|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2023‒09‒25
33 papers chosen by |
| By: | Carlos Álvarez-Nogal (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Pablo Leandro Prados de la Escosura (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Spain experienced economic decline from the 1570s to 1650, recovering gradually thereafter and only reaching its early 1570s per capita income in the 1820s. How did economic decline impact on people’s perception of well-being and inequality? We provide an answer based on an unexplored source, the Bulls of the Crusade, an alms that, after 1574, was annually collected by the Spanish Monarchy in its territories, and that, to some material benefits, added spiritual benefits: plenary indulgencies that erased the penance for guilt after sinning. An inexpensive but fixed price alms was massively bought by those aged 12 and above. The number of bulls sold relative to the relevant population provides a measure of spiritual comfort and, hence, of subjective well-being. A subjective inequality measure, the ratio of the 8 Reales bulls sold, intended for wealthy and high social status people, to the 2 Reales bulls sold, intended for the common people, is also estimated. Our results suggest that subjective well-being deteriorated during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century improving during its last third, while subjective inequality increased from 1600-1640 to fall in the third quarter of the century. Thus, improvements in subjective well-being were accompanied by a decline in subjective inequality. |
| Keywords: | Subjective Well-being, Subjective Inequality, Spain, Economic Decline |
| JEL: | H27 I31 N33 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0235&r=his |
| By: | Leandro Prados de la Escosura (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| 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 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0236&r=his |
| By: | Goutsmedt, Aurélien (UC Louvain - F.R.S-FNRS); Truc, Alexandre |
| Abstract: | Economics in Europe has become more international since the 1970s. To a certain extent, this internationalisation is also an ‘Americanisation’ as many European economists have adopted the standards and approaches of US economics. This prompts an important question: amidst this convergence, are there any fields that have managed to retain a distinctively European character? In this article, we use topic modelling and bibliometric coupling to identify European specialties between 1969 and 2002. We focus on macroeconomic articles published in the European Economic Review and compare their bibliographic references and textual content to what has been published in the top 5 journals. Despite economics internationalization since the 1970s, European macroeconomics displayed distinct characteristics across two distinct periods. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, European macroeconomists maintained a certain distance from US debates centered around rational expectations and new classical economics. However, they embraced the concept of microfoundations through the lens of disequilibrium theory, fostering transnational collaborations and offering a unique framework for addressing various macroeconomic issues. Nevertheless, both the prominence of new classical economics in the US and the decline of the disequilibrium approach after the mid-1980s, European macroeconomics shifted towards closer alignment with US approaches. In the 1990s, Political economy, inspired by pioneering US contributions like Kydland and Prescott (1977) and Barro and Gordon (1983a, 1983b), emerged in the 1990s as a new framework offering a common language for many European macroeconomists. However, specific European challenges like high unemployment rates and European integration continued to drive research in distinctive directions. |
| Date: | 2023–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:cn7am&r=his |
| By: | Yarkin, Alexander |
| Abstract: | How do political preferences and voting behaviors respond to information coming from abroad? Focusing on the international migration network, I document that opinion changes at the origins spill over to 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrants abroad. Local diasporas, social media, and family ties to the origins facilitate the transmission, while social integration at destination weakens it. Using the variation in the magnitude, timing, and type of origin-country exposure to the European Refugee Crisis of 2015, I show that salient events trigger learning from the origins. Welcoming asylum policies at the origins decrease opposition to non-Europeans and far-right voting abroad. Transitory refugee flows through the origins send abroad the backlash. Data from Google Trends and Facebook suggests elevated attention to events at the origins and communication with like-minded groups as mechanisms. Similar spillovers following the passage of same-sex marriage laws show the phenomenon generalizes beyond refugee attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Social Networks, Spillovers, Political Attitudes, Integration |
| JEL: | O15 Z13 D72 D83 P00 J61 F22 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1322&r=his |
| By: | Nicola Mastrorocco; Edoardo Teso |
| Abstract: | We study how the organization of the state evolves over the process of development of a nation, using a new dataset on the internal organization of the U.S. federal bureaucracy over 1817-1905. First, we show a series of facts, describing how the size of the state, its presence across the territory, and its key organizational features evolved over the nineteenth century. Second, exploiting the staggered expansion of the railroad and telegraph networks across space, we show that the ability of politicians to monitor state agents throughout the territory is an important driver of these facts: locations with lower transportation and communication costs with Washington DC have more state presence, are delegated more decision power, and have lower employee turnover. The results suggest that high monitoring costs are associated with small, personalistic state organizations based on networks of trust; technological shocks lowering monitoring costs facilitate the emergence of modern bureaucratic states. |
