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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo |
| Abstract: | On the fiftieth anniversary of Milton Friedman receiving the Nobel Prize in economics, I reflect on the legacy of monetarism – his revolutionary idea. Friedman developed the modern quantity of money in 1956 as a challenge to the prevailing Keynesian view that “money did not matter.” Friedman’s empirical and historical research made a strong case that changes in the money supply, largely instituted by the monetary authorities, account for much of the macro instability in the twentieth century including the Great Recession 1929-1933 and the Great Inflation 1965 -1982. Friedman’s ideas were at the base of the creation of modern macroeconomics, and of the adoption by many central banks of rules based monetary policy as a guidepost to maintain credibility for low inflation. His emphasis on monetary aggregates as the key monetary policy tool has been superseded by the use of policy interest rates, but the monetary aggregates are still useful as a crosscheck against incipient high inflation. |
| JEL: | E12 E31 E32 E41 E42 E51 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34765 |
| By: | Patrice Bougette (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); Frédéric Marty (CNRS, GREDEG, Université Côte d'Azur, France) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm that dominated U.S. antitrust policy until the 1970s, before being displaced by the Chicago School and, from the 1980s onwards, by Post-Chicago analysis, i.e., modern industrial organization. Long portrayed as indifferent to firms' conduct and to economic efficiency, structuralism has been subject to a persistent "black legend." This contribution reassesses that critique by examining: (i) the evolution of structuralism between the 1940s and the 1970s; (ii) the influence of a deconcentrationist perspective embedded in a particular legal interpretation of U.S. antitrust rules; (iii) the implications of the digital economy for contemporary analyses of market structures; and (iv) the SCP paradigm's legacy in Neo-Brandeisian and conservative antitrust thought. |
| Keywords: | Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm; Structuralism; U.S. antitrust; Chicago School; Post-Chicago industrial organization; Merger control; Digital markets; Neo-Brandeisian antitrust; Market structure; Structural remedies |
| JEL: | L10 L12 L13 L41 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2026-03 |
| By: | Erfurth, Philipp Emanuel; León, María Gómez; Gabbuti, Giacomo; Milanovic, Branko |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a methodological contribution to the study of historical income inequality by examining the construction and use of social tables for the nineteenth century. In a period when modern household surveys were absent, social tables represent one of the only feasible approaches for providing distributional evidence for the entire population. At the same time, existing studies rely on a wide range of assumptions, classifications, and data treatments, which makes comparisons across countries and over time difficult. The paper reviews the main methodological challenges involved in constructing social tables, including class definitions, within-group inequality, units of analysis, and the external validation of income levels and subsistence benchmarks. Using simulations and historical examples, it shows how alternative methodological choices can generate substantial differences in inequality estimates. It finally proposes a set of guiding principles and template structures aimed at improving comparability, while still preserving the country-specific nature of historical evidence. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2026–01–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5nsqm_v1 |
| By: | Sebastian Ottinger; Elizaveta Zelnitskaia |
| Abstract: | Why do cities emerge where they do? This paper exploits a rule-based transport network in Imperial Russia to study the origins of urban centers. The yams postal system, introduced by the Mongols in the thirteenth century and maintained by Muscovy, required relay stations in regular intervals to change horses, creating an infrastructure grid whose spacing reflected logistics rather than geography or pre-existing settlements. We digitize all stations listed in the 1777 Russian Road Guide along a sample of 15 major routes, and divide rays between consecutive stops into 0.5 km cells. In modern satellite data, cells located at the historical interval where horses were changed are about thirty percent brighter today than neighboring cells before or after that range. The effect is robust to first- and second-nature controls, ray fixed effects, and controlling of pre-1800 settlements, and is absent for the later Trans-Siberian Railway. Additional analyses show that subsequent city growth correlates little with geographic endowments, but was amplified by later infrastructure investments, suggesting that administrative accidents – not natural advantages – seeded some of Russia’s urban geography. The findings illustrate how spatial inequality can arise from arbitrary historical coordination points, with lasting consequences for the distribution of economic activity. |
