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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2024‒02‒26
35 papers chosen by |
| By: | David Escamilla-Guerrero; Andrea Papadia; Ariell Zimran |
| Abstract: | The effects of immigration are reasonably well understood in developed countries, but they are far more poorly understood in developing ones despite the importance of these countries as immigrant destinations. We address this shortcoming by studying the effects of immigration to Brazil during the Age of Mass Migration on its agricultural sector in 1920. This context benefits from the widely recognized value of historical perspective in studies of the effects of immigration. But unlike studies that focus on the United States to understand the effects of migration from poor to rich countries, our context is informative of developing countries' experience because Brazil in this period was unique among major migrant destinations as a low-income country with a large agricultural sector and weak institutions. Instrumenting for a municipality's immigrant share using the interaction of aggregate immigrant inflows and the expansion of Brazil's railway network, we find that a greater immigrant share in a municipality led to an increase in farm values. We show that the bulk of the effect of immigration can be explained by more intense cultivation of land, which we attribute to temporary immigrants exerting greater labor effort than natives. Finally, we find that it is unlikely that immigration's effect on agriculture slowed Brazil's structural transformation. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N36 N56 O13 O15 Q15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32083&r=his |
| By: | Guidorzzi Girotto, Vitor; Strachman, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | The relationship between money and credit is analyzed differently between schools of economic thought. Orthodoxy, in general, analyzes it using the commodity money approach; heterodoxy, in large part, adopts the Chartist approach. The crucial difference between them lies in the fact, as put by Schumpeter, that orthodoxy postulates a monetary theory of credit; the heterodox, a credit theory of money. For the latter, money is, by nature, credit, and it can take different forms, tangible or not. The State uses it sovereignty to delimit the monetary system by defining what will (or will not) be accepted as money in the payments of transactions due to itself. Thus, Knapp’s contribution in structuring a theory of state money meets Innes’s credit theory of money and, together, these contributions offer a solid theoretical and historical framework for the formulation of an alternative theory of money, the Chartist theory. |
| Keywords: | Money; Chartalism; Credit; Knapp; Innes. |
| JEL: | E12 E42 E51 |
| Date: | 2024–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119866&r=his |
| By: | Joseph E. Stiglitz; Andrew Kosenko |
| Abstract: | We survey aspects of the intellectual development of the economics of information from the 1970s to today. We focus here on models where information is communicated indirectly through actions. Basic results, such as the failure of the fundamental theorems of welfare economics, the non-existence of competitive equilibrium, and the dependence of the nature of the equilibrium, when it exists, on both what information is available, and how information can be acquired, have been shown to be robust. Markets create asymmetries of information, even when initially none existed. While the earliest literature paid scarce attention to misinformation, subsequently it has been shown that governments can improve welfare, if disinformation is present, through fraud laws and disclosure requirements. Moreover, robust mechanism design enables agents and governments to better achieve their objectives, taking into account information asymmetries. On the other hand, market reforms that ignored their informational consequences may have lowered welfare. Surveying both theory and applications, we review the main insights of these literatures, and highlight key messages using nontechnical language. |
| JEL: | D82 D86 D9 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32049&r=his |
| By: | Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri |
| Abstract: | La literatura académica ha destacado el papel de la educación para promover la movilidad social. Pero ¿cuánta movilidad han permitido históricamente las universidades de alta calidad? Esta investigación se centra en un estudio de caso de movilidad social histórica en una institución educativa de alta calidad en Colombia. Utilizando estimaciones basadas en apellidos poco frecuentes y su representación relativa en las personas graduadas de la Universidad de los Andes desde 1949 hasta 2018 se estiman coeficientes de movilidad intergeneracional para apellidos étnicos y de élite. Estas estimaciones proporcionan nueva evidencia de patrones de baja movilidad social, que se reflejan en la alta persistencia histórica de los grupos de élite, así como la ausencia o baja representación de las minorías étnicas. Además, se concluye que este enfoque metodológico puede ser una herramienta útil para medir movilidad social en países con limitaciones de datos históricos. **** Abstract: The role of education in promoting social mobility has been highlighted in the literature. But how much mobility have high-quality universities yielded historically? This research focuses on a case study of historical social mobility in access to high-quality education in Colombia. By using estimations based on unique surnames and their relative representation among graduates from Universidad de los Andes from 1949 to 2018, intergenerational mobility coefficients are estimated for ethnic and elite surnames. These estimations provide new evidence of long-term social mobility patterns in Colombia and reveal low mobility and persistence in the historical elite, as well as underrepresentation of ethnic groups. It is further concluded that this methodological approach can be a useful tool for studying countries with limitations in historical data for measuring social mobility. |
