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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Ariadna Jou; Tommy Morgan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the short- and long-run effects of the Great Depression and the New Deal on well-being, measured by longevity. We construct a novel dataset that tracks a large sample of individuals alive in 1930 until their deaths, linking them to county-level measures of economic crisis severity and New Deal relief transfers. First, we document the dynamic effects of the Great Depression on survival and longevity, showing that individuals—in particular, young men—living in the most severely af- fected locations experienced significantly shorter lifespans. Second, we assess whether the New Deal mitigated these adverse effects. To identify its causal impact, we lever- age variation in politically driven New Deal spending across counties that were equally affected by the Great Depression. We find that the New Deal increased longevity and more than offset the negative effects of the Depression. In its absence, individuals would have lived, on average, 14 months less. The benefits were significantly larger for men than for women, with children and young individuals also experiencing greater gains from New Deal relief. These effects appear to be mediated, at least in part, by improvements in income and educational attainment in the 1940s. |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp562 |
| By: | Francisco J. Medina-Albaladejo (Departament d’Anàlisi Econòmica e IUDESCOOP, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain); José L. Martínez-González (Facultat d’Economia i Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain) |
| Abstract: | The literature has highlighted the importance of various factors in explaining the success or failure of cooperatives based on the study of multiple historical cases. The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants of the performance of Spanish consumer cooperatives using a sample of 14 societies between 1898 and 1935. The results show that their successful performance was driven by a combination of favourable economic contexts and internal factors such as greater experience, management skills, and lower dependence on external financial resources. |
| Keywords: | Consumer Co-operatives, Rochdalian Model, Business Performance, Management Skills, Economic Context, Panel Data Model |
| JEL: | N14 N34 N84 P13 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2501 |
| By: | Gregory Clark (University of Southern Denmark); Martin Hørlyk Kristensen (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we estimate social mobility rates, free of measurement errors, using register data for Denmark and Sweden, 1968 to 2021. To correct for measurement error attenuation, we take ratios of the correlation of relatives at different locations in family trees, such as cousins relative to siblings. Three things emerge from these estimates. First social mobility rates in both Denmark and Sweden are much lower than conventionally estimated. Second these countries, despite their reputation for high social mobility rates, have nearly the same degree of persistence as in modern England, and also nineteenth century England or Sweden. Finally in all the cases observed marital assortment is much stronger than conventionally estimated, and this helps explain the low rates of intergenerational mobility. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, social mobility, assortative mating |
| JEL: | J62 J12 D31 I24 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0275 |
| By: | Raul J. Crespo |
| Abstract: | The study uses an indirect statistical approach to detect whether prices diverted from the market fundamentals in the hyperinflation episodes that took place in Latin American economies during the 1980s and more recently in Venezuela in the 2010s. The statistical methodology is a recursive unit root test that seeks to distinguish between periods where the time series of interest are difference-stationary from periods in which they exhibit explosive behaviour. The right-tailed unit root tests are applied to the time series of inflation rates and money growth rates finding supporting evidence of explosive behaviour in the former and nonexplosive behaviour in the latter in countries such as Argentina, Peru and Venezuela. The statistical approach successfully identifies historical periods of price-level bubbles and collapses over some of the hyperinflationary periods being studied. |
| Date: | 2025–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/785 |
| By: | Amelie Allegre (School of Economics, University of East Anglia); Oana Borcan (School of Economics, University of East Anglia); Christa Brunnschweiler (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | We examine colonial-era primary education as a determinant of modern-day attainment and gender disparities in education. We construct a novel dataset from the French Protectorate in Morocco, combining archival data on colonial school locations in 1931 and 1954 with the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data in arbitrary grids. We analyse the influence of colonial schools on the probability of attaining primary and secondary education in 2004. Overall, schools dedicated to Moroccans in 1931 exhibit a persistent positive impact on education outcomes, but only in the absence of nearby schools reserved for Europeans. Stark gender gaps in access during the Protectorate were narrowed in places with schools for Jewish Moroccans. These had a positive impact on girls’ contemporary levels of education, but a negative impact on the enrolment for boys following the dismantling of Jewish communities after 1948. DHS measures of preferences for female education point to a social norms transmission mechanism between Jewish and Muslim Moroccan communities. |
| Keywords: | education, colonial legacy, female education, Morocco, French Protectorate |
| JEL: | N37 O15 I21 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:ueaeco:2025-02 |
| By: | Julius Koschnick (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | While economic factors in directed technical and scientific change have been widely studied, the role of teacher-directed scientific change has received little attention. This paper studies teacher-directed scientific change for one of the largest changes in the direction of research, the Scientific Revolution. Specifically, the paper considers the case of the English Scientific Revolution at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge during 1600-1720. It argues that exposure to different teachers shaped students' direction of research and can partly account for the successful trajectory of English science. For this, the paper introduces a novel dataset on the universe of 111, 242 students at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and their publications. Using natural language processing, the paper derives a measure of researchers' direction of research. To derive causal estimates of teacher-student effects, the paper uses an instrumental variable design that predicts students’ choice of college based on their home regions, a stacked differences-in-differences approach based on teachers leaving their college, and a natural experiment based on the expulsion of teachers following the English Civil War. The results illustrate how teacher-directed change can contribute to paradigm change. |
| Keywords: | Directed Technical Change, Knowledge Diffusion, Innovation, Human Capital, Natural Language Processing |
| JEL: | N33 I23 O33 O31 O43 O14 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0274 |
| By: | Aïmane Abdelsalam (CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Léo Vigny (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université Sorbonne Paris Nord) |
| Abstract: | The 1980s marked the transition from demand-driven Fordist policies to supply-driven ones, emphasizing budgetary discipline and competitiveness. However, this shift did not signal the end of fiscal interventionism but rather its transformation. In this paper, we introduce a novel indicator that encompasses all government-to-business wealth transfers, including direct expenditures and tax expenditures. This new measure offers a clearer picture of the level of government support for businesses. Findings reveal that French public aid surged over three decades, reaching 8% of GDP by 2019, making it the fastest growing budget item since the 1990s. Fiscal policy has not been abandoned in the post-Fordist era; it is now employed as a supply-side strategy rather than a demand-side one. We also evaluate this fiscal policy, showing that while state aid has a limited impact on employment and investment, it significantly boosts corporate margins after the Great Financial Crisis. |
| Keywords: | fiscal policy, tax expenditures, public aid, sibsidies |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-05000473 |