| Keywords: | City Location, Path Dependence, Transport Infrastructure, Natural Advantage |
| JEL: | N73 O18 R11 R12 H11 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp807 |
| By: | Jonung, Lars (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Sweden’s economic growth in relation to developments in the rest of the world exhibits three distinct phases over the past 170 years. From 1890 to 1950, Sweden experienced faster growth than comparable countries. This period of liberalization was followed by a phase of lagging behind until around the turn of the millennium. This relative stagnation is closely associated with the financial repression implemented by the social democratic governments in the post-World War II period. Strong anti-competitive regulations of the financial system, including the political determination of interest rates and allocation of capital, were likely the main cause of the Swedish lagging behind. After financial deregulation, a third phase begins, marked by a weak relative recovery. In line with current research, the three phases of Sweden’s relative growth are explained by the degree of liberalization of the Swedish economy, in other words, by the level of economic freedom. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; liberalization; neoliberalism; financial repression; financial deregulation; economic freedom; social democracy; Sweden; |
| JEL: | E44 G18 N14 O47 O52 |
| Date: | 2026–02–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2026_001 |
| By: | Alison Booth |
| Abstract: | In this chapter I relate the iconic Australian painting Shearing the Rams - by Britishborn impressionist and figure painter Tom Roberts - to the growth of the all-important Australian wool industry. I also relate the painting to the development of trade union organization in an industry that was inherently hard to organize and that was to experience violent strikes just after the artwork was completed. Shearing the Rams was painted in the Brocklesbury Station shearing shed located on a property not far from the township of Corowa on the Murray River that formed part of the border between the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. At this time there was unrest about the payment of duties on trade across colonial borders and a growing desire to cut loose from Britain's apron strings. This unrest culminated in the Corowa Conference that was to set Australia on the path to federation. By 1901 the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia was opened, and Tom Roberts was to paint a great artwork illustrating that event. This now hangs in the foyer of the Main Committee Room of Parliament House in Canberra. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:135 |
| By: | James J. Feigenbaum; Yi-Ju Hung; Marco Tabellini; Monia Tomasella |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of immigration restrictions on the intergenerational mobility of US-born men in the United States. We link US-born sons observed in 1900, 1920, and 1940 full-count Censuses to their fathers, and construct a measure of county-level exposure to the 1920s immigration acts, which sharply curtailed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Exploiting this policy-induced variation, we find that the quotas reduced intergenerational mobility among US-born white men, but had no adverse effect for Black men. Among whites, losses were smaller for sons of richer fathers, who were more likely to migrate away from highly exposed areas. Evidence from the 1940 Census indicates that exposed white men were less likely to be employed and earned lower wages in adulthood, consistent with both occupational downgrading and reduced productivity within occupations. We show that these effects operated through both reduced immigrant–native complementarities and incomplete substitution from unrestricted migration, while human capital investment can explain at most only a modest part of the total effect. |
| JEL: | J15 J62 K37 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34775 |
| By: | Tommaso Giommoni; Gabriel Loumeau; Marco Tabellini |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we provide systematic evidence in support of the long-standing hypothesis that taxation was an important driver of the French Revolution. We first document that areas with heavier taxes experienced more riots between 1750 and 1789 and voiced more complaints against taxation in the cahiers de doléances of 1789. After showing that these effects are driven by indirect taxes, we exploit sharp spatial differences in the salt tax and the traites—the two principal indirect levies—to implement a regression discontinuity design (RDD). We find that unrest was higher on the high-tax side of the border. These effects intensified over time, peaking in the 1780s, and were stronger where fiscal disparities were larger and Enlightenment ideas more widespread. We further show that adverse weather shocks amplified unrest in high-tax municipalities. We then document that taxation fueled the spread of unrest during the Grande Peur—the wave of revolts that swept France in July 1789 and culminated in the abolition of feudal privileges. Finally, we link taxation to revolutionary politics in Paris, documenting that deputies from heavily taxed constituencies were more likely to frame the tax system as oppressive, support the Revolution, demand the abolition of the monarchy, and vote for the king's execution. |
