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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2024‒03‒04
39 papers chosen by |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | The main monetary issue in Britain during the early 19th-century war with France was about prolonging the suspension of the convertibility of the Bank of England note, which had been decided in 1797. Amidst a difficult return to a peacetime economy it would also be the main issue in the post-war period, since it would take six years after Waterloo before the pre-war monetary situation was re-enacted. During more than two decades, Lord Grenville's views on the monetary system did not change. They were mostly centred on two aspects. First, the suspension of cash payments of its notes by the Bank of England was a calamity: justified at the outset as a temporary measure of necessity, it should not be prolonged year after year, even in time of war. Second, the substitution of country banks' notes for coins which had taken place all over England outside the London area was a threat to economic and social stability. These unflagging views did not prevent Grenville from advocating gradualism in what was to be implemented in order to return to a sound monetary system – that is, one endowed with a metallic standard thanks to the convertibility of the Bank of England note into coin and to the pre-eminence of specie in the country circulation. This mixture of monetary orthodoxy and gradualism led Grenville in 1819 to support Ricardo's novel plan for convertibility into bullion, provided it was understood as a temporary scheme aiming at facilitating the resumption of convertibility into coin. It also led him in the 1820s to resist the pressures in favour of the return to a double standard (gold and silver). Based on Grenville's speeches in Parliament and on private correspondence, the present paper is a contribution to the special session "Money, Finance and Trade at War. The case of early nineteenth-century Britain". |
| Keywords: | Lord Grenville, Bank of England note, convertibility, monetary system |
| Date: | 2023–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04429551&r=his |
| By: | Vicente Pinilla |
| Abstract: | This chapter first studies the emergence of the first wineries producing premium wines in Spain in the second half of the 19th century. It then follows the evolution of this type of production during a period in which it did not manage to expand appreciably and which lasted until approximately the seventies of the twentieth century. Finally, the definitive consolidation of premium wines since the 1980s is examined. Special attention is paid to explaining how, during much of the period analyzed, neither the domestic nor the foreign market was favorable to the production of quality wines. In this context, the extraordinary adventure of a handful of innovators who did not settle for what was already in place and explored new avenues in winemaking stands out. The French influence on them, through various channels, has been highlighted. |
| Keywords: | premium wines, spanish wines, wine production |
| JEL: | N53 N54 L66 Q13 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2401&r=his |
| By: | DesRoches, C. Tyler |
| Abstract: | Review of “A History of Ecological Economic Thought” by Marco P. Vianna Franco and Antoine Missemer. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ruasz&r=his |
| By: | Laidler, David |
| Abstract: | The History of Economics Society was founded at a time when the History of Economic Thought was being eliminated from the Economics post-graduate curriculum in many universities, and was one of the key institutions around which the sub-discipline successfully re-organised itself and continued to develop. Laidler (2003), a paper presented at the Society’s 2002 conference, argued that Economics itself, especially Macroeconomics, was suffering serious damage from this expulsion. It has continued to do so since, and the simple passage of time has now made it appropriate for Historians of Economic Thought to study this question. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:zwh7t&r=his |
| By: | Hagemann, Harald |
| Abstract: | The essay reflects the experience of the author in participating in HES activities over 37 of its 50 years. The main focus is on scholars who emigrated to the USA in the period of totalitarian regimes in Europe and the influence they exerted in the USA. It is emphasized that many émigrés developed “aerial roots” (Streeten), i.e., they became citizens of the world and thereby carriers of the process of internationalization after World War II. This cosmopolitan spirit also permeated the HES from the beginning when many émigré scholars were still active. It also contributed to the formation of an international network of scholars and societies in the history of economic thought which is flourishing today. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:c5v97&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | The relationship between Tooke and Ricardo on money is not obvious. The comfortable intuition is that, since Tooke opposed the Currency School, and since the Currency School assumed Ricardo's heritage, Tooke was anti-Ricardian. However, there are at least two reasons not to follow this intuition. One is that the continuity between Ricardo's monetary theory and the Currency School may be seriously questioned. The second reason is that Tooke as the main figure of the Banking School in the 1840s was substantially different from the early Tooke who wrote in the 1820s. To avoid misapprehension of the relationship between Tooke and Ricardo on money, it may thus be useful to compare their respective positions on a subject on which both of them spoke and wrote: the suspension and the resumption of convertibility. After having been suspended since 1797, the convertibility of the Bank of England note was resumed on 1st February 1820, following Peel's Bill adopted the preceding year. A major change was introduced by comparison with the pre-1797 system: convertibility was to be into bullion and not into coin. In his 1816 pamphlet Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency this scheme had been advocated by Ricardo as a permanent device, which amounted to eliminate metallic currency. By contrast, Peel's Bill made it temporary, for a period of three years. In the end, this experiment was discontinued after a little more than one year: on 1st May 1821 the old system of cash payments was resumed. Tooke had been examined on 22nd March 1819 by the Lords' Committee on Resumption. He supported then Ricardo's plan but only as a temporary measure, until it would be possible to return to cash payments. In 1826 he published a pamphlet which contained a whole section devoted to a critique of convertibility into bullion as a permanent system, and in 1829 he published another pamphlet in which he showed that Peel's Bill had had no effect on the deflation and the stagnation of trade which had occurred in the subsequent years – a view consistent with Ricardo's one – and that the Bank of England could not either be considered as responsible for this situation – contrary to what Ricardo contended. It thus makes sense to reconstruct a post mortem dialogue between Ricardo (who had died in 1823) and Tooke on the effects of the suspension and the resumption of convertibility. |
| Keywords: | David Ricardo, Thomas Tooke, convertibility, monetary theory |
| Date: | 2023–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04429520&r=his |
| By: | Cruz-e-Silva, Victor; Almeida, Felipe |
| Abstract: | In 1901, Correa Moylan Walsh gained renown for writing a groundbreaking monograph on index numbers. His contributions to monetary economics, however, though neglected, transcend his work on index numbers, which was conceived to serve more foundational concerns of his. Therefore, our aim is twofold. First, we want to recover Walsh’s role as an important early twentieth-century economist. Second, we intend to provide a wider account of his incursion into monetary economics. Our argument is that the cornerstone of Walsh’s approach to the science of money is not confined to index numbers, but concerns his distinction between different kinds of economic value and the discussion regarding the kind of value that money should measure and store. As such, we identify Walsh’s 1903 book, The Fundamental Problem in Monetary Science, as his archetypical work. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:4yxbp&r=his |
| By: | Barbieri, Fabio; Filho, Marcelo Lourenço |
| Abstract: | This article explores a debate on the theory of cost that occurred in the 1890s between economist Silas MacVane and Austrian economists. MacVane defended the idea of objective “real cost, ” while the Austrians argued for subjective opportunity cost. Although this debate is rarely mentioned, it represents a noteworthy episode of active contrast between ideas on value and cost, with implications that are relevant for contemporary economists. By highlighting the incompatibility of the objective and subjective conceptions of cost, this debate sheds light on the evolution of economic theory. The contributions of relatively unknown authors, such as MacVane and David Green, are also discussed. We interpret the debate in terms of the contrast between research programs based on wealth or exchange, and note that the gradual shift in the period regarding the fundamental problem that informs economic theory is key to understanding the modern concept of cost. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gshwz&r=his |
| By: | Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina; Zacchia, Giulia |
| Abstract: | On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the formal establishment of the History of Economics Society (HES), we have analyzed the published HES presidential addresses in order to describe what views of the history of economic thought (HET) were provided, what strengths were identified, and what possibilities for growth or limitations in its future development. We propose a rereading of the published HES presidential addresses as food for thought of scope, method, and future development of HET. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wt9rp&r=his |
| By: | Kolev, Stefan |
