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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Johan Fourie (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University); Helena Liebenberg (Tracing History Trust); Jonathan Schoots (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University and Department of Economic History, Lund University); Paul van der Linde (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University and Department of Department of History, Radboud University, Nijmegen) |
| Abstract: | By the early nineteenth century, the Cape had evolved from a small VOC outpost into a sprawling colony of over 100, 000 square miles, integrated into global trade and migration networks. Its population included colonial officials, European settlers, enslaved people and indigenous groups, but everyday life in this society remains underexplored in the economic history literature. This article draws on a newly digitised source, the auction records (vendurolle) of the Cape Orphan Chamber from 1701 to 1825, to analyse patterns of kinship and material culture. As records of estate sales, these data reveal who bought what, and at what price, offering rare insight into household possessions and social networks. The article shows how these auctions can deepen our understanding of the economic and social fabric of life at the Cape. |
| Keywords: | Auctions, Cape Colony, transcription, material culture, family networks |
| JEL: | N37 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers387 |
| By: | Jacob Greenspon; Gordon H. Hanson |
| Abstract: | How does improving access to the supply of energy affect regional specialization in manufacturing? We evaluate the long-run employment impacts of pipelines constructed by the U.S. government during World War II to transport oil and gas from the oil fields of the Southwest to wartime industrial producers in the Northeast. The pipelines were built rapidly to connect end points along a direct path that minimized use of scarce construction materials. Postwar they were converted to supply en route customers, giving counties close to the pipelines access to a cheap and plentiful source of energy. Between 1940 and 1950, counties with better access to pipeline gas had larger increases in their share of employment in energy-intensive industries. These impacts persisted to the mid-1980s for all energy-intensive industries and to the late 1990s for the subset of industries intensive in the direct use of electricity, despite the disruptive effects of the 1970s energy crisis. Our findings are relevant for understanding energy-related path dependence in local economic development patterns and how government intervention in energy markets affects industry location in the short and long run. |
| JEL: | F15 J23 N7 R12 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33721 |
| By: | Sissoko, Carolyn; Ishizu, Mina |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the understanding of the complex relationship between British economic performance during the Napoleonic wars and the ‘West Indies’, as the Caribbean slave colonies were called. Not only did profits from slave‐based commerce provide financing for the growth of the financial sector, as has been claimed, but the risk of financial instability created by the financial sector's investment in and exposure to the Caribbean slave economies made it necessary for the government – and the Bank of England – to support this trade. The Bank of England archival records demonstrate that the Bank developed lending facilities specifically for the purpose of supporting West India merchants through the financial crises of the 1790s and the first decades of the nineteenth century. Not only did the Bank engage in unconventional lending, explicitly providing loans of more than a year, but the Bank also made innovative crisis loans, both accepting goods as collateral and providing large loans that were protected by extensive third‐party guarantees. Furthermore, the 1799 loan is a documented instance of the Bank accepting consols as collateral for crisis lending. These innovations made it possible for the Bank to act alongside the government in supporting the West India merchants through the Napoleonic wars and may have been influenced by the growing number of directors of the Bank who were themselves West India merchants. |
| Keywords: | slave trade; Bank of England; banking crises; West India merchants; creative lending techniques |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2025–03–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126278 |
| By: | Bourveau, Thomas; Breuer, Matthias; Koenraadt, Jeroen; Stoumbos, Robert |
| Abstract: | We describe the development of public company auditing in the U.S. in the early 20th century to gain perspective on current developments in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assurance. Using a broad sample of historical annual reports spanning four decades, we document three facts: first, the spread of public company auditing occurred steadily over the span of several decades. Second, audit services were initially heterogeneous but became standardized through the audit profession’s efforts and interactions with private and public actors. Third, the role of regulation in those early developments was seemingly limited to codifying existing practices, as the first federal audit regulation was introduced only late in the development of the profession and did not significantly impact capital markets. Our historical evidence helps us understand how we arrived at today’s widely accepted and highly regulated financial audits. It uncovers parallels to and offers lessons for current developments in ESG assurance. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: G18; G34; M42. |
| Keywords: | public companies; auditing; regulation; securities exchange act |
| JEL: | G18 G34 M42 |
| Date: | 2025–02–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126913 |
