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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Martin H. Saavedra |
| Abstract: | State legislatures enacted numerous public-health laws during the twentieth century, most of which likely had negligible effects on mortality. Using data on the universe of state-level public-health laws and regulations, I test whether these laws, taken together, account for a meaningful decline in mortality. To address endogeneity, I instrument for public-health legislation using the legislative calendar. Both OLS and IV estimates indicate that public-health laws reduced mortality, whereas other laws and repeals of public-health laws did not. Legislatures were most effective at reducing deaths from waterborne and drainage-related diseases, half as effective for airborne communicable diseases, and one-fifth as effective for noncommunicable diseases. I use text analysis to classify the laws into twenty topics and find that laws targeting particular causes of death produced larger mortality declines for those causes. The universe of public-health laws can account for approximately two-thirds of the mortality decline during the study period. |
| JEL: | H75 I1 K32 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35686 |
| By: | Rashid, Muhammad Mustafa |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first version that provides a systematic historical analysis of U.S. operations targeting Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) economies from the Tripolitan War (1801–1805) to 2024. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, it examines how military, corporate, financial, and intelligence actors have shaped U.S. foreign policy to exploit, destabilize, and control OIC economies for strategic and economic dominance. The study integrates archival research, declassified documents, corporate histories, intelligence reports, and case studies to trace the evolution of U.S. interventionism across five key phases: 1. The Barbary Wars (1801–1815): The origins of U.S. naval dominance and early economic warfare. 2. Ottoman Empire Penetration (19th Century): Trade agreements, financial imperialism, and cultural influence. 3. Oil Imperialism (Early 20th Century): The Red Line Agreement, ARAMCO, and corporate control over Middle Eastern oil. 4. Cold War Interventions (1945–1991): Coups, sanctions, and proxy wars (e.g., Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Afghanistan). 5. Post-9/11 Era (1991–2024): The War on Terror, drone strikes, regime change, and economic warfare (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen). Chapter 6, a new addition, analyzes every U.S. president from Thomas Jefferson to Biden and beyond, demonstrating how presidential decision-making has perpetuated cycles of intervention, exploitation, and destabilization. The analysis reveals continuities and shifts in U.S. strategy, highlighting the moral, political, and social consequences of these operations, including human rights violations, economic underdevelopment, and geopolitical instability. The findings underscore the need for reassessing U.S. foreign policy in the Islamic world through the lenses of ethics, international law, and global justice. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: U.S. foreign policy, OIC economies, covert operations, economic warfare, military interventions, corporate imperialism, geopolitics, War on Terror, drone strikes, sanctions, reparations |
| JEL: | F5 |
| Date: | 2026–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:130394 |
| By: | Micheal Bordo (Rutgers University); Oliver Bush (Bank of England); Ryland Thomas (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | Discussion of the causes of the Great Inflation in the UK during the 1970s has centred around the relative importance of ‘bad luck’ – the occurrence of unusually large commodity price and supply-side shocks – and ‘bad policy’ reflecting failures in both monetary and prices and incomes policies. By reconsidering the historical and empirical record of inflation from 1950s to the early 1990s we show that the persistence of the Great Inflation in the UK cannot fully be explained by these factors, although these can account for some of the major fluctuations. Instead, underlying inflation and inflation expectations appear to be the result of a sequence of regime shifts. We argue those regime shifts are as much related to fundamental changes in fiscal policy as they are to monetary policy and union reforms. Our empirical evidence suggests that fiscal policy was at the heart of many of the problems in the UK during the Great Inflation. In contrast to most of British history, it was not used to stabilise the public finances. Instead, it was used to keep unemployment down and growth up, to subsidise losers from terms of trade shocks and to secure deals with the unions. |
| Keywords: | Great Inflation;fiscal policy;inflation expectations;money growth |
| JEL: | E4 E6 N10 |
| Date: | 2025–07–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:023257 |
| By: | Liu, ZY |
