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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2024‒01‒08
fifty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Castañeda Garza , Diego (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Silva Castañeda, Sergio (Banco de México) |
| Abstract: | This paper underscores demographic dynamics as a silent force shaping Mexico's 19th-century narrative, enhancing our comprehension of the nation's historical evolution. By examining the aftermath of American expansion (1846-1848) and the subsequent French intervention, this study shifts the focus from traditional state capacity discussions to demographic trends. It reevaluates Mexico's state formation during the 19th century and reveals the intrinsic role of demographic dynamics. Analyzing population trends at critical junctures, this research illuminates Mexico's vulnerability during its formative years. The transformation of Mexico's demographic landscape post-Mexican-American War becomes pivotal, laying the foundation for a more robust state in the face of foreign threats. The shift from a sparsely populated frontier to a strategically controlled border forms the core of this exploration, demonstrating how demographic shifts influenced territorial dominance and state resilience. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of Mexico's historical evolution through the lens of demographic dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Wars; State formation; Native Americans; Mexico; Modernization |
| JEL: | F51 H56 N46 P16 |
| Date: | 2023–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2023_007&r=his |
| By: | Gabbuti, Giacomo; Morelli, Salvatore |
| Abstract: | Despite its relevance in 19th-century economics, wealth – its accumulation, composition, and distribution – has largely been neglected in Italian economic history. Filling this gap, we show that between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, Italy presented a historically high value of total private wealth but had relatively small relevance in total bequests flows in proportion to national income. Then, we present novel estimates of wealth concentration between 1863 and 1914, combining national tabulations of inheritance tax records and microdata archives for Milan and Naples. During this period, wealth concentration in Italy was in line with the highest levels ever recorded since the late Middle Ages. Contrary to the evidence of declining income inequality in the period – traditionally considered the industrial ‘take-off’ phase of Italy – we find no clear signs of trends in wealth concentration or structural changes in wealth composition. This picture is confirmed and enriched by novel findings about wealth concentration at provincial and regional levels in the early 20th century. We show a great deal of heterogeneity beyond national aggregates but find no evidence of the classic North-South divide when looking at concentration. Likewise, we find no clear link between concentration levels and asset composition or economic development. Although contemporary inequality is much lower than early 20th-century figures, the ‘real’ wealth of present ‘millionaires’ seems much higher than that of historically rich individuals. Overall, the paper lays the basis for a very long-run view of wealth in Italy and reconsiders the impact of its industrialization at the end of the Liberal period. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2023–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5psha&r=his |
| By: | Elias Julio Jorge; Castro Walter |
| Abstract: | Many scholars, especially from other disciplines, have voiced concerns regarding an oversimplified interpretation of Adam Smith's ideas, asserting that it has been exploited to advance a particular free market ideology. This paper uses Galenson's economic framework for creativity to analyze Adam Smith's approach to innovation and some of his main contributions. Galenson distinguishes between two types of innovators in art: the conceptual and the experimental. We show that Smith exhibits all the characteristics of the experimental innovator. His experimental approach is evident in the development of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and many of the ideas developed in The Wealth of Nations. Smith has had a significant influence on important conceptual innovators in economics of the 20th century, such as Paul Samuelson, George Stigler, Robert Lucas and Gary Becker. Conceptual innovators often tend to simplify by using abstraction. Their effort to formalize and incorporate Smith ideas using a conceptual language may explain why there is a simplified understanding of Smith and his contributions. |
| JEL: | B12 O31 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4649&r=his |
| By: | Bergquist, Ann-Kristin (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Lindmark, Magnus (Unit of Economic History, Umeå University) |
| Abstract: | The climate crisis is at the core of attention to the need for an energy transition at a scale resembling a new ‘low carbon’ industrial revolution. As energy transitions are relatively exceptional and prolonged processes, social scientists have increasingly turned their attention to historical experiences for lessons about how they might unfold in the future. Against this backdrop, the paper examines how the present political economy and barriers for energy transitions compare with past energy transitions. The paper argues that formidable challenges posed by existing energy regimes. Established over centuries and having played a foundational role in the development of modern capitalism since the Industrial Revolution, these 'incumbent' regimes or ‘historical blocks’ are not easily displaced. It urges economic historians to move beyond its traditional focus on how energy via technological change has created new economic growth opportunities and look more into the barriers for energy transition embedded in the architecture of the political economy. |
| Keywords: | Energy transitions; economic history; business history; political economy |
| JEL: | N50 N70 Q40 Q50 |
| Date: | 2023–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2023_011&r=his |
| By: | Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim and CEPR); Casper Worm Hansen (University of Copenhagen and CEPR); Peter Z. Lin (Western Kentucky University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the first effective medical treatment for an infectious disease -diphtheria antitoxin- on the historical health transition in the United States. Using an instrumental variable for local antitoxin adoption rates and information from approximately 1.6 million death certificates from 1880 to 1914, we find that the rapid diffusion of antitoxin led to a substantial decline in diphtheria mortality rates and increased life expectancy at birth. Exposure to antitoxin also significantly reduced school absenteeism. Overall, our results suggest that medicine played a more important role in increasing life expectancy in the early 20th century than previously thought. |
| Keywords: | Life expectancy, medical technology, antitoxin |
| JEL: | J11 N32 I15 |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0241&r=his |
| By: | Ali Almelhem (The World Bank); Murat Iyigun (University of Colorado, Boulder & IZA); Austin Kennedy (University of Colorado, Boulder); Jared Rubin (Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | Using textual analysis of 173, 031 works printed in England between 1500 and 1900, we test whether British culture evolved to manifest a heightened belief in progress associated with science and industry. Our analysis yields three main fndings. First, there was a separation in the language of science and religion beginning in the 17th century. Second, scientifc volumes became more progress-oriented during the Enlightenment. Third, industrial works—especially those at the science-political economy nexus—were more progress-oriented beginning in the 17th century. It was therefore the more pragmatic, industrial works which refected the cultural values cited as important for Britain’s takeof. |
| Keywords: | language, religion, science, political economy, progressiveness, Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution |
| JEL: | C81 C88 N33 N63 O14 Z11 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:23-13&r=his |
| By: | Skoglund, William (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I use a new plant-level dataset to investigate the relationship between wages and the regional strength of unions. Using a shift-share or ’Bartik’ instrumental variables approach, I disentangle the causal effect of union strength on wage levels. I find statistically and economically significant, heterogeneous union wage effects for men with the bottom of the distribution being impacted by union density and the top two-thirds being unaffected. I find a negative effect around the median for women and argue that unions, in general, were uninterested in the issues for women and were organizations mostly for men, by men. The paper contributes to the literature by providing the only evidence of a union wage effect in Sweden and, the earliest identified union wage effect anywhere—highlighting the importance of unions in shaping labor market outcomes in the early 20th century and showing that union wage effects have to be understood in their historical context. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market; Union Effect; Wages |
