|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Yeonha Jung; Minki Kim; Munseob Lee |
| Abstract: | This study examines the long-term impact of Hyanggyo, state-sponsored educational institutions established during the early Joseon Dynasty in Korea (1392-1592), on human capital accumulation. Although these schools largely ceased functioning as educational centers by the late 16th century, their influence has endured to the present day. Drawing on a newly constructed township-level dataset, we find a robust positive association between historical exposure to Hyanggyo and modern educational attainment. This relationship appears to be driven by enduring local demand for education, supported by three complementary findings. First, regions with greater historical exposure experienced larger gains in Japanese literacy during colonial era school expansions. Second, residents in these areas express stronger pro-education attitudes today. Third, historically exposed regions exhibited lower fertility rates, consistent with a quantity–quality tradeoff in parental investment. Together, our findings highlight the lasting legacy of early educational institutions. |
| Keywords: | Historical institutions, Human capital, Hyanggyo, Joseon, Cultural transmission |
| JEL: | I23 J24 N35 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_707 |
| By: | Xue, Melanie |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a structured approach for using genealogical records from FamilySearch to study Chinese historical demography. As a proof of concept, we focus on over 190, 000 digitized records from a single surname, drawn from many provinces and spanning multiple centuries. These lineage-based microdata include individual-level birth, death, and kinship information, which we clean, validate, and geocode using consistent rules and standardized place names. We begin by documenting descriptive patterns in population growth, sex ratios, and migration. Migration was overwhelmingly local, with longdistance moves rare and concentrated in a small number of lineages. Outmigration rose to a high point between 1750 and 1850 and then declined in later cohorts and generations. We then use the genealogical data to test specific hypotheses. Male-biased sex ratios—likely influenced by female infanticide—are strongly associated with higher rates of male childlessness. Migration rates fall sharply with patrilineal generational depth, offering micro-level evidence that clans became more sedentary over time. Together, these findings show how genealogical records can be used to reconstruct long-run demographic patterns and to assess social processes such as kinship, mobility, and reproductive exclusion. The approach is replicable and extensible to other surnames and regions as data coverage improves. |
| Keywords: | crowd-surfed genealogies; historical demography; China |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N10 N35 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129939 |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | What happens across generations to random wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much of modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880, that created wealth shocks for the children, to measure the persistence of random wealth shocks. Fertility for married couples in England before 1880 was not controlled but was a biological lottery. And for richer families, family size strongly influenced child wealth. This paper finds that such biology induced wealth shocks had no impact on descendent wealth by three generations later. Since wealth itself persisted strongly across more than five generations this implies that, in the long run, wealth mainly derives from sources other than wealth inheritance itself. The observed link between nineteenth century wealth and modern wealth does not lie in wealth transmission itself. Instead, wealth persisted because of the inheritance within families of behaviours and abilities associated with wealth accumulation and wealth retention. |
| JEL: | D31 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129982 |
| By: | Perju, Genoveva-Elena |
| Abstract: | This study examines the long-term economic consequences of institutional discrimination through an analysis of the formal exclusion of the Romanian majority from Transylvania's feudal institutions between 1366-1437. Using path dependence theory as a theoretical framework, we investigate whether this historical exclusion created persistent trajectories of institutional underdevelopment and economic inequality that continue to influence the region's socioeconomic structure today. Our empirical analysis employs county-level data across Romania, comparing Transylvanian counties to other historical regions using regression models that control for contemporary socioeconomic factors. The results indicate that counties in historical Transylvania exhibit significantly lower GDP per capita (€2, 150 less on average) and higher income inequality (3.5 percentage points higher Gini coefficient) compared to other Romanian regions. These findings provide robust empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that medieval institutional exclusion created path-dependent trajectories that continue to shape economic outcomes seven centuries later. The study contributes to the broader literature on institutional economics, historical determinants of development, and the persistence of inequality, while offering insights into how privilege structures can become embedded in regional economic systems across centuries. |
| Keywords: | · Path dependence · Institutional discrimination · Economic development · Historical persistence · Regional inequality · Transylvania · Feudal institutions · Extractive institutions |
| JEL: | N93 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125924 |
| By: | Danielle Guizzo |