| Abstract: | Taking the withdrawal of the 2026 film The Battle of Penghu as a point of entry, this article explores the rise of Han nationalist ideology within Chinese society in the 2020s, and the increasingly prominent divergences in orientation between it and the officially led “Chinese nationalism (state nationalism).” The article analyzes the institutional roots of Han nationalism during a period of economic zero-sum competition, its contestation of historical narratives in the sphere of popular culture, and its comprehensive deconstruction of the official discursive system on core issues such as the definition of the nation, historical orthodoxy, and territorial legality. |
| Date: | 2026–08–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nmwqj_v1 |
| By: | Tommaso D'Amelio |
| Abstract: | The French Revolution disrupted local inheritance practices by mandating equal division ofassets among all offspring, including illegitimate children—a historically marginalized group.I compare children born before and after the inclusion in 1793 of illegitimate children inthe inheritance, across bailliages where the reform had a transformative impact and thosewhere local practices remained unaltered. The analysis employs three novel datasets: oneon inheritance rights for out-of-wedlock children in pre-revolutionary France, one built fromgenealogical sources, and one digitizing a demographic survey on illegitimacy prevalence in18th–19th century France. My findings reveal that the reform led to a significant decline inillegitimate births by two thirds. |
| Keywords: | Illegitimacy; Inheritance law; French Revolution; Fertility; Customary law |
| JEL: | N33 J13 K36 |
| Date: | 2026–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/413186 |
| By: | Feld, Lars P.; Nientiedt, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This is the introduction to a forthcoming special issue of History of Political Economy edited by the same authors. We start from the observation that there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which Friedrich Hayek's large and diverse oeuvre forms a coherent whole. Our paper distinguishestwo ways in which the unity of Hayek's work can be established: either by identifying an overarching theme that pervades his contributions or by considering their practical purpose. We discuss both options, while also relating them to the papers of the special issue. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:343102 |
| By: | Ivan Dichovski (London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History); Stefan Nikolić (Loughborough University, Loughborough Business School) |
| Abstract: | Can railways promote development in late-developing agrarian economies? This article examines Bulgaria between 1880 and 1910 using newly collected settlement-level data on population growth and agricultural productivity. We employ an inconsequential-units instrumental variable strategy based on least-cost paths. Railway access increased annual population growth by 0.6 percentage points and raised grain and cash-crop productivity by around 12 and 109 kilograms per decare of sown land, respectively. Productivity gains were larger in settlements farther from major export ports, consistent with railways promoting development by facilitating agricultural commercialisation and improving access to foreign markets. |
| Keywords: | Railways, Development, Bulgaria, Growth, Agriculture, Market Access |
| JEL: | N1 N7 N9 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0310 |
| By: | Sergio A. Correia; Stephan Luck; Emil Verner |
| Abstract: | We study the causes and consequences of bank runs. By applying large language models to historical newspapers, we create a comprehensive database of bank runs in U.S. history with information on 3, 984 runs on individual banks from 1863 to 1934. Our novel data allow us to establish that runs are considerably more likely in weak banks but also occur in strong banks, especially in response to negative news about the real economy or the broader banking system. However, runs typically only result in failure for banks with poor fundamentals. Strong banks survive runs through various mechanisms, including signaling strength, interbank cooperation, and temporary suspension. At the local level, runs on banks with poor fundamentals translate into substantially larger declines in deposits, lending, and manufacturing activity than runs on strong banks. Our findings imply that poor fundamentals are central to explaining both when runs occur and when they have severe economic effects, tempering the view that small shocks can generate discontinuous jumps to bad equilibria through self-fulfilling run dynamics. |
| JEL: | G0 G01 G21 N1 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35504 |
| By: | Klaus M. Frahm; Dima L. Shepelyansky |
| Abstract: | Using official government data sets of USA and France we analyze the occurrence/frequency/popularity distributions of given names on a time scale of more than 100 years. These distributions are characterized through the Lorenz and Pareto curves broadly used in the analysis of wealth inequality in the world. These curves remain stable during the considered time period with the Gini coefficient remaining in the narrow range 0.85-0.95. As for the case of wealth inequality, we show that the distributions of names are well described by the Rayleigh-Jeans (RJ) thermalization and condensation phenomenon well studied in various physical systems. The RJ thermalization results from two integrals of motion being analogous to energy and probability norm conservation in physical systems with energy states corresponding to popularity levels of names. Time correlations between names are also determined showing their stability until the middle of the twentieth century and a significant change after that. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.06048 |
