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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Joseph P. Ferrie; Claudia Goldin; Claudia Olivetti |
| Abstract: | The Lanham Act was a federal infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 1940 and eventually used to fund programs for the preschool and school-aged children of working women during WWII. It remains, to this day, the only example in US history of an (almost) universal, largely federally-supported childcare program. We explore its role in enabling and increasing the labor supply of mothers during WWII. Our information is at the city or town level and includes war contracts, the size of and expenditures on the childcare program, and the “reserve labor force” of mothers as of 1939. We find that the programs became well-funded but were late to start, limited in scope, and incapable of greatly increasing women’s employment in the aggregate. They were more numerous in places that already had high participation rates of women suggesting that they were effective in caring for the children of women who had already entered the labor force. Their impact on the children as adults is still to be determined. |
| JEL: | J21 N32 N42 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32755 |
| By: | Christina D. Romer; David H. Romer |
| Abstract: | Why do some attempts at disinflation lead to substantial reductions in inflation while others do not? We investigate this question in the context of the Federal Reserve’s attempts at disinflation since World War II. Our central finding is that a fundamental determinant of success in reducing inflation was the strength of the Federal Reserve’s commitment to disinflation at the start of its attempts. In episodes where its commitment was high, there were significant declines in inflation that were often long-lasting, while in ones where its commitment was low, falls in inflation were at most small and short-lived. We find that although the extent of the Federal Reserve’s commitment was often clear to the public, there is no evidence that stronger commitment to disinflation directly affected expected inflation. Rather, the main channel through which weak commitment led to unsuccessful disinflation was premature abandonment of the disinflationary policy. We conclude by discussing the implications for the Federal Reserve’s current effort at disinflation. |
| JEL: | E31 E52 E58 E65 N12 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32666 |
| By: | Hui Ren Tan; Tianyi Wang |
| Abstract: | We study a far-reaching episode of demagoguery in American history. From the late 1940s to 1950s, anti-communist hysteria led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others gripped the nation. Hundreds of professionals in Hollywood were accused of having ties with the communist. We show that these accusations were not random, targeting those with dissenting views. Actors and screenwriters who were accused suffered a setback in their careers. Beyond the accused, we find that the anti-communist crusade also had a chilling effect on film content, as non-accused filmmakers avoided progressive topics. The decline in progressive films, in turn, made society more conservative. |
| JEL: | L82 N32 N42 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32682 |
| By: | Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim, CEPR); Viktor Malein (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The paper evaluates the long-run impact of charity nurseries for disadvantaged children in early 20th-century New York. Access to charity nurseries with kindergarten instruction raised children’s years of education and reduced their likelihood of working in low-skilled jobs later in life. Instead, exposed children were more likely to work in jobs requiring higher cognitive and language skills. The effects were strongest for children from the most disadvantaged immigrant groups at that time. Our findings suggest that kindergarten instruction in charity nurseries helped immigrant children better understand teachers’ instructions and learning materials which improved their economic outcomes in adulthood. |
| Keywords: | Age of Mass Migration, Charity Nurseries, Child Care, Disadvantaged Children, Kindergarten Instruction, New York City |
| JEL: | I21 I26 J13 J15 N31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0263 |
| By: | Réka Juhász; Shogo Sakabe; David Weinstein |
| Abstract: | This paper studies technology absorption worldwide in the late nineteenth century. We construct several novel datasets to test the idea that the codification of technical knowledge in the vernacular was necessary for countries to absorb the technologies of the Industrial Revolution. We find that comparative advantage shifted to industries that could benefit from patents only in countries and colonies that had access to codified technical knowledge but not in other regions. Using the rapid and unprecedented codification of technical knowledge in Meiji Japan as a natural experiment, we show that this pattern appeared in Japan only after the Japanese government codified as much technical knowledge as what was available in Germany in 1870. Our findings shed new light on the frictions associated with technology diffusion and offer a novel take on why Meiji Japan was unique among non-Western countries in successfully industrializing during the first wave of globalization. |
| JEL: | F14 F63 N15 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32667 |