| Keywords: | Taxation, French Revolution, state capacity, regime change. |
| JEL: | D74 H20 H31 N43 O23 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:26-02 |
| By: | Pierre Adrien Du Cly (SU UFR Histoire - Sorbonne Université - Faculté des Lettres - UFR Histoire - SU FdL - Sorbonne Université - Faculté des Lettres - SU - Sorbonne Université, SU - Sorbonne Université, SU UFR HAA - Sorbonne Université - Faculté des Lettres - UFR Histoire de l'art et archéologie - SU FdL - Sorbonne Université - Faculté des Lettres - SU - Sorbonne Université) |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the historical and material significance of the galleon San José, wrecked off the coast of Cartagena de Indias in 1708. Focusing on the first 8-escudo coins minted in Lima in 1707 and recently recovered, the study explores how these artifacts transcend their status as mere treasure to become archives of imperial power. The author examines the role of this cargo within the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, the impact of its loss on the colonial economy, and the transition of these coins from instruments of power to objects of scientific and memorial study. |
| Abstract: | Cet article analyse l'importance historique et matérielle du galion San José, dont l'épave repose au large de Carthagène des Indes depuis 1708. En se concentrant sur les premières monnaies de 8 escudos frappées à Lima en 1707 et récemment extraites, l'étude explore comment ces objets transcendent leur valeur de simple trésor pour devenir des archives de la puissance impériale. L'auteur examine le rôle de cette cargaison dans le contexte de la Guerre de Succession d'Espagne, l'impact de sa perte sur l'économie coloniale et la transition de ces pièces d'un statut d'instrument de pouvoir à celui d'objet d'étude scientifique et mémoriel. |
| Date: | 2025–12–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05424444 |
| By: | Barry, Annabel; Goddard, Caroline; Park, Anna |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences |
| Date: | 2025–10–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt7pf525kg |
| By: | Martial, Léo (Chuo University) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the evolution of urban imaginaries and their influence on infrastructure design, focusing on Japan as a case study. The futuristic visions of the 1970s, illustrated by Gunther Radtke and groups such as Archigram, celebrated speed, growth, and technology. By contrast, the ecological, economic, and social crises of the 21st century have fostered imaginaries centered on sobriety, resilience, and inclusivity. These shifts raise key questions: how can we reconcile past legacies with present challenges, and how can infrastructures anticipate the needs of a changing world? Japan, marked by demographic decline yet persistent large-scale technological projects, offers a privileged lens. Campaigns to dismantle obsolete infrastructures in rural areas show pragmatic adaptation, while the SCMaglev train embodies faith in technological progress. These tensions echo broader debates opposing advocates of ecological degrowth to defenders of modernization. Through case studies on mobility, energy, and ecological infrastructures, the article shows how imaginaries shape design choices. It highlights the challenges and opportunities of transition toward sustainable and resilient models, stressing the importance of inclusive, transdisciplinary dialogue to define the values and priorities guiding future infrastructures in an uncertain world. |
| Date: | 2025–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5dhuc_v1 |
| By: | Don Bredin (University College Dublin); Stilianos Fountas (University of Macedonia); Georgios Karras (University of Illinois at Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of economic upturns and downturns on subsequent economic performance in Europe over six plus centuries. Instead of utilizing the conventional post-World War II framework, we employ a comprehensive panel of GDP data for England, Holland and Italy spanning more than 600 years. We find consistent evidence in favor of asymmetry. Downturns are followed by statistically significant higher growth rates, while upturns are followed by mildly lower growth rates which are often not statistically significant. Our finding of asymmetry suggests that business cycle properties are consistent with mechanisms similar to Friedman’s plucking hypothesis |
| Keywords: | scarring, cleansing, economicdownturnsandupturns, economic growth |
| JEL: | C22 E32 E60 N10 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2026_04 |
