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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Alexander Klein; Christopher M. Meissner |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between tariffs and labor productivity in US manufacturing between 1870 and 1909. Using highly dis-aggregated tariff data, state-industry data for the manufacturing sector, and an instrumental variable strategy, results show that tariffs reduced labor productivity. Tariffs also generally reduced the average size of establishments within an industry but raised output prices, value-added, gross output, employment, and the number of establishments. We also find evidence of heterogeneity in the association between tariffs and value added, gross output, employment, and establishments across groups of industries. We conclude that tariffs may have reduced labor productivity in manufacturing by weakening import competition and by inducing entry of smaller, less productive domestic firms. Our research also reveals that lobbying by powerful and productive industries may have been at play. The era’s high tariffs are unlikely to have helped the US become a globally competitive manufacturer. |
| JEL: | F13 F15 N11 O14 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33100 |
| By: | Husain, Tehreem; Buchnea, Emily |
| Abstract: | This article examines the role of agents and how their brokerage activities influenced the composition, shape and size of Baring’s business networks in Argentinian railways during 1880–1905. Baring was heavily involved in Argentine sovereign and railway financing and relied on trusted agents, who acted as important conduits of information, to manage their business empire. We explore 2700 pieces of correspondence in the form of letters and telegrams to illustrate Baring’s network over time. Studying the case of Argentinian railways, the correspondences reveal the longevity of Baring’s network and agents’ brokerage roles over time in response to changing local and global economic currents. Through this rich qualitative data and network analysis, we contribute to understanding agent’s brokerage and network change over time. By highlighting the role of invisible actors in the form of agents, the article contributes to understanding infrastructure finance, financial globalisation and more generally, the global history of capitalism. |
| Keywords: | networks; agents; railways; brokerage; baring |
| JEL: | D85 L14 N20 N80 |
| Date: | 2024–10–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125980 |
| By: | Carolina Román (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Henry Willebald (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | Services currently play a prominent role in Uruguay's productive structure, constituting approximately two-thirds of GDP. This empirical observation has led to various arguments that Uruguay is now primarily a service-based economy. However, this characterization is not recent. By the mid-20th century, the gross value added (VA) from services accounted for over 55% of GDP. Moreover, historical analysis widely recognizes several service activities as key drivers of economic development since the 19th century. Despite this historical recognition, the absence of systematic measures of the VA of services has hindered studies on the evolution of "non-material" activities and their significance for economic growth. This article aims to address this gap by providing VA estimates to cover a comprehensive period from 1870 to 2020. We analyze the long-term evolution of services, particularly how they challenge the traditional three-sector hypothesis. Additionally, we explore the sector's transformations—from services closely tied to material production to those increasingly linked with urbanization and sophisticated consumption patterns. |
| Keywords: | National accounts, Uruguay, Services, Structural change, Economic growth |
| JEL: | E01 E23 N16 N76 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-09-24 |
| By: | Seltzer, Andrew J. |
| Abstract: | The Victorian Factories and Shops Act of 1896, the second minimum wage law in the world, empowered administrative agencies (‘Special Boards’) to set trade-specific minimum rates on the basis of age, sex, and occupation. Some Victorian supporters of minimum wages looked to end sweating and protect women and children, while others sought to use the law to protect adult men. Opponents argued that they would disrupt labour markets, increasing employers’ costs and creating unintended consequences for workers. Evidence from actual minimum wages suggests that boards were loosely constrained by market factors, but also that they had some discretion. Some Special Boards essentially followed the market for their trades while others set rates that were binding for some workers. To the extent that minimum rates were binding, they tended to reduce inequality among adult male workers, particularly after a 1907 federal law established a living wage covering employers with operations in multiple states. However, they also increased inequality across groups, increasing wages of adult men relative to those of women and youths. The act formally institutionalized gender-based pay differences, a practice that continued in Australian minimum wage setting for more than 70 years. |
| Keywords: | Australia; minimum wages; protective legislation |
| JEL: | N37 |
| Date: | 2024–10–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125987 |
| By: | Sebastian T. Braun; Jan Stuhler |
| 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 show that the design of compensation policies likely explains this counterintuitive life-cycle pattern and examine potential spillovers to the next generation. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2410.15439 |
| By: | Alexia Lochmann (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Nidhi Rao; Martin A. Rossi |
| Abstract: | Can South Africa’s segregation policies explain, at least partially, its current poor employment outcomes? To explore this question, we study the long-term impact of the forced resettlement of around 3.5 million black South Africans from their communities to the so-called “homelands” or “Bantustans”, between 1960 and 1991. Our empirical strategy exploits the variability in the magnitude of resettlements between communities. Two main findings. First, the magnitude of outgoing internal migrations was largest for districts close to former homelands. Second, districts close to former homelands have higher rates of non-employed population in 2011. Together the evidence suggests that districts that experienced racial segregation policies most intensely, as measured by outgoing forced resettlements, have worse current employment outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Homelands; Employment; Apartheid; Segregation policies |
