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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2023‒06‒19
94 papers chosen by |
| By: | Humphries, Jane |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that in all societies there is considerable agreement about the goods and services needed to provide a respectable standard of living and that this can be measured by what it cost to maintain people of good standing. Such a measure allows for the inclusion of two neglected components of living costs: first, changes in the composition and quality of consumption, as opposed to concentrating on the price of a fixed consumption basket; and second, the value of the household services required to turn commodities into livings. More than 4400 observations, drawn mainly from diverse primary sources, trace levels and trends in maintenance costs for Britain, 1270-1860. These can be compared with conventional cost of living indicators to offer a complementary perspective that accommodates aspirational consumption and the input of household labour. The struggle to support families at respectable standards emerges as driving industriousness and motivating prudence among a class that played a major role in economic development. More speculatively, estimates of the time necessary to turn material goods into livings is then combined with evidence on women’s wages to evaluate the contribution of unpaid domestic labour to total income. |
| Keywords: | cost-of-living; consumption; welfare; respectability; domestic labour |
| JEL: | N00 N33 B54 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:119284&r=his |
| By: | Sarah Robinson; Alisa Tazhitdinova |
| Abstract: | We collect detailed data on U.S. state personal income, corporate, sales, cigarette, gasoline, and alcohol taxes over the past 70 years to shed light on the determinants of state tax policies. We provide a comprehensive summary of how tax policy has changed over time, within and across states. We then use permutation analysis, variance decomposition, and machine learning techniques to show that the timing and magnitude of tax changes are not driven by economic needs, state politics, institutional rules, neighbor competition, or demographics. Altogether, these factors explain less than 20% of observed tax variation. |
| JEL: | D7 H2 H7 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31268&r=his |
| By: | Louis Azan (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the figure of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur is deeply marked by a Romantic imagination, critical of Utilitarianism. Schumpeter constructs the entrepreneur as a creative and dynamic agent, who succeeds in creating something radically new by the force of his will and his freedom of spirit, thus destroying the existing equilibrium. He is not a rational economic agent, a homo oeconomicus, but a romantic man who uses imagination and intuition in his actions. Like the Romantic authors, the Austrian economist puts forward the idea that economic life is marked by an incessant flow of innovations, destroying the old so that the new may emerge. Moreover, the decline of the entrepreneurial function is interpreted by Schumpeter from a romantic perspective, with the idea that capitalist modernity is a force for the rationalization of the world and the routinization of human existence, which no longer allows entrepreneurs to deploy their creative energy. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084445&r=his |
| By: | U.M. Gragnolati; L. Moretti; R. Ricciuti |
| Abstract: | Similarly to other countries, the development of an early national railway network took place in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. Railroads were then regarded as carriers of modernity that could reach isolated areas, expand market potential, and favor the structural transition from an agricultural economy toward an industrial one. Did the newly constructed railways actually have medium-run effects on the development and structure of industrial sectors at the local level? We bring new evidence to the existing literature by looking at the case of Sardinia. According to our estimates, municipalities that received a railway station during the 19th century did not have a significantly higher future probability to host at least one industrial firm, as compared to municipalities without a railway station. However, in those municipalities that received a railway station during the 19th century, specific industrial sub-sectors such as foodstuff and metal processing had higher employment by 1911. Moreover, these industrial sub-sectors tended also to display more firms in those municipalities that received a railway station, although this latter effect is statistically weaker. These outcomes are especially strong in locations having direct access to the main railway line with standard gauge rails, while the effects of secondary narrow gauge lines do not find a similar empirical support. Results are robust to a large set of control variables and district fixed effects and to the use of an instrumental variable based on least-cost paths. |
| Keywords: | Early railways;Industrial development;Developing economy;Insular economy;Least cost paths |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:202307&r=his |
| By: | Salla Simola (Storytel); Jeremias Nieminen (Department of Economics, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku.); Janne Tukiainen (Department of Economics, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku.) |
| Abstract: | We use novel data to describe the evolution of party differences in parliamentary speech in Finland during 1907–2018. We find a peak in left-right polarization in the 1970s, driven by the extreme left party, and co-occuring with a high prevalance of Soviet Union related phrases, perhaps resulting from Soviet information influencing. The period was also marked with short-lived coalition governments and inefficient policymaking. Moreover, as we find that left-right partisanship fluctuates during the majority of the 20th century, our results show that the levels of polarization currently perceived as high in many countries may not be that exceptional. |
| Keywords: | text analysis, parliamentary speech, polarization |
| JEL: | D72 P00 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp160&r=his |
| By: | Anne Case; Angus Deaton |
| Abstract: | We examine mortality differences between Americans with and without a four-year college degree over the period 1992 to 2021. From 1992 to 2010, both groups saw falling mortality, but with greater improvements for the more educated; from 2010 to 2019, mortality fell for those with a BA and rose for those without; from 2019 to 2021, mortality rose for both groups, but more rapidly for the less educated. In consequence, the mortality gap between the two groups rose in all three periods, unevenly until 2010, faster between 2010 to 2019, and explosively during the pandemic. The overall period saw dramatic changes in patterns of mortality, but gaps rose consistently, not only in all-cause mortality, but in each of thirteen broad classifications of cause of death. Gaps increased for causes of death whose rates have risen in the last thirty years, whose rates have fallen in the last thirty years, and whose rates fell and then rose. Gaps rose for causes where rates were originally higher for those without a BA, and where rates were originally lower for those without a BA. Although mechanisms and stories are different for each cause of death, the widening gap is seen throughout. |
| JEL: | I1 I14 I26 J10 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31236&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Broadberry; Hanhui Guan |
| Abstract: | We examine regional variation in Chinese GDP per head for five benchmark years from the Song dynasty to the Qing. For the Ming and Qing dynasties, we provide a breakdown of regional GDP per head across seven macro regions, establishing that East Central China was the richest macro region. In addition, we provide data on the Yangzi Delta, the core of East Central China, widely seen as the richest part of China since 1400. Yangzi Delta GDP per head was 64 to 67 per cent higher than in China as a whole for three of the four Ming and Qing benchmarks, and 52 per cent higher during the late Ming. For the Northern Song dynasty, although it is not possible to derive a full regional breakdown, we provide data for Kaifeng Fu, the region containing the capital city. GDP per head in Kaifeng Fu was more than twice the level of China as a whole. Combined with aggregate data for GDP per head, these estimates suggest that China was the leading economy in the world during the Song dynasty and that the Great Divergence began around 1700 as the leading region of China fell decisively behind the leading region of Europe. |
| Keywords: | Great Divergence, China, regional variation, GDP per head |
| Date: | 2022–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_196&r=his |
| By: | Schneider, Benjamin; Vipond, Hillary |
| Abstract: | Debates about the future of work frequently reference past instances of transformative innovation to explain how automation and artificial intelligence could reshape society and the economy. However, historians have rarely engaged with these discussions, and most economists and technologists have limited knowledge of past experiences of technological change. In this paper we show that a deeper understanding of history can expand our understanding of possibilities and pitfalls for employment in the future. We open by demonstrating that evidence from historical events has been used to inform responses to present-day challenges. We argue that history provides the only way to analyze the long-term impacts of technological change, and that the scale of the First Industrial Revolution may make it the only precedent for emerging transformations. Next, we present an overview of the current debates around the potential effects of impending labour replacing innovation. We then summarize existing historical research on the causes and consequences of technological change and identify areas in which salient historical findings are overlooked. We close by proposing further research into past technological shocks that can enhance our vision of an automated future. |
| Keywords: | technological change; innovation; automation; future of work; technological unemployment; labour displacement |
| JEL: | J23 J64 J81 N31 N33 N71 N73 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:119282&r=his |
| By: | Sasaki, Yu |
| Abstract: | This article explores why states with a weak enforcement capacity resort to tough censorship. Drawing on the authority structure in premodern Europe, I argue that threats to political legitimacy inform the degree of censorship. In this period the church-state relations constituted the foundation of legitimacy, which gave the ruler the motive to censor the writings critical of this institution. To examine this argument, I compile a new data set comprised of more than 1, 400 banned books distributed in eighteenth-century France. Using nearly 1, 700 times of confiscation events as my outcome, I assess whether religion-related attributes easily found on the book cover, such as imprint and title, drive confiscation. The statistical analysis indicates that religion is negatively linked to confiscations. Where the linkage is found, it is conditional on the timing of publication after 1763. My analysis suggests when and how censorship might occur given the tools of control states have. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hitcei:2023-03&r=his |
| By: | Margaret M. Jacobson; Eric M. Leeper; Bruce Preston |
| Abstract: | When Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in April 1933, he converted government debt from a tax-backed claim to gold to a claim to dollars, opening the door to unbacked fiscal expansion. Roosevelt followed a state-contingent fiscal rule that ran nominal-debt-financed primary deficits until the price level rose and economic activity recovered. Theory suggests that government spending multipliers can be substantially larger when fiscal expansions are unbacked than when they are tax-backed. VAR estimates using data on "emergency" unbacked spending and "ordinary" backed spending confirm this prediction and find that primary deficits made quantitatively important contributions to raising both the price level and real GNP after 1933. VAR evidence does not support the conventional monetary explanation that gold revaluation and gold inflows, which raised the monetary base, drove the recovery independently of fiscal actions. |
| Keywords: | Great depression; Monetary-fiscal interactions; Monetary policy; Fiscal policy; Government debt |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E62 E63 N12 |
| Date: | 2023–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2023-32&r=his |
| By: | Alogoskoufis, George |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews, analyses and interprets the history of the state and the economy of modern Greece, from the eve of the war for independence in 1821 to the present. It identifies three major historical cycles, the cycle of state and nation building, 1821-1898, the cycle of national expansion and consolidation, 1899-1949, and the post-1950 cycle of economic and social development. During these two hundred years, Greece managed to almost triple its national territory, to increase its population by almost 15 times and to increase its real GDP per capita by another 15 times. Yet, Greece was also characterized by long periods of low economic growth and political and economic instability, including national ‘schisms’ and civil wars, high inflation, international over-indebtedness, and sovereign debt crises and defaults. The analysis focuses on the key drivers of these developments, exploring the dynamic interactions of ideas and values, economic and social conditions, political and economic institutions, geopolitical circumstances and international economic and financial regimes. |