| By: | Antonin Bergeaud; Ruveyda Nur Gozen; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | We introduce a methodology to measure cross-country trends in innovation capability - “technological trajectories” and implement this on a new rich dataset covering patents between 1836 and 2016 across multiple countries. Intuitively, trajectories are revealed by a country’s sustained increases in patenting across multiple patent offices. We first describe the data patterns, showing the relative decline of the UK, and the rise first of the US and Germany, and then later of Japan and China. We then econometrically estimate trajectories on (i) the post-1902 period for France, Germany, Japan, the UK and US, and (ii) the post-1960 period for a wider sample of 40 countries. Our trajectories are strongly positively correlated with Total Factor Productivity growth, and also (but less strongly) associated with the growth of labour productivity and capital intensity. We show that future trajectories are predicted by a country’s initial levels of R&D, education and defence spending, classic drivers of innovation in modern growth theory. |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34760 |
| By: | Rémy Herrera (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Poeura Tetoe (MEE - Ministère de l'Education, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Culture) |
| Abstract: | This article skows the ambivalence of the relationships between Papua New Guinea and Australia, by successively analyzing the historical links which bind these two countries (Part I), their continuity after independence (Part II), and the mechanisms of this dependence, especially at the economic and political levels (Part III). The social structures of Australia's former colony are studied, in particular in relation to the issues of the access to land and the expansion of the mining sector penetrated by foreign capital, around which the interests of the States and the transnational firms, on the one hand, and those of the Papua New Guinean people, on the other hand, are clashing. |
| Keywords: | debt, public aid, Australia, law, land regime, natural resources, dependency, development, Papua New Guinea |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-05432520 |
| By: | Andrew Greenland; James Lake; John Lopresti |
| Abstract: | Against a backdrop of sharply rising inequality, the Tokyo Round of the GATT resulted in a 1.6 percentage point reduction in average US tariffs – larger than CUSFTA, NAFTA, and the liberalization accompanying the granting of PNTR to China. We construct a novel IV based on the so-called “Swiss formula” that governed the Tokyo Round tariff liberalization to provide evidence of its effects on imports and inequality. Instrumented tariff reductions explain approximately 20% of the rise in income inequality between non-production and production workers between 1979 and 1988. This effect is largest among women, workers in routine occupations, and workers in more technology-intensive industries, suggesting a complementarity between trade liberalization and skill-biased technological change. |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F66 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34785 |
| By: | Riga Qi |
| Abstract: | Urbanization is generally accompanied by development. However, whether abrupt unintended urbanization can stimulate future progress is an open question. The French government constructed thousands of Centres de Regroupement (resettlement centers) in Algeria during the Independence War, to which the army forcefully relocated around 2.5 million civilians. The policy took these civilians away from their previous agricultural lives, and concentrated them within prison camps. Using the heterogeneity in treatment across regions, Difference-in-Differences estimates show that the policy has a persistent negative impact on the population growth overall but a continuing positive impact on urbanization. To address the endogeneity, I use the facts that i) the army implemented the policy out of purely military concerns and ii) the whole process lacked coherent planning from the authority. The findings provide novel insights into the long-run economic impacts of unintended urbanization. |
| Keywords: | Colonial Policy, Forced Resettlement, Urbanization |
| JEL: | F54 J11 N47 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp806 |
| By: | Richard V. Burkhauser; Kevin Corinth |
| Abstract: | We compare trends in absolute poverty before (1939–1963) and after (1963–2023) the War on Poverty was declared. Our primary methodological contribution is to create a post-tax post-transfer income measure using the 1940, 1950 and 1960 Decennial Censuses through imputations of taxes and transfers as well as certain forms of market income including perquisites (Collins and Wanamaker 2022), consistent with the full income measures developed by Burkhauser et al. (2024) for subsequent years. From 1939–1963, poverty fell by 29 percentage points, with even larger declines for Black people and all children. While absolute poverty continued to fall following the War on Poverty’s declaration, the pace was no faster, even when evaluating the trends relative to a consistent initial poverty rate. Furthermore, the pre-1964 decline in poverty among working age adults and children was achieved almost completely through increases in market income, during which time only 2–3 percent of working age adults were dependent on the government for at least half of their income, compared to dependency rates of 7–15 percent from 1972–2023. In contrast to progress on absolute poverty, reductions in relative poverty were more modest from 1939–1963 and even less so since then. |
| JEL: | D31 H24 I32 J3 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34759 |