| Keywords: | educación, segregación, movilidad social, Colombia, education, segregation, social mobility |
| JEL: | D63 I24 J15 N36 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:cheedt:61&r=his |
| By: | Tamilina, Larysa |
| Abstract: | This article examines how Ukraine's historical experiences of occupation and territorial fragmentation could lead to the emergence of a democratic political culture within its population. Utilizing individual-level psychological theories, I illustrate that extended periods of occupation cultivated pro-democratic values among Ukrainians, by nurturing sentiments of resistance and autonomy. Additionally, the historical presence of territorial fragmentation contributed to the promotion of diverse perspectives, stimulating social dialogue and encouraging citizens to pursue increased participation in the political sphere. This historical context influenced the shaping of democratic attitudes among Ukrainians. |
| Keywords: | History of occupation, territorial fragmentation, the emergence of democracy, Ukraine. |
| JEL: | B0 N00 P5 |
| Date: | 2024–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119916&r=his |
| By: | Berkes, Enrico; Coluccia, Davide M.; Dossi, Gaia Greta; Squicciarini, Mara P. |
| Abstract: | How do societies respond to adversity? After a negative shock, separate strands of research document either an increase in religiosity or a boost in innovation efforts. In this paper, we show that both reactions can occur at the same time, driven by different individuals within society. The setting of our study is the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States. To measure religiosity, we construct a novel indicator based on naming patterns of newborns. We measure innovation through the universe of granted patents. Exploiting plausibly exogenous county-level variation in exposure to the pandemic, we provide evidence that more-affected counties become both more religious and more innovative. Looking within counties, we uncover heterogeneous responses: individuals from more religious backgrounds further embrace religion, while those from less religious backgrounds become more likely to choose a scientific occupation. Facing adversity widens the distance in religiosity between science-oriented individuals and the rest of the population, and it increases the polarization of religious beliefs. |
| Keywords: | religiosity; science; innovation; great influenza pandemic |
| JEL: | J24 N13 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121318&r=his |
| By: | Titus Galama; Andrei Munteanu; Kevin Thom |
| Abstract: | Using linked records from the 1880 to 1940 full-count United States decennial censuses, the authors estimate the effects of parental exposure to compulsory schooling (CS) laws on the human capital outcomes of children, exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. CS reforms not only increased the educational attainment of exposed individuals, but also that of their children. The authors find that one extra year of maternal (paternal) exposure to CS increased children’s educational attainment by 0.015 (0.016) years – larger than the average effects on the parents themselves, and larger than the few existing intergenerational estimates from studies of more recent reforms. They find particularly large effects on black families and first-born sons. Exploring mechanisms, the authors find suggestive evidence that higher parental exposure to CS affected children’s outcomes through higher own human capital, marriage to more educated spouses, and a higher propensity to reside in neighborhoods with greater school resources (teacher-to-student ratios) and with higher average educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | education, inequalities, compulsoryschooling, humancapital, intergenerational transmission, geographic sorting, assortativemating, racial inequalities. |
| JEL: | E24 H52 I24 I25 I26 J15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:creeic:2402&r=his |
| By: | Mangyo, Eiji (Nagoya University); Haapanen, Mika (University of Jyväskylä); Böckerman, Petri (University of Jyväskylä) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of a major economic recession on the educational attainment of the next generation. Our analysis is based on nationwide longitudinal registry data on Finland. We focus on the heterogenous effects of the recession on households of different socioeconomic statuses. We find that the effects of the early 1990s recession on the educational attainment of the next generation were more severe for children with nontertiary-educated parents than those with tertiary-educated parents, implying that the recession aggravated the pattern of societal inequality in Finland. Importantly, the deterioration of the home environment was the primary mechanism through which the recession adversely affected the educational attainment of the next generation. |
| Keywords: | early-life events, parental socioeconomic status, intergenerational effects, education, family dissolution, Finland |
| JEL: | I24 J12 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16750&r=his |
| By: | Hinrichsen, Simon |
| Abstract: | In 1979 Iraq was a net creditor to the world. Fifteen years later, its government debt-to-GDP was over 1, 000 per cent. At the time of the US invasion in 2003, Iraq was saddled with around 130 billion US dollars in external debt. How does a country incur so much debt, so fast? In answering this question, the article reconstructs the build-up of Iraqi debt through the 1980s and 1990s. This article is the first to create a debt series going back to 1979. The rise in Iraqi indebtedness was a consequence of global geopolitical trends in the 1980s where political lending trumped solvency concerns. It allowed Iraq to obtain financing on terms more favourable than the US government, without conditionality of reform. |
