the origin of such an evolution was the stratagem to act as if neoclassical theory was subsequent to Keynesian theory. The inversion of the time arrow had far reaching consequences on the development of economics. In great part the development of a science depends of the scholars who practice it and of its teaching to the new researchers who will further develop it. Both depend on the history of thought. The consequences on economic policies have been major, especially in Europe. By cancelling most of the Keynesian concepts from the Newspeak dictionary, the relative weights of the market and the state were changed, which could only lead to a preference for liberal, market- oriented, policies. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03812818&r=his |
| By: | Chatzinikolaou, Dimos (Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Economics); Vlados, Charis (Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This presentation examines the evolution of world capitalism after World War II by proposing a framework for understanding the emerging new globalization. It initially distinguishes the four development phases from 1945 to date and then presents converging theorizations of the new globalization. This critical review concludes that the previous regime has structurally matured, giving way to a framework characterized by increased instability and expected consequential crises in socioeconomic terms. A new perception of regionalization also shows that it shifts the existing regime of world development. |
| Keywords: | new globalization; economic development; economic crisis; new regionalization; innovation |
| JEL: | F60 F63 F69 |
| Date: | 2022–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:duthrp:2022_004&r=his |
| By: | Thierry Kirat (IRISSO - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Frédéric Marty (CIRANO - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations - UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal, GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | The article presents the late convergence process from American economists that led them to support a strong antitrust enforcement in the Second New Deal despite their long-standing distrust toward this legislation. It presents the path from which institutionalist economists, on the one side, and members of the First Chicago School, on the other one, have converged on supporting the President F.D. Roosevelt administration towards reinvigorating antitrust law enforcement as of 1938, putting aside their initial preferences for a regulated competition model or for a classical liberalism. The appointment of Thurman Arnold at the head of the Antitrust Division in 1938 gave the impetus to a vigorous antitrust enforcement. The 1945 Alcoa decision crafted by Judge Hand embodied the results of this convergence: in this perspective, the purpose of antitrust law enforcement does consist in preventing improper uses of economic power. |
| Keywords: | Antitrust, Efficiency, Economic Power, Institutional Economics, Chicago School, New Deal |
| Date: | 2021–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:halshs-03261721&r=his |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University); Chi Hyun (University of Bonn); Moritz Kuhn (University of Bonn); Moritz Schularick (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Bonn, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| 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. |
| Date: | 2022–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03880971&r=his |
| By: | Krieger, Tim; Nientiedt, Daniel |
| Abstract: | The economic tradition of ordoliberalism, understood as the theoretical and policy ideas of the Freiburg School, emerged in 1930s and 1940s Germany. In the years thereafter, it was quickly superseded by Keynesianism and other theories imported from the English-speaking world. The crisis in Keynesian economics in the mid-1970s led to what has been described as a "renaissance of ordoliberal reasoning" (Gebhard Kirchgässner) during the late 1970s and the 1980s. The present paper describes this development in detail and shows how it affected the academic discourse and, more indirectly, policymaking. In academic economics, ordoliberal concepts were used to inform debates about pressing issues of the day such as unemployment, social security reform, competition policy, the provision of public goods, and European integration. There was, however, no consensus on the methodological question of whether ordoliberalism could be fully integrated into international research programs such as the new institutional economics or constitutional economics. The paper argues that the renaissance of ordoliberalism failed to have a lasting impact on German academic economics and discusses possible implications of this finding for the future of the ordoliberal research agenda. |
| Keywords: | Ordoliberalism, Freiburg school, Economic policy, Social market economy, Keynesianism, European integration |
| JEL: | B29 D4 E6 H6 P16 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:202205&r=his |
| By: | Liam Brunt (Norvegian school of Economics); Cecilia García-Peñalosa (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | A large literature characterises urbanisation as resulting from productivity growth attracting rural workers to cities. Incorporating economic geography elements into a growth model, we suggest that causation runs the other way: when rural workers move to cities, the resulting urbanisation produces technological change and productivity growth. Urban density leads to knowledge exchange and innovation, thus creating a positive feedback loop between city size and productivity that initiates sustained economic growth. This model is consistent with the fact that urbanisation rates in western Europe, most notably England, reached unprecedented levels by the mid-eighteenth century, the eve of the Industrial Revolution. |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03630965&r=his |
| By: | Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Anna Dagorret (Stanford University); Pauline Grosjean (UNSW - University of New South Wales [Sydney]); Saumitra Jha (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | Can heroes legitimize strongly-proscribed and repugnant political behaviors? We exploit the purposefully arbitrary rotation of French regiments to measure the legitimizing effects of heroic credentials. 53% of French line regiments happened to rotate under a specific general, Philippe Pétain, during the pivotal WWI battle of Verdun (1916). Using recently declassified intelligence data on 95, 314 individuals, we find the home municipalities of regiments serving under Pétain at Verdun raised 7% more Nazi collaborators during the Pétain led Vichy regime (1940-44). The effects are similar across joining Fascist parties, German forces, paramilitaries that hunted Jews and the Resistance, and collaborating economically. These municipalities also increasingly vote for right-wing parties between the wars. The voting effects persist after WWII, becoming particularly salient during social crises. We argue these results reflect the complementary role of the heroes of Verdun in legitimizing and diffusing the authoritarian values of their former leader. |