| By: | Pencavel, John H. (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | The increase in the real wages of British workers over the last one hundred years is often attributed to the growth in labour productivity, but this has rarely been confirmed. In the research reported here, this ascription is confronted with annual observations on wages and productivity spanning more than a century. A positive wage-productivity link is, indeed, found. However, productivity growth alone removes little of the variation over time in real wage changes. When trade union membership was rising, unions were able to direct increases in incomes to the earnings of rank-and-file workers. |
| Keywords: | real wages, labour productivity, trade unions, monopsony |
| JEL: | J31 J42 N14 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17140 |
| By: | Antonio Ciccone; Jan Nimczik |
| Abstract: | The scale effects that have become an integral part of growth theory imply that productivity should be increasing in population size. We use newly digitized data to estimate the relation between GDP per worker and refugee settlements in West Germany following the arrival of 8 million WWII refugees—more than 15% of the West German population in 1949. Our approach builds on the county-level analysis of the relation between GDP per capita growth and refugee settlements in Peters (2022). As we find that his estimates do not reflect the effect on GDP per capita, we also provide corrected per-capita estimates. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, scale effects, productivity, population shocks, immigration |
| JEL: | O1 O4 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_579 |
| By: | Antman, Francisca M. (University of Colorado, Boulder); Flynn, James (Miami University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of beer on mortality during the Industrial Revolution in 18th century England. Due to the brewing process, beer represented an improvement over available water sources during this period prior to the widespread understanding of the link between water quality and human health. Using a wide range of identification strategies to derive measures of beer scarcity driven by tax increases, weather events, and soil quality, we show that beer scarcity was associated with higher mortality, especially in the summer months when mortality was more likely to be driven by waterborne illnesses related to contaminated drinking water. We also leverage variation in inherent water quality across parishes using two proxies for water quality to show that beer scarcity resulted in greater deaths in areas with worse water quality. Together, the evidence indicates that beer had a major impact on human health during this important period in economic development. |
| Keywords: | beer, water quality, mortality, industrial revolution |
| JEL: | N33 I15 Q25 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17164 |
| By: | Effrosyni Adamopoulou; Mattia Colombo; Eleftheria Triviza |
| Abstract: | This study examines how early-life exposure to food scarcity influences individuals’ long-term time preferences and savings behavior. To this end, we analyze hand-collected historical data on livestock availability during World War II at the provincial level, alongside detailed survey data on elicited time preferences and household savings. By leveraging differences across cohorts and provinces in a difference-in-differences framework, we find that individuals who experienced more severe scarcity during early childhood develop higher levels of patience later in life and tend to hold more (precautionary) savings, conditional on income. Our findings suggest that exposure to protein scarcity during the first years of life and in utero can instigate a lasting increase in prudent behavior in the form of a coping mechanism. |
| Keywords: | patience, precautionary savings, scarcity, early life experiences |
| JEL: | D14 N44 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_583 |
| By: | Broadberry, Stephen; Lennard, Jason |
| Keywords: | business cycle; economic growth; Europe |
| JEL: | N10 E32 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123968 |
| By: | Richard Hornbeck; Guy Michaels; Ferdinand Rauch |
| Abstract: | We examine “agglomeration shadows” that emerge around large cities, which discourage some economic activities in nearby areas. Identifying agglomeration shadows is complicated, however, by endogenous city formation and \wave interference" that we show in simulations. We use the locations of ancient ports near the Mediterranean, which seeded modern cities, to estimate agglomeration shadows cast on nearby areas. We find that empirically, as in the simulations, detectable agglomeration shadows emerge for large cities around ancient ports. These patterns extend to modern city locations more generally, and illustrate how encouraging growth in particular places can discourage growth of nearby areas. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration shadow, urban hierarchy, new economic geography |
| JEL: | R12 N90 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11188 |
| By: | Swetha Ramachandran |
| Abstract: | For decades now, Western development agencies and donors have been castigated for their colonial biases in providing aid to Africa. It is well established that donors provide considerably more foreign aid to their former colonies relative to other countries in the region. However, what happens over time to the influence of the former-colonizer-turned-donor within the aid recipient countries? Does their influence become stronger over time due to early and significant contributions, or does it decline with the emergence of other contemporary donors? |
| Keywords: | Colonialism, Foreign aid, Donors, Africa |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2024-47 |
| By: | Lusine Ivanov-Davtyan |