| Keywords: | modern Greece; economic history; institutions; economic growth; fiscal policy; monetary policy |
| JEL: | N10 N20 N40 |
| Date: | 2023–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:118793&r=his |
| By: | James, Kevin R.; Kotak, Akshay; Tsomocos, Dimitri |
| Abstract: | Innovativity - an economy's ability to produce the innovations that drive total factor productivity (TFP) growth - requires both ideas and the ability to process those ideas into new products and/or techniques. We model innovativity as a function of endogenous idea processing capability subject to an exogenous idea supply constraint and derive an empirical measure of innovativity that is independent of the TFP data itself. Using exogenous shocks and theoretical restrictions, we establish that: i) innovativity predicts the evolution of average TFP growth; ii) idea processing capability is the binding constraint on innovativity; and iii) average TFP growth declined after 1970 due to a constraints on idea processing capability, not idea supply. |
| Keywords: | innovation; financial market effectiveness; endogenous growth; total factor productivity |
| JEL: | O47 O16 O51 O31 |
| Date: | 2022–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:118848&r=his |
| By: | Pierre Januard (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The Latin terms commonly used to signify 'risk' are absent from Thomas Aquinas's economic writings. Instead, Aquinas offers a lexicon of probability, prudence and danger. This ternary lexicon brings with it a triple universalisation of risk: first, a universalisation through activity, including the activity of analysis considered as part of economic activity; second, a universalisation through the agents, since everyone-the observer, the co-contractors, the prince and the population-is affected by the risk; and, finally, a partial universalisation of its definition, since the lexicon indicates a risk which is not yet restricted by calculation, as the modern notion is, although some distinctions are already made by Aquinas. However, the lexicon only describes a risk of loss and does not take into account chance of gain. |
| Keywords: | Thomas Aquinas, scholastics, danger, probability, prudence, risk |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04074876&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Broadberry; Bruce M.S. Campbell; Alexander Klein; Mark Overton; Bas van Leeuwen |
| Abstract: | Annual estimates of GDP constructed from the output side are used to analyse British business cycles between 1270 and 1870. After c.1670 the scale of recessions tended to diminish as the economy grew, diversified and became more resilient. Until c.1730, business cycles were driven largely by agricultural fluctuations, but shocks to industry and commerce became more important over time as the structure of the economy changed. A number of severe recessions can be identified, associated with harvest failures, disease outbreaks, wars and disruptions to commerce. Monetary and financial factors also played a role in some of these severe recessions. |
| Date: | 2022–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_198&r=his |
| By: | Gaiya, Abel B. S. |
| Abstract: | The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a long process. In terms of the economic views of abolitionists, there has been an excessive focus on the economic ideas of liberal abolitionists and their approach to Civilization, Christianity and Commerce. However, there was a “developmental abolitionism” which has received little attention. Afro-American Martin R. Delany and Liberian James S. Payne were writers who approached abolitionism through this developmentalism. They favored more interventionist measures at building the material power and national autonomy of black nations to undercut the power of slave-using African chiefs, to provide indigenous Africans with employment, and to undermine the profitability of slave-based cotton production in the Americas. They also implicitly and indirectly approached labor scarcity with solutions ranging from promoting labor-saving technology to cultivating national prosperity that would improve emigration to Africa or increase birth rates. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rqhau&r=his |
| By: | Mosca, Manuela |
| Abstract: | Review of “A History of European Economic Thought” by Antonio Magliulo |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:uexnv&r=his |
| By: | Michael Klien; Peter Huber; Peter Reschenhofer; Gerlinde Gutheil-Knopp-Kirchwald; Gerald Kössl (Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations) |
| Abstract: | This Research Brief provides an overview of the main findings of the study "The Price-Dampening Effect of Non-profit Housing". The study examined the impact of non-profit housing in Austria on the for-profit housing segment in a historical and regional perspective. The focus was on rental housing. By analysing micro census and register data from the last 50 years, the study concludes that non-profit housing associations have a significant impact on the overall Austrian housing market, both in terms of quality and rent levels. It has been shown that a 10 percent increase in the share of non-profit housing associations leads to an average decrease in non-regulated rents of 30 to 40 cents per m2. On average, this corresponds to about 5 percent cheaper rents in the non-regulated rental sector due to the price-dampening effect of GBV. |
| Keywords: | Austria, Housing, Rent, Ownership, Prices |
| Date: | 2023–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:rbrief:y:2023:i:6&r=his |
| By: | Chiplunkar, Gaurav (University of Virginia); Weaver, Jeffrey (University of Southern California) |
| Abstract: | Dowry payments are common in many marriage markets. This paper uses data on over 74, 000 marriages in rural India over the last century to explain why the institution of dowry emerges and how it evolves over time. We find that the proportion of Indian marriages including dowry payments doubled between 1930 and 1975, and the average real value of payments tripled. We empirically test whether four prominent theories of dowry can explain this rise, and find support for only one: increased differentiation in groom quality as a result of modernization. We also find a decline in the average real value of dowry payments after 1975 and demonstrate that this could be rationalized within a search model of marriage markets. |
| Keywords: | dowry, marriage markets, India |
| JEL: | J12 N35 O15 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16135&r=his |
| By: | Barkhausen, David; Teupe, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. Because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the German population fears rising prices and favors stability-oriented monetary as well as fiscal policy. It is less clear, however, whether this contemporary understanding of the German inflation trauma is as old as its historical point of reference. The majority of the literature presumes that such a traumatic disposition has persisted since 1923 and has been transposed intergenerationally (persistence thesis). Others, however, point to an ex-ante reconstruction of past experiences (reconstruction thesis). By employing an interdisciplinary approach of methodological triangulation drawing on both methods of history and political sciences, we provide new insights on the question of origin. Specifically, we examine the remembrance of hyperinflation in personal memoirs and the German Bundestag in regard to the monetary and fiscal policy lessons connected to memories of 1923. Doing so, we find support for the logic of reconstruction. We show that the hyperinflation was not remembered unambiguously, and that memories were not immediately linked to specific policy lessons. Only from the 1980s onwards, a process of discursive alignment occurred that mirrors the contemporary understanding of the inflation trauma. By providing this insight, our paper allows to better understand the historical origins of today's popular memory and its political uses. |
| Keywords: | Inflation Trauma, Hyperinflation, Stability Culture, Monetary History, Collective memory |
| JEL: | N0 Z1 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:40&r=his |
| By: | Hernnäs, Sofia (Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala Univeristy.) |
| Abstract: | Does the long-term economic stress of occupational decline cause health problems, or even death? This paper explores this question using Swedish administrative data, and a measure of occupational decline obtained from detailed US data on employment changes over almost 30 years. I investigate whether people who experience occupational decline have higher mortality or hospitalization rates, and in particular if they are more likely to suffer from cardio-vascular disease or deaths of despair: deaths caused by alcohol, drug or suicide. I find that workers who in 1985 worked in occupations that subsequently declined, had a 5-11 percent higher risk of death in the 30 years that followed, compared to same-aged, similar workers in non-declining occupations. For men in declining occupations, the risk of death by cardio-vascular disease was 7-14 percent elevated, while women in declining occupations faced 31-37 percent higher risk of death by despair. The risk was higher for workers who were lowest paid in their occupations. |
| Keywords: | Technological change; Occupations; Health |
| JEL: | I11 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2023–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_007&r=his |
| By: | Ramos, Aida |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Aida Ramos "There are three areas of interest to me in discussing this quote. The first is that it is revealing of the social concerns of Smith. The second is that it underscores the remarkable consistency of Smith’s growth theory on the importance of the circulation of capital. The last point is that in its concern for society and social stability, it demonstrates that Smith is in engaged in the science of society as much as his fellow intellectuals, such as Adam Ferguson and Lord Kames, in the Scottish Enlightenment. The three areas mentioned and the passage as a whole evince Smith’s concern with society, justice, and growth and stability, which are three abiding subjects of Scottish Enlightenment inquiry." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jyh9s&r=his |
| By: | Andrews, David |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by David Andrews. "This passage would also seem to undermine suggestions, such as that of Jacob Viner in his famous “Adam Smith and Laissez Faire, ” that Smith, influenced by Stoics and Physiocrats, held a “doctrine of a harmonious order in nature” (Viner 1927, 199), to which it is in everyone’s moral and material interest to conform. It was on this basis, so the argument goes, that Smith believed free markets to lead to optimal outcomes. If Smith was committed to conformity with nature, however, his claim that the produce of labor is its natural recompense would seem to imply that labor should receive the whole of the product of labor, a position Smith did not clearly advocate." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tmdp3&r=his |
| By: | Cropper, Maureen L. (Resources for the Future); Muller, Nicholas; Park, Yongjoon; Perez-Zetune, Victoria |
| Abstract: | We examine whether counties designated as out of attainment with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) under the 1970 CAA experienced larger reductions in total suspended particulates (TSP) during the 1970s than attainment counties. We answer this question using the official designation of nonattainment status which, between 1972 and 1978, was by Air Quality Control Region. Data from balanced panels of TSP monitors in operation 1969–1978 and 1971–1978 are used to examine the impact of nonattainment status on TSP. We also examine that impact using the definition in the literature, which designates a county as out of attainment if any of its monitors violated the NAAQS.On average, using the official designation, TSP fell by more than 9 μg/m3 more in nonattainment than attainment counties, controlling for county and year fixed effects, county population, employment, and per capita income. The average treatment effect is 10.2 μg/m3 and 9.1 μg/m3 using the 1969 and 1971 panels, respectively. Using the definition of nonattainment in the literature yields similar, albeit slightly smaller, average treatment effects: 6.0 μg/m3 and 7.7 μg/m3 using the1969–1978 and 1971–1978 panels, respectively. |
| Date: | 2023–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-14&r=his |
| By: | Liu, Glory M. |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Glory M. Liu "TMS I.iii.3.1 is one of my favorite passages from the works of Adam Smith. It is striking, surprising, provocative, and puzzling at the same time. It also raises more questions than it answers; for me, that is what makes this passage so interesting and worth reading. Setting aside my own reading, though, this chapter of The Theory of Moral Sentiments has much to offer for both new and experienced readers of Smith. It beckons us to make sense of the relationship between TMS and WN and the arc of Smith’s intellectual trajectory. It also asks us to critically reflect on the ideals and values that Smith himself might have held, and the ideals and values we project on to him." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:avkmc&r=his |