| JEL: | J15 J21 J61 J71 N37 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:glh:wpfacu:194 |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (George Washington University); Robinson, RaeAnn Halenda (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the occupational status of adult White foreign-born men in the antebellum United States, compared to White native-born men, and among the foreign born by country of origin. Hypotheses are developed regarding the effects on occupational status of human capital, demographic, and immigrant-related variables. The hypotheses are tested using the PUMS data for the 100 percent sample (full count) from the 1850 Census of Population, the first census to ask for the male respondent's occupation, as well as the linked 1850-1860 Census data. Two quantitative measures of occupational status serve as the dependent variables - the Occupational Income Score and the Ducan Socioeconomic Index. The hypotheses are found to be consistent with the data. Moreover, other variables the same, while there is a large gap in occupational status between the foreign and native born just after the former arrive, this gap narrows very quickly and, other variables the same, White male immigrants reached occupational-income parity with their native-born counterparts at about 8.4 years after immigration. |
| Keywords: | longitudinal analysis (1850-1860), labor market analysis, Antebellum United States, 1850 Census of Population, Duncan Socioeconomic Index, Occupational Income Score, occupational status, immigrants |
| JEL: | N31 J15 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17382 |
| By: | Andrea Fazio (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy. GLO, Essen, Germany); Tommaso Reggiani (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Masaryk University, MUEEL lab, Brno, Czechia; IZA, Bonn, Germany); Paolo Santori (Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University, The Netherlands) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically tests Max Weber’s thesis on how religious narratives, particularly the Protestant Ethic, influence attitudes toward wealth redistribution. Weber suggested that the Protestant Reformation, led to the belief that economic success was a sign of divine favor, legitimizing wealth inequality. Using a variation of the dictator game with "blessed" framing, we measure how participants’ redistribution behaviors change when primed with this narrative. Our results show that low-income Protestants exposed to the "blessed" narrative are less likely to redistribute wealth compared to Catholics, supporting Weber’s idea that Protestants justify inequality through divine providence. Furthermore, a narrative analysis reveals that Protestants interpret “blessing” as divine election, while Catholics focus more on well-being. These findings suggest that religious narratives significantly shape economic behaviors and preferences for redistribution, providing empirical support for Weber’s thesis. |
| Keywords: | dictator game; Max Weber; pro-social behaviour; redistribution |
| JEL: | J14 J15 Z12 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2024-06 |
| By: | Lukas Rosenberger; W. Walker Hanlon; Carl Hallmann |
| Abstract: | How did Britain sustain faster rates of economic growth than comparable European countries, such as France, during the Industrial Revolution? We argue that Britain possessed an important but underappreciated innovation advantage: British inventors worked in technologies that were more central within the innovation network. We offer a new approach for measuring the innovation network using patent data from Britain and France in the late-18th and early-19th century. We show that the network influenced innovation outcomes and demonstrate that British inventors worked in more central technologies within the innovation network than French inventors. Drawing on recently developed theoretical tools, and using a novel estimation strategy, we quantify the implications for technology growth rates in Britain compared to France. Our results indicate that the shape of the innovation network, and the location of British inventors within it, explains an important share of the more rapid technological change and industrial growth in Britain during the Industrial Revolution. |
| Keywords: | industrial revolution, innovation network, patents, economic growth |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11299 |
| By: | Bulfone, Fabio; Ergen, Timur; Maggor, Erez |
| Abstract: | Conditionality was a central concern in the development literature of the 1990s. With the massive expansion of targeted public support to private firms since the Great Financial Crisis, the question of conditionality is once again at the center of industrial policy debates. Despite the growing interest in the concept, the existing literature does not provide a systematic conceptualization of conditionality in the context of industrial policy, nor does it outline the political factors that facilitate the introduction of conditionality by state actors. This paper addresses this gap by offering a systematic political economy of conditionality. We provide an overview of the literature on conditionality, focusing on different industries, historical periods, and national contexts. In doing so, we make three contributions to the debate on industrial policy. First, we distinguish between two broad instruments of conditionality: performance standards and corporate control devices. Next, we map the coalitional, institutional, ideational, and global contextual factors that facilitate conditionality. Finally, we offer two vignettes of recent industrial policy initiatives in the EU and the US as illustrative cases. We make two arguments. First, the presence of conditionality is not primarily a technical matter of political design, but is shaped by combinations of political economy factors. Second, industrial policy conditionality provides an important theoretical lens for assessing how and where the recent revival of state activism represents a substantive break from the neoliberal order. |
| Abstract: | Konditionalität war ein zentrales Thema der Literatur zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der 1990er-Jahre. Mit der massiven Ausweitung der gezielten öffentlichen Unterstützung für Privatunternehmen seit der Finanzkrise 2008 steht die Frage der Konditionalität wieder im Mittelpunkt industriepolitischer Debatten. Trotz des wachsenden Interesses am Problem der Konditionalität bietet die vorhandene Literatur weder eine systematische Konzeptualisierung im Kontext der Industriepolitik noch beschreibt sie die politischen Faktoren, die die Einführung von Konditionalitäten durch staatliche Akteure begünstigen. Dieser Aufsatz schließt diese Lücke, indem er eine systematische politische Ökonomie industriepolitischer Konditionalität entwickelt. Wir geben einen Überblick über die Literatur zur Konditionalität und decken dabei verschiedene Branchen, historische Zeiträume und nationale Kontexte ab. Wir leisten drei Beiträge zur Debatte zur Industriepolitik: Erstens unterscheiden wir zwischen zwei umfassenden Instrumenten der Konditionalität: Leistungsstandards und Bedingungen zur Unternehmenskontrolle. Zweitens arbeiten wir die koalitionellen, institutionellen, ideellen und globalen Kontextfaktoren heraus, die Konditionalität begünstigen. Drittens illustrieren wir die Nützlichkeit unserer konzeptuellen Überlegungen am Beispiel von zwei gegenwärtigen industriepolitischen Initiativen in der EU und den USA. Unser Aufsatz entwickelt zwei übergreifende Argumente. Erstens ist das Vorhandensein von Konditionalität nicht in erster Linie eine technische Frage der politischen Gestaltung, sondern wird durch eine Kombination von politisch-ökonomischen Faktoren bedingt. Zweitens bieten industriepolitische Konditionalitäten eine wichtige theoretische Grundlage, um zu beurteilen, wie und wo die viel diskutierte Wiederbelebung staatlicher Interventionen in die Wirtschaft einen substanziellen Bruch mit der neoliberalen Ordnung darstellt. |