| Abstract: | How does exposure to a war outside the immediate conflict area influence the educational performance of pupils, and how does this collective impact differ from that of direct family exposure? To address these questions, I link individual-level victim data from the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war with individual school records from periods before and after the conflict. Capitalizing on the lottery-based draft system of Armenian Army and using constructed individual-level data, I find that exposure to war-related casualties at the school level (collective affectedness) prompts a shift in performance towards subjects that increase options for migration and safer living conditions. This results in decreased proficiency in native language and history studies. In contrast, family-level affectedness shapes patriotism and group identity, leading to improved performance in cultural and homeland-related subjects. These findings demonstrate how war affects schooling trajectories, potentially leading to long-term economic effects even decades later. |
| Keywords: | Education, Schooling Performance, Localized War, Violent Conflict |
| JEL: | F51 I25 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp784 |
| By: | Campo, Francesco; Mendola, Mariapia; Morrison, Andrea; Ottaviano, Gianmarco |
| Abstract: | We investigate the importance of co-ethnic networks and diversity in determining immigrant inventors' settlements in the United States by following the location choices of thousands of them across counties during the Age of Mass Migration. To do so, we combine a unique United States Patent and Trademark Office historical patent dataset on immigrants who arrived as adults with Census data and exploit exogenous variation in both immigration flows and diversity induced by former settlements, WWI, and the 1920s Immigration Acts. We find that co-ethnic networks play an important role in attracting immigrant inventors. Yet, we also find that immigrant diversity acts as an additional significant pull factor. This is mainly due to externalities that foster immigrant inventors' productivity. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O31 |
| Date: | 2022–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124052 |
| By: | Benz, Pierre; Strebel, Michael A.; Di Capua, Roberto; Mach, André |
| Abstract: | Numerous studies have focused on wealth elites’ housing, including their spatial and social exclusiveness. The insertion of the power elite in urban space has, however, largely been left unexplored. By combining positional and residential information on over 7, 400 urban elites, we study how academic, economic, and political elites’ residential patterns have evolved from 1890 to 2000 in the three largest Swiss cities (Basel, Geneva, Zurich). First, we uncover a long-term dynamic of suburbanization, which however does not result in even spatial dispersion: while gradually abandoning center cities, elites do not randomly disperse in the surrounding municipalities. Rather, they tend to settle in very specific areas. Second, we find that spatial differentiation of urban elites’ residences varies across elite categories: economic elites tend to geographically segregate from both academic and political elites over the course of the twentieth century and settle in more privileged areas. At the same time, academic and left political elites, while historically living in distinct neighborhoods, tend to converge at the end of the century, echoing new similarities in their profile. This highlights the importance of studying the urban power elites’ residential patterns in a long-term perspective. |
| Date: | 2024–07–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mkaqx |
| By: | Price V. Fishback; Jessamyn Schaller; Evan J. Taylor |
| Abstract: | We examine racial discrimination in the New Deal by examining access to work relief. The Federal Government prohibited racial discrimination in work relief programs. However, eligibility was determined by local and state administrators. We estimate Black-white gaps in work relief access separately by county. The results show that about 40 percent of Blacks resided in counties with equal or better access than similar whites. Access for Black men was much worse in the South. We find that Black access was better in areas where Black and white workers were complementary and where more public and private resources were available. |
| JEL: | J08 J45 J78 N32 N42 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32681 |
| By: | Lee, Chansong "Cameron" |
| Abstract: | Both Norway and South Korea were frontline states in the U.S. extended deterrence system during the Cold War, but they differed in their willingness to take a nuclear role in the system. This paper proposes the concept of nuclear receptivity, which refers to a state’s willingness to take a nuclear role in the extended deterrence system by emplacing a deterrer’s nuclear weapons on its territories. This paper argues that a security recipient’s geostrategic position, consisting of proximity, geological characteristics, and directionality, fundamentally shapes its nuclear receptivity. Through historical case studies, this research shows that the high degree of Norway’s geographic insularity against external threats and the possibility of buck-passing options made the Nordic country nuclear-allergic. In contrast, the geographic exposure of South Korea to the Communist threat resulted in its high nuclear receptivity. On the other hand, this paper argues that a security recipient’s domestic politics affects the timing and process of deployment policy. While the contemporary security environment is starkly different from that of the Cold War, the enduring effects of the geostrategic logic are being observed. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, U.S. extended deterrence system, security recipient, nuclear receptivity, geostrategic position |