| Abstract: | This paper embeds the early political economy of F. A. Hayek in the intellectual milieu of German ordoliberalism. The urgency during the 1930s and 1940s to stabilize the disintegrating societal orders is identified as a crucial driver behind the parallelisms between Hayek and the ordoliberals. Their shared theoretical position is that in such moments, liberty can thrive sustainably only after a framework of general and stable rules has been established. Hayek’s proximity to ordoliberalism was most explicitly discernible in The Road to Serfdom and at the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947, culminating in the shared politico-economic vision of the competitive order. The contextual nature of Hayek’s ordoliberalism surfaced in the years after The Constitution of Liberty when his focus shifted, along with the postwar intellectual and institutional stabilization of the West: from how stable orders enable liberty to how liberty enables the evolution of orders. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:8nhr5&r=his |
| By: | Charles, Loïc |
| Abstract: | In the 1990s, history of economics was comprised of a number of national communities. Among the latter the North American community held a dominant position and was quite different from its continental European counterparts. The HES had no counterpart in continental Europe, where national societies were small and recent. While the History of economics society was open to methodological pluralism, European societies were not. Over the past two decades, the growing domination of the continental European community has created a new context in which the identity of the North American community in general and that of the HES in particular has become uncertain. The consequence had been that methodological diversity within the subdiscipline has diminished. We conclude by two suggestions to counter this trend. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:782za&r=his |
| By: | Nebojša Vukadinović (IRM - Institut de Recherche Montesquieu - UB - Université de Bordeaux) |
| Abstract: | More than thirty years after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the economic dimensions of the period of the 1990s have been obscured and very little studied. Yet Yugoslavia embarked on January 1, 1990 on macroeconomic stabilization under the impetus of the IMF, like Poland and the other countries of Eastern Europe. The double transition of this period, economic and political, which marked the transition from communism to capitalism, began shortly before the disintegration and the emergence of conflicts. The article returns to this period in order to reintegrate the Yugoslav case into the analysis of transitions in Eastern Europe. |
| Keywords: | Yugoslavia, Desintegration, Economic desintegration, War, Balkans, Politics & International Relations |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04408186&r=his |
| By: | Bylund, Emma (Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Iversen, Jens (Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Vredin, Anders (Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses how monetary policy in Sweden has evolved since 1973. We provide a chronology of the different monetary policy regimes in place during the past fifty years and identify two main regimes, the pegged-but-adjustable exchange rate regime (1973 – 1992) and the inflation targeting regime (1993 – 2022). Inflation in Sweden has been more stable under the inflation targeting regime than under both the Bretton Woods system, and the pegged-but-adjustable exchange rate regime. GDP growth was higher and more stable during the Bretton Woods System. We argue that inflation targeting was implemented according to the simple text book version only during a short period, 1999-2007. We illustrate that economic developments in Sweden have in many respects been similar to that of Denmark. Lastly, we identify and discuss recurrent themes in the discussions of monetary policy under inflation targeting. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy; inflation targeting; exchange rate regimes |
| JEL: | E42 E52 E58 E65 |
| Date: | 2023–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0429&r=his |
| By: | Mehrling, Perry |
| Abstract: | Review of “Debates in Macroeconomics from the Great Depression to the Long Recession: Cycles, Crises and Policy Responses” by Arie Arnon. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:afp5j&r=his |
| By: | Scott Alan Carson; Scott A. Carson |
| Abstract: | When traditional measures for material conditions are scarce or unreliable, body mass, height, and weight are complements to standard income and wealth measures. A persistent question in welfare studies is the 19th century’s 2nd and 3rd quarter’s stature diminution, a pattern known as the antebellum paradox. However, the question may not be well stated nor experienced equally by women and non-white male samples. The late 19th century’s political Granger, Greenback, and Populist movements may have affected farmer and non-farmer’s net nutrition. Despite 19th and early 20th century US political movements, farmers had greater BMIs, taller statures, and heavier weights than non-farmers. From the 1870s through 1890s, women’s body mass, height, and weight increased relative to men. Darker complexioned individuals had heavier weights and greater BMIs than their taller, fairer complexioned European counterparts, indicating that the traditional antebellum paradox needs to include women and non-European males and weight measures. |
| Keywords: | gender, race, stature variation, cumulative net nutrition, nativity |
| JEL: | C10 C40 D10 I10 N30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10899&r=his |
| By: | Cruz-e-Silva, Victor |