| Keywords: | conditionality, developmental state, EU, geopolitics, industrial policy, political economy, US, EU, Geopolitik, Industriepolitik, Konditionalität, Politische Ökonomie, US |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:305292 |
| By: | Helyette Geman |
| Abstract: | On Friday, March 10 -2023, the US and the world discovered that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had seized the Silicon Valley Bank after SVB’s customers had withdrawn an extraordinary $42 billion from their deposits on March 16. This $4.2 billion an hour, or more than $1 million per second for ten straight hours, an unprecedented event made possible by the use of Apps by many startup founders to access their accounts and advise their friends to do the same -what the Chairman of the House of Financial Services Committee called ‘the first Twitter -fueled bank run’. |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pb_16-23 |
| By: | Hisham Aidi |
| Abstract: | Considering the current situation in Burkina Faso, the international media is speaking of institutional weakness and state failure in Africa and the role of international institutions and local non-state actors in providing security and public goods in the Sahel. The discourse of state failure and counter-state sovereignty has a decades-old genealogy, but recent work by African scholars has sought to contest top-down Western labels and categories. African attempts to decolonize social science research began shortly after independence in the 1960s. Yet, lately, scholars like Ugandan sociologist Sylvia Tamale have taken the critique of Western knowledge production in a new direction. As French Special Forces prepare to depart Burkina Faso, commentators have begun speculating that the Russian mercenary group Wagner will be arriving to assist the Burkinabe leader Captain Ibrahima Traore in countering a ten-year Islamist insurgency that has displaced an estimated two million people. 1 Once again, the media is speaking of institutional weakness and state failure in Africa and the role of international institutions and local non-state actors in providing security and public goods in the Sahel. As we show below, the discourse of state failure and the rebel/Jihadi governance model has a decades- old genealogy. However, recent work by African scholars has sought to contest top-down labels and Western categories. African attempts to decolonize social science research began shortly after independence in the 1960s, and scholars like Ugandan sociologist Sylvia Tamale have taken the critique of Western knowledge production in a new direction. |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pb_07_23 |
| By: | Donohoe, Maitiú |
| Abstract: | This dissertation studies the effects of the Troubles on the Irish Stock Exchange. Our research contributes to the literature first by applying empirical methods to investigate the impact of significant historical events on the Irish Stock Exchange. We employ an event study and descriptive statistics to test the significance of negative events such as bombings, shootings and riots, and positive events such as peace negotiations in the conflict. In the aftermath of events that were expected to exacerbate the conflict we expect investors to react negatively and market prices to fall, while observing the reverse effect when events that were expected to alleviate the crisis occurred. Secondly, this study contributes to the literature by employing a primary dataset which has been used previously by only one study. Our analysis displays that while the developments in the conflict did influence the Irish Stock Exchange, it was relatively limited and was not the dominant factor in explaining the behaviour of the market. The main driver of the market was major international developments such as exchange rate changes, the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of the Bretton Woods System and the Gulf Conflict. We do acknowledge that the period following the Good Friday Agreement exhibited positive significant returns, indicating investors believed that the agreement would have positive effects for the Irish economy. However, on balance the Irish stock market was generally not affected by events in the Troubles, no matter how devastating and emotive the events were. |
| JEL: | N24 |
| Date: | 2024–04–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125836 |
| By: | Peters, Nils |
| Abstract: | The 2010s were an era of abundant capital for investors but limited opportunities to put it to profitable use. This paper traces the origins of dealing with the ‘problem’ of having to convert large accumulations of cash into appreciating assets. It puts venture capitalists in the US at the center of this history. Charting venture capital’s 1950s emergence, 1960s formalization, and 1970s institutionalization, I show how early venture capital investors built a financial infrastructure that safeguarded the appreciation of their assets. Venture capitalists’ influence increased as institutional investors (as funders) and startup employees (as investees) became enrolled in this infrastructure and oriented their actions toward its imperatives. I argue that in their handling of abundance, venture capitalists constructed and deepened asset-driven inequalities. Empirically, the paper makes a contribution by demonstrating that vast accumulations of (personal) wealth played a decisive role in this process and highlights the importance of stark inequality well before the neoliberal turn or quantitative easing. Conceptually, I show that venture capitalists’ solution to a personal problem became useful at a much larger scale. The paper argues that we should read this influence as conditioned on elite surplus and access to a financial infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | venture capital; financialization; infrastructure; asset economy; limited partnership; abundance |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–11–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125890 |
| By: | Duc A. Nguyen; Steven Brakman; Harry Garretsen; Tristan Kohl |
| Abstract: | We study the post-war effects of the bombing of German cities during WWII on urban growth and use the synthetic control method (SCM) to construct comparison units for affected West-German cities. The reason to use SCM is that cities might experience structural changes that have nothing to do with the bombing of cities. Ignoring these structural changes could incorrectly attribute the decline of cities to the WWII bombing shock, while other factors are at work. The SCM takes these structural changes onboard. The synthetic units are used as counterfactuals to assess the long-run impact following the WWII bombing on the size distribution of 53 West-German cities. Our main contribution is that we do not only study whether bombed cities are mean-reverting, but also use the counterfactual to determine whether individual cities experienced a positive or negative impact. In general, we find mean reversion for 50-70% of cities, as well as a roughly balanced ratio of positively to negatively impacted cities. |
| Keywords: | urban growth, synthetic control method, WWII shock, city size distribution |
| JEL: | R12 C93 B40 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11423 |
| By: | Duan, Rui |
