|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2024‒04‒01
thirty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | Nogues-Marco, Pilar |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the Money Doctor Raimundo Fernández Villaverde, a prominent politician during the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain during the Classical Gold Standard period. He reformed the fiscal system and proposed monetary reforms to transition Spain to the Gold Standard after the 1898 Cuban War of Independence. <p>His monetary reform ultimately failed due to two primary reasons. Firstly, there was a lack of political consensus, as politicians were more inclined to prioritise the distribution of spoils to sustain unstable alliances forged by local political leaders and their clientelist networks, rather than focusing on the development of long-term policies aimed at achieving party political goals. Secondly, the resistance from the Bank of Spain to reduce the circulation of banknotes to deflate the economy, with the aim of preserving its profits as a private institution that distributed dividends to its shareholders, took precedence over its role as the guarantor of exchange rate stability. |
| Keywords: | Money Doctors, Gold Standard, Monetary Orthodoxy, Exchange Rate Stability, Monetary Reform. |
| JEL: | B31 E42 E58 N13 N0 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:172857&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | Part of the works of Richard Arena (Arena et Maricic, 1988; Arena and Schmidt, 1999; Arena, 2000) has been devoted to the reactions of French economists to the publication of General Theory. In fact the French translation of this book, completed in 1939 but only published in 1942, did not originate from an academic interest (although according to Keynes the book was "chiefly addressed to [his] fellow economists") but a political one: the translator, Jean de Largentaye, implemented it when, as a high-ranking public officer, he was confronted to issues related to the ruling monetary situation or a prospective plan of economic recovery. Using the private correspondence between Keynes and Largentaye and other sources of the same period, my contribution aims at clarifying the historical context in which the French translation of General Theory was prepared and published. As such it is complementing a study of the theoretical stakes of the translation that I recently published elsewhere (Deleplace 2021). Publication: Deleplace, G. (2024 b), "When General Theory met French Politics: the Historical Context of a Translation, " in Dal Pont Legrand, M. and Gloria, S. (eds.) Fifty Years of Economics through the Lenses of Historians of Economic Thought, New York: Springer, à paraître. |
| Keywords: | Keynes, General Theory, traduction française, Largentaye |
| Date: | 2022–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04429248&r=his |
| By: | Faguet, Jean-Paul (London School of Economics); Matajira, Camilo (Independent); Sanchez Torres, Fabio (Universidad de los Andes) |
| Abstract: | The Spanish encomienda, a colonial forced-labour institution that lasted three centuries, killed many indigenous people and caused others to flee into nomadism. What were its long-term effects? We digitize a great deal of historical data from the mid-1500s onwards and reconstruct the Spanish conquerors’ route through Colombia using detailed topographical features to calculate their least-cost path. We show that Colombian municipalities with encomiendas in 1560 enjoy better outcomes today across multiple dimensions of development than those without: higher municipal GDP per capita, tax receipts, and educational attainment; lower infant mortality, poverty, and unsatisfied basic needs; larger populations; and superior fiscal performance and bureaucratic efficiency, but also higher inequality. Why? Two mediation exercises using data on local institutions, populations and racial composition in 1794 shows that encomiendas affected development primarily by helping build the local state. Deep historical evidence fleshes out how encomenderos founded local institutions early on in the places they settled. Places lacking encomiendas also lacked local states for 3-4 centuries. Local institutions mobilized public investment in ways that doubtless suited encomenderos, but, over time, spurred greater economic and human development. |
| Keywords: | Encomienda; institutions; forced labour; state capacity; extraction; colonialism; development; Colombia |
| JEL: | N36 N96 O10 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:021078&r=his |
| By: | Flores Zendejas, Juan; Nodari, Gianandrea |
| Abstract: | The literature on interwar monetary history has argued that the lack of central bank cooperation contributed to the pervasive economic outcome of the 1930s. The reasons for this failure are still an object of debate. In this paper, we revisit the attitude of individual central banks to the attempts led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to institutionalise central bank cooperation. We present original archival evidence to show that the 1931 crisis in central Europe emerged as an exogenous shock, prompting the BIS to become an international lender of last resort and increase the resources at its disposal. However, the BIS relied on member central banks' discretionary behaviour and did not impose a rules-based system. We observe a contrasting attitude towards international cooperation between central banks from creditor and borrowing countries. Some governments prevented their central banks from supporting the BIS' attempts to increase its financial resources. We conclude that this interference was a relevant means through which politics hindered a multilateral response to the crises of the 1930s. |