| Date: | 2023–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt0q488032 |
| By: | Orhan, Mehmet A. (EM Normandie Business School); Bal, P. Matthijs; van Rossenberg, Yvonne |
| Abstract: | This article presents a fictional narrative about Professor Sackker, the solitary researcher in the field of Sackker Studies, once known as Management and Organizational Studies. Despite its absurdity, the story portrays Sackker’s dominance, marked by his inevitable rise with record-breaking publications and citations, stifling competition, and leaving him as the ultimate winner and ruler. Through personal reflections, his story explores his career strategies, provides insights into his success, and explains how he shaped, transformed, and eventually (but unwittingly) destroyed the field. This narrative, though fictional, mirrors real concerns in today’s reality: growing inequalities, the dominance of elite scholars, and erosion of meaning in academic careers as a function of hyper-competition. We examine the prevalence of systemic issues plaguing academia. Despite challenges, the article also aims to inspire hope. By illuminating these problems and integrating them into scholarly discussions, there lies an opportunity for change, empowering the next generation of academics. |
| Date: | 2024–07–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:r63uz |
| By: | Chloe R. Gibbs; Jocelyn Wikle; Riley Wilson |
| Abstract: | As women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children—through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to better understand mothers’ and families’ constraints. We first show that mothers of children in full-day kindergarten spend significantly more time at work, less time with their children, less time performing household duties, and less time commuting with their children in the middle of the day relative to mothers with half-day kindergarteners. Exploiting full-day kindergarten variation across place and time from 1992 through 2022, combined with the narrow age targeting of kindergarten, we document the impact of full-day kindergarten access on parental labor supply, family childcare costs, and children’s subsequent academic outcomes. Our estimates of the maternal employment effects imply that full-day kindergarten expansions were responsible for as much as 24 percent of the growth in employment of mothers with kindergarten-aged children in this time frame. |
| Keywords: | public schooling, kindergarten, maternal labor supply |
| JEL: | H75 I28 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11200 |
| By: | David Beers; Obiageri Ndukwe; Alex Charron |
| Abstract: | The BoC–BoE database of sovereign debt defaults, published and updated annually by the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, provides comprehensive estimates of stocks of government obligations in default. The 2024 edition updates the historical data and revisits sovereign defaults on local currency debt. |
| Keywords: | Debt management; Development economics; Financial stability; International financial markets |
| JEL: | F3 F34 G1 G10 G14 G15 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocsan:24-19 |
| By: | Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim, CEPR); Maja U. Pedersen (University of Southern Denmark); Paul Sharp (University of Southern Denmark, CAGE, CEPR); Xanthi Tsoukli (University of Bamberg) |
| Abstract: | This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the Great Fire’s effects on London’s economic geography. Our analysis reveals both continuity and change. There was a swift postfire recovery accompanied by some shift in economic activity towards the City of Westminster by 1690, with markets spreading outside the City, but financial services largely remaining inside. Analysis of London Hearth Tax records further illustrates a significant change in the wealth distribution, with wealthier households returning to fire-impacted areas, reshaping the city’s housing and social structure. |
| Keywords: | Great Fire of London, Economic Geography, Location of economic activity |
| JEL: | N23 N93 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0261 |
| By: | Gaddy, Hampton Gray; Gargiulo, Maria |
| Abstract: | In the absence of high-quality data, death tolls are often estimated using ad hoc methods. In this article, we review the use and validity of a set of ad hoc procedures that we term the growth rate discontinuity method, or GRDM. This method estimates the size of death tolls by projecting between pre- and post-crisis population estimates with crude growth rates and then subtracting the projected values. Despite its simplicity, this method is the source of prominent death toll estimates for the Black Death, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Rwandan genocide, for example. Using statistical simulation and comparisons to the results of better-validated demographic methods, we assess the accuracy, precision, and biases of this method for estimating mortality in absolute and relative terms. We conclude that GRDM requires precision in its inputs to an extent rarely possible in contexts of interest. If one has sufficient data to specify the method well, one can also use a more reliable method; if one lacks that data, GRDM does not provide a valid means of demographic or econometric analysis. The literature that has drawn conclusions about the past and present from this deceptively simple method should be revisited. |
