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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2024‒02‒12
34 papers chosen by |
| By: | Ericsson, Johan (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Molinder, Jakob (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | When did Sweden become equal? This question has far-reaching implications for our understanding of Swedish history, as well as for theories about inequality, institutions, and politics more broadly. In this article, we present the first multidimensional comparative analysis of the development of inequality in Sweden. Unlike most other studies, we combine a variety of measures to provide a more comprehensive view of inequality. Our findings reveal that, although the share of income and wealth accruing to the absolute top was very high at the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden was more equal than many other countries when focusing on the lower parts of the income distribution. Additionally, several indicators suggest that the decline in inequality began in the decades before the turn of the 19th century. These results imply that the development of the Swedish welfare state was both a cause and a consequence of decreasing inequality. We emphasize the importance of widespread access to education as a key factor in shaping distributional outcomes. |
| Keywords: | inequality; distribution; education; wealth; wages |
| JEL: | D31 N00 N10 N13 N14 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2024_013&r=his |
| By: | Feld, Lars P.; Nientiedt, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Writing in 1951, Friedrich Hayek identified four places where the classical liberal tradition1 had been upheld and developed during the first half of the 20th century. He named London, Vienna, Chicago, and, perhaps surprising to some, the small southern German town of Freiburg (Hayek, 1951/1967). The reason for including Freiburg was that it is the birthplace of ordoliberalism, a branch of classical liberalism that to this day remains relatively unknown outside of Germany. The historical significance of ordoliberalism derives from its central role in redefining classical liberalism, and from its impact on economic policy. Representatives of ordoliberalism were key members of the neoliberal movement of the 1930s and 1940s, participating in the Lippmann Colloquium of 1938 and helping to create the Mont Pèlerin Society after WWII. In terms of economic policy, ordoliberal ideas informed the post-war creation of Germany's free-market system - the Social Market Economy - as well as certain aspects of the architecture of the European Union. (...) |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:281203&r=his |
| By: | Maria Gomez Leon (Universitat de Valencia); Giacomo Gabbuti (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Istituto di Economia) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents yearly estimates of income inequality in Italy from 1900 to 1950. By constructing dynamic social tables, we comprehensively assess inequality across all components of Italian society and compare Italy with Britain, Germany, and Spain over the same period. In a context of declining inequality across Europe, interwar Italy reveals a trajectory at odds with the narratives on the interwar period: a strong increase of inequality during WWI, markedly reversed during 1918-1922, resumed after the March on Rome, and reaching new peaks during WWII. Indeed, while allowing us to reveal sizeable short-term distributive shocks in Italy and to discuss the political economy of fascist Italy, our results consolidate the reinterpretation of inequality trends in interwar Europe and the regressive nature of fascist regimes. |
| Keywords: | Fascist Italy, income inequality, interwar Europe, dynamic social tables |
| JEL: | D31 E24 E25 J31 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bci:wpaper:2401&r=his |
| By: | Sefa Awaworyi Churchill (School of Economics, Finance & Marketing, RMIT University, VIC, Australia); Russell Smyth (Monash Business School, Monash University, VIC, Australia); Trong-Anh Trinh (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, VIC, Australia) |
| Abstract: | We employ a natural experiment – the transport of convicts to the British colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – to examine the long-run effect of gender norms on the evolution of mateship and the formation of social capital in modern-day Australia. We find that people who live in areas in which sex ratios were historically male-biased, have higher social capital. Our instrumental variable estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in the historical population sex ratio causes a 12.3% increase in social capital, while the reduced form estimates indicate that a standard deviation increase in the convict sex ratio causes a 5.4% increase in social capital. We show that gender norms have been transmitted within families and via marriage through assortative matching, as well as through shared remembrance in the form of war memorials in neighbourhoods in which sex ratios were historically male-biased. We explore the effect of gender norms on specific facets of social capital and find that in neighbourhoods characterised by conservative gender norms and well-defined masculinity norms due to historically high sex ratios, people are more likely to help each other, more likely to do things together and are more close-knit. |
| Keywords: | sex ratios, gender norms, convicts, social capital, Australia |
| JEL: | I31 J16 N37 N47 O10 Z13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2024-02&r=his |