| Keywords: | Central banking, Great Depression, Financial crises, International monetary cooperation. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:166877&r=his |
| By: | Rönnbäck, Klas (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Galli, Theodoridis, (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Theodoridis, Dimitrios (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Faust Larsen, Kathrine (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | It has been proposed that slave societies were the most unequal societies in recorded human history. What little evidence there is shows an ambiguous picture. We contribute with a study on the wealth distribution in a Caribbean society, based on individual-level data for the full population, combining tax and census records into the largest comparable historical dataset from the Global South. Our results show a distribution of wealth shockingly close to perfect inequality. Our results also show a remarkable degree of persistence: even after slavery was abolished, the freedmen never managed to accumulate physical wealth to any measurable degree. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; wealth; slavery; Caribbean; emancipation; long-term |
| JEL: | D31 J47 N36 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0035&r=his |
| By: | Galli, Stefania (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Dimitrios, Theodoridis, (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Rönnbäck, Klas (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | The issue of how elites as a social group come to be, how they maintain their position and how they affect the society they come to control is very much at the centre of the inequality debate. The present paper studies one of the most extreme unequal societies ever recorded, that of the sugar-based economies in the West Indies, and examines the emergence and persistence of its economic elite by focusing on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. The study spans 154 years, enabling us to study long-run elite persistence along with the effects that major economic, institutional, and social changes had on it. Our study shows that elite persistence remained high throughout this period, despite several potential ‘critical junctures’ taking place. The Crucian elite not only managed to maintain its relative standing but also to accumulate a growing share of the total wealth available on the island. Maintaining a grip on the economy did, nonetheless, coincide with a severe and rapid impoverishment in absolute terms. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; Wealth; Persistence; Elites; Caribbean; Slavery; Colonialism; Long-run; 18th to 21st century; Sugar plantation complex |
| JEL: | D63 E01 F54 N36 P16 |
| Date: | 2024–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0037&r=his |
| By: | Rönnbäck, Klas (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Galli, Stefania (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Theodoridis, Dimitrios (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | In many slave societies, enslaved persons were barred from acquiring much education. What skills the enslaved persons nonetheless were able to acquire, and how this changed following emancipation, is not well known. We study quantitatively how a legacy of slavery impacted upon the development of basic numeracy skills. Our results show that numeracy skills started to improve in the population under study well before emancipation from slavery. We also show that the formal public and private schooling seems to have played a marginal role in this process. We therefore conclude that much of this learning was acquired in informal ways. |
| Keywords: | Numeracy; age-heaping; slavery; colonialism; human capital |
| JEL: | N36 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0036&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the paper is to challenge two widely-held myths about Ricardo's theory of money and to suggest between the value and the quantity of money owes nothing to a commodity-theory of money (Section 2) or to the Quantity Theory of Money (Section 3) but puts the market price of the standard of money centre-stage (Section 4). Ricardo's applied pronouncements on money then appear as direct consequences of this theory (Section 5). Publication: Deleplace, G. (2023 b), "On Some Myths about Ricardo's Theory of Money, " in King, J. E. (ed.), The Anthem Companion to David Ricardo, London: Anthem Press: 9-28. hal-04257033 |
| Keywords: | Ricardo David Money Standard of money Quantity theory of money Monetary policy |
| Date: | 2022–06–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04429292&r=his |
| By: | Margherita Bove; Rute Martins Caeiro; Rachel Coelho; Sam Jones; Patricia Justino |
| Abstract: | Following the abolition of slavery, various forms of compulsory labour were adopted by colonial powers to develop their economies. This paper analyses the contemporary consequences of compulsory cotton production—a forced labour system that operated in colonial Mozambique from 1926 to 1961. During this period, the Portuguese colonial government granted geographic concessions to private companies, within which smallholder farmers were forced to cultivate cotton for payment in cash. |
| Keywords: | Long-run effects, Forced labour, Violence, Gender, Social capital, Regression discontinuity |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2024-8&r=his |