| By: | Lazarus, Suleman; Soares, Adebayo Benedict |
| Abstract: | The article pioneers the examination of “hustle kingdoms”: illegal cybercrime training academies in West Africa. It explores these entities as innovative and adaptive institutions that emerge in response to systemic socio-economic strain. This article provides a unique analysis of hustle kingdoms by situating their emergence within the region’s socio-economic, cultural and technological trajectories. It does so by assessing the contemporary manifestation of these cybercrime academies with history in mind to understand the past that created them. It highlights how these cybercrime training academies have evolved from earlier forms, thereby showcasing a unique form of deviant innovation. It contributes to existing literature by addressing the critical gap in the scholarly discourse surrounding these entities and their historical evolution. Drawing on Merton’s strain theory, this historical scholarly endeavour examines how systemic barriers to education and employment have fostered deviant innovation, transforming hustle kingdoms from early fraud enterprises into sophisticated, global cybercrime networks. The analysis highlights the structural disparities that sustain their operations by juxtaposing these academies with conventional educational frameworks. The findings offer novel insights into the intersection of inequality, cultural narratives and technological adaptation, positioning hustle kingdoms as both products and catalysts of systemic strain. |
| Keywords: | hustle kingdoms; hustle academies; strain theory; historical trajectories; deviant innovation |
| JEL: | J1 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–01–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127137 |
| By: | Takagi, Shinji |
| Abstract: | The paper uses the panel data methodology to reassess the scholarly consensus in the economic history literature ("silver-standard myth") that attributes Japan's export boom of the late nineteenth century to the country's fortuitous adoption of the silver standard. The paper, based on the annual panel data of Japanese trade flows with five gold- and five silver-standard countries for 1885-97, finds that the growth of exports was consistently higher for silver- than for gold-standard destinations (though the difference was statistically not significant), refuting the near-consensus view that the falling relative price of silver stimulated exports to gold-standard countries. This finding should be both logical and intuitive. First, given the higher rate of inflation in Japan, the yen's real exchange rate did not depreciate during the silver-standard era. Second, Japan, as a small open economy, was a price-taker in world markets. The expansion of Japanese exports can best be understood as resulting from Japan's increased capacity to produce goods, a surplus of which the country was able to sell at given world prices. |
| Keywords: | silver standard, Japan and the silver standard, early industrialization in Japan, impact of the silver standard on Japanese trade |
| JEL: | F33 E42 N15 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:02000146 |
| By: | Guillaume Blanc; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | For most of human history, until the fertility transition, technological progress translated into larger populations, preventing sustained improvements in living standards. We argue that migration offered an escape valve from these Malthusian dynamics after the European discovery and colonization of the Americas. We document a strong relationship between fertility and migration across countries, regions, individuals, and periods, in a variety of datasets and specifications, and with different identification strategies. During the Age of Mass Migration, persistently high fertility across much of Europe created a large reservoir of surplus labor that could find better opportunities in the New World. These migrations, by relieving demographic pressures, accelerated the transition to modern growth. |
| JEL: | F22 J13 N33 O11 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33542 |
| By: | Take, Gunnar |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to revive the historical research on the GDR's savings banks. It argues that socialist banks were interesting intermediary organizations which have so far been largely overlooked by financial, economic, and social historians. Hence, sources produced by the socialist banking apparatus have not received enough attention in comparison to their potential. The main part comprises six chapters which give extensive suggestions about topics worthy of future research regarding 1) personnel and organization of savings banks, 2) their role as part of the dictatorial regime, 3) saving and hoarding, 4) lending, 5) international contacts and comparisons, and 6) deviant behavior and self-portrayals. These ideas include the contributions of savings banks towards socialist state building and crisis management, the temporary existence of anonymous accounts in an apparent contradiction to Socialist propaganda, the use of lending as an instrument to influence consumption patterns and many more. In each case, an outline of the relevant state of research is given and archive collections or published sources are recommended. Part III contains a survey of German archives from the federal to the local level which contain relevant source material, particularly the historical archives of the East German savings banks and of their association. |
| Keywords: | Bank History, History of Financial Institutions, Socialism, Savings Banks, GDR, Archives, Sources |
| JEL: | E21 G21 N24 P21 P34 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ibfpps:316697 |
