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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2024‒06‒24
29 papers chosen by |
| By: | Debin Ma (All Souls College, Oxford University); Jared Rubin (Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the old theses of the contrasting paths to modernization between Japan and China. It develops a new analytical framework regarding the role of ideology and ideological change—Meiji Japan’s decisive turn towards the West pitted against Qing China’s lethargic response to Western imperialism—as the key driver behind these contrasting paths. Our framework and historical narrative highlight the contrast between Tokugawa Japan’s feudal, decentralized political regime and Qing China’s centralized bureaucratic system as a key determinant driving the differential patterns of ideological realignment. We argue that the 1894-95 Japanese naval victory over China could not be justified under the prevailing Imperial Chinese ideology and thus served as the catalyst for China’s subsequent ideological transformation, which occurred via borrowing Japan’s successful Meiji reforms of both institutions and ideology. Our analytical framework, developed from a comparative historical narrative, sheds new insights on the importance of ideology and ideological change for our understanding of political and economic change. |
| Keywords: | ideology, ideological change, China, Japan, economic development, economic divergence, Meiji Reform, centralization, decentralization |
| JEL: | N35 N45 N75 O33 O38 Z10 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:24-09&r= |
| By: | Rochet, Jean-Charles |
| Abstract: | This expository article surveys the literature that has followed my paper"A Necessary and Sufficient Condition for Rationalizability in a Quasi-linear Context" that was published in the Journal of Mathematical Economics in 1987. |
| Keywords: | multidimensional screening; rationalizability; bunching; mechanism design |
| Date: | 2024–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:129345&r= |
| By: | Martin Kliem; Alexander Kriwoluzky; Gernot J. Müller; Alexander Scheer |
| Abstract: | Financial repression lowers the return on government debt and contributes, all else equal, towards its liquidation. However, its full effect on the debt-to-GDP ratio hinges on how repression impacts the economy at large because it alters investment and saving decisions. We develop and estimate a New Keynesian model with financial repression. Based on U.S. data for the period 1948–1974, we find, consistent with earlier work, that repression was pervasive but gradually phased out. A model-based counterfactual shows that GDP would have been 5 percent lower, and the debt-to-GDP ratio 20 percentage points higher, had repression not been phased out. |
| Keywords: | Financial repression, Government debt, Interest rates, Banks, Regulation, Bayesian estimation |
| JEL: | H63 E43 G28 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2075&r= |
| By: | Braun, Sebastian Till (University of Bayreuth); Stuhler, Jan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Despite millions of war widows worldwide, little is known about the economic consequences of being widowed by war. We use life history data from West Germany to show that war widowhood increased women's employment immediately after World War II but led to lower employment rates later in life. War widows, therefore, carried a double burden of employment and childcare while their children were young but left the workforce when their children reached adulthood. We discuss the mechanisms contributing to this counterintuitive life-cycle pattern and examine potential spillovers to the next generation. |
| Keywords: | war widows, labor market careers, female labor force participation, World War II |
| JEL: | J16 J20 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16973&r= |
| By: | Hartog, Joop (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | In the postwar period, when fertility dropped substantially, immigration more than made up for the drop in population growth, and from 1950 to 2020, population increased by 73%, double the European rate, in a country with population density already among the highest in Europe. Yet, there never has been a serious population policy, and in fact, central spatial planning has been abandoned. In regard to effects on population size, it seems like immigration policies were set by a sorcerer's apprentice who only half mastered his art: he could set forces in motion, but controlling them afterwards was beyond his skills. As a result, Dutch policy making touching on alternative uses of land, has now reached a stalemate. We discuss some options for a way out. |
| Keywords: | population size, population density, immigration, immigration policies, spatial planning |
| JEL: | J10 J11 J18 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16987&r= |
| By: | Samuel Bazzi; Martin Fiszbein; Maximiliano Garcia |
