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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
|
Issue of 2024‒06‒17
forty-six papers chosen by |
| By: | L. Rachel Ngai; Claudia Olivetti; Barbara Petrongolo |
| Abstract: | Women's contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several early sources, we create a consistent measure of male and female employment and hours for the US for 1870-2019, including paid work and unpaid work in family farms and non-farm businesses. The resulting measure of hours traces a U-shape for women, with a modest decline up to mid-20th century followed by a sustained increase, and a monotonic decline for men. We propose a multisector economy with uneven productivity growth, income effects, and consumption complementarity across sectoral outputs. During early development stages, declining agriculture leads to rising services -- both in the market and the home -- and leisure, reducing market work for both genders. In later stages, structural transformation reallocates labor from manufacturing into services, while marketization reallocates labor from home to market services. Given gender comparative advantages, the first channel is more relevant for men, reducing male hours, while the second channel is more relevant for women, increasing female hours. Our quantitative illustration suggests that structural transformation and marketization can account for the overall decline in market hours from 1880-1950, and one quarter of the rise and decline, respectively, in female and male market hours from 1950-2019. |
| JEL: | J16 J20 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32475&r= |
| By: | Spender, J. C. |
| Abstract: | This chapter contrasts Simon's approach with that of Frank Knight, who was a significant figure in the Chicago economics department at the time. It explores how Simon's ideas, such as bounded rationality and satisficing, have been influential in fields like management and artificial intelligence, despite being somewhat overlooked by mainstream economics and public administration. |
| Keywords: | Herbert Simon, Frank Knight, Economics |
| JEL: | B30 N0 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120891&r= |
| By: | Carlos, Ann M.; Green, Erik; Links, Calumet; Redish, Angela |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the responses of Indigenous nations and European companies to new trading opportunities: Cree nations and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and Khoe nations and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This case study is important because of the disparate outcomes: within a few decades the Cree standard of living had increased, and Khoe had lost land and cattle. Standard histories begin with the establishment of trading posts but this elides the decades of prior intermittent contact which played an important role in the disparate outcomes in the two regions. The paper emphasizes the significance of Indigenous agency in trade. |
| Keywords: | Indigenous economics, trade, ecology, cross-continental comparison |
| JEL: | N30 N70 N71 N77 J15 Q57 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:295244&r= |
| By: | Foss, Tina |
| Keywords: | Arts and Humanities, 150w, UCB, Women Information Scientists |
| Date: | 2024–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt7zh9b02b&r= |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Simon Johnson |
| Abstract: | David Ricardo initially believed machinery would help workers but revised his opinion, likely based on the impact of automation in the textile industry. Despite cotton textiles becoming one of the largest sectors in the British economy, real wages for cotton weavers did not rise for decades. As E.P. Thompson emphasized, automation forced workers into unhealthy factories with close surveillance and little autonomy. Automation can increase wages, but only when accompanied by new tasks that raise the marginal productivity of labor and/or when there is sufficient additional hiring in complementary sectors. Wages are unlikely to rise when workers cannot push for their share of productivity growth. Today, artificial intelligence may boost average productivity, but it also may replace many workers while degrading job quality for those who remain employed. As in Ricardo’s time, the impact of automation on workers today is more complex than an automatic linkage from higher productivity to better wages. |
| JEL: | B12 J23 O14 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32416&r= |
| By: | Ramon Ramon-Muñoz |
| Abstract: | This work explores the impact of large urban centres on historical processes of agrarian change and the transformation of the agri-food industry. Using Barcelona and the olive oil sector in Catalonia as a case study, it presents evidence on the evolution of consumption and inflows of olive oil in the Catalan capital during the second half of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. The paper shows the growth and significance of Barcelona in the consumption and commerce of this product. Considered the largest olive oil market in early 1920s Spain, this study also posits various hypotheses regarding the extent and mechanisms through which this major western Mediterranean city could have influenced the trajectory and transformations experienced by the Catalan olive oil sector before the Spanish Civil War. |
| Keywords: | olive oil, agroindustry, urban growth, consumption, trade, exports |
| JEL: | N50 N70 N90 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:seh:wpaper:2403&r= |
| By: | Bottasso, Anna (CIRIEC); Cerruti, Gianluca (University of Genoa); Conti, Maurizio (University of Genoa); Santagata, Marta (University of Genova) |