| By: | Attila Ulrich (University of Nyíregyháza) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the wine revenues of the Rákóczi family and the exchange rates of wines stored in their cellars destined for foreign markets, based on surviving sources from the period between 1660 and 1709. The Rákóczi family, of Transylvanian princely descent, was among the largest landowners in the Kingdom of Hungary. Their private estates, spanning approximately two million acres, were most profitable in the Tokaj wine-growing region. Revenue generated from wine trade and sales played a crucial role in sustaining an opulent court, maintaining a private military force, and supporting cultural and educational endeavors. The profit derived from a single barrel of wine, depending on its quality, could range from three to ten times the initial investment cost. |
| Keywords: | Viticulture, wine trade, wine prices |
| JEL: | N13 Q13 N73 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0278 |
| By: | Abarca, Alejandro; Ramirez Varas, Surayabi |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates Costa Rica's peace dividend following the end of the civil war and the army's abolition in 1949 with synthetic control. We find that the country's average per capita GDP growth increased from 1.46% to 2.28% between 1950-2010, relative to a counterfactual Costa Rica that did not take this path. Three main mechanisms are offered to explain these results: After the end of the civil war and the proscription of the military, the country decided to invest substantially in infrastructure, education, and health, which drove economic development. Second, the new constitution reduced power concentration by the executive branch and increased its accountability. Third, the military's proscription guaranteed the survival and the long-run success of these political and socio-economic reforms. |
| Keywords: | civil war; economic growth; peace; economic development; Latin America; democratization |
| JEL: | D74 O54 |
| Date: | 2025–02–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126870 |
| By: | Widmer, Elisabeth Theresia |
| Abstract: | Unlike Johann Benjamin Erhard’s views on art, right, revolution, and structural misrecognition, his discussion of economic injustice, here understood as the lawful economic oppression of one’s end-setting human nature, has garnered little attention. To begin filling this gap, I focus on central passages from his 1795 book On the Right of the People to a Revolution wherein Erhard discusses two cases of economic injustice. By reconstructing these claims within his Kantian perfectionist framework, I pursue two goals. First, I seek to demonstrate that his fundamental ‘duty to oneself’ lays out a comprehensive framework for duties grounding moral obligations to remedy economic practices. My second aim is to utilize this framework to explain how he defends a natural law position that views the legal system as both a remedy for and an ideological tool of economic oppression. I argue that this twofold perspective is a strength of Erhard’s theory as it allows for the detection of oppressive economic structures without letting go of a principle of external freedom from where coercive juridical laws can be derived. |
| Keywords: | perfectionism; perfect and imperfect duties; capitalism; Marxism |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–02–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127477 |
| By: | Yuchtman, Noam |
| Abstract: | For centuries universities have been a locus of elite creation. In the Middle Ages, university trained elites were leaders of the Church, served in secular lords’ administrations, and staffed the judiciary. Over time, their scope has expanded to include leadership in governments, corporations, and civil society more broadly. Universities play two roles in the creation of the elite: selection and education. Both of these have historically been the subject of intense contestation, with the outcomes shaping a range of political and economic outcomes. In this piece, I synthesize work on educational institutions’ creation of the elite, discussing both historical and contemporary cases of contestation of this process and their outcomes. I close with a discussion of the implications for our understanding of university-based protest movements. |
| Keywords: | universities; elites; educational content; ideology; protests |
| JEL: | D74 I20 N00 P00 |
| Date: | 2025–03–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127495 |
| By: | Johan Fourie (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University); Tessa Hubble (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University); Jonathan Schoots (LEAP, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University and Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | In early modern societies, auctions were a means not only of allocating goods but of revealing who held power and who aspired to it. This paper investigates the relationship between social hierarchy and price formation at estate auctions held in the Cape Colony between 1700 and 1825. Drawing on a newly digitised dataset comprising nearly 50, 000 transactions from more than 1, 400 auctions administered by the Orphan Chamber, we examine how formal status shaped bidding behaviour. The results show that social groups differed systematically in their willingness to pay for particular categories of goods. Militia officers consistently paid premiums for oxen, while Company officials and high-status free burghers were more likely to pay above-market prices for enslaved men and women. These group-specific preferences suggest that auctions functioned in part as arenas for the display of social status, with different goods serving as signals for different segments of colonial society. We also document a robust first-lot premium: items auctioned early in the order of sale fetched significantly higher prices. However, we find no evidence that elite status was associated with a greater likelihood of bidding early. These findings contribute to wider debates on the role of market institutions in reproducing social hierarchies. |
| Keywords: | status, auctions, bidding process, material culture, social networks, colonial consumption, slavery |