| By: | Laurent Loty (CELLF - Centre d’étude de la langue et des littératures françaises - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The idea of the optimum plays a major role in many scientific and political domains, while fiction tends to confront it. I examine it here in light of its historical origins in theological optimism (God created "the best of all possible worlds"), the subject of my 1995 dissertation in the history of optimism from its emergence in the early eighteenth century to its seeming disappearance during the French Revolution. If the theological origin of the idea of the optimum is so difficult to perceive now, it is because the history of optimism, one of the most consequential ideologies ever to have existed, is also the history of its occultation. This ideology, all the more powerful in being embedded in a blind spot, is disseminated through apparently secular discourses and fields of knowledge. Optimism is a fatalism. It also takes the form of an economic fatalism : nature, society or the market function providentially or naturally at their optimum, or reach their optimum in historical time. Yet the idea of the optimum can also inspire powerful heuristic hypotheses in sciences emancipated from theology, or progressive political actions seeking an optimum. As for fictions they either corroborate optimism (or pessimism, the inverted double of optimisme), or they invent instead, as in Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste, forms of writing and thought that escape this ideology. Investigation into the optimum will permit discovery of a vast continent of our culture along with its major investments. It could constitute a multi-disciplinary research program covering the modern period from the eighteenth century to today. |
| Abstract: | L'idée d'optimum joue un rôle majeur dans de nombreux domaines scientifiques et politiques, tandis que les fictions s'en saisissent pour s'y confronter. Je l'examine ici à partir de l'optimisme théologique qui est à son origine (Dieu a créé le monde à l'optimum), grâce à l'enquête que j'ai menée, dans une thèse de 1995, depuis l'émergence de cette doctrine au début du XVIIIe siècle, jusqu'à son apparente disparition pendant la Révolution française. Si l'origine théologique de l'idée d'optimum est si difficile à déceler aujourd'hui, c'est que l'histoire de l'optimisme, une des plus importantes idéologies qui ait existé, est aussi l'histoire de son occultation. Cette idéologie, d'autant plus puissante qu'elle est une idéologie en angle mort, s'est transférée dans des discours et savoirs apparemment sécularisés. L'optimisme est un fatalisme, une incitation à se soumettre au meilleur des mondes. Il prend aussi la forme d'un fatalisme économique : la nature, la société ou le marché fonctionnent providentiellement ou naturellement à l'optimum, ou s'optimisent historiquement. Or, l'idée d'optimum peut aussi inspirer de puissantes hypothèses heuristiques à des sciences émancipées de la théologie, ou à des actions politiques en vue d'une optimisation. Quant aux fictions, elles confirment l'optimisme (ou son double, le pessimisme), ou inventent au contraire, comme Jacques le Fataliste de Diderot, des formes d'écriture et de pensée qui échappent à cette idéologie. Enquêter sur l'optimum permet ainsi de découvrir un continent immense de notre culture ainsi que des enjeux majeurs, et pourrait constituer un vaste programme de recherche pluridisciplinaire du XVIIIe siècle à aujourd'hui. |
| Keywords: | Condorcet, Economics, Diderot, Fatalism, Ideology, Leibniz, Optimization, Optimism, Pessimism, Ultra-liberalism, Voltaire, Économie, Fatalisme, Idéologie, Optimisation, Optimisme, Pessimisme, Ultra-libéralisme |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04367649&r=his |
| By: | Galli, Stefania (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Occupational structure is a valuable proxy for economic development when more direct indicators are lacking. This study employs occupational structure for the Colony of Sierra Leone in 1831 with the aim of contributing to shed new light on African economic development at a very early stage. This work is based on data extracted from the 1831 census, one of the first reliable censuses in African history. This source provides valuable information on the whole colonial population, including occupational titles for a vast part of it. The results show that the Colony was far from homogeneous, combining a largely primary oriented countryside with a more modern urban sector centre around the Freetown’s harbour. |
| Keywords: | Occupational structure; colonialism; settler colony; development |
| JEL: | J21 J46 N37 |
| Date: | 2024–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0034&r=his |
| By: | Dimitrios, Theodoridis (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Klas, Rönnbäck (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Stefania, Galli (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Was there any redistribution of resources in the Caribbean societies after emancipation from slavery? What were ex-slaves’ prospects to improve their socioeconomic status after emancipation? To shed some light on these questions this paper provides unique empirical evidence on patterns of wealth inequality before and after emancipation for the island of St. Croix, a typical slave-based sugar island in the Caribbean. Our findings suggest that there was no decrease in inequality following the institutional break of emancipation. A key explanation, we argue, rest on factor endowments and more specifically on the restrictive land-labor ratios that prevailed on several Caribbean islands, such as St. Croix. Due to these factor endowments, former slaves remained unable to accumulate any substantial amounts of wealth for decades after emancipation. |
| Keywords: | inequality; wealth; slavery; Caribbean; emancipation |
| JEL: | D31 J47 N36 |
| Date: | 2024–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0033&r=his |