| By: | Milena Nikolova; Olga Popova |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term consequences of communism on present-day freedom of expression values in two settings – East Germany and the states linked to the sphere of influence of the former USSR. Exploiting the natural experiment of German separation and later reunification, we show that living under communism has had lasting effects on free speech opinions. While free speech salience has increased for East and West Germans vis-à-vis other government goals, the convergence process has been slow. East Germans are still less likely to consider freedom of speech a key government priority compared to West Germans. Additionally, our analyses of secret police surveillance data from East Germany point to the fact that geography-based measures of community experiences of past political repression do not explain our findings. The same conclusion holds when we look at the setting of the former Soviet Union and we correlate proximity to Stalin’s former labor camps in the Soviet Union with present-day freedom of speech values. At the same time, family experiences with political repression in Eastern Europe/the former Soviet Union exert a discernible influence on current values towards freedom of speech, likely due to a lasting impact stemming from such personal encounters. As such, our paper adds a nuanced contribution to the economics of free speech, suggesting that freedom of speech may be a part of informal institutions and slow-changing cultural values. |
| Keywords: | political repression, communism, free speech, German Democratic Republic, Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union, economic history |
| JEL: | D02 N00 P27 P52 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1202&r=his |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo (Rutgers University); Pierre Siklos (Wilfred Laurier University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we revisit the Canadian experience with floating exchange rates since 1950. Canada was a pioneer in successfully adopting a floating exchange rate during the Bretton Woods pegged exchange rate regime. Since then, most advanced countries have followed the Canadian example. A key finding of our paper based on historical narrative and econometric analysis is that economic performance under floating depended on its monetary policy performance as Milton Friedman originally argued in his seminal 1953 article making the case for floating exchange rates. Canadian monetary policy achieved low and stable inflation once it adopted inflation targeting as a nominal anchor. Also, Canada’s floating exchange rate provided it with a modicum of insulation from external shocks, especially commodity price shocks that influenced both the level and volatility of the real exchange rate over the past three decades. The Canadian experience with floating (along with that of other small open economies such as Australia, New Zealand and Sweden) combined with inflation targeting became a global model for sound monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | floating exchange rates, commodity price shocks, insulation, sound monetary policy, Canada |
| JEL: | E32 E52 F31 F32 N10 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:320&r=his |
| By: | Stefano Dughera (University of Piemonte Orientale); Alain Marciano (University of Torino) |
| Abstract: | James Buchanan advocated that societies should be based on a social contract. He rejected anarchy, seeing it as a “Hobbesian jungle” that calls for government intervention to maintain social order. He also opposed to theories of spontaneous order. These views led to debates about the compatibility of Buchanan’s works with classical liberalism, and even with democracy. This paper contributes to this discussion by exploring the development of Buchanan's views on anarchy from a historical viewpoint. We argue that Buchanan's earlier works contain a theory of spontaneous cooperation, and that Buchanan held to this theory until the 1970s. Then, the deteriorating conditions of American society got him convinced that albeit anarchy is theoretically desirable, cooperation requires individuals to enter a social contract and delegate enforcement authority to political institutions. Overall, the paper reconciles Buchanan's practical views with his philosophical inclinations, portraying him as a practical contractarian but a philosophical anarchist. |
| Keywords: | Buchanan; social contract; government intervention; anarchy; spontaneous order |
| JEL: | B53 H11 P26 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afd:wpaper:2403&r=his |
| By: | Timothy J. Hatton |
| Abstract: | From 1860 to 1913 the six colonies that became states of Australia strove to attract migrants from the UK with a variety of assisted passages. The colonies/states shared a common culture and sought migrants from a common source, the UK, but set policy independently of each other. This experience provides a unique opportunity to examine the formation of assisted immigration policies. Using a panel of colonies/states over the years 1862 to 1913 I investigate the association between measures of policy activism and a range of economic and political variables. Assisted migration policies were positively linked with government budget surpluses and local economic prosperity. They were also associated with political participation including the widening of the franchise and remuneration of members of parliament. While the reduction in travel time to Australia reduced the need for assisted migration, slumps in the UK increased the take-up of assisted passages. |