| JEL: | D73 M51 N41 P0 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31591&r=his |
| By: | Julien Acalin; Laurence M. Ball |
| Abstract: | The fall in the U.S. public debt/GDP ratio from 106% in 1946 to 23% in 1974 is often attributed to high rates of economic growth. This paper examines the roles of three other factors: primary budget surpluses, surprise inflation, and pegged interest rates before the Fed-Treasury Accord of 1951. Our central result is a simulation of the path that the debt/GDP ratio would have followed with primary budget balance and without the distortions in real interest rates caused by surprise inflation and the pre-Accord peg. In this counterfactual, debt/GDP declines only to 74% in 1974, not 23% as in actual history. Moreover, the ratio starts rising again in 1980 and in 2022 it is 84%. These findings imply that, over the last 76 years, only a small amount of debt reduction has been achieved through growth rates that exceed undistorted interest rates. |
| JEL: | E31 E43 E65 H60 H63 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31577&r=his |
| By: | Jean Lacroix; Kris James Mitchener; Kim Oosterlinck |
| Abstract: | We analyze how secession movements unfold and the interdependence of regions’ decisions to secede. We first model and then empirically examine how secessions can occur sequentially because the costs of secession decrease with the number of seceders and because regions update their decisions based on whether other regions decide to secede. We verify the existence of these “domino secessions” using the canonical case of the secession of southern U.S. states in the 1860s. We establish that financial markets priced in the costs of secession to geographically-specific assets (state bonds) after Lincoln’s election in the fall of 1860 – long before war broke out. We then show that state bond yields reflect the decreasing costs of secession in two ways. First, as the number of states seceding increased, yields on the bonds of states that had already seceded fell. Second, seceding states with more heterogeneous voters had higher risk premia, reflecting investors beliefs that further sub-secession was more likely in these locations. |
| JEL: | G12 H77 N21 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31589&r=his |
| By: | Oded Galor; Marc Klemp; Daniel C. Wainstock |
| Abstract: | Why does inequality vary across societies? We advance the hypothesis that in a market economy, where earning differentials reflect variations in productive traits, a significant component of the differences in income inequality across societies can be attributed to variation in societal interpersonal diversity, shaped during the prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration. The roots of income inequality within the US population provide supporting evidence for the hypothesis. It suggests that variation in income inequality across groups of individuals originating from different ancestral backgrounds can be traced to the degree of diversity of their ancestral populations as was carved in the course of the dispersal of humanity from Africa. |
| JEL: | O10 Z10 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31580&r=his |
| By: | Hart, Robert A. (University of Stirling); Roberts, J. Elizabeth (University of Stirling) |
| Abstract: | Group 1 metal and chemical industries formed the essential suppliers of British war materials during WW2. Their industrial sectors covered metal manufacture, general and electrical engineering, vehicle production, aircraft production, shipbuilding, metal goods, chemicals and explosives, and scientific instruments. Due mainly to almost 4 million men joining the armed forces, acute labour shortages necessitated women's recruited in large numbers. Women workers accounted for 16% of total Group 1 employment in 1939 rising to a peak of 37% in 1943. We use Ministry of Labour statistics on total annual numbers of female and male employees between 1937 and 1960. We examine in detail women's recruitment, training, skill growth as well as firms' radical changes to production methodologies to accommodate lower average women's skills. We compare female and male employment during the wartime transition period 1944 to 1947, followed by the period 1948 to 1960. Explanations are given for the decline and rise of female fortunes in the two periods. The employment data allow us to compare women's war-time and peace-time activities at industrial section-levels - e.g. repair of aircraft, iron and steel melting, explosives manufacture. The analysis includes wartime metal working data of the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF). This allows us to widen our analysis. Among other features we use (1) female/male pay differentials to proxy the growth of women's skill attainments, and (2) differentiate between piecework and timework to compare employment advantages of incentivised payments contracts versus fixed short-run wage contracts. |
| Keywords: | women workers, Group 1 industries, skill acquisition, pay differentials |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J31 N44 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16407&r=his |