| Abstract: | Belonging to a strand of literature on women’s status during the Industrial Revolution, this project empirically investigates how parliamentary enclosure affected the English gender pay gap in agriculture in 1750-1850. Drawing data on women's and men’s pay in agriculture from credible secondary sources, it examines the causal relationship between the gender pay ratio and changes in the proportion of land enclosed. Overall, parliamentary enclosure negatively impacted the demand for female labour and thus women’s relative pay in agriculture. Women’s work in dairy and arable farming was disrupted by farmers’ preferences for grain growing and seasonal male labour force employed in large enclosed farms. The enclosure of common land also eroded an important source of women’s income. This is particularly true for arable counties in the southeast. In some places, such as counties that underwent less intense wartime enclosure and high-wage northern counties, enclosure possibly revived some demand for female labour on the newly enclosed farms and helped narrow the gender pay gap after the French Wars. Nevertheless, alternative explanations do exist, such as changes in crop combinations. These potential positive effects were too small to reverse the general downward trend of the gender pay ratio and women’s, especially wives’ increasing dependence on the male breadwinner. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that the negative effects were also small in magnitude. This suggests the main driver of a widened gender pay gap in agriculture lay in other contemporaneous socioeconomic changes. |
| JEL: | Q15 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125860 |
| By: | Gylfason, Georg |
| Abstract: | The Icelandic membership in the European Recovery Program is often overlooked in the historical literature that focuses on examining the complex legacies of the Marshall Plan. But the Icelandic ERP is quite unique when examined more carefully. The country emerged from the war relatively unscathed and had in effect benefitted enormously during the years of the war. Yet the country received a generous share of ERP assistance. Per capita, Iceland received the more financial support than all the other 16 ERP member countries. At the same the Icelandic government maintained strict isolationist trade policies and was an awkward member of the OEEC. Iceland would maintain these policies all the way up to 1960. Meanwhile the countries of Western Europe were adopting liberal economic policies, which, which facilitated three decades of growth. This has been touted as one of the primary achievements of the ERP. Which begs the question, why did Iceland receive so much financial support and not adopt the policies stipulated in the ERP conditions? This dissertation will seek to answer this question. Focusing in on the role of domestic politics and how that factor influenced the design of Iceland’s unique ERP program. The analysis will make use of archival evidence, officials documents from the US and Icelandic governments, and articles published in the four main newspapers, which dominated the political discourse in Iceland in the post-war years. |
| JEL: | N14 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125839 |
| By: | Bastidas, Luz; Arengas, Gustavo |
| Abstract: | Bogotá es la sexta ciudad más poblada de América Latina, cuenta con una población aproximada de 7, 4 millones de personas y una extensión de 1775 km2, según el censo del DANE para 2018 (SDP, 2020). Esta ciudad, al ser una de las más grandes en la región necesita un sistema de transporte competente para movilizar a sus habitantes; sin embargo, tras cuatro décadas de propuestas en la actualidad carece de un sistema de trenes urbanos o metro, y, sólo hasta el año 2020 se comenzaron a desarrollar fases previas a la construcción, bajo los lineamientos del contrato firmado entre Empresa Metro de Bogotá y la empresa Metro Línea 1 S.A.S. Debido a lo anterior, en este trabajo se busca describir las posibles razones de carácter económico que han influenciado a los proyectos más significativos de este sistema de transporte en la capital durante casi 40 años, hasta la puesta en marcha de la Primera Línea del Metro de Bogotá (PMLB), esto mediante una revisión de los diferentes estudios que se realizaron desde 1981 hasta 2020 para la construcción del mismo. |
| Date: | 2024–11–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:u5j6x |
| By: | Laure Doctrinal |
| Abstract: | Concerns about the social sustainability of pension systems are growing. The increasing privatization of pension provision in many OECD countries is expected to have harmful consequences for workers with non-standard working careers, among whom women are overrepresented. Despite much new research, little is known about changes in the incomes of newly retired persons. Using microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study, this study analyzes how the economic independence of newly retired women and men has changed over the years 1986–2018 in fifteen OECD countries and assesses some of its determinants. The results show that economic independence among newly retired women has increased since the 1980s in almost all countries, but decreased among men in half of the countries considered here. Regression analyses show that pension privatization is not associated with worsened economic independence among newly retired women, nor among newly retired men. Minimum public pensions tend to increase the economic independence of both newly retired women and men. Economic independence is also more common among newly retired cohorts of women with gainful work histories and parental leave duration in their prime working years. |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:861 |
| By: | Stefano Vanucci |
| Abstract: | A critical discussion of some of the main themes of Arrow’s work as presented by Antonio Gay in his 1987 Introduction to K.J.Arrow: Equilibrio, incertezza, scelta sociale is provided. Jel Classification: A12 C6 C7 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:919 |
| By: | Vanberg, Viktor |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:305290 |
| By: | Elizabeth Lorenzo Mata; Ramy Zeid; Carole Chartouni; Johannes Koettl; Mehmet Soytas; Nayib Rivera |
| Abstract: | The world of work is facing one of the most significant technological transformations since industrialization. Throughout history, technological developments have transformed the economy and shaped jobs. Since the First Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, employment has changed as new technologies became available and widespread. These transformations create winners and losers. In the process, some workers benefit from technological progress, whereas others are displaced and struggle to remain employable. With the continuous advancement of technology, firms are increasingly inclined to update or embrace new production methods, resulting in the expansion of markets and the emergence of novel industries. |
| Date: | 2024–11–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:191619 |
| By: | Yang, Dongkyu |