| Keywords: | Colonial Australia, Assisted passages, International migration |
| JEL: | F22 N37 N47 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:119&r=his |
| By: | Youssouf Sangare (Paderborn University); Edem Adotey (University of Ghana) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on primary sources – colonial public finance documents and existing literature – this article examines the financial challenges associated with British and French colonial expansion in Africa. It highlights the important role that revenue extraction through colonial taxation played in establishing and maintaining colonial administrative institutions. We believe that this factor is at the root of postcolonial institutional dualism and, by extension, the weakness of the rule of law in the former colonies. The article concludes that concerns about the rising administrative operating costs of colonial rule influenced and dictated all aspects of colonial policymaking and institutions adopted by imperial powers, ultimately shaping the structure of governance in postcolonial Africa. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Economic development, colonialism, Colonial Taxes, postcolonial |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:ciepap:159&r=his |
| By: | Timothy J Hatton |
| Abstract: | Studies of the determinants of emigration from Europe from 1850 to 1913 include the gains to migrants but often neglect the costs. One component of those costs is earnings forgone on the voyage. In this paper I present new data on the voyage times for emigrants from the UK traveling to the United States and to Australia. Between 1853-7 and 1909-13 the voyage time from Liverpool to New York fell from 38 days to just 8 days (or 79%). Over the same years, the emigrant voyage to Sydney fell by more in absolute terms, from 105 days to 46, but by less in relative terms (56%). Differences in profiles of travel times are explained with a focus on the relative efficiency of sail and steam and (for Australia) the use of the Suez Canal. Data series for fare prices and foregone wage costs are combined to create new series on the ‘total’ cost of emigrant voyages. Econometric analysis of UK emigration to the US, Canada and Australia supports the view that time costs mattered. |
| Keywords: | International migration, Steam ships, Voyage times |
| JEL: | F22 O33 N73 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:120&r=his |
| By: | Sylvain Barthélémy; Virginie Gautier; Fabien Rondeau (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: | Currency crises, recurrent events in the economic history of developing, emerging, and developed countries, have disastrous economic consequences. This paper proposes an early warning system for currency crises using sophisticated recurrent neural networks, such as long short‐term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent unit (GRU). These models were initially used in language processing, where they performed well. Such models are increasingly being used in forecasting financial asset prices, including exchange rates, but they have not yet been applied to the prediction of currency crises. As for all recurrent neural networks, they allow for taking into account nonlinear interactions between variables and the influence of past data in a dynamic form. For a set of 68 countries including developed, emerging, and developing economies over the period of 1995–2020, LSTM and GRU outperformed our benchmark models. LSTM and GRU correctly sent continuous signals within a 2‐year warning window to alert for 91% of the crises. For the LSTM, false signals represent only 14% of the emitted signals compared with 23% for logistic regression, making it an efficient early warning system for policymakers. |
| Keywords: | currency crises, early warning system, gated recurrent unit, long short-term memory, neural network |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04470367&r=his |
| By: | Andreas Ferrara; Patrick A. Testa; Liyang Zhou |
| Abstract: | In applied historical research, geographic units often differ in level of aggregation across datasets. One solution is to use crosswalks that associate factors located within one geographic unit to another, based on their relative areas. We develop an alternative approach based on relative populations, which accounts for heterogeneities in urbanization within counties. We construct population-based crosswalks for 1790 through 2020, which map county-level data across U.S. censuses, as well as from counties to congressional districts. Using official census data for congressional districts, we show that population-based weights outperform area-based ones in terms of similarity to official data. |
| JEL: | N01 N9 R12 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32206&r=his |
| By: | Ghislain Deleplace (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) |
