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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2023‒12‒04
23 papers chosen by |
| By: | Falk, Marcus (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new estimates of the material livings standards among the rural population in southern Sweden from the 1680’s up to 1865. Utilizing a newly constructed database of circa 1800 probate inventories from the benchmark periods 1680-1720, 1780-85, and 1860-65, we analyse the development of consumption patterns for rural households. We find that that all rural households, no matter their socio-economic status, diversified their composition of consumption goods with a special focus towards increased comfort, rather than household reproduction, during the second half of the eighteenth century. The most visible change was in the diversification of cooking- and dining-ware, which corresponds to a contemporary rebuilding of peasant homes to include purpose-built kitchens. This diversification and increase in comfortable consumption furthermore correspond with a diversification of household production strategies during a period of stagnant, of even decreasing, economic growth before the Swedish economic catch-up of the nineteenth century. This suggests that changes in consumption during the period were a conscious decision, likely made possible by increasing access to credit and inter-regional markets. |
| Keywords: | Early modern history; Early modern Sweden; Material history; Consumption; Industrious Revolution |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2023–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0254&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | The paper is a book review of Sergio Cremaschi's David Ricardo. An Intellectual Biography, published in 2022. It argues that Cremaschi's book testifies to the difficulty of applying intellectual history to the biographical genre, which is concerned with the portrait of an individual rather than the picture of a milieu. The paper nevertheless concludes that the book will be read with pleasure by all those who admire in Ricardo the fascinating economist that was also a gracious person. |
| Keywords: | Ricardo David, Biography, Intellectual history, economic epistemology |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04257066&r=his |
| By: | Antonin Bergeaud; Cyril Verluise |
| Abstract: | Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of data, especially in Europe. In this paper, we introduce PatentCity, a novel dataset on the location and nature of patentees from the 19th century using information derived from an automated extraction of relevant information from patent documents published by the German, French, British and US Intellectual Property offices. This dataset has been constructed with the view of facilitating the exploration of the geography of innovation and includes additional information on citizenship and occupation of inventors |
| Keywords: | history of innovation, patent, text as data |
| Date: | 2022–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:poidwp:033&r=his |
| By: | Stephen Broadberry (Nuffield College, Oxford); Jason Lennard (London School of Economics (LSE)) |
| Abstract: | The modern business cycle features long expansions combined with short recessions, and is thus related to the emergence of sustained economic growth. It also features significant international co-movement, and is therefore associated with growing market integration and globalisation. When did these patterns first appear? This paper explores the changing nature of the business cycle using historical national accounts for nine European economies between 1300 and 2000. For the sample as a whole, the modern business cycle emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Business cycle, economic growth, Europe |
| JEL: | N10 E32 O47 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2323&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | For de Cecco power relations are central in the working of the pre-WWI international gold standard. He gives an illustration of that in the chapter of Money and Empire devoted to the relationship between Britain and India, where the gold-exchange standard is presented as a way for Britain to get hold of India's trade surplus with the rest of the world in order to balance her own international accounts. On the contrary, Keynes praised the Indian gold-exchange standard as a system which not only allowed stabilising India's relations with the outside world but also pointed the way to a better-regulated monetary system for any country, in the line of Ricardo's Ingot Plan nearly one century older. The same notion may thus be seen alternatively as a powerful tool of domination or as a good practical idea. The paper describes how Lindsay adapted Ricardo's scheme to India and contrasts de Cecco's and Keynes's interpretations of the Indian gold-exchange standard, before suggesting that monetary ideas can prevail in their own right when they are theoretically well-founded and practically feasible, independently of the power relations they may reflect. |
| Keywords: | Gold exchange Standard, India, De Cecco, Keynes John M, Lindsay, Ricardo David |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04253424&r=his |
| By: | K. Pun Winichakul; Ning Zhang |