| Abstract: | In this study we evaluate the role that Mediterranean Medieval trade with Africa and the Middle-East still plays today in Italian politics by shaping the attitudes towards migrants of individuals that live close to Medieval ports. Trade connections between Medieval ports and Muslim Africa and Middle East might have indeed favoured the emergence of cultural traits that helped the interaction with foreigners from different cultures, ethnicity and religion a few centuries before with respect to other areas of the country. We use a representative survey of young individuals (aged 20-35) to show that, conditionally on a rich set of geographic, historic, economic and individual controls, people living close to a Medieval port are less likely to think that migrants make Italy an unsafe place as well as to report right-wing voting attitudes. Moreover, we also find, in those areas, a lower probability of xenophobic attacks during the spike of refugees from Siria of 2015. Interestingly, right-wing parties started to attract less votes near Medieval ports only when immigration had become a very salient issue. Similarly, we find a lower probability of Jewish deportations close to Medieval ports during the Nazi occupation, the only period in Italian contemporary history when a minority group was explicitly targeted by the government. This in turn suggests that some deep-rooted cultural traits, although not observed and not clearly at work in society, can become visible when the right historical and political circumstances take place. |
| Keywords: | political ideology, immigration, cultural transmission, medieval trade sea routes, Roman road network |
| JEL: | D72 N70 N90 O10 O12 P48 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16996&r= |
| By: | McAleer, Keith |
| Keywords: | Engineering, 150w, UCB, Women in IEOR |
| Date: | 2024–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt3km7q585&r= |
| By: | Miller, Marcus (University of Warwick, CAGE and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | As the world experiences a fourth industrial revolution - in Information Technology - we look back at how things turned out in the first Industrial Revolution, which began when Adam Smith was writing The Wealth of Nations. For the historical record, we draw on the recent study of Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, who describe how the benefits of innovation were – or were not - spread across society in Britain at that time. This paper focuses on the case of India under colonial rule, however, where two themes emerge. First, how the transfer of technology under the control of a private company – based in London and granted monopoly powers by the British government - was enough to stymie the ‘virtuous spiral of Smithian growth’ for a century or more. Second, how two centuries of colonial control also deprived the indigenous population of what Amartya Sen has claimed is the key insurance against famine - namely democratic accountability. The paper end with brief remarks on how industrial policy in India of today could help spread the benefits of the current IT revolution. |
| Keywords: | Adam Smith, specialisation, development, colonisation, famine, case studies in economic history JEL Classification: B12, F54, L12, Q1, O30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:709&r= |
| By: | MacKenzie, Smith |
| Keywords: | Arts and Humanities, 150w, UCB, Women in College of Natural Resources |
| Date: | 2024–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt42p214fk&r= |
| By: | Gerken, Laura |
| Abstract: | The right to land is increasingly recognized in transnational governance. In this paper, I argue that it has been established as a transnational norm. This argument is presented by tracing the transnational governance of land over time. I identified four phases that land governance progressed through. Initially, the issue of land was only indirectly included, while later on rights and regulations dealing specifically with land emerged, until the right to land finally became an established norm. It recognizes the crucial role of land for rural lives and livelihoods, grants individuals and communities a right to the land they are using, and protects them from dispossession. With the examples of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (FAO 2012) and the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNGA 2018), I trace the role of social movements in the creation processes of both regulations. I argue that the growing market of land on a large scale in the mid-2000s led to the necessity of its regulation as a double movement. Due to the accompanying salience, social movements took political opportunities, to struggle for the recognition of a right to land. Because of past efforts of those movements, they provided expertise in this context. By closely connecting their claims to already established norms, the movements increased the likelihood of adopting the transnational right to land norm. |
| Keywords: | Norm Emergence, Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, Social Movements, Transnational Governance, Land Rig |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:khkgcr:294846&r= |
| By: | Gorgens, Tue (Australian National University); Meng, Xin (Australian National University); Zhao, Guochang (Southwest University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu) |
| Abstract: | Fifty years ago, China sent more than 16 million urban youths aged 16–19 to rural villages to work and they spent between 1 and 10 years there. This is known as the 'sent-down youth' (SDY) program. This paper examines how this internal migration impacted rural economic development in the regions that received a larger number of SDY per capita relative to regions that received less. We find a sizeable and persistent impact of the SDY program on real per capita GDP and nighttime light in the years after the program ended. Surprisingly, although our results confirm that the SDY increased education level of relevant cohorts, the variation in the education level of these cohorts does not seem to contribute directly to rural GDP and nighttime lights. We provide suggestive evidence regarding mechanisms through which the SDY influenced rural economic development. |
| Keywords: | economic development, migration, sent-down youth, China |
| JEL: | O18 J61 R23 N00 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16951&r= |