| Abstract: | The early decades of the twentieth century witnessed a far-reaching growth in empirical exercises designed to measure the cost of living. Brazil was no exception to this movement, and the first studies of this nature for that country surfaced between 1935 and 1939. Among these, three deserve special attention for the soundness of their construction. These are the exercises of Horace Davis, Samuel Lowrie, and Bruno Rudolfer, professors of the Free School of Sociology and Politics of São Paulo, which investigated the cost of living in connection with the pursuit of a proper minimum wage in Brazil. The aim of this article is to revisit their pioneering efforts to measure the cost of living and to indicate how these studies touched upon the search for a minimum wage in Brazil. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gz2wp&r=his |
| By: | Berdell, John; Menudo, José M. |
| Abstract: | Standard models of the price specie flow do not consider credit. Yet Hume and preceding authors were reacting to the implosion of Law’s financial bubble. We delineate the anti-credit thesis contained within the evolution of eighteenth century balance of payments analyses. A string of eighteenth century authors argued over whether the balance of payments constituted a binding constraint on credit creation. As part of their analysis they considered how changes in the money supply might alter output, prices, employment, capital, and population. How new money entered the economy was often critical. We start with Law and then consider Melon, Gervaise, Vanderlint, Cantillon, Montesquieu, Hume, Steuart, Forbonnais, and Smith. In closing we pay particular attention to the idea that Hume and Smith effectively displaced preceding, often ‘mercantilist’, analyses of credit and the balance of payments. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:apbkm&r=his |
| By: | Hoang, Trung Xuan; Nguyen, Cuong Viet |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the long-term effect of the density of the elite - the highest educated - during the period 1075-1919 on today's educational attainment and economic performance in Vietnam. Using nearly 20, 000 elites, including 17, 061 junior bachelors and bachelors, and 2, 895 doctors who passed the imperial examination (1075-1919), and the distance to the nearest examination centers as an instrumental variable, we find that elite density has persistent effects on the present-day educational attainment, income, poverty, and night-time light intensity. The impact of the elite density on schooling years tends to be higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Our findings are robust to a variety of model specifications. |
| Keywords: | Human capital, historical legacy, economic growth, household income |
| JEL: | I25 O12 E24 N35 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1389&r=his |
| By: | Michele Bee (Cedeplar/UFMG); Luiz Felipe Bruzzi Curi (Cedeplar/UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This article shows that Adam Smith is the precursor of neither the orthodox nor the heterodox view of money, as has been doubly argued. According to him, money arose neither as a medium of exchange introduced to overcome the difficulties of barter, as in the orthodox view, nor as a unit of account established by the state, as in the heterodox view. On the contrary, as this article shows, for him money arises from that agreement on the valuation of mutual services that originally takes place in exchange. Money, thus, emerges spontaneously in exchange, but, contrary to the orthodox view, it emerges primarily as a measure of value. At the same time, if the state can intervene to guarantee the universality of a means of payment to settle claims and debts, for Smith this is only the fruit of the historical process and not its beginning, as in the heterodox view. |
| Keywords: | Adam Smith; chartalism; money; agreement; self-esteem. |
| JEL: | B10 B12 B31 D46 E40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td666&r=his |
| By: | Medema, Steven G |
| Abstract: | Though the Chicago school has been the subject of no small amount of research over the past several decades, that scholarship has focused largely on persons, ideas, and influence—in short, on the school itself. No attention has been paid to the origins of that label and the avenues via which the notion of a ‘Chicago school’ of economics came to be. This paper attempts to address that lacuna, drawing on both published and archival resources. What emerges is a story of a label of uncertain origin but wrapped up in competing agendas, the first stage in the history of which culminates in 1962 with its rejection by two of the very people who helped birth it. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:cbq8a&r=his |
| By: | Fiorito, Luca; Erasmo, Valentina |
| Abstract: | Largely forgotten today, Albert Galloway Keller was one of the foremost sociologists of his time. A brilliant scholar and a staunch disciple of William Graham Sumner, Keller spent his entire academic career at Yale, first as a student and then as Professor of the Science of Society, the chair formerly held by his mentor. The main coordinates of Keller’s sociology are to be found in his major work, Societal Evolution (1915), where he sought to apply Charles Darwin’s mechanism of variation, selection, and transmission to Sumner’s general scheme. Although Keller gave priority to social variables, his evolutionary sociology retained many elements of the typically Progressive Era preoccupations with heredity and the biological quality of individuals. The aim of this paper is to examine in some detail Keller’s views on eugenics and related issues, and to assess whether and to what extent these biologically deterministic elements played a role in his Darwinian approach to institutional change. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:58qzy&r=his |