| By: | Marguerite Obolensky (Columbia University); Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School); Charles Taylor (HarvardKennedySchool) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the concept of “climate matching†as a driver of migration and establishes several new results. First, we show that climate strongly predicts the spatial distribution of immigrants in the US, both historically (1880) and more recently (2015), whereby movers select destinations with climates similar to their place of origin. Second, we analyze historical flows of German, Norwegian, and domestic migrants in the US and document that climate sorting also holds within countries. Third, we exploit variation in the long-run change in average US climate from 1900 to 2019 and find that migration increased more between locations whose climate converged. Fourth, we verify that results are not driven by the persistence of ethnic networks or other confounders, and provide evidence for two complementary mechanisms: climate-specific human capital and climate as amenity. Fifth, we back out the value of climate similarity by: i) exploiting the Homestead Act, a historical policy that changed relative land prices; and, ii) examining the relationship between climate mismatch and mortality. Finally, we project how climate change shapes the geography of US population growth by altering migration patterns, both historically and into the 21st century. |
| Keywords: | Migration, climate matching, value of climate |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N31 N32 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2401&r=his |
| By: | Obolensky, Marguerite (Columbia University); Tabellini, Marco (Harvard Business School); Taylor, Charles A. (Harvard Kennedy School) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the concept of "climate matching" as a driver of migration and establishes several new results. First, we show that climate strongly predicts the spatial distribution of immigrants in the US, both historically (1880) and more recently (2015), whereby movers select destinations with climates similar to their place of origin. Second, we analyze historical flows of German, Norwegian, and domestic migrants in the US and document that climate sorting also holds within countries. Third, we exploit variation in the long-run change in average US climate from 1900 to 2019 and find that migration increased more between locations whose climate converged. Fourth, we verify that results are not driven by the persistence of ethnic networks or other confounders, and provide evidence for two complementary mechanisms: climate-specific human capital and climate as amenity. Fifth, we back out the value of climate similarity by: i) exploiting the Homestead Act, a historical policy that changed relative land prices; and, ii) examining the relationship between climate mismatch and mortality. Finally, we project how climate change shapes the geography of US population growth by altering migration patterns, both historically and into the 21st century. |
| Keywords: | migration, climate matching, value of climate |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N31 N32 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16710&r=his |
| By: | Andrea Lluch (Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, CONICET, Argentina); Pablo Delgado (Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (IA2), Zaragoza, Spain.); Vicente Pinilla (Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (IA2), Zaragoza, Spain.) |
| Abstract: | The production, trade and consumption of meat products and their movement around the planet were essential to the development of global markets during the first wave of globalization. This article analyzes the main changes in the ownership structure and profile of the beef industry in South America from the late nineteenth century until 1930 and how this process was reflected in certain macroeconomic variables. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the drivers of success of the meat-producing regions of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Patagonia (both the Argentine and Chilean sides), and also examined the failure cases of Venezuela and the Colombian Caribbean. |
| Keywords: | Mutinationals, Meat packing industry, Beef trade, South America. |
| JEL: | F14 N56 N76 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2401&r=his |
| By: | Kim, Seung Woo (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the case of South Korea, in which the external private debt management leveraged the symbiosis of the authoritarian regime and the neoliberal policies in a less-developed country. In the pursuit of post-war growthamship, against the meddling of allies with official loans, the military government turned to the Eurocurrency market, an offshore market for major currencies to meet the triple goal of diversifying foreign reserve sources, financing the heavy-chemical industrialization, and underpinning the diplomatic struggle against North Korea. The dependence on the Euro-capital empowered technocrats at the Economic Planning Board to manage the sovereign borrower’s external indebtedness. Against the neo-mercantilist policy, they introduced price stability measures and maintained low debt-service-ratio so as to appease international banks and international financial organizations. Their success enabled the military government to eschew the debt crisis of 1982 and bolstered the legitimacy of the military government. In return, the technocrats resorted to the authoritarian rule to implement market-oriented policies against the labor the neo-mercantilist interests. Drawing on multi-archival sources, this article engages to the burgeoning scholarship on the relations between international banks and authoritarian regimes by analyzing the external debt-driven neoliberal turn in the developing world. |
| Keywords: | authoritarian regime; Eurocurrency market; indebtedness; neoliberalism; South Korea; technocrats |
| JEL: | F34 N15 N25 O20 |
| Date: | 2024–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2024_014&r=his |
| By: | Sascha Becker Becker (Monash Univeristy); Jared Rubin (Chapman Univeristy); Ludger Woessmann (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We use the elements of a macroeconomic production function—physical capital, human capital, labor, and technology—together with standard growth models to frame the role of religion in economic growth. Unifying a growing literature, we argue that religion can enhance or impinge upon economic growth through all four elements because it shapes individual preferences, societal norms, and institutions. Religion affects physical capital accumulation by influencing thrift and financial development. It affects human capital through both religious and secular education. It affects population and labor by influencing work effort, fertility, and the demographic transition. And it affects total factor productivity by constraining or unleashing technological change and through rituals, legal institutions, political economy, and conflict. Synthesizing a disjoint literature in this way opens many interesting directions for future research. |