| By: | Alex Rivadeneira |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I digitize economic census data to study unconditional convergence in manufacturing labor productivity across Mexican states from 1988 to 2018. I document its existence in three-digit industries at a rate of convergence of 1.22% per year. However, this result does not hold at the aggregate level: I find no unconditional convergence in manufacturing wide labor productivity across states. Shift-sharing analysis reveals that the primary reason is the lack of labor reallocation towards more productive industries and the underperformance of some of the largest ones. Unconditional convergence at all levels only occurred during 19881998. Afterward, the convergence process broke down and was only observed at disaggregated levels. I provide evidence that one possible cause of this breakdown is the so-called "China shock". Additionally, I show that the convergence process, when it happened, tended to exhibit a catching-down feature, where past leaders have seen their labor productivity decline. |
| Keywords: | growth, convergence, manufacturing, Mexico |
| JEL: | O40 O14 O54 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1186&r= |
| By: | Tewes, Amanda` |
| Keywords: | Arts and Humanities, 150w, UCB, Women's Activism |
| Date: | 2024–05–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt28w7n4nx&r= |
| By: | Angela Cools; Jared Grooms; Krzysztof Karbownik; Siobhan M. O'Keefe; Joseph Price; Anthony Wray |
| Abstract: | The nineteenth-century American family experienced tremendous demographic, economic, and institutional changes. By using birth order effects as a proxy for family environment, and linked census data on men born between 1835 and 1910, we study how the family's role in human capital production evolved over this period. We find firstborn premiums for occupational outcomes, marriage, and fertility that are similar across census waves. Our results indicate that the returns to investments in the family environment were stable over a long period. |
| JEL: | J13 J62 N30 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32407&r= |
| By: | Mark Setterfield (Department of Economics, New School For Social Research, USA) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a brief introduction to social structure of accumulation theory (SSAT), for a special issue of the New School Economic Review on SSAT. |
| Keywords: | Social structure of accumulation, institutions, long waves, conflict, uncertainty |
| JEL: | B51 B52 E11 E12 O43 P1 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:2408&r= |
| By: | Pardey, Philip G.; Alston, Julian M. |
| Abstract: | Has the golden age of U.S. agricultural productivity growth ended? We analyze the detailed patterns of productivity growth spanning a century of profound changes in American agriculture. We document a substantial slowing of U.S. farm productivity growth, following a late mid-century surge—20 years after the surge and slowdown in U.S. industrial productivity growth. We posit and empirically probe three related explanations for this farm productivity surge-slowdown: the time path of agricultural R&D-driven knowledge stocks; a big wave of technological progress associated with great clusters of inventions; and dynamic aspects of the structural transformation of agriculture, largely completed by 1980. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umaesp:342428&r= |
| By: | Yannick LUCAS (Le Mans Université, Chaire ESS - Laboratoire ARGUMANS, (France)) |
| Abstract: | Democratic governance is a constitutive element of a large part of social economy enterprises. In France, the first mutuals, in the modern sense of the term, appeared in the early 19th century. Bringing together free and equal citizens sharing a collective identity and wishing to break away from charitable practices based on unequal conditions, mutuals immediately adopted democratic principles. The statutes provide for the compulsory participation of members in the general assembly during which important decisions concerning the management of the mutual are taken. The specific features of democratic practice within mutuals will evolve over time. In the first legally recognised mutuals, the President was appointed by the public authorities to prevent mutual benefit societies from being used as a front for trade union and political activities in a context where trade unions and political parties were prohibited. Democratic practice was then limited to management decisions. With the development of political freedoms, this control was to diminish and eventually disappear, but another form of limitation of democracy was to appear with the supervision of the guarantees offered by the mutual societies. At the same time, the increase in the size of mutuals and in the number of their members limits the possibilities of direct participation of members in management decisions. Democratic practice is evolving towards a representative democracy in which democratic procedures are essentially used to appoint leaders. The democratic exercise is then situated at another level within the governance bodies. These developments, combined with an increase in the consumerist practices of members, mean that mutuals, like other organisations, are suffering from a "democratic crisis" which they are trying to resolve by recreating spaces for exchange and meeting with their members. |
| Keywords: | Governance, Democracy, Mutuals, Social Economy, History |
| JEL: | I13 L31 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crc:wpaper:2303&r= |
| By: | Disa M. Hynsjö; Luca Perdoni |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a novel empirical strategy to estimate the causal effects of federal “redlining” – the mapping and grading of US neighborhoods by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). In the late 1930s, a federal agency created color-coded maps to summarize the financial risk of granting mortgages in different neighborhoods, together with forms describing the presence of racial and ethnic minorities as “detrimental”. Our analysis exploits an exogenous population cutoff: only cities above 40, 000 residents were mapped. We employ a difference-in-differences design, comparing areas that received a particular grade with neighborhoods that would have received the same grade if their city had been mapped. The control neighborhoods are defined using a machine learning algorithm trained to draw HOLC-like maps using newly geocoded full-count census records. Our findings support the view that HOLC maps further concentrated economic disadvantage. For the year 1940, we find a substantial reduction in property values and a moderate increase in the share of African American residents in areas with the lowest grade. Such negative effects on property values persisted until the early 1980s. The magnitude of the results is higher in historically African American neighborhoods. The empirical results show that a government-supplied, data-driven information tool can coordinate exclusionary practices and amplify their consequences. |