| By: | Willem THORBECKE |
| Abstract: | The correlation between sovereign bond prices and stock prices was positive from the 1970s to 2000 and then turned negative. Researchers have investigated this phenomenon using data from the 1970s to the present. This paper uses data beginning in the 1960s, when there were negative correlations between bond and stock prices, to investigate how positive bond-stock price comovements arose. Evidence from identified vector autoregressions indicates that monetary policy shocks beginning in the late 1960s caused bond and stock prices to covary positively. Evidence from estimating a multi-factor model indicates that news of both monetary policy and inflation contributed to positive bond-stock comovements. The findings imply that rising inflation now that elicits contractionary monetary policy could alter bonds’ risk characteristics, causing them to again covary positively with stocks. To this end, policymakers should be vigilant that large budget deficits do not stoke inflation. |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:26011 |
| By: | Kokubun, Axl |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the breakup of Yugoslavia, the escalation of the Bosnian war, and the evolution of international peace diplomacy, in order to clarify the political and military conditions that led to the 1995 Dayton Accords. It argues that Yugoslavia’s collapse stemmed not from a simple state breakup but from the interaction of complex ethnic configurations, deep economic crisis, and nationalist mobilisation by political elites, especially hardline Serbian nationalism which shattered federal cohesion and made Bosnia and Herzegovina’s multiethnic landscape a focal point of violent contestation and international concern. Comparing Slovenia and Croatia, where ethnic homogeneity, limited territorial objectives, and early international recognition facilitated relatively short conflicts, with Bosnia, where highly mixed populations and overlapping territorial claims produced protracted, all‑out war, the paper shows why Bosnia required full‑scale external intervention. Humanitarian and strategic crises such as the Sarajevo siege, the Srebrenica massacre, and mass displacement exposed the powerlessness of traditional UN peacekeeping and the ineffectiveness of diplomacy without credible force. The study then traces how fragmented and militarily unsupported early initiatives by the UN, EU, and the United States gradually gave way, under the pressure of changing battlefield dynamics, sanctions, domestic politics in Western states, and U.S. congressional pressure to a more unified Western strategy that combined military pressure with coercive diplomacy. It highlights the decisive role of active U.S. engagement, which shifted from conflict management to conflict resolution and leveraged the interests of Milošević, Tuđman, and Izetbegović to push negotiations forward. Overall, the thesis concludes that the Bosnian conflict was structurally produced by intertwined domestic and international factors, and that an effective peace settlement became possible only when military and diplomatic instruments were aligned under a strategy capable of exerting clear coercive leverage, offering broader lessons about the possibilities and limits of international intervention in civil wars. |
| Date: | 2026–01–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rz7tm_v1 |
| By: | Rosario N. Mantegna |
| Abstract: | Benoit Mandelbrot's scientific legacy spans an extraordinary range of disciplines, from linguistics and fluid turbulence to cosmology and finance, suggesting the intellectual temperament of a "fox" in Isaiah Berlin's famous dichotomy of thinkers. This essay argues, however, that Mandelbrot was, at heart, a "hedgehog": a thinker unified by a single guiding principle. Across his diverse pursuits, the concept of scaling -- manifested in self-similarity, power laws, fractals, and multifractals -- served as the central idea that structured his work. By tracing the continuity of this scaling paradigm through his contributions to mathematics, physics, and economics, the paper reveals a coherent intellectual trajectory masked by apparent eclecticism. Mandelbrot's enduring insight in the modeling of natural and social phenomena can be understood through the lens of the geometry and statistics of scale invariance. |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2602.01122 |
| By: | Albarello, Alessio; Boix, Carles |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of 1990 and 2000 laws of citizenship in Germany, which liberalized the path to the acquisition of citizenship, on the national identity of immigrants. Leveraging the exogenous variation in waiting time for naturalization generated by those two reforms, we find that immigrants who benefited from less restrictive conditions to become citizens developed a stronger national identification with Germany, both after and during their waiting time for naturalization. The effect was particularly strong for women and for those immigrants that were older at the time of their arrival. A higher attachment to Germany seems to have been mainly driven by psychological and socioeconomic mechanisms: a more liberal regime reduced subjective concerns about discrimination, heightened immigrants’ social and political participation, and fostered their use of the German language. |