| Abstract: | For de Cecco power relations are central in the working of the pre-WWI international gold standard. He gives an illustration of that in the chapter of Money and Empire devoted to the relationship between Britain and India, where the gold-exchange standard is presented as a way for Britain to get hold of India's trade surplus with the rest of the world in order to balance her own international accounts. On the contrary, Keynes praised the Indian gold-exchange standard as a system which not only allowed stabilising India's relations with the outside world but also pointed the way to a better-regulated monetary system for any country, in the line of Ricardo's Ingot Plan nearly one century older. The same notion may thus be seen alternatively as a powerful tool of domination or as a good practical idea. The paper describes how Lindsay adapted Ricardo's scheme to India and contrasts de Cecco's and Keynes's interpretations of the Indian gold-exchange standard, before suggesting that monetary ideas can prevail in their own right when they are theoretically well-founded and practically feasible, independently of the power relations they may reflect. Publication: Deleplace, G. (2023 a), "Power Relations and Monetary Ideas: The Case of the Gold-Exchange Standard in India, " Review of Political Economy, 35 (2): 394-406. hal-04253424 |
| Keywords: | Gold exchange Standard, India, De Cecco, Keynes, Lindsay, Ricardo |
| Date: | 2022–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04429446&r=his |
| By: | Nogues-Marco, Pilar |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the Female Silk Spinning Apprenticeship School of the Barcelona Board of Trade (1784-1792) to explore the intersections between technological change, spinners’ dexterity, and yarn quality. Dexterity was crucial for performing high-quality silk spinning, but the piece-rate remuneration system incentivised spinners to work as fast as possible, thereby downgrading the quality. In the prelude to the Industrial Revolution, the shift from hand spinning to mechanised spinning was a gradual process of technological innovation in which silk yarn’s quality depended on technology, spinners’ dexterity and the interaction with the institutional framework that either encouraged yarn quality through daily wages or discouraged it through piece-rates. |
| Keywords: | Female silk-spinning apprenticeship, Spinners dexterity, Silk-spinning quality, Technological diffusion, Piedmontese reeling machine, Vaucanson reeling machine, Royal Barcelona Board of Trade |
| JEL: | N13 N83 L11 L22 O14 O33 N0 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:174183&r=his |
| By: | Rönnbäck, Klas (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Theodoridis, Dimitrios (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Galli, Stefania (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we study what individual and social characteristics made it more likely for an individual to resist slavery. We employ a unique census from the Caribbean island of St. Croix in 1846, which allows us to study not only the characteristics of those that did resist slavery, but also of the whole enslaved population on the island. We analyze this data by using descriptive statistics as well as econometric analysis. Our findings show that relative deprivation played no role: individuals were as likely to resist slavery regardless of the relative status of the position they held. Resistance might have been more likely on small establishments, possibly the consequence of a greater level of trust among smaller groups of enslaved individuals. Gender also played a role in the types of resistance undertaken, and thereby possibly also in the risk of being detected and punished. |
| Keywords: | Resistance; repression; slavery; census; Danish West Indies; Caribbean |
| JEL: | J47 N36 |
| Date: | 2024–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0038&r=his |
| By: | Matthew J. Delventhal (Claremont McKenna College); Jesús Fernández-Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania); Nezih Guner (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros) |
| Abstract: | The demographic transition -the move from a high fertility/high mortality regime into a low fertility/low mortality regime- is one of the most fundamental transformations that countries undertake. To study demographic transitions across time and space, we compile a data set of birth and death rates for 186 countries spanning more than 250 years. We document that (i) a demographic transition has been completed or is ongoing in nearly every country; (ii) the speed of transition has increased over time; and (iii) having more neighbors that have started the transition is associated with a higher probability of a country beginning its own transition. To account for these observations, we build a quantitative model in which parents choose child quantity and educational quality. Countries differ in geographic location, and improved production and medical technologies diffuse outward from Great Britain, the technological leader. Our framework replicates well the timing and increasing speed of transitions. It also produces a strong correlation between the speeds of fertility transition and increases in schooling similar to the one in the data. |
| Keywords: | Demographic transition, skill-biased technological change, diffusion. |
| JEL: | J13 N3 O11 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2024_2402&r=his |
| By: | Charlotte Bartels; Simon Jäger; Natalie Obergruber |
| Abstract: | What are the long-term economic effects of a more equal distribution of wealth? We investigate consequences of land inequality, exploiting variation in land inheritance rules that traverse political, linguistic, geological, and religious borders in Germany. In some German areas, inherited land was to be shared or divided equally among children, while in others land was ruled to be indivisible. Using a geographic regression discontinuity design, we first show a more equal land distribution in areas with equal division; other potential drivers of growth are smooth at the boundary and equal division areas were not historically more developed. Today, equal division areas feature higher average incomes and more entrepreneurship which goes in hand with a right-shifted skill, income, and wealth distribution. We show evidence consistent with the more even distribution of land leading to more innovative industrial by-employment during Germany’s transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy that, in the long-run, led to more entrepreneurship. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10936&r=his |