| Abstract: | The United States is among the most individualistic societies in the world. However, unlike Western European individualism, which is imbued with moral universalism, America’s “rugged individualism” is instead particularistic. We link this distinctive cultural configuration to the country’s frontier history. The frontier favored self-reliance, but also rewarded cooperation, which could only be sustained through strong, local group identities. We show that counties with longer frontier history are more particularistic, displaying stronger opposition to federal taxes relative to state taxes, stronger communal values, less charitable giving to distant counties, and fewer online friendships with people in distant counties. At the same time, connections across counties display assortative matching on frontier history, highlighting the important role of culture in bridging disparate areas of the country. Overall, our results shed new light on moral values and the divergence of American and European individualism. |
| JEL: | N31 N91 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32433&r= |
| By: | Antman, Francisca M. (University of Colorado, Boulder); Doran, Kirk (University of Notre Dame); Qian, Xuechao (Stanford University); Weinberg, Bruce A. (Ohio State University) |
| Abstract: | Using the EconLit dissertation database and large-scale algorithmic methods that identify author demographics from names, we investigate the connection between the gender of economics dissertators and dissertation topics. Despite stagnation in the share of women among economics Ph.D.s in recent years, there has been a remarkable rise in gender-related dissertations in economics over time and in many sub-fields. Women economists are significantly more likely to write gender-related dissertations and bring gender-related topics into a wide range of fields within economics. Men in economics have also substantially increased their interest in gender-related topics. |
| Keywords: | economic research, gender, dissertation |
| JEL: | I23 J16 O30 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16980&r= |
| By: | Molho, Catherine; Peña, Jorge; Singh, Manvir; Derex, Maxime |
| Abstract: | Norms and institutions enable large-scale human cooperation by creating shared expectations and changing individuals’ incentives via monitoring or sanctioning. Like material technologies, these social technologies satisfy instrumental ends and solve difficult problems. However, the similarities and differences between the evolution of material technologies and the evolution of social technologies remain unresolved. Here, we review evidence suggesting that, compared to the evolution of material technologies, institutional and normative evolution exhibits constraints in the production of variation and the selection of useful variants. These constraints stem from the frequency-dependent nature of social technologies and limit the pace and scope of normative and institutional evolution. We conclude by reviewing research on the social transmission of institutions and norms and highlighting an experimental paradigm to study their cultural evolution. |
| Keywords: | Institutions; norms; technology; social learning; cultural evolution |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:129408&r= |
| By: | Ngutuku, Elizabeth; Okwany, Auma |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on biographical research among the Akamba and the Luo communities in Eastern and Western Kenya, respectively. Our research explored how practices of adolescence as a process, an institution, and a performance of identity interact with colonial modernities and imaginaries in complex ways. The biographical research was carried out predominantly with women born in the late colonial period in Kenya. We provide critical reflections on the process and affordances of our embodied storytelling approach, which we position as an Africanist methodology and a decolonial research practice. This research and approach provided women with a space to narrate and perform their lived experience, potentially disrupting epistemic inequities that are embedded in the way research on growing up in the past is carried out. The discussions show how colonialism interacted with other factors, including gender and generational power, tradition, girls’ agency, and other life characteristics like poverty and family situation, in order to influence the lived experiences of women. Going beyond the narratives of victimhood that characterise coming of age in similar spaces, we present women’s emergent, incomplete, and incongruent agency. We position this agency as the diverse ways in which people come to terms with their difficult contexts. The discussion also points to the need for unsettling the settled thinking about girlhood and coming of age in specific historical spaces in the global South |
| Keywords: | becoming; identity; colonial girlhood; storytelling; ubuntu; coming of age |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–04–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123520&r= |
| By: | Jonathan Benchimol (Bank of Israel) |
| Abstract: | Since the Global Financial Crisis, a lively debate has emerged regarding the monetary policy rule the central bank of a small open economy (SOE) follows and should follow. By identifying the monetary policy rule that best fits historical data and minimizes central bank loss functions, this study contributes to this debate. We estimate a medium-scale micro-founded SOE model under various monetary policy rules using Israeli data from 1994 to 2019. Our results indicate that the model achieves a better fit to historical data when assuming inflation targeting (IT) compared to nominal income targeting (NGDP). Given central bank goals, shock uncertainty, and limited information, NGDP targeting rules may have been more desirable over the last three decades than IT rules. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy rule, Central bank loss, Inflation targeting, NGDP targeting, Limited information |