| Abstract: | Heterodox economics, often characterised as a progressive and critical intellectual community, has gained prominence in recent years, particularly in response to economic crises and political shifts. While its intellectual history is well-documented, particularly in the Global North, its role in supporting an alternative economics education through time remains underexplored. Furthermore, the ways in which higher education structures have supported or constrained critical thinking in economics have been largely absent from historical analyses. This article addresses these gaps by exploring the historical development of heterodox economics education in the UK between the 1960s and 1990s, looking at the case of polytechnics as higher education institutions. It adopts a multi-method approach, analysing archival institutional records (course prospectuses, syllabi, regulatory policy documents) alongside interviews with economics educators using inductive thematic analysis, followed by triangulation. The findings reveal that polytechnics, designed to mainly deliver vocational education, played a central role in developing heterodox content, further supported by relative regulatory tolerance. However, structural reforms in the 1980s – driven by funding constraints, the rise of performance metrics, and increasing alignment with university norms – narrowed the space for pluralist approaches and accelerated the marginalisation of heterodox economics in UK higher education. |
| Date: | 2025–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/800 |
| By: | Jenkins, Kush K.; Whitfield, Carlos J.; Johnson, Anthony |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the economic effects of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, an event often celebrated for its moral and social significance, yet underexplored in terms of its fiscal implications. We assess the hypothesis that the Boycott had no measurable impact on the City of Montgomery’s public finances and find compelling evidence to the contrary. Our analysis demonstrates that the Boycott significantly contracted municipal revenue and simultaneously escalated public expenditures, particularly in policing and fire services, driven by the city's "get tough" policy response. Using historical financial records and time-series forecasting (ARIMA), we quantify the growing fiscal strain experienced by the city. Although Montgomery maintained budget surpluses during the Boycott period, projections indicate a rising probability of deficits had the protest continued beyond its resolution. These findings highlight the economic leverage wielded by organized civil resistance and underscore the material costs incurred by municipal governments when confronting movements for racial justice. |
| Keywords: | Economic History, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Civil Rights Movement, Fiscal Impact, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Protest Economics, Time-Series Forecasting, African American History, Local Government Budgets |
| JEL: | N42 H72 D74 B52 I38 H75 Z18 R51 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:330397 |
| By: | Eric Chyn; Kareem Haggag; Christian Maruthiah |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the ideology of government officials and coercive policymaking by examining the Office of Indian Affairs, an institution that held broad authority over the land, education, and legal governance of Indigenous populations in the United States. We digitize the detailed reports of the agency's bureaucrats and use computational tools to measure the strength of their support for assimilationist policies during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We document major shifts in ideological commitments that coincide with the entry—and eventual exit—of social reformers nominated for high-level agency positions by religious organizations. We find that ideology within the bureaucracy appears to moderate around the turn of the century despite the organization's overall continued pursuit of major assimilation policies, such as the promotion of farming and enrollment in off-reservation Indian boarding schools. To examine performance implications of ideology within the bureaucracy, we conclude with an analysis of policy implementation after the passage of the Dawes Act, a landmark law that aimed to dismantle collective land holdings. We provide evidence showing that the agencies with local staff who express greater past commitment to assimilationist goals carried out more land redistribution immediately after Dawes became law. |
| JEL: | D73 J15 M5 N41 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34415 |
| By: | Jacob Moscona |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how innovation responded to and shaped the economic impact of the American Dust Bowl, an environmental catastrophe that led to widespread soil erosion on the US Plains during the 1930s. Combining data on county-level erosion, the historical geography of crop production, and crop-specific innovation, I document that in the wake of the environmental crisis, agricultural technology development was strongly and persistently re-directed toward more Dust Bowl-exposed crops and, within crops, toward bio-chemical and planting technologies that could directly mitigate economic losses from environmental distress. County-level exposure to Dust Bowl-induced innovation significantly dampened the effect of land erosion on agricultural land values and revenue. These results highlight the role of crises in spurring innovation and the importance of endogenous technological progress as an adaptive force in the face of disasters. |
| JEL: | O3 O31 O33 Q1 Q16 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34438 |
| By: | Howard Bodenhorn; Youwei Xing |