| Keywords: | Redlining, neighborhoods, discrimination, machine-learning |
| JEL: | J15 R23 N92 N32 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11098&r= |
| By: | Bautista, María Angélica (University of Chicago); González, Felipe (Queen Mary University of London); Martinez, Luis R. (University of Chicago); Muñoz, Pablo (Universidad de Chile); Prem, Mounu (Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of political regime change on higher education and its distributional and political consequences. We focus on the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. The Pinochet dictatorship's aims of political control and fiscal conservatism led to a large reduction in the number of openings for new students across all universities. Individuals that reached college age shortly after the coup experienced a sharp decline in college enrollment, had worse labor market outcomes throughout the life cycle and struggled to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. This contraction of higher education disproportionately affected applicants from less affluent backgrounds and plausibly contributed to the increase in inequality observed under Pinochet. We further show that individuals exposed to reduced access to college registered to vote at higher rates for the 1988 plebiscite that triggered Chile's democratic transition and we provide suggestive evidence that they increasingly voted against Pinochet. |
| Keywords: | dictatorship, college, technocracy, austerity, inequality |
| JEL: | H52 I23 I24 I25 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16989&r= |
| By: | Szepanski, Achim |
| Abstract: | FROM THE ARTICLE: At first glance, it would appear that Deleuze’s concept of structure involves a complex form of so-called creorder, a term that appears at the forefront of the methodological findings of the economists Bichler/Nitzan. If the structure is actualized in each of its moments in processes, then Bichler/Nitzan describe this process with the term “creorder”. They consider this to be a highly artificial term, which is intended to indicate that a structure/order must constantly construct and reconstruct itself in (historical) time, just as a form must constantly transform itself. According to Bichler/Nitzan, in the context of creorder, the meaning of the relationship between Heraclitean becoming and Parmenidean being lies precisely in the fact that the fusion of verb and noun results in the term “creorder”: “To have a history is to create order – a verb and a noun whose fusion yields the verb-noun creorder.” On the one hand, the so-called creorder may be completely vertically or hierarchically ordered, as is the case in ultra-bureaucratic systems, for example; on the other hand, it may also be horizontal, as could be the case in radical democracies, or it may be in between order and disorder. |
| Keywords: | capital accumulation, capital as power, creorder, capitalization, differential accumulation, dominant capital, finance, Marxism, neoclassical economics, quantification, value |
| JEL: | P00 P1 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:295212&r= |
| By: | Raphael Auer; Mathieu Pedemonte; Raphael Schoenle |
| Abstract: | Is inflation (still) a global phenomenon? We study the international co-movement of inflation based on a dynamic factor model and in a sample spanning up to 56 countries during the 1960-2023 period. Over the entire period, a first global factor explains approximately 58% of the variation in headline inflation across all countries and over 72% in OECD economies. The explanatory power of global inflation is equally high in a shorter sample spanning the time since 2000. Core inflation is also remarkably global, with 53% of its variation attributable to a first global factor. The explanatory power of a second global factor is lower, except for select emerging economies. Variables such as a broad dollar index, the US federal funds rate, and a measure of commodity prices positively correlate with the first global factor. This global factor is also correlated with US inflation during the 70s, 80s, the GFC, and COVID. However, it lags these variables during the post-COVID period. Country-level integration in global value chains accounts for a significant proportion of the share of both local headline and core inflation dynamics explained by global factors. |
| Keywords: | globalisation, inflation, Phillips curve, monetary policy, global value chain, international inflation synchronisation |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E58 F02 F41 F42 F14 F62 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1189&r= |
| By: | Benito Arruñada; Lucas López-Manuel |
| Abstract: | By refining the moral code and enforcing it through the new 'mendicant' orders, the Church of the 13th century laid the cognitive, interpersonal, and institutional groundwork for large-scale cooperation based on one-shot transactions between strangers. However, net outcomes at these three levels stem from opposite-sign effects coherent with the specialization of specific branches within the Church: while exposure to Dominicans had positive effects on traits favoring impersonal exchange, consistent with their emphasis on rationality, exposure to Franciscans had negative effects, related to their emotionality, and favoring personal exchange. Moreover, the effects of exposure to the secular clergy were insignificant. Our causal identification relies on refuting multiple confounders, comparing second-generation migrants, and leveraging withincountry differences in mendicants'exposure in Europe and Mesoamerica. |