| By: | Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke (CNRS and Sciences Po); Roger Vicquéry (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | We present a new global index indicating how fixed the world’s exchange rates are. Our index measures the probability of two units of GDP, randomly selected anywhere in the world, of being involved in a fixed exchange rate arrangement. This approach is invariant to alternative classifications of the Eurozone and is able to account for both direct and indirect exchange rate linkages between countries. In contrast to the 'New Consensus' view, which posits a continuity in exchange rate arrangements from the Bretton Woods era to the present, our index restores the conventional account of international monetary history over the last 70 years. Our findings indicate that global exchange rate regimes are currently nearly three times as flexible as they were prior to the 1971 Nixon shock. Furthermore, our measure partially puts into perspective the view that dollar dominance is now stronger than ever: we find that global anchoring to the US dollar was significantly more prevalent during Bretton Woods, particularly when accounting for indirect links. |
| Keywords: | Fixed exchange rate regimes;Bretton Woods;Nixon Shock;anchor currencies;US dollar dominance |
| JEL: | E5 F3 F4 N2 |
| Date: | 2025–06–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:023253 |
| By: | Anna Schlaack; Christian Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | RePEc is an initiative created by economists for economists in 1997. It functions primarily as a bibliographic tool, but it also collects various linked metadata about economists, their institutions, and their impact. Thus, a labor economist may be interested in RePEc beyond literature searches and tracking—namely, as a dataset describing a profession, its members, and their output. This essay describes RePEc’s origins and history, the many facets of its data and how the data can be accessed. It also provides some examples of scholarly studies leveraging RePEc data that could be of interest to labor economists and lead them to other uses of RePEc data. |
| Keywords: | RePEc; dataset; sociology of economics; economics profession |
| JEL: | A11 A14 J44 J45 |
| Date: | 2026–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:103698 |
| By: | Hamid Noghanibehambari; Jason Fletcher |
| Abstract: | Many previous studies have used cross-cohort comparisons and a focus on in utero exposure to document the lingering effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic on survivors’ outcomes later in life. A subset has examined impacts on old-age health and mortality, finding mixed results. This paper contributes to the literature by extending the analysis to evaluate early-life and childhood exposure to the pandemic on old-age longevity along with a set of candidate mechanisms. We employ Social Security Administration death records linked to the full-count 1940 census and employ event-study and difference-in-difference regressions to compare longevity of cohorts with different age-at-exposure who were born in cities with high versus low exposure based on 1918 influenza-related mortality. Our treatment-on-treated calculations suggest that cohorts with age-at-exposure of 3-8 and 9-11 experience 6.4 and 11.2 months reductions in old age longevity; importantly, we note that these cohorts are often used as “controls” in the broader literature. While our main analysis focuses on males due to data constraints, supplementary results suggest smaller and less precise effects for females. An analysis of census data suggests reductions in health, education and socioeconomic scores as potential mechanisms. |
| JEL: | I1 J10 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35471 |
| By: | Mert Geyiktepe; Dani Rodrik |
| Abstract: | Using text-as-data methods, we quantify the U.S. discourse on China, place it in historical perspective, and compare its evolution across different sources of public narrative. Our analysis is based on a large corpus of materials drawn from public records (presidential and congressional records, newspaper articles, social media, think tank reports). We develop two measures of narrative discourse: an indicator of the frequency with which China is covered and a proxy for how positively or negatively China is presented. We document a sustained decline in net sentiment towards China in presidential sources since the early 2000s, predating Donald Trump’s first term in office. In contrast to presidential documents, congressional, news media, social media, and think tank sources exhibit persistent negative sentiment towards China even in decades prior to the 2000s. Instead of a deterioration in sentiment across the board, what we find is a convergence in presidential sentiment to other sources of narrative discourse. We find no evidence that presidential leadership has played a significant role in setting the narrative tone for the nation as a whole. Historical and shorter-term evidence both point to a bottom-up process of diffusion of narratives, rather than top-down diffusion. |
| JEL: | F5 P0 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35539 |