| Abstract: | Commercial banking is an industry in which long-term, nonexclusive relationships between bankers and their borrowers are governed by short-term contracts. This paper documents the nature of bank-borrower relationships in a historical setting. We use a new dataset of 55, 000 loans to 10, 000 unique borrowers over 35 years in the mid-nineteenth century. Two-way fixed effects models reveal that a one standard deviation increase in the number of previous loans leads to an increase in loan size by 4.72%. A one-year increase in the duration of a relationship leads to an increase in loan size of 5.6%. Relationships have small effects on loan rates, but substantial effects on collateral. Borrowers with relationships with competing banks receive substantially smaller loans. Propensity score matching reveals that banks learn about borrowers early in the relationship. Finally, the bank severed relationships with about half of the borrowers who defaulted on a loan. A surviving relationship becomes more valuable after default. |
| JEL: | G21 N21 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34422 |
| By: | Kohei Takeda; Atsushi Yamagishi |
| Abstract: | Why the city centre re-emerged from destruction. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, history, expectations, atomic bombing, spatial dynamics |
| Date: | 2025–10–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:717 |
| By: | Ruiz-Castillo, Javier |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the contributions of Herman Pontzer and his coauthors to the science of metabolism with applications to (i) the differences between humans and other great apes, (ii) the origins of the genus Homo, and (iii) the subsistence strategies of the hunter-gatherer mode of production. A series of publications from 2012 to 2025 have established three findings that challenge prevailing positions in the literature on biological anthropology. Firstly, some unique human traits have been made possible by a “metabolic revolution”, according to which humans burn more calories per day than other great apes. Secondly, given the lack of correlation between metabolism and physical activity among sedentary and nomadic populations of contemporary Homo sapiens, the origin of this metabolic revolution can be traced back to the first hunter-gatherers of the genus Homo who appeared in Africa around 2.5 million years ago. This is consistent with the nature of the transition from Australopithecus to early Homo. Thirdly, relative to other apes, the subsistence strategies practiced by human hunter-gatherers consist of high-intensity, high-cost extractive activities and expanded daily territorial ranges which, although they lead to no increase in energy efficiency (energy acquired/energy spent), provide more energy per unit of time for both adult subsistence and the provisioning of offspring during an extended development period. |
| Date: | 2025–10–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:48300 |
| By: | de Bromhead, Alan; Lyons, Ronan C.; Ohler, Johann |
| Abstract: | Poor housing conditions, and the negative effects of Household Air Pollution (HAP) in particular, remain one of the most pressing global public health challenges. While the association between poor housing and health has a long history, evidence of a direct link is lacking. In this paper, we examine a rare example of a public housing intervention in rural areas, namely the large-scale provision of high-quality housing in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We exploit a novel dataset of deaths-by-disease and deaths-by-age-and-sex over the period 1871–1919, to test the impact of the intervention on mortality. Our difference-in difference estimates indicate that improved housing conditions reduced mortality by as much as 1 death per 1000. This effect is driven by reductions in deaths from respiratory diseases. We propose a likely mechanism that is consistent with the pattern of results we observe: a reduction in Household Air Pollution through improved housing quality and better ventilation. A cost-benefit analysis reveals that the scheme was a highly cost-effective intervention. |
| Keywords: | Ireland; Labourers Act; household air pollution; health transition; social housing; infectious disease |
| JEL: | N33 N93 Q53 O18 J10 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129884 |
| By: | Volckart, Oliver |
| Abstract: | How did the Holy Roman Empire solve the collective action problem of defending itself against the Ottomans between 1566 and 1606? To answer this question, the article first reassesses the extent to which the imperial estates paid their defence dues. The new approach followed here indicates that with on average 72.5 percent, compliance rates were more than 15 percentage points lower than previously suggested. The article then statistically examines factors that influenced compliance, finding that the perceived legitimacy of the grant of a Turkish Aid by the imperial diet increased the estates’ willingness to pay. Also, it finds that several groups of estates were willing to pay larger shares than their respective control groups. It argues that while the emperor used the funds to finance the wars with the Ottomans, the primary motive of these estates for contributing was securing the emperor’s support in protecting private property rights. |
| Keywords: | political economy; defence; Holy Roman Empire; Ottoman Empire |
| JEL: | H10 H26 H30 H41 N44 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129940 |
| By: | Bakker, Gerben |