| By: | Demeulemeester, Samuel |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to show how the 100% money proposal, which Irving Fisher came to support in 1935, connects to the rest of his work on monetary instability—in particular, to his credit cycle analysis of 1911, and his debt-deflation theory of 1932-33. Behind these respective analyses, we identify a common explanatory pattern of monetary fluctuations, the “debt-money-prices” triangle, which we use to show how Fisher’s explanations evolved over time, and how his advocacy of 100% money came as a logical conclusion. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tfm6v&r=his |
| By: | Jason Lennard (London School of Economics (LSE); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence); Seán Kenny (University College Cork; Lund University; Queen’s University Centre for Economic History); Emma Horgan (University College Cork) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a natural experiment in macroeconomic history: the Irish bank strike of 1966, which led to the closure of the major commercial banks for three months. We use synthetic control to estimate how the economy would have evolved had the strike not happened. We find that economic activity slowed, deviating by 6% from the counterfactual path. Narrative evidence not only supports this finding, but also depicts the struggles of households and firms managing a credit crunch, a liquidity shock, and rising transaction costs. This case study highlights the importance of banks for economic performance. |
| Keywords: | Banks, Ireland, macroeconomy, post-war |
| JEL: | E32 E44 G21 N14 N24 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2402&r=his |
| By: | Maes, Ivo; Pasotti, Ilaria |
| Abstract: | Especially with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, Asian countries have advocated a profound reform of the international financial architecture. Their proposals focused on two main axes: a reform of the global financial system and stronger regional monetary integration in Asia. There are here significant parallels with the ideas of Robert Triffin (1911-1993). Triffin became famous with trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the international monetary system. Also now, the Triffin dilemma is still present among international monetary policymakers, also in Asia. Triffin put forward several proposals for reforming the global monetary system, but he also developed proposals for regional monetary integration. These were very much based on his experience with the European Payments Union, and focused on the creation of a (European) Reserve Fund and a (European) currency unit. In this paper we focus on Triffin’s proposals for an Asian payments union in the late 1960s, giving special attention to Japan (in Triffin’s time the biggest Asian economy, moreover Triffin had an important Japanese network). |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:8xgtv&r=his |
| By: | Grudev, Lachezar |
| Abstract: | Review of “Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950” by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:2j3vg&r=his |
| By: | Jason Lennard (London School of Economics (LSE); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM); Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence); Meredith M. Paker (Grinnell College) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates how a major policy shift - the suspension of the gold standard in September1931 - affected employment outcomes in interwar Britain. We use a new high-frequency industry-level dataset and difference-in-differences techniques to isolate the impact of devaluation on exporters. At the micro level, we find that the break from gold reduced the unemployment rate by 2.7 percentage points for export-intensive industries relative to more closed industries. At the aggregate level, this effect stimulated the labor market, the fiscal outlook, and economic growth. Devaluation was therefore an important initial spark of recovery from the depths of the Great Depression. |
| Keywords: | exports, gold standard, interwar Britain, unemployment |
| JEL: | E24 F41 J64 N14 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2403&r=his |
| By: | Simone Pellegrino (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This essay retraces the historical steps and analyses the theoretical motivation that influenced the definition of the Gini index G and its application today. In particular, it tries to link together the ‘purely statistical’ approach and the ‘contextual’ approach, related not only to the statistical methods discovered in the Gini’s period but also to the succession of these discoveries. Having discussed the ‘contextual’ approach of these events, the remainder of the essay focuses on the ‘purely statistical’ approach, by presenting the statistical methods discovered by Corrado Gini and Gaetano Pietra as they chronologically appear in the years 1912, 1914 and 1915. The concept of mean difference, proposed by Corrado Gini in 1912 for applications in statistics and economics, is discussed. Then the difference between the concentration ratio R Gini advanced in 1914 and the Gini index G, as it is usually used today, is highlighted in light of its geometrical interpretation with the Lorenz piecewise linear function proposed by Gaetano Pietra in 1915. |