| By: | Giacomo Gabbuti |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the ongoing construction of the Italian Historical Taxpayers' Database (IHTD), currently consisting of 1, 593, 563 micro-records of income declarations filed by Italian autonomous workers in 1889, 1922 and 1933. Such a database results from the digitisation of a so far overlooked source, the printed lists of taxpayers' declarations for some categories of the Imposta di ricchezza mobile, the most important Italian direct tax on income until the early 1970s. To contribute to the 'rediscovery' of these sources (and Italian fiscal sources in general), the paper surveys the history of the taxpayers' lists in post-unification Italy, as well as the 'classic' arguments against the reliability of fiscal sources, in the light of available evidence. This makes possible to discuss how, while inevitably affected by biases and limitations, these sources offer historians a new perspective on the incomes of important social groups, and do so with an unparalleled level of granularity in terms of activities, geography, and gender, contributing in this way to the history of inequality during the Fascist period, and potentially to the broader economic history of post-unification Italy. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality; fiscal sources; Fascist Italy; Imposta di ricchezza mobile. |
| Date: | 2023–06–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2023/24&r=his |
| By: | Dow, Sheila |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Sheila Dow "I have selected this quotation for special attention because we can identify from it, and the surrounding passages in the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, key elements of Adam Smith’s philosophy of science. At the same time the quotation provides an example of Smith’s own arresting use of rhetoric. The quotation arises from Smith’s exploration of the philosophy of science in terms of didactic rhetoric. Smith’s theory of rhetoric emphasised its role in persuasion, departing from the conventional emphasis on style. Persuasion by argument was central to an epistemology (in the Scottish enlightenment tradition) which was sceptical about the scope for establishing absolute truth." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:g43ye&r=his |
| By: | Diego Rybski; Antonio Ciccone |
| Abstract: | Power-law city-size distributions are a statistical regularity researched in many countries and urban systems. In this history of science treatise we reconsider Felix Auerbach’s paper published in 1913. We review his analysis and find (i) that a constant absolute concentration, as introduced by him, is equivalent to a power-law distribution with exponent ≈ 1, (ii) that Auerbach describes this equivalence, and (iii) that Auerbach also pioneered the empirical analysis of city-size distributions across countries, regions, and time periods. We further investigate his legacy as reflected in citations and find that important follow-up work, e.g. A.J. Lotka 1925 and Zipf 1949, does give proper reference to his discovery – but other does not. For example, only approximately 20% of cityrelated works citing Zipf 1949 also cite Auerbach 1913. To our best knowledge, A.J. Lotka 1925 was the first to describe the power-law rank-size rule as it is analyzed today. M. Saibante 1928, building on Auerbach and Lotka, investigated the power-law rank-size rule across countries, regions, and time periods. G.K. Zipf’s achievement was to embed these findings in his monumental 1949 book. We suggest that the use of “Auerbach-Lotka-Zipf law†(or “ALZ-law†) is more appropriate than “Zipf’s law for cities†, which also avoids confusion with Zipf’s law for word frequency. We end the treatise with biographical notes on Auerbach. |
| Keywords: | zipf's law for cities, empirical city size distributions |
| JEL: | B00 R12 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_424&r=his |
| By: | Khan, Haider |
| Abstract: | How might it be possible for the foreign policy of a small country today to be part of a Nonaligned Movement(NAM) as the unipolar world ends? I do a historical geopolitical and geoeconomic case study to answer this question. How was it possible for the foreign policy of Bangladesh to be oriented toward the world as a part of an independent nonaligned movement even as the newly independent, poor, tropical country ravaged by a brutal war struggled to balance many competing internal and external demands? This becomes a complex question to answer particularly when we recall that the cold war between the US led Capitalist bloc and the USSR led Socialist bloc had already been raging for more than two decades. Only some larger mixed economies like India, Indonesia, and some revolutionary countries like Cuba and Algeria had managed to show such independence during the 1950s and 1960s. In case of Indonesia this was drowned in blood in a coup aided and abetted by the US.My recently developed theory of Critical TransNeoclassical Realism for geopolitics and geoeconomics helps answer these questions and raise the possibility of a new NAM. |
| Keywords: | Foreign policy, Geopolitics and Geoeconomics New NAM, foreign policy of a small country and NAM, Bangladesh after liberation, Critical TransNeoclassical Realism for geopolitics and geoeconomics |
| JEL: | A1 A13 F5 |
| Date: | 2023–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117087&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji OKAZAKI |
| Abstract: | Building merchant ships was one of Japans top priorities during the Pacific War because marine shipping capacity was a decisive factor in the outcome of the war. The Planned Shipbuilding scheme carried out by the Technical Department of the Navy was a scheme to achieve a drastic increase in merchant shipbuilding. The Technical Department of the Navy designed the Wartime Standard Vessels and assigned one or two types of such vessels to each private shipyard, and managed the progress of each ship using the Bar Chart system. Under this scheme, merchant shipbuilding did indeed soar, and the productivity of shipbuilding substantially increased. In this article, I showed that Nagasaki Shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co., which specialized in building Wartime Standard tankers along with naval ships, achieved a sharp increase in labor productivity from FY 1942, even under conditions of a declining capital–labor ratio and declining labor quality. At the same time, the shipbuilding period was reduced to less than half what it had previously been. This increase in productivity and the reduction of the building period reflected various ingenuities introduced at the shop-floor level in customizing the design of the Wartime Standard Vessels, improving operations, and introducing two basic technological innovations, block building and electric welding. Key words: War economy, economic planning, shipbuilding, mass production, productivity, Japan JEL classification numbers: L52, L62, N15, N45, N65 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:23-009e&r=his |
| By: | Adrien Faudot (CERAG - Centre d'études et de recherches appliquées à la gestion - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes, CREG - Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes); Tsvetelina Marinova (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne); Nikolay Nenovsky (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | Today's fragmentation of the world economy, the emergence in the near future of large economic blocs operating in different ideological and conceptual models of economy and society, and the fierce struggle for resources and influence, logically lead us turn to history, including the recent one. The issue of the functioning and collapse of the socialist monetary community has another, more specific but also topical meaning. It has to do with understanding the mechanisms of disintegration of the European Union and the euro area, its management and eventual overcoming. In this paper, we focus on the study of monetary mechanisms within the socialist system, and more specifically on its model of integration, the Comecon, which lasted from 1949 to 1991. In the first part we present the basic principles of socialist integration and the role of international socialist money. In the second part we present the main stages in the evolution of the monetary mechanisms of Comecon. The third part is devoted to some technical problems of multilateral payments and the peculiarities of the transfer ruble. Finally, we try to compare with European Payment Union. We present some competing hypotheses, answering the question why the monetary system of Comecon failed. |
| Keywords: | socialist integration, Comecon, transferable ruble, European Payment Union, Soviet Union, commodity-money relations |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084493&r=his |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | Brazil’s foreign and trade relations with Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) date back to the Portuguese slave trade. Of the 9.5 million people captured in Africa and brought to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries, nearly 4 million landed in Rio de Janeiro, i.e. ten times more than all those sent to the United States. Still today, about 51 % of the population see themselves as black or mixed. Racial inequality remains deeply engrained in many respects, notably concerning persistent inequality. Nonetheless, oppression and marginalization of black Brazilians have been largely ignored in modern Brazilian-African relations. Instead, a pronounced nationalism suffused Brazil’s political life. It guided Brazil’s foreign and trade relations and defined how Brazilians interpreted the opportunities of African independence movements. Only Brazil’s President Lula da Silva acknowledged the common historical roots during his first time as president from 2003 to 2011. In fact, his election was driven by the overwhelming support of Afro-Brazilians. Trade relations in the first half of the 20th century were largely limited to South Africa, which accounted for 90 % of Brazil’s African trade. Brasilia’s foreign and trade policy since the 1960s focussed on Nigeria, an important oil supplier, and the five Portuguese-speaking former Portuguese African colonies (PALOP) and the Lusophone Commonwealth (CPLP), founded in 1996. Up to date, Brazilian’s trade relations in West Africa, apart from Nigeria (34 % of Brazil’s African trade) remained fairly modest. Nevertheless, Ghana and Senegal played a decisive role in shaping Brazil-African relations in the early stages of African independence since the 1960s. Because Brazil has meanwhile considerable energy and commodity resources of its own, its approach concerning African trade is less commodity driven than the Chinese or European, but orientated at resource diversification, sustainable development and cooperation to develop these resources, e.g. bioethanol plants in Ghana and other African countries. Therefore, African governments see a greater sense of mutual partnership and reciprocity in their relationship with Brazil. However, corrupt political African elites themselves urged the Brazilian government and companies often into informal political and business norms, with controversial and corrupt investment in commodity extraction, infrastructure and land-grabbing. Apart from that, Brazil tried to create a niche for Brazilian management services, knowledge and technology transfer, suited supposedly exceptionally well for tropical markets. |
| Keywords: | Brésil; Atlantique Sud; Afrique subsaharienne; Afrique de l'Ouest; Nigeria; Ghana; Sénégal; Côte d'Ivoire; commerce international; migration; développement durable; démocratisation; post-colonialisme; secteur informel; nationalisme; BRICS; Chine; France; Grande-Bretagne; APD; ONG; études africaines; |
| JEL: | E26 F22 F24 F35 F52 F54 F63 I31 J46 J61 L31 N16 N17 N37 N47 O17 O35 O55 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117407&r=his |
| By: | Cunha, Alexandre Mendes |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Alexandre Mendes Cunha "The election of an excerpt from the Early Draft (ED) of the Wealth of Nations (WN) that was later suppressed as a favorite Smith quote may seem like a criticism of the author’s judgment. Nonetheless, that is not the aim. On the contrary, WN was probably better and less confusing without the passage and its emphasis on “police regulations”. What I want to highlight here is precisely this little-visited topic of Smith’s approach to the role of “police” in the economic order, differentiating the author’s use of the terms “police” and “policy”. Excerpt’s content is principally associated with Smith’s interest in the Hume-Tucker debate on trade, as already pointed out by Hont (2005: 71-2). What is of interest to me here is the reason for the suppression, which seems to be related to his intention to remove any association that might sound like praise for the idea of police (in this case, the view that a good police could be the solution for the rich country) from the WN. This was, however, in direct contrast to the prominence of the topic in Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence (LJ), in which police served as a broad category, associated with the internal administration of a country and the means for promoting economic order." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wt2mz&r=his |