| Keywords: | Heroes, Leaders, Democratic Values, Autocracy, Identity, Networks, Votes, Legitimacy |
| Date: | 2021–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03389171&r=his |
| By: | Nicole El Karoui (LPSM (UMR_8001) - Laboratoire de Probabilités, Statistique et Modélisation - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UPCité - Université Paris Cité); Antoine Parent (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po, CAC-IXXI, Complex Systems Institute); Pierre-Charles Pradier (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We propose a revisited view of Louis Bachelier's contribution to economic analysis. Conventional wisdom presents Bachelier as the founding father of modern financial theory. We show that Bachelier's work is constructed to respond to a gap in the Walrasian general equilibrium, where the options market is verbosely introduced but not modeled. By providing a price formation theory for the missing options market, Bachelier undoubtedly presents himself as the heir apparent of the mathematical economics tradition founded by Walras. Indeed, Bachelier's methodological stance is clearly formed on the "rational method" of Walras, proceeding by mathematical demonstration from postulates that we make explicit. We show additionally how Walras and Bachelier in pre-WW2 France reached to the same audience. We propose to name this augmented general equilibrium model the Walras-Bachelier model of intertemporal general equilibrium in the presence of risk. This theory prefigures the Arrow-Debreu model, with some differences which we make clear. |
| Keywords: | General equilibrium, Financial markets, Option pricing, Bachelier, Walras |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:halshs-03815600&r=his |
| By: | Johannes Buggle (University of Vienna [Vienna]); Thierry Mayer (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPII - Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales - Centre d'analyse stratégique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Seyhun Orcan Sakalli (King‘s College London); Mathias Thoenig (UNIL - Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the push and pull factors involved in the outmigration of Jews facing persecution in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1941. Our empirical investigation makes use of a unique individual-level dataset that records the migration history of the Jewish community in Germany over the period. Our analysis highlights new channels, specific to violent contexts, through which social networks affect the decision to flee. We first estimate a structural model of migration where individuals base their own migration decision on the observation of persecution and migration among their peers. Identification rests on exogenous variations in local push and pull factors across peers who live in different cities of residence. Then we perform various experiments of counterfactual history to quantify how migration restrictions in destination countries affected the fate of Jews. For example, removing work restrictions for refugees in the recipient countries after the Nuremberg Laws (of 1935) would have led to an increase in Jewish migration out of Germany in the range of 12 to 20%, and a reduction in mortality due to prevented deportations in the range of 6 to 10%. |
| Keywords: | Refugees, Migration Policy, Counterfactual History, Nazi Germany |
| Date: | 2022–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03799567&r=his |
| By: | Charles Angelucci (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Michael Sinkinson (Yale University [New Haven], NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Technological innovations in content delivery, such as the advent of broadcast television or of the Internet, threaten local newspapers' ability to bundle their original local content with third-party content such as wire national news. We examine how the entry of television-with its initial focus on national news-affected local newspapers as well as consumer news diets in the United States. We construct a novel dataset of U.S. newspapers' economic performance and content choices from 1944 to 1964 and exploit quasi-random variation in the rollout of television to show that this new technology was a negative shock in both the readership and advertising markets for newspapers. Newspapers responded by providing less content, particularly local news. We tie this change towards increasingly nationalized news diets to an increase in party vote share congruence between Congressional and Presidential elections. |
| Keywords: | Media, Local News, Television, Newspapers, Advertising, Bundling, Split-Ticket Voting |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03880088&r=his |
| By: | Manuel Funke (Kiel Institute for the World Economy - Kiel Institute for the World Economy); Moritz Schularick (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Bonn, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Christoph Trebesch (Kiel Institute for the World Economy - Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Kiel University, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | Populism at the country level is at an all-time high, with more than 25% of nations currently governed by populists. How do economies perform under populist leaders? We build a new longrun cross-country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible nonpopulist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typically go hand in hand with populist rule. |
| Keywords: | Populism, Protectionism, Institutions |
| Date: | 2022–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03881225&r=his |
| By: | Guinnane, T. W. |
| Abstract: | Economists have reported results based on populations for every country in the world for the past two thousand years. The source, McEvedy and Jones’ Atlas of World Population History, includes many estimates that are little more than guesses and that do not reflect research since 1978. McEvedy and Jones often infer population sizes from their view of a particular economy, making their estimates poor proxies for economic growth. Their rounding means their measurement error is not “classical.†Some economists augment that error by disaggregating regions in unfounded ways. Econometric results that rest on McEvedy and Jones are unreliable. |
| Date: | 2022–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2272&r=his |