| By: | Le, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Published in 文明21, Civilization 21 at Aichi University, Nagoya, Japan. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/nrid/9000406377681 While Pre-World War II government-mandated censorship was a familiar practice in Japanese press outlets, it can be argued that post World War II censorship by the American GHQ had a long-lasting affect on national consciousness. With a brief historical introduction starting with Perry’s ship landing, this short paper explores the role that American-produced English textbooks, cartoons, and dramas, played in molding Japan into a country aligned with United States ideals. |
| Date: | 2022–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:hyk73&r=his |
| By: | Jubril Animashaun (Department of Economics, The University of Manchester, UK); Ada Wossink (Department of Economics, The University of Manchester, UK); Katsushi S. Imai (Department of Economics, The University of Manchester, UK and Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the hypotheses that (1) European colonization indirectly hinders the development outcomes, namely GDP per capita growth, by lowering institutional quality and encouraging corruption in colonized oil-rich countries, and (2) better macro institutional quality mitigates the historically-rooted resource curse. We constructed the instrumental variable by categorizing countries based on the evidence of settlers' mortality and the persistence of European colonial languages as official post-independence languages in oil-rich non-western countries. Also, we isolate the effect of giant oil discoveries with the depth of oil fields because of the plausible relationship with the geological characteristics of oil formation. We estimate a 2-Step GMM model that controls the lagged moments of GDP per capita using the data for 69 countries with at least a discovery of giant oil fields from 1960 to 2015. We show that oil-rich countries without colonial experience have better institutions, which translates to improving GDP per capita and reducing the corruption index. Our findings highlight the importance of historical factors associated with state origin when formulating policies to address the resource curse. |
| Keywords: | Resource Curse; Colonialism; Institutions; Petroleum-resources |
| JEL: | F54 E02 O43 Q35 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2023-19&r=his |
| By: | Pablo Delgado, (University of Zaragoza) |
| Abstract: | The modern nutritional transition is characterized by a significant increase in protein consumption derived from animal-based foods, particularly meat. Despite its importance, the underlying drivers of this process have not been extensively explored, especially from a quantitative perspective. Some authors attribute it to demand-side factors such as growth in income, population, and urbanization rates, while others focus on supply-side factors such as the decline in livestock product prices due to the intensification of the livestock industry. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining quantitatively the role of demand, supply, and consumer preferences in driving the increase in meat consumption in Spain, a Mediterranean country that completed its modern nutritional transition in the latter half of the 20th century. |
| Keywords: | nutritional transition, meat, Spain, consumption |
| JEL: | N34 N54 O13 E21 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0234&r=his |
| By: | Coyle, Diane; Fabian, Mark; Beinhocker, Eric; Besley, Timothy; Stevens, Margaret |
| Abstract: | The contributions of economists have long included both positive explanations of how economic systems work and normative recommendations for how they could and should work better. In recent decades, economics has taken a strong empirical turn as well as having a greater appreciation of the importance of the complexities of real-world human behaviour, institutions, the strengths and failures of markets, and interlinkages with other systems, including politics, technology, culture and the environment. This shift has also brought greater relevance and pragmatism to normative economics. While this shift towards evidence and pragmatism has been welcome, it does not in itself answer the core question of what exactly constitutes ‘better’, and for whom, and how to manage inevitable conflicts and trade-offs in society. These have long been the core concerns of welfare economics. Yet, in the 1980s and 1990s, debates on welfare economics seemed to have become marginalised. The articles in this Fiscal Studies symposium engage with the question of how to revive normative questions as a central issue in economic scholarship. |
| Keywords: | economic welfare; normative; positive; policy |
| JEL: | I30 I32 |
| Date: | 2023–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:119787&r=his |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) was established by France to counteract the dominance of Anglophone countries in West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana, over Francophone West Africa. Francophonie in French West Africa is mainly driven by a power elite, the 'Pré Quarré' in both France and Africa. The notorious Françafrique network determined the fate of the region for decades. This provoked a growing anti-French sentiment, which focused on three points. First, development policy; second, the currency; and third, the military. France was the only western country to maintain a significant military presence in the Sahel. While the number of French troops has fallen drastically from 30, 000 in the early 1960s to around 6, 100 today, political and military interventionism has not abated. But, after so many years of failed military efforts against terrorism in the region, citizens became increasingly suspicious of France's motives for being there. However, a clear distinction must be made between anti-French sentiment and anti-French military presence. Many believe that any presence of foreign troops in the Sahel makes the situation worse by attracting rather than repelling extremists. Yet, this view obscures two important realities. First, the development of a broader authoritarian movement, driven