| JEL: | C11 C54 E32 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boi:wpaper:2024.04&r= |
| By: | Egana-delSol, Pablo (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez); Micco, Alejandro (University of Chile) |
| Abstract: | The employment to output elasticity has risen from 0.65 during the 1960s and 1970s to 1.25 in the last two decades. We study the role of recent technological change in the evolution of this elasticity along the business cycle. Using the Covid-19-induced shock and an instrumental variable approach as sources of identification, we find that recent technologies augment the employment to output elasticity. We find that employment in sectors characterized with occupations with a high risk of automation are the most affected and that this effect is larger in sectors that have undergone a technology-capital deepening process in the last decades. |
| Keywords: | technological change, automation, employment to output elasticity, labor markets |
| JEL: | O33 E32 J23 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17003&r= |
| By: | Güezmes, Ana; Romero Castelán, Brianda |
| Abstract: | In the last decade, there has been a trend within a group of 12 countries and among various international organizations for foreign policy and international development cooperation policy to be used to accelerate the attainment of gender equality and respect for the human rights of women and girls in their diversity, from a feminist perspective. This trend is constantly widening and deepening. This document analyses the emergence and evolution of feminist foreign policy and feminist international development cooperation policy in 12 countries, with an emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean and its significant contribution to the Regional Gender Agenda, setting out from its history of feminist contributions to peace, multilateralism and intergovernmental agreements. It also discusses the need to move from formal to substantive equality through a strategy based on rights, resources, representation, reality check, research, resistance and results. The study provides a historical analysis, identifies promising practices and lays out a road map for the implementation of policies that place equality and the sustainability of life and the planet at the centre of the foreign policy and international cooperation agenda, presenting an encouraging outlook for the care society and sustainable, gender-equal development in Latin America and the Caribbean. |
| Date: | 2024–05–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col040:80396&r= |
| By: | Moloche, Guillermo |
| Abstract: | In this study, the author demonstrates that the selection of an appropriate money-demand function is crucial to ascertain the relationship between fiscal deficits and inflation. To do so, the author incorporates a Selden-Latané money-demand function into a micro-founded extension of the model introduced by Sargent, Williams, and Zha (2009). The use of this particular function results in a model that more accurately replicates Mexican money supply's past history, and furthermore, establishes a stronger historical association between fiscal and monetary policy, namely, between fiscal deficits and seigniorage. As a result, the author is able to provide more compelling evidence for the dominance of fiscal policy as the major cause of high inflation in Mexico during the last three decades of the twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Inflation, Seigniorage, Fiscal Deficits, Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interaction |
| JEL: | E31 E41 E51 E52 E58 E63 |
| Date: | 2024–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120925&r= |
| By: | Fiesenig, Bruno; Kuhnke, Jonas; Schiereck, Dirk |
| Abstract: | Die Notierungszahlen an den deutschen Wertpapierbörsen gehen seit Jahrzehnten zurück und münden in der Frage, ob die deutsche Wirtschaft dauerhaft mit einem intakten organisierten Eigenkapitalmarkt rechnen kann. Die vorliegende Untersuchung trägt zur aktuellen empirischen Forschung bei, indem sie die Veränderungen in der Notierungsdynamik an den deutschen Wertpapierbörsen dokumentiert für den gesamten Nachkriegszeitraum von 1950 bis 2023. In den 73 Jahren verringerte sich die Zahl börsennotierter Unternehmen im höchsten Marktsegment im Schnitt um jährlich 2, 6 Unternehmen, was einem Gesamtrückgang von 43% entspricht. Damit einher geht ein Rückgang der durchschnittlichen Notierungsdauer deutscher Unternehmen, die Börsennotierung ist längst keine Entscheidung mehr für die Ewigkeit. |
| Date: | 2024–05–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:145394&r= |
| By: | Thomas Drechsel |