| By: | Ionut Ciutacu (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University of Bucharest, Romania) |
| Abstract: | Ius civile regulates legal relations between Roman citizens. The dominium mentality of the Romans led them to pay more attention to the legal relations specific to the possession of goods. During ancient times, when the Romans were a people of shepherds and farmers, the norms of the old Civil Law established the legal institution of mancipatio, which applied only to res mancipi. The development of society determined the appearance of other categories of goods, the possession of which could no longer be obtained with the help of mancipatio. In order to update the legal regime of acquiring property and relate it to reality, the Roman developed additional civil law procedures that contributed to the improvement of private property and to the crystallization of the concept of patrimony. |
| Keywords: | mancipatio, in iure cessio, usucapio, adiudicatio, lex |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0282&r=his |
| By: | Jakub Lonsky; Isabel Ruiz; Carlos Vargas-Silva |
| Abstract: | The role of ethnic immigrant networks in facilitating international trade is a well-established phenomenon in the literature. However, it is less clear whether this relationship extends to illegal trade and unauthorized immigrants. In this paper, we tackle this question by focusing on the case of the heroin trade and unauthorized Chinese immigrants in the early 1990s United States. Between mid-1980s and mid-1990s, Southeast Asia became the dominant source of heroin in the US. Heroin from this region was trafficked into the US by Chinese organized criminals, whose presence across the country can be approximated by the location of unauthorized Chinese immigrants. Instrumenting for the unauthorized Chinese immigrant enclaves in 1990 with their 1900 counterpart, we first show that Chinese presence in a community led to a sizeable increase in local opiates-related arrests, a proxy for local heroin markets. This effect is driven by arrests for sale/manufacturing of the drugs. Next, we examine the consequences of Chinese-trafficked heroin by looking at its impact on US Vietnam-era veterans – a group particularly vulnerable to heroin addiction in the early 1990s. Using a triple-difference estimation, we find mostly small but statistically significant detrimental effects on labor market outcomes of Vietnam veterans residing in unauthorized Chinese enclaves in 1990. |
| Keywords: | Trade networks, heroin markets, Vietnam veterans, labor market outcomes |
| JEL: | F16 F22 J15 K42 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:202203&r=his |
| By: | Nebojša Vukadinović (IRM - Institut de Recherche Montesquieu - UB - Université de Bordeaux, Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | Since the end of communism in the 1990s, the new currencies have had a triple function in the Balkans, particularly in the Yugoslav area. When they were first adopted, the idea was that they should primarily serve an economic function. But their symbolic and political functions must not be overlooked. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia, adopting new currencies enabled the new governments to pursue an independent monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Eurozone, Monetary policies, Europe, Balkans |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04469808&r=his |
| By: | Mandler, Martin; Scharnagl, Michael |
| Abstract: | We update the wavelet-based analysis of the relationship between money growth and inflation in the euro area in Mandler and Scharnagl (2014). The relationship between headline M3 growth and inflation at low frequencies has weakened over the 1990s. However, we find evidence of stable comovement between money growth adjusted by real GDP growth and consumer price inflation for cycles of 24 years and longer duration. The long-run fluctuations of adjusted money growth and inflation move roughly about 1:1 and are contemporaneous, i.e. there is no lead of money growth. Our analysis of cycles in both variables of 24 years and longer provides information on the relationship between the variables from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. |
| Keywords: | money growth, inflation, euro area, wavelet analysis |
| JEL: | C30 E31 E40 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubtps:283345&r=his |
| By: | Angel De la Fuente; Pep Ruiz |
| Abstract: | This Working Paper provides a concise overview of the recent enhancements to the sector module within the RegData FEDEA-BBVA database. This Working Paper provides a concise overview of the recent enhancements to the sector module within the RegData FEDEA-BBVA database. |
| Keywords: | homogeneous series, series homogéneas, income, renta, Employment, Empleo, Spain, España, Regional Analysis Spain, Análisis Regional España, Working Paper, Documento de Trabajo |
| JEL: | E01 R1 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbv:wpaper:2404&r=his |
| By: | Rovetta, Alessandro (Mensana srls); Mansournia, Mohammed Ali |