in part by Russia, that challenges democracy and its proponents. The local population makes France the scapegoat for the worsening of their situation on the ground. Its political leaders are capitalizing on hostility to the colonial legacy, including the CFA franc and military cooperation. This is fertile ground for insurgent military officials, who have no legal legitimacy but a thirst for authenticity. The slogan 'France, get out' has become a new means of legitimizing political and military power in French-speaking Africa. However, for some autocrats it is also used as a welcome distraction from acknowledging their own responsibility for the predicament. Africans are becoming increasingly aware that France is staying in Africa for its own interests. But anti-French is not necessarily pro-coup. The axis of young, fiery military leaders, seeking legitimacy from their terrorized compatriots, exploited all sorts of populist sentiments, from Africanism to the quest for economic independence. They accused Paris of supporting the terrorists who are targeting the local population so that France can continue siphoning off their resources and thereby sinking the country into increasing poverty. It would be a mistake to think that making it clear to Africans that they are being manipulated by the Russians would end the whole thing. Nevertheless, the African heavyweights of UEMOA, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, as well as the other member states, will keep the Union together out of self-interest, albeit on fairer terms. African public opinion is-understandably extremely sensitive to being treated as an equal. They don't want to be lectured to or made fun of. |
| Keywords: | Françafrique; UEMOA; CEDEAO; Sentiment anti-français; Africanismes; coup d'État; gouvernance; développement durable; post-colonialisme; secteur informel; Franc CFA; APD; Afrique subsaharienne; Afrique de l'Ouest; Mali; Burkina Faso; Niger; Guinée; Nigeria; Études africaines; |
| JEL: | F15 F35 F51 F52 F54 H12 H56 K42 L13 L72 N17 N47 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:118358&r=his |
| By: | Sebastian Galiani; Luis F. Jaramillo; Mateo Uribe-Castro |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the influence of transportation infrastructure on migration decisions in the context of the Great Migration in the United States. Focusing on the opening of the Panama Canal in 1920, we isolate the effect of improved economic opportunities from reduced migration costs. Using full-count Census data, we find that Southern African American migrants preferred areas with enhanced market access, leading to higher inflows after 1920. The study highlights the inter- play between migrant networks and labor markets in shaping migration patterns. Our findings underscore the significance of local market conditions induced by improvements in local market access in influencing migration decisions during the Great Migration. |
| JEL: | J16 N32 N72 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31551&r=his |
| By: | Marcos Sanso-Navarro (Universidad de Zaragoza); Guillermo Peña (Universidad de Zaragoza) |
| Abstract: | This presentation deals with the persistence of the effects of natural disasters on population, concretely at the municipal level. With this aim, we analyze information about the population of all Spanish municipalities and flood events from 1877 to 2011. Using recent developments in difference-in-differences estimation methods, we find a negative and significant impact of floods on population in the long term when there are casualties involved. Therefore, and in line with the results of other types of shocks, we provide evidence that shocks related to natural disasters have a demographic transitory effect |
| Date: | 2023–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:fsug23:29&r=his |
| By: | Melissa Dell; Jacob Carlson; Tom Bryan; Emily Silcock; Abhishek Arora; Zejiang Shen; Luca D'Amico-Wong; Quan Le; Pablo Querubin; Leander Heldring |
| Abstract: | Existing full text datasets of U.S. public domain newspapers do not recognize the often complex layouts of newspaper scans, and as a result the digitized content scrambles texts from articles, headlines, captions, advertisements, and other layout regions. OCR quality can also be low. This study develops a novel, deep learning pipeline for extracting full article texts from newspaper images and applies it to the nearly 20 million scans in Library of Congress's public domain Chronicling America collection. The pipeline includes layout detection, legibility classification, custom OCR, and association of article texts spanning multiple bounding boxes. To achieve high scalability, it is built with efficient architectures designed for mobile phones. The resulting American Stories dataset provides high quality data that could be used for pre-training a large language model to achieve better understanding of historical English and historical world knowledge. The dataset could also be added to the external database of a retrieval-augmented language model to make historical information - ranging from interpretations of political events to minutiae about the lives of people's ancestors - more widely accessible. Furthermore, structured article texts facilitate using transformer-based methods for popular social science applications like topic classification, detection of reproduced content, and news story clustering. Finally, American Stories provides a massive silver quality dataset for innovating multimodal layout analysis models and other multimodal applications. |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2308.12477&r=his |