| Date: | 2026–01–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:2zy64_v1 |
| By: | Antoine Pietri (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | This Comment assesses the legacy of the 2015 JOIE debate, critiquing the economic conflation of de jure 'property' and de facto 'possession'. Citation analysis confirms the debate's sustained intellectual footprint, but this did not translate into the lexical shift advocated by its proponents. A text-mining analysis of 58 economics journals finds negligible adoption of the specific term 'possession'. A broader test for a conceptual basket of related de facto terms also fails to find robust evidence; a fragile signal in one dataset, not replicated in a second. We conclude that no significant, profession-wide lexical adoption occurred. |
| Keywords: | Legal institutionalism possession property rights, Legal institutionalism, possession, property rights |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05486487 |
| By: | Kokou Kouzouahin Somabe (UCL - Université catholique de Lille) |
| Abstract: | The scientific successes of the mathematization of his research approach, the physics has revolutionized the natural sciences with benefits a reference scientist status, in the community of scientist. Therefore, other disciplines like economics turn to the natural sciences, in their scientific approach. Furthermore, the epistemologists had the difficult to paint the scientific status of the economics, by referring to the natural science. From there, we notice a certain distancing from its political and normative approach, in this objective or approach to constituting an ‘physics economics'. For us, this isn't in according of the expectations of the specifical research on the phenomena economic, in the favor of justifying the authentic identity scientist of economics, which by its axiological foundation is political. After noting the socioeconomic and the environmental crises which experiences the world of economic, we discover that the economy of commons goods appears as an epistemological opportunity to redefine the real identity of the economy today. Our analysis epistemological approach of the economics isn't in the case to discredit the scientificity of the economics, but it's an objective critic look at the meaning of this science status, with considering the challenges and realities of the contemporary economics. |
| Abstract: | Grâce à ses succès scientifiques, la physique a révolutionné les sciences de la nature, qui bénéficient désormais d'un statut de référence au sein de la communauté scientifique. D'autres disciplines telles que l'économie se tournent vers les sciences de la nature, dans leur démarche scientifique. Toutefois, les épistémologues des sciences ont du mal à élaborer le statut scientifique de l'économie, en se référant aux sciences de la nature. Partant de là, l'on a assisté à un certain éloignement de l'économie de sa démarche politique et normative, dans le but de constituer 'une physique économique'. Ce qui, pour nous, ne semble pas répondre aux attentes d'une étude propre aux phénomènes économiques et ne permet pas de justifier une identité scientifique authentique de l'économie, qui, de par son fondement axiologique, est politique. Par le constat des crises socio-économiques et environnementales que connaît le monde économique, nous trouvons que l'économie des biens communs, constitue une opportunité à saisir pour redéfinir l'identité épistémologique réelle de l'économie, de nos jours. Notre démarche d'analyse épistémologique portée sur la science économique n'est nullement de jeter le discrédit sur la scientificité des sciences économiques, mais de jeter un regard critique sur la signification de cette scientificité aux regards des enjeux et réalités économiques contemporaines. |
| Keywords: | scientist, economics of commons, economic sciences, économie des biens communs epistemology, sciences économique, scientifique, épistémologie, épistémologie scientifique sciences économique économie des biens communs epistemology scientist economic sciences economics of commons, économie des biens communs. |
| Date: | 2025–09–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05359546 |
| By: | Consolo, Agostino; Foroni, Claudia; Hjelm, Linnéa |
| Abstract: | Unlike past high-inflation episodes, the euro area labour market remained surprisingly resilient during the inflation surge of the early 2020s. This paper investigates the drivers of this resilience by combining long-span euro area macroeconomic data (1970–2025) with a structural VAR analysis that disentangles the roles of aggregate demand and supply, monetary policy, and factor-substitution shocks. Our findings show that, in contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in real wages has supported labour demand and, more broadly, the labour market, thereby helping to explain the decoupling between output and employment. We also find that monetary policy shocks have had a stronger impact on output than on employment, further amplifying the pro-cyclicality of labour productivity. JEL Classification: E24, E32, C32 |
| Keywords: | Bayesian VAR, labour markets, monetary policy, real wages |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263180 |