| Abstract: | We identify a previously underappreciated data revolution starting in the 1960s, in which business information firms adopted ICT very early on to automate market data sales. Before this ‘terminal revolution’, securities firms could barely cope with the paperwork of growing trading volumes, forcing the NYSE to close on Wednesdays to allow them to catch up. The terminal revolution placed computer screens on every client’s desk, changed how data was accessed and acted on, and created virtual trading floors, foreshadowing almost all stages the internet would go through some three decades later. We focus on early entrant Reuters and late entrant Bloomberg, which came to dominate global market data provision, discussing other firms along the way. We find that theory on sunk costs and market structure (Sutton, 1998) can explain how the exploding market remained highly concentrated, despite many new entrants. We also find that financial and business news (subject to Arrow’s paradox) was a complement to data (not subject to Arrow’s paradox), and barely profitable by itself: only firms offering both financial news and data tended to survive. |
| Keywords: | news agencies; financial and business news; business information; Arrow's fundamental paradox of information; trading data terminals; exchange rates; stock prices; bond prices; commodity prices; precursors to internet; industrialisation of services; ICT productivity impact; Kenneth J. Arrow; business history |
| JEL: | L82 L86 N20 N72 N74 N82 N84 O33 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129938 |
| By: | Olivo, Victor |
| Abstract: | This document revisits Milton Friedman's extended monetary framework, specifically focusing on his Monetary Theory of Nominal Income. Friedman’s extended monetary framework remains robust in explaining the dynamic relationship between money supply changes and nominal income fluctuations over more than 150 years of U.S. data. Despite major economic events, this relationship has been stable and significant. The empirical analysis with more recent data continues supporting Friedman's contention that money plays a special role in macroeconomic dynamics, stronger than fiscal variables or interest rates. The methodological debate between Friedman and his critics underscores the importance of empirical causality and practical explanatory power in economic theory. The document concludes that Friedman’s Marshallian approach offers valuable insights that have endured and continue to inform monetary economics. |
| Keywords: | Quantity Theory; Income-Expenditure Model; Price Level; Inflation; Nominal Income; Money Supply; Causality; Dynamic Models; Time Series Models. |
| JEL: | E00 E31 E51 E52 |
| Date: | 2025–08–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125716 |
| By: | Arenas-Arroyo, Esther (Vienna University of Economics and Business); Wurm, Elisabeth (Central European University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-run effects of women’s economic rights on generations exposed to property and earnings acts during childhood. We find that childhood exposure to these reforms reduced the probability of marriage—particularly among women—and increased female labor force participation in adulthood. To explore potential mechanisms, we document several short-run effects among the adult generation contemporaneous to the reforms, including improved occupational standing, reduced fertility, lower child mortality, and increased schooling among children. Taken together, our findings suggest that expanding economic rights for women can shape outcomes across multiple generations, underscoring the enduring importance of legal and institutional reforms that promote women’s economic empowerment. |
| Keywords: | long-run effects, women’s economic rights, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | D13 J12 J16 N31 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18241 |
| By: | Leonardo Burlamaqui |
| Abstract: | This paper reconstructs Joseph Schumpeter's major works to propose a coherent new departure point for analyzing economic and social change. I argue that Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) (CSD) marks a radical departure from Schumpeter's earlier attempts in The Theory of Economic Development (1912 [1934]) (TED) and Business Cycles (1939) (BC) to merge equilibrium theory with evolutionary dynamics. In CSD, equilibrium disappears, cycles recede, and capitalism is recast as a process of creative destruction--turbulent, conflictual, and institutionally embedded. Yet the building blocks of this paradigm--innovation, the entrepreneurial function, credit creation, capital as a social relation, and the seeds of financial fragility--were already present in TED and BC, though obscured by equilibrium reasoning. The originality of this reconstruction lies in recovering Schumpeter's neglected concept of the "secondary wave, " buried in BC, which anchors financial fragility within the creative destruction paradigm and provides the bridge to Keynes's liquidity preference and Minsky's financial instability hypothesis. Reconstructed in this way, Schumpeter's trilogy yields a framework in which credit, innovation, technological disruptions, and financial fragility are inseparable. The synthesis illuminates both the resilience and the instabilities of contemporary capitalism and, when extended, helps to explain the logic of "hybrid institutional architectures"--above all the "China model, " today's most ambitious and misunderstood experiment in innovation-led, state-directed development in contemporary political economy. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter; Keynes; Minsky; creative destruction; innovation; conflict; secondary wave; liquidity preference; financial fragility; economic and social change |
| JEL: | B15 B25 B52 E32 E44 O30 O43 P16 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1098 |
| By: | Victoria Ivashina |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comprehensive introduction to private debt, examines the key drivers behind its expansion, and frames the discussion around potential risk accumulation in the broader economy. Overall, the development of private debt can be viewed as the emergence of a new technology that facilitated the expansion of the high-yield corporate debt market into the middle market. Throughout its history, the evolution of the high-yield debt and the rise of private debt have been closely intertwined with the growth of private equity. Historically, banks have not had significant exposure to financing buyouts or other highly leveraged transactions, whether in the large-cap or mid-cap segments. |