| By: | Alexis Le Nestour (Center for Global Development); Laura Moscoviz (Center for Global Development); Justin Sandefur (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | We use comparable, survey-based literacy tests for repeated cross-sections of men and women born between 1950 and 2000 to study education outcomes across cohorts in 87 countries. We find that education quality, defined as literacy conditional on completing five years of schooling, stagnated or declined across the developing world over half a century, with pronounced drops in both South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Increases in schooling outpaced the decline in education quality, leading to large increases in unconditional literacy. Shifts in student composition can explain only part of the downward trend in education quality we observe: the decline pre-dates the abolition of school fees in most countries, and patterns in adult height suggest students in later decades were healthier and wealthier than those in earlier cohorts. |
| Keywords: | literacy, school quality, access to education |
| JEL: | I25 N37 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:608&r=his |
| By: | Bodunrin, Olalekan Samuel |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzed the interplay between banking crises and the business cycle behaviour and its implication for the wider macroeconomy. Firstly, the business cycle of the economies was estimated using Hodrick & Prescott’s (1997) filter as a standard smoothing technique. Next, the turning points were identified, and the cycle was dated using the Harding & Pagan (2003) algorithm, an extension from Bry and Boschan (1971), with the aid of the Philippe Bracke (2011) SBBQ Stata module. Finally, after identifying the peak and trough phases, the distance between the duo was further labelled, and the entire stretch of the economies’ business cycle was classified into six phases, namely recovery, expansion, peak, recession, depression, and trough. The aim is; to ascertain the reactivity between banking crises and the individual business cycle phases and their implications for the aggregate economy. This objective is in addition to; exploring the relationship between banking crises and the cyclical behaviour of the business cycle; ascertaining the probability of banking crises induced by the cyclical behaviour of the business cycle; and establishing the gaps generated by the interactions between banking crises and; the output, the industrial production and the credit gaps. The panel vector autoregressive (pVAR) model was employed. Also, the logistic regression model and the Harding & Pagan (2003) concordance index were applied with diagnostic tests and the adaptive LASSO for robustness checks. The result found three broader categories of banking crises. These are banking crises made possible by; liquidity pressure during economic expansions, excessive leverage(boom and bust) and economic downturns. Banking crises severely contracted the business cycle, via the trough, depression, and recovery phases, with feedback mechanisms lasting about four years. The business cycle caused banking crises in its extreme region- the topmost peak phase, the lowest trough phase, and the recovery phase. The result further confirmed that banking crises naturally occur during the Depression, Recovery, and Trough phases and weakly on the Expansion phases (in that order). Nations slipped from peak to trough during banking crises, but none moved from trough to peak. These results emphasised the importance of macro-financial linkages and their vulnerabilities, suggesting need for policy synergy and considering the business cycle phases in designing and implementing economic policies. |
| Keywords: | Banking crises, Business Cycle |
| JEL: | E32 G21 N1 N14 |
| Date: | 2023–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117955&r=his |
| By: | Eoin McLaughlin (University College Cork and Heriot-Watt University); Christopher L. Colvin (Queen's University Belfast); Stuart Henderson (Ulster University) |
| Abstract: | The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852), even as other measures of educational attainment improved. We show how demography partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32- year-olds) used in conventional indices of digit preference. Quantification of age heaping must therefore be interpreted in light of an older underlying population which is more likely to heap. We propose how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardisation. |
| Keywords: | age heaping, human capital, demography |
| JEL: | N33 J10 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0230&r=his |
| By: | Giovanni Federico (Division of Social Sciences, New York University Abu Dhabi and CEPR); Pablo Martinelli Lasheras (Department of Social Sciences, University Carlos III of Madrid and Figuerola Institute) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we provide an economic interpretation of intercropping as a risk management strategy based on spatial diversification of production. We study vine intercropping - i.e., scattering vines across fields rather than concentrating them in specialized vineyards - a traditional practice in Italian agriculture. We claim that, in absence of developed financial markets, spatial diversification provided a third layer of insurance to peasants operating in traditional agrarian economics, different from and in addition to crop diversification at the farm level and risk-sharing through tenancy contracts at the estate level. Spatial diversification increased production costs, in particular transportation costs. Hence, the price of this form of insurance (and the likelihood of its adoption) depended critically on the rural settlement pattern. We test our model with data for 1930s Italy, where intercropping still prevailed in many areas of the country. We show that its adoption was positively related to the pattern of scattered dwellings which dated back to the late Middle Ages and reduced transportation costs to individual plots. The mass exodus from the countryside during the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s made intercropping no longer viable. |