| Abstract: | This paper combines new data and a narrative approach to identify shocks to political pressure on the Federal Reserve. From archival records, I build a data set of personal interactions between U.S. Presidents and Fed officials between 1933 and 2016. Since personal interactions do not necessarily reflect political pressure, I develop a narrative identification strategy based on President Nixon's pressure on Fed Chair Burns. I exploit this narrative through restrictions on a structural vector autoregression that includes the personal interaction data. I find that political pressure shocks (i) increase inflation strongly and persistently, (ii) lead to statistically weak negative effects on activity, (iii) contributed to inflationary episodes outside of the Nixon era, and (iv) transmit differently from standard expansionary monetary policy shocks, by having a stronger effect on inflation expectations. Quantitatively, increasing political pressure by half as much as Nixon, for six months, raises the price level more than 8%. |
| JEL: | C32 D72 E31 E40 E50 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32461&r= |
| By: | Degroot, Jean; Gobbi, Paula E.; Ramos, Alejandra; Wei, Xinyu |
| Abstract: | Schulz (2022) shows how weak kin networks contributed to the rise of participatory institutions and how the medieval Catholic Church marriage regulations prohibitions contributed to the process by destroying European clan-based kin networks. Three pieces of evidence construct the argument. First, a cross-country level analysis shows that countries with cousin-term differentiation score between 2.83 and 7.66 units less in modern democracy than non-differentiating countries. The point estimates are statistically significant at the 5% level using Conley SEs either at the genetic distance or geographical distance level. Second, a historical analysis shows that one additional century of exposure to the Western Church increased the probability of a city being a commune by 12.2 and is statistically significant at the 1% level using Conley SEs with distance cutoffs of 500km or 2, 500 km. Third, a 20th century analysis of voter turnover and kin network within European countries shows that doubling cousin marriage rate decreases the probability to vote by about 1.8 percentage points. Following an epidemiological approach that links the kin-network of migrant mothers country of origin to the second-generation migrant's political participation in Europe, Schulz (2022) shows that cousin-term differentiation in the country of origin of the second-generation migrant mother reduces the probability of voting. The above results are all computationally reproducible. We only identify two minor coding errors: the SE in reported in Table 3 correspond to SE clustered at the city level rather than Conley SE, and the sample size in Table 5 is incorrect. None of the errors affects the point estimates or their statistical significance. We also provide the missing code for the two figures in the paper. For the historical analysis, we conduct a robustness check on alternative sample of cities. The magnitude of the coefficients exhibits a very small variation and statistical significance of the results remains unchanged. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:126&r= |
| By: | Steven Brakman; Tristan Kohl; Charles van Marrewijk |
| Abstract: | Population forecasts indicate that the world is facing massive demographic changes during the 21st century. This does not only involve the development of the total global population, but (more importantly) will also affect the population and age distribution across countries in a fundamental way. In this paper we focus on the income consequences of these changes for the global income distribution. Key in this respect are changes in the so-called demographic dividend associated with the share of the working-age population in the total population. We link the predicted long-run changes of the demographic dividend to income projections. Our findings are as follows. First, show that historically the impact of demography on economic growth indicates that a one per cent higher demographic dividend results in about 0.22 percentage points higher growth rate. Second, we use UN population projections on population size and the associated age-distribution to predict income changes for the remainder of this century. Third, we illustrate how the center of income gravity shifts from advanced economies, like Europe and North America, towards developing and emerging economies, like South Asia and Africa. This potentially has consequences for the current global economic powers, that will see their influence on world affairs decline. |
| Keywords: | demography, income |
| JEL: | F43 J11 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11108&r= |
| By: | Antman, Francisca M. (University of Colorado, Boulder); Duncan, Brian (University of Colorado Denver) |
| Abstract: | We merge the longitudinally linked historical U.S. Census records with data on lynchings of Hispanics in Texas to investigate the impacts of historical lynchings of ethnic Mexicans in Texas on U.S.-born Mexicans Americans. Using variation in lynching incidents across counties over time, we explore the impacts of local exposure to lynchings during childhood on long-run outcomes such as earnings, education, and home ownership of adults in 1940. Our findings are suggestive of small, negative impacts, but we caution that more research in this area is needed for a more robust interpretation of the results. |
| Keywords: | historical lynchings, Mexican Americans, Texas |
| JEL: | J15 N31 N32 I2 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16974&r= |