| Abstract: | To what extent have immigrants contributed to the growth of the United States arts sector? In this paper, we explore the impact of immigration during the Age of Mass Migration on the development of the arts in the U.S. over the past century. In the short run, our results suggest that immigration helped produce greater numbers of native artists. Over a century later, the bene fits to the arts persist. Counties with greater historical immigration house more arts businesses and nonprofit organizations that generate more revenue, employ a larger proportion of the community, and earn more federal arts grants. When considering potential mechanisms, our analysis suggests that greater interaction between the aggregate immigrant population and natives led to increased exposure to new arts experiences and ideas, creating arts markets that persisted in the long run. This channel is further supported by positive links between the presence of immigrants from certain countries of origin and the growth of art forms popular in those countries, and evidence of long-run benefits to the arts that cannot be attributed to higher income in a causal mediation analysis. Altogether, our results highlight the important role that immigrants played in the development of the arts in America. |
| Date: | 2022–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:993&r=his |
| By: | David Le Bris; William N. Goetzmann; Sébastien Pouget |
| Abstract: | The origin of the modern publicly-held joint-stock company is typically traced to large-scale maritime trading companies in England and the Netherlands in the early 17th century. Highlighting medieval cases in southern Europe, we claim that the joint-stock company likely emerged in several times and places, in response to a similar set of needs and requirements for coordinating large-scale enterprises. These prior appearances support the theory of convergent evolution toward the joint-stock company. We document the different legal genealogies of the various paths, their independence and their socio-economic contexts. These observations have implications for identifying the necessary legal and political background underlying the emergence of the joint-stock company, and for the debate regarding the link between institutions and economic development. |
| JEL: | G30 K22 N20 N43 O43 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31821&r=his |
| By: | Barros, Gustavo |
| Abstract: | The second coffee valorization was atypical among other valorization operations of the First Republic. The context in which it was undertaken, marked by the First World War and its repercussions on international trade and financial markets, forced the support of coffee prices to be financed with internal resources, which were generated by means of paper-money emissions. This circumstance displaced tensions to the internal political field, with its implications for the conflicts and negotiations associated to the program. This article aims at examining the second valorization from this perspective, focusing on the parliamentary clashes and bargains surrounding the "national defense" decree of 1917, which authorized the emissions and thus generated the resources for the defense of coffee. The second valorization was more contentious than usually portrayed by the literature, and was subject to resistance to the use of paper-money for this purpose and, specially, to disputes over the allocation of resources from emission, as well as to regional bargains which would reverberate on the government policy for the steel and coal sectors in the following decade. |
| Keywords: | Coffee valorization; First World War; Monetary policy; Fist Republic; Brazil |
| JEL: | N16 N46 N56 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119179&r=his |
| By: | Barber, Luke; Jetter, Michael; Krieger, Tim |
| Abstract: | Can religiosity sway a society's propensity for violence against outgroups? We first introduce two state-year-level religiosity measures for several pre-Enlightenment European states with the frequencies of religious language in book publications and Christian names of newborns. To identify causal effects on warfare, we exploit the local visibility of solar eclipses - phenomena orthogonal to climatic, cultural, economic, environmental, and institutional developments that, in pre-Enlightenment Europe, were overwhelmingly viewed as supernatural, religious events. Accounting for dyad- and year-fixed effects, we observe positive, statistically significant, and quantitatively sizeable effects on subsequent attack war onset. Reduced form estimates, robustness checks (e.g., acknowledging dyad-specific time trends), and placebo exercises yield consistent patterns. Exploring mechanisms, religious terminology explicit to religious outgroups (specifically Jews and Muslims) spikes in solar eclipse years and predicts attack war onset, particularly against Islamic states. Finally, consistent with the idea of a religious primer highlighting ingroup-outgroup demarcations and exacerbating tensions along such lines, city-year-level solar eclipses also predict Jewish expulsions and witch trials in pre-Enlightenment Europe. |
| Keywords: | religiosity, warfare, ingroup-outgroup demarcations, anti-Semitism, witch trials |
| JEL: | D74 F51 H56 N33 N43 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:279791&r=his |
| By: | Kevin L. Kliesen |
| Abstract: | An inverted Treasury yield curve—an historically accurate predictor of recessions—has followed two-thirds of the Fed’s tightening episodes since the early 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Treasury yield curve; federal funds target rate; Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) |
| Date: | 2022–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:94131&r=his |
| By: | Issing, Otmar |