| JEL: | N37 D44 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers388 |
| By: | Matthias Doepke; Hanno Foerster; Anne Hannusch; Michèle Tertilt |
| Abstract: | During the first half of the twentieth century, many US states enacted laws restricting women's labor market opportunities, including maximum hours restrictions, minimum wage laws, and night-shift bans. The era of so-called protective labor laws came to an end in the 1960s as a result of civil rights reforms. In this paper, we investigate the political economy behind the rise and fall of these laws. We argue that the main driver behind protective labor laws was men's desire to shield themselves from labor market competition. We spell out the mechanism through a politico-economic model in which singles and couples work in different sectors and vote on protective legislation. Restrictions are supported by single men and couples with male sole earners who compete with women for jobs. We show that the theory's predictions for when protective legislation will be introduced are well supported by US state-level evidence. |
| JEL: | D13 D72 D78 E24 J12 J16 N30 O10 O43 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33720 |
| By: | Heblich, Stephan; Redding, Stephen J.; Zylberberg, Yanos |
| Abstract: | We examine the distributional consequences of trade using the New World Grain Invasion that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. We use a newly-created dataset on population, employment by sector, property values, and poor law transfers for over 10, 000 parishes in England and Wales from 1801-1901. In response to this trade shock, we show that locations with high wheat suitability experience population decline, rural-urban migration, structural transformation away from agriculture, increases in welfare transfers, and declines in property values, relative to locations with low wheat suitability. We develop a quantitative spatial model to evaluate the income distributional consequences of this trade shock. Undertaking counterfactuals for the Grain Invasion, we show that geography is an important dimension along which these income distributional consequences occur. |
| Keywords: | international trade; income distribution; geography |
| JEL: | F14 F16 |
| Date: | 2024–09–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126842 |
| By: | Matthan, Tanya |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127564 |
| By: | Sebastian Edwards |
| Abstract: | In this essay, I analyze the nationalization of large copper mines during Salvador Allende’s socialist government in Chile in the 1970s. This is one of the earliest cases “nationalization without compensation.” Chile’s legal argument was based on the novel idea that “adequate” payment should be calculated as book value minus “excessive profits.” In turn, excessive profits were defined, for every year, as profits above 12% of book value. I analyze the economic arguments that led to nationalization, and I deconstruct and critically evaluate the methodology used to calculate “excessive profits” and “adequate compensation.” I analyze the US and multinationals’ response to Chile’s nationalization policies. |
| JEL: | K41 N51 O13 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33572 |
| By: | Hatta, Tatsuo; Ikeda, Shinsuke; Hoshina, Hiroki |
| Abstract: | Japan's rapid growth in the 1960s was accompanied by a massive migration from rural to urban areas. However, immediately after 1970, migration declined sharply, and at the same time, the rate of economic growth plummeted.To explain this decline in urban-bound migration, we estimated the urban-bound migration function.The estimation reveals that in the 1970s, the largest factor contributing to the decline in this migration was the relative increase in per capita income in rural areas. The second most important factor was narrowing regional disparities in the job-to- application ratio. In addition, the relative increase in the stock of social capital in the local regions also contributed. However, the population change in the rural areas had negligible effects on urban-bound migration in the 1970s.This paper also demonstrates that the relative increase in per capita income in rural areas is largely due to policy- based regional redistribution, implying that the large-scale redistribution of the fruits of rapid economic growth to rural areas halted urban-bound migration and reduced the growth rate. This suggests that for developing countries experiencing high growth, curbing the political pressure to redistribute to rural areas may be important to sustain the growth. |
| Keywords: | Geographic Labor Mobility, regional migration, growth rate, income redistribution to rural areas |
| JEL: | R11 J61 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:02000145 |
| By: | Hunt, Jennifer; Moehling, Carolyn |
| Abstract: | We create a dataset of 14, 000 hand-coded help-wanted advertisements placed by employment agencies in three U.S. newspapers in 1950 and 1960, a time when help-wanted advertisements were divided into male and female sections and collect information on agency ownership. We find that female-owned agencies specialized in vacancies for women, thereby expanding the access of female jobseekers to agency services, including for positions in majority-male occupations. Female-owned agencies advertised more skilled occupations to women than did male-owned agencies, leading to a 5.5% higher wage for women. On the other hand, female-owned agencies had a greater propensity to match male jobseekers to clerical jobs, contributing to 21% lower male wages than for male-owned agencies. The results are consistent with female proprietors having had a comparative advantage in female jobseekers and clerical occupations or with client firms having trusted female proprietors only with vacancies for women and homogeneous, lower-skill occupations. However, in choosing to establish an agency and to specialize in female jobseekers, female proprietors may have sought to mitigate employer discrimination against female jobseekers; their higher propensity to advertise majority-male occupations among professional, technical and managerial advertisements for women may also reflect discrimination mitigation. |