| Keywords: | religion, growth, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, preferences, norms, institutions, capital, saving, financial development, human capital, education, population, labor, demography, fertility, total factor productivity, technological change, rituals, political economy, conflict |
| JEL: | Z12 O40 N30 I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2402&r=his |
| By: | Rémy Herrera; Zhiming Long (THU - Tsinghua University [Beijing]); Weinan Ding (THU - Tsinghua University [Beijing]) |
| Abstract: | Considering that the rate of profit constitutes a key indicator for the analysis of the evolution of capitalist economies, this chapter proposes to study the case of France from 1896 to 2019, that is, over 124 years in total. From a series of stock of productive capital reconstructed for the occasion, a rate of profit is calculated at the macroeconomic level within a conceptual framework faithful to Marx. Over this period of more than a century, three successive long waves are identified, as parts of a secular trend towards the fall in the French rate of profit. The latter, however, recovered several times during these three sub-periods, but finally reoriented downwards, with fluctuations of an amplitude tending to decrease more and more and a deployment in a decreasing spiral of French capitalism. This long-term downward trend is mainly due to the rise in the organic composition of capital. |
| Keywords: | Rate of profit, long waves, productive capital, organic composition of capital, decomposition of the profit rate, France, Rate of profit long waves productive capital organic composition of capital decomposition of the profit rate France |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04367756&r=his |
| By: | Gregory Clark (University of Southern Denmark); Neil Cummins (LSE) |
| Abstract: | If social outcomes have social causation, mothers and fathers in different societies will have different effects on child outcomes. Social mobility rates on the patriline will differ from that on the matriline. From an extensive family lineage of 426, 552 persons in England 1650-2023 we estimate the influence of mothers versus fathers on social outcomes 1754-2023. Mothers’ and fathers’ education and social status are equally predictive of most child social outcomes across the entire period, even for the patriarchical society of eighteenth-nineteenth century England. Only for wealth was there a much stronger influence of the patriline. |
| Keywords: | Gender and social mobility, mothers versus fathers, gender equality |
| JEL: | J16 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0248&r=his |
| By: | Fernihough, Alan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the economic impact of Ireland's partition, assessing market access losses using detailed geospatial data and multimodal transport network analysis. The study reveals that partition significantly reduced market access on both sides of the border, contributing to population decline. Districts closest to the border were the most affected, with estimated population figures being approximately 10 per cent lower than they would have been without the border. This negative impact has persisted, remaining evident despite the reduction of many physical border barriers. A counterfactual analysis suggests that absent the border, the current populations of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would have been 3 per cent and 5 per cent higher, respectively. These findings illustrate the persistent role of political borders in shaping regional economic activity. |
| Keywords: | Economic Geography, Irish Border, Market Access, Economic History of Ireland |
| JEL: | R12 F15 R11 N94 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qmsrps:202402&r=his |
| By: | Denis Scuto |
| Abstract: | : Over the past 15 years, Luxembourg nationality legislation has undergone a paradigmatic shift frombeing an “insular regime” that restricted access to citizenship for both immigrants and emigrants, as well as their descendants, to an “expansive regime” that is inclusive towards these groups.This paper addresses this “Copernican revolution”, outlining the comprehensive legal changes, assessing the impact of citizenship acquisition, and analysing the factors that explain the paradigmshift in Luxembourg nationality law in the new century. The paper focuses on two elements of thisshift: the sizeable impact of new option procedures for immigrants and their descendants, and theunintended creation of a second strategic citizenship for contemporary descendants of Luxembourgemigrants from the 19th century. The paper concludes that the changes in Luxembourgish nationalitylaw reflect simultaneous political pressures for de- -ethnicisation and re-ethnicisation in response toglobalization and international migration. |
| Keywords: | Luxembourg nationality legislation reforms, citizenship regimes, strategic citizenship, citizenship |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2023/49&r=his |
| By: | Bailey, Martha J. (University of California, Los Angeles); Helgerman, Thomas (University of Minnesota); Stuart, Bryan Andrew (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) |
