|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Sinara Gharibyan |
| Abstract: | Is family or collective remembrance of the distant past more powerful in shaping current behavior? To answer this question, I link two historical episodes from Armenian history separated by a century. During both World War I (WWI) and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Russia was anticipated to provide military support to Armenia, its ally, but failed to do so. I demonstrate that the memories of the first Russian betrayal were activated after the second war. I identify family memory of the first betrayal using distinct West Armenian (Ottoman Armenian) surnames and proxy collective memory through locations renamed to commemorate lost Armenian localities during WWI. The difference-in-differences (DiD) approach shows that both family and collective remembrance negatively affect pro-Russian parties’ vote share, with all the conventional assumptions of DiD verified. Family remembrance influences behavior through traumatic recall, whereas collective remembrance operates via social capital. |
| Keywords: | Collective memory, Family remembrance, Voting, Social capital |
| JEL: | D7 J15 N44 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp787 |
| By: | Mickael Melki; Hillel Rapoport; Enrico Spolaore; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades - both in cross-region regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistently with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin. |
| JEL: | J13 N33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32990 |
| By: | Wolfgang Keller; Carol H. Shiue; Sen Yan |
| Abstract: | Primary historical sources are often by-passed for secondary sources due to high human costs of accessing and extracting primary information–especially in lower-resource settings. We propose a supervised machine-learning approach to the natural language processing of Chinese historical data. An application to identifying different forms of social unrest in the Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty shows that approach cuts dramatically down the cost of using primary source data at the same time when it is free from human bias, reproducible, and flexible enough to address particular questions. External evidence on triggers of unrest also suggests that the computer-based approach is no less successful in identifying social unrest than human researchers are. |
| JEL: | C8 N45 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32982 |
| By: | Matthew S. Jaremski; David C. Wheelock |
| Abstract: | The Federal Reserve Act was the outcome of compromises among competing economic and political interests. Numerous studies examine how the act came together but largely take the makeup of Congress and the Administration as given rather than considering the unique circumstances that led to that political distribution. This paper examines how the election of 1912 changed the makeup of Congress and increased the likelihood of central banking legislation and shaped the act. The decision of Theodore Roosevelt and other Progressives to run as third-party candidates split the Republican Party and enabled Democrats to capture the White House and Congress. We show that the election produced a less polarized Congress and that newly-elected members were more likely to vote for the act. Absent their interparty split, Republicans would likely have held the White House and Congress, and any legislation to establish a central bank almost certainly would have been quite different. |
| JEL: | G28 N42 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32987 |
| By: | Munroe, Ellen; Nosach, Anastasiia; Pedrozo, Moisés; Guarnieri, Eleonora; Riaño, Juan Felipe; Tur-Prats, Ana; Valencia Caicedo, Felipe |
| Abstract: | This article reviews the literature on the multifaceted consequences of historical conflict. We revisit three key topics, which are especially relevant for the current Ukrainian context. (1) The negative long-term impact of bombing campaigns and political repression against civilians. (2) The interplay between forced migration, refugees and war. (3) The role of gender and war, with a special focus on sex ratios and conflict-related sexual violence. We conclude with an empirical investigation of the Russian war against Ukraine, including aforementioned historical determinants such as ethnic populations, historical political repression and voting outcomes. |
| Keywords: | conflict; bombing; political repression; forced migration; gender; sexual violence; Ukraine |
| JEL: | D74 N10 O10 |
| Date: | 2023–09–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123566 |
| By: | Touria Jaaidane (Université de Lille, LEM (UMR 9221)); Sophie Larribeau (Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM – UMR6211, F-35000 Rennes France) |