| Keywords: | Iraq; sovereign debt; war finance |
| JEL: | N15 |
| Date: | 2022–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:115624&r=his |
| By: | Michele Bee (University of Salento [Lecce]); Raphaël Fèvre (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to exploit fully the heuristic virtues of Keynes' famous ‘old bottles' story, deploying a multi-layered argument and drawing out its broadest implications. In essence, we show that through this story Keynes was making a very serious point about anti-crisis policies: the need for authorities to stimulate animal spirits by relying on people's natural impulse to action. Rather than taking the place of entrepreneurs and paying people to dig holes, Keynes seems to be arguing that public authorities should put entrepreneurs in a situation where they are so enthusiastic that they go into debt to dig holes, just like during a gold rush. At the same time, it is a question of restoring the banks' willingness to lend for these overoptimistic projects in a period of total depression. This article explores the conditions that make public intervention as effective as possible through the enthusiasm and individual initiative that can be generated by an artificial gold rush. Such intervention therefore can be as minimal as possible, without having to resort to the opposite authoritarian solution of war. Since the gold rush builds cities and war destroys them, Keynes spent considerable energy convincing his contemporaries that liberal-democratic countries would have to take the former path if they wanted to avoid the latter. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04414654&r=his |
| By: | Davide Romelli |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an extensive update to the Central Bank Independence – Extended (CBIE) index, originally developed in Romelli (2022), extending its coverage for 155 countries from 1923 to 2023. The update reveals a continued global trend towards enhancing central bank independence, which holds across countries’ income levels and indices of central bank independence. Despite the challenges which followed the 2008 Global financial crisis and the recent re-emergence of political scrutiny on central banks following the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper finds no halt in the momentum of central bank reforms. I document a total of 370 reforms in central bank design from 1923 to 2023 and provide evidence of a resurgence in the commitment to central bank independence since 2016. These findings suggest that the slowdown in reforms witnessed post-2008 was a temporary phase, and that, despite increasing political pressures on central banks, central bank independence is still considered a cornerstone for effective economic policy-making |
| Keywords: | Central banking, central bank independence, central bank governance, legislative reforms. |
| JEL: | E58 G28 N20 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp24217&r=his |
| By: | St\'ephane Goria (Crem) |
| Abstract: | The 20th century saw the emergence of an intermediate level of consideration, situated between the tactical and strategic levels: the operational level. This level of scale is that of a large area of operations, that is to say coordinated engagements bringing together forces belonging to different corps over a considerable geographical distance. In this article, we approach operatics and its implementation, called operative art or operational art, first from its contributions to military thinking, then we transpose what can be transposed beyond this domain. We consider operative art as a new point of view generating a particular thought and solutions based on agile systems, but which may have reached their limits. We will limit ourselves here to the question of the potential contributions of the operatic perspective to understand or implement a set of actions related to competitive or economic warfare. To do this, we will begin by providing some answers to the question of what operatic military is in terms of its characteristics. Then, we propose a way to transpose them in the context of companies preferably confronted with a context of competitive or economic warfare by taking as an example the acquisition of the essential activities of the company Alstom by the company General Electric (GE). |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2401.02963&r=his |
| By: | Dold, Malte; Krieger, Tim |
| Abstract: | For several decades, what has been called the "liberal cosmopolitan-minded urban elites" set the political agenda of Western democracies (Dold and Krieger 2019a). They aimed at personal freedom and upward social mobility by means of a meritocratic system that was safeguarded by a combination of a competitive market economy, a liberal and open democracy, and the rule of law (Fuest 2018). These elites welcomed the opening of the Iron Curtain as the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy" (Fukuyama 1989, 4). However, political realities have challenged this perspective severely in recent years (Dold and Krieger 2019a). Around the globe, but especially in the liberal Western market democracies - i.e., societies in which "markets and democracy have coexisted quite healthily" in the post-World War II era (Chua 2000, 289) - populist movements have gained prominence in public discourse and in some cases even won elections (e.g., in Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, or Sweden). There is ongoing debate over the causes of the rise of populist movements in the early 21st century (Gidron and Hall 2017; Guiso et al. 2017; Inglehart and Norris 