| Abstract: | In his speech at the conference "The SNB and its Watchers", Otmar Issing, member of the ECB Governing Council from its start in 1998 until 2006, takes a look back at more than twenty years of the conference series "The ECB and Its Watchers". In June 1999, Issing established this format together with Axel Weber, then Director of the Center for Financial Studies, to discuss the monetary policy strategy of the newly founded central bank with a broad circle of participants, that is academics, bank economists and members of the media on a "neutral ground". At the annual conference, the ECB and its representatives would play an active role and engage in a lively exchange of view with the other participants. Over the years, Volker Wieland took over as organizer of the conference series, which also was adopted by other central banks. In his contribution at the second conference "The SNB and its Watchers", Issing summarizes the experience gained from over twenty years of the ECB Watchers Conference. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:imfswp:279792&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the chapter is to challenge two widely-held myths about Ricardo's theory of money and to suggest another view in which the relationship between the value and the quantity of money owes nothing to a commodity-theory of money (Section 2) or to the Quantity Theory of Money (Section 3) but puts the market price of the standard of money centre-stage (Section 4). Ricardo's applied pronouncements on money then appear as direct consequences of this theory (Section 5). |
| Keywords: | Ricardo David, Money, Standard of money, Quantity theory of money, Monetary policy |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04257033&r=his |
| By: | Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Torsten Santavirta |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run effect of early adulthood prison camp exposure on mortality using an examiner design and data on 6, 961 former prisoners during the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Our descriptive analysis shows a statistically significant adverse association and a dose response between prison sentence length and old-age mortality. Our instrumental variable design exploits the variation in judge sentence tendency across quasi-randomly assigned judges. We document an effect of sentence length on old-age mortality that is five times larger than the estimated associations. We show that our causal estimates have a local average treatment effect interpretation for the compliers. Keywords: Civil war, Ageing, Mortality, Examiner design |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2023-045&r=his |
| By: | Catelén, Ana Laura; Nicolini Alessi, Esteban Alberto |
| Abstract: | An updated descriptive analysis of the cyclical behavior of the main macroeconomic variables in Argentina between 1880 and 2020 suggests that the dynamics changed substantially since 1976. Specifically, we observed changes in the phases’ duration, amplitude, and excess and that economic volatility did decrease when the economy was relatively more closed between 1945 and 1976 but it increased again until 2020. |
| Keywords: | Ciclos Económicos; Volatilidad; Argentina; 1880-2020; |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:3972&r=his |
| By: | W. Bentley MacLeod; James Malcomson |
| Abstract: | Implicit Contracts, incentive compatibility, and involuntary unemployment” (MacLeod and Malcomson, 1989) remains our most highly cited work. We briefly review the development of this paper and of our subsequent related work, and conclude with reflections on the future of relational contract theory and practice. |
| Date: | 2023–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:997&r=his |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | In the 1960s, sub-Saharan Africa experienced a major diplomatic offensive by Israel. Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana was the first country to establish diplomatic and economic relations. Others soon followed, so that by the mid-1960s some forty African countries were receiving agricultural and military aid from Israel and benefiting from scholarships for their students. Israel's involvement was facilitated by the CIA's activities in Africa at the time, which were conceived and funded by the United States and other Western powers as their "third force" in Africa. Since then, the situation has evolved due to Africans' growing solidarity with the Palestinians and their rejection of Israel's "apartheid" system of systematic discrimination against non-Israeli populations. Israel lost the support of most SSA countries in the early 1970s because of its collaboration with apartheid South Africa. As Nelson Mandela said, "South Africa will never be free until Palestine is free". At its 12th Ordinary Session in Kampala in 1975, the OAU for the first time identified Israel's founding ideology, Zionism, as a form of racism. Nevertheless, several African countries continued to maintain low-level contacts through thirteen foreign embassies, for example in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire, while educational and commercial exchanges continued, albeit on a much reduced scale and away from the public eye. But the scourge of Islamist terrorism necessitated a revival of relations. Military and security cooperation, including cyber security, is particularly intensive with Ethiopia, Zaire, Uganda, Ghana, Togo and South Africa, for example. It has also often served to prop up despotic African regimes. Today, sub-Saharan Africa is a lucrative market for the Israeli defence industry. |
| Keywords: | Israël; UA; Palestiniens; immigration africaine en Israël; main d'œuvre immigrée; envois de fonds; traite des êtres humains; contrebande; aide militaire; coup d'État; gouvernance; développement durable; secteur informel; APD; Conseil de paix et de sécurité; Afrique subsaharienne; relations Israël-Afrique du Sud; Nigeria; Érythrée; Rwanda; Éthiopie; Égypte; Soudan; études africaines; |