| JEL: | J01 J31 J51 |
| Date: | 2023–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2023_009&r=his |
| By: | Miriam Fritzsche; Nikolaus Wolf |
| Abstract: | Fossil fuels have shaped the European economy since the industrial revolution. We use new long-run panel data to analyse the effect of both, coal and oil on economic growth between 1900 and 2015, exploiting variation at the level of European NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions. We show that the reversal of fortune of coal regions resulted from the second energy transition. Specifically, an “oil invasion” in the early 1960s turned regional coal abundance from a blessing into a curse. Human capital accumulation contributed to this reversal of fortune and fully explains the negative effects until today. Moreover, we find substantial heterogeneity between former coal regions that is in line with Glaeser’s “reinvention hypothesis”: regions with a higher skill-level adjusted much better to the decline of coal. In particular, we show that coal regions with a higher urban density before 1800 were much more resilient than others. |
| Keywords: | coal, oil invasion, second energy transition, education, reinvention, growth |
| JEL: | O13 O44 Q32 N14 R10 I25 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10805&r=his |
| By: | Miriam Fritzsche (HU Berlin); Nikolaus Wolf (HU Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Fossil fuels have shaped the European economy since the industrial revolution. We use new long-run panel data to analyse the effect of both, coal and oil on economic growth between 1900 and 2015, exploiting variation at the level of European NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions. We show that the reversal of fortune of coal regions resulted from the second energy transition. Specifically, an “oil invasion” in the early 1960s turned regional coal abundance from a blessing into a curse. Human capital accumulation contributed to this reversal of fortune and fully explains the negative effects until today. Moreover, we find substantial heterogeneity between former coal regions that is in line with Glaeser’s “reinvention hypothesis”: regions with a higher skill-level adjusted much better to the decline of coal. In particular, we show that coal regions with a higher urban density before 1800 were much more resilient than others. |
| Keywords: | coal; oil invasion; second energy transition; education; reinvention; growth; |
| JEL: | O13 O44 Q32 N14 R10 I25 |
| Date: | 2023–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:465&r=his |
| By: | Victoria Gierok |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) on urban economies in the Holy Roman Empire. It presents further evidence for Germany’s economic decline in the early modern period. Based on two novel datasets comprising data on civic wealth, public revenues, public expenditure and debt levels for 17 cities it shows that civic wealth declined by 34 percent on average. Urban communities con tributed substantially to the financing of the Thirty Years’ War: Local contributions exceeded Imperial war-financing by at least a factor of five. Over 50 percent of this expenditure came from direct wealth taxation and debt issue. This means extraction plays a substantial role in explaining the urban wealth decline during this period. |
| Date: | 2023–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_210&r=his |
| By: | Kasey Buckles; Joseph Price; Zachary Ward; Haley E.B. Wilbert |
| Abstract: | Efforts to document long-term trends in socioeconomic mobility in the United States have been hindered by the lack of large, representative datasets that include information linking parents to their adult children. This problem has been especially acute for women, who are more difficult to link because their surnames often change between childhood and adulthood. In this paper, we use a new dataset, the Census Tree, that overcomes these issues by building on information from an online genealogy platform. Users of the platform have private information that allows them to create links among the 1850 to 1940 decennial censuses; the Census Tree combines these links with others obtained using machine learning and traditional linking methods to produce a dataset with hundreds of millions of census-to-census links, nearly half of which are for women. With these data, we produce estimates of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status from fathers to their sons and daughters. We find that for married men and women, the patterns of mobility over this period are remarkably similar. Single women, however, are less mobile than their male counterparts. We also present new estimates that show that assortative mating was much stronger than previously estimated for the US. |
| JEL: | I30 J0 N0 N01 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31918&r=his |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany); Maria Greve (Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany); Michael Wyrwich (University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We describe and analyze the long-term development of self-employment in German regions between 1895 and 2019. Based on rankings ("league tables") for the two years we identify those regions where the relative level of self-employment significantly increased ('leapfroggers'), and those where the level of self-employment as compared to other regions deteriorated ('plungers'). Germany is a particularly interesting case due to the turbulent history of the country over the 20th century that includes two lost World Wars, occupation by foreign armies, forty years of division into a capitalist and a socialist state, as well as reunification and shock transformation of the eastern part to a market economy. While there is some persistence of regional self-employment despite all the disruptive changes, we also find and discuss considerable changes of regional levels of entrepreneurial activity. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, self-employment, regional dynamics |
| JEL: | L26 R11 O52 |
| Date: | 2024–01–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2024-001&r=his |
| By: | Wendschlag, Mikael (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | In early April 1929, eight Swedish savings banks were found insolvent and closed due to economic crimes committed by some of their founders. After the crash, the Swedish parliament entered a debate about whether the state should cover some, all or none of the losses of the failed banks’ 88 000 depositors. The debate, mainly between the right party and the social democrats, was characterized by competing narratives about the causes of the crash, whether the state should intervene or not, whether there existed an implicit deposit insurance or not, who should be covered among the depositors, by how much, and how an intervention should be funded and administered. The debate, and the policy decision, is unique in Swedish banking history and illustrate the importance of narratives to understand political responses to bank crashes and crises. The debate ended in mid-May with a decision to partially cover the depositors’ losses. |
| Keywords: | bank crashes; competing narratives; deposit insurance; memories |
| JEL: | B52 G01 G28 H12 N24 |
| Date: | 2023–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2023_008&r=his |
| By: | Barry Chiswick (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a review of the literature in economics up to the early 1980s on the issue of estimating the earnings return to schooling and labor market experience. It begins with a presentation of Adam Smith's (1776) analysis of wage determination, with the second of his five points on compensating wage differentials being "the easiness or cheapness, or the difficulty and expense" of acquiring skills. It then proceeds to the analysis by Walsh (1935) estimating the net present value of investments at various levels of educational attainment. Friedman and Kuznets (1945) also used the net present value method to study the earnings in five independent professional practices. Based on the net present value technique, Becker (1964) estimates internal rates of return from high school and college/university schooling, primarily for native-born white men, but also for other demographic groups. The first regression-based approach is the development of the schooling-earnings function by Becker and Chiswick (1966), which relates the logarithm of earnings, as a linear function of years invested in human capital, with the application to years of schooling. This was expanded by Mincer (1974) to the "human capital earnings function" (HCEF), which added years of post-school labor market experience. Attractive features of the HCEF are discussed. Extensions of the HCEF in the 1970s and early 1980s account for interrupted labor marker experience, geographic mobility, and self-employment and unpaid family workers. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Schooling Earnings Function, Human Capital Earnings Function, Schooling, Labor Market Experience, Women, Immigrants, Less Developed Countries, Self-Employed, Unpaid Workers |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J3 J46 J61 O15 B29 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2023-12&r=his |