2017; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). While important, our chapter will touch upon this debate only in passing, though, and instead focus on the consequences of populism's rise; in particular, we will ask how to deal with the populist challenge to the liberal order. We do so in three steps, thereby referring to one specific liberal conception, ordoliberalism. Considering ordoliberalism is instructive because, on the one hand, it strives for a "functioning and humane order of the economy, society, law, and the state" (Eucken 1990 [1952], 373; our italics), which is a much broader idea of liberalism than pure economic liberalism. On the other hand, critics argue that ordoliberalism has failed on following up on its own agenda (Dold and Krieger 2019b and 2023). They believe that ordoliberalism is the culprit of various misguided developments since the Eurozone crisis of 2009, which then provided a breeding ground for populism (Algan et al. 2017; Dold and Krieger 2019a). In their view, this is also related to ordoliberalism's - alleged - preference of the rule of law and economic freedom over democratic decision-making. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:281997&r=his |
| By: | Popov, Vladimir; Konchakov, Roman; Didenko, Dmitry |
| Abstract: | This paper is an empirical test of what is called a unified theory of inequality and growth (Galor and Zeira, 1988, 1993; Galor and Moav, 2004; Galor, 2012) – in early stages of industrialization inequality enhanced the process of development by channeling resources towards individuals whose marginal propensity to save is higher, thus enhancing physical and human capital accumulation. In later stages of development, however, equality has stimulated human capital formation and growth and unequal distribution of income became a hurdle for economic development. A number of studies have found that human capital is higher and more evenly distributed in countries with lower income and wealth inequalities. In particular, Baten and Hippe (2018) argued that inequality in the distribution of land ownership in Europe (including Russia) in the 19th century had a negative impact on human capital formation (as measured by numeracy rate) as landowners did not have incentives to promote educational institutions or were not willing to pay the necessary taxes. In contrast, we find that in the regions of Russian Empire in 1897 uneven distribution of land was associated with higher levels of human capital (as measured by the average years of schooling and literacy rate), whereas the distribution of the human capital across the regional population (as measured by literacy and the proportions of inhabitants with higher, secondary and primary education) was more even. The difference in the results is caused by the different measurements of land inequality; our result is totally consistent with the unified theory of the inequality and growth. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment, school enrollment, inequality, land distribution, growth. |
| JEL: | D63 I23 J24 N93 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119796&r=his |
| By: | Julien Acalin; Laurence M. Ball |
| Abstract: | The fall in the U.S. public debt/GDP ratio from 106% in 1946 to 23% in 1974 is often attributed to high rates of economic growth. This paper examines the roles of three other factors: primary budget surpluses, surprise inflation, and pegged interest rates before the Fed-Treasury Accord of 1951. Our central result is a simulation of the path that the debt/GDP ratio would have followed with primary budget balance and without the distortions in real interest rates caused by surprise inflation and the pre-Accord peg. In this counterfactual, debt/GDP declines only to 74% in 1974, not 23% as in actual history. Moreover, the ratio starts rising again in 1980 and in 2022 it is 84%. These findings imply that, over the last 76 years, only a small amount of debt reduction has been achieved through growth rates that exceed undistorted interest rates. |
| Keywords: | U.S. Public Debt; Financial Repression; Surprise Inflation; r-g |
| Date: | 2024–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2024/005&r=his |
| By: | András Simonovits (HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, BME MI) |
| Abstract: | John von Neumann (Budapest, 1903–Washington D.C., 1957) was an exceptional polymath, who made fundamental contributions to mathematical logics, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, game theory, computer architecture and automata theory. In this brief paper, I shall review the game-theoretic results of von Neumann and their legacy in an informal way. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: game theory |
| JEL: | B16 C7 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2401&r=his |
| By: | Sari Pekkala Kerr; William R. Kerr; Kendall E. Smith |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run career mobility of young immigrants, mostly refugees, from Vietnam who moved to the United States during 1989-1995. This third and final migration wave of young Vietnamese immigrants was sparked by unexpected events that culminated in the Amerasian Homecoming Act. Characteristics of the wave also minimized selection effects regarding who migrated. Small differences in the age at arrival, specifically being 14-17 years old on entry compared to 18-21, resulted in substantial differences in future economic outcomes. Using Census Bureau data, we characterize the different career profiles of young vs. older immigrants, and we quantify explanatory factors like education, language fluency, and persistence from initial employers. |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J44 J61 J71 L26 M13 M51 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32067&r=his |