| By: | Horovitz, Liviu; Schneider, Jonas |
| Abstract: | The 2026 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was held in New York in April-May. It was a failure because the delegations had been unable to agree on a final document. This was the third consecutive Review Conference to end without consensus - something that had never happened before in the 56-year history of the NPT. Ahead of the conference, some diplomats and experts had warned that another failure would be catastrophic not just for the treaty but for the entire nuclear order. That is the wrong conclusion to draw. The record of previous Review Conferences, what happened at this year's meeting and the responses to its outcome all suggest that the NPT - the cornerstone of the nuclear order and an essential pillar of the broader international order - remains resilient. The growing nuclear inequality inherent in the NPT's division of states parties into five nuclear-weapon states and 186 non-nuclear-weapon states polarises the multilateral nuclear debate in New York, Geneva and Vienna but does not threaten the treaty's survival. The NPT would be at risk, however, if Russian and Chinese revisionism were to intensify further and US willingness to exercise leadership continued to wane. |
| Keywords: | Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 2026 Review Conference, nuclear-weapon states, nuclear order, Do Hung Viet, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), war against Iran, war against Ukraine |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swpcom:343140 |
| By: | Ting Chen (School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University); Jianan Li (School of Economics, Xiamen University); Chong Pang (Barcelona School of Economics and Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Yuan Zi (Geneva Graduate Institute and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | Under what conditions can globalization become a source of state fragility? We provide the first systematic evidence that rigid trade and taxation systems, together with the collapse in global silver production following the Spanish American wars of independence, fueled rising silver prices and social instability in early nineteenth-century Qing China. Using newly assembled county-level panel data and historical commercial routes, we show that regions farther from Canton—the empire's sole legal international port—experienced larger increases in silver prices and greater social unrest following the shock. Silver-denominated taxation was central to this relationship: because taxes were largely fixed in silver terms, rising silver prices sharply increased real tax burdens and fueled instability. Quantitatively, the silver shock reduced China's aggregate welfare by 1.16 percent, with fiscal rigidity accounting for most of the loss. Opening additional international ports would have mitigated the destabilizing effects of the shock, but only modestly. By contrast, fiscal reform would have been far more effective. |
| Keywords: | Trade Costs; Silver Shock; Fiscal Capacity; Social Unrest; Chinese Economy |
| JEL: | L52 F13 R38 |
| Date: | 2026–09–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp24-2026 |
| By: | J. Carter Braxton; Kyle F. Herkenhoff; Chengdai Huang; Michael Nattinger; Jonathan L. Rothbaum; Lawrence D.W. Schmidt |
| Abstract: | We document an increase in U.S. income risk from 1969 to 2019 using newly digitized IRS tax returns, distinguishing permanent from transitory risk. Since the 1970s, permanent income risk increased across the distribution, but most sharply among high earners, rising nearly 70% among the top 5%. We show that, even among top earners, large negative income shocks strongly predict financial distress and higher income risk is linked with higher savings. In a quantitative life-cycle model, rising income risk concentrated at the top lowers the risk-free rate by 0.7pp, increases wealth inequality, and contributes to the "savings glut of the rich." |
| JEL: | D15 E21 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35664 |
| By: | Felix Kersting (HU Berlin); Iris Wohnsiedler (Trinity College Dublin, Economic and Social Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how collective bargaining institutions emerged from competition within the labor movement. We draw on newly assembled data on strikes, union membership, and bargaining agreements at the county-occupation level in Imperial Germany around 1900. Three rival factions competed for control of the labor movement: the social-democratic Free Trade Unions, the radical unions, and the moderate unions, divided over whether to confront employers, negotiate with them, or both. The Free Trade Unions struck more effectively than the radical unions and bargained far more than the moderate ones. Instrumenting Free Trade Union strength with distance to their headquarters, we show that stronger organization raised the likelihood that agreements emerged. Strike activity rose ahead of first agreements and fell thereafter. The effect is concentrated in multi-employer agreements with peace obligations, the bargaining form that later defined the German model. Organized employers played little part in this process. Durable bargaining institutions emerged where a movement could both sustain conflict and commit to settling it. |
| Keywords: | labor conflict; collective bargaining agreement; unions; endogenous institutions; |