| By: | Bajo-Rubio, Oscar; Ramos-Herrera, María del Carmen |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyse the relationship between international trade and economic growth in an unbalanced panel of 20 European countries in a long-term perspective, since the mid-19th century to present days, differentiating between the periods before and after the start of the Second World War. To this end, we perform Granger-causality tests between exports and GDP, and between imports and GDP, following the novel methodology of Juodis et al. (2021) for panel data models with large cross-sectional and time series dimensions. Our results support the existence of a bi-directional relationship between both trade variables and GDP, for the whole period and across subperiods. |
| Keywords: | International trade, Economic growth, Europe, Granger-causality |
| JEL: | F41 F43 N10 O47 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1358&r=his |
| By: | Ganzer, Andreas (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Schmucker, Alexandra (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Stegmaier, Jens (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Wolter, Stefanie (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "The Establishment History Panel (BHP) is composed of cross sectional datasets since 1975 for West Germany and 1992 for East Germany. Every cross section contains all the establishments in Germany which are covered by the IAB Employment History (BeH) on June 30th. These are all establishments with at least one employee liable to social security on the reference date. Establishments with no employee liable to social security but with at least one marginal part-time employee are included since 1999. The cross sections can be combined to form a panel. This data report describes the Establishment History Panel (BHP) 1975–2022." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; IAB-Open-Access-Publikation ; Datenaufbereitung ; Datenqualität ; Datenzugang ; IAB-Betriebs-Historik-Panel ; Datenanonymisierung ; Datensatzbeschreibung ; Imputationsverfahren ; Stichprobe ; 1975-2022 |
| Date: | 2023–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfda:202315(en)&r=his |
| By: | Jeanet Bentzen (University of Copenhagen, CAGE, CEPR); Nina Boberg-Fazlic (TU Dortmund University); Paul Sharp (University of Southern Denmark, CAGE, CEPR); Christian Volmar Skovsgaard (University of Southern Denmark); Christian Vedel (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | We consider the impact of non-violent religious conflict on firm-level productivity. We zoom in on a Protestant and otherwise very homogeneous country: early twentieth century Denmark. We exploit variation due to the emergence of pietist movements who fought for the hearts and minds of Danes. In the countryside, much of the religious debate concerned whether or not creameries - the main catalyst of the industrial revolution in Denmark - should be closed on Sundays in accordance with the Third Commandment. We construct a rich microlevel dataset for 964 creameries and combine this with various measures of the intensity of the religious conflict. Exploiting variation in preaching by a prominent religious figure, we provide plausibly causal evidence that religious conflict hampered firm-level productivity. Examining the mechanism, we proceed to demonstrate that the reduction in productivity is due to the religious conflict rather than whether or not the factory produced on Sundays. |
| Keywords: | Dairying, Denmark, productivity, religiosity |
| JEL: | N33 N34 O12 O13 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0245&r=his |
| By: | Acosta, Pablo; Baez, Javier E.; Caruso, Germán; Carcach, Carlos |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the long-term effects on human capital accumulation and subsequent labor market outcomes of in utero and early childhood exposure to the civil war in El Salvador (1980–92), the second longest and deadliest civil conflict in Central America. Identification is obtained from spatial and intertemporal variation in the intensity of the conflict drawn from historical archive data comprising records of human casualties, disappearances, and refugees. The results show that people born in highly violent areas during the civil war saw a reduction in their probability of being employed by 6 percentage points, and of getting a high-skilled job by 5 percentage points, 20 to 30 years hence. The civil war also reduced their education by 0.8 year, as well as their enrollment and literacy rates. Subgroup analysis indicates that exposed males and indigenous groups experienced the largest losses in human capital and had weaker performance in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | armed conflict; long-term impacts; El Salvador |
| JEL: | D31 I00 J13 |
| Date: | 2023–11–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120907&r=his |
| By: | Luke Barber; Michael Jetter; Tim Krieger |
| 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 (i) religious language in book publications and (ii) 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 Muslim) 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 (i) Jewish expulsions and (ii) 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:ces:ceswps:_10806&r=his |
| By: | Francisco J. Marco-Gracia (Universidad de Zaragoza); Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Víctor A. Luque de Haro (University of Almería) |
| Abstract: | Relying on longitudinal micro data from 13 Spanish rural villages between 1800 and 1910, this paper assesses whether discriminatory practices affected fertility and sex-specific mor- tality during infancy and childhood during economic crises in an area with a strong preference for sons. Our contribution is twofold. On the one hand, there is a connection between short- term economic stress, fertility, and sex ratios at baptism: high-price years were followed by a decline in the number of registered baptisms and by an increase of the sex ratios at baptism. These results therefore suggest that families mortally neglected a significant fraction of their female babies during economic crises. On the other hand, there is a connection between short- term economic stress, mortality, and sex ratios at death. Using death registers further supports this interpretation, since our evidence shows that the female biological advantage was not visible after an economic shock. In addition, gender discriminatory practices against girls during bad years seem to have compensated the male vulnerability at older ages as well. |
| Keywords: | Economic crises, sex ratios, gender discrimination, infant and child mortality |
| JEL: | J11 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0240&r=his |
| By: | Mariko Hatase (Director and senior economist, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (currently, Professor, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, E-mail: hatase@ier.hit-u.ac.jp)) |
| Abstract: | Perceptions of the effects of exchange rate fluctuations may influence policymaking processes. We examine how people understood the relationship between exchange rates and exports taking into account the interwar period in Japan, when exchange rates fluctuated and a policy debate regarding returning to the gold standard was active, as an example. The results of textual analysis drawing on newspaper articles from 1925 to 1929 assure that people clearly recognised a relationship between exchange rates and exports, while they also paid attention to the relationship between exchange rates and imports. By detailed analysis of historical materials of major export sectors, namely raw silk and cotton yarns and cotton fabrics, we find that neither sector preferred weak foreign exchange rates and they even called for the gold standard with pre-WWI parity with stronger yen rates. The results of the analyses on profit structures of those sectors show that the producers of raw silk preferred stable exchange rates to a cheaper yen because of the risk transfer system and the market structure. The results also indicate that cotton yarn and fabric sectors preferred a stronger yen for cheaper raw materials with the considerable share of domestic sales of their products. |
| Keywords: | Exchange rate, Gold standard, Exports, Imports |
| JEL: | F31 F33 N15 N65 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ime:imedps:23-e-08&r=his |
| By: | Pablo Álvarez-Aragón (Development Finance and Public Policies, University of Namur); Catherine Guirkinger; Paola Villar |