| JEL: | G01 G1 G2 G23 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34426 |
| By: | Jacopo Timini |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the effects of the Latin Monetary Union (LMU) - a 19th century agreement among several European countries to standardize their currencies through a bimetallic system based on fixed gold and silver content - on trade. Unlike previous studies, this paper adopts the latest advances in gravity modeling and a more rigorous approach to defining the control group by accounting for the diversity of currency regimes during the early years of the LMU. My findings suggest that the LMU had a positive effect on trade between its members until the early 1870s, when bimetallism was still considered a viable monetary system. These effects then faded, converging to zero. Results are robust to the inclusion of additional potential confounders, the use of various samples spanning different countries and trade data sources, and alternative methodological choices. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2510.25487 |
| By: | Alberto Russo (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on Peter Turchin's structural-demographic theory, this paper provides a preliminary examination of how rising inequality and financial liberalization contribute to political instability through the interplay of mass immiseration and elite overproduction. We capture these dynamics through a simplified agent-based macroeconomic model, introducing two structural shocks { growing inequality and financial liberalization { that reect the transformations reshaping advanced economies in recent decades, a process intertwined with political disintegration. A wealth tax on the richest households can reduce political fragmentation and improve economic performance, but lasting resilience will require embedding such measures within a broader rethinking of the policy paradigm that has prevailed since the 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, Financial Liberalization, Political Instability, Agent-Based Model. |
| JEL: | C63 D31 E02 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:500 |
| By: | Leonardo Burlamaqui |
| Abstract: | Between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, China's banking sector underwent a profound yet largely underappreciated transformation--arguably one of the most consequential episodes of financial restructuring in recent economic history. This paper analyzes the Chinese banking reform process through a Minskyian lens, with particular attention to the conceptual ambiguity between financial fragility and financial instability in Minsky's own formulation. The core contribution lies in demonstrating that the reforms implemented under Zhu Rongji successfully resolved a condition of deep and systemic financial fragility without tipping into full-blown financial instability. In that sense, China’s banking overhaul constitutes a non-Minskyian resolution to what was, in classical terms, a Minsky-type problem. The Chinese case thus provides a rare empirical example of mounting financial fragility managed without crisis--offering critical insights for contemporary efforts at financial stabilization under conditions of systemic vulnerability. |
| JEL: | B5 E02 G28 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1086 |
| By: | Joerg Bibow |
| Abstract: | For the past hundred years or more, payments have been primarily associated with banking, and banking as we know it today--being the result of many centuries of evolution--features a bundling of (at least) three main lines of business: lending, deposit-taking, and payment services. In the past 15 years or so, banks have come under severe competition as providers of payment services. Will "banking on payments" become outmoded and payments untethered from banking, or will payments still have a place in the future of banking? This paper sets out to explore this question and to address the following two related issues. First, what are the likely consequences (especially for the financing of growth and the provision of liquidity in the form of bank deposits) of the apparent "unbundling" of the traditional connections in banking between lending, deposit-taking, and payment services? Second, what are the implications of the evolution (or revolution) of money, payments, and banking for public policy, monetary theory, and the theory of monetary policy? |
| Keywords: | banking; money; payments; financial intermediation; bank regulation; monetary policy |
| JEL: | B22 E12 E42 E58 G21 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1091 |
| By: | Precetti, Josephine |
| Abstract: | France’s railway expansion following the Law of 11 June 1842 significantly reshaped nationwide connectivity and economic opportunities. This dissertation investigates the causal impacts of railway access between 1846 and 1861 on city-level industrial development. Using a dataset combining industrial surveys with digitized railway records, it employs a robust Difference-in-Differences approach, leveraging the quasi-exogenous roll-out of the centrally planned ‘étoile de Legrand’ railway network. Empirical results show railway access increased industrial activity primarily extensively: railway-connected cities saw approximately a 20% rise in the number of factories and workers, especially in labour-intensive sectors like textile in Lille and ceramics in Limoges. Yet, intensive effects such as factory size, productivity, and wages remained statistically and economically negligible. Contrary to theoretical predictions from trade and New Economic Geography models, capital-intensive sectors, such as metallurgy in Lorraine, did not exhibit statistically significant responsiveness. These findings reframe the role of transport infrastructure from being a deterministic catalyst to being better understood as a conditional enabler. While railways expanded market potential, their short to medium term transformative impact critically depended on complementary institutional frameworks notably financial markets and property rights, technological readiness, and regional contexts. Acknowledging the historical data limitations, this study underscores that transport infrastructure alone is insufficient for structural economic upgrading without the appropriate institutional, technological, and human capital conditions in place at the right time. |