| By: | Wennerlind, Carl |
| Abstract: | Review of “Free Market: The History of an Idea” by Jacob Soll |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6dxtk&r=his |
| By: | Knake, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | Since the late 1960s, the rising volatility of financial markets in the US has troubled econometricians and bank managers alike. Both professions have found it increasingly difficult to forecast savings deposit flows. This article explores these challenges by focusing on two developments. First, it explores the internal adjustment process among econometric models of the savings deposit market. To achieve this aim, I use the so-called FMP (MPS) macro model used by the Federal Reserve Board since 1970 and the deposit forecast model of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS), the oldest and largest savings bank in the US. I find that economists failed to find timeless determinants for the market for savings deposits, partly because the determinants of expectation formation of households kept changing. Instead, economists relied on a large number of time-dependent dummy variables. Second, the article shows how the conditions of the market for savings deposits shaped the demand for macroeconomic forecast models. Here, I again use PSFS as a case study. I show that the demand for econometric models in the banking industry skyrocketed in the 1970s but abated somewhat in the 1980s. While the rising volatility led bank managers to seek sophisticated tools to predict deposit flows, the deregulation of the banking industry and the accompanying change in customer behavior devalued macro models as a reliable forecast technique for individual banks. Instead, it became crucial for banks to predict the future behavior of competing institutions. |
| Keywords: | Savings, Deposits, Interest Expectations, Portfolio Choice, Financial History, Econometric Modeling, Stagflation Period |
| JEL: | B23 N22 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:41&r=his |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | In the 19th and 20th centuries, Turkey considered only North Africa a substantial part of the Ottoman Empire and neglected sub-Saharan Africa unless vital interests were at stake. However, the apathy of successive Turkish governments changed with the 1998 "Africa Action Plan". Since then, the Turkish state has intensified its diplomatic, political, economic and cultural interactions with sub-Saharan Africa. Turkish-African relations received a further boost when Ankara declared 2005 the "Year of Africa". Although the predominantly Muslim region of North Africa is the focus of Turkish foreign policy due to their shared history, the importance of Sub-Saharan Africa has also increased due to the growing demand for military and medical supplies. Since 2005, Ankara promoted state-building in sub-Saharan Africa, although it does not follow Western democratization policies. Turkey's growing economic, political and security involvement in Africa aims to open new markets for its manufactured goods, particularly its defence and security industries. Presenting itself as a relevant regional power without colonial ballast, Turkey sets itself apart from traditional Western players on the continent. Turkey's engagement in sub-Saharan Africa differed markedly from that of other emerging powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. While Ankara shared the disregard for Western sanctions due to BRICS members' democratic deficits, it went beyond traditional state-to-state relations and increasingly relied on cooperation with non-state actors. African partners value Turkish products and expertise. In addition, Ankara has taken a coordinated approach to working with African states and leaders, avoiding entanglements with international organizations or other alliances, as in Somalia and Kenya, but more recently in much of East, South and West Africa. This has been demonstrated using the example of the three West African countries Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast. |
| Keywords: | Turquie; Afrique subsaharienne; Afrique de l'Ouest; Nigeria; Ghana; Côte d'Ivoire; commerce international; migration; développement durable; démocratisation; postcolonialisme; nationalisme; BRICS; Chine; France; Grande-Bretagne; aide au développement; ONG; Études africaines |
| JEL: | E26 F22 F24 F35 F52 F54 F63 I31 J46 J61 L31 N14 N17 N37 N47 O17 O35 O55 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115939&r=his |
| By: | Fernando Collantes |
| Abstract: | This text comments on Domingo Gallego’s book Los caminos del progreso: una historia del desarrollo económico (“The ways of progress: a history of economic development”). It is argued that the book’s originality lies in the assembling of a wide variety of pieces within a long-run approach that tends to unify the historical experience of today’s developed countries and brings together the history of economic facts and ideas. From an analytical point of view, the key to progress is not placed on any particular industry or social group, but on the contexts that promote the flourishing of diverse projects and their coordination. After identifying the echoes of Gallego’s trajectory as an agricultural historian in the book’s argument, the main contents of the book are reviewed. The paper also provides some observations about the definition of progress, the kind of institutionalism that informs the book, the historical positioning of the present time in developed countries, and the material on less developed countries. |
| Keywords: | world economic history, international economic development, institutional economics, history of economic thought, agricultural history |
| JEL: | N00 O10 B00 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2301&r=his |
| By: | Simon Papaud (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne, TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I study the relation between the economic thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his claimed heir Silvio Gesell. I argue that their socialism can be described as a « Monetary Analysis Socialism »: both authors place the monetary institution at the very heart of their economic analysis and consider a profound transformation of the rules that govern that institution as a necessary preliminary to the advent of socialism. Their efforts to conceive non-capitalist monetary systems aren't, I argue, a fortuitous trait of libertarian thought : the will to think a coordination for individual action that does not involve central coordination makes the monetary system a central object for libertarian political thought, and the design of this institution a crucial political issue. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Analysis, Non-capitalist Money, Proudhon, Gesell, Anarchism |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084725&r=his |
| By: | Canback, Staffan |
| Abstract: | The goal of this paper is to to take the most important contributions to strategy science since the late 1950s and integrate them into coherent perspective. It brings together the ideas of Profs. Joe Bain, Michael Porter, Birger Wernerfeldt, and Roger Martin. It then overlays these micro-economic contributions with societal, economic, and technological trends. It finally adds a section on the process for developing strategies based on the framework. |
| Keywords: | strategy development; strategic plan; micro-economics; joseph bain; michael porter; birger wernerfelt; roger martin; corporate higher-order cognitive process; environment market initiatives outcome; |
| JEL: | D4 L1 L2 L25 |
| Date: | 2023–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117311&r=his |
| By: | Fontaine, Philippe |
| Abstract: | Review of “Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy” by Elizabeth Popp Berman |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sy9ac&r=his |
| By: | Horn, Karen |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Karen Horn "The hypothetical part of the opening sentence ends after seven words, after the first comma, upon which Smith switches to certainty. Through the catchy paradox that unfolds between the two legs of the sentence, between “may be supposed” and “evidently”, he erects the two systematic pillars that his philosophical edifice will rest upon, here, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, and also, after some contextual adaptation, in the Wealth of Nations (see Horn 2019, p. 26). Smith puts it all on the table: He builds his system on the stunningly lean twin assumptions about human nature according to which people care about themselves (self-regard) and also about others (other-regard). Minimalistic as this is, everything starts from there. By the way how Smith introduces these parallel dispositions it is clear that the latter cannot be collapsed into the first, as he also explains at length when dealing with Hutcheson and Mandeville (e.g. TMS VII.ii.3.13 and TMS VII.iii.1.4). Other-regard and self-regard coexist. Each in itself, unchecked by the other, is but a moral corner solution. We must strive to prudently combine the two time and again. In Smith’s system, everything evolves in interaction, and everything is about balance." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gcvtp&r=his |
| By: | Agarwal, Rounak |
| Abstract: | Sick of the scummy "trading gurus" that pry upon new market entrants and subsequently encountering "The Inner Circle Trader" on YouTube, I decided to test his "ICT concepts" more deeply after some superficial backtesting and forward-testing. In this research project, I dived into the price action data of 14 forex pairs over a period of 21 years, and the results have tremendously boosted my confidence in the concepts developed by Michael Joe Huddleston, whom I have come to accept as my mentor. I understand the skepticism around his concepts and made this project to help the new, uninformed "retail, dumb money" make more informed decisions who want to indulge in forex trading and are looking for the Holy Grail - the "perfect" forex trading strategy. |
| Date: | 2023–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7yw86&r=his |
| By: | Morales Meoqui, Jorge |
| Abstract: | The paper offers the first interpretation of David Ricardo’s famous numerical example fully compatible with the primary source. It claims that the sole purpose of the four numbers was to illustrate that the relative value of commodities made in different countries is not determined by the respective quantities of labour devoted to their production. This exception results from unequal ordinary profit rates between countries because capital does not move across national borders as easily as it does within the same country. Likewise, the paper also debunks some entrenched myths about the numerical example. It shows that Ricardo did not leave the terms of trade indeterminate; that the purpose of the four numbers was not about measuring the gains from trade; and lastly, that Portugal had no productivity advantage over England. All of this contradicts the way scholars have interpreted Ricardo’s numerical example since the mid-nineteenth century. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3wu6x&r=his |
| By: | Duarte, Pedro; Hurtado, Jimena |
| Abstract: | We invited well-known Smith scholars and had an open call for contributions to participate in this celebration. We asked people to write short pieces telling us what their favorite quote from Adam Smith was and why. We were fortunate enough to receive an unexpectedly high number of responses. We were unfortunate enough to have to choose among the contributions we received. We thank all those who allowed us to read why Smith was important to them. The Smith we are left with after reading them is a tremendously inspiring and contemporary author. This Smith celebration opens the June 2023 issue of JHET, which is entirely dedicated to Adam Smith: we have in addition five regular articles on Smith, and two letters to the editor related to a paper on Smith published in JHET. The issue closes, as usual, with four book reviews. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:a4bgp&r=his |
| By: | Atsuko Suzuki (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | The most famous business method of the prominent kimono merchant Mitsui Echigoya in early modern Japan was a cash business without interest through store sales. Although the actual interest rates of the time have remained unknown to date, Echigoya's cash business was just one of their business methods, and a substantial portion of their business was composed of credit sales, in which prices varied according to the interest period. This study aimed to reveal these interest rates. To this end, we investigated Echigoya's new business method established in the Kyoho period (1719), called "Koban Rokuju-me no Kakeho, " which was a double-price tag sales method that used the multiplication table based on the fixed exchange rate of 60 momme of silver to 1 ryo of gold Koban. This particular business method is neither well known nor well understood and the present study is the first to successfully elucidate it in detail. As a result of determining the specific calculation method, the various interest rates of items sold by Echigoya were identified. The socioeconomic situation of early modern Japan was also revealed, such as the fixed exchange rate system of the Edo commodity market and the hyperinflation that occurred immediately after the enforcement of the Kyoho law of 1718 that ordered the correct exchange rates according to the quality of various recoinage coins. These findings are significant discoveries in the early modern economic history of Japan. This study enabled a deeper understanding of early modern Japan's socioeconomic situation through the comprehensive elucidation of Echigoya's business styles, which helped them survive difficult times by introducing the double-price tag sales strategy in response to the chaotic monetary policy of the shogunate. |