| Keywords: | employment; discrimination; employment agencies |
| JEL: | N2 J63 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126844 |
| By: | Witteveen, Dirk; Hossain, Mobarak |
| Abstract: | This article examines the association between modernization and career growth of American men and European immigrants, focusing on heterogeneity along ancestry, ethnicity, and early-career class position. Analyses rely on datasets built with individual-level linked historical Censuses (1901–1940), which longitudinally map socio-economic indices of full occupational careers of late-nineteenth-century population birth cohorts (1884–1891). Modernization is measured by time-variant and metropolitan area-specific indicators of key industries, employment chances, domestic migration, and urbanicity. Contradicting modernization theory and the logic of industrialism, results demonstrate that macroeconomic opportunity structures do not explain differences in career growth curves of first- and second-generation immigrants in comparison to White men with US-born parents. Instead, we argue that structural ethnic cleavages, in combination with early-career class allocation, account for most of the observed immigrant variation in intragenerational mobility. We also find that the career growth curves of second-generation immigrants from Ireland, the Nordic countries, and Russia, in particular, far exceed those of multi-generational American men, but only if they started their careers in the working-class rather than the agricultural sector. |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–03–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127628 |
| By: | Cooper, Luke |
| Abstract: | This article returns to Stuart Hall’s account of Thatcherism to consider the interaction between consent-based hegemonic devices and the structural compulsions that emanate from political-economic transitions. It argues that Hall’s method of articulation offers a middle position in analysing contemporary authoritarian trends, which recognises the role of structural constraints and logics, as well as the discursive construction of ideology in enabling (and inhibiting) hegemony seeking efforts. Building on existing work that has highlighted the distinction between classical neoliberal arguments regarding economic individualism and the trend towards ‘protectionist’ discourses today, where the state is cast as a protector of the in-group against threats, real and imagined, the article outlines how the method of articulation can aid us in making sense of the complexity and non-linearity of the post-neoliberal transition. This framework is then applied to the case study of the British Conservative Party’s trajectory after the 2016 Brexit referendum. |
| Keywords: | articulation; authoritarianism; neoliberalism; political-economy; Stuart Hall; REF fund |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–03–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127497 |
| By: | Hutkova, Karolina; Dal Bó, Ernesto; Leucht, Lukas; Yuchtman, Noam |
| Abstract: | The significance of the state’s fiscal system for military capacity, colonization, trade, and economic development is a long-studied topic. Much scholarship has focused on Britain and the emergence of its fiscal-military state. This article shows that fiscal capacity was not created only by government bureaucracies: the ‘company-state at home’ model presented here complements the narrative of the ‘fiscal-military state’ by showing that much fiscal revenue from trade was realized through the action of the English East India Company (EIC). Lacking the capacity to enact exhaustive laws, carry out complex calculations, or effectively manage a large bureaucracy, the English state relied on the administrative capacity of the EIC to collect customs on the East Indies trade. The institutional solution of allowing the EIC to collect revenues overcame the administrative challenge of customs revenue collection. This solution was made possible by the EIC’s administrative capacities and sustained by alignment between Company and state interests. The role of the EIC in British state development suggests a symbiotic lens through which to study the relationship between the state and corporations, which can be applied across time, space, and state objectives. |
| JEL: | H30 |
| Date: | 2025–04–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127419 |
| By: | Robert Allen |
| Abstract: | The paper uses basic theories of Marx on social structure and Malthus on demography to explain many features of Arabia in terms of the arid environment. The focus is on traditional Arabia, but it is argued that the same consideration continue to apply to modern Arabia. Beginning with the desert, it is argued that the only viable economic activity in ‘traditional’ Arabia was herding, and the only feasible system of property was communal ownership. Malthusian demography implies that the population expanded until the average product of labour equaled subsistence. Since labour was at subsistence and land had no value, neither could provide a tax base for a state. Hence, the social system was tribal–tribes had no budgets. There were two exceptions: International trade could be taxed, as in Yemen. Oasis land could also be taxed. Water meant that the average product of labour exceeded the marginal, which equaled subsistence. The difference was a taxable surplus. Some Bedouin tribes claimed ownership of oases and the implications are analyzed. The Saudi states that emerged beginning in the eighteenth century were Bedouin sheikhdoms writ large. Their finance came from oases like al-Hasa and al-Qatif near the Gulf Coast. With Shiite populations, Wahabism proved a useful ideology to justify their plundering by Sunni tribes from the interior. The finances of the Gulf Sheikhdoms are also analyzed as are the finances and investment strategies of the rulers of Oman as well as the role of slavery. Oman is a good example of a hydraulic civilization. Oil replaces water in modern Arabia, and guest workers replace slaves, but the system continues much as before since it continues to meet many needs. Wahabism continues its useful ideological role since the oil fields happen to be adjacent to the al-Hasa oasis. |