| By: | Santavirta, Torsten (University of Helsinki); Stuhler, Jan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies use names - first and surnames - to estimate intergenerational mobility in sources that lack direct family links. While generating novel evidence on intergenerational transmission processes, it remains unclear how different estimators compare and how reliable they are. This paper evaluates the most popular name-based methods, using newly digitised records from Finland and U.S. Census data. We illustrate that their interpretation depends on sampling properties of the data, such as the overlap between the parent and child samples, which differ widely across studies. We correct for the attenuation bias from limited overlap and address other common problems encountered in applications. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, names, grouping estimator, split-sample IV |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16725&r=his |
| By: | José J. Bercoff (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán Argentina); Osvaldo Meloni (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán Argentina); Juan Manuel Tabuenca (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella Argentina) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the political competition literature by providing empirical evidence of the influence of Double Simultaneous Voting System (DSVS) and Apparentment Lists (AL), in force in several Argentine districts since 1987, on party hegemony and the concentration of the party system. Results from a panel data of 9 gubernatorial elections and all 24 argentine subnational jurisdictions show that these electoral systems favor the persistence of the incumbent party in office, diminish the effective number of parties, and improve the probability of victory of the incumbent party. DSVS and AL generate a profusion of subgroups that take advantage of preexisting party fragmentation, clientelistic networks and large vertical fiscal imbalance |
| Keywords: | Political competition; electoral systems; subnational politics; Double simultaneous voting system; Apparentment lists. |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:302&r=his |
| By: | Effrosyni Adamopoulou (ZEW); Jeremy Greenwood (University of Pennsylvania); Nezih Guner (Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI)) |
| Abstract: | A brief historical overview of the household equipment revolution and the women who transformed the home in Germany and the United States. |
| Keywords: | appliances, housework, leisure, Christine Frederick, Hildegard Margis, Arne Meyer, vintage advertisements |
| JEL: | B31 D13 J22 N32 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eag:rereps:39&r=his |
| By: | Michel-Pierre Chélini (CREHS - Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes - Histoire et Sociétés - UA - Université d'Artois) |
| Abstract: | Prices are an essential component of markets and incorporate a lot of information about the products or services exchanged. From 1940 to 1986 there existed in France at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance a price control administration, the essential justification of which was France's propensity for inflation higher than that of its partners: 5.4 % on annual average from 1950 to 2000 compared to 4% for the United States or 2.8% for the FRG. The service was first called Economic Control, then evolved in stages until in 1986 it became Directorate-General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Repression, gradually moving from vigilant monitoring of prices to their contractual regulation and finishing in competition policy |
| Abstract: | Les prix sont une composante essentielle des marchés et intègrent beaucoup d'informations sur les produits ou les services échangés. De 1940 à 1986 a existé en France auprès du ministère de l'Économie et des Finances une administration d'encadrement des prix, dont la justification essentielle était la propension de la France à une inflation supérieure à celle de ses partenaires : de 5, 4 % en moyenne annuelle de 1950 à 2000 contre 4 % pour les États-Unis ou 2, 8 % pour la RFA. Le service s'est d'abord appelé Contrôle économique, puis a évolué par étapes jusqu'à devenir en 1986 direction générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes, passant progressivement d'une surveillance vigilante des prix à leur régulation contractuelle et finissant en politique de la concurrence |
| Keywords: | Prices regulation, Inflation policy, France 1940-1990 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04399936&r=his |
| By: | Escamilla-Guerrero, David (University of St Andrews); Papadia, Andrea (University of York); Zimran, Ariell (Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | The effects of immigration are reasonably well understood in developed countries, but they are far more poorly understood in developing ones despite the importance of these countries as immigrant destinations. We address this shortcoming by studying the effects of immigration to Brazil during the Age of Mass Migration on its agricultural sector in 1920. This context benefits from the widely recognized value of historical perspective in studies of the effects of immigration. But unlike studies that focus on the United States to understand the effects of migration from poor to rich countries, our context is informative of developing countries' experience because Brazil in this period was unique among major migrant destinations as a low-income country with a large agricultural sector and weak institutions. Instrumenting for a municipality's immigrant share using the interaction of aggregate immigrant inflows and the expansion of Brazil's railway network, we find that a greater immigrant share in a municipality led to an increase in farm values. We show that the bulk of the effect of immigration can be explained by more intense cultivation of land, which we attribute to temporary immigrants exerting greater labor effort than natives. Finally, we find that it is unlikely that immigration's effect on agriculture slowed Brazil's structural transformation. |