| Keywords: | history of money, inflation and deflation, early modern Japan, pricing strategies, Mitsui Echigoya. |
| JEL: | D46 E31 K42 N15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:2306&r=his |
| By: | Stefano Di Bucchianico; Antonino Lofaro |
| Abstract: | In most countries, recurrent crises episodes due to financial disorder, the pandemic, and the recent war have increased income and wealth inequality. Moreover, since the 2008 crisis, major central banks have adopted highly expansionary conventional and unconventional monetary policies. Thus, attention towards the connection between monetary policy and inequality is surging. However, first, there is no consensus in the empirical literature on what the impact of monetary policy shocks on inequality is. Second, the literature is mainly focused on the effects of monetary policy on personal rather than functional income distribution. Third, the conventional hypothesis is for monetary policy to have at most an impact over the cycle but not in the long-run. Therefore, our work grounds on three objectives. First, we tackle the role of monetary policy in shaping functional income distribution by looking at the long-run behavior of real wages and the labor share of income. Second, we employ for the first time a panel SVAR methodology to a new panel dataset of 15 advanced economies during the 1970-2019 period. Third, differently from extant literature, we pose special attention to the so called ‘cost’ and ‘labor market’ channels of monetary policy. According to our results, a contractionary monetary policy shocks generates long-run adverse effects on the level of real wages. While the labor share initially rises because of the fall in GDP, the subsequent pronounced fall in real wages lets the labor share fall back to the pre-shock level. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; functional income distribution; Panel SVAR; labor share; income inequality |
| JEL: | E24 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:900&r=his |
| By: | Bateman, Bradley W. |
| Abstract: | In his response to my essay in the recent symposium celebrating the centenary of John Maynard Keynes’s Treatise on Probability (Bateman 2021), Bill Gerrard (2022) offers a comprehensive critique of my argument that Keynes was influenced by Frank Ramsey’s turn to pragmatism. Gerrard’s comments cut both ways: on the one hand, he agrees that Ramsey’s turn to pragmatism influenced Keynes, but argues that I do not go far enough in articulating the extent of the influence; on the other hand, Gerrard argues that Keynes’s embrace of Ramsey’s subjective theory of probability has nothing to do with his acceptance of Ramsey’s pragmatism. The purpose of this short comment, however, is neither to rehearse the many ways in which I agree with Gerrard, nor to elaborate each way in which we disagree. The purpose of this comment is to address just one of my disagreements with Gerrard and to use this clarification to reiterate Keynes’s embrace of pragmatism. The disagreement on which I focus concerns the question of whether Keynes employed mathematical expectation in The General Theory. In particular, it stems from my focus on the distinction between the way that expectations about future profit are handled in Chapters Eleven and Twelve of The General Theory. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j23hm&r=his |
| By: | Louis Azan (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | In the early 19th century, the entrepreneur became a major figure, both in economics and in literature. He is to be found in the analyses of economists (Cantillon, Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say), as well as in the novels and short stories of writers, in particular Balzac, who gives a special place to money and commerce in his work. This article explores the representation of the entrepreneur in a novel and a short story (César Birotteau and La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote) by the author of the Comédie Humaine, and seeks to draw a dialogue between economics and literature, in order to sketch the place of the Balzacien entrepreneur in the history of economic thought. |
| Abstract: | L'entrepreneur devient au début du XIXème siècle une figure majeure, à la fois sur le plan économique et sur le plan littéraire. On le retrouve ainsi dans les analyses des économistes (chez Cantillon, Smith ou encore Jean-Baptiste Say), ainsi que dans les romans et nouvelles des écrivains, en particulier chez Balzac, qui fait dans son oeuvre une place toute particulière à l'argent et au commerce. Le présent article explore la représentation de l'entrepreneur que donne à voir l'auteur de La Comédie Humaine, dans un roman et une nouvelle (César Birotteau et La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote), et cherche à tracer un dialogue entre économie et littérature afin d'esquisser la place de l'entrepreneur balzacien dans l'histoire de la pensée économique. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory, Literary Theory, History of Economic Thought, Entrepreneur, Théorie économique, Théorie littéraire, Balzac, Histoire de la pensée économique |
| Date: | 2023–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084476&r=his |
| By: | Pavanelli, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | Luigi Einaudi was an authoritative Italian economist and a leading representative of economic and political liberalism in Europe. After the Second World War, he became governor of the Bank of Italy and President of the Italian Republic. This paper analyses his role as opinion maker from the end of the Nineteenth century till the 1920s, when he was a leading columnist at ‘La Stampa’ and the ‘Corriere della Sera’, the most influential newspapers in Italy at that time. It focuses on the scope and limits of Einaudi’s efforts to broaden consensus among the Italian public opinion on the principles of economic liberalism and free competition. To this end, it investigates Einaudi’s journalistic style, his views on the role of the newspapers and his large following among the public. Further sections analyze the main issues tackled by Einaudi in his articles in the Corriere and the systematic work of propaganda he enacted during World War I to convince the Italian households to reduce consumption and to finance the military expenditure. A final section deals with the “reconstruction program” devised by Einaudi in the early 1920s with the aim of restoring price stability and fiscal restraint, his efforts to propagate this program in the Corriere and his defeat after the beginning of the fascist regime in 1924-25. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7wn4t&r=his |
| By: | Gay, Guido Benvenuto |
| Abstract: | This contribution analyzes the working and family life of Samuel Biolley – born in Neuchâtel in 1787, moved to Lyon at the beginning of 1807, settled permanently in Turin in the spring of 1814 where he died in 1863. He is a man of his time: entrepreneur, innovator, able to move in space and to change activities, to seize favorable opportunities. The examination of his memoirs and documents related to his activities allowed us to provide some additional information on Gensoul's steam apparatus for silk filatures, an important technical innovation that had a substantial diffusion in the silk industry in pre-unification Piedmont, but also to highlight a collaborative process with his brother-in-law Henri Decker. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Networks, Neuchâtel, Lyon, Turin |
| JEL: | N83 N93 |
| Date: | 2023–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117360&r=his |
| By: | Josef Platzer; Mr. Francesco Grigoli; Robin Tietz |
| Abstract: | We provide a long-run perspective on neutral interest rates with new estimates for 16 advanced economies since the 1870s using the Laubach and Williams approach. Our estimates differ substantially from commonly used proxies. We find that, while cross-country heterogeneity was significant in the past, since the 1980s the decline has been common to many countries. Traditional determinants such as population aging and productivity growth are strongly correlated with the changes in neutral rates, while others like the relative price of capital and inequality exhibit weak relationships with r*. We also find that neutral rates co-vary negatively with public debt-to-GDP ratios. |
| Keywords: | neutral rate; old-age dependency ratio; time series; neutral interest rates; coefficient estimate; cited estimation approach; estimation procedure; Real interest rates; Capital account; Aging; Output gap; Global |
| Date: | 2023–04–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/085&r=his |
| By: | Carrière-Swallow, Yan; Firat, Melih; Furceri, Davide; Jiménez, Daniel |
| Abstract: | We estimate how the rate of pass-through from the exchange rate to domestic prices varies across states of the economy and depends on the shocks that drive fluctuations in the exchange rate. We confirm several results from the literature and uncover new facts. Drawing on the experience of a large sample of advanced and emerging market economies over the past 30 years, we document that exchange rate pass-through is significantly larger during periods of high inflation and elevated uncertainty. Using a novel identification strategy, we also show that pass-through is higher when exchange rate fluctuations are driven by U.S. monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Exchange rate; Pass Through; Inflation |
| JEL: | E31 E52 F31 F44 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rie:riecdt:106&r=his |
| By: | Gilles Lambert (Humanis - Hommes et management en société / Humans and management in society - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we look back at James March's main contributions to the evolution of organizations and their decision-making. On the basis of an in-depth analysis of his work, we discuss the main concepts to which he has dedicated his life as a researcher. Whether it is for innovation and the process of exploration associated with it, or for the ambiguity that persists in learning cycles, March always shows us the ambivalence of our concepts. While innovation is seen as the ultimate goal of any good differentiation strategy, his research warns us of the negative effects that can be associated with it, and the risks it poses to the organization. The same applies to the notion of ambiguity in learning. While our research would like to exclude it from our decision-making models, it reminds us of its persistence, but also of the potential for creativity that it constitutes. The strength of March's work is to encourage us to remain cautious in our diagnoses for the development of our companies by not venerating too strongly the notions seen exclusively as virtuous, such as innovation or by not too quickly condemning situations perceived as harmful, such as ambiguity. It is therefore subjective and unpredictable, making the idea of a unified theory of management inoperative (Joullié, 2018). March's way of thinking is deeply postmodern in the sense of Foucault (1961) who saw the world as a representation. In March's case, learning is ambiguous and decisions are often far from purely performative logic. In this social game, myths play an important role in organizations and behavior takes on roles that counteract any objective learning based on facts. His teachings remain of the utmost importance for both practitioners and academics in charge of modeling the real functioning of our organizations. |
| Date: | 2022–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03936938&r=his |
| By: | Sergio Cesaratto |
| Abstract: | Two previous papers (Cesaratto and Di Bucchianico 2021a, 2021b) proposed the classical economists’ surplus approach as a way to overcome the controversy between substantialists and formalists in anthropology and economic archaeology. In our approach, institutions play the role of control and regulation of the production and distribution of surplus in each given historical formation. Interestingly, the debate among economic historians on earlier economic formations has also seen a parallel fracture between the so-called primitivists and modernists. In this paper I will examine this controversy with reference to the Greco-Roman world. It is, of course, naive for newbies like us not only to hazard interpretations of those economies, but even to claim to know in depth any substantial part of the enormous literature and problems. With no presumption of completeness it has however been possible to identify a number of authors that are particularly authoritative and representative of the different points of view. While surveys are available on the literature reviewed here, my originality is in the classical surplus perspective I look at it |
| Keywords: | Surplus approach, Graeco and Roman ancient economies, primitivists, modernists, institutions, social formations |
| JEL: | B51 N01 N13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:897&r=his |