| Abstract: | In the 1960s, two landmark statutes—the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts—targeted the long-standing practice of employment discrimination against U.S. women. For the next 15 years, the gender gap in median earnings among full-time, full-year workers changed little, leading many scholars to conclude the legislation was ineffectual. This paper revisits this conclusion using two research designs, which leverage (1) cross-state variation in pre-existing state equal pay laws and (2) variation in the 1960 gender gap across occupation-industry-state-group cells to capture differences in the legislation's incidence. Both designs suggest that federal anti-discrimination legislation led to striking gains in women's relative wages, which were concentrated among below-median wage earners. These wage gains offset pre-existing labor-market forces which worked to depress women's relative pay growth, resulting in the apparent stability of the gender gap at the median and mean in the 1960s and 1970s. The data show little evidence of short-term changes in women's employment but suggest that firms reduced their hiring and promotion of women in the medium to long term. The historical record points to the key role of the Equal Pay Act in driving these changes. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, Equal Pay Act, Civil Rights Act |
| JEL: | J16 J71 N32 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16700&r=his |
| By: | Pablo Astorga (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses and documents new long-term income inequality series for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela based on dynamic social tables with four occupational groups. This enables the calculation of comparable Overall (4 groups) and Labor Ginis (3 groups) with their between- and within-groups components. The main findings are: the absence of a unique inequality pattern over time; country outcomes characterized by trajectory diversity and level divergence during industrialization, and by commonality and convergence post 1980; the occurrence of inequality-levelling episodes with different timing and length; and significant changes in trends, but also evidence indicating persistence. |
| Keywords: | economic development, industrialisation, income inequality, Latin America |
| JEL: | O10 N1 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0250&r=his |
| By: | Patricia Gomez-Gonzalez (Fordham University, Department of Economics); Gabriel Mathy (American University) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses whether the British public debt featured a convenience yield during the Classical Gold Standard (1718-1913), as the US does in modern times. Our em- pirical results support this thesis. Increases in the British debt-to-GDP ratio decrease British public debt’s convenience yield between 8 and 20 basis points, qualitatively sim- ilar to the behavior of US public debt yields post-1926. Interestingly, the relationship between US yields and US public debt during the Classical Gold Standard counters previous findings for modern US times. International public debt yield spreads between other Gold Standard core countries and Britain were consistently positive and averaged 55 basis points, even though currency and sovereign risk were negligible at that time for the countries chosen. |
| Keywords: | Convenience yield, Safe asset, Liquidity, Gold Standard, Core countries |
| JEL: | E42 G12 G15 H63 N21 N23 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2024-01er:dp2024-01&r=his |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | As early as 1991, Ali Mazrui argued that the Red Sea was not suitable for separating Africa from Arabia. The two regions were inextricably intertwined through languages, religions (particularly Islam) and identities in both the Sahara and the Red Sea in a historical fusion of Arabism and African identity. Their separation was closely linked to a broader trend in which the white world closed ranks and created a system of global apartheid. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increasingly viewed the Horn of Africa as their ‘Western security flank’. They were united in their desire to prevent the growing influence of Turkey, Iran and Qatar in this part of the world. These Gulf rivalries formed the basis for growing economic cooperation with SSA as well as military support and security alliances, particularly in the Horn of Africa. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which together have become the largest Gulf investors in Africa, compete with each other, particularly with Qatar, which has established embassies in most SSA countries. In addition, state and non-state actors from the Middle East and North Africa were closely involved in the destabilization of the Sahel in the 2010s by providing military, intelligence and ideological support to SSA states and terrorist groups. On the other hand, the Gulf States became increasingly dependent on migrant labour and the steady increase in migration from SSA to these countries, reinforced by the massive influx from African migrant-sending countries given the restrictions on African migration to Europe. As early as the seventh century AD, Arabia had relied heavily on the slave trade and the supply of labour from SSA, founded on the philosophy that it was legitimate to enslave black people because they were no better than animals. During this time, Black Africa became the largest slave depot in the Islamic world. To this day, there are significant African migrant and diaspora communities in the Middle East. Their presence has at times helped to perpetuate long-standing derogatory views and attitudes towards Africa and its peoples. These attitudes, based on an Arab-centric social hierarchy and expressing contempt for African cultures, remain prevalent today and shape social relationships between employers and African migrants in the emirates of the Arabian Peninsula. |
| Keywords: | GCC; Middle East; Arabian Peninsula; Arab states of the Persian Gulf; Sub-Saharan Africa; Red Sea; Horn of Africa; Yemen; Arab Spring; Sahel; Islamic terrorism; Arab slave trade; Arab nationalism; Islam; Culture of Africa; migrant workers; human trafficking; forced labor; Ethiopia; Somalia; Ghana; Turkey; Iran; Afro-Arabs; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; Qatar; Oman; African Studies; |
| JEL: | D31 D62 D72 D74 E26 F35 F51 F52 F53 F54 F55 H12 H56 N45 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119234&r=his |
| By: | RASTA-PIDE (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics) |