| Date: | 2025–05–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_220 |
| By: | Ellis Scharfenaker; Bruno Theodosio; Duncan K. Foley |
| Abstract: | Adam Smith's inquiry into the emergence and stability of the self-organization of the division of labor in commodity exchange is considered using statistical equilibrium methods from statistical physics. We develop a statistical equilibrium model of the distribution of independent direct producers in a hub-and-spoke framework that predicts both the center of gravity of producers across lines of production as well as the endogenous fluctuations between lines of production that arise from Smith's concept of "perfect liberty". The ergodic distribution of producers implies a long-run balancing of "advantages to disadvantages" across lines of employment and gravitation of market prices around Smith's natural prices. |
| Keywords: | Competition, Hub-and-spoke, Value theory, Classical Political Economy, Statistical equilibrium JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2024-04 |
| By: | Alvaredo, Facundo; Bourguignon, François; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Lustig, Nora |
| Abstract: | Drawing on a comprehensive compilation of quantile shares and inequality measures for 34 countries, including over 5600 estimated Gini coefficients, we review the measurement of income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean over the last seven decades. We find that there is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding inequality levels for the same country/year combinations. Differences in inequality levels estimated from household surveys alone are present, but they derive from differences in the construction of the welfare indicator, the unit of analysis or the treatment of the data. With harmonized household surveys, the discrepancies are quite small. The range, however, expands significantly when—to correct for undercoverage and underreporting, especially at the top of the distribution—inequality estimates come from some combination of surveys and administrative tax data. The range increases even further when survey-based income aggregates are scaled to achieve consistency not only with tax registries but with national accounts. Since no single method to correct for underreporting at the top is fully convincing at present, we are left with (often wide) ranges, or bands, of inequality as our best summaries of inequality levels. Reassuringly, however, the dynamic patterns are generally robust across the bands. Although the evidence roughly until the 1970s is too fragmentary and difficult to compare, clearer patterns emerge for the last 50 years. The main feature is a broad inverted U curve, with inequality rising in most countries prior to and often during the 1990s, and falling during the early 21st century, at least until around 2015, when trends appear to diverge across countries. This pattern is broadly robust but features considerable variation in timing and magnitude depending on the country. |
| Keywords: | income inequality; measurement; Latin America and the Carribean |
| JEL: | D31 D63 O54 |
| Date: | 2025–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124532 |
| By: | Brunori, Paolo; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Neidhöfer, Guido |
| Abstract: | How strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing results for both income and educational outcomes. We find that, whereas the income mobility literature is hampered by a paucity of representative datasets containing linked information on parents and children, the inequality of opportunity approach – which relies on other inherited and pre-determined circumstance variables – has suffered from arbitrariness in model selection. Two new data-driven approaches – one aligned with the ex-ante and the other with the ex-post conception of inequality of opportunity – are introduced to address this shortcoming. They yield a set of new inequality of opportunity estimates for 27 surveys covering 9 Latin American countries over various years between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, more than half of the current generation’s inequality is inherited from the past – with a range between 44 and 63%. We argue that on balance, given the parsimony of the population partitions, these are still likely to be underestimates. |
| Keywords: | inequality of opportunity; intergenerational mobility; Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I39 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124533 |
| By: | Horioka, Charles Yuji |
| Abstract: | The primary objective of this paper is to explore the determinants of the level of, and trends over time in, Japan's household saving rate, with emphasis on the impact of the age structure of the population, and to make projections about future trends therein. The paper finds that Japan's household saving rate has not always been high either absolutely or relative to other countries, contrary to popular belief, and that, if we confine ourselves to the postwar period, it was only during the 25-year period from 1961 to 1986 that it exceeded 15%. Past and future trends in Japan's household saving rate can largely be explained by changes in the age structure of her population, but declines in the saving rate of retired elderly households is a more important explanation for the recent decline in the household saving rate. However, it is likely that other factors such as the unavailability of consumer credit, the unavailability of social safety nets, high rates of economic (income) growth, tax breaks for saving, saving promotion policies, and high and rising land and housing prices are also partial explanations for why Japan's aggregate household saving rate was so high during the 1961-86 period and why it declined so much subsequently. As for future trends in Japan's aggregate household saving rate, it is likely to fall even further though not necessarily at a rapid rate. |