| By: | Paolo Aversa |
| Abstract: | This study leverages secondary data to provide a comprehensive outlook on the origin and evolution of the two-wheeler industry in Italy, Japan, and India. The study reveals how different technological, design, and manufacturing capabilities, combined with specific economic and social features in the historical contexts, have contributed to determine different trajectories in the evolution of these national industries. Recent trends towards digital transformation, electric mobility, connected driving are discussed. Three main takeaways emerge from our analysis. Firstly, the local capabilities play a crucial role in shaping both the origin and progression of the technology and the industry. Secondly, the two-wheeler industry displays patterns and trajectories that mimic the automotive industry, which can thus be used to interpret and forecast past, present, and future of motorcycles. Thirdly, the two-wheeler industry has been uniquely influenced by other industries, which has enhanced the complexity and effectiveness of its products and introduced novel elements which are reshaping the international demand for two-wheelers. |
| Keywords: | Industry evolution, Technology, Capabilities, Comparative study, Motorcycle, Economic history |
| JEL: | N70 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:83&r= |
| By: | Krauss, Alexander |
| Abstract: | What drives groundbreaking research in economics? Nobel-prize-winning work has had an important impact on public policies, but we still do not understand well what drives such breakthroughs. We collect data on all nobel-prize discoveries in economics to address this question. We find that major advances in the field of economics are brought about by methodological innovation: by developing new and improved research methods. We find that developing for example econometrics in 1933, randomised controlled trials in 1948 and new game theory methods in 1950 were essential to opening the new fields of corporate finance, experimental economics and information economics, respectively. We identify the development of new methods as the main mechanism driving new discoveries and research fields. Fostering this general mechanism (generating novel methods) holds the potential to greatly increase the rate at which we make new breakthroughs and fields. We also show that many of the main methods of economics – such as randomised controlled trials, natural experiments, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables and other statistical methods – had been developed and used in other fields like public health, before economists adopted them. This shift towards more powerful empirical methods in the field has important implications on developing new and better methods and adopting them from related fields to make new advances more rapidly. |
| Keywords: | economic breakthroughs; economic discoveries; economic methods; economics of science; Nobel prize; scientific discovery; scientific innovation |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123039&r= |
| By: | Robert Braid (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | The monetisation of exchanges tends to favour economic development, yet many forms of payment persisted throughout the preindustrial era despite rapid growth. Services in particular were remunerated in a variety of forms which depended on the particular relationship between the employer and the worker. The evolution in the composition of wages impacted social relations and structures as much as standards of living. Through an extensive examination of its account registers as well as local legislation, this paper analyses the variety of ways the Holy Spirit Hospital of Marseille remunerated individuals it employed as doctors, surgeons, scribes, wet-nurses, domestic servants, artisans and casual laborers. Workers who lived separately from the hospital were usually paid only in cash, while employees who were part of the household could receive cloth, shoes, clothing, meals, housing and medical care in addition to a cash salary. Contrary to what historians have observed in other regions, the share of in-kind payments did not increase after the Black Death for casual agricultural workers, who were paid in cash through this period. Only construction workers started to receive meals in addition to wages in the 1360s. Domestic and agricultural servants, however, received fewer in-kind payments after the epidemic. More importantly, this study reveals the numerous services that were provided by individuals for strikingly below-market rates. It is argued that the hospital was able to significantly lower operating costs by offering individuals social currency, intangible benefits instead of cash or in-kind payments, in exchange for numerous and valuable services. After the Black Death, however, the value of social currency decreased relative to other forms of payment. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04573252&r= |
| By: | Oliver, Adam |