| Abstract: | The mechanisms that contribute to the enduring effects of colonial investments in education on human capital today are not well understood.This paper addresses this gap by examining the case of colonial Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We first document the enduring effects of colonial education and then analyze both demand-side channels and supply-side mechanisms. Using detailed contemporary and historical microdata, our results show that exposure to colonial Catholic and Protestant missionary education led to different demand-side mechanisms (intergenerational transmission and educational mobility triggered by missions). However, the quantitative importance of these channels seems limited in this context. On the supply side, we examine the dynamics of school location after independence. Our results suggest that the persistence of educational outcomes is primarily due to the concentration of contemporary schools around historical missions. This agglomeration effect appears to be driven by competition among religious schools of different denominations (and possibly by structural change in the vicinity of Catholic missions). As a result, girls living farther from historical missions have to travel greater distances to reach schools, which affects their enrollment more than that of boys. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nam:defipp:2305&r=his |
| By: | Kevin L. Kliesen |
| Abstract: | The 1994-95 Fed tightening episode was one of the most notable in the Fed’s history. First, the FOMC raised the policy rate by 300 basis points in a year, even though headline and core inflation were trending lower prior to the liftoff that occurred in February 1994. Second, the Fed’s actions caught the Treasury market by surprise, triggering a sharp decline in long-term bond prices. Third, Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and the Federal Open Market Committee were regularly surprised that inflation was not rising by more than the forecasts suggested during the episode. This article presents some evidence that the Greenbook forecast systemically, albeit modestly, overpredicted CPI inflation during the tightening period. Greenspan eventually concluded that the nascent strengthening in labor productivity growth that was a key factor in restraining the growth of unit labor costs, and thus in keeping inflation pressures in check. At the same time, the success of the episode stemmed importantly from the decision by Greenspan and the FOMC to increase the policy rate to a level deemed restrictive for most of 1995. This effort reduced longer-run inflation expectations without triggering a recession. By that metric the 1994-95 tightening episode was a roaring success. Although not the focus of this article, the 1994-95 tightening episode holds important lessons for the FOMC in late 2023, which is attempting to defuse a sharp and unexpected increase in headline and core inflation to levels not seen since the early 1980s without triggering a recession. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy; inflation; forecasts |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E52 E58 E65 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:97435&r=his |
| By: | Easaw, Joshy (Cardiff Business School); Ghoshray, Atanu |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this shorter paper is to estimate the trend of 18th century British slave prices. We apply robust econometric procedures on slave price data constructed by Whatley (2018) over the period 1699 to 1807 and find evidence of a structural break in 1740, thereby advocating a broken trend. We estimate the trend over two regimes demarcated by the structural break, concluding there is no significant trend in the first regime prior to 1740. However, in the second regime, slave prices show a significant positive trend increasing annually at around 2.4%. Since 1740, the slave prices are close to constant variance, lending support to the tighter confidence intervals that we obtain in the second regime. We document various accounts by historians that can help explain this steady increase, focusing on supply and demand side arguments. |
| Keywords: | Transatlantic slave trade, Slave prices, Structural breaks, trends, Britain, Africa |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2023/29&r=his |
| By: | Sven Günther (Northeast Normal University) |
| Abstract: | With the rise of New Fiscal History, models of predatory state behavior, and the application of political culture studies within the field, debate over the character of Roman taxation has regained momentum. While important topics such as the institutions of the Roman tax regime, the relationship of its actors to taxpayers, and the competitive character of the Roman elite in the field of public finances have been studied anew within these frameworks, the discursive character of the sources has rarely been questioned and analyzed. Yet, the writings of contemporary authors such as Cicero, Caesar, and Sallust, as well as historiographic records from later periods do connect fiscal information with political, social, economic, or moral discourses. Hence, the task of this paper is to reveal the ancient frameworks within which taxes were perceived and presented in three case studies, and to juxtapose these with current debates in order to demonstrate the extent to which ancient and modern authors frame(d) perceptions of Roman taxation in the Republican period. |
| Abstract: | Avec l'essor de la New Fiscal History, les modèles de comportement de l'État prédateur et l'application des études de la culture politique, le débat sur la nature de la fiscalité romaine a repris de l'ampleur. Tandis que des sujets importants comme les institutions du régime fiscal romain, les relations entre ses agents et les contribuables, ainsi que le caractère concurrentiel de l'élite romaine dans le domaine des finances publiques ont été renouvelés par ces approches, le caractère discursif des sources a rarement été interrogé et analysé. Pourtant, les écrits d'auteurs romains d'époque républicaine, tels que Cicéron, César et Salluste, de même que les documents historiographiques des époques ultérieures, font un lien entre les informations fiscales et les discours politiques, sociaux, économiques, et même moraux. Dès lors, l'objectif de ce texte est de révéler, avec trois études de cas, les paradigmes (frameworks) dans lesquels les impôts étaient interprétés et présentés, puis de confronter ces paradigmes aux interprétations actuelles afin de démontrer combien les auteurs anciens et modernes intègrent leurs conceptions de la fiscalité romaine d'époque républicaine dans un cadre d'analyse qui leur est propre. |
| Keywords: | Roman Republic, New Fiscal History, Predatory state elite, Tax terminology, Tax discourse, Frame analysis, République romaine, Élite prédatrice, Terminologie fiscale, Discours fiscal, Paradigmes interprétatifs |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04308412&r=his |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki; Tomoko Matsumoto |
| Abstract: | Modern state-building brings profound political and economic transformations, challenging established elites and opening doors for emerging ones. While previous empirical studies have explored feudal elites persistence and emerging elites struggles, limited research has examined how emerging elites integrate into existing elite networks. This study investigates the responses of old and new elites during modernization. By constructing a unique dataset detailing kinship connections among Japanese elites in 1902, 1914, and 1927, we revealed shifts in elite kinship networks and their influence on controlling political and economic resources. The findings indicate that modernization transformed the Japanese elite community, with many commoners becoming elite by 1902. Nonetheless, these new elites often found themselves isolated within that community as they lacked kinship ties with other elites. Conversely, peerage political elites already held centrality in the elite kinship network in 1902, and their influence continued to grow over time. However, by 1927, the new economic elites, initially without kinship networks, had managed to establish connections within the elite community, leading to the emergence of an expanded and hierarchical elite community, blending the old and new elites, in which an individuals centrality in the network became closely linked to his/her political or economic position. Keywords : Modern state-building, Elite, Kinship network, Modernization, Network analysis |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:23-017e&r=his |
| By: | Pascal Troxler, Marcus Roller, Monika Bandi Tanner |
| Abstract: | Cableways alleviate access to the Alps and were crucial in establishing the skiing tourism boom of the after-war years. Moreover, cableway operators employ a large share of residents, are complemented by tourism-related services and are therefore a key economic pillar in otherwise laggard regions. We exploit comprehensive historical data of all ever-built cableways in Switzerland linked to federal tax and population data to show how much ski area access benefits the municipality's economy. Evaluating difference-in-differences sheds light on how ski area access municipalities evolved economically compared to those without access. We find that opening a ski area between 1940 and 1980 is related to economic growth that persists until today. Particularly, it attracted new residents and created more productive employment opportunities in tourism-related services. Thereby raising incomes and tax revenues. Our results contribute to the debate of what economic risks access municipalities face once the decreasing snowpack forces a ski area to close. |