| Keywords: | age structure of the population, household consumption, household saving, Japanese economy, life-cycle hypothesis, population ageing, public pensions, saving promotion, social safety nets, wealth accumulation |
| JEL: | D10 D11 D12 D14 D15 D64 E21 H55 J14 J26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:02000144 |
| By: | Jean Cartelier (EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This essay takes seriously the commonplace idea that money is the language of economics. A critical examination of what the scholarly political economy of money can shed light on this notion. The nominal nature of money has not been taken into account by theories of value that presuppose only goods—real analysis—nor its corollary, namely that wealth in our societies is a nominal magnitude. An ancient tradition, called monetary analysis or nominal analysis, has made money its fundamental postulate. It is exemplified in the modern era by Keynes and deserves to be rehabilitated. The fact that money is nominal and that payments record nominal quantities in accounting suggests the hypothesis that it is part of human language. This is what is demonstrated in this essay, with the immediate and important consequence that rehabilitated nominal analysis finds itself quite naturally inserted into the social sciences. Multidisciplinarity finds a transdisciplinary theoretical foundation in the thesis that money is one of the many manifestations of the unique capacity of the human species. Certain consequences are drawn from this new paradigm concerning both the "imaginary institution of society" and the way in which we can conceive of the relationships our societies maintain with their environment. |
| Abstract: | Il s'agit de prendre au sérieux l'idée banale selon laquelle la monnaie est le langage de l'économie. L'examen critique de ce que l'économie politique savante de la monnaie permet d'en éclairer la notion. Le caractère nominal de la monnaie n'a pas été pris en compte par les théories de la valeur qui présupposent seulement des biens – l'analyse réelle – ni son corollaire, à savoir que la richesse est dans nos sociétés une grandeur nominale. Une tradition ancienne, appelée analyse monétaire ou analyse nominale, a fait de la monnaie son postulat fondamental. Elle est illustrée à l'époque moderne par Keynes et mérite d'être réhabilitée. Que la monnaie soit nominale et que les paiements inscrivent des grandeurs nominales dans les comptabilités suggère l'hypothèse qu'elle relève du langage humain. C'est ce qui est montré dans cet essai avec la conséquence immédiate et importante que l'analyse nominale réhabilitée se trouve tout naturellement insérée dans les sciences sociales. La pluridisciplinarité trouve dans la thèse de la monnaie comme étant l'une des nombreuses manifestations de la capacité particulière de l'espèce humaine un fondement théorique transdisciplinaire. Certaines conséquences sont tirées de ce nouveau paradigme concernant tant « l'institution imaginaire de la société » que la façon dont on peut concevoir les relations que nos sociétés entretiennent avec leur environnement. |
| Date: | 2025–04–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-05024728 |
| By: | Takagi, Shinji |
| Abstract: | The paper explores Japanese monetary policy under the classical gold standard (1897-1914), while providing a succinct exposition of the distinguishing features of the Japanese gold standard regime. The paper, explaining how the Bank of Japan conducted monetary policy, finds that, as a general practice, (i) it used fiduciary issues to offset movements in monetary gold so as to stabilize the supply of currency; (ii) it moved the discount rate in the same direction as the government moved the extra issue tax rate; and (iii) it raised the discount rate in response to an increase in gold outflows. The rules-of-the-game-like behavior of discount rate policy, motivated by the central bank's mandate to preserve gold convertibility, was robust and consistent, challenging the semi-consensual view that violations of the rules were frequent and pervasive under the classical gold standard. |
| Keywords: | classical gold standard, rules of the game, Japanese monetary policy, Japan under the classical gold standard, Bank of Japan discount rate policy |
| JEL: | F33 F55 E42 E58 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:02000096 |
| By: | Jonathan D. Rose |
| Keywords: | Federal Reserve; discount window; lender of last resort |
| JEL: | G21 N12 |
| Date: | 2025–05–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:99925 |
| By: | Klingler-Vidra, Robyn; Chalmers, Adam William; Wade, Robert H. |