| Keywords: | cultural change, values, institutions, Religion, Catholic Church, persistence, Late Middle Ages |
| JEL: | O10 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1447&r= |
| By: | Matías Vernengo |
| Abstract: | Right-wing critics of Keynes have often suggested that he was a socialist. His policy proposals were very often described as a slippery slope that would lead society into a totalitarian nightmare. Alternatively, from the left, Keynes was often seen as a reformist that intended to preserve the essence of capitalism. His reforms were mere window dressing on an exploitative system. The scholarship on Keynes also remained divided. However, in the last few decades a more robust position in favor of Keynes' socialist affiliation was developed, particularly in the careful scholarship by Rod O'Donnell and James Crotty. This paper suggests that while Keynes was a pragmatist willing to experiment in economic policy, and fully aware of the need to transform and transcend laissez-faire capitalism, he remained a liberal, in particular because Labourites, and most socialists, remained conservative in their economic policy outlook. Keynes was a revolutionary in economic theory, but a moderate in his politics. |
| Keywords: | Neoclassical Economics, Socialism, Macroeconomics, Keynes |
| JEL: | B13 B14 B22 B31 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:94-2023&r= |
| By: | Marvalee, Wake |
| Keywords: | Life Sciences, 150w, UCB, Women in Biology |
| Date: | 2024–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt6r34c79j&r= |
| By: | Nina Boyarchenko; Leonardo Elias |
| Abstract: | Firms’ access to credit is a crucial determinant of their investment, employment, and overall growth decisions. While we usually think of their ability to borrow as determined by aggregate credit conditions, in reality firms have a number of markets where they can borrow, and conditions can vary across those markets. In this post, we investigate how the composition of debt instruments on U.S. firms’ balance sheets has evolved over the last twenty years. |
| Keywords: | corporate credit; bond market; debt maturity |
| JEL: | G32 G15 F30 F44 |
| Date: | 2024–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednls:98277&r= |
| By: | Thomas I. Palley |
| Abstract: | Keynes' General Theory was a massive step forward relative to classical economics, but it was also a step backward in its denial of the conflictual nature of capitalism. There is need to understand Keynes' technical contributions regarding the workings of monetary economies, but also need to understand the flaws within his thinking and the consequences thereof. Keynes made a fundamental contribution elucidating the mechanism of effective demand, and he also has claim to be the preeminent monetary theorist. However, owing to his denial of conflict, he had a flawed view of capitalism which is why establishment Keynesianism struggles to explain contemporary stagnation. That flawed view also undermines the case for Social Democracy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, his view of capitalism is supportive of Neoliberalism and Keynes can be viewed as a compassionate (Third Way) Neoliberal. |
| Keywords: | Hysteresis, institutions, policy lock-in, psychology, identity, ideas |
| JEL: | B40 E10 E12 E32 P50 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:92-2023&r= |
| By: | Véronique Dimier; Sarah Stockwell |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the business of development in the post-colonial age, when bilateral and multilateral aid regimes offered businesses new opportunities. It uses the case study of Britain and the European Economic Community (EEC), from Britain's accession to the EEC in 1973 to the early 1980s, to demonstrate that the British government viewed multilateral aid instruments, in particular the European Development Fund (EDF), as offering commercial opportunities for British firms. Based on records of the EEC, business associations, and the French and British states, the article analyzes business-state relationships between national governments, corporations, and supranational institutions. As the UK government tried to redirect EEC aid toward places where its firms had the most to gain, it met the opposition of other member states and European institutions as well as the disinterest of its own businesses. |
| Keywords: | business of development; European Development Fund; European Economic Community; Great Britain; post-colonial age |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/370814&r= |
| By: | Card, David (University of California, Berkeley); Clark, Leah (US Census Bureau); Domnisoru, Ciprian (Aalto University); Taylor, Lowell J. (Carnegie Mellon University) |
| Abstract: | A school finance equalization program established in Mississippi in 1920 failed to help many of the state's Black students – an outcome that was typical in the segregated U.S. South (Horace Mann Bond, 1934). In majority-Black school districts, local decision-makers overwhelmingly favored white schools when allotting funds from the state's preexisting per capita fund, and the resulting high expenditures on white students rendered these districts ineligible for the equalization program. Thus, while Black students residing in majority-white districts benefitted from increased spending and standards for Black schools, those in majority-Black districts continued to experience extremely low – and even worsening – school funding. We model the processes that led the so-called equalization policy to create disparities in schooling resources for Black students, and estimate effects on Black children using both a neighboring-counties design and an IV strategy. We find that local educational spending had large impacts on Black enrollment rates, as reported in the 1940 census, with Black educational attainment increasing in marginal spending. Finally, we link the 1940 and 2000 censuses to show that Black children exposed to higher levels of school expenditures had signicantly more completed schooling and higher income late in life. |
| Keywords: | returns to education, racial inequality in schooling resources, school equalization |