| Abstract: | The idea that labor scarcity can induce economic development has long been hypothesized (Hicks, 1932; Habakkuk, 1962), but the evidence remains limited. This paper examines how the Second Great Migration (1940–1970) spurred structural change in the American South between 1970 and 2010. Empirical results using shift-share instruments show that out-migration incentivized capital investment and capital-augmenting technical change, increasing capital per worker and output in both agriculture and manufacturing, at least until 2010. Labor was reallocated from agriculture to non-agriculture. I then develop a dynamic spatial equilibrium model that allows for substitution between factors of production, factor-biased technical change, and factor abundance-based trade to characterize this process. The quantitative analysis indicates that labor-capital substitution played a major role in adjustments to South-to-North migration. |
| Date: | 2024–11–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nt6kg |
| By: | Katherine A. Moos; Pilar Gonalons-Pons |
| Abstract: | Drawing on both gender regime theory and social reproduction theory, this paper compares the socioeconomic and gendered organization of social reproduction in the United States and United Kingdom from 1973 to 2013. Integrating data from the Luxembourg Income Study, the Multinational Time-Use Study, and additional sources, we examine how men and women of different socioeconomic groups contribute to social reproduction through household production, paid work, and government social benefits. Our results demonstrate that household social reproduction has not been universally refamilialized, marketized, or desocialized in either country. While there is some evidence of degendering, questions remain about its feminist implications. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:888 |
| By: | Pencavel, John H. (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | Why have the real (consumption) wages of U.S. workers risen since the nineteenth century? Some economists answer that increases in real wages have followed increases in labor productivity over time. In this paper, this hypothesized association is confronted with annual observations of changes in the wages and changes in the labor productivity of U.S. manufacturing production workers from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Correlates with changes in real wages in addition to productivity are considered including statutory legislation, trade unionism, and the state of the business cycle. |
| Keywords: | real wages, labor productivity, trade unions, legislation, monopsony |
| JEL: | J31 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17326 |
| By: | Henderson, J. Vernon; Thisse, Jacques-François |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–11–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125675 |
| By: | Hinh T. Dinh |
| Abstract: | The current banking crisis in the United States began with the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) run in March 2023 and was followed by other bank failures, raising concerns about the health and stability of the financial sector. This Policy Paper traces the root causes of these bank failures and examines the U.S. monetary policy decisions during this period. These bank failures were caused by the poor risk management practices of the failed banks, the sector’s weak regulatory structure, and the failure of bank supervisors. However, a key factor that contributed to the extent and speed of the current bank crisis is the U.S. Federal Reserve’s (Fed) actions. The Fed's decisions to keep zero or near-zero interest rates over the long period of 2009-2022, to continue with the zero-reserve requirement for banks after the pandemic, and to delay raising the Federal Funds rate in 2021, despite emerging inflationary signs, have contributed to the risk-taking behavior of the banks and to the current banking crisis. The Fed's decision in 2021 also diverged from Taylor rule prescriptions, which it had adhered to since 1995. Given the long lag between Fed decisions and actual results on the ground, a question may be asked if it is time to go back and rely more on rules-based monetary policy, as Milton Friedman (1968) suggested over half a century ago. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp_10-23 |
| By: | Bienek, Jan |
| Abstract: | This dissertation in global economic history analyses the differences in the effect of violent and peaceful decolonisation processes on postindependence trade between former colony and coloniser. Prior studies concerned with the effect independence had on trade have not adequately treated decolonisation as a process that spans the colonial and postcolonial period and have insufficiently differentiated its impact according to the nature of the decolonisation process. This dissertation advances our understanding of the economic implications of decolonisation by providing a comparative analysis of the independence processes of Algeria and Senegal. The findings suggest that the violent nature of the Algerian decolonisation has led to an abrupt reduction in the relative importance of trade with its former coloniser France. Senegal on the other hand, due to its peaceful decolonisation process, reduced the French share in its imports and exports slower than Algeria. While previous studies have not linked the course of the decline in colony-metropole trade to historical developments, this dissertation demonstrates that post-independence economic policy, and bilateral ties as well as the disruption of networks and the influence of French migrants, which varied according to the nature of the independence process, shaped how rapidly Senegal and Algeria reduced their trade with France. This dissertation extends prior studies on the impact of independence on trade by proposing a novel conceptual approach that considers wars of independence as a factor influencing and even accelerating the mechanisms that also cause the postcolonial trade decline in peaceful independence processes. |
| JEL: | F54 F10 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125846 |
| By: | Ward, Charley |
| Abstract: | In 1703, the Methuen Treaty removed duties on the exchange of English cloth for Portuguese wine, the trade later immortalised by David Ricardo’s use of it to explain his theory of comparative advantage. While Ricardo described Portugal as productively superior in both goods, he showed how specialisation and trade could still produce a higher level of output and mutual benefits. Ever since, Ricardo’s theory has been used by neoclassical economists as a theoretical tool to assert the logic of free trade. However, a subset of political economists, including Friedrich List, deny that trade liberalisation is always good for growth. These scholars have re-historicised the exchange of English cloth for Portuguese wine, finding that the Methuen Treaty ruined Portugal’s domestic textile industry and left them with a “slow-growing export market for wine.”1 This paper examines historical accounts of the Methuen Treaty and Anglo-Portuguese trade to assess the accuracy of the mainstream and heterodox characterisations of Ricardo’s classic example. It uses articles from prominent 19th and 20th century British, Portuguese, and Brazilian historians to develop a coherent narrative of the circumstances that produced the Methuen Treaty. Ultimately, this paper finds that the treaty was one event in a series that impeded the growth of Portuguese domestic industry, inflated their trade deficit, and produced wealth for the English. This reveals how Ricardo’s theory obscures a very simple insight: that some specialisations are better than others. |
| JEL: | F10 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125859 |