| By: | Nicolas Coeurdacier (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Florian Oswald (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marc Teignier (UB - Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | We develop a multi-sector spatial equilibrium model with endogenous land use: land is used either for agriculture or housing. Urban land, densely populated due to commuting frictions, expands out of agricultural land. With rising productivity, the reallocation of workers away from agriculture frees up land for cities to expand, limiting the increase in land values despite higher income and increasing urban population. Due to the reallocation of land use, the area of cities expands at a fast rate and urban density persistently declines, as in the data over a long period. As structural change slows down, cities sprawl less and land values start increasing at a faster rate, as in the last decades. Quantitative predictions of the joint evolution of density and land values across time and space are confronted with historical data assembled for France over 180 years. |
| Keywords: | Structural change, Land use, Productivity growth, Urban density |
| Date: | 2022–02–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03799549&r=his |
| By: | Philippe Aghion (LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science, Chaire Economie des institutions, de l'innovation et de la croissance - CdF (institution) - Collège de France); Sergei Guriev (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Kangchul Jo (BOK ERI - Bank of Korea Economic Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | We study firm dynamics in Korea before and after the 1997/8 Asian crisis and pro-competitive reforms that reduced the dominance of chaebols. We find that in industries that were dominated by chaebols before the crisis, labour productivity and total factor productivity of non-chaebol firms increased markedly after the reforms (relative to other industries). Furthermore, entry of non-chaebol firms increased significantly in all industries after the reform. After the crisis, the non-chaebol firms also dramatically increased their patenting activity. Finally, markups of chaebol firms declined substantially, especially within industries dominated by chaebols before the crisis. These results suggest that the crisis had the virtue of helping Korea move from catching-up growth based on investment in existing technologies to innovation-based growth. |
| Date: | 2021–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03878612&r=his |
| By: | Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Caroline Le Pennec (HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal); Elisa Mougin (Sciences Po - Sciences Po, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | Do campaign finance regulations influence politicians? We study the effects of a French ban on corporate donations passed in 1995. We use a difference-indifferences approach and a novel dataset combining the campaign manifestos issued by every candidate running for a seat in the French parliament with detailed data on their campaign contributions. We show that banning corporate donations discourages candidates from advertising their local presence during the campaign, as well as economic issues. The ban also leads candidates from non-mainstream parties to use more polarized language. These findings suggest that private donors shape politicians' topics of interest, and that campaign finance reforms may affect the information made available to voters through their impact on candidates' rhetoric. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Campaign finance, Corporate donations, Campaign manifestos, Political rhetoric, Text analysis |
| Date: | 2021–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03877943&r=his |
| By: | Paul Gertler; Tadeja Gracner |
| Abstract: | We show that sugar-rich diet early in life has large adverse effects on the health and economic well-being of adults more than fifty years later. Excessive sugar intake early in life led to higher prevalence of chronic inflammation, diabetes, elevated cholesterol and arthritis. It also decreased post-secondary schooling, having a skilled occupation, and accumulating above median wealth. We identified elevated sugar consumption across lifespan as a likely pathway of impact. Exploiting the end of the post-WWII rationing of sugar and sweets in 1953 in the United Kingdom, we used a regression discontinuity design to identify these effects. |
| JEL: | I1 I12 J13 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30799&r=his |
| By: | Tsutomu Watanabe (University of Tokyo); Tomoyoshi Yabu (Faculty of Business and Commerce, Keio University) |
| Abstract: | This paper undertakes both a narrow and wide replication of the estimation of a money demand function conducted by Ireland (American Economic Review, 2009). Using US data from 1980 to 2013, we show that the substantial increase in the money-income ratio during the period of near-zero interest rates is captured well by the log-log specification but not by the semi-log specification, contrary to the result obtained by Ireland (2009). Our estimate of the interest elasticity of money demand over the 1980-2013 period is about one-tenth that of Lucas (2000), who used a log-log specification. Finally, neither specification satisfactorily fits post-2015 US data. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf552&r=his |
| By: | Olivier Godechot (MaxPo - Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies - Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Nils Neumann (MaxPo - Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies - Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Paula Apascaritei; István Boza (Research Centre for Economic and Regional Studies - MTA - Hungarian Academy of Sciences); Martin Hällsten (Stockholm University); Lasse Henriksen (CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen]); Are Hermansen; Feng Hou; Jiwook Jung; Eunmi Melzer; Halil Mun; Matthew Sabanci; Max Soener; Naomi Kodama; Alena Křížková; Zoltán Lippényi; Elvira Marta; Silvia Maja Melzer; Eunmi Mun; Halil Sabanci; Matthew Soener; Max 2021 " Thaning |
| Abstract: | The upswing in finance over the past several decades has led to rising inequality, but do downswings in finance lead to a symmetric decline in inequality? In this paper, we analyze the asymmetry of the effect of ups and downs in financial markets, as well as the effect of increased capital requirements and the bonus cap on national earnings inequality. We use administrative employer-employee linked data on earnings from 1990 to 2017 for twelve countries. Additionally, we use data on earnings from bank reports, from 2009 to 2017 in thirteen European countries. We find a strong asymmetry in the effects of financial ups and downs on earnings inequality, a mitigating effect of rising capital requirements on the contribution of finance to inequality, and a restructuring effect of the bonus cap for the earnings of financiers, while neither policy affects absolute levels of earnings inequality. |
| Date: | 2021–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03462501&r=his |