| Date: | 2024–07–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nrpb3 |
| By: | Dr. Thomas Nitschka |
| Abstract: | Using a unique dataset of daily returns on all Swiss stocks traded on the Zurich exchange, I use event study methods to show that the New York Bankers' Panic of 1907 affected foreign stock markets earlier than previous studies of the international spillovers of this crisis suggest. Moreover, the spillovers were confined to banks' stocks and did not significantly influence returns on Swiss firms' stocks from other sectors. Key events, such as the news about the bankruptcy of the Knickerbocker Trust or announcements of the Bank of England, coincided with significant abnormal daily returns on Swiss banks' stocks. |
| Keywords: | Banks, Crisis, International spillover, Panic of 1907, Stocks |
| JEL: | G15 G21 N20 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2024-07 |
| By: | Farrigan, Tracey; Sanders, Austin |
| Abstract: | The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Poverty Area Measures (PAM) data product is designed to improve understanding of the geography of poverty in the United States. This report contains historical and technical documentation from the November 2022 version of PAM. Examples provided in this report are from 1960 through 2019, but the lessons will be applicable to PAM data in the future. PAM includes four measures of poverty: high, extreme, persistent, and the newly developed measure of enduring poverty. The methodology for the 2022 version of PAM incorporates reliability metrics to account for margin of error of the underlying data. The methodology also uniquely includes comparable U.S. county and census tract-level geography for all measures and data years (except for census tracts in 1960, given limited tract geography prior to 1970). |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uerstb:344507 |
| By: | Jessen, Jonas (IZA); Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian (Humboldt University Berlin); Weinhardt, Felix (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt / Oder); Berkes, Jan (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs) |
| Abstract: | Using novel time-use data from Germany before and after reunification, we document two facts: First, spouses who both work full-time exhibit similar housework patterns whether they do so voluntarily or due to a full-time mandate, as in the GDR. Second, men's amount of housework is independent of their spouse's labour supply. We theoretically explain this pattern by the presence of two household goods and socially learned gender-specific comparative advantage in their home production. We label this gender specialisation as separate housework spheres. Empirical evidence strongly confirms separate housework spheres in the GDR, West Germany, subsequent years post-reunification, and in international time-use data across 17 countries since the 1970s. We consider several implications, such as those for child penalties, where separate housework spheres provide a novel explanation for why it is the mothers whose labour market outcomes strongly deteriorate upon the arrival of children. |
| Keywords: | gender, household allocation of time, norms |
| JEL: | D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17134 |
| By: | Brian D. Varian |
| Abstract: | At the time of Australian federation in 1901, Queensland’s manufacturing sector was considerably less productive than those of its southern neighbours: New South Wales and Victoria. It remained propped by a protectionist tariff policy that was the most trade-restrictive among the policies of all six colonies. The formation of the Australian customs union entailed both the free entry into Queensland of Australian goods and the replacement of Queensland’s colonial tariff by the Commonwealth’s common external tariff. Following a difference-indifferences approach across industries, this paper analyses the effect of Australian market integration, including the adoption of the common external tariff, on Queensland’s intraindustry growth in output, employment, labour productivity, total factor productivity, the number of factories, and average output per factory. This case study makes use of the annual, industry-specific output data reported by the colony—the only Australian colony to have done so both pre- and post-federation. The predictions of ‘new trade theory’ do not find much support in this case study. Nevertheless, the intensity of trade liberalisation was significantly and negatively associated with intra-industry growth in employment, to the extent that Queensland’s manufacturing employment would have been an estimated 11.4 per cent higher in 1906, but for federation. |
| Keywords: | Australia, customs union, federation, manufacturing, market integration, tariffs |
| JEL: | F12 F13 F15 N67 N77 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:122 |
| By: | Eichacker, Nina |
| Abstract: | While cryptocurrencies have existed since 1990, they have come to increasing prominence after 2009, when BitCoin was created. Since 2009, a proliferation of cryptocurrencies has emerged, prompting both debate and dramatic flurries of economic activity. While some argue that cryptocurrencies may present an alternative to state-backed fiat currencies, others characterize them as volatile financial assets that are used to exploit particularly vulnerable demographic groups. This chapter examines cryptocurrencies through two lenses: a historic-institutionalist account of how they have developed as both a financial asset and an alternative to the traditional centralized financial system based on banks, and a Keynesian analysis of crypto currencies as financial assets particularly prone to the generation of bubbles and crashes. It considers both the ecological and economic fallout from the creation of these assets, as well as lessons that traditional financial institutions may learn from cryptocurrencies and the institutions through which purchasers may access these assets. |