| Abstract: | Since the original formulation by Sir Ronald Fisher in the early 1920s, the concept of statistical significance has been subject to serious misinterpretations. Despite more than 100 years having passed, these criticalities remain as vivid today as they were back then, if not more so. Given that the misuse of statistical testing in public health can lead to highly dangerous outcomes such as the approval of ineffective treatments or the rejection of effective ones, in this brief letter, we present a series of examples aimed at definitively dispelling some of the most common and erroneous beliefs about statistical significance. |
| Date: | 2024–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:3s2nt&r=his |
| By: | Ernst, Ekkehard,; Langot, François,; Merola, Rossana,; Tripier, Fabien, |
| Abstract: | Out of four major structural changes affecting the US economy – namely a rising share of skilled workers, skill-biased technological change, decreasing progressiveness of taxation and productivity slowdown – we show that the decline in productivity growth not only is the main driver of the widening wealth disparities observed in the United States of America over the past few decades, but is also the only mechanism that can explain inequalities both within and between skill groups. |
| Keywords: | wealth, economic disparity |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:995353092902676&r=his |
| By: | Lehuedé, Sebastián |
| Abstract: | The construction of astronomical observatories in the Atacama Desert has prompted different actors in Chile to envision initiatives for promoting the expansion of data infrastructure. While such projects are usually seen as synonymous with development, Lickan Antay Indigenous activists affected by the construction of an observatory consider this situation the beginning of a new chapter in their history of territorial struggle. Building upon political ontology, this article argues that the growth of data infrastructures can underpin ontological divergences concerning the territory, i.e., what territory is and its relation with other entities. To do so, it compares two divergent ontologies of territory emerging in the Chilean context. While the Natural Laboratories policy and the Datagonia project transforms the territory into a source of economic resources affording opportunities for developing data infrastructure (assetised ontology of territory), Lickan Antay activists conceive of territory as a unitary whole made up by human and other-than-human interdependencies (relational ontology of territory). Based on a discursive-material analysis of interviews and documents, this article delves into the ontological dimension of data colonialism and proposes an infrastructural regime that does not reproduce terricide and is aligned with the flourishing of multiple worlds. |
| Keywords: | infrastructure; territory; ontology; data colonialism; datafication; Internal OA fund |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2022–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113585&r=his |
| By: | Philipp Boeing; Loren Brandt; Ruochen Dai; Kevin Lim; Bettina Peters |
| Abstract: | We study the evolution of patenting in China from 1985-2019. We use a Large Language Model to measure patent importance based on patent abstracts and classify patent ownership using a comprehensive business registry. We highlight four insights. First, average patent importance declined from 2000-2010 but has increased more recently. Second, private Chinese firms account for most of patenting growth whereas overseas patentees have played a diminishing role. Third, patentees have greatly reduced their dependence on foreign knowledge. Finally, Chinese and foreign patenting have become more similar in technological composition, but differences persist within technology classes as revealed by abstract similarities. |
| Keywords: | Innovation Patents Technology China |
| JEL: | O3 |
| Date: | 2024–03–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-770&r=his |
| By: | Arvind Panagariya (Chairman, 16th Finance Commission) |
| Abstract: | “According to the GDP estimates by economic historian Angus Maddison, 1st century CE onwards India had the largest share of global GDP for 1500 years and shared the top spot with China until 1870. Today, with India becoming the world’s fifth-largest economy, it is no longer unrealistic to pose the question whether China and India can again come to occupy the top two spots—what is a plausible transition to this old normal? What challenges does India face in its quest to get there and what is the pathway to conquering those? How will the race between the USA, China, and India evolve once India becomes the world’s third-largest economy? The paper also explores the assumptions behind predicted growth rates for India to catch up with the USA by 2072.†|
| Keywords: | Economy, Economic Growth, GDP |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nca:ncaerw:163&r=his |
| By: | Jakob Kapeller (Institute for Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg, Germany and Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Georg Hubmann (Institute for Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Liberalism as a social philosophy aims to protect and expand individual liberty. Liberty is thereby understood in a twofold way encompassing both, political liberties, like human dignity or democratic inclusion, as well as economic liberties, like private property rights or free market access. In this article, we point to the fact that this dual notion is surrounded by some tensions that become increasingly visible when discussing the economic and political impacts of increasing international economic integration, i.e. globalization. Specifically, it is concerned with the fact that globalization as observed in the last decades was mainly driven by the principles of economic liberalism, which in some instances undermines the goals of political liberalism – e.g. due to rising inequality, increasing path-dependencies or by creating a race for the best location, that partially undermines the (democratic) sovereignty of nations. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:151&r=his |