| Abstract: | In several articles over the past decade, Shaun Hargreaves Heap has proposed a liberal, constitutional approach to behavioural public policy that conflicts with the paternalistic consequentialist approaches that have dominated the field to date. In recent years, I too have developed a behavioural public policy framework that sits within the classical liberal tradition. Recently, in commenting on my book, A Political Economy of Behavioural Public Policy, Hargreaves Heap identified similarities between my approach and that of the great 20th Century journalist and scholar, Walter Lippmann. In this article, I outline Lippmann’s arguments in his classic book, The Good Society, in some detail, and reach the conclusion that Hargreaves Heap was right in suggesting that I am a Lippmannite. Finally, given that Hargreaves Heap and I share a belief in liberalism, I summarise why I think he is a Lippmannite too. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:122374&r= |
| By: | Crespi De Valldaura G, Virginia; Fifi, Gianmarco |
| Abstract: | Why do leftist forces accept, support and adopt free-market policies? To answer this question, we carry out a comparative study of left-wing groups (both parties and trade unions) in France, Italy and Spain during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. This period is widely acknowledged in international political economy to have represented a paradigm shift from post-war Keynesianism to neoliberal policy-making. We employ in-depth content analysis of memoirs, interviews to the press, opinion articles and policy-papers to explain actors’ positions on landmark policies implemented during such transition. In alignment with a developing literature in political economy (e.g. Mudge 2018), we find a proactive role of progressives in developing the ideological justification for the resort to liberal policies. However, we emphasise that widespread consensus among so-called progressives, rather than a leading role of technocrats or party experts, best explains such shifts. In this way, the paper casts doubts on interpretations of the liberalisation process that place excessive emphasis on the role of external constraints as well as on elite power. Drawing on Hall (1993), we argue that left-wing forces in the early 1980s have enacted a ‘second order change’, whereby policymakers use new instruments to meet existing policy objectives. |
| Keywords: | austerity; Left; neoliberalism; trade unions; Western Europe; T&F deal |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:122747&r= |
| By: | Francisca M. Antman; Kirk B. Doran; Xuechao Qian; Bruce A. Weinberg |
| Abstract: | Using the EconLit dissertation database and large-scale algorithmic methods that identify author demographics from names, we investigate the connection between the gender of economics dissertators and dissertation topics. Despite stagnation in the share of women among economics Ph.D.s in recent years, there has been a remarkable rise in gender-related dissertations in economics over time and in many sub-fields. Women economists are significantly more likely to write gender-related dissertations and bring gender-related topics into a wide range of fields within economics. Men in economics have also substantially increased their interest in gender-related topics. |
| JEL: | A23 I23 J16 O30 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32442&r= |
| By: | Li Mingqian |
| Abstract: | The connotation of transaction costs has never been definitively determined, and the independence of the concept has never been rigorously demonstrated. This paper delves into the thought systems of several prominent economists in the development of transaction cost economics, starting from first-hand materials. By combining multiple works of the authors, it reconstructs the true meanings and identifies endogeneity issues and logical inconsistencies. The conclusion of this paper is bold. Previous research has been largely filled with misinterpretations and misunderstandings, as people have focused solely on the wording of transaction cost definitions, neglecting the nature of transaction costs. The intention of transaction cost theory has been unwittingly assimilated into the objects it intends to criticize. After delineating the framework of "transaction costs-property rights-competition", this paper reconstructs the concept of transaction costs and the history of transaction cost concepts, providing a direct response to this theoretical puzzle that has plagued the academic community for nearly a century. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2405.09087&r= |
| By: | Hellwagner, Timon (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Weber, Enzo (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; Univ. Regensburg) |
| Abstract: | "Advanced economies will face population decline in the years and decades to come, particularly among those of working age. Yet, there is little empirical evidence of corresponding labor market implications. Tackling this shortcoming from a historical macroeconomic point of view, we compile a new dataset for sixteen advanced economies, covering demographic and labor market variables on an annual basis from 1875 to 2019. Based on a dynamic, nonlinear econometric model, we identify structural population shocks by using lagged births as external instruments for working-age population inflows and outflows, and trace the economic effects conditionally on the demographic regime. Our results suggest regime-specific differences: First, population decline quickly passes through to the labor market, translating into swifter disinvestment and decline in employment, but the effects of population growth take time. Second, in times of population decline, labor force participation increases as a response to reduced labor supply. Likewise, initially swift disinvestment tendencies decelerate. Consequently, we find only incomplete capital adjustment. Third, despite a declining labor supply, we find neither a decrease in unemployment nor any significant changes in wages as indicators of shortage. Finally, while population decline tends to depress total factor productivity, as also suggested by the literature, our results indicate that negative effects for economic growth are mitigated by increases in participation and the capital-labor ratio." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Open-Access-Publikation ; Auswirkungen ; Beschäftigungseffekte ; Bevölkerungsrückgang ; demografischer Wandel ; Erwerbsbeteiligung ; Industrieländer ; Arbeitslosigkeitsentwicklung ; internationaler Vergleich ; Investitionen ; Kapitalintensität ; Lohnentwicklung ; Produktivitätseffekte ; Arbeitskräfteangebot ; Wirtschaftswachstum |
| JEL: | E22 E24 J11 J21 |
| Date: | 2024–03–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202405&r= |
| By: | Bò, Ernesto Dal; Hutková, Karolina; Leucht, Lukas; Yuchtman, Noam |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the role of taxes on overseas trade in the development of imperial Britain’s fiscal-military state. Influential work, e.g., Brewer’s Sinews of Power, attributed increased fiscal capacity to the taxation of domestic, rather than traded, goods: excise revenues, coarsely associated with domestic goods, grew faster than customs revenues. We construct new historical revenue series disaggregating excise revenues from traded and domestic goods. We find substantial growth in revenue from traded goods, accounting for over half of indirect taxation around 1800. This challenges the conventional wisdom attributing the development of the British state to domestic factors: international factors mattered, too. |
| Keywords: | fiscal capacity; international trade; British empire; taxation |
| JEL: | N43 N73 H20 P16 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123526&r= |
| By: | Emeriau, Mathilde; Wolton, Stephane |
| Abstract: | How do foreigners respond to xenophobic violence? Do they move out, leaving their home, or do they buy in, assimilating further? We develop a stylized theoretical framework to explain why exposure to violence can yield both more exits and more assimilation. We use an exogenous spike in xenophobic violence in 19th-century France and fine-grained individual data to provide causal evidence of this dual effect. We also study how foreigners’ response varies with the degree of exposure to violence and their prior level of integration in the host country, highlighting the importance of thinking of foreigners as a heterogeneous group. |
| Date: | 2024–05–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:srbmg&r= |
| By: | Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez; María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo; Sara Isabel Caicedo-Silva |
| Abstract: | Este artículo analiza la trayectoria de las mujeres en el Banco de la República de Colombia a lo largo de sus 100 años de historia, y examina la experiencia de otros bancos centrales en el mundo para proporcionar un contexto internacional. Dado el escaso registro histórico sobre patrones de género en los bancos centrales, especialmente en América Latina, este documento contribuye en parte a llenar este vacío, al recopilar la historia de las empleadas de la institución. Se abordan temas como la participación laboral femenina, los cambios en las normas sociales y culturales, la educación, el papel pionero de las primeras empleadas en los bancos centrales, su desarrollo profesional y su representación en cargos directivos. Se encuentra que la evolución del empleo femenino en el Banco de la República sigue un patrón similar al de otros bancos centrales, donde la relación de las mujeres con sus empleos ha evolucionado hacia la construcción de una carrera profesional. **** ABSTRACT:This paper examines the career path of women in central banks, particularly at the Banco de la República of Colombia throughout its 100-year history, and also examines the experience of other central banks around the world to provide an international context. Given the scarce historical record on gender patterns in central banks, especially in Latin America, this paper contributes in part to filling that gap by gathering the history of the institution's female employees. In particular, it addresses issues such as female labor participation, changes in social and cultural norms, education, the pioneering role of the first female employees in central banks, their professional development and their representation in managerial positions. It finds that the evolution of female employment at Banco de la República follows a pattern similar to that of other central banks, where women's relationship with their jobs has evolved towards career building. |
| Keywords: | Banco Central, participación laboral femenina, normas sociales, patrones de género, Central Bank, female labor participation, social norms, gender patterns |
| JEL: | N36 J16 E58 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:cheedt:62&r= |