| By: | Stark, Oded (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | The 1949 study The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath, Volume II, by Stouffer et al. presents detailed accounts of the attitudes of American fighter pilots toward the stress experienced by them and of the policies and practices of the American Air Force command in addressing this stress during WWII. The 2022 study "Killer incentives" by Ager et al. documents an aspect and a repercussion of the stress of German fighter pilots and can be used to identify the response to that stress by the German Air Force command during WWII. Drawing on these two studies, in this paper I construct fighter pilot stress profiles in the two air forces. The picture that emerges is that there is a stark difference between the approaches of the two commands. This diversity leads me to conjecture that the American Air Force command explicitly sought to forestall and curtail fighter pilots' stress, whereas the German Air Force command implicitly cultivated and engineered fighter pilots' stress. |
| Keywords: | WWII, fighter pilots, combat missions, fighter pilot stress, policies and practices of the American Air Force in curtailing stress, policies and practices of the German Air Force in cultivating stress |
| JEL: | D01 D23 D9 E7 H56 I12 I38 J28 J38 J48 J58 N42 N44 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17418 |
| By: | Nauro F. Campos; Corrado Macchiarelli; Fotios Mitropoulos |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new estimates of Okun’s unemployment-output relationship in euro area countries between 1979 and 2019. We find our structural estimates are stable but substantially lower than the reduced-form estimates that tend to characterise the literature and that the responsiveness of output to unemployment is driven by idiosyncratic factors in both euro core and periphery countries. The results are robust to conditioning on wage bargaining institutional set-ups and, yet, in the euro periphery, we find product market regulation as playing a major role in explaining the significance of Okun’s law estimates across countries. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, unemployment, Okun’s Law, panel VAR |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J64 G01 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11314 |
| By: | Chun Chee Kok (Monash University); Gedeon J. Lim (University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-run effects of a colonial-era, large-scale resettlement program of ethnic minorities, on contemporary economic outcomes and political preferences of ethnic majority individuals in receiving areas. In ethnic Malay-majority Malaysia, the colonial British relocated 500, 000 rural ethnic Chinese minorities into fenced-up, isolated, monoethnic camps (1948 – 1960) all across rural Malaysia. This brought some pre-existing ethnic Malay-majority areas into closer contact with ethnic Chinese minorities but not others. Criteria for resettlement locations were largely military in nature. Using a spatial randomization inference-type approach, we construct counterfactual village locations based on this criteria. We find that areas located immediately next to Chinese New Villages (0-2km) experienced better economic outcomes and, in turn, had lower vote shares for the ethno-nationalistic coalition, than polling districts located next to similarly suitable, counterfactual locations. We provide suggestive evidence that these lower vote shares were driven by all voters, not just the ethnic Chinese. Together, our results suggest that persistent differences in inter-ethnic proximity can have a lasting, negative impact on voter preferences for ethno-nationalistic politics through improvements in economic outcomes and sustained increases in casual, interethnic interactions. |
| Keywords: | ethnic diversity, inter-group contact, immigration, Southeast Asia, voting |
| JEL: | D72 J15 P50 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajr:sodwps:2024-06 |
| By: | Dario Pellegrino (Structural Economic Analysis Directorate, Economic History Division, Bank of Italy, Rome) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the evolution of business dynamism in Italy (1903-1971), as measured by the share of investments made by new firms (a share which is arguably inversely related to barriers to entry). For this analysis, I reconstructed a series of tangible investments in the manufacturing sector based on joint-stock firm-level data. The analysis shows that until the late 1920s overall capital accumulation was largely driven by young firms. A substantial discontinuity emerged after the Great Depression, however, and was to last throughout the decades of the 'economic miracle' (1948-1973), with investments originating mostly from established firms. The paper presents and discusses suggestive evidence for two institutional explanations which could account for the latter finding. First, the demise of universal banking, associated with the 1926-1936 banking reform, may have constrained the external financing capacity of new firms. Second, a persistent reduction in product market competition resulted from the collusive practices which the Fascist government promoted during the 1930s. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing investments, business dynamism, barriers to entry, industrialization, collusion in Fascist Italy, banking reform |
| JEL: | N24 N64 O14 L43 L60 |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:workqs:qse_53 |
| By: | Brian C. Fujiy |
| Abstract: | I causally estimate local knowledge spillovers in R&D and quantify their importance when implementing R&D policies. Using a new administrative panel on German inventors, I estimate these spillovers by isolating quasi-exogenous variation from the arrival of East German inventors across West Germany after the Reunification of Germany in 1990. Increasing the number of inventors by 1% increases inventor productivity by 0.4%. I build a spatial model of innovation, and show that these spillovers are crucial when reducing migration costs for inventors or implementing R&D subsidies to promote economic activity. |
| Keywords: | inventors, research and development, innovation, agglomeration, spillovers |
| JEL: | F16 J61 O4 O31 R12 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-59 |
| By: | Zachary Parolin; Stefano Filauro |
| Abstract: | In 2021, the federal government of the United States (US) expanded a set of income transfers that led to strong reductions in child poverty. This research note uses micro-data from more than 50 countries, and US data spanning more than 50 years, to place the 2021 child poverty rate in historical and international perspective. We demonstrate that whether using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), relative poverty measures, or an absolute poverty measure, the US child poverty rate in 2021 was at its lowest level since at least 1967. The US tax and transfer system reduced the 2021 SPM child poverty rate by more than 75 percent relative to the pre-tax/transfer child poverty rate, three times greater than its mean reduction effect between 1967-2019. Internationally, the policy changes improved the US’s standing from having a relative poverty rate twice that of Germany’s in 2019 to the same as Germany’s in 2021. Moreover, the US tax and transfer system progressed from reducing child poverty at less than half the rate of Norway in 2019 to a rate comparable with Norway in 2021. However, the US’s success was temporary: after the expiration of the 2021 income provisions, the child poverty rate doubled and returned to being higher than in most other high-income countries. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:873 |