| JEL: | N33 J51 J52 D72 |
| Date: | 2026–07–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:581 |
| By: | Hippolyte W. Balima; Colombe Ladreit; Andresa Helena Lagerborg; Mr. Flavien Moreau; Mr. Andrea F Presbitero; Evgenia Weaver |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the macroeconomic dynamics of conflicts and post-conflict recovery using a newly assembled global dataset covering 194 countries, including 170 conflict onsets and 158 conflict terminations, over the period 1946–2024. Using a local-projection difference-in-differences framework complemented by geocoded firm-level evidence, we trace the evolution of macroeconomic aggregates around conflict onset and termination. We make four contributions. First, output losses from conflicts typically exceed those associated with banking, currency, and sovereign debt crises, as well as severe natural disasters. Second, external-sector dynamics constitute a central mechanism through which wars amplify macroeconomic challenges, despite policymakers’ efforts to contain the war shock. Third, post-conflict recoveries are slow and uneven and depend critically on the durability of peace: conflict resumption stalls recovery prospects, while sustained peace produces only gradual recoveries relative to wartime losses. These recoveries are typically labor-led, while capital accumulation and productivity remain subdued. Fourth, firm-level evidence confirms this labor-led recovery and points to persistent financial constraints that hinder capital rebuilding during the postconflict period. |
| Keywords: | wars; macroeconomy; macroeconomic policy; economic recovery |
| Date: | 2026–09–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/189 |
| By: | Iv\'an Werning; Guido Lorenzoni |
| Abstract: | A foundational question in General Equilibrium theory---when is an equilibrium stable?---has remained largely unresolved for over 150 years despite important contributions. This paper proposes a resolution. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.05355 |
| By: | de Moraes, Isaias Albertin |
| Abstract: | This article examines Alberto Guerreiro Ramos’s contributions to understanding the dilemmas and prospects of Brazilian economic development, emphasizing the originality and relevance of his thought. The methodological approach is based on a bibliographic review, aiming to identifying the State of the Art on the subject. The analysis is structured around four axes: i) biographical context, ii) theoretical-methodological foundations, iii) critiques of structural obstacles, and iv) proposals for a national-developmental project in Brazil. The study concludes that Guerreiro Ramos’s work represents a landmark in Critical Sociology and Sociology of Development, in Brazil and should be further explored in contemporary economic studies. |
| Keywords: | Guerreiro Ramos; economic development; sociological reduction; popular nationalism; critical sociology; sociology of development. |
| JEL: | B31 O10 P16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–08–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:130375 |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser |
| Abstract: | Will 21st century transportation innovations work against urban density, as the car did in the 20th century, or promote urban centralization, as the railroad did in the 19th century? Reducing the cost of commuting always reduces urban centralization in the classic Alonso-Muth-Mills model but that result reverses if the number of trips is endogenous and the elasticity of trips with respect to their costs is greater than one. That elasticity may have increased over time, as an increasing share of daily trips seems to be discretionary and city centers increasingly provide entertainment. This paper asks discusses the urbanizing effects of four trends in transportation technology: shared mobility (such as Uber), autonomy (such as Waymo), vertical travel and green mobility, as provided by bike lane. As people spend more time travelling in denser, large areas, innovations that reduce the time cost of travel, such as autonomous cars, seem likely to complement urban living, as long as they don’t excessively increase traffic. Sharing is also easier in big cities, so technologies that involve sharing are also centripetal. The other trends seem less likely to have major effects. Moreover, the forces of inertia, which include both regulation and legacy infrastructure, are likely to limit the impact of any new technologies in Europe and the U.S., so that the biggest changes in urban form are likely to appear in east Asia and the developing world. |
| JEL: | O33 R00 R40 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35718 |