| JEL: | I24 I26 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16994&r= |
| By: | Mara P. Squicciarini; Gianandrea Lanzara; Sara Lazzaroni; Paolo Masella |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of a shock, the phylloxera crisis in 19th-century France, on assimilation policies towards the native population of French Algeria. In particular, assembling a novel dataset on French MPs and their parliamentary speeches, we find that MPs coming from areas hit harder by the phylloxera, were more likely to: i) use keywords related to the impact of phylloxera and wine production; ii) express greater interest and support towards policies aimed at educating the native population. The latter pattern becomes visible approximately ten years after the phylloxera crisis, consistent with the view that organizing production requires time. |
| Keywords: | assimilation, minorities, education, 19th-century France |
| JEL: | J15 Z10 I25 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp24221&r= |
| By: | Kenny, Sean |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs annual GDP estimates for Ireland (1924-47) to join the first complete official aggregates. The new series is deployed to revisit Ireland's economic performance in the post-independence decades. Ireland's economy grew at 1.5 per cent per annum and average living standards improved by 40 per cent. The bulk of this was due to labour productivity improvements stemming from workers moving out of agriculture. Starting in 1924 captures the civil war recovery and paints a more positive picture of the 1920s, while the traditional narrative of a "mild" Great Depression is upheld. The 1930s recovery was aided by strong contributions from services and industry, while the economy contracted by 7 per cent during the early "Emergency". Though supporting O'Rourke's view that Irish growth was not unique against European peers, the new data provide evidence of stronger convergence against UK regions. Industry contributed most to growth during the period, growing at 3.6 per cent per annum. The equivalent rate for services was 1.3 per cent, though it contributed substantially during recovery periods. Agricultural output hardly changed due to its post-war contraction. This paper joins a growing number of studies that suggest that Ireland was poorer at independence than previously believed. |
| Keywords: | Historical National Accounts, interwar period, Ireland, GDP, comparative growth, regional GDP, productivity |
| JEL: | N1 N14 O4 O47 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:295737&r= |
| By: | Erfurth, Philipp |
| Abstract: | This study examines income inequality in rural Roman Egypt in 1st century AD on the basis of data from papyrological evidence for the village of Tebtunis. It identifies and collects data for three social classes - manual workers, priests, and village elites – to assemble a social table for the population of Tebtunis. To measure inequality using the Gini coefficient and the inequality extraction ratio (IER), the study proposes the use of a daily social table to better take account of daily wages for manual workers within the context of the ancient world. The collected evidence suggests that inequality and the degree of extraction of incomes by elites was likely relatively low, reflecting the rural setting and limited heterogeneity in incomes at the top, compared to urban settings and the Roman empire as a whole. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2024–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wrx9b&r= |
| By: | Angela Cools; Jared Grooms; Krzysztof Karbownik; Siobhan O'Keefe; Joseph Price; Anthony Wray |
| Abstract: | The nineteenth-century American family experienced tremendous demographic, economic, and institutional changes. By using birth order effects as a proxy for family environment, and linked census data on men born between 1835 and 1910, we study how the family’s role in human capital production evolved over this period. We find firstborn premiums for occupational outcomes, marriage, and fertility that are similar across census waves. Our results indicate that the returns to investments in the family environment were stable over a long period. |
| Keywords: | birth order, parental investments, occupation outcomes, intergenerational mobility, marriage, fertility |
| JEL: | J13 J62 N30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11095&r= |
| By: | David Card; Leah Clark; Ciprian Domnisoru; Lowell Taylor |
| Abstract: | A school finance equalization program established in Mississippi in 1920 failed to help many of the state's Black students—an outcome that was typical in the segregated U.S. South (Horace Mann Bond, 1934). In majority-Black school districts, local decision-makers overwhelmingly favored white schools when allotting funds from the state's preexisting per capita fund, and the resulting high expenditures on white students rendered these districts ineligible for the equalization program. Thus, while Black students residing in majority-white districts benefitted from increased spending and standards for Black schools, those in majority-Black districts continued to experience extremely low—and even worsening—school funding. We model the processes that led the so-called equalization policy to create disparities in schooling resources for Black students, and estimate effects on Black children using both a neighboring-counties design and an IV strategy. We find that local educational spending had large impacts on Black enrollment rates, as reported in the 1940 census, with Black educational attainment increasing in marginal spending. Finally, we link the 1940 and 2000 censuses to show that Black children exposed to higher levels of school expenditures had significantly more completed schooling and higher income late in life. |
| Keywords: | School Equalization; Racial Inequality in Schooling Resources; Returns to Education |
| JEL: | I24 I26 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-25&r= |
| By: | igescu, iulia |