| By: | Lange, Jérôme |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Jérôme Lange "Like Hume, Smith was wrong in supposing that “[a]ll the inland parts of Africa … seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present” (think of the 13th to 17th century Empire of Mali, then one of the wealthiest nations around the globe, with Timbuktu one of the principal centres of learning of the Medieval world). Yet his explanation for the lower level of economic development in Africa as compared to Europe, based on the idea that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market, was one that upheld the essential equality of Africans to Europeans, against the descriptions of Africans and other “non-white” people as being naturally inferior to “whites” by fellow enlightenment philosophers and a great many scholars throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:pu2hc&r=his |
| By: | Bauernschuster, Stefan (University of Passau); Grimm, Michael (University of Passau); Hajo, Cathy M. (Ramapo College of New Jersey) |
| Abstract: | Margaret Sanger established the first birth control clinic in New York in 1916. From the mid-1920s, "Sanger clinics" spread over the entire U.S. Combining newly digitized data on the roll-out of these clinics, full-count Census data, and administrative vital statistics, we find that birth control clinics accounted for 5.0–7.8% of the overall fertility decline until 1940. Moreover, birth control clinics had a significant and meaningful negative effect on the incidence of stillbirths and infant mortality. The effect of birth control clinics on puerperal deaths is consistently negative, yet insignificant. Further suggestive evidence points towards positive effects on female employment. |
| Keywords: | birth control, fertility, mortality, Margaret Sanger, demographic transition |
| JEL: | D10 J13 J23 N32 O12 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16118&r=his |
| By: | Matthew S. Jaremski; David C. Wheelock |
| Abstract: | This paper provides quantitative evidence on interbank transmission of financial distress in the Panic of 1907 and ensuing recession. Originating in New York City, the panic led to payment suspensions and emergency currency issuance in many cities. Data on the universe of interbank connections show that i) suspension was more likely in cities whose banks had closer ties to banks at the center of the panic, ii) banks with such links were more likely to close in the panic and recession, and iii) banks responded to the panic by rearranging their correspondent relationships, with implications for network structure. |
| JEL: | E44 G21 N11 N12 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31270&r=his |
| By: | Falk Bräuning; Viacheslav Sheremirov |
| Abstract: | The failures of several U.S. regional banks have stimulated discussions about the macroeconomic effects of a likely credit contraction triggered by the recent banking turmoil. Drawing on historical evidence from advanced economies, this study documents a sizable and persistent decline in output and rise in unemployment following non-systemic financial distress. The effects of a systemic banking crisis are two to four times as large. High corporate leverage exacerbates banking turmoil, whereas high bank capitalization and a relatively large share of market financing in corporate debt mitigate it. These channels approximately offset one another so that the estimates tailored to the current U.S. economy are in line with the average effect. |
| Keywords: | banking distress; real economy; financial crises |
| JEL: | E44 F30 G01 G21 |
| Date: | 2023–05–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcq:96216&r=his |
| By: | Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri; Andrés Álvarez |
| Abstract: | Inequality in access to high-quality education can hinder the ability of education to promote intergenerational mobility. Looking at the case of Colombia, one of the most unequal and least mobile countries in Latin America, we evaluate whether contemporary differences in access to high-quality education have deep roots in the past. We use several past and contemporary sources to define social status attributes for several historical groups. Assuming that sufficiently rare surnames are part of the same extended family, we trace dynasties of indigenous, encomenderos (Spaniard colonial officers), 19th century slave-owners, and members of different educational, social, and business elites of the 17th, late 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Using microdata from administrative sources, we provide evidence of social segregation in education and test if the historical status of each social group is associated with access to disadvantageous or privileged educational institutions. The results show that the original social status of the historical groups is highly associated with their contemporary performance in educational outcomes. We explore assortative mating as a mechanism for perpetuating segregation in education. We find evidence of homogamy within the historical elites and ethnic surnames. We conclude that the educational system in Colombia reproduces patterns of social exclusion rooted in the past. **** RESUMEN: La desigualdad en el acceso a educación de alta calidad puede obstaculizar el papel de la educación como motor de movilidad social. Estudiando el caso de Colombia, uno de los países más desiguales y menos móviles del América Latina, nuestro objetivo es evaluar si las diferencias contemporáneas en el acceso a educación de alta calidad tienen sus raíces en el pasado. Con fuentes históricas y contemporáneas definimos atributos de estatus social de varios grupos históricos. Asumiendo que los apellidos suficientemente raros son parte de la misma familia extensa, seguimos dinastías de indígenas, encomenderos, due˜nos de esclavos miembros de diferentes élites educativas, sociales y empresariales de los siglos XVII, finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. Usando fuentes administrativas evaluamos si el estatus histórico de cada grupo social está asociado con el acceso a instituciones educativas privilegiadas. Los resultados muestran que el estatus social original de los grupos históricos predice el acceso a educación de alta calidad. Los grupos étnicos continúan siendo segregados de la educación de alta calidad contemporánea. Mientras que, entre más antigua es la élite más probabilidad hay de que converja a la media en estatus social. Además encontramos evidencia de homogamia contemporánea dentro de las élites históricas y los apellidos étnicos. Los resultados permiten concluir que el sistema educativo en Colombia reproduce patrones de exclusión social que están arraigados en el pasado. |
| Keywords: | Education, Segregation, Persistence, Assortative mating, Colombia, Educación, Segregación, Persistencia, Homogamia |
| JEL: | O15 D63 I24 J15 J12 N36 |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:cheedt:58&r=his |
| By: | Skwire, Sarah |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Sarah Skwire This brief 720 piece considers the reasons that Adam Smith’s early letter to his mother, describing a “violent fit of laziness” is my favorite Smithian passage. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:v7fbn&r=his |
| By: | Aspromourgos, Anthony |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Tony Aspromourgos "The ongoing and contemporary relevance of the quotation is then clear: Smith has opened the door, at least a little way, to conferring legitimacy upon the regulation of unequal economic and political power that informs functional and personal income distribution." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5dm92&r=his |
| By: | Otteson, James R. |
| Abstract: | Most Adam Smith scholars hold that Smith endorsed public provision of education to offset deleterious consequences arising from the division of labor. Smith’s putative endorsement of publicly funded education is taken by some scholars as evidence that Smith tends more toward progressive than classical liberalism, or that this is a departure from, perhaps an inconsistency with, Smith’s otherwise strong presumption against government intervention in markets. This paper argues that these interpretations are flawed because Smith ultimately does not advocate public provision of education. He raises the idea and explores its potential benefits, but he ultimately does not endorse it. Smith also provides reason to be skeptical of public provision of education, which suggests that his final position may have inclined against it. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xrzmk&r=his |
| By: | Sergio Cesaratto |
| Abstract: | I compare three approaches to economic history and institutions: the classical surplus approach, the Polanyian view, and New Institutional Economics (NIE). In the first institutions are seen in relation to the production and distribution of the social surplus. Research in economic anthropology, archaeology and history has validated the fecundity of this approach. The Polanyian criticism to classical and neoclassical theories is then considered and appreciated, although some severe limitations are envisaged. Most of the paper concentrate upon Douglass North, the NIE most representative author in the field of economic history. Striking of North is the attempt to replicate Marx’s relation between economics and institutions in the context of neoclassical theory. Transaction costs economics revealed a dead end in explaining institutions and the power of predatory élites. Lacking a material anchor such as surplus theory, North’s theory became progressively more elusive and indeterminate. On balance, a surplus-based Marxist-Polanyian approach is the most promising direction although much further work is still necessary to explain the coevolution of the economic and institutional sides of the economy |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Surplus approach, Karl Polanyi, New Institutional Economics, Douglass North |
| JEL: | A12 B15 B51 B52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:899&r=his |
| By: | Dekker, Erwin |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Erwin Dekker "It might be true that no one has made a ‘bargain’ in verse as Smith suggested. But new products will be advertised, packaged, and launched in ‘verse’. The eighteenth-century trader speaking precise and pointedly has been supplemented, if not replaced by the designer, the (m)ad man and the PR-manager. They have incorporated what Smith already recognized in his lectures on rhetoric: “The best prose composition, the best oratorical discourse does not affect us half so much [as poetry].” An engineer might believe that economics is about production and the stuff, but Smith knew all along that the economics was a humanistic endeavor, where the fluff cannot be separated from the stuff. In Smith’s humanomics perspective we see a world where traders develop language to interact with each other, where ornaments and elegance create a diversity of goods and services, and where marketing campaigns and inspirational stories entice us to explore the new. Call it ‘the lure of poetry and profit.’ " |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mvcdh&r=his |
| By: | Markus Lampe; Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke; Lorenz Reiter; Yoto V. Yotov |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a new dataset on the universe of Canadian imports and tariffs between 1924 and 1936, disaggregated into 1697 goods originating in 112 countries, to analyze the impact on Canadian imports of interwar Canadian trade policy, including the 1932 Ottawa trade agreements. Rather than use a dummy variable approach, we compute the impact of individual tariffs which varied substantially across goods, trade partners, and time. We develop a novel method of controlling for multilateral resistances in the context of a one-country dataset, and perform a variety of counterfactual exercises to determine the impact of tariffs on trade flows. The overall impact of post-1929 tariff shifts, including the 1932 agreements, was relatively small, reflecting the fact that Canadian trade policy was already highly protectionist: trade agreements can have heterogenous effects on participants because the shocks involved are different. Compared with a free trade counterfactual, the impact of the overall structure of protection on the level and composition of trade was large. |
| JEL: | F1 F13 F14 N72 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31238&r=his |
| By: | Bankovsky, Miriam |
| Abstract: | Review of “The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture” by Tad Skotnicki |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vbqx4&r=his |
| By: | Kuchar, Pavel |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Pavel Kuchar "Smith’s views on inequality have recently been examined with some interest (Rasmussen 2016; Walraewens 2021). But was Smith really genuinely interested in addressing the shortcomings of the society built on the “liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice” (WN IV.ix)? While critical accounts of Smith’s thought may tend to zero in on his concerns with absolute poverty – or the equality in the “share of the necessaries of life” (TMS IV.1.10) – rather than economic inequality, they may perhaps also tend to confuse his account of our tendencies to admire the rich, wealthy and powerful with the advocacy of a system in which the rich, wealthy and powerful ride roughshod over the poor and disempowered as long as the order of the society founded on the “distinction of ranks” (TMS I.iii.2) is preserved." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:se64h&r=his |
| By: | Heath, Eugene |