| By: | Mandel, David R. |
| Abstract: | The October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks against Israel (10/7) represented the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. However, almost immediately after the attacks, celebrations of the pogrom and protests against Israel broke out in cities around the Western world. The author argues that the upward sweep of antisemitism witnessed since 10/7 cannot be satisfactorily explained in terms of radicalization or simplistic stage models. By definition, radicalization is an increase in extremist attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions relative to default societal norms. Thus, the radicalization hypothesis implies that the output of radicalization (in this case, antisemitism) is not normalized. This is unambiguously contradicted by evidence collected from Jewish victims of antisemitism before and after 10/7. Taken together, the evidence indicates that antisemitism has been renormalizing long before 10/7 and it is that process which set the preconditions for its explosive rise witnessed after 10/7. There is a danger in misattributing the current wave of antisemitism to radicalization as such explanations can inadvertently serve to minimize the breadth and severity of the problem. |
| Date: | 2026–01–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:dw6nx_v1 |
| By: | Simon Deakin; Linda Shuku |
| Abstract: | The use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to analyse the structure of legal texts is a fast-growing field. While much attention has been devoted to the use of these techniques to predict case outcomes, they have the potential to contribute more broadly to research into the nature of legal reasoning and its relationship to social and economic change. In this paper, we use recently developed NLP and ML methods to test the claim that judicial language is systematically shaped by economic shocks deriving from the business cycle and by long-run trends in the economy associated with technological change and industrial transition. Focusing on cases decided under the Anglo-Welsh poor law between the 1690s and 1830s, we show that the terminology used to describe the right to poor relief shifted over time according to economic conditions. We explore the implications of our results for the poor law, the theory of legal evolution, and socio-legal research methods. |
| Keywords: | Law and computation, poor law, legal evolution, natural language processing |
| JEL: | J41 K31 N33 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp546 |
| By: | Hashem Dezhbakhsh; Daniel Levy |
| Abstract: | It is well established that the US prewar output was more volatile and less shock persistent than the postwar output. This is often attributed to the data interpolation employed to construct the prewar series. Our analytical results, however, indicate that commonly used linear interpolation has the opposite effect on shock persistence and volatility of a series - it increases shock persistence and reduces volatility. The surprising implication of this finding is that the actual differences between the volatility and shock persistence of the prewar and postwar output series are likely greater than the existing literature recognizes, and interpolation has dampened rather than magnified this difference. Consequently, the view that postwar output was more stable than prewar output because of the effectiveness of the postwar stabilization policies and institutional changes has considerable merit. Our results hold for parsimonious stationary and nonstationary time series commonly used to model macroeconomic time series |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2602.11334 |
| By: | Charlie Joyez (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a new product-space-based measure of export–import similarity, the Trade Proximity index. The index captures the structural alignment between a country's import and export baskets by accounting for inter-product relatedness, rather than relying solely on categorical overlap, which ignores any inter-industry relatedness. We position Trade Proximity relative to the traditional Grubel–Lloyd index of intra-industry trade, clarifying their conceptual differences and showing how the two measures diverge when trade similarity is evaluated through the lens of productive capabilities. Using historical product-level trade data spanning 1962–2023, we document the long-run evolution of Trade Proximity and compare it to conventional intra-industry measures for developed and developing economies. While the two indices are positively correlated, Trade Proximity reveals distinct dynamics, including a stronger convergence of developing countries during the 1990s and a subsequent divergence that is not captured by the Grubel–Lloyd index. We conclude by discussing how the Trade Proximity index can inform future research on global value chains, learning through imports, structural upgrading, and trade policy. |
| Keywords: | Trade similarity; intra-industry trade; product space; global value chains |
| JEL: | F14 F60 O14 C43 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2026-02 |