| Keywords: | Gini Coefficient, Lorenz Curve |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tur:wpapnw:086&r=his |
| By: | Gómez Julián, José Mauricio |
| Abstract: | This research studies the relation between money and prices and its practical implications analyzing quarterly data from United States (1959-2022), Canada (1961-2022), United Kingdom (1986-2022), and Brazil (1996-2022). The historical, logical, and econometric consistency of the logical core of the two main theories of money is analyzed using objective bayesian and frequentist machine learning models, bayesian regularized artificial neural networks, and ensemble learning. It is concluded that money is not neutral at any time horizon and that, despite money is ultimately subordinated to prices, there is a reciprocal influence over time between money and prices which constitute a complex system. Non-neutrality is transmitted through aggregate demand and is based on the exchange value of money as a monetary unit. |
| Date: | 2024–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:eskmx&r=his |
| By: | Lazuka, Volha (Lund University); Jensen, Peter S. (Linnaeus University) |
| Abstract: | Can the effect of a positive health shock, such as childhood vaccination, transmit across three generations? To answer this question, we estimate the impact of smallpox vaccination in childhood on the longevity and occupational achievements of three generations using unique individual-level data from Sweden, covering the last 250 years. We apply different estimation strategies based on linear and non-linear probability models. To address endogeneity concerns, we construct a shift-share instrumental variable, utilizing the fact that vaccination in Sweden was administered by the low-skilled clergy, who otherwise did not perform public health duties. Overall, our results show that a positive shock to the health of the first generation, such as smallpox vaccination, operating through various channels, enhances both health and socio-economic outcomes for at least two more generations. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational transmission of health, smallpox vaccination, shift-share instrumental-variables |
| JEL: | I18 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16765&r=his |
| By: | Brunori, Paolo; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Neidhöfer, Guido |
| Abstract: | How strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing results for both income and educational outcomes. We find that, whereas the income mobility literature is hampered by a paucity of representative datasets containing linked information on parents and children, the inequality of opportunity approach – which relies on other inherited and pre-determined circumstance variables – has suffered from arbitrariness in the choice of population partitions. Two new data-driven approaches – one aligned with the ex-ante and the other with the ex-post conception of inequality of opportunity – are introduced to address this shortcoming. They yield a set of new inequality of opportunity estimates for twenty-seven surveys covering nine Latin American countries over various years between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, more than half of the current generation’s inequality is inherited from the past – with a range between 44% and 63%. We argue that on balance, given the parsimony of the population partitions, these are still likely to be underestimates. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2024–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qwb6k&r=his |
| By: | Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina; Sanfilippo, Eleonora |
| Abstract: | The literature on Keynes’s activity as an investor has substantially grown in the last decade (e.g. Chambers and Dimson 2013; Accominotti and Chambers 2016; Chambers and Kabiri 2016; Cristiano, Marcuzzo and Sanfilippo 2018; Marcuzzo and Rosselli 2018; Marcuzzo and Sanfilippo 2016; [2020]2022). The contribution of the present paper is to investigate a specific feature of Keynes’s investment activity on his own account: his preference for American rather than British Investment Trusts. While this feature has also been observed in his investments on behalf of King’s College (Chambers and Kabiri 2016), we focus here on his personal portfolio, and we also provide a set of possible explanations for his preference. We maintain that some reasons have to do with the different structure and characteristics of the Investment Trusts in the two countries. Others relate more closely to the kind of investment policy typically adopted by the American Investment Trusts, which was much more in line with Keynes’s own approach to investment - especially as far as the stocks selection is concerned. Finally, we also attribute a role to his epistemological approach, i.e. the view that, although a full and perfect knowledge is not reachable by individuals due to the radical uncertainty characterizing the environment (“we simply don’t know”, Keynes 1937) and to the limitations of the human mind, reliable information remains, however, a guide for rational decision-making, also in financial markets. Following this approach, as we will show, Keynes preferred to delegate his investment choices in the US stock market to those professionals - the managers of the Investment Trusts - who possessed, in his opinion, the wider set of reliable information on that market, while keeping for himself the investment choices in the UK stock market. |