| Keywords: | immigration, developing countries, effects of immigration, age of mass migration, Brazil, agriculture |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N36 N56 O13 O15 Q15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16741&r=his |
| By: | Dmitrii Gornostaev (Bank of Russia, Russian Federation); Natalia Makhankova (Bank of Russia, Russian Federation); Petr Milyutin (Bank of Russia, Russian Federation); Alexey Ponomarenko (Bank of Russia, Russian Federation); Sergey Seleznev (Bank of Russia, Russian Federation) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a set of vintage data on Russian GDP and its components by the expenditure and production approaches. The dataset consists of revisions of nominal and real quarterly data for the period from December 2005 to the present. In addition to such data, the paper describes some properties of real and nominal GDP indicator revisions and its expenditure components, as well as the methodology for collecting historical indicators using the Wayback Machine, which enables data collection even in the absence of a saved history of their releases. |
| Keywords: | GDP, data vintages, data revisions, Russia. |
| JEL: | C82 E01 E2 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bkr:wpaper:wps124&r=his |
| By: | Rodrigue Dossou-Cadja (Sapienza University of Rome, EHESS, PSE) |
| Abstract: | The CFA franc devaluation on 11 January 1994 stands out as the most significant reform within the Franc Zone system since political independences of former African French colonies in 1960, yet a topic shrouded into profound taboo. So far, the economic literature has failed to draw any connection between this pivotal event in African macroeconomic history and its historical context: the 1992-3 European Monetary System (EMS) crisis. Using the narrative approach coupled with quantitative analysis (DCC-MGARH-X and SVARs) and powered by an unprecedented set of archival data from the Banque de France, the Bank of England, and the Bundesbank (the latter two from Eichengreen and Naef, 2022), as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we document a brand-new route on understanding a certain integrated African-European common history. Evidence unveils the CFA franc devaluation as a fundamental role player in backing up credibility of the French franc amidst the 1992-3 EMS crisis. A ‘new democratic Franc Zone's Transition Committee' at the Banque de France, appears as a key feature for the future of the Zone’s management. |
| Keywords: | CFA franc devaluation, Franc Zone, European Monetary System, Currency crisis, Political Independences, Narrative approach |
| JEL: | E42 E58 F31 F33 F42 F53 F54 F55 N14 N17 N24 N27 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0246&r=his |
| By: | Dal Bo, Ernesto; Hutkova, Karolina; Leucht, Lukas; Yuchtman, Noam Meir |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the role of taxes on trade in the development of imperial Britain's fiscal-military state. Influential work, e.g., Brewer's (1989) Sinews of Power, attributed increased fiscal capacity to the taxation of domestic, rather than traded, goods: excise revenues, coarsely associated with domestic goods, grew faster than customs revenues. We construct new historical revenue series disaggregating excise revenues from traded and domestic goods. We find substantial growth in taxes on traded goods, accounting for over half of indirect taxation around 1800. This challenges the conventional wisdom attributing the development of the British state to domestic factors: international factors mattered, too. |
| Keywords: | fiscal capacity; international trade; British Empire; taxation |
| JEL: | N43 N73 H20 P16 |
| Date: | 2023–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121310&r=his |
| By: | Aditi Singh (Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia); Sarah Vincent (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | Can forced sterilization programs targeting men lead to male-perpetrated violence? This paper investigates the impact of a government-mandated male sterilization program introduced in India on the rise of violence. Launched in April 1976, the program predominantly targeted men and saw heterogeneous implementation across India over 10 months. Using various household surveys and newly digitized historical data sources, we study whether the program triggered unintended effects on violence, measured by crime rates. Using a difference-indifferences strategy by exploiting geographical variation in coercion intensity, we find that an increase in exposure to the program led to an increase in violent crime rates of 7% for the average district, which persisted over time. Violent crimes against women primarily drive the increase in crime rates, as rapes are increasing by 22% for the average district. We find that the program was ineffective in reducing fertility, so we hypothesize that a forced sterilization program targeting men may increase violence against women through two main channels: the program inducing trauma and impacting perceptions of masculinity. In line with those channels, we see that districts with high coercion intensity correlate with more harmful gender norms: higher levels and acceptance of Intimate Partner Violence, lower bargaining power of women and lower contraception adoption. |
| Keywords: | Male Sterilization, violence, gender, persistence |
| JEL: | J13 N35 N45 O12 O20 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2403&r=his |
| By: | CHINNOCK, Rylan; VENEZIANI, Roberto; YOSHIHARA, Naoki |