| JEL: | N73 R40 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129951 |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | Economic governance is measured by economic freedom, while political governance is measured by the electoral competitiveness index. How can political instability and poor governance in SSA be coped with? This is often seen as the overarching problem that exacerbates many others. Systemic corruption at all levels deprives the state of much-needed revenue, increases the cost of doing business and undermines public trust in institutions. In addition, weak institutions, such as an inefficient judiciary, inadequate public administration and barely existing public services, hinder development. Conflict and fragility displace people, destroy infrastructure and tie up resources that could be invested in education or healthcare. Without reliable contracts and property rights, both foreign and domestic investments are at great risk. Poor governance, reflected in a lack of rule of law, property rights, a regulatory burden, political violence and ineffective government, impedes growth in per capita revenue. In African politics, neo-patrimonialism appears to be the default setting, described as the 'moral economy of corruption' or the 'economics of affection. However, bad governance is not culturally specific; it is a universal challenge that affects all nations at some point in their development history. Good governance must be pursued and implemented in all SSA countries. Even with the support of the donor community, governments may develop ambitious plans to improve governance and strengthen institutions, yet fail to improve the standard of living of their citizens. Since the Second World War, Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, has had the poorest economic performance of any region in the world. By the end of the 20th century, incomes per capita had barely improved since independence, and in some cases had worsened considerably. The main problem was the failure to improve the efficiency of resource use. In contrast to many other developing countries, total factor productivity was static or negative for much of the time. With few exceptions, African countries have lacked a sound social and political foundation conducive to growth and development, and this foundation has tended to deteriorate over time. Good governance practices are supported by institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Good governance practices are also supported by such institutions. In order to receive development aid, states must apply and accept the principles of good governance. If they neglect to do so, African states risk not receiving financial aid. Accountability is a positive aspect of good governance. However, African states have developed a 'new culture', especially after decolonisation. There is a significant difference in perspective between Africans and Westerners regarding governance. The clientelist forms of politics that define postcolonial states do not stem from a class project, but are a contemporary manifestation of a dynamic national, African and ethnic culture. |
| Keywords: | economic governance; political governance; political stability; corruption; rule of law, accountability; African culture; Sub-Saharan Africa; South Africa; Nigeria; Ivory Coast; |
| JEL: | D72 D73 D74 N17 O17 O40 P10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–09–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126144 |
| By: | L. Randall Wray |
| Abstract: | Until Modern Money Theory came along, no one seemed to ask the question--let alone answer it--as to why the US government borrows, given that it can print money. For the past 28 years, we've been answering it in exhausting detail. But it remained a question no one wanted to consider. However, in recent days social media has been ablaze because Jared Bernstein, who is now chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers, appeared to stumble over that exact question in a promotional clip from the newly released documentary Finding the Money. |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:levyop:op_72 |
| By: | Andrew Greenland; James Lake; John Lopresti |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates that ignoring the source of variation in tariff levels yields misleading conclusions regarding the effects of tariff changes. Specifically, we show that changes in the ad valorem equivalent (AVE) tariff are insufficient to quantify the magnitude or sign of the effect of tariff changes on economic outcomes. To illustrate this point, we construct the first database of annual US statutory tariffs from 1972 to 1988 and use it to explore the consequences of liberalization in the years spanning the Tokyo Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Decomposing the aggregate AVE into its statutory and endogenous components, we document two distinct liberalizations in our sample. Prior to 1979, inflation combines with specific tariffs to create an “accidental liberalization”, despite the absence of widespread statutory tariff changes. After 1979, endogenous changes in the composition of imports mask the large Tokyo Round statutory tariff liberalization. Generalizing an exact hat framework to accommodate specific tariffs, we show that inflation-driven reductions in AVEs account for roughly half of the tariff liberalization in our sample, but these changes ultimately reduce imports and welfare. Finally, we show that specific tariffs remain an important determinant of cross-sectional variation in AVEs: between 2000 and 2017, one-third to one-half of the annual cross-sectional variance in good-level AVEs is driven by variation in the AVE of specific tariffs. |