| Date: | 2024–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gtre7&r=his |
| By: | Benjamin Lahey; Rajashri Chakrabarti; Natalia Emanuel |
| Abstract: | Following our post on racial and ethnic wealth gaps, here we turn to the distribution of wealth across age groups, focusing on how the picture has changed since the beginning of the pandemic. As of 2019, individuals under 40 years old held just 4.9 percent of total U.S. wealth despite comprising 37 percent of the adult population. Conversely, individuals over age 54 made up a similar share of the population and held 71.6 percent of total wealth. Since 2019, we find a slight narrowing of these wealth disparities across age groups, likely driven by expanded ownership of financial assets among younger Americans. |
| Keywords: | inequality; age; COVID-19; COVID-19 pandemic; wealth |
| JEL: | D63 G1 J00 |
| Date: | 2024–02–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednls:97735&r=his |
| By: | Januard, Pierre |
| Abstract: | The Latin terms commonly used to signify ‘risk’ are absent from Thomas Aquinas’s economic writings. Instead, Aquinas offers a lexicon of probability, prudence and danger. This ternary lexicon brings with it a triple universalisation of risk: first, a universalisation through activity, including the activity of analysis considered as part of economic activity; second, a universalisation through the agents, since everyone – the observer, the co-contractors, the prince and the population – is affected by the risk; and, finally, a partial universalisation of its definition, since the lexicon indicates a risk which is not yet restricted by calculation, as the modern notion is, although some distinctions are already made by Aquinas. However, the lexicon only describes a risk of loss and does not take into account chance of gain. |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:n7j9t&r=his |
| By: | Brad R. Humphreys (West Virginia University); Scott Schuh (West Virginia University); Corey J.M. Williams (Shippensburg University) |
| Abstract: | Research suggests athletic performances are well-measured proxies for technological progress. This paper uses a century of auto and foot racing data to analyze technological changes in microeconomic learning-by-doing (LBD), observed as declining elapsed times, and macroeconomic aggregates like total factor productivity (TFP). The pace of LBD in athletics also declined around the 1973 Productivity Slowdown and varies widely across time and athletes. Auto racing speeds mainly reflect technological changes in capital (cars) and share a common stochastic trend with TFP (cointegration). Speeds error correct to TFP, but not vice versa, affirming TFP diffusion assumed in basic macro growth models. |
| Keywords: | Technological progress; learning by doing; TFP; labor productivity; autoracing, track and  field, RBC model, cointegration, error correction, Indianapolis 500;NHRA Winternationals |
| JEL: | O47 O33 E24 D24 C32 C22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wvu:wpaper:24-02&r=his |
| By: | Colasurdo, Andrea; Omenti, Riccardo |
| Abstract: | Background: Online genealogies are promising data sources for demographic research, but their limitations are understudied. This paper takes a critical approach to evaluating the potential strengths and weaknesses of using online genealogical data for population studies. Objective: We propose novel measures to assess the completeness and the quality of demographic variables in the FamiLinx data at both the individual and the familial level over the 1600-1900 period. Utilizing Sweden as a test country, we investigate how the age-sex distribution and the mortality levels of the digital population extracted from FamiLinx diverge from the registered population. Method: We employ descriptive statistics, logistic regression modeling, and standard life table techniques for our measures of completeness and quality. Results: When one demographic variable is available, researchers can effectively anticipate the availability of other demographic information. The completeness and the quality of the demographic variables within the kinship networks are markedly higher for individuals with more complete and accurate demographic information. Lower mortality levels are observed in populations drawn from FamiLinx, which may be attributed to selectivity bias in favor of individuals experiencing more favorable demographic conditions. However, the representativeness of genealogical populations improved toward the end of the 19th century, especially when selecting individuals with more accurate birth and death dates. Conclusions: FamiLinx offers new opportunities for demographic research, due to its vast amount of individual information from various historical populations and their recorded kinship ties. Nonetheless, missing values and accuracy in its demographic information are selective. This selectivity needs to be addressed. |