| Keywords: | intercropping, diversification, risk management, traditional agriculture, viticulture, Italy |
| JEL: | L23 N63 N64 O13 Q12 R14 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0233&r=his |
| By: | Zhang, Zihan (Jinan University); Kim, Jun Hyung (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | Can the effects of early childhood trauma persist across generations, impacting the long-run outcomes of their children? To answer this question, we exploit the geographic variation in the intensity of the Great Famine in China and distinguish the effects of exposures during four stages of childhood cognitive development between ages 0 to 15 as defined in the child development theory of Jean Piaget. We find that exposure to famine in childhood, especially in ages 0—2 and 3—7, negatively impacts the adult mental health of the survivors' children. We also find negative effects on parent's mental health and parent-child interaction frequency, consistent with the role of childhood home environments as transmission channels. Our findings show that the determinants of mental health problems can be traced back across a generation and demonstrate the persistent damage of early childhood trauma on the survivors and their children. |
| Keywords: | collective trauma, famine, mental health, intergenerational effects |
| JEL: | I14 I18 J13 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16385&r=his |
| By: | Yacine Boujija; Marie Connolly; Xavier St-Denis |
| Abstract: | Despite initiatives to promote equality of opportunity, the reproduction of inequalities from generation to generation has worsened in Quebec in recent decades. Youth who grew up in a less advantaged environment are more likely to remain at the bottom of the ladder as adults. We know that education is a key factor in social mobility. A CIRANO study looks at the issue from another angle, that of geographic mobility. The authors follow the career paths of nearly 1.4 million young people and show that the lack of social mobility affects more strongly young people who grew up outside major cities, particularly those who still live there in their early thirties. This study is the first to examine the influence of geographic mobility on intergenerational income transmission in Quebec. It is based on Statistics Canada’s Intergenerational Income Database (IID), which has a longitudinal structure that tracks children to late stages of adult life. The data come from the Canada Revenue Agency’s tax data files and provide access to parent and child income information from 1978 to 2016. In terms of geographic mobility, analyses show that the deterioration of social mobility in Quebec is mainly the result of two phenomena: on the one hand, the deterioration of the socio-economic status of young people residing outside major urban centres at age 16 and having grown up in a family at the bottom of the income distribution, and improving the situation of young people from the same regions who grew up in families at the top of the income distribution. → Read the full report The authors will present the analyses and results of their study on October 30, 2023. Further details will be available soon. Malgré des initiatives pour promouvoir l’égalité des chances, la reproduction des inégalités de génération en génération s’est aggravée au Québec dans les dernières décennies. Les jeunes ayant grandi dans un milieu moins favorisé sont plus susceptibles de rester au bas de l’échelle une fois adulte. On sait que l’éducation est un facteur clé de mobilité sociale. Une étude CIRANO aborde la question sous un autre angle, soit celui de la mobilité géographique. Ses auteurs suivent le parcours de près de 1, 4 million de jeunes et montrent que le manque de mobilité sociale affecte davantage les jeunes qui ont grandi hors des grandes villes, et particulièrement ceux qui y vivent encore à l’aube de la trentaine. Cette étude est la première à examiner l’influence de la mobilité géographique sur la transmission intergénérationnelle du revenu au Québec. Elle s’appuie sur la Base de données sur la mobilité intergénérationnelle du revenu (BDMIR) de Statistique Canada dont la structure longitudinale permet de suivre les enfants jusqu’à un stade avancé de leur vie adulte. Les données proviennent des fichiers de données fiscales de l’Agence du revenu du Canada et donnent accès aux informations sur le revenu des parents et des enfants de 1978 à 2016. Sous l'angle de la mobilité géographique, les analyses montrent que la détérioration de la mobilité sociale au Québec résulte principalement de deux phénomènes : d’une part, de la détérioration du statut socioéconomique des jeunes résidant hors des grands centres urbains à 16 ans et ayant grandi dans une famille au bas de la distribution des revenus, et d’autre part, de l’amélioration de la situation des jeunes des mêmes régions ayant grandi dans des familles au sommet de la distribution des revenus. → Lire le rapport complet Les auteurs présenteront les analyses et résultats de leur étude le 30 octobre 2023. Plus de détails seront disponibles prochainement. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational transmission of income, internal migration, rural regions, urban regions, Quebec, inequalities, human capital, Transmission intergénérationnelle du revenu, migration interne, régions rurales, régions urbaines, Québec, inégalités, capital humain |
| Date: | 2023–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:circah:2023pj-08&r=his |
| By: | Francisco J. Marco-Garcia (Universidad de Zaragoza); Víctor A. Luque de Haro (University of Almería) |
| Keywords: | Adult mortality, socioeconomic differences, inequality, Spain |
| JEL: | I14 N33 J11 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0238&r=his |
| By: | Ahmed, Muhammad Ashfaq; Nawaz, Nasreen |