| Abstract: | Research on the Northeast Asian economic miracle has focused on structural explanations, using institutional, geopolitical, and cultural variables. Much less focus has been on the role of the individuals (or “actors” or “agents”) responsible for leading the developmental states. This article contributes by using homophily theory to add a novel explanation for the origins of the success of the East Asian developmental states. Homophily refers to the tendency for people who recognize distinct common attributes to bond, to “stick together”. To study homophily, the article analyzes a dataset consisting of the 1, 110 individuals who held one of the two most senior positions in the innovation policymaking organizations of the archetypal developmental states (Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and the region's large, late developer (China), from 1945 to 2021. The article reveals national homophily around educational and occupational dimensions, especially the location of education and professional trajectories. Japan emerges as an outlier with the strongest homophily pattern; with its policy leaders being 6 times more likely than in the other cases to have the same educational and professional background, in terms of degree subject and university, and organizational path. This is surprising given that Japan is the quintessential developmental state; and raises questions about why the other developmental states, which in many respects emulated the Japanese model, did not replicate this aspect. Overall, the evidence suggests nationally distinct patterns of similar elite recruitment to the top of the developmental state resulted in positive developmental outcomes. These patterns were aligned with structural factors in a way that allowed these individuals to formulate and carry through successful policies. |
| Keywords: | developmental state; education; innovation; leaders; transnational experience |
| JEL: | J1 N0 |
| Date: | 2025–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127607 |
| By: | Yuya AIKAWA; Nobuaki HAMAGUCHI; Tomoko HASHINO; Keijiro OTSUKA |
| Abstract: | While agglomeration economies contribute to the performance of clustered firms, their changing roles are rarely analyzed. This study explores how technology choices and changing nature of agglomeration economies affected firm performance in the Japanese sake (rice wine) brewing industry from 1980 to 2020. Using plant-level data, we find that agglomeration benefits arose from the sale of sake from small unknown firms to large established firms when production was labor-intensive, but its role diminished as scale economies emerged with mechanization. As demand for high-quality sake increased, collective internalization of information spillover benefits appears to become a major source of agglomeration economies. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25041 |
| By: | Luis-Felipe Arizmendi |
| Abstract: | The Inca Empire developed a sophisticated food production system, social organisation, and knowledge transmission without money or writing. The article introduces the concept of a barter economy structured through hierarchical cooperation and examines the Inca model from a practice-based (heuristical) perspective. |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.15726 |
| By: | Takagi, Shinji |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses the little-known exchange rate system of Japanese- occupied North China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, whereby exporters were given the right to import in the form of a piece of yellow paper, which could be sold in the secondary market. In an environment of rapid inflation where North China's yuan was pegged to the Japanese yen and devaluation was not politically feasible, the system incentivized exports by allowing the exporters to offset their losses with the profits from selling goods imported, or the right to import goods, at the overvalued exchange rate. Following the start of the Pacific War, the system evolved to become a major scheme of facilitating trade between North and Central China under Japanese occupation. The paper, utilizing archived classified documents, reconstructs analytically how the system operated. Further, our analysis based on monthly average data confirms that the secondary market pricing of yellow paper broadly mimicked the operation of a flexible exchange rate. The system died a natural death when exploding inflation in Central China eliminated the export disincentive in North China. |
| Keywords: | linked trade, Japanese-occupied China, yen bloc, special yen, Second Sino Japanese War |
| JEL: | F31 F33 E42 N25 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:02000206 |
| By: | Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen; Landais, Camille; Leite Mariante, Gabriel |
| Abstract: | This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on microdata from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop—incomes rise and the labour market transitions from subsistence agriculture to salaried work in industry and services—child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. The relationship between child penalties and development is validated using historical data from current high-income countries, back to the 1700s for some countries. Finally, because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on the level of development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero. |
| Keywords: | child penalty; motherhood; gender inequality; labour market outcomes |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–02–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123685 |
| By: | Nadine Vivier (Académie d'Agriculture de France) |
| Abstract: | Aujourd'hui la notion de communs a pris son essor et touche aussi bien des terres, des forêts, que l'ensemble des ressources naturelles (air, eau) et des productions intellectuelles. Ainsi les communs seraient les ressources en accès partagé, gérées collectivement par une communauté d'usagers dans le but de les préserver. Cette notion apparaît comme nouvelle, née en réponse aux problèmes de l'environnement. Elle est nouvelle dans la mesure où, des années 1750 jusqu'aux années 1970 environ, les biens fonciers communs ont été condamnés du fait même de leur gestion collective et du statut de leur propriété. Comment peut-on expliquer une telle évolution ? Nous reprendrons ici, chronologiquement, l'histoire de ces communs, boisés ou non, dénommés communaux, seuls biens auxquels s'appliquait autrefois cette notion. |
| Keywords: | communs, gestion collective, libéralisme |
| Date: | 2025–01–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05016665 |