| Abstract: | Over the seventeenth century, France relied mainly on private agents to build its state capacity but it shifted gradually to public agents, the intendants. We document this centralization process. The intendants’ appointment occurred at different times across regions. Their alternating arrivals and departures in the regions created sequences of presence and vacancy that our empirical strategy takes advantage of. Using an original panel dataset, we identify a causal effect of the intendants’ presence on tax revenues, tax and food riots. Before the 1635 Edict that permanently installed them, occasional missions were operated by special envoys who turned to be effective immediately, but only in the provinces that kept the privilege to negotiate on taxation: there, tax revenues increased and tax riots decreased. Under Richelieu and Mazarin governments, from 1635 to 1660, these privilege-provinces resisted as the presence of the intendant triggered a decrease in tax revenues. In the less autonomous common provinces, tax revenues were collected but tax riots were caused by the intendant’s presence. Finally, the institution reached its maturity under the period that saw the arrival of Colbert from 1661 on: tax revenues increased sharply in both types of provinces but so did tax riots. The policies implemeted by Colbert and his successors helped bringing money in but could not prevent the population fromrebelling. Nor the regulations taken by the intendants were sufficient to cope with food riots. |
| Keywords: | State capacity, Taxation, Conflict, Institutional reform, Venality, Dynamic treatment effects |
| JEL: | H11 D73 D74 H71 N43 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:2024-06 |
| By: | Kumanomido, Hiroshi (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich); Takayasu, Yutaro |
| Abstract: | Does selecting heirs from outside the family’s consanguineous relationships help maintain elite status? In prewar Japan, inheritance law prioritized the eldest son for inheriting all property and businesses. In the absence of a biological son, families were permitted to adopt a son as an alternative means to secure an heir. Using this historical framework, this paper examines the differences in the intergenerational transmission of elite status between families that select adoptive sons and biological sons as heirs. The preference for adoptive heirs may lead to positive and negative selection in the decision-making process, potentially biasing our OLS results. To address these selection bias issues, we use the gender of the firstborn child as an instrument for the adoption decision. Our empirical findings indicate that families with adoptive heirs are 20.6% more likely to maintain elite status than those with biological heirs. Furthermore, we show that our empirical results are driven by matching high-quality adopted sons with fathers who were highly successful in their early lives. |
| Date: | 2024–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:rmdyp |
| By: | Naomi R. Lamoreaux; John Joseph Wallis |
| Abstract: | We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the incentives for those in power to manipulate the economy for political ends and thus often negatively affects economic growth. We argue that the key to getting beyond these pernicious effects—to reconciling democracy and capitalism—is to move to a governance structure based on impersonal rules that apply in the same way to everyone (or at least to broad categories of everyone). We lay out the theoretical basis for this argument and illustrate it with evidence about how the transformation worked (or not) in the case of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. |
| JEL: | H10 K10 N41 N43 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32930 |
| By: | Ulrich Glogowsky; Emanuel Hansen; Dominik Sachs; Holger Lüthen |
| Abstract: | Using German administrative data from the 1960s onward, this paper (i) examines the long-term evolution of child-related gender inequality in earnings and (ii) assesses the impact of family policies on this inequality. We present three sets of findings. First, child penalties (i.e., the percentage of potential earnings lost due to children) have strongly increased over the last decades. Mothers who had their first child in the 1960s faced much smaller penalties than those who gave birth in the 2000s. Second, we decompose overall gender inequality into childrelated and child-unrelated components. Over our sample period, the fraction of overall inequality attributed to children rose from 14% to 64%. This trend not only resulted from the growing child penalties but also from rising potential earnings of mothers. Intuitively, in later decades, mothers had more income to lose from child-related career breaks. Third, we investigate the role of policy decisions in this rise in child penalties. Parental leave expansions between 1979 and 1992 amplified child penalties and contributed nearly one-third to the increase in child-related gender inequality. Instead, a parental benefit reform in 2007 mitigated further increases. While the third set of results highlights the role of family policies, the first two imply that sidelining mothers becomes increasingly costly over time. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2024-08 |
| By: | Roy, Tirthankar |
| Abstract: | The economic emergence of societies in arid and semi-arid tropical regions depended on their ability to extract and recycle water and manipulate the environment for this purpose. India is a prominent example of this process. This pathway to economic growth has significant political and environmental costs. In light of climate change, a key question for the future is: Is tropical development sustainable in this way? The paper answers by drawing on the economic history of the tropical arid regions and a recent literature on climate impact on water resources. |
| JEL: | N50 N55 O13 Q56 |
| Date: | 2024–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:125641 |
| By: | Tom Broekel; Torben Klarl; ; ; |