| Abstract: | Some history Ever since my short stint at the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) in 2005, I have been trying to get the MoC and the thought community to take the growth of domestic commerce—services and construction—seriously as a policy objective given that it had become the largest sector of the economy. Although the idea gained credence very quickly, little has been achieved yet. My insight was that in our pursuit of mercantilist policies, this sector was neglected. 1 Yet this sector was extremely valuable in any value chain analysis. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:rrepot:2023:15&r=his |
| By: | ha, jongrim; Kose, Ayhan M.; Ohnsorge, Franziska; Yilmazkuday, Hakan |
| 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: | 2023–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119645&r=his |
| By: | Huang, Yun |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the rise and fall of the Administrative Bureau of Prohibited Drugs in 1920s Shanghai. It identifies the factors associated with the endeavours of the central government to experiment with establishing a Bureau dedicated to regulating refined drugs and the reasons why the Bureau operated for just about two years. It argues that the concerns regarding the widespread of refined drugs and the expected profits of regulating the business pushed the central government to experiment establishing the Bureau. Moreover, this experiment was a tool with which the Beiyang government aimed to centralise its authorities on the issue of drug control. However, the room for manoeuvring the Bureau was limited, mainly because of the resilience of the drug economy and the politicised regulations. Struggling in the narrow space between the colonial powers, the merchant groups, and the local authorities acting under the influence of warlords, the Bureau was doomed to be short-lived. Its history reveals the resilience of both licit and illicit drug economy and the power struggles that resulted from efforts to regulate refined drugs. |
| Keywords: | refined drugs; Administrative Bureau of Prohibited Drugs; drug policy; drug history; modern China; 200394/Z/15/Z |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2023–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121265&r=his |
| By: | Sylvain Celle (TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Cette communication part d'un questionnement : est-ce qu'il y a une éthique d'entreprise spécifique aux coopératives. L'hypothèse défendue est que ce n'est pas tant une éthique coopérative « en soi » qui serait différente d'autres entreprises (notamment capitalistes), mais que c'est la procédure collective et démocratique du choix de l'éthique d'entreprise qui différencie la coopérative de l'entreprise capitaliste. À partir de là, cette communication propose une mise en perspective historique pour montrer comment les coopératives ont pu défendre des modèles éthiques différents de l'entreprise capitaliste : au XIXe siècle en opposant l'associationnisme au patronage ; au XXe siècle autour de la République coopérative face au paternalisme et en complémentarité de l'État social ; et au XXIe siècle avec le modèle de la SCIC en réponse à l'essor de la RSE. Cette communication pointe enfin un autre élément de rupture (en s'inspirant des travaux d'Anne Salmon) : alors que les modèles éthiques de l'entreprise coopérative ou capitaliste du XIXe et XXe siècle sont des éthiques transcendantes qui s'appuient sur des principes politiques ou religieux supérieurs ; les modèles éthiques de la SCIC et de la RSE au XXIe siècle sont des éthiques immanentes qui s'appuient sur les principes mêmes de l'entreprise (démocratique ou capitaliste). |
| Keywords: | Ethique d'entreprise, Coopératives |
| Date: | 2023–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04377094&r=his |
| By: | Wazan, Michelle |
| Abstract: | This commentary explores the contradictory forces behind Lebanon’s implementation of drug control policies: opportunistic responses to international pressures on one hand, and an attempt to extract benefits from the industry on the other. This article argues that this logic results in ‘theatrical gestures’ by state institutions and mediatized performances of crop eradications and arrests to appease international pressures while continuing to profit from illicit economies. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2023–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121267&r=his |
| By: | Salvador Calatayud (Universitat de Valencia) |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo estudia los cambios producidos en las variedades de arroz cultivadas en España a lo largo del siglo XX. Los datos muestran un desarrollo temprano del modelo productivo que, con posterioridad, constituiría la Revolución verde. En paralelo a lo sucedido en la región arrocera del norte de Italia, en el litoral mediterráneo español se inició en la segunda década del novecientos un proceso de renovación varietal que incluyó la obtención híbridos desde los años 1930. Esta transformación fue impulsada por las instituciones, en particular por la Estación Arrocera de Sueca, fundada en 1913 y que mantuvo una estrecha colaboración con la Stazione Sperimentale di Risicoltura de Vercelli (Piamonte). Dada el elevado empleo de fertilizantes químicos que caracterizaban el cultivo del arroz en España, los criterios en la búsqueda de nuevas variedades no se centraron en la maximización de los rendimientos, ya muy elevados en relación con otras regiones del mundo. En cambio, los objetivos de los trabajos de la Estación fueron otros: la defensa contra plagas; la mejora de variedades tradicionales apreciadas en los mercados nacional y exterior; y la búsqueda de variedades aptas para la siembra directa y la mecanización de la cosecha, cuando, en la segunda mitad del siglo, el rápido aumento de los salarios agrícolas forzó cambios destacables en el modelo arrocero español. |
| Keywords: | Cambio técnico agrario, instituciones agronómicas, cultivo del arroz, mejora varietal |
| JEL: | O13 O31 O32 N64 Q16 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bci:wpaper:2305&r=his |
| By: | Clavijo, Sergio (Universidad de los Andes) |