| Abstract: | The invisible hand of a perfectly competitive market refers to the self-regulating behavior of the market where if each consumer and producer is allowed to freely make their own choices, the market settles at an efficient outcome which is beneficial to all the individual members of the society and hence to the society as a whole. Two well-known facets of the invisible hand are generally mentioned in the economics literature - the first one is a static picture of a perfectly competitive market, i.e., a competitive market is efficient in an equilibrium; and the second one is that if the competitive market is disturbed from its equilibrium position, in the absence of a market failure and frictions, the market automatically settles at a new efficient equilibrium. Existing literature does not consider the most important dynamic facet of the perfectly competitive market from perspective of Pareto efficiency, i.e., how efficient is a perfectly competitive market on the dynamic adjustment path after an economic shock in the absence of all kinds of frictions and price rigidities, and if all the ideal conditions are maintained. This research models the dynamic facet of the market and concludes that Adam Smith's perfectly competitive market is not Pareto efficient and coordinated actions of economic agents can result in a level of economic efficiency on the dynamic adjustment path which is not achievable by a free market mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic efficiency, Adjustment Path, Equilibrium, Coordination |
| JEL: | D40 D41 D50 E32 |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:118362&r=his |
| By: | Duncan, Brian (University of Colorado Denver); Trejo, Stephen (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | The authors explore unique complete-count data from the 1930 Census in which a respondent's race was assigned by enumerators and "Mexican" was one of the possible responses. Census enumerators frequently and selectively assigned a non-Mexican race— predominantly "white"—to U.S.-born individuals of Mexican ancestry. As a result, using enumerator-assigned race to identify Mexican Americans misses a sizeable fraction of the relevant population and significantly understates this group's socioeconomic attainment. The propensity for Census enumerators to identify Mexican Americans as white varied enormously across U.S. counties, and this variation is strongly associated with both the educational attainment of U.S.-born Mexican Americans observed in the 1940 Census and the amount of return migration by Mexican immigrants during the 1930s. As such, this variation may help to identify local environments that were more favorable for the integration of Mexican Americans. |
| Keywords: | race, ethnicity, Mexican Americans, immigrant assimilation, intergenerational progress |
| JEL: | J15 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16402&r=his |
| By: | Michael A. Clemens (Center for Global Development; IZA; CReAM) |
| Abstract: | The past several decades have witnessed a rebirth of global labor mobility. Workers have begun to move between countries at rates not seen since before World War One. During the same period, economists’ study of international migration has been framed by a particular textbook model of location choice. This paper reviews the evidence on the economic causes and effects of global migration during the past half century. That evidence falsifies most of the core predictions of the old model. The economics of migration will regain vitality and relevance by discarding and replacing its outworn paradigm. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:606&r=his |
| By: | Minniti, Maria (SMU Cox School of Business); Naudé, Wim (RWTH Aachen University); Stam, Erik (Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | We review Baumol's typology of productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship. We argue that the typology is relevant for explaining the secular decline in business dynamics. To the existing explanations for this decline, we put forward the thesis that entrepreneurship has become less productive, due to the unintended effects of entrepreneurship policies adopted widely in Western economies. These have straight-jacketed, distracted and zombified entrepreneurship. Removing these constraints on productive entrepreneurship would require that the decline in level-two institutions, such as democracy and science, be halted and reversed. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, economic growth, economic development, institutions, Baumol |
| JEL: | L26 L21 L53 O40 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16408&r=his |
| By: | Tania Babina; Simcha Barkai; Jessica Jeffers; Ezra Karger; Ekaterina Volkova |
| Abstract: | We hand-collect and standardize information describing all 3, 055 antitrust lawsuits brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) between 1971 and 2018. Using restricted establishment-level microdata from the U.S. Census, we compare the economic outcomes of a non-tradable industry in states targeted by DOJ antitrust lawsuits to outcomes of the same industry in other states that were not targeted. We document that DOJ antitrust enforcement actions permanently increase employment by 5.4% and business formation by 4.1%. Using an event-study design, we find (1) a sharp increase in payroll that exceeds the increase in employment, meaning that DOJ antitrust enforcement increases average wages, (2) an economically smaller increase in sales that is statistically insignificant, and (3) a precise increase in the labor share. While we cannot separately measure the quantity and price of output, the increase in production inputs (employment), together with a proportionally smaller increase in sales, strongly suggests that these DOJ antitrust enforcement actions increase the quantity of output and simultaneously decrease the price of output. Our results show that government antitrust enforcement leads to persistently higher levels of economic activity in targeted industries. |