| Date: | 2024–07–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7kyrm |
| By: | Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri |
| Abstract: | Across the world educated women tend to have fewer children than their less-educated peers. This paper provides new stylised facts about the long-run relationship between women’s education and fertility at both the national and individual levels. I focus on Colombia, a country that experienced both a rapid fertility decline and fast expansion of education in the mid-20th century and I use data from the censuses of 1973, 1985, 1993, 2005 and 2018. The findings caution that the relationship between fertility and women’s education is not always monotonic and this relationship changes significantly depending on the aggregation of the data. At the individual level, the relationship between education and fertility holds strongly and education increases the probability of remaining childless, reduces the total number of children and the likelihood of having a birth at a younger and older age, suggesting a strong trade-off between education and fertility. Peer effects, such as the percentage of peers with secondary education, are ruled out, which suggests that the externalities of education had a moderate effect on uneducated women. On the other hand, at the national level, the fertility decline cannot be explained by education as fertility has fallen continuously in all educational groups since 1965. **** RESUMEN: En el mundo, las mujeres más educadas tienden a tener menos hijos que las menos educadas. Este documento presenta nuevos hechos estilizados sobre la relación a largo plazo entre la educación de las mujeres y la fecundidad, tanto a nivel nacional como individual. El documento se enfoca en Colombia, un país que experimentó una rápida caída en la fecundidad así como una rápida expansión de la educación a mediados del siglo XX. Con los datos de los censos de 1973, 1985, 1993, 2005 y 2018, los resultados advierten que la relación entre la fecundidad y la educación de las mujeres no siempre es estable y por el contrario cambia dependiendo de la agregación de los datos. A nivel individual, la educación aumenta la probabilidad de permanecer sin hijos, reduce el número total de hijos y disminuye la probabilidad de tener un hijo a una edad temprana, lo que sugiere un fuerte tradeoff entre educación y fecundidad. Se descartan los efectos de los pares, como el que puede tener el porcentaje de mujeres con educación secundaria, lo que sugiere que las externalidades de la educación tuvieron un efecto moderado en las mujeres no educadas. Por otro lado, a nivel nacional, el declive en la fecundidad no puede explicarse únicamente por el aumento en la educación, ya que la misma ha disminuido continuamente en todos los grupos educativos desde 1965. |
| Keywords: | fertility, education, Colombia, census data, fecundidad, educación, Colombia, datos censales |
| JEL: | J11 J13 I25 N36 O35 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:cheedt:63 |
| By: | Millemaci, Emanuele; Monteforte, Fabio; Temple, Jonathan R. W. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between output volatility and democracy, decade by decade after 1960. Using a range of approaches to identification, we find that democracy lowers volatility. |
| Date: | 2024–08–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:m382s |
| By: | Ananyev, Maxim (University of Melbourne); Poyker, Mikhail (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | Inmates' informal code regulates their behavior and attitudes. We investigate whether prisons contribute to the spread of these norms to the general population using an exogenous shock of the Soviet amnesty of 1953, which released 1.2 million prisoners. We document the spread of prison norms in localities exposed to the released ex-prisoners. As inmates' code also ascribes low status to persons perceived as passive homosexuals, in the long run, we find effects on anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes, homophobic slurs on social media, and discriminatory attitudes. |
| Keywords: | incarceration, prison culture, russia, homosexuals |
| JEL: | J15 M14 N34 N44 P00 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17138 |
| By: | Christian Vedel (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Is geography destiny? What is the role of first-nature geography in determining prosperity? This paper estimates the effect of randomly removing and introducing favorable first-nature geography to a specific region using a difference in difference design. In 1825 a storm created a new natural navigable waterway, bringing trade and prosperity to the otherwise relatively isolated northwestern Denmark. 700 years prior, the same event happened in reverse, when a previous channel closed up between 1086 and 1208. The elasticity of geography-induced market access is estimated to be 1.6, corresponding to 26.7 percent population growth within a generation of the event. Demonstrated mechanisms include trade, fertility, fishing, and the rise of manufacturing. The central finding is replicated in reverse in a register of dated archaeological sites. The 1086-1208 closing caused fewer buildings and sites containing coins. The general insight is the same: First-nature geography determines the levels and location of prosperity. |