| By: | Gaetano Basso; Mitali R. Mathur; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | OECD countries experienced declining native population growth and rising net immigration over 1990-2024. We compile a new dataset of net immigration rates to OECD countries from all origins and show that most of the increase came from non-OECD countries and was predominantly high-skilled. Push factors, network effects, and policy indices explain little of the large cross-country heterogeneity in immigration dynamics; unexpected shocks and surges were common. Using local projections and several sources of identifying variation, we then estimate the relationship between immigration and growth in GDP per capita, labor productivity, capital investment, and total factor productivity (TFP). Immigration from non-OECD countries was a significant predictor of GDP per worker growth, primarily through higher investment. High-skilled immigration, in particular, was associated with stronger human capital accumulation, faster TFP growth, and greater capital deepening. Native population growth, by contrast, had no or weakly negative effects on GDP per capita and productivity. These results are consistent with a large literature documenting the positive productivity and growth effects of immigration, especially high-skilled immigration. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35523 |
| By: | Ying Bai; Ruixue Jia |
| Abstract: | Institutions that claim to reward merit often also serve as engines that drive the formation of important social networks. We examine this dual role in China’s Imperial Examination, one of history’s longest-lived meritocratic systems. We draw on exam performance data for 24, 269 individuals across 112 national examinations in the Qing dynasty (1644–1905) and trace who among them rose to become top officials. Strong exam performance increased the likelihood of attaining high office, but advancement also depended on individuals’ ties to powerful examiners. Because performance and ties to powerful examiners were strongly complementary, individuals’ success appeared to rest on merit even as social networks played a role. Following the major political transformations of the 1840s, the importance of examiner ties persisted, although the influential examiners themselves changed. These findings help explain why such systems retain legitimacy even when networks matter greatly. |
| JEL: | D73 D85 N45 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35556 |
| By: | Gilles Paché (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon) |
| Abstract: | On September 11, 1973, the socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile was overthrown by a junta led by General Augusto Pinochet, illustrating how an operation could combine a comprehensive strategy with on-theground execution to rapidly transform a democracy into a violent dictatorship. Success relied less on the spread of anti-communist ideology than on precise logistical timing. In a pre-digital context, the junta mobilized its forces with precision, identified vulnerabilities, and seized control of strategic nodes, highlighting the importance of advance planning and contextual adaptation. The study of the Chilean coup, viewed through the lens of pre-digital networks and drawing on Curzio Malaparte's conceptualization of the coup, shows how the orchestration of material and information flows, actor flexibility, and meticulous preparation, supported by the United States, enabled the effective neutralization of a legitimate government. This dramatic event offers lessons on resilience and the management of complex systems, which have since inspired contemporary commercial supply chain practices in many Western countries. |
| Keywords: | clandestine operations, network coordination, pre-digital era, resilience, strategic planning, supply chain management (SCM), Chilean coup |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05733864 |
| By: | Jingjing Chen; Jianlei Han; Shing-Yi Wang; Yongxiang Wang |
| Abstract: | This paper examines reforms in China’s imperial examination system during the Northern Song dynasty that anonymized exam submissions and ended local officials’ discretion to recommend candidates. Using prefecture-level data from 960–1127 and a difference-in-differences design, we compare areas with and without prominent elite families, where corruption and elite capture were more likely. The reforms increased the share of successful candidates from commoner backgrounds and narrowed their performance gaps with elites in scholarship and political achievement, indicating better selection of commoner talent. Treated prefectures also saw less social unrest. Overall, the reforms strengthened meritocracy, broadened political access, and promoted stability. |
| JEL: | D73 J45 N45 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35531 |
| By: | Francesco Bianchi; Nicolò Ceneri; Leonardo Melosi; Alessandro T. Villa |
| Abstract: | Since the 1980s, the United States has experienced a pronounced saving glut of the rich, a large accumulation of assets among the top 1% of earners. We argue that this development partly reflects a shift in the financing of redistributive policies, from inflationary finance in the 1960s and 1970s to debt finance backed by future taxation beginning in the early 1980s. The central insight is that, in the presence of a progressive tax system, a switch from inflationary to debt financing leads to debt accumulation by top earners. We develop a New Keynesian model with borrowers and savers in which redistributive transfers can be either funded or unfunded. Unfunded transfers generate fiscal inflation that erodes the real value of public and private debt, redistributing wealth through asset revaluation effects. Funded transfers, by contrast, are financed through future taxes borne primarily by high-income households, which respond by accumulating claims on both households and the government. Using a structurally estimated version of the model, we find that the shift from unfunded to funded redistribution in the 1980s contributed significantly to the subsequent saving glut of the rich. |