| Abstract: | In this paper we review recent developments in axiomatic studies of Marxian exploitation theory. First, given the acute controversy over the formal definition of exploitation during the 1970-1990s, we review the study of the axiomatic framework, which identifies some fundamental properties – technically, domain conditions – that any definition of exploitation should satisfy. Moreover, we provide a survey on the axiomatic studies about the proper measures of exploitation which coherently preserve the basic Marxian perceptions represented by two axioms, Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle and Class-Exploitation Correspondence Principle. Finally, we examine the relevance of the labour theory of value in these axiomatic studies of the proper measures of exploitation. |
| Keywords: | Axiomatic analysis, Labour Exploitation, Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle, Class-Exploitation Correspondence Principle, Labour Theory of Value |
| JEL: | D63 D51 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:754&r=his |
| By: | Battiston, Diego Ezequiel; Maurer, Stephan Ernst; Potlogea, Andrei; Rodríguez Mora, José V. |
| Abstract: | We use linked historical US censuses to study the empirical relationship between inequality and intergenerational mobility. We first confirm that the 'Great Gatsby Curve' already existed in the early 20th century. We then study a 'dynamic' version of the curve that relates changes in equality to changes in intergenerational mobility. Interestingly, we find that this relationship varies over two-decade periods for income but remains consistent for education. Finally, we propose novel unitless measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality to show that the 'Great Gatsby Curve' result re-emerges over the long run, for the period 1920 to 2011. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility; inequality; Great Gatsby Curve |
| JEL: | J62 N12 N52 R11 |
| Date: | 2023–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121316&r=his |
| By: | Bindler, Anna Louisa; Hjalmarsson, Randi; Machin, Stephen Jonathan; Rubio, Melissa |
| Abstract: | Using data on 100 years of 19th century criminal trials at London's Old Bailey, this paper offers clear evidence of disparate treatment of Irish-named defendants and victims by English juries. We measure surname Irishness and Englishness using place of birth in the 1881 census. Irish-named defendants are 11% less likely to plea, 3% more likely to be convicted by the jury, and 16% less likely to receive a jury recommendation for mercy. These disparities are: (i) largest for violent crimes and for defendants with more distinctive Irish surnames; (ii) robust to case characteristic controls and proxies for signals associated with Irish surnames (social class, Irish county of origin, criminality); (iii) particularly visible for Irish defendants in cases with English victims; and (iv) spill-over onto English-named defendants with Irish co-defendants. Disparate treatment is first visible in the 1830s, after which it grows, then persists through to the end of the century. In particular, the gap in jury conviction rates became larger during the twenty years after the Irish Potato Famine-induced migration to London. We do not find evidence, however, that the first bombing campaign of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (in 1867 and the 1880s) further exacerbated these disparities. |
| Keywords: | Irish; crime; criminal law; discrimination; economic history |
| JEL: | K42 K14 J15 N33 N93 |
| Date: | 2023–03–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121339&r=his |
| By: | Jonathan M. Colmer; Suvy Qin; John L. 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. |
| JEL: | H0 H4 Q5 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32060&r=his |
| By: | Magdalena Cornejo (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella/CONICET); Nicolás Merener (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella); Ezequiel Merovich (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella) |
| Abstract: | The U.S. Midwest produces about a third of global corn and soybeans, two of the most important crops for humanity. Earlier literature has found that corn and soybean output is sensitive to weather in a nonlinear manner: yields benefit from moderate rain and temperatures, and generally suffer under drought, excessive rain and extreme heat. In this study we explore how changing weather patterns and extreme events in the U.S. Midwest have impacted the valuation of corn and soybeans. Using data for 1971-2019 we find that the distribution of regional summer rain has experienced a significant shift towards the right since 1993, with a marked increase in extreme rain episodes. Prior to 1993, dry spells during the summer led to strongly higher crop prices and were exacerbated by extreme heat. Since 1993, extreme dry spells and larger storms have been both associated with price increases in the 10% range. We also find that the nonlinear price response to weather is compatible with the impact of weather on terminal yields. Our results suggest that changing weather patterns and extreme events in the U.S. Midwest have a strong influence in the valuation of corn and soybeans. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture; Extreme Events; Climate Change; Valuation; Corn; Soybeans |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:303&r=his |
| By: | Davis, John B.; Boianovsky, Mauro; (Department of Economics Marquette University; Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | Douglass North was central to the emergence of New Institutional Economics. Less well known are his later writings where he became interested in complexity theory. He attended the second economics complexity conference at the Santa Fe Institute in 1996 on how the economy functions as a complex adaptive system, and in his 2005 Understanding the Process of Economic Change incorporated this thinking into his argument that market systems depend on how institutions evolve. North also emphasized in the 2005 book the role belief played in evolutionary processes, and drew on cognitive science, especially the famous ‘scaffolding’ idea of cognitive scientist Andy Clark – the idea that the brain and the world ‘collaborate’ to address our computational and informational needs. This chapter discusses how North’s thinking about institutions and change reflected these later investigations. It concludes with comments on his late thoughts about the problem of violence. |