| Abstract: | Innovations are widely accepted as fundamental drivers of economic growth by increasing productivity and creating new markets. However, empirical evidence on the long-term relationship between technological progress and economic growth remains scarce, with few studies considering shifts in technologies’ fundamental properties, such as their degree of complexity. Yet, higher levels of complexity are argued to increase technologies’ economic potential, and consequently, ignoring this dimension of technologies provides an incomplete picture of innovations’ growth effects. We address this research gap by exploring the relationship between economic growth and technological complexity over more than 170 years in the United States (US). Utilizing patent data, the concept of the complexity frontier, and partial wavelet analysis, we find that economic growth has not been driven by patented innovation and technological complexity for most of this period. However, since the beginning of the ICT revolution in the 1990s, it has significantly contributed to GDP growth. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Economic Growth, Technological Complexity, USA, Complexity Frontier, Wavelt Analysis |
| JEL: | O30 O47 N10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2427 |
| By: | Barbara Boelmann (University of Cologne); Uta Schoenberg (HKU Business School); Anna Raute (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of cultural norms in shaping women’s labor supply decisions after childbirth. Specifically, we are interested in the interplay between childhood socialization and adulthood environment. To that end, we leverage the setting of the German reunification when East Germany’s gender egalitarian culture induced by socialism and West Germany’s more traditional culture were brought together. We find that East German gender norms are persistent whereas West German ones are not. West German mothers adjust their behavior to that of their East German peers not only when immersed in East German environment but even after returning to the West. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, cultural persistence, cultural adoption, maternal labor force participation, German reunification |
| JEL: | J1 J2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2409 |
| By: | Carlos Madeira |
| Abstract: | This work shows the impact of financial crises across industries and the total manufacturing sector. I find both a direct impact of financial crises on all manufacturing growth and an additional effect through an external finance dependence channel. Externally dependent industries experience lower growth during banking and currency crises, especially in emerging markets and developing economies. Banking, currency and sovereign debt crises cause an average reduction in total manufacturing growth of 2.7%, 6% and 1%, respectively, with the direct effect being the most significant component. Finally, I show that macroprudential policies adopted after the Great Financial Crisis attenuated the fall in growth caused by banking crises. |
| Keywords: | financial crises, banking crises, growth, external finance dependence, credit frictions |
| JEL: | E44 G01 O10 O16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1214 |
| By: | Florent Venayre (UPF - Université de la Polynésie Française) |
| Abstract: | The institutional links between the French Republic and its overseas territories have constantly evolved over the course of history, each time affirming a little more, over time, the various specificities of these territories of the Republic. French Polynesia is no exception - on the contrary, after New Caledonia, it is the overseas territory with the greatest degree of autonomy at present, including the adoption of strong distinctive signs that underline its individuality. It is at once profoundly different from - and so far removed from - mainland France, but also an integral part of the Republic, a priori subject to its fundamental principles. This ‘in-between' situation, at the antipodes of the planet, is not, however, achieved without certain major deviations that may come as a surprise. The Polynesian autonomy that has gradually been built up has given rise to an economic and fiscal system that is far removed from the usual, to the point of sometimes offending the understanding of French people living in mainland France. In the light of this particular system, and of new regulatory experiments in employment and land protection, we propose to discuss the particularities of French Polynesia, which make it a French territory that is not France, an element of the Republic that nevertheless sometimes eludes it, an ‘in-between' not only institutionally, but also economically and fiscally, sometimes significantly distancing it from values or principles generally taken for granted. |
| Abstract: | Les liens institutionnels entre la République française et ses outre-mer n'ont cessé d'évoluer au cours de l'Histoire, affirmant chaque fois un peu plus, dans le temps, les diverses spécificités de ces territoires de la République. La Polynésie française ne fait pas exception, bien au contraire, elle qui constitue après la Nouvelle-Calédonie le territoire ultramarin disposant à l'heure actuelle du plus fort degré d'autonomie, y compris par l'adoption de signes distinctifs forts qui soulignent son individualité. Elle est à la fois profondément différente – et tant éloignée – de la France hexagonale, mais constitue également une partie intégrante de la République a priori soumise à ses principes fondamentaux. Cet ‘entre-deux' aux antipodes de la planète, cependant, ne se réalise pas sans certains grands écarts qui peuvent surprendre. Cette autonomie polynésienne, progressivement construite, a ainsi donné lieu à un système économique et fiscal très en marge de ce que l'on peut connaître usuellement, jusqu'à pouvoir heurter parfois la compréhension des Français de métropole qui y sont confrontés. A la lumière de ce système propre et d'expériences réglementaires nouvelles en matière de protection de l'emploi et du foncier, nous nous proposons de discuter les particularités de la Polynésie française, qui en font un territoire français qui n'est pas la France, un élément de la République qui lui échappe pourtant parfois, un ‘entre-deux' non pas seulement institutionnel, mais aussi économique et fiscal, l'éloignant parfois sensiblement des valeurs ou principes généralement considérés comme acquis. |