| JEL: | D31 E50 E62 E63 H63 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35715 |
| By: | Talley, Vanessa M. |
| Abstract: | Social work acknowledges Black Feminist Thought as a framework and praxis, yet the profession has not established a social work framework that explicitly centers Black women’s epistemologies as foundational to education, theory, research, policy, and practice. Although social work maintains a historical commitment to social justice, person-in-environment, and human rights perspectives, dominant theories and knowledge systems continue to reflect Eurocentric assumptions regarding knowledge production and professional expertise. This article introduces Black Feminist Social Work (BFSW) as a conceptual framework that centers Black women’s individual and collective lived experiences, intellectual traditions, historical resistance, and knowledge to inform social work theory, education, research, policy, and practice. Drawing upon Black feminism, Black Feminist Thought, Womanism, Intersectionality, and the profession’s ethical commitments, the BFSW framework proposes a necessary shift from positioning Black women primarily as a population to be studied to recognizing them as producers of transformative knowledge. This article introduces four organizing principles, the Four C’s: Centering, Contextualizing, Co-Creating, and Changing, as foundational processes for Black Feminist Social Work and discusses the implications for curriculum development, clinical practice, research methodologies, policy advocacy, and future scholarship. Rather than positioning Black Feminist Social Work as an alternative specialization, this framework argues that centering Black women’s knowledge expands the social work profession’s capacity to pursue equity, liberation, and social transformation. |
| Date: | 2026–08–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:khn9f_v1 |
| By: | Mahmood Alaghmandan |
| Abstract: | Emile Durkheim's Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897) predates much of the statistical machinery that quantitative modellers now take for granted. Yet, working with sparse and imperfect observational data, Durkheim repeatedly arrives at practices that remain remarkably relevant to modern modelling. This paper revisits Suicide from the perspective of quantitative risk modelling, not for its substantive conclusions, but for the reasoning by which Durkheim reached them. His approach illustrates how careful definition, common sense, logical investigation, scepticism toward convenient explanations, and close attention to what the data can and cannot support---all of which must precede, and can often substitute for, statistical sophistication. The broader lesson is simple: good modelling begins not with technique, but with understanding the problem, interrogating the evidence, and reasoning carefully about what it can actually tell us. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.21506 |
| By: | Takuma Kunieda (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University); Keisuke Okada (Faculty of Economics, Kansai University); Yasuyuki Sawada (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo); Akihisa Shibata (Department of Economics, Osaka University of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Building on the two-sector growth model of Matsuyama (1992), this paper explores how the Green Revolution contributed to structural transformation through market-based price adjustments. To address the endogeneity of relative agricultural prices, we employ shift-share (Bartik) instrumental variables drawing on the innovative methodologies and datasets developed by Gollin et al. (2021) and Huang (2024). We further construct a novel projected-TFP instrument to isolate realized agricultural productivity gains attributable to the Green Revolution. Our empirical findings show that the Green Revolution significantly increased agricultural productivity, lowered agricultural prices, and facilitated structural transformation when market mechanisms function effectively. Importantly, institutional quality critically shapes this price-transmission mechanism: weak institutions distort the transmission of agri-cultural productivity gains into relative prices and thereby impede structural transformation. To quantify these distortions and the associated misallocation, we construct a price-based misallocation (PBM) index that captures institutionally mediated distortions in relative-price adjustment. Overall, our findings show that the benefits of the Green Revolution depend not only on technological progress itself but also on the institutional environment through which productivity gains are transmitted into market prices. These findings highlight the importance of institutional reforms and targeted policies to reduce distortions and maximize the gains from agricultural innovation. |
| Keywords: | Structural transformation; Green Revolution; Misallocation; Economic development; Price-based misallocation (PBM) index |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O43 Q16 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:313 |
| By: | Paul X. McCarthy; Xian Gong; John A. Johnson; Marian-Andrei Rizoiu; Margaret L. Kern; Jean M. Twenge |