| Keywords: | Douglass North, New Institutional Economics, complexity theory, cognitive science, scaffolding, Andy Clark, violence |
| JEL: | B20 B30 B41 B52 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2024-01&r=his |
| By: | Matthias Flückiger; Mario Larch; Markus Ludwig; Luigi Pascali |
| Abstract: | In the latter half of the fourth millennium BC, our ancestors witnessed a remarkable transformation, progressing from simple agrarian villages to complex urban civilizations. In regions as far apart as the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Indus Valley, the first states appeared together with writing, cities with populations exceeding 10, 000, and unprecedented socio-economic inequalities. The cause of this “Urban Revolution” remains unclear. We present new empirical evidence suggesting that the discovery of bronze and the ensuing long-distance trade played a crucial role. Using novel panel data and 2SLS techniques, we demonstrate that trade corridors linking metal mines to fertile lands were more likely to experience the Urban Revolution. We propose that transit bottlenecks facilitated the emergence of a new taxing elite. We formally test this appropriability theory and provide several case studies in support. |
| JEL: | D02 F10 H10 N40 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1423&r=his |
| By: | Thomas Grandjean (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Between 1945 and 1982, the Alsace region underwent a major industrial transformation, characterised by the destruction of its traditional production structures (textile industry, mechanical engineering) and by the emergence of a new economy driven by foreign investment and encouraged by the development of cross-border cooperation. Against this backdrop, Sogenal, Société Générale's Rhineland subsidiary founded in 1881, established itself as the region's leading corporate bank, supporting the growth of new activities. This policy was pursued by a group of active administrators who had a fine-grain understanding of the region's economic development. Drawing on from a varied corpus of archival material (board of directors' files, staff files, economic reports) and focusing on an analysis of the views of Sogenal's administrators, this study demonstrates the ways in which the bank influenced the region's economic activity, while creating a relationship of reciprocal dependence with local industrial dynamics. |
| Abstract: | Entre 1945 et 1982, l'Alsace connaît une grande mutation industrielle caractérisée d'une part par une destruction de ses structures productives traditionnelles (textile, construction mécanique) et d'autre part par l'émergence d'une nouvelle économie portée par des investissements exogènes et favorisée par une coopération transfrontalière en construction. Dans ce contexte, la Sogenal, filiale rhénane de la Société Générale fondée en 1881, s'impose comme la première banque d'entreprise régionale, en accompagnant l'essor de nouvelles activités. Cette politique est menée par un groupe d'administrateurs actifs, qui disposent d'une vision fine de l'évolution économique de la région. À partir d'un corpus d'archives varié (dossiers du conseil d'administration, dossiers du personnel, rapports économiques) et en privilégiant une analyse des points de vue des administrateurs de la Sogenal, cette étude montre de quelles manières la banque influence l'activité économique de la région tout en s'inscrivant elle-même dans une relation de dépendance réciproque avec les dynamiques industrielles locales. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04387991&r=his |
| By: | Martina Dattilo (UNITO - Università degli studi di Torino = University of Turin); Fabio Padovano (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This study verifies whether the number of criteria of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) satisfied by a site in the UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) can be considered as an ordinal measure of its quality against the alternative hypotheses that: a) quality can be measured just dichotomously, by inclusion in the WHL); b) the multiplicity of existing OUV is just meant to capture alternative aesthetic criteria expressed by different cultures. This issue is important for both scientific and policy reasons. To avoid problems of endogeneity and reverse causality, we examine the correlation between the number of satisfied criteria and the evaluation of the site's quality made by an authoritative travel guidebook that pre-existed UNESCO, the Baedeker's guide of the early twentieth century. Exploiting a newly assembled dataset on 234 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) in 10 European countries from 11 Baedeker's guidebooks, from 1899 to 1911, we proxy the Baedeker's evaluations of quality by four measures: (1) total number of citations of the site; (2) weighted number of citations; (3) average length of the paragraphs with at least one citation; and (4) sentiment expressed in the text. All these measures appear positively and significantly correlated with the number of UNESCO criteria that the site satisfies, using a variety of strategies and robustness checks, confirming that they are an informative ordinal proxy for the quality of UNESCO WHS. Moreover, this analysis brings evidence to bear on the debate about the formation and persistence of UNESCO experts' evaluations over time. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04388046&r=his |