| Abstract: | El énfasis en temas puramente redistributivos, olvidándose de obtener un crecimiento sostenible del PIB-real a tasas de por lo menos un 4% anual, ha venido empeorando el bienestar de la sociedad Latinoamericana. En Colombia se llegó a plantear que la solución frente a la transición energética también pasaba por promover la desaceleración económica y los obstáculos a las alianzas público privadas arriesgan con conseguirlo. Este documento analiza el desempeño del PIB-real per-cápita del mundo emergente (contrastando Asia con América Latina) durante 1965-2022. Aquí destacamos los ciclos de integración al comercio mundial, pasando por Japón (1950-1965); siguiendo con Corea del Sur, Taiwán, Singapur, y Hong-Kong; después con Indonesia, Malasia y Tailandia (1965-1980); y, por último, con China y Vietnam (1979-2022). Es claro que el éxito de Asia ha sido la apertura al comercio internacional, con índices de apertura superiores al 80%, mientras el promedio de América Latina es la mitad (exceptuando México y Chile). Esto ha implicado duplicación del ingreso per-cápita cada 15 años en momentos de auge en Asia, mientras en América Latina ocurre cada 40 años y con productividades que son un tercio de aquellas en países desarrollados. Aquí explicamos cómo TLCs con Estados Unidos llevaron a duplicar el valor exportaciones/PIB en México y Chile, pero en Colombia cayó a la mitad (6% al 3% del PIB), debido a alta dependencia de commodities. Colombia llegó tarde al ciclo exportador y fracasó en temas de “agenda interna”. Planteamos entonces alternativas exportadoras agro-industriales, como las desarrolladas por Chile y Perú; y cerramos con propuestas gerenciales y de mejoras en infraestructura y logística en Colombia. |
| Keywords: | Crecimiento económico; América Latina; Historia del Desarrollo |
| JEL: | N16 O47 O54 |
| Date: | 2024–01–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:021008&r=his |
| By: | Andrei, Liviu.C.; Andrei, Dalina |
| Abstract: | Previously to the “Euro currency’s birth” there was even more than a debate about; there was a real fight of ideas between pro- and against the new currency and its “renewed” Union around. Then, there came the moment around the year 2000 (i.e. the Euro currency in 1999, then the effective Euro in 2002) when the pro-Euro and pro-Union won the match – e.g. the “Happy new Euro!” and its fire-works feast – this Programme came to be successful, as previously drawn. The EU was done, as resulted from the Maästricht Treaty (1992); so was the Euro and its Euro-Area/Euro-Zone/Euro-land. This was equally a new step taken into the integration process, as previously indicated by the “old” theory of economic integration. However, on the one hand this was not more than the euphoric end of an old period, on the other just the start of a new one that was going to be quite different and not entirely predictable. So, 2004-2005 was coming to be the moment of the French, Danish and Dutch voters’ rejection of the EU Constitution project on the very ground, 2008-2009 was the one of Lehman Brothers’ economic crisis, as international, and 2020-2021 the one called “Brexit” – the UK leaving the EU. Along this same period (2000-2023) context, first, singular voices came up in the literature for a presumable “fiscal union to accompany the monetary one”, but then such an idea, although not exactly disappeared, stays quite far from the current EU activities and projects. And from the literature, as well. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy; central banks; fiscal policy; modern monetary theory; economic integration & theory about. |
| JEL: | E02 E52 E58 E62 F15 |
| Date: | 2023–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119543&r=his |
| By: | Chatzinikolaou, Dimos (Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Economics); Vlados, Charis (Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The globalized socioeconomic system seems to be undergoing a profound crisis and radical structural transformation. This transitional era appears to be leading gradually to a form of a “new globalization, ” which has not been definitively shaped yet. This article aims to establish why this new globalization emerges nowadays. First, it examines the postwar phases of world capitalism (from 1945 onward) based on the “evolutionary structural triptych” that explanatorily unifies different theoretical approaches to conclude that the previous globalization period of 1980-2008 has come full circle. Then, it concludes by presenting a critical overview of different approaches to the new globalization and proposes a novel definition of the phenomenon. Finally, it outlines some points that appear crucial for the advent of the desirable new globalization—towards an innovational and realistic global liberalism. |
| Keywords: | new globalization; postwar world capitalism; socioeconomic development; evolutionary approach; hegemonic stability theory; regulation school; international regime; innovation generations |
| JEL: | B52 F60 P16 |
| Date: | 2023–12–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:duthrp:2023_007&r=his |
| By: | Sarah McNamara; Guido Neidhoefer; Patrick Lehnert |
| Abstract: | We estimate intergenerational mobility of education for people born 1940-1999 at the subnational level for 40 European countries. The result is a panel of mobility indices for 105 mesoregions (NUTS1), and 215 microregions (NUTS2). We use these indices to make three contributions. First, we describe the geography of intergenerational mobility in Europe. Second, adapting a novel weighting procedure based on cohorts' relative economic contribution, we transform cohort-linked measures into annual measures of intergenerational mobility for each region. Third, we investigate the relationship between intergenerational mobility and innovation, and find robust evidence that higher mobility is associated with increased innovation. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational Mobility, Equality of Opportunity, Human Capital, Innovation, Regional Economic Performance, Europe |
| JEL: | D63 I24 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0211&r=his |