| Abstract: | Some selected examples from trade history and even more the rise of superstar firms in the early twenty first century make visible the eminence of monetary delocalization in the process of market creation. Market creation is highly concentrated in space. As a result, inside and outside money have evolved as complements. Extensive market creation today has become a main source of excess reserves in the banking sector. Monetary delocalization forces the process of market completeness to demand more safe assets of good quality, driving up their price. A monetary authority facing network collateral channel effects of superstar firms would have to rely on increased volumes of safe assets, to be deployed in case a lack of complete markets interrupts inside-outside money flows. Higher interest rates would make market completion more costly, slowing it down. |
| Keywords: | usura monetary policy excess reserves money delocalization market incompleteness inside-outside money superstar firms Ming Dynasty trade Medici banks Canton trade Reichsbank during war Romania |
| JEL: | B00 E40 E52 E58 N13 N14 N15 O43 |
| Date: | 2023–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120865&r= |
| By: | Shuo Chen; Raymond Fisman; Xiaohuan Lan; Yongxiang Wang; Qing Ye |
| Abstract: | Kinship ties are a common institution that may facilitate in-group coordination and cooperation. Yet their benefits – or lack thereof – depend crucially on the broader institutional environment. We study how the prevalence of clan ties affect how communities confronted two well-studied historical episodes from the early years of the People's Republic of China, utilizing four distinct proxies for county clan strength: the presence of recognized ancestral halls; genealogical records; rice suitability; and geographic latitude. We show that the loss of livestock associated with 1955-56 collectivization (which mandated that farmers surrender livestock for little compensation) documented by Chen and Lan (2017) was much less pronounced in strong-clan areas. By contrast, we show that the 1959-61 Great Famine was associated with higher mortality in areas with stronger clan ties. We argue that reconciling these two conflicting patterns requires that we take a broader view of how kinship groups interact with other governance institutions, in particular the role of kinship as a means of elite control. |
| JEL: | N95 P32 Z10 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32414&r= |
| By: | Jung, Alexander |
| Abstract: | This study re-assesses the validity of the quantity theory of money (QTM) for the very long sample, 1870 to 2020, for 18 industrial countries using the dataset from Jordà et al. (2017). It considers structural changes in the economic and financial sectors and changes in monetary policy rameworks. Three findings are presented. First, the results from panel cointegration tests show that the long-run relationship between excess money growth and inflation holds if longer runs of data are used. Second, panel regressions confirm the presence of long and variable lags in the monetary policy transmission, as predicted by Milton Friedman. For the full sample, the average speed of adjustment from excess money growth to inflation in industrial countries was about two years amid heterogeneity across time and countries. Third, the results show that over recent decades, structural change - coinciding with the Great Moderation and, in part, reflecting changes in payment technologies - has led to a collapse of QTM. JEL Classification: B16, B23, E40, E50, N1 |
| Keywords: | excess money growth, great moderation, panel cointegration tests, payment technologies, structural change |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20242940&r= |
| By: | Andreas Bergh (Department of Economics, Lund University, Sweden; Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Stockholm, Sweden); Christian Bjornskov (Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark); Ludek Kouba (Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | The discussion of the growth consequences of socialism has fulminated for a century, sparked off by the Calculation Debate in the 1920s and 30s, and has concerned the performance of the Soviet Union in the 1950s and the mixed development in the 1990s after communism collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe. We aim to inform these debates by providing an empirical assessment of how socialist economies performed across the second half of the 20th century. Using both neighbour comparisons as well as more formal empirical analysis of developing countries that turned socialist after independence, we derive a set of estimates of the degree to which the introduction of a planned socialist economy affects long-run growth and development. All analyses point towards an annual growth decline of approximately two percentage points during the first decade after implementing socialism. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, socialism |
| JEL: | O11 O43 P20 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:men:wpaper:95_2024&r= |
| By: | Hager, Sebastian (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit¨at M¨unchen); Schwarz, Carlo (Universit`a Bocconi, Department of Economics, IGIER, PERICLES, CEPR, CAGE); Waldinger, Fabian (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit¨at M¨unchen, CEPR, CESifo) |
| Abstract: | We study how performance metrics affect the allocation of talent by exploiting the introduction of the first citation database in science. For technical reasons, it only covered citations from certain journals and years, creating quasi-random variation: some citations became visible, while others remained invisible. We identify the effects of citation metrics by comparing the predictiveness of visible to invisible citations. Citation metrics increased assortative matching between scientists and departments by reducing information frictions over geographic and intellectual distance. Highly-cited scientists from lower-ranked departments (“hidden stars†) and from minorities benefited more. Citation metrics also affected promotions and NSF-grants, suggesting Matthew effects. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:698&r= |