| Abstract: | In his lectures of 1978-1979, published posthumously as The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault addressed versions of liberalism in which an invisible market appears immune to government intervention. Among the thinkers discussed were Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. This essay offers critical reflections on Foucault’s description of Smith as emphasizing the invisibility of the economy, as well as on Foucault’s interpretation of the “invisible hand” and his ascription of egoism to Smith’s economic agents. Foucault also appeals to Ferguson’s notion of civil society to resolve incompatibilities between economic agents and the sovereign. However, Ferguson’s theory of society does not provide the assistance that Foucault thinks it does. Moreover, like Smith, Ferguson holds no egoistic view of economic motivation. Nonetheless, and surprisingly, Foucault would have found enticing Ferguson’s use of conjectural history, with its appeal to the unintended, contingent, and conflictual basis of social change. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nw5rk&r=his |
| By: | Simon Papaud (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne, TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Created in 1934, the WIR Bank sought to bring a monetary answer to the economic disorders of its time : its founder, Werner Zimmermann, like his inspirer Silvio Gesell, saw the transformation of the monetary institution both as a remedy to te crisis and a crucial political battleground to fight capitalism. In that, they follow P.- J. Proudhon, whose People's Bank pursued the same goals. Both projects rest on the condemnation of the misusage of money for private accumulation : Proudhon, Gesell and Zimmermann thus outline the image of a monetary system returned to serving the exchanges and social relations. |
| Abstract: | Créée en 1934, la Banque WIR tentait d'apporter une réponse monétaire aux désordres économiques de son époque: son fondateur, Werner Zimmermann, comme son inspirateur Silvio Gesell, regardaient la transformation de l'institution monétaire tant comme un recours face à la crise, que comme le champ de lutte politique décisif face au capitalisme. Ils suivent en celà P.-J. Proudhon, dont la Banque du Peuple poursuivait les mêmes objectifs. Ces deux projets reposent sur la condamnation du dévoiement de la monnaie pour l'accumulation privée : Proudhon, Gesell et Zimmermann dessinent ainsi l'image d'une monnaie remise au service des échanges et de la société. |
| Keywords: | Money, Bank, Gesell, Keynes, Monnaie, Banque, Proudhon |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04084716&r=his |
| By: | Silvia Marchesi; Giovanna Marcolongo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the link between financial crises in developing countries and variation of bank deposits in offshore financial centers. Using both a two way fixed effects and a stacked difference-in-differences estimator, we find that after three years since the beginning of the crisis bank deposits in tax havens increase by about 20 percent. The effect does not depend on taxation and seems driven by countries with more fragile institutions. We add to the literature on the effects of tax havens: they not only facilitate tax evasion and corruption in "normal times", but also absorb resources during financial crises, when most needed. |
| Keywords: | Sovereign debt crisis, Financial Crisis, Offshore accounts. |
| JEL: | D73 F34 G15 H63 P16 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:518&r=his |
| By: | Mr. Yan Carriere-Swallow; Melih Firat; Davide Furceri; Daniel Jimenez |
| Abstract: | We estimate how the rate of pass-through from the exchange rate to domestic prices varies across states of the economy and depending on the shocks that drive fluctuations in the exchange rate. We confirm several results from the literature and uncover new facts. Drawing on the experience of a large sample of advanced and emerging market economies over the past 30 years, we document that exchange rate pass-through significantly larger during periods of high inflation and elevated uncertainty. Using a novel identification strategy, we also show that pass-through is higher when exchange rate fluctuations are driven by U.S. monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Exchange rate; pass-through; inflation; state-dependence |
| Date: | 2023–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/086&r=his |
| By: | Martina Miotto |
| Abstract: | I study the impact of European colonialism in Africa on the present status of women. The historical literature suggests that a critical determinant of persistent gender inequality is the colonial cash crop system. This favoured men’s entry into the cash economy and excluded women, whose workload increased as they provided additional labour in their husbands’ cash crop fields. By contrast, contemporary economic literature suggests that raising the status of women in the labour force could improve gender norms. I take districts with different levels of participation in cash crop agriculture during colonial rule and compare outcomes for the contemporary female descendants, using exogenous land suitability as the instrument for cash crop production. My findings show a persistent positive effect of cash crop agriculture on women’s status, measured as higher agency within the household, less willingness to justify husbands’ violence, and higher levels of education. No effect is found for labour force participation. The intergenerational transmission of culture plays a key role in explaining the long-run persistent effect, which is especially prevalent in regions whose cash crops were cocoa and palm oil, as women played a substantial role in producing these crops. |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp750&r=his |
| By: | Drylie, Scott |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Scott Drylie "Adam Smith’s excellence in the art of belles lettres is well known and is on vivid display in his most memorable quotes, enriching his arguments and augmenting their impact. Sometimes, however, the effects of time obscure his artistry and purpose. The following passage from the Wealth of Nations (WN) is one such example. It contains an overlooked expression of Smith’s liberal vision and serves to encourage further exploration of the relationship between form and substance in his writing." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:75phv&r=his |
| By: | Cervera-Ferri, Pablo; Insa-Sánchez, Pau |
| Abstract: | Historians of economic thought have carried out detailed studies of classical and marginalist approaches to value based on production cost and utility respectively, not to mention about the fusion of both interpretations by the neoclassical school. This is not the case with rareness value, a theory commonly attributed to Léon Walras, although Aristotle surely had rareness in mind when he first attempted to explain chrematistics. This article focuses on how our understanding of rareness has evolved from the earliest economic formulations to those of Auguste and Léon Walras, contesting Rothbard’s thesis that there is only one way in which the transmission of the utility theory of value can be tracked from scholasticism to the Austrian school. On the contrary, the concept of rareness continued to figure in some theories of value of the French Enlightenment, especially those that emerged within Calvinist circles, and was recovered in times of reaction against the dominant classicism. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vjn2q&r=his |
| By: | Hoffmann, Maja; Pantazidou, Maro; Smith, Tone |
| Abstract: | Critiques of work are at the roots of degrowth. Early degrowth pioneers, in particular Gorz and Illich as well as the French décroissance tradition, placed considerable emphasis on overcoming the centrality of work in the organisation of society. However, more recent degrowth authors have largely been inconsistent or conflicting in the stance they take towards work. This contribution traces the development of degrowth thought with regard to work and critiques of work, from its roots in the 1970s up until the present. It finds that at large, current degrowth debates do not embrace their postwork roots or engage with the postwork literature that has re-emerged over the last decade. At the same time, work is a prominent topic on the degrowth agenda and despite its contradictions, degrowth remains open for critical work scholarship. For future degrowth debates, we argue that the perspectives of critiques of work and critiques of growth are natural allies and that a genuinely critical and radical degrowth debate should again adopt a clearer stance towards work. From engaging once more with postwork perspectives, degrowth could gain a more profound analysis of the unsustainable status-quo and renewed momentum as a much-needed corrective in sustainability debates. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:m9q2s&r=his |
| By: | Erikson, Emily |
| Abstract: | Review of “Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950” by Keith Tribe |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5djpe&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Broadberry; Elena Korchmina |
| Abstract: | This paper provides decadal estimates of GDP per capita for the Russian Empire from the 1690s to the 1880s. GDP per capita in the 1880s was barely 3 per cent higher than in the 1690s, but this was not the result of continuous stagnation. Rather, positive growth during the first half of the eighteenth century was followed by negative growth between the 1760s and 1800s and stagnation from the 1800s to the 1880s. The main driver of this variation in GDP per capita was the relationship between population and land, with land per capita increasing to the 1760s, then declining to the 1800s and staying stable during the nineteenth century. This suggests that serfdom may not have been as strong a barrier to eighteenth century growth as has often been suggested, nor its abolition in 1861 as significant for subsequent growth. Although large-scale industry grew more rapidly than the rest of the economy, particularly after Peter the Great’s reforms in the early eighteenth century, this had only a minor effect on the economy as a whole, as it was starting from a very low base and still only accounted for 10 per cent of GDP by the 1880s. Russian economic growth before the 1760s resulted in catching-up on northwest Europe, but this was followed by a period of relative decline, leaving mid-nineteenth century Russia further behind than at the beginning of the eighteenth century. |
| Date: | 2022–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_197&r=his |
| By: | Gerrard, Bill |
| Abstract: | In his recent paper in this journal, Bateman (2021) breaks with the “Standard View” of Ramsey’s influence on Keynes and argues that Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophical thought underpinned both Keynes’s acceptance of Ramsey’s subjective theory of probability, and Keynes’s adoption of a narrative theory of the role of confidence in economic fluctuations in the General Theory. In this paper it is argued that Bateman is right both in emphasizing the influence of Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy on Keynes’s thought during the development of the General Theory and afterwards, and in arguing that the influence of Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy partly explains Keynes’s emphasis on the importance of the state of confidence in Chapter 12 of the General Theory. However, it is argued that Ramsey’s pragmatist philosophy had a much greater influence on Keynes than acknowledged by Bateman. Furthermore, contra Bateman, Keynes’s move to a more pragmatist philosophical position does not imply that Keynes’s accepted Ramsey’s subjective theory of (measurable) probability. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6w8g2&r=his |
| By: | Wixforth, Harald |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:0223&r=his |
| By: | Fraas, Arthur G. (Resources for the Future); Lutter, Randall; Murphy, Joshua; Xiahou, Qinrui (Resources for the Future); Potter, Jeff; Gosling, Samuel D. |
| Abstract: | To assess how early-life exposure to air pollution affects adult personality, we use new annual lead (Pb) vehicle emissions data by county, for 1969 to 1981, and “Big Five” personality data for 130, 000 adults. Models with county and cohort fixed effects show higher Pb exposure during the first five years of life lowers agreeableness and increases openness. Weaker evidence suggests Pb lowers conscientiousness and increases neuroticism but it has no effect on extraversion. We also assess how regulation-induced cuts in total suspended particulates (TSP) levels affect adult personality. We are unable to disentangle early life effects of Pb and TSP. |
| Date: | 2023–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-17&r=his |
| By: | William J. Collins; Gregory Niemesh |
| Abstract: | Income and home ownership both surged in the United States between 1940 and 1960. We use cross-place variation in changes in real income to assess the importance of income gains to the mid-century home ownership boom. OLS and IV estimates suggest that a large share of the overall increase in home ownership was attributable to wage gains that were both large on average and widely spread across workers. This research complements the literatures on how New Deal mortgage market innovations and the World War II and Korean War GI Bills promoted home ownership in this period. |
| JEL: | J31 N32 N92 R21 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31249&r=his |
| By: | Flavio Malnati |