| Keywords: | First-nature, Trade, Geography, Infrastructure, Natural Experiment |
| JEL: | N01 N73 O18 R1 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0262 |
| By: | González, Felipe (Queen Mary University of London); Prem, Mounu (Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance); von Dessauer, Cristine (MIT) |
| Abstract: | Autocrats often control social organizations to disseminate their ideology. We examine the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990), where conservative military forces controlled female social organizations to promote traditional roles for women as mothers and housewives. Partnering with higher education institutions, the dictatorship delivered training programs aimed at fostering domestic skills. Our findings reveal these programs facilitated women's entry into the labor market without changing their political views. Decades later, these programs are still linked to higher female labor force participation among women directly exposed during the dictatorship and their daughters raised in democracy. |
| Keywords: | women, centers, labor force participation, empowerment, dictatorship |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17163 |
| By: | Popov, Vladimir |
| Abstract: | China was extremely successful in recent decades in managing external equilibrium in the short and medium term using three mechanisms to cushion the balance of payments shocks. First, it maintained a flexible rate, so could adjust to the fluctuations in trade balance and capital flows via devaluation/appreciation of national currency. Second, it exercised a capital account control that prevented the sudden and sizeable outflow of capital. And third, its foreign exchange reserves were the largest in the world and large even as compared to its GDP and foreign trade and capital flows, so they could have been used to absorb negative trade and capital account shocks with full sterilization (without a fear of continuous outflow of capital due to capital control). In particular, China survived the Asian currency crisis of 1997 better than the other countries – its reserves even did not decrease in 1997 and its GDP growth rates virtually did not decline. However, in the long term the abandonment of the policy of foreign exchange reserves accumulation (since the Great Recession of 2008-09) led to the considerable appreciation of the real exchange rate of yuan, the decline in the ratio of export to GDP and the share of investment in GDP. The result was the slowdown of growth: GDP growth rates fell from 14% in 2007 to 5% in 2024. |
| Keywords: | balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves, external and internal equilibrium, exchange rate, slowdown of growth in China |
| JEL: | F31 F32 F41 N15 O24 O40 |
| Date: | 2024–08–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121627 |
| By: | Thaler, Kai M |
| Abstract: | While revolutionary regimes may be durable in the long run, they are weak when they first come into power, but their particular weaknesses depend especially on whether the old regime security apparatus has been fully defeated, or if elements of it defected and persist in the new state. I argue that where old regime security forces persist, the new regime will focus on coup-proofing, leaving itself vulnerable to insurgent or foreign threats. Where the old regime’s security forces are defeated or disintegrate but armed domestic rivals remain, revolutionaries will focus on defeating them, potentially neglecting external threats. Absent both old regime forces and armed domestic rivals, revolutionaries will focus heavily on external threats, neglecting possible domestic threats. I develop this theory through interview and archive-based comparative case studies of Nicaragua, where the old regime military dissolved, and Iran, where it remained largely intact. Nicaragua’s revolutionaries emphasized foreign defense, while the Iranian regime worried primarily about coups and then domestic rebels, with military effectiveness suffering in both cases in their first several years in power. Externally focused Nicaragua allowed insurgencies to take root, while Iran’s coup-proofing revolutionary regime was only saved by invading Iraqi forces’ hesitancy. Both regimes eventually corrected their initial missteps, but their decision-making reinforces the importance of old regime security forces’ status in revolutionary transitions and that the period of early weakness is when international engagement can have the greatest impact on new revolutionary regimes. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, regime change, rebel-to-government transitions, coup-proofing, authoritarian military effectiveness, revolutionary transitions |
| Date: | 2023–05–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt45p2n8dd |
| By: | Forte, Antonio |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the transmission of the monetary policy impulses to banking interest rates in Italy from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. The study introduces three main novelties: firstly, the use of a completely new database sourced from original papers of that period; secondly, an analysis of the monetary policy transmission for interest rates on eight different types of loans and on loans to sixteen productive sectors; thirdly, the study of monetary policy transmission to regional and provincial interest rates on loans. This comprehensive study provides further awareness into the monetary policy transmission during a period of high inflation and offers valuable insights for the present. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, inflation, banks, interest rates |