| JEL: | E31 F02 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34429 |
| By: | Roush, Jack |
| Abstract: | In 1957, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi commissioned US agricultural economist Joseph R. Motheral to study Iran’s land tenure system and propose reforms. The resulting Motheral Report laid the foundation for later land redistribution programs, which sought to address, through rural development, the issue of political instability. The report drew upon the Shah’s pre-existing objectives and efforts to advocate for US support in implementing large-scale land reform, including financial assistance and technical training, and outlined a five-year timeline for redistribution. While the report failed to spur immediate action, its key points shaped subsequent efforts by both the US and Iranian governments, including Prime Minister Ali Amini’s land reform efforts in 1961 and the Shah’s White Revolution in 1963 |
| Keywords: | agrarian and rural; international basic economy corporation; international relations; near east foundation |
| JEL: | R14 J01 N0 |
| Date: | 2025–08–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129842 |
| By: | Felix Kersting |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the political consequences of introducing the welfare state targeted at blue-collar workers in 19th-century Germany. I conceptualize Bismarck’s reform as an accommodation strategy to combat the socialist party as an emerging challenger party. The result of a difference-in-differences design shows that the socialist party benefited in elections due to the reform. The mechanism analysis points to the socialists’ issue ownership by adopting a stronger reformist stance. The results are not driven by other political and economic channels related to the reform. |
| Keywords: | welfare state, socialism, issue ownership, Germany |
| JEL: | D74 H53 I38 N44 P16 |
| Date: | 2025–10–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0081 |
| By: | Pavlina R. Tcherneva |
| Abstract: | This paper employs the concept of "enshittification"--the systematic degradation of a service or product in the pursuit of profit--as a powerful metaphor to analyze the decay of the US labor market in the postwar era. Situating this process within Hyman Minsky's theory of capitalist development, it argues that the current phase of money manager capitalism has accelerated a pervasive "bait-and-switch" dynamic that has emerged since the 1970s. The "bait" was the postwar social contract, which promised but never guaranteed economic security through tight full employment and access to good jobs for all. The "switch" was the neoliberal policy shift that dismantled labor protections, weaponized unemployment (via the NAIRU doctrine), and fostered financialization, leading to stagnant wages, precarity, and household indebtedness. The "trap" is the worker's inescapable dependency for survival on a job within a system that uses the threat of unemployment as a policy tool. The paper identifies the erosion of four key forces--competition, regulation, interoperability, and worker power, all of which held the tenuous postwar contract together--as the drivers of this enshittification. It concludes by articulating how the federal job guarantee proposal can act as a systemic circuit breaker capable of reverse reengineering the labor market. The job guarantee is not only an alternative to precarious employment and the NAIRU policy framework, but also a comprehensive de facto regulator that introduces much needed competition for labor by firms in the economy. The paper evaluates how the program can introduce countervailing forces to arrest the degradation of the labor market and establish a new standard for good jobs, thereby laying the foundation for a renewed social contract. |
| Keywords: | Enshittification; Job Guarantee; Social Contract; Money Manager Capitalism; Labor Market Precarity; Financialization |
| JEL: | J01 J08 J38 J64 B52 E24 B26 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1100 |
| By: | Antoine Camous; Alejandro Van der Ghote |
| Abstract: | Historical accounts of financial crises emphasize the joint contribution of extrapolative beliefs and leveraged risk-taking to financial instability. This paper proposes a simple macro-finance framework to evaluate these views. We find a novel interplay between non-rational extrapolation and investment risk-taking that amplifies financial instability relative to a rational expectation benchmark. Furthermore, the analysis provides guidance on the design of cyclical policy interventions. Specifically, relative to a rational expectations benchmark, extrapolative expectations command tighter financial regulation, irrespective of whether the regulator shares these expectations. |
| Keywords: | Non-Rational Expectations, Financial Stability and Regulation |
| JEL: | E44 E71 G01 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:1009 |