| Abstract: | I investigate how a state can foster early economic development via its military capacity, before the birth of modern states. For three centuries, the Teutonic Order, a monastic-military organization, ruled East Prussia, in contemporary Northern Poland. To support an enduring military campaign against the pagan tribes of the area, the Teutonic Order organized a centralized state to mobilize settlers, merchants, and resources. Using a regression discontinuity design across East Prussia’s borders, I document how those territories experienced higher economic development than their neighbours when they were controlled by the Teutonic Order in the 13th - 15th century. I find that after the military defeat of the Order the border areas do not show any discontinuity in economic development. My analysis of mechanisms shows that development in the Order’s state was not only in the interests of the military and religious elites, but also of merchants and settlers. I suggest that the military capacity of the Order drove development through the mobilization of people and resources. Nevertheless, this research suggests that a decisive military defeat can undermine the state’s ability to drive development if it does not have other forms of capacity. |
| Keywords: | Early Development; State Capacity; Northern Crusades; Institutions; |
| JEL: | N33 N43 N53 N73 N93 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp752&r=his |
| By: | Rothschild, Emma |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Emma Rothschild The central drama of the Wealth of Nations is the reciprocal influence of states and markets. It is played out in Smith's denunciations of regulated companies. |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rhxs5&r=his |
| By: | De Bromhead, Alan; O'Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj |
| Abstract: | This paper asks whether history should change the way in which economists and economic historians think about populism. We use Müller's definition, according to which populism is 'an exclusionary form of identity politics, which is why it poses a threat to democracy'. We make three historical arguments. First, late 19th century US Populists were not populist. Second, there is no necessary relationship between populism and anti-globalization sentiment. Third, economists have sometimes been on the wrong side of important policy debates involving opponents rightly or wrongly described as populist. History encourages us to avoid an overly simplistic view of populism and its correlates. |
| Keywords: | populism, globalization, economists, history |
| JEL: | D72 N40 N70 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202306&r=his |
| By: | Sergio Cesaratto |
| Abstract: | The search for the income distribution cores of pre-capitalist formations in the light of the classical surplus approach led to a re-examination the Marxist debates on the concept of mode of production. Unfortunately the Marxist debate is not only vast, but often wordy (this paper not being an exception), so we limit that ourselves to some episodes and scholars that sound particularly relevant for the relationship between forms of exploitation and economic modes. For a start, I shall consider some Marx’s insights on pre-capitalist formation which appear relevant also in the light of subsequent Marxist debates. I shall then outline some earlier Marxist debates which focused on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Other debates focused on the concept of mode of production from Althusser and Perry Anderson to Jairus Banaji, John Haldon and others. Some conclusions try to make sense of these debates |
| Keywords: | Marx, modes of production, social formations, pre-capitalist economies, Surplus approach, institutions |
| JEL: | B51 N01 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:898&r=his |
| By: | Smith, Craig |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Craig Smith "It is a difficult task to narrow down a favourite passage from a body of work as rich as that of Adam Smith. One of the things that has always amused me about Smith is his use of Scottish examples to make universal points. In one of these he launches himself into the long running rivalry between Scotland’s two major cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. Smith lived for a time in both cities and worked on what would become the Wealth of Nations in what were then, as now, two very different cities. In The Wealth of Nations he makes use of this to develop a classic example of Smithian social theory." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7q54p&r=his |
| By: | Boumans, Marcel |
| Abstract: | Review of “The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics: A Structuralist Approach” by Peter Galbács |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:x8576&r=his |
| By: | Leonie Bielefeld (University of Munich); Cathrin Mohr (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We study the selection of the political elite in an autocratic state. Using detailed CV data on potential politicians in the German Democratic Republic, we track and quantify the position of individuals in the state hierarchy over time and exploit exogenous connections between individuals that were formed through imprisonment during the Nazi Era. We find asymmetric effects of being connected to the political elite: While being linked to the state's centre of power harms high-profile careers, they have positive effects on low-profile careers. An extensive analysis of potential mechanisms shows that the negative effect of being linked to the party leadership on individuals' probability to be part of the ruling elite is in line with anti-factionalism, whereas the positive effect on low-profile careers is in line with patronage. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, autocracy, political elite, selection mechanisms |
| JEL: | P16 P26 D72 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:232&r=his |
| By: | Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses economic freedom for a sample of 21 OECD countries over the past 170 years on the basis of a new thoroughly revised Historical Index of Economic Liberty (HIEL). Long-term gains in economic freedom reached two-thirds of its potential maximum. The expansion of economic freedom was abruptly interrupted by the world wars and resumed after 1950, to peak in 2000 and stagnate thereafter. International openness has been its main contributing dimension, especially after 1950. Stability in the country ranking coexisted with a narrowing of the distance between countries' levels of economic freedom. |
| Keywords: | Economic Freedom; Property Rights; Price Stability; Openness; Regulation; Oecd |
| JEL: | E31 N40 O24 N40 P14 |
| Date: | 2023–06–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:37433&r=his |
| By: | Benjamin Schneider |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the elimination of hand spinning in Britain during the Industrial Revolution and shows that it was one of the earliest examples of large-scale technological unemployment. First, it uses new empirical evidence and sources to estimate spinning employment before the innovations of the 1760s and 1770s. These estimates reinforce and expand upon the findings of Muldrew (2012): spinning employed up to 20% of women and children by c. 1770. Next, the paper systematically analyzes the course, extent, and locations of technological unemployment produced by mechanization using more than 200 detailed qualitative sources. It first presents an estimate of job loss in hand spinning of cotton by the late 1780s. It then uses evidence from more than 2200 observations by contemporary social commentators, county agricultural surveys, and the 1834 Poor Law Commission’s Rural and Town Queries to show the breadth and duration of unemployment produced by mechanization. The destruction of hand spinning began to impact women and households in the 1780s, and the effects persisted until at least the mid-1830s. Finally, it shows that this technological shock likely had an unequal effect on family incomes that resulted from variation in household composition and local labor market conditions. The findings demonstrate that unemployment must be incorporated into analysis of the impacts of industrialization on living standards and highlight the potential long-run costs of job replacing technology. |
| Date: | 2023–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_207&r=his |
| By: | Dave E. Marcotte; Benjamin Hansen |
| Abstract: | The suicide rate in the United States has risen nearly 40 percent since 2000. This increase is puzzling because suicide rates had been falling for decades at the end of the 20th Century. In this paper, we review important facts about the changing rate of suicide. General trends miss the story of important differences across groups – suicide rates rose substantially among middle aged persons between 2005 and 2015 but have fallen since. Among young people, suicide rates began a rapid rise after 2010 that has not abated. We review empirical evidence to assess potential causes for recent changes in suicide rates. The economic hardship caused by the Great Recession played an important role in rising suicide among prime-aged Americans. We illustrate that the increase in the prevalence of depression among young people during the 2010s was so large it could explain nearly all the increase in suicide mortality among those under 25. Bullying victimization of LGBTQ youth could also account for part of the rise in suicide. The evidence that access to firearms or opioids are major drivers of recent suicide trends is less clear. We end by summarizing evidence on the most promising policies to reduce suicide mortality. |
| JEL: | I1 I12 I19 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31242&r=his |
| By: | Zouboulakis, Michel S. |
| Abstract: | The aim of this article is to make an overall assessment of Andreas Georges Papandreou’s theoretical contributions during his American academic career, from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Papandreou contributed to the post-war development of economic thought in competition theory and experimental testing of consumer theory. In developing competition theory, he introduced a new method of evaluating the monopolistic power of a firm through a coefficient measuring the firm’s penetration in the market. Furthermore, he suggested a way of experimentally testing whether individual preferences satisfy the axiom of transitivity. Lastly, he actively participated in the methodological controversies on the realisticness of economic assumptions which took place between 1946 and 1953, and on the empirical meaning of economics in 1963, between Friedman, Samuelson, Machlup, Simon and others. |
| Date: | 2023–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3nqfb&r=his |
| By: | Salvador Calatayud; Vicente Pinilla; Jordi Planas |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the contribution of Samuel Garrido, who passed away in 2022, to economic and rural history. To this end, we address the three fundamental axes around which his research was developed. First, we study his contribution to agricultural cooperativism, the main subject of his work. Next, we explain his contributions on irrigation, mainly those of Valencia, and the institutions that regulated them. Finally, we study how he analyzed some agricultural crops and products, in which cooperatives or irrigation had an outstanding importance, mainly orange trees, hemp and wine. We highlight how Samuel Garrido based his work on careful archival research, but also how he combined the study of historical documentation with the use of econometric techniques for data analysis. His concern for providing a theoretical foundation for his approaches was also notable. He thus combined the virtues of the historian with those of the economist, with an outstanding result. |
| Keywords: | Samuel Garrido, rural history, agricultural cooperatives, economic history, irrigation |
| JEL: | N53 N54 Q13 Q15 |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2302&r=his |
| By: | Fontaine, Philippe |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Philippe Fontaine "For the twenty-first-century student of sympathy, the excerpt above is an obvious reminder that the history of ideas is not just a history of words. Empathy does not appear in that passage, nor in TMS in general, which has often caused confusion among commentators, and yet the “imaginary change of situations” with another looms large in Smith’s analysis of sympathy. In an era where “lovers” and “haters” command center stage, whose alleged concern for others can reasonably be regarded as selfish, it may be useful to be reminded of the distinction between sympathy and empathy. Outside the discipline of psychology, indeed, “empathizers” attract less attention than “sympathizers” and their nameless opposites." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:s3be2&r=his |
| By: | Carrasco, Maria |
| Abstract: | Smith at 300: Contribution by Maria Carrasco "Adam Smith is known as a liberal thinker. The political system that he promotes and describes as one of “perfect justice, perfect liberty, and perfect equality” (WN IV.ix.17, 669), is characterized by the primacy of the rights of non-interference and the protection of a private sphere where every individual directs its life according to its own decisions. The moral justification for the primacy of negative justice is in the second book of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he unambiguously states: “Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbor” (TMS II.i.1.9, 82). For the same reason, the first time I read that book, the following paragraph struck me as an inexplicable contradiction, an incomprehensible lapse in Adam Smith’s thoroughly revised text." |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qhpgr&r=his |