| By: | Stamm, Isabell; Sandham, Allan |
| Abstract: | Germany is known for its family-owned businesses that transfer ownership across generations. However, business owners in Germany increasingly envision selling their business beyond the family, which fundamentally changes the institutionalized way private ownership of businesses is transferred. In this paper, we analyze and explain this fundamental change in German family capitalism since the 1990s. Drawing on a sociology of ownership, we view family succession as a transfer regime and show how this regime has been problematized and gradually reframed. Based on analysis of a rich corpus of documents, archival materials, and twenty-seven expert interviews, we show how a new transfer regime - the exit regime - emerges, which coordinates ownership transfer among founders through matchmaking. Our study contributes to research on family capitalism and succession by demonstrating how family capital moves toward the financial sector without becoming financial capital as it loses the family and gains the founder as personalized points of reference. |
| Abstract: | Deutschland ist für seine Familienunternehmen bekannt, die das Eigentum am Unternehmen innerhalb der Familie halten und es familienintern an die nächste Generation übergeben. Allerdings ziehen immer mehr Unternehmenseigentümer in Betracht, ihr Unternehmen an Externe zu verkaufen, wodurch sich die institutionalisierte Form des Eigentumstransfers von Unternehmen stark wandelt. In diesem Discussion Paper analysieren und erläutern wir diesen sich seit den 1990er-Jahren vollziehenden Wandel, der den Familienkapitalismus in Deutschland grundlegend verändert. Wir setzen uns aus der Perspektive einer Soziologie des Eigentums mit familieninterner Nachfolge als spezifischem Transferregime auseinander und zeigen, wie dieses Regime problematisiert und allmählich umgestaltet wurde. Anhand der Analyse einer umfangreichen Sammlung von Dokumenten und Archivmaterialien sowie von 27 Experteninterviews veranschaulichen wir, wie sich ein neues Transferregime - das Exit-Regime - herausbildet, das den Eigentumstransfer zwischen 'Gründern' über moderierte Vermittlung koordiniert. Unsere Studie leistet einen Betrag zur Forschung über Familienkapitalismus und Nachfolge, indem sie verdeutlicht, wie Familienkapital finanzialisiert wird, ohne dabei selbst zu Finanzkapital zu werden, solange die Familie mit dem Gründer als persönlichem Bezugspunkt ersetzt wird. |
| Keywords: | capitalism, family, ownership, regime change, succession, Eigentum, Familie, Kapitalismus, Nachfolge, Regimewandel |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:281201&r=his |
| By: | Jonathan Colmer; Suvy Qin; John Voorheis; Reed Walker |
| Abstract: | This paper uses administrative tax records linked to Census demographic data and high-resolution measures of fine small particulate (PM2.5) exposure to study the evolution of the Black-White pollution exposure gap over the past 40 years. In doing so, we focus on the various ways in which income may have contributed to these changes using a statistical decomposition. We decompose the overall change in the Black-White PM2.5 exposure gap into (1) components that stem from rank-preserving compression in the overall pollution distribution and (2) changes that stem from a reordering of Black and White households within the pollution distribution. We find a significant narrowing of the Black-White PM2.5 exposure gap over this time period that is overwhelmingly driven by rank-preserving changes rather than positional changes. However, the relative positions of Black and White households at the upper end of the pollution distribution have meaningfully shifted in the most recent years. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, income, environmental inequality, decomposition |
| Date: | 2024–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1974&r=his |
| By: | Makoto WATANABE; Yu Awaya; kohei Iwasaki |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how monetary expansion causes asset bubbles. Whenthere is no monetary expansion, a bubbly asset is not created due to a hold-upproblem. Monetary expansion increases buyers money holdings, and then, dealersare willing to buy a worthless asset from sellers, in hopes of selling it to buyers |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:24-001e&r=his |
| By: | Cortes, Patricia (Boston University); Feng, Ying (National University of Singapore); Guida-Johnson, Nicolás (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana); Pan, Jessica (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | We examine the differential effects of automation on the labor market and educational outcomes of women relative to men over the past four decades. Although women were disproportionately employed in occupations with a high risk of automation in 1980, they were more likely to shift to high-skill, high-wage occupations than men in over time. We provide a causal link by exploiting variation in local labor market exposure to automation attributable to historical differences in local industry structure. For a given change in the exposure to automation across commuting zones, women were more likely than men to shift out of routine task-intensive occupations to high-skill, high wage occupations over the subsequent decade. The net effect is that initially routine-intensive local labor markets experienced greater occupational gender integration. College attainment among younger workers, particularly women, also rose signicantly more in areas more exposed to automation. We propose a model of occupational choice with endogenous skill investments, where social skills and routine tasks are q-complements, and women have a comparative advantage in social skills, to explain the observed patterns. Supporting the model mechanisms, areas with greater exposure to automation experienced a greater movement of women into occupations with high social skill (and high cognitive) requirements than men. |
| Keywords: | automation, gender, occupational segregation, gender skill gap |
| JEL: | J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16695&r=his |