| By: | Andrew Greenland; James Lake; John Lopresti |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates that ignoring the source of variation in tariff levels yields misleading conclusions regarding the effects of tariff changes. Specifically, we show that changes in the ad valorem equivalent (AVE) tariff are insufficient to quantify the magnitude or sign of the effect of tariff changes on economic outcomes. To illustrate this point, we construct the first database of annual US statutory tariffs from 1972 to 1988 and use it to explore the consequences of liberalization in the years spanning the Tokyo Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Decomposing the aggregate AVE into its statutory and endogenous components, we document two distinct liberalizations in our sample. Prior to 1979, inflation combines with specific tariffs to create an ``accidental liberalization'', despite the absence of widespread statutory tariff changes. After 1979, endogenous changes in the composition of imports mask the large Tokyo Round statutory tariff liberalization. Generalizing an exact hat framework to accommodate specific tariffs, we show that inflation-driven reductions in AVEs account for roughly half of the tariff liberalization in our sample, but these changes ultimately reduce imports and welfare. Finally, we show that specific tariffs remain an important determinant of cross-sectional variation in AVEs: between 2000 and 2017, one-third to one-half of the annual cross-sectional variance in good-level AVEs is driven by variation in the AVE of specific tariffs. |
| Keywords: | specific tariffs, inflation, Tokyo Round, GATT, welfare, imports |
| JEL: | F10 F13 F14 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12224 |
| By: | Teng, Xingan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how left-wing political strength shapes the evolution of capitalist systems through the lens of income compositional inequality (IFC). Using LIS microdata for nearly 40 countries from 1978–2022, I construct an unbalanced panel of IFC and estimate two-way fixed-effects models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, complemented by dynamic panel GMM and a fuzzy RDD around close elections. Results show that stronger left representation reduces IFC and pushes economies toward liberal capitalism; a 10-percentage-point increase in left strength lowers IFC by about 0.0079—roughly 7.5% of the sample mean. Political checks and balances attenuate this distributive effect, while rule-of-law and property-rights institutions amplify it. Channel analysis based on the pseudo-Gini of capital indicates that the main pathway operates via reductions in capital inequality. The findings highlight that “inclusive institutions” are internally heterogeneous and interact with partisan power, offering a more granular account of distributive dynamics within democracies. |
| Keywords: | Income composition inequality; Left-wing strength; Inclusive institutions; Capitalist systems |
| JEL: | D31 D33 D72 P16 P51 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126506 |
| By: | Jean Dreze; Rahul R. |
| Abstract: | India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), enacted in 2005, is an experiment of major significance. Drawing on official statistics, this paper presents a broad-brush retrospective on MGNREGA's first 20 years, focusing inter alia on employment generation, the participation of marginalized groups, real wages, administrative expenditure, and comparative experiences of different Indian states. The program is an important demonstration of the possibility of a legal job guarantee, but its practical achievements are still heavily concentrated in a few states. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1095 |
| By: | Anna L. Paulson |
| Abstract: | Philadelphia Fed President and CEO Anna Paulson welcomed participants to the 13th biennial New Perspectives on Consumer Behavior in Credit and Payments Conference today, celebrating 25 years of leadership in consumer credit and payments research. In her remarks, President Paulson reflected on the evolution of consumer finance, the Consumer Finance Institute’s expanding research portfolio, and the importance of understanding household financial behavior for economic policy and stability. |
| Date: | 2025–11–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpsp:102057 |
| By: | Michelle Majid (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Akeem Rahaman (independent researcher, Trinidad and Tobago); Scott Marc Romeo Mahadeo (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | The migration literature shows that labour-seeking and remittance-driven motives are central determinants of movement, with identifiable push and pull factors shaping flows across countries. Yet, the role of foreign exchange (FX) availability remains unexplored despite its relevance in small, open economies. We address this gap by introducing the concept of currency- seeking migration, where limited access to convertible currency acts as a push factor and the ability to earn FX abroad functions as a pull factor. Using Trinidad and Tobago, a country facing protracted FX shortages, we estimate autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models using data from 1975 to 2016 and find a long-run relationship in which a decline in net official reserves reduces net migration, signalling greater emigration pressures. We also observe a slow error- correction process, indicating that there is a sluggish adjustment toward long-run equilibrium as pressures or short-run disturbances persist once triggered. Our results are robust across multiple specifications using different measures of FX positions. We recommend improving access to FX as an essential step to reduce emigration pressures, achievable in the short-run through export reform, via more targeted protectionist policies, and export diversification. This can assist in stabilising the external balance and pave the way for more long-term structural reforms through exchange rate liberalisation. |
| Date: | 2025–11–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2025-04 |
| By: | L. Randall Wray |
| Abstract: | This is a revised version of the keynote address presented at the FDR library for the Levy Institute Summer Seminar on Money, Finance, and Public Policy on June 20th, 2025. |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1084 |