| Keywords: | Tourism development, regional economics, historical ski area data, climate change exposure |
| JEL: | N74 N94 O18 R11 Z32 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdv:wpaper:credresearchpaper44&r=his |
| By: | Julien Zurbach (AOROC - Archéologie et Philologie d'Orient et d'Occident - EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - DSA ENS-PSL - Département des Sciences de l'Antiquité - ENS Paris - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres, ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres) |
| Abstract: | The history of the formation of European states has accustomed us to consider taxation as the necessary instrument for the development of the state apparatus, in its military, administrative and ideological dimensions. Do the Greek city-states fit into this pattern? A usual reconstruction tells of the passage from communities of equals sharing profits, as in Siphnos around 500 and in Athens before Themistocles, to city-states that became military and especially maritime powers, which implies the mobilisation of considerable resources. The 2013 book by van Wees (Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute, London) underlines the driving role of war at sea. A new reading of the essential stages of the historiography also leads to the hypothesis that not everything in taxation is the direct responsibility of the city and that its subdivisions may have played a role. In the end, it is the question of the central role attributed to the city in the development of taxation that must be asked. |
| Abstract: | L'histoire de la formation des États européens nous a habitués à envisager la fiscalité comme l'instrument nécessaire du développement de l'appareil d'État, dans ses dimensions militaire puis administrative et idéologique. Les cités grecques s'inscrivent-elles dans ce schéma ? Une reconstruction classique raconte le passage de communautés d'égaux se partageant les profits, comme à Siphnos vers 500 et à Athènes avant Thémistocle, à des cités devenues puissances militaires, et surtout maritimes, ce qui suppose la mobilisation de ressources considérables. L'ouvrage de van Wees en 2013 (Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute, Londres) a souligné le rôle moteur de la guerre sur mer. Une relecture des étapes essentielles de l'historiographie amène aussi à envisager l'hypothèse que tout dans la fiscalité ne relève pas forcément de la cité et que ses subdivisions ont pu jouer un rôle. En définitive, c'est la question de la pertinence du rôle central attribué à la cité dans le développement de la fiscalité qui doit être posée. |
| Keywords: | Fiscality, Archaic Greece, Mycenaean Greece, Homer, economic history, Fiscalité, Grèce archaïque, Grèce mycénienne, Homère, histoire économique |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04305449&r=his |
| By: | Pierre van der Eng |
| Abstract: | This paper queries the general view that CSR perceptions and practices were entirely new to Indonesia until the country’s 2007 Corporate Law made CSR compulsory. The paper finds that foreign-owned firms already experimented with forms of CSR during 1905-1911. There are few indications of the motivations of foreign firms and their managers in Indonesia to engage in CSR, but the principal factors seem to have been practical reasons and humanitarian concerns. From the 1910s to well into the 1950s, foreign-owned firms extended CSR-type social benefits and amenities to their employees and to the communities in the areas where they operated. It is unclear whether locally-owned companies replicated such practices. After 1958, most foreign firms were nationalised and converted to state-owned enterprises and it is unclear whether they continued their CSR-type practices. The paper concludes that CSR was only new to Indonesia during the 2000s as a concept, not as a management practice. |
| Keywords: | corporate social responsibility, history, Indonesia, business ethics, foreign investment |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:116&r=his |
| By: | Jäger, Philipp; Schacht, Philip |
| Abstract: | We use recently published long-run microdata (SCF+) to investigate generational wealth dynamics in the U.S. over the last seven decades. We document that the median wealth of people born in the first half of the 20th century increased from one ten-year birth cohort to the next. For people born in the second half of the century, median wealth successively declined from cohort to cohort while wealth inequality within birth cohorts increased markedly. A synthetic saving approach reveals that the trend reversal is mainly caused by changes in savings, which are a result of stagnating income levels and, importantly, declining saving rates. We find no evidence that shifts in wealth accumulation preferences, observable household characteristics or other demographic changes can explain our findings. |
| Abstract: | Wir verwenden kürzlich veröffentlichte langfristige Mikrodaten (SCF+), um die Dynamik des Generationenvermögens in den USA über die letzten sieben Jahrzehnte zu untersuchen. Wir dokumentieren, dass Medianvermögen von Menschen die in der ersten Hälfte des 20ten Jahrhunderts geboren wurden von einer Zehnjahreskohorte zur Nächsten anstieg. Für die in der zweiten Hälfte des 20ten Jahrhunderts Geborenen ging das Medianvermögen von Kohorte zu Kohorte sukzessive zurück, während die Vermögensungleichheit innerhalb der Geburtskohorten deutlich zunahm. Eine synthetische Sparberechnung zeigt, dass die Trendumkehr vor allem auf Veränderungen in der Ersparnisbildung zurückzuführen ist, die in stagnierenden Einkommensniveaus und, vor allem, in sinkenden Sparquoten begründet liegt. Wir finden keine Hinweise darauf dass Verschiebungen in den Präferenzen für Vermögensbildung, beobachtbare Haushaltsmerkmale oder andere demografische Veränderungen unsere Ergebnisse erklären können. |
| Keywords: | Wealth inequality, cohorts, synthetic saving, United States |
| JEL: | D14 D31 E21 J10 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:280421&r=his |
| By: | Ruggeri, Francesco Rocco |
| Abstract: | This preprint collects data on the migration of people from San Pier Niceto to America from 1892 to 1970. It includes almost 900 people and 120 surnames. It considers where these people settled and what they did, in addition to information about Ellis Island arrivals. |
| Date: | 2023–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:ckmj6&r=his |
| By: | Felix S.F. Schaff (European University Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the Protestant Reformation on wealth distribution and inequality in confessionally divided Germany, between 1400 and 1800. The Reformation expanded social welfare, but provided it in a particularistic way to insiders only. This gave Protestantism an ambiguous character in terms of redistribution and its impact on inequality. I develop a theoretical framework of this trade-off between welfare expansion and particula- ristic provision, and test its implications empirically, using a Difference-in-Differences and an Instrumental Variable strategy. In line with the theoretical framework, I document that the Reformation exacerbated inequality overall, by making marginal poor people relatively poorer. The result is driven by the introduction of new particularistic poor relief policies in Protestant communities. Protestantism is an underappreciated driver of preindustrial inequality, long before the onset of industrialisation and modern economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Wealth, Poverty, Inequality, Political Economy, Protestantism, Welfare, Germany |
| JEL: | D31 H23 I38 N33 |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0239&r=his |
| By: | Fedor Nekhaenko (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Between 1231 and 1234 at Paris Hugh of Saint-Cher OP (ca. 1190–1263) finished his Opus, a commentary devoted to Peter Lombard’s Sentences. The present paper offers the first study accompanied by transcription of Hugh’s distinction II.2. I am dealing with Hugh's impact on scholastic theology considered in itself and within the broader scholastic tradition. According to Hugh, angels are temporally coextensive with the empyrean, prime matter, and first instant. Being bodiless, angels occupy the empyrean as a natural corporal place, while angel's essence and action determine their presence on earth. Unlike souls enclosed in bodies, the angelic intellect understands things in their direct presence rather than through similitudes. I also delineate tenets of Hugh's doctrinal influence upon subsequent generation of scholastic masters, notably John of la Rochelle, Eudes Rigaud, Richard Fishacre, and Richard Rufus |
| Keywords: | Hugh of Saint-Cher, the Empyrean, angels, scholastic theology, Sentences, Aristotle's reception, temporality of the creation, medieval noetics |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:213/hum/2023&r=his |
| By: | Serdar Ozkan |
| Abstract: | An analysis of the changes in wealth distribution as individuals age from their late 20s to early 50s reveals a substantial degree of persistence at the top 1%. |
| Keywords: | wealth mobility; wealth distribution |