| Keywords: | French Polynesia, Autonomy, French Republic, Economic and tax system, Protection of local employment, Access to land, Polynésie française, Autonomie, République française, Système économique et fiscal, Protection de l’emploi local, Accès au foncier |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04695128 |
| By: | Maurice Obstfeld (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | The distrust of openness to the global economy shared by Republican and Democratic leadership derives in part from a faulty premise that persistent US trade deficits have been imposed on the United States by foreign countries and have contributed significantly to US deindustrialization. In fact, the deficits have important domestic sources, and the main drivers of US manufacturing employment decline lie elsewhere. Two theories that blame foreign countries for deficits hold that deficits arose from unfair competition by trade partners or from a "global savings glut." The author says the first theory is wrong, the second is incomplete, and economic isolationism is not a solution. Trade and current account deficits result generally from an economy's collective decisions to save and invest. Freer trade does not necessarily raise investment more than saving, and an investment-driven deficit is likely positive for the economy. The years 1998–2001 during and after the Asian financial crisis led to the dollar appreciating and a rise in the US deficit, consistent with the global saving glut theory. But subsequently in the 2000s, foreign capital was not pushed into the United States from abroad; rather it was pulled and the dollar depreciated. The causes were easy financial conditions, a housing bubble, and strong US consumption--trends that ended in a financial crisis. Understanding this history is essential if the United States is to avoid destructive protectionism and other harmful economic policies. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:pbrief:pb24-7 |
| By: | Parker, Susan |
| Abstract: | Mexico’s pioneering conditional cash transfer program—originally Progresa, later renamed Prospera—operated over two decades in a shifting educational landscape. We exploit the program’s sudden and unexpected rollback to estimate whether, two decades after rollout studies documented its initial impacts on schooling and labor, the program was still effective at raising enrollment and reducing work in children and youth. Comparing areas with high and low program penetration before and after rollback, we find that rollback immediately reduced school enrollment, especially at high school ages and especially in boys. Effects on enrollment were as large at rollback as they were at rollout, albeit shifted from middle-school ages to high school ages. Rising work mirrored falling enrollment in boys of high school age. Our results suggest the program successfully adapted to the rise of high school, but Mexico’s poor were unable to protect their children from the its unexpected rollback. |
| Date: | 2024–09–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:h9qmc |
| By: | Congressional Budget Office |
| Abstract: | This report examines changes in the distribution of family wealth from 1989 to 2022. Building on earlier work, CBO used an expanded measure of wealth that includes families’ projected Social Security benefits. Over the 33-year period, family wealth was unevenly distributed, and wealth inequality—measured as the share of wealth held by families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution—increased. Wealth was less equally distributed in all years covered by the analysis if future income from Social Security benefits is excluded from the measure of wealth. |
| JEL: | D14 D31 |
| Date: | 2024–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbo:report:60343 |
| By: | Laudenbach, Christine; Malmendier, Ulrike; Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra |
| Abstract: | We show that exposure to anti-capitalist ideology can exert a lasting influence on attitudes towards capital markets and stock-market participation. Utilizing novel survey, bank, and broker data, we document that, decades after Germany's reunification, East Germans invest significantly less in stocks and hold more negative views on capital markets. Effects vary by personal experience under communism. Results are strongest for individuals remembering life in the German Democratic Republic positively, e. g., because of local Olympic champions or living in a "showcase city". Results reverse for those with negative experiences like religious oppression, environmental pollution, or lack of Western TV entertainment. |
| Keywords: | Capital markets, Anti-capitalist Ideology, Life-time Experiences, Stockmarket Participation |
| JEL: | D14 D83 D91 G41 P10 P26 P34 P36 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:303039 |