| JEL: | E43 E58 N14 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121396 |
| By: | Basedow, Robert |
| Abstract: | In the last thirty years, international commercial courts (ICCs) have emerged around the world. ICCs offer adjudication in international commercial disputes. They are not creatures of international law – as their name may suggest – but specialized domestic courts embedded in national legal orders. The rise of ICCs is remarkable in that scholars expected commercial arbitration to gradually displace litigation in the twenty first century. What drives the creation of ICCs? Legal research suggests that ICCs are a manifestation of a new era of assertive unilateralism in global governance. Scholars point to states’ geopolitical motives, backlashes against private authority in the form of arbitration, and economic statecraft. Drawing on the New Interdependence Approach, this study argues that most ICCs are the result of policy entrepreneurship of elite law firms in the pursuit of growing the global market for commercial litigation. Depending on the legal-political context, they forge coalitions with domestic judiciaries or political leaders to advance ICC projects. The study highlights deep-rooted changes in the global dispute resolution landscape, the important role of commercial law in International Political Economy (IPE), and points to the mostly overlooked significance of law firms and judiciaries as architects of global economic governance. |
| Keywords: | international commercial courts; commercial law; neoliberalism; new interdependence approach; global economic governance |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–04–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123505 |
| By: | Riggsby, Andrew |
| Abstract: | Several recent arguments have claimed that various features of Roman law (unavailability of an executory contract of barter; regimes of protection against latent defects and for land title; rules for generic sale) take the shapes they do so as to produce a variety of economic efficiencies. This paper offers two critiques of these accounts. (1) They lack an adequate account of the bounded rationality and motivations of the law-makers. (2) In many cases they misstate the legal rules in question in ways that exaggerate the resulting efficiencies. |
| Date: | 2024–08–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3vcmp |
| By: | Baturo, Alexander |
| Abstract: | How do autocrats try to win over other member states and gain support for their counternorms? Rather than directly opposing liberal values, autocrats may resort to subtler tactics that make it difficult for others not to support their norm-based initiatives. Russia, a prominent authoritarian regime, has centered its international efforts on enhancing the salience and universality of combating Nazism. Because of linkages between Nazism and racial discrimination, Russia has been able to attract allies in countries sensitive to colonial legacies and apartheid by making opposition to its initiatives morally unacceptable. These tactics were widely employed during the Cold War, but they have returned in force. This paper offers a systematic study of Soviet and Russian anti-Nazi initiatives from 1946 to 2022. It provides an empirical analysis of the factors behind support for international resolutions combating Nazism, examines the discursive coalition around this norm in the United Nations, and compares Russia’s efforts across other international organizations (IOs). The findings show how authoritarian regimes project norms and have important implications for our understanding of ideology in international relations. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, Dictatorships in IOs, ideology, counternorms, Russia, United Nations, text-as-data |
| Date: | 2023–04–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt7w8504tk |
| By: | J. Christina Wang |
| Abstract: | This Regional Brief sketches a portrait of the banks in the Federal Reserve System’s First Federal Reserve District, which includes all of New England except Connecticut’s Fairfield County. It highlights a few characteristics that distinguish the district’s banking industry, noting that, relative to the rest of the United States, larger shares of the region’s banks are state (Federal Reserve System) member banks, state savings banks, and cooperative banks, and the share of banks classified as community banks is twice as large. |
| Keywords: | New England; community banks; small business credit |
| Date: | 2024–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbrb:98639 |
| By: | Michael T. Kiley |
| Abstract: | Treasury yields have fallen since the 1980s. Standard decompositions of Treasury yields into expected short-term interest rates and term premiums suggest term premiums account for much of the decline. In an alternative real-time decomposition, term premiums have fluctuated in a stable range, while long-run expected short-term interest rates have fallen. For example, a real-time decomposition of the 10-yr. Treasury yield shows term premiums essentially equal in late 2013 and 2023, while the long-run value of expected short-term interest rates is estimated to have fallen in a manner similar to the FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections and estimates from research on long-run neutral interest rates. These results suggest standard decompositions may overstate the role of term premiums in fluctuations of the yield curve. |
| Keywords: | Term structure model; Recursive and rolling least squares; Real-time data |
| JEL: | E43 E44 E47 |
| Date: | 2024–07–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-54 |