| Date: | 2024–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:62yxm&r=his |
| By: | Timm Bönke; Astrid Harnack-Eber; Holger Lüthen |
| Abstract: | This study provides the first absolute income mobility estimates for postwar Germany. Using various micro data sources, we uncover a steep decline in absolute mobility rates from 81 percent to 59 percent for children’s birth cohorts 1962 through 1988. This trend is robust across different ages, family sizes, measurement methods, copulas, and data sources. Across the parental income distribution, we find that children from middle class families experienced the largest percentage point drop in absolute income mobility (-31pp). Our counterfactual analysis shows that lower economic growth rates and higher income inequality contributed similarly to these trends. |
| Keywords: | Absolute mobility, Intergenerational mobility, Income distributions, Consumption, Inequality |
| JEL: | D31 H0 J62 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2068&r=his |
| By: | Andrei, Liviu Catalin; Andrei, Dalina Maria |
| Abstract: | Béla Balassa, the most significant theorist of the economic integration, dares to argue that this is just one for all multi-country areas, e.g. despite economic growth or development that might be different for different countries. Then, the diversity in terms of integration would be the same as the integration stages. In Europe and Latin America, where integration initiatives really worked, there is just the EU also accepting to aim the integration up to its final Balassa’s stage. They had got the monetary integration (union) and this even as un unprecedented union around a single currency used by several countries – not even Balassa, this time, thought about this, despite that the theorist had a few words about aspects like currency, taxation, politic integration and even the federal State. Now things got also different: around the year 2000 there was the “Happy new Euro!” with its fire-works feast, but the aftermath of these was coming to be different, i.e. with crises like “Lehman-Brothers”, “Brexit”, the pandemic and not only, see a European Constitution project rejected by the French, Danish and Dutch voters, while the Union’s ambitions went to its enlargement besides, and lastly there is the war in Ukraine, with its consequences of all kind. So, what about the integration process? All agree it is not complete, but just singular voices do warn about that staying in the present monetary union stage would be not viable and even dangerous for all, here including for the integration started many decades ago – i.e. the fiscal union is supposed to accompany the monetary one, as the rule that ever was for all monetary unions. |
| Keywords: | politique monétaire ; les banques centrales ; politique fiscale ; théorie monétaire moderne ; intégration économique et théorie sur. |
| JEL: | E02 E52 E58 E62 F15 |
| Date: | 2024–02–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120111&r=his |
| By: | Zuazu-Bermejo, Izaskun |
| Abstract: | Feminist macroeconomics draws on the notion that the gender system is both cause and consequence of macroeconomic structures, outcomes, and policies. In contrast, mainstream and heterodox macroeconomics have done little to integrate gender as an analytical tool in macromodelling. This paper defines the subfield of feminist macroeconomics, explores its origins, and provides a systematic review of its literature. Drawing on Seguino (2013), the paper divides the subfield in three main strands: i) feminist growth theory and gender dimensions of macrolevel policies, ii) macro-modelling and theoretical foundations of the care economy, and iii) social infrastructure and intra-household allocation. The paper discusses potential ways to expand the foci of feminist macroeconomic research, while considers challenges to the subfield, such as methodological issues regarding male-biased metrics and limited data availability, and the tensions with mainstream approaches to gender and the macroeconomy. Finally, the paper contextualizes the subfield in a post-pandemic era. |
| Keywords: | feminist macroeconomics, feminist growth theory, care economy, COVID-19 pandemic, economic methodology |
| JEL: | E0 E12 B54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifsowp:282996&r=his |
| By: | Yinhe Liang; Xiaobo Peng; Meiping Aggie Sun |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-term impacts of growth and development monitoring in early childhood. For this purpose, we evaluate a pediatric healthcare program, the Systematic Management of Children (SMC), which offers growth and development monitoring through routine health checkups for all young children (0-6 years) in China. Using data on the program’s county-by-county rollout from 1950 to 2010, we find that full exposure to the SMC from birth increases lifetime income by 5%. We further provide evidence of several underlying mechanisms, including improved physical and mental health, better educational outcomes, increased cognitive skills, and sustained use of routine health checkups among adolescents. |
| Keywords: | growth and development monitoring, adult earnings, human capital, health, public goods |
| JEL: | H75 I15 I18 J24 N35 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10912&r=his |