| Date: | 2023–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:97437&r=his |
| By: | Gutiérrez, José Manuel |
| Abstract: | A comparative picture of the literacy processes in Western Europe on the eve of and during the Second Industrial Revolution is provided, taking censual literacy rates as a yardstick to measure and compare literacy in different countries. If only partial or insufficient censual data are available, literacy is assessed as if given by full censual data. Four literacy groups result. The area of Western Europe where mass literacy was first achieved was the German-speaking or culturally highly Germanised zone. Britain and Sweden turn out to be in the same cluster as France. The periphery of Western Europe shows the well-known pattern of delayed literacy development. |
| Keywords: | literacy; census; comparability of data |
| JEL: | N33 |
| Date: | 2023–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119319&r=his |
| By: | Sebastian Edwards |
| Abstract: | In this paper I analyze the work on exchange rates and external imbalances by University of Chicago faculty members during the university’s first hundred years, 1892-1992. Many people associate Chicago’s views with Milton Friedman’s advocacy for flexible exchange rates. But, of course, there was much more than that, including the work of J. Laurence Laughlin on bimetallism, Jacob Viner on the balance of payments, Lloyd Metzler on transfers, Harry Johnson on trade and currencies, Lloyd Mints on exchange rate regimes, Robert Mundell on optimal currency areas, and Arnold Harberger on shadow exchange rates, among other. The analysis shows that, although different scholars emphasized different issues, there was a common thread in this research, anchored on the role of relative prices’ changes during the adjustment process. |
| JEL: | B22 E52 E58 F31 F33 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31928&r=his |
| By: | Gonzalez, Felipe (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile); Prem, Mounu; von Dessauer, Cristine |
| Abstract: | Autocrats aim to control social organizations to suppress dissent and spread their ideology. We investigate the case of women centers under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990). Centers were controlled by conservative military to promote the role of women as mothers and housewives, but also offered training programs to generate income. We find that the centers incentivized women to join the labor market without affecting their political or religious identities. Decades after dictatorship, these centers are still associated with higher female labor force participation, both among directly exposed women and also among their daughters. |
| Date: | 2023–11–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:64mf9&r=his |
| By: | De Pablo Juan Carlos |
| Abstract: | Henry Kissinger nació el 27 de mayo de 1923. Las líneas que siguen fueron inspiradas en la lectura de sus principales obras, de las cuales me declaro incondicional admirador, por todo lo que aprendí. Específicamente, me refiero a los 3 volúmenes de memorias, que reflejan su paso por el gobierno de Estados Unidos (White House years, publicado en 1979; Years of upheaval, 1982; y Years of renewal, 1999); así como otras, más conceptuales, pero que también se nutrieron por su experiencia en la función pública (Diplomacy, publicado en 1994; On China, 2011; World order, 2014; y Leadership, 2022). Estudié durante la década de 1960 (UCA, entre 1960 y 1964; Harvard entre 1966 y 1968). Probablemente, mucho de lo que aprendí de Kissinger, le resulta obvio a quien estudió, por ejemplo, administración de empresas, sociología o ciencia política. Existen las decisiones individuales y las decisiones colectivas. El liderazgo se refiere a las decisiones colectivas, ámbito en el cual las decisiones no se imponen. En el caso de las pulseadas entre países, el liderazgo no sólo tiene que ver con el poder de convicción y persuasión, sino con las armas (bélicas, económicas, etc.) con las cuales actúa cada parte. Enfatizar la importancia del liderazgo va mucho más allá del hecho de que las decisiones las adoptan seres humanos. Esta cuestión es hoy particularmente relevante, a la luz de la discusión referida a quién adopta mejor las decisiones, si los seres humanos de carne y hueso, o los algoritmos. Probablemente el mejor resultado surja de una combinación de ambos. La historia complementa el análisis de estática comparativa, en la formación de los economistas. |
| JEL: | H1 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4642&r=his |
| By: | Arnaud Deseau (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | The Malthusian trap is a well recognized source of stagnation in per capita income prior to industrialization. However, previous studies have found mixed evidence about its exact strength. This article contributes to this ongoing debate, by estimating the speed of convergence for a wide range of economies and a large part of the Malthusian era. I build a simple Malthusian growth model and derive the speed of convergence to the steady state. A calibration exercise for the English Malthusian economy reveals a relatively weak Malthusian trap, or weak homeostasis, with a half-life of 112 years. I then use β-convergence regressions and historical panel data on per capita income and population to empirically estimate the speed of convergence for a large set of countries. I find consistent evidence of weak homeostasis, with the mode of half-lives around 120 years. The weak homeostasis pattern is stable from the 11th to the 18th century. However, I highlight significant differences in the strength of the Malthusian trap, with some economies converging significantly faster or slower than others. |
| Keywords: | Convergence, Homeostasis, Malthusian trap, Preventive checks, marriage, fertility, Malthusian model, Beta-convergence |
| JEL: | J1 N1 N3 O1 O47 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2326&r=his |
| By: | Michaël Girardin (HLLI - Unité de recherche sur l'histoire, les langues, les littératures et l'interculturel - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale) |
| Abstract: | The historiographical renewal concerning Ancient taxation requires taking the time for epistemological thoughts. There are many challenges to overcome in order to work on this field of study. The cross-reading of the papers in this dossier provides some leads for rethinking the relationship of historians to past works, to sources, as well as the most appropriate methodology. Transdisciplinarity and the attention paid to the contexts of production of the main bibliographical references are put forward as essential elements for progress without depending excessively on possibly questionable historiographical legacies. |
| Abstract: | Le renouveau historiographique concernant la fiscalité antique nécessite de prendre le temps d'une réflexion épistémologique. Les défis à surmonter pour travailler sur ce domaine d'étude sont nombreux. La lecture croisée des articles de ce dossier fournit quelques pistes pour repenser le rapport des historiens aux travaux passés, aux sources, ainsi que la méthodologie la plus adéquate. La transdisciplinarité et l'attention portée aux contextes de production des principales références bibliographiques sont mises en avant comme des éléments indispensables pour progresser sans dépendre excessivement d'héritages historiographiques éventuellement discutables aujourd'hui. |
| Keywords: | Historiography, taxation, Ancient history, Historiographie, fiscalité, histoire ancienne |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04304638&r=his |
| By: | James Foreman-Peck (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University); Leslie Hannah (London School of Economics) |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2023cf1222&r=his |
| By: | Davis, John B.; ; (Department of Economics Marquette University; Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses Richard Arena’s insightful and original contributions to interpreting the important interaction between Piero Sraffa and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It discusses this in terms of dilemmas they each encountered in transitions in their thinking in the 1930s, emphasizes the influence of Sraffa’s unpublished “Surplus Product†text, compares Sraffa’s critique of “natural science point of view†and Wittgenstein’s critique of logical form, and compares Sraffa’s later understanding of the relationship between production and distribution and Wittgenstein’s later understanding of forms of life and language-games. The paper argues this thinking opened up a approach to economic philosophy in connection with the distinction between open and closed systems. Arena has been a leading proponent open systems thinking in economics. He thus reminds us, in Wittgenstein’s words – ‘Don’t think, but look!’ – or look beyond what one might think ones sees in a closed systems way. |
| Keywords: | Arena, Sraffa, Wittgenstein, surplus product, language games, open-closed systems |
| JEL: | B24 B30 B40 B51 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2023-06&r=his |