| By: | Milad Abbasiharofteh; Tom Broekel; Lars Mewes; |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how geographical proximity affected interregional co-patenting links in various technologies in the USA from 1836 to 2010. We classify technologies by their complexity and test whether that moderates the impact of distance on collaboration. Contrary to the ‘death of distance’ hypothesis, distance still matters for knowledge creation and exchange. Moreover, we show that the role of complexity has changed over time. However, this pattern reversed by the late 20th century, with collaborations in complex technologies becoming more resilient to distance than those in simpler technologies. However, this pattern reversed by the late 20th century, with collaborations in complex technologies becoming more resilient to distance than those in simpler technologies. |
| Keywords: | network evolution, interregional collaboration, geographical proximity, technological complexity |
| JEL: | O33 R12 N70 L14 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2414&r= |
| By: | 6, Perri; Heims, Eva |
| Abstract: | How does regulatory statehood develop from the regulatory work which governments have always done? This article challenges conventional views that regulatory statehood is achieved by transition to arm's length agencies and that it replaces court-based enforcement or displaces legislatures in favor of less accountable executive power. To do so, we examine the major 19th-century surge in development of micro-economic regulatory statehood in Britain, which had followed more gradual development in early modern times. We show that when the transformation of the Board of Trade is understood properly, a richer appreciation emerges of how regulatory statehood is institutionalized generally and of British state-making in particular. To demonstrate this, we introduce a novel conceptual framework for analyzing and assessing change on multiple dimensions of regulatory statehood, distinguishing depth of regulatory capacity and regulatory capability along six dimensions. |
| Keywords: | state-making; Board of Trade; regulatory capability; regulatory capacity; regulatory state |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2024–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:122982&r= |
| By: | Yusuke Narita (Yale University); Chiaki Moriguchi; Mari Tanaka |
| Abstract: | What happens if selective colleges change their admission policies? We study this question by analyzing the worldÕs first implementation of nationally centralized meritocratic admissions in the early twentieth century. We find a persistent meritocracy-equity tradeoff. Compared to the decentralized system, the centralized system admitted more high-achievers and produced more occupational elites (such as top income earners) decades later in the labor market. This gain came at a distributional cost, however. Meritocratic centralization also increased the number of urban-born elites relative to rural-born ones, undermining equal access to higher education and career advancement. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2390&r= |
| By: | Humphreys, Sheila |
| Keywords: | Engineering, 150w, UCB, Women in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| Date: | 2024–05–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt3mn8m639&r= |
| By: | Marcella Alsan; Yousra Neberai; Xingyou Ye |
| Abstract: | This study examines the rise of private health insurance in the United States in the post- World War II era. We investigate the role of the American Medical Association (AMA) which financed a campaign against National Health Insurance that was directed by the country’s first political public relations firm, Whitaker & Baxter’s (WB) Campaigns, Inc. The AMA-WB Campaign had two key components: (1) physician outreach to patients and civic organizations; and (2) mass advertising that tied private insurance to “freedom” and “the American way.” We bring together archival data from several novel sources documenting Campaign intensity. We find a one standard deviation increase in Campaign exposure explains about 20% of the increase in private health insurance enrollment and a similar decline in public opinion support for legislation enacting National Health Insurance. We also find suggestive evidence that the Campaign altered the narrative for how legislators and pollsters described health insurance. These findings suggest the rise of private health insurance in the U.S. was not solely due to wartime wage freezes, collective bargaining, or favorable tax treatment. Rather, it was also enabled by an interest group-financed Campaign that used ideology to influence the behavior and views of ordinary citizens. |
| JEL: | D72 I14 I18 N34 N42 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32484&r= |
| By: | Fullerton, Sarah; Ludwig, Lisa |
| Keywords: | Architecture, 150w, UCB, Women in Environmental Design and Architecture |
| Date: | 2024–05–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt3n795999&r= |
| By: | Ignacio Rossi (UNGS/CIC-PBA) |
| Abstract: | La historia económica y de la política económica todavía no puso suficiente atención a los años de Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989), especialmente en relación a otros periodos de la historia argentina. Los estudios disponibles abordaron, en mayor medida, otros episodios de la política económica como el Plan Austral de 1985 más que a la inmediata transición y el primer plan económico pivoteado por Bernardo Grinspun (1983-1985). En este trabajo proponemos analizar esa primera fase del gobierno de Alfonsín protagonizada por el economista entonces asesor Raúl Prebisch. Particularmente, se estudia la fuente Lineamientos de un programa inmediato de reactivación, aunque combinada con otros documentos periodísticos, estadísticos y testimoniales. Según se sostiene, el programa económico analizado permite poner de relieve la participación de Prebisch en el gobierno democrático, especialmente en torno a la formulación de un plan de estabilización destinado a recuperar el crecimiento económico y reducir la flación. |
| Keywords: | democracia, deuda externa, inflación, política económica, estabilización. |
| JEL: | B22 B23 E02 E20 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:324&r= |