| JEL: | E24 J21 K21 L4 L40 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31597&r=his |
| By: | Stefan Nikolić (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | This article leverages uniquely abundant town-level data to examine spatial inequality in prices and wages during the First Globalisation. I build a new dataset on prices of traded and household goods, and wages of skilled and unskilled workers for a panel of 42 towns in Serbia, in the period from 1863 to 1910. I apply the welfare ratio approach to calculate real wages of day labourers and masons. I find strong convergence in grain prices and costs of living, but divergence in wages, both nominal and real. I estimate panel-data models to explore drivers of inter-urban differences in prices and wages. The main results suggest that falling transport costs decreased price gaps, whereas rising population differences increased wage gaps. The findings are consistent with theoretical predictions of new economic geography and urban economics. |
| Keywords: | market integration, grain prices, real wages, Serbia, pre-1913 |
| JEL: | N33 N73 N93 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0232&r=his |
| By: | Magnus Neubert (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) |
| Abstract: | What is the effect of state capacity on economic development? I argue that strong and centralised states are capable of mobilising the resources required to establish an efficient administration and provide public goods, which are preconditions for modern economic growth. To test this hypothesis, I consider the long-lasting division of Yugoslavia between the Habsburg and the Ottoman empire whose state capacity diverged enormously. I introduce a novel dataset of decomposed GDP, industrial labour force shares and state capacity of 344 micro-regions in Yugoslavia shortly after the dissolution of those empires. By applying a spatial regression discontinuity design along the imperial border, I find that the Habsburg empire had a substantial positive effect on economic development and state capacity. Three types of causal mechanism analysis allow me to estimate the causal effect of state capacity on economic development. I find that a one standard deviation increase in state capacity enhances GDP per capita by 8-11% and the industrial labour force by 21-29%. My results shed new light on the medium-term effects of state capacity on economic development and the mechanisms at work. |
| Keywords: | State Capacity, Economic Development, Habsburg Empire, Yugoslavia |
| JEL: | H41 H70 N14 O18 O43 R12 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0231&r=his |
| By: | Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán (Wageningen University) |
| Abstract: | This article reviews the proximate factors of human welfare since 1870 by discussing two strands of the economic history literature and identifying various key areas for further research. The first strand focuses on level accounting studies that attribute between-country economic inequality to differences in capital and productivity. I argue that most income gaps in the late 19th century were due to variation in physical and human capital endowments, while widening productivity differentials account for most of rising cross-country inequality during the 20th century. These patterns are likely explained by waves of skill- and capital- biased technological innovation, but additional research is needed to underpin these findings in, at least, three ways: capital and income series should be deflated by appropriate price indices, samples should include many more lower-income countries and methodologies could explore more realistic production functions. The second strand of the literature I review considers the measurement of long-run human development. Three approaches are popular among practitioners (capability, data-driven and utility frameworks), although there is still no consensus on which one to use. This makes it challenging to interpret broad trends in human welfare, as different well-being indices show contrasting patterns of growth and inequality. I argue that the field needs a more solid theoretical foundation to guide our choice of measurement frameworks. In this respect, utility-based indicators may be especially useful, as they address relevant issues raised in the literature, such as how to weight different dimensions, how individuals trade off between them, and how to interpret the results. |
| Keywords: | capital, productivity, human development, well-being, economic history |
| JEL: | I31 N00 N10 N30 O47 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0237&r=his |
| By: | Fontan, Clément; Goutsmedt, Aurélien (UC Louvain - F.R.S-FNRS) |
| Abstract: | The recent resurgence of inflation in Europe has led the ECB to increase interest rates and phase out asset purchase programs designed to address the effects of the Great Financial Crisis. This article investigates how the ECB adjusts its logic of responsibility throughout this series of crises. Using a topic model and in-depth analysis of speeches, we examine the ECB's strategic framing of causal linkages related to inflation during three historical periods: the Central Bank Independence (CBI) era (1998-2011), the secular stagnation era (2011-2021), and the new inflation era (2021-). Our findings indicate that modifications made to the CBI's causal linkages during the secular stagnation era shaped the ECB's framing of the new inflation era in a novel way. However, despite acknowledging difficult policy tradeoffs, which they tended to obscure in the past, ECB policymakers still seek to uphold the imperative of responsibility by adapting it to varying policy contexts. |
| Date: | 2023–08–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:92r54&r=his |