| By: | Valérie Mignon; Marc Joëts; Bertrand Candelon |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to identify the factors contributing to the diffusion of ideas in econometrics by paying particular attention to connectivity in content and social networks. Considering a sample of 17, 260 research papers in econometrics over the 1980-2020 period, we rely on Structural Topic Models to extract and categorize topics relevant to key domains in the discipline. Using a hurdle count model, we show that both content and social connectivity among the authors (i.e., social connectivity) enhance the likelihood of non-zero citation counts and play a key role in shaping the diffusion of econometric ideas. We also find that high topic connectivity augmented by robust social connectivity among authors or authoring teams further enhances econometric ideas' diffusion success. Finally, our findings unveil an inverted U-shaped relationship between connectivity and the success of idea diffusion; the latter initially escalates but starts to wane upon reaching a certain threshold. |
| Keywords: | Connectivity; Idea diffusion; Econometric publications; Citations; Structural Topic Model; Hurdle count model. |
| JEL: | C01 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2023-35&r=his |
| By: | Valérie Mignon; António Afonso; Jamel Saadaoui |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of China's bilateral political relations with three main trading partners - the US, Germany, and the UK - on current account balances and exchange rates, over the 1960Q1-2022Q4 period. Relying on the lag-augmented VAR approach with time-varying Granger causality tests, we find that political relationships with China strongly matter in explaining the dynamics of current accounts and exchange rates. Such relationships cause the evolution of the exchange rate (except in the UK) and the current account; these causal links being time-varying for the US and the UK and robust over the entire period for Germany. These findings suggest that policymakers should account for bilateral political relationships to understand the global macroeconomic consequences of political tensions. |
| Keywords: | Political relationships with China strongly matter in explaining the dynamics of current accounts and exchange rates |
| JEL: | C22 F51 Q41 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2023-33&r=his |
| By: | Bérard, Guillaume; Freitas, Dimitria; Verma, Priyam |
| Abstract: | Xu (2022) estimates the causal impact of bank failures on the level of trades with a staggered difference-in-differences design and an IV strategy with Bartik instrument, using the 1866 banking crisis as a quasi-natural experiment. Findings, based on historical data on the trades and loans between London banks and banks around the world, show that countries exposed to bank failures in London immediately exported significantly less and did not recover their lost growth relative to unexposed places. Moreover, the effect lasted for decades. First, we reproduce the paper's main findings by running the original code and uncover three issues, one of which that slightly affects the main estimates reported in the study. Second, we test the robustness of the results to (1) removing weights from the regressions, (2) using a spatial HAC correction for the standard errors, and (3) implementing a method for possibly heterogeneous treatment effects with a staggered difference-indifferences design. Overall, we conclude that the main findings are valid and robust. |
| Keywords: | Replication, Robustness, Trade, Bank failures, Historical data, Difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | F14 G01 G21 N20 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:85&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo; Edward S. Prescott |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the decentralized structure of the Federal Reserve System as a mechanism for generating and processing new ideas on monetary policy over the 1960 - 2000 period. We document the introduction of monetarism, rational expectations, credibility, transparency, and other monetary policy ideas by Reserve Banks into the Federal Reserve System. We argue that the Reserve Banks were willing to support and develop new ideas due to internal reforms to the FOMC that Chairman William McChesney Martin implemented in the 1950s and the increased ties with academia that developed in this period. Furthermore, the Reserve Banks were able to succeed at this because of their private-public governance structure. We illustrate this with a time-consistency model in which a decentralized organization is better at producing new ideas than a centralized one. We argue that this role of the Reserve Banks is an important benefit of the Federal Reserve’s decentralized structure by allowing for more competition in formulating ideas and by reducing groupthink. |
| JEL: | B0 E58 G28 H1 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31915&r=his |
| By: | Tilley, J. Lucas (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); von Essen, Emma (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Kolk, Martin (Department of Sociology, Stockholm University); Moberg, Ylva (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Burn, Ian (Department of Economics, University of Liverpool) |
| Abstract: | Our study examines the prevalence of gender transitions in Sweden over time and documents the sociodemographic characteristics of people transitioning in different periods. We use national administrative data covering the transgender population from 1973–2020 and analyze two common events in a gender transition: the earliest diagnosis of gender incongruence and the change of legal gender. We have three main findings. First, the measured prevalence of both types of events is relatively low in all periods, although it has increased substantially since the early 2010s. Second, the recent increase in transition prevalence is most pronounced among people in early adulthood; in particular, young transgender men drive an increase in overall transition rates through 2018, followed by moderate declines in 2019 and 2020. Third, transgender men and women have substantially lower socioeconomic outcomes than cisgender men and women, regardless of the age at which they transition or the historical period. They are also considerably less likely to be in a legal union or reside with children. These findings highlight the continued economic and social vulnerability of the transgender population. |
| Keywords: | transgender; demography; prevalence; gender nonconforming; gender incongruence; Sweden; administrative data |
| JEL: | J11 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2023_007&r=his |
| By: | António Afonso; Valérie Mignon; Jamel Saadaoui |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of China’s bilateral political relations with three main trading partners—the US, Germany, and the UK—on current account balances and exchange rates, over the 1960Q1-2022Q4 period. Relying on the lag-augmented VAR approach with time-varying Granger causality tests, we find that political relationships with China strongly matter in explaining the dynamics of current accounts and exchange rates. Such relationships cause the evolution of the exchange rate (except in the UK) and the current account; these causal links being time-varying for the US and the UK and robust over the entire period for Germany. These findings suggest that policymakers should account for bilateral political relationships to understand the global macroeconomic consequences of political tensions. |
| Keywords: | Political relations; time-varying causality; lag-augmented vector autoregression; China. |
| JEL: | C22 F51 Q41 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp03012023&r=his |
| By: | Jean-Baptiste Michau; Yoshiyasu Ono; Matthias Schlegl |
| Abstract: | What are the consequences of the preference for wealth for the accumulation of capital and for the dynamics of wealth inequality? Assuming that wealth per se is a luxury good, inequality tends to rise whenever the interest rate is larger than the economic growth rate. This induces the economy to converge towards an equilibrium with extreme wealth inequality, where the capital stock is equal to the golden rule level. Far from immiseration, this equilibrium results in high wages and in the golden rule level consumption for ordinary households. We then introduce shocks to the preference for wealth and show that progressive wealth taxation prevents wealth from being held by people with high saving rates. This permanently reduces the capital stock, which is detrimental to the welfare of future generation of workers. This also raises the interest rate, to the benefit of the property-owning upper-middle class. By contrast, a progressive consumption tax successfully and persistently redistributes welfare from the very rich to the poor. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1223&r=his |
| By: | Anne Beck; Sebastian Doerr |