| By: | Van Isacker, Travis; Tyerman, Thom |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the (post)colonial politics of UK bordering through the lens of monstrosity. Historicising contemporary bordering within colonial-era monsterisations of racialised people and their mobility, we identify four mechanisms through which migrants are constructed and policed as monsters today: animalisation, zombification, criminalisation and barbarisation. We then examine how the state embodies monstrosity itself through border policies of deterrence and creating ‘hostile environments’. In addition to the instrumentalization of horror, this entails extending the border’s reach domestically throughout everyday life and internationally through deportation and externalisation measures. We argue these developments embody a new form of state power, depicted as a headless tentacled Leviathan. Doing so provides insights into monstrosity as a form of liberal statecraft, the local/global diffusion of bordering, the transnationalisation of sovereign power, and the racialisation of citizenship. It also raises important questions about the construction of border violence as a necessary and legitimate monstrosity in (post)colonial liberal societies, the everyday complicity of citizens, and the limits of efforts to humanise monsterised migrants or reform monstrous state institutions. Revealing how within liberal regimes of citizenship and humanitarianism values ‘there be monsters’, we argue, opens space for thinking about abolitionist alternatives in international politics. |
| Date: | 2024–11–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:n9bfh |
| By: | Christoph Görtz; Christopher Gunn; Thomas A. Lubik |
| Abstract: | We document changes to the pattern of technology shocks and their propagation in post-war U.S. data. Using an agnostic identification procedure, we show that the dominant shock driving total factor productivity (TFP) is akin to a diffusion or news shock and that shock transmission has changed over time. Specifically, the behavior of hours worked is notably different before and after the 1980s. In addition, the importance of technology shocks as a major driver of aggregate fluctuations has increased over time. They play a dominant role in the second subsample, but much less so in the first. We build a rich structural model to explain these new facts. Using impulse-response matching, we find that a change in the stance of monetary policy and the nature of intangible capital accumulation both played dominant roles in accounting for the differences in TFP shock propagation. |
| Keywords: | technology shocks, TFP, business cycles, shock transmission |
| JEL: | E20 E30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11385 |
| By: | Schläger, Dan |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a comprehensive examination of the role played by economic policy uncertainty in shaping the historical trajectory of interwar Germany. The central argument posits that economic policy uncertainty constituted a significant destabilising force during this tumultuous period, a proposition substantiated through a blend of qualitative and quantitative evidence. A qualitative investigation grounded in historical newspaper records unveils hesitancy among both companies and households due to uncertainty about fiscal, monetary, and reparation policies. Companies delayed investments due to high irreversible costs during uncertain times, while households adopted a 'wait and see' approach by postponing consumption decisions. This uncertainty stemmed from a lack of clarity about the country's direction, curtailing the joy of creation and commercial enthusiasm, which led to a slackening of economic impetus. On a quantitative front, constructing a novel newspaper-based uncertainty index in conjunction with vector autoregression analysis, this research establishes a resilient linkage between economic policy uncertainty and a cascade of adverse macroeconomic consequences. Remarkably, up to one-third of the overall macroeconomic volatility can be attributed to the pervasive uncertainty surrounding economic policies between 1925 and 1935. Consequently, this research suggests that a veil of uncertainty hung over the German interwar economy, paralysing sustainable recovery in the aftermath of World War I. |
| JEL: | N14 |
| Date: | 2024–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125837 |
| By: | Al Saqib Majumder, Abdullah |
| Abstract: | Mortality and economic consequences during the 1968 H3N2 Influenza pandemic provide plausible lower bounds for outcomes under the coronavirus (COVID-19). Data for the H3N2 pandemic mortality rate in the United States imply deaths of around 361, 000 when applied to current US population. We evaluate the 1968 H3N2 Influenza pandemic’s economic effects in the United States, using annual economic indicator data for the country from 1961-1990. Using excess mortality rate as a proxy for the severity of the pandemic and Vietnam war mortality rate as a proxy for the effects of war, we find that the pandemic is associated with decline in net exports while Vietnam war is associated with decline in unemployment, private consumption and total factor productivity. Our main findings highlight the different nature of war and pandemic and reveals economic mechanisms of pandemic diffusion. |
| Date: | 2024–11–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:thesis:n2kd9 |
| By: | Djedjiga KACHENOURA,; David CHETBOUN,; Marine LAGARDE,; Laurent MÉLÈRE,; Damien SERRA |
| Abstract: | In 2015, in the run-up to COP16 in Paris, the speech by Mark Carney, then Governor of the Bank of England and mandated by the G20's Financial Stability Board, made history. He warned of the importance of financial climate risks for the stability of financial institutions and the financial system as a whole. The political burden of transition was left to governments, provided it was orderly, while the responsibility for stability fell to regulators and central banks. Finance”, informed by extra-financial disclosure regimes, would drive demand as a provider of capital. These disclosure regimes were to be initiated by private players and supported by regulators. Mr. Carney feared, however, that they would lack coherence, comparability and clarity. Since then, these schemes have proliferated, covering both risks and the alignment of financial flows with the Paris Agreement. Nevertheless, this “theory of change” and the division of responsibilities between players remain unclear and ambiguous. Financial regulators need to work together to make these different regimes interoperable and clarify their objectives. What's more, compliance costs and the disconnection of certain frameworks from national realities are holding back the mobilization of funding, and may lead to the exclusion of the most vulnerable entities, a subject that has received little attention. |
| JEL: | Q |
| Date: | 2024–11–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:avg:wpaper:en17553 |
| By: | Vasiliki Fouka; Theo Serlin |