| By: | Garrone, Roberto (Università Milano-Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | This paper situates contemporary geopolitical discourse within the political economy of uncertainty. It examines how fear, identity mobilisation, and narrative simplification function not merely as distortions of rational policy-making, but as instrumental resources through which institutions legitimate authority, mobilise resources, and coordinate behaviour under conditions of perceived systemic transition. Drawing on political psychology, international relations theory, and strategic studies, the analysis proceeds in three steps. First, it identifies recurrent cognitive and social patterns that tend to become salient under uncertainty, including worst-case reasoning, in-group consolidation, narrative dominance, and ambiguity reduction. Second, it examines how these patterns may be amplified to serve specific institutional objectives, such as emergency legitimation, deterrence signalling, and the normalisation of structural change. A contemporary illustration drawn from transatlantic tensions over Greenland is used to clarify how cross-domain linkage between security and economic instruments can accelerate these dynamics within alliance systems. Finally, the paper advances a theoretical synthesis spanning classical and contemporary war theory. It proposes that while the political nature of war identified by Carl von Clausewitz remains analytically relevant, its dominant mode of operation has increasingly shifted toward what is termed cognitive governance: the management of fear, expectations, and legitimacy at the population level. The paper concludes by outlining analytically derived, policy-relevant conditions under which institutions may preserve strategic realism while reintroducing reversibility into fear-based governance, thereby mitigating long-run risks of institutional erosion and permanent emergency politics. The paper does not provide empirical testing, causal estimation, or predictive claims; its contribution is analytical and conceptual. |
| Date: | 2026–01–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wqmez_v1 |
| By: | Diego Ocampo-Corrales (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona); Rosina Moreno (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of regions’ recombinatorial technological capacity in shaping the technological space. To do so, we identify novel combinations of technologies and track their evolution by tracing all subsequent inventions that incorporate the same combination. Building on the concepts of relatedness and geographical proximity, we focus on the relevance of the technological antecedents of a pair of technologies combined for the first time in determining their success. This is due through the estimation of the likelihood of a new technological combination eventually becoming embedded within the broader knowledge space. Using patent data from 1976 to 2022 in the case of the European regions, we find strong evidence that a higher degree of relatedness between the technological antecedents of the two combined technologies significantly increases the likelihood that the combination will be reused in future inventions. Additionally, we find that the success of a new combination also benefits from the presence of dissimilar knowledge—not directly involved in the combination’s antecedents but accessible within the surrounding technological environment. In these cases, the greater the relatedness between the new invention’s antecedents and the broader regional knowledge base, the more likely it is to generate a high number of follow-on inventions and contribute meaningfully to the formation of the technological space |
| Keywords: | New combination of technologies, Regional innovation, European regions, Recombination capacity, Knowledge space, Technological antecedents JEL classification:O18, O31, O33, R11 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202511 |
| By: | Ghosh, Anupam (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) |
| Abstract: | Little causal evidence exists regarding the long-term impacts of natural disasters on crime. Using a balanced panel of county-level crime data spanning 1980–2020, this paper estimates the short- and long-run effects of hurricanes of varying intensities that affected U.S. counties between 1990 and 2010. Findings indicate that while minor hurricanes have little effect on crime, major hurricanes cause significant increases in property crime. In the decade following exposure to major hurricanes, property crime rates rise by 8.5% relative to the baseline mean, imposing an estimated per-capita social cost of $120 on treated counties. These effects are largely driven by evacuation orders and selective out-migration in the short run and by declining per-capita incomes in the long run. Furthermore, hurricane effects are disproportionately larger for counties with less disaster experience and lower incomes, which risk losing 1.4% and 2.2% of per capita GDP, respectively, due to hurricane-induced crime. Overall, the findings underscore the need for greater resource allocation toward vulnerable communities and increased investment in disaster resilience measures to mitigate the economic and social consequences of climate change. |
| Date: | 2026–01–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:smwtk_v1 |