| By: | Corinth, Kevin (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research); Larrimore, Jeff (Federal Reserve Board) |
| Abstract: | We find that each of the past four generations of Americans was better off than the previous one, using a post-tax, post-transfer income measure constructed annually from 1963-2022 based on the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. At age 36-40, Millennials had a real median household income that was 18 percent higher than that of the previous generation at the same age. This rate of intergenerational progress was slower than that experienced by the Silent Generation (34 percent) and Baby Boomers (27 percent), but similar to that experienced by Generation X (16 percent). Slower progress for Generation X and Millennials is due to their stalled growth in work hours - holding work hours constant, they experienced a greater intergenerational increase in real market income than Baby Boomers. Intergenerational progress for Millennials under age 30 has remained robust as well, although their income growth largely results from higher reliance on their parents. We also find that the higher educational costs incurred by younger generations is far outweighed by their lifetime income gains. |
| Keywords: | full income, growth, generations, mobility, Millennials |
| JEL: | D31 E24 H24 J3 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16807&r=his |
| By: | Dixon, Huw David (Cardiff Business School); Li, Yiyi; Meenagh, David (Cardiff Business School); Tian, Maoshan |
| Abstract: | In this paper we model monthly UK inflation and find that there is some small but significant autocorrelation, particularly at 12 months. We find that this autocorrelation in monthly inflation leads to significant persistence in the headline annual inflation figure. A one-off shock to monthly inflation will have an effect on the headline figure equal to 10% of the original shock after 24 months. We find that this 12-month effect is also present in most of the different types of expenditure. We also find that the 12-month effect is present when we introduce a variety of other demand and cost variables. We also look at core inflation (excluding food and energy) across 9 large market economies (including the USA, Germany, Japan and UK) and find that the 12-month effect is significant in all of them. |
| Keywords: | inflation, persistence, UK, CPI |
| JEL: | E17 E31 E71 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2024/9&r=his |
| By: | Bank of Japan (Bank of Japan) |
| Abstract: | On December 4, 2023, the first workshop on the "Review of Monetary Policy from a Broad Perspective, " entitled "The Effects and Side Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy, " was held at the Bank of Japan's Head Office. At the workshop, economists and financial and economic experts participated in a lively discussion on the effects and side effects of monetary policy over the past 25 years, focusing on four topics: financial markets, the financial system, the Bank of Japan's balance sheet, and unconventional monetary policy. Session 1 provided an overview of domestic financial markets over the past 25 years and the impact of monetary policy on the degree of market functioning. Participants discussed whether it would be possible to assess the impact of monetary policy from a broader perspective, for example by broadening the scope of the analysis. Session 2 focused on the impact of the low interest rate environment on the risk-taking behavior of financial institutions. Participants discussed issues such as developments in the demand for funds and the allocation of funds. Session 3 looked at issues concerning central bank finances. Participants discussed topics such as central banks' external communication. Session 4 examined the impact of unconventional monetary policy on factors such as economic activity and prices. Participants discussed a range of issues, including issues not covered in the presentations at the workshop such as the formation mechanism of inflation expectations and linkages between wages and prices. The panel discussion in Session 5 mainly covered issues such as methods for analyzing the effects and side effects of monetary policy and the mechanisms underlying price developments. Participants pointed out that it was difficult to assess the effects and side effects of unconventional monetary policy in a comprehensive manner given that multiple policy tools were used at the same time, and that it was therefore important to gather experts with different backgrounds to discuss a variety of issues, as in this workshop. Furthermore, participants also noted that in assessing the impact of monetary policy, it was necessary to deepen the analysis not only of the formation of inflation expectations but also of firms' behavior and its impact on economic developments and the formation of wages and prices. |
| Date: | 2024–03–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boj:bojron:ron240311a&r=his |