| Abstract: | An increasing number of policies addresses spatial inequality, which is believed to lie at the heart of economic and social cleavages, including entrenched poverty, deaths of despair, and political polarization. Yet little is known about the origins of the gap between prospering urban and "left-behind" rural areas that has emerged since the 1980s. We provide new evidence on the role of banking deregulation in explaining this rural-urban divergence in incomes. In particular, we show that the income gap widened following the removal of geographic restrictions on banking. While deregulation promoted an overall increase in incomes, the increase was significantly larger in urban counties. We show that this is due to increased competition in the banking industry in cities post deregulation. Competition benefited financially constrained small and young firms, thereby boosting employment and incomes in urban areas. Our findings inform the debate on regional inequality and the design of place-based policies. |
| Keywords: | banking deregulation, credit supply, income inequality, regional inequality |
| JEL: | G21 R10 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1151&r=his |
| By: | Michaël Girardin (HLLI - Unité de recherche sur l'histoire, les langues, les littératures et l'interculturel - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale) |
| Abstract: | Since a few years, the study of taxation in Judaea has regained momentum. Some studies gradually call into question several well-accepted ideas, for instance the impoverishment of Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman periods, the fiscal oppression on the peasantry, the burden of the taxes. The aim of this paper is to highlight the obstacles facing scholarship today: the distorting bias of sources, endless debates around fragile historiographical legacies, the absence of interdisciplinary collaboration integrating this field of study. It advocates for broadening the research perspective to overcome all this and think anew tax structures through their operation rather than the hostility of taxpayers. |
| Abstract: | Depuis quelques années, le regain d'intérêt historiographique pour la fiscalité commence à toucher le domaine de l'étude du judaïsme ancien. Les travaux remettent peu à peu en cause plusieurs idées bien admises, par exemple l'appauvrissement de la Judée aux temps hellénistique et romain, l'oppression fiscale des classes paysannes, l'étouffante lourdeur des prélèvements. Cet article propose de mettre en évidence les obstacles qui se dressent aujourd'hui devant les chercheurs : le biais déformant des sources, des débats sans fin autour de fragiles héritages historiographiques, l'absence de collaboration interdisciplinaire intégrant ce champ d'étude. Il invite à élargir la perspective de recherche pour s'affranchir de tout cela et repenser les structures fiscales au-travers de leur fonctionnement plutôt que de l'hostilité des contribuables. |
| Keywords: | Historiography, Hellenistic Judea, Roman Judea, taxation, tax, monetization, exploitation, persecution, Historiographie, Judée hellénistique, Judée romaine, fiscalité, impôt, monétisation, exploitation, persécution |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04305481&r=his |
| By: | Casey Pender (Department of Economics, Carleton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the traditional view that all unanticipated deflation can lead to bank panics. I identify two distinct deflationary shocks by employing a sign-restricted VAR on U.S. National Banking era with monthly data for prices, real output, and bank panics. While a negative aggregate demand shock increases the likelihood of a bank panic by 3.4%-8.4%, a positive aggregate supply shock has no significant effect. My results, therefore, align with recent theoretical work arguing that deflation's impact on banking panics also hinges on real output dynamics. Hence, not all deflation is cause for panic. |
| Keywords: | Bank Panics, Deflation, U.S. Monetary History, Sign Restrictions |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E44 E50 N11 N21 |
| Date: | 2023–08–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:23-04&r=his |
| By: | Paul Heilporn (UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg, ARCHIMEDE - Archéologie et histoire ancienne : Méditerranée - Europe - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - MCC - Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to offer a short presentation of some of the main points one can make about taxation in Roman Egypt: information about the main taxes such as the poll tax or land taxes, as well as about tax collection or its consequences, with taxpayers running away from their obligations (ἀναχώρησις). |
| Abstract: | L'article vise à présenter brièvement différents aspects de la fiscalité en Égypte romaine, depuis les principaux impôts (comme la capitation ou les taxes foncières) jusqu'au fonctionnement de la perception et à ses conséquences, avec la fuite de contribuables (ἀναχώρησις). |
| Keywords: | Roman Egypt, Taxation, Tax collection, Poll tax, Anachoresis, Land tax, Égypte romaine, Fiscalité, Perception, Capitation, Fuite des contribuables (anachôrèsis), Impôt sur la terre |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04308366&r=his |
| By: | Poinsot Flavia Gabriela; Llera Daniela S |
| Abstract: | El estudio del pensamiento hebreo-cristiano es importante, aunque parezca extraño a un economista contemporáneo. Sus ideas se ven reflejadas en corpus teóricos de varios Programas de Investigación a lo largo de la historia del pensamiento económico. El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar, sucintamente, las principales ideas y nociones económicas contenidas en el pensamiento hebreo-cristiano que luego pasan a formar parte de corrientes de pensamiento económico alternativas. Para ello se describen las ideas del pensamiento original y luego se desarrollan sus diferentes ramas que, a fines de simplificación y claridad, se condensan en el Antiguo y el Nuevo Testamento, los Padres de la Iglesia, la Escolástica con las ideas principales de Aquino, y el pensamiento protestante calvinista y luterano que emerge con la Reforma de 1517. Se considera que el estudio de esta corriente de pensamiento es relevante ya que su desconocimiento puede conducir a interpretaciones erróneas de teorías de economistas en quienes estas nociones aparecen implícita o explícitamente. |
| JEL: | B11 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4684&r=his |
| By: | Jongrim Ha; M. Ayhan Kose; Franziska Ohnsorge; Hakan Yilmazkuday |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the drivers of fluctuations in global inflation, defined as a common factor across monthly headline consumer price index (CPI) inflation in G7 countries, over the past half-century. We estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model where a wide range of shocks, including global demand, supply, oil price, and interest rate shocks, are identified through narrative sign restrictions motivated by the predictions of a simple dynamic general equilibrium model. We report three main results. First, oil price shocks followed by global demand shocks explained the lion’s share of variation in global inflation. Second, the contribution of global demand and oil price shocks increased over time, from 56 percent during 1970-1985 to 65 percent during 2001-2022, whereas the importance of global supply shocks declined. Since the pandemic, global demand and oil price shocks have accounted for most of the variation in global inflation. Finally, oil price shocks played a much smaller role in global core CPI inflation variation, for which global supply shocks were the main source of variation. These results are robust to various sensitivity exercises, including alternative definitions of global variables, different samples of countries, and additional narrative restrictions. |
| Keywords: | oil prices, demand shocks, supply shocks, interest rate shocks |
| JEL: | E31 E32 Q43 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2023-66&r=his |
| By: | Franck Waserman (ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale, LARJ - Laboratoire de recherche juridique - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale) |
| Abstract: | Historians of Ancient taxation use words that, for jurists, have a precise meaning. The latter, on the other hand, develop a history of taxation that completely omits Antiquity. Within the context of the epistemological reflection carried out in this dossier, an interdisciplinary approach may prove fruitful in order to question a few certainties that seem to be well established. We will examine the problems of definition of the French word for tax and we will look at how specialists of Antiquity deal with these thorny questions. |
| Abstract: | Les historiens de la fiscalité antique emploient des mots qui, pour les juristes, ont un sens précis. De leur côté, ceux-ci élaborent une histoire de l'impôt qui omet complètement l'Antiquité. Dans le cadre de la réflexion épistémologique menée dans ce dossier, une approche interdisciplinaire peut se révéler féconde afin de questionner quelques certitudes qui paraissent bien assurées. On examinera les problèmes de définition de l'impôt et on regardera comment des spécialistes de l'Antiquité traitent ces épineuses questions. |
| Keywords: | Tax, taxation, fiscality, definition, public law, tax consent, liberalism, interdisciplinarity, Impôt, fiscalité, définition, droit public, consentement, libéralisme, interdisciplinarité |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04304669&r=his |