| Abstract: | How does economic modernization affect group identity? Modernization theory emphasizes how labor migration led to the adoption of common identities. Yet economic development may reduce incentives to emigrate, preserving local cultures. We study England and Wales during the Second Industrial Revolution, a period characterized by the development of new industries and declines in transportation and communication costs. Using microdata on individuals’ names and migration decisions, we quantify identity change and its variation across space. We develop and estimate a quantitative spatial model in which migration and cultural identities are inter-dependent. Different components of economic modernization had different effects on identity change. Falling migration costs homogenized peripheral regions. In contrast, industrial development led to heterogeneity, increasing the overall prevalence of the culture of London, while also creating local identity holdouts by reducing out-migration from industrializing peripheries. Modernization promotes both national identities and persistent local identities in peripheral regions that industrialize. |
| JEL: | J6 N0 N33 N63 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33114 |
| By: | Xu, Tao |
| Abstract: | This research constructs the duality-oriented political settlements framework through structuration theory. With immense conflicts and inequality of global development, the underlying power distribution and institutional evolution in the South, however, are not fully elucidated due to the dualism-driven disagreements. With the duality of structure, our research investigates the dialectical structure-agency relationship in socio-political interaction, mediating dualism into the power structuration process, followed by a case examination of the Peiyang Republic of China 1912–1928. The results illustrate that the duality-oriented framework settles the limitations on account of static power structure and convoluted agency. The findings reveal the evolving nature of political settlements, whereby institutions are used and reconstituted by the praxes of agents. Analysing the interaction between power agents and structures, this research reinterprets political settlements as dynamic reproduction of power systems for broader development and conflict studies. |
| Keywords: | political settlements framework; structuration theory; duality of structure; power distribution; institution |
| JEL: | B5 B52 O1 P5 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–10–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122491 |
| By: | Hinh T. Dinh |
| Abstract: | Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the sixteenth largest bank in the United States, experienced a bank run in early March 2023, and was closed by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) on March 10. This bank failure, followed by others, creates fear of contagion throughout the U.S. and global banking systems. This Brief identifies four factors leading to the SVB crisis: i) Sharp interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, which adversely affected SVB’s income and balance sheet; ii) The failure of SVB’s management to manage maturity mismatches; iii) The failure of the regulatory and supervisory agencies in discovering the problems and fixing them; and iv) The failure of the 2018 revised Dodd-Frank regulations to subject mid-size banks such as SVB to the same rigorous requirements that large banks have to meet, such as stress tests. The Brief also discusses lessons from the crisis. |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pb_15-23 |
| By: | Russo Gaino, Vitória |
| Abstract: | This paper adds to the literature on origins of institutions through a comparative study of landownership in colonial Mexico and Brazil and argues that pre-colonial indigenous land practices were key in shaping colonial outcomes. While both Portugal and Spain drew on their institutional traditions and historical experience with land grants to introduce the sesmarias and merced systems in the New World, different outcomes emerged. In New Spain, the haciendas produced cash crops and livestock using indigenous labour in large agricultural enterprises. In Brazil, the engenhos, similarly large private landholdings dedicated to sugar production for large-scale export, employed African slave labour almost exclusively. This variation can in part be traced back to the impact of land institutions – while the Aztecs in New Spain were familiar with private landholdings for nobility, the Tupi’s nomadic nature meant that private land was virtually inexistent before colonisation. Hence, the Spanish colonists were able to adapt and build on existing Aztec practices, such as granting land to nobility and using the encomienda labour draft to work these private lands. However, when the Portuguese introduced the sesmaria in coastal Brazil and attempted to get indigenous labour to work the fields, the Tupi rebelled, fought, and fled, and colonists turned to African slave labour instead. |
| JEL: | Q15 F54 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125844 |
| By: | Finstein, Blaine; Ash, Konstantin; Carnahan, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Carter (2024) examines the historical conditions that shape protection versus assimilation for indigenous communities, arguing that state-led conscription programs are one such factor. In a natural experiment leveraging conscription for a 1920s Peruvian highway designed to replicate a pre-colonial road system (Qhapaq Ñan), Carter finds through a geographic regression discontinuity design that eligibility for state conscription increased the likelihood of a municipality having an indigenous movement by about 30 percentage points (approximately .75 standard deviations) and scores on an omnibus accommodation measure by about .3 items (approximately .4 standard deviations). The omnibus measure includes the number of institutions that an indigenous community reports preserving (increased by .3 items on a 7 point scale, or .25 standard deviations), likelihood of having a communal land title (increased by 12 percentage points, or .3 standard deviations), and likelihood of registration with the government (increased by 9 percentage points, or .3 standard deviations). All point estimates are significant at the .1% level. We successfully computationally reproduce all main claims of the paper but find inconsistencies between the map of the road presented by Carter and that used by Franco et al. (2021) that affect its passage through a small number of municipalities. In order to investigate whether these municipalities drive the main findings without the ability to identify municipalities in the data, we drop municipalities iteratively and re-run the analysis, finding only minor changes in coefficient estimates across subsets. In addition, we explore a number of sensitivity analyses for the regression discontinuity design that vary the functional form, vary the bandwidth window, and use the Rosenbaum method for window selection. While the results remain consistent under all analyses, we recommend for further research to recode treated municipalities on the basis of the alternative road map and explore the as-if random assumption in light of evidence linking proximity to the precolonial road to various economic and political outcomes. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:176 |