| JEL: | D31 D62 D72 D74 E26 F22 F35 F51 F52 F53 F54 F55 H12 H56 N47 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119007&r=his |
| By: | Grillitsch, Markus (CIRCLE, Lund University); Asheim, Björn (CIRCLE, Lund University); Fünfschilling, Lea (CIRCLE, Lund University); Kelmenson, Sophie (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Lowe, Nicola (CIRCLE, Lund University); Lundquist, Karl Johan (CIRCLE, Lund University); Mahmoud, Yahia (CIRCLE, Lund University); Martynovich, Mikhail (CIRCLE, Lund University); Mattson, Pauline (CIRCLE, Lund University); Miörner, Johan (CIRCLE, Lund University); Nilsson, Magnus (CIRCLE, Lund University); Schubert, Torben (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Rescaling as a concept has been used to investigate and explain shifting patterns in economic and industrial development. This ranges from processes explaining the shift towards globalisation in the 1980s to current calls for shifts towards decarbonisation, national security, and more even development, which profoundly affect the organisation of economies and industries. This paper aims to unpack the notion of rescaling, identify and elaborate on different dimensions of rescaling, and use rescaling as conceptual and analytical lens to discuss and understand shifting patterns in economic and industrial development. We explore the potential of rescaling to capture the complex processes underpinning such shifts in patterns with a unifying language that connects multiple disciplinary perspectives. It is also relevant from a societal perspective as rescaling has been used as a strategy to affect the patterns in economic and industrial development. |
| Keywords: | economic development; industrial dynamics; globalisation; technological regimes; industrial policy; sustainable development |
| JEL: | F02 F50 F60 L50 L60 O10 O30 |
| Date: | 2023–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2023_011&r=his |
| By: | Kevin L. Kliesen |
| Abstract: | How key interest rate-sensitive economic variables fared during previous Fed tightening may offer insights into their performance during the present tightening. |
| Keywords: | Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC); federal funds target rate |
| Date: | 2022–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:94132&r=his |
| By: | Carl White |
| Abstract: | Federal regulators are proposing changes to regulations for the Community Reinvestment Act, nearly 20 years since the last major overhaul of its rules. |
| Keywords: | Community Reinvestment Act; regulations |
| Date: | 2022–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:94235&r=his |
| By: | Tomohiro Hirano (Royal Holloway, University of London; Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); Canon Institute for Global Studies); Alexis Akira Toda (University of California San Diego) |
| Abstract: | This article provides a self-contained overview of the theory of rational asset price bubbles. We cover topics from basic definitions, properties, and classical results to frontier research, with an emphasis on bubbles attached to real assets such as stocks, housing, and land. The main message is that bubbles attached to real assets are fundamentally nonstationary phenomena related to unbalanced growth. We present a bare-bones model and draw three new insights: (i) the emergence of asset price bubbles is a necessity, instead of a possibility; (ii) asset pricing implications are markedly different between balanced growth of stationary nature and unbalanced growth of nonstationary nature; and (iii) asset price bubbles occur within larger historical trends involving shifts in industrial structure driven by technological innovation, including the transition from the Malthusian economy to the modern economy. |
| Keywords: | bubbles attached to real assets, necessity versus possibility, nonstationarity, technological progress, unbalanced growth |
| JEL: | D53 E44 G12 O16 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2322&r=his |
| By: | Catherine L. Mann |
| Abstract: | In this Women in Economics Podcast episode, Catherine Mann shares how data led her to a career in economics and the importance of mentorship in the field. |
| Keywords: | women in economics |
| Date: | 2022–08–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:94645&r=his |
| By: | Putri, Dea Amelia |
| Abstract: | The thought of Islamic economics has emerged at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic economy had been developed by Khulafaur Rasyidin after the death of the Prophet PBUH such as Abu Bakar ash-Shiddiq, Umar ibn Khattab, Utsman ibn Affan, Ali ibn Abi Thalib. The aim of this paper is to explain the development of economy during the of Khulafaur Rasyidin and their policies |
| Date: | 2023–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:avh97&r=his |
| By: | Patrick T. Harker |
| Abstract: | At a lecture at Northwestern University, Philadelphia Fed President and CEO Patrick Harker emphasized the connection between transportation infrastructure and the economy. Harker noted that it has been 70 years since the “nation’s last, great infrastructure boom” and that decisions about the future of infrastructure provide an opportunity to look at not just the costs, but “the long-range economic and quality of life benefits.” He pointed to Philadelphia Fed research, which he believes “can be put into action to help us achieve a stronger economic and more reliable transportation future.” As for Harker’s economic outlook, he said that while he sees “us on the path of taming inflation and protecting our economic underpinnings, ” he would “caution that a decrease in the policy rate is not something that is likely to happen in the short term.” |
| Date: | 2023–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpsp:97265&r=his |