| Abstract: | Generational stereotypes are widespread, but they often rely on anecdotes, and it remains challenging to disentangle true birth-cohort differences from the universal effects of ageing and historical periods. Using a statistical approach that separates effects of age, calendar time, and cohort, we analyzed Big Five personality data (five broad dimensions of personality) from N=773, 714 individuals assessed across 30 years. Traits that shape social interaction diverged between generations, whereas a prosocial core comprising morality, discipline, and emotional awareness was stable across cohorts. Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2012) showed lower excitement seeking and gregariousness alongside higher self-consciousness and anxiety. These findings suggest that cohort change is selective rather than global: the dispositions through which people engage with the social world may be adapting to contemporary cultural conditions, while core prosocial tendencies remain stable across generations. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.18119 |
| By: | Bleemer, Zachary; Rothstein, Jesse |
| Abstract: | American colleges and universities are highly stratified by pre-college academic achievement, family background, and institutional resources. We study the meritocratic consensus in American higher education: colleges that high-testing students (who are generally also from high-income families) attend spend dramatically more on instruction than do those that enroll lower-testing students. Stratification by test scores has been largely stable since the 1960s, but the stratification of instructional resources has risen sharply since 1970 at both private and public institutions. Non-academic admissions criteria like athletics, legacy, and affirmative action are second-order in determining the allocation of students to universities. Potential economic justifications for the positive association of instructional expenditures with student prior achievement – q-complementarity between achievement and resources, convex social returns to high human capital, and incentives to invest in learning prior to college – have little empirical support. Resource stratification across universities has not increased in the past decade, largely due to increased public funding of universities that enroll lower-testing students through financial aid programs like California’s CalGrant, but stratification within institutions is now rising swiftly. JEL Codes: I23, I24, N32, Z13 |
| Keywords: | Education, admissions, college, university, testing, stratifications |
| Date: | 2026–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt2s7426hb |
| By: | Sandambi, Nerhum |
| Abstract: | This Approach analyses, in particular, Democratic Republic of Congo evidence after six decades of independence. The Country remains trapped in poverty, the politics interventions were particularly analysed, this, quantified from civil war after independence. On the other hand, the post-independence period was naturally affected by the high level of the vicious circle implemented during the Mobutu president regime, the vicious circle is the relevant channel that drove the Country to high multidimensional poverty. The inequality of regions naturally was intensified, however, the vicious circle in general help to drive the dual economy and dual society in particular, where in majority inside regions of the Country exist majority poorer family, currently the informal economy exist naturally in large majority region's, any activities on Democratic Republic of Congo are made from the informal economy, followed by existence of many informal companies. The Mobutu presidential regime introduced a type of democracy and institutions politics, that guaranteed the privilege from a small group of society, mainly the politicians that had control of the politics and the economics institutions in general. The Democratic Republic of Congo democracy is similar to that verified in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, and Equatorial Guinea. These democracies in particular work to satisfy an interest of a small group of society, mainly the economic interest, that naturally represents democracy at the service of the Vicious circle in particular. These Countries share particularly the same trajectory, such as the politics trajectory and economics trajectory in general, reinforced with the evidence that are naturally verified on the Congo Brazzaville, apparently the Country shows some decentralisation, however, most important decisions are taken from the central government. The economic potential did not provide enough to guarantee the economic transformation in particular, thus, Country sleeps on the abundance of natural resources, furthermore this evidence is in line with the approach of paradox of plenty. |
| Date: | 2026–09–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:fe4gc_v1 |
| By: | Deutscher, Nathan (Australian National University); Siminski, Peter (University of Technology Sydney) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to understanding the causal mechanisms of intergenerational welfare persistence. We study veterans’ pensions, leveraging Australia’s Vietnam-era draft lotteries for identification and over three decades of administrative data with universal coverage. Deployed service increased veterans’ expected welfare receipt by 7.5 years (100.5%) and reduced employment (3.2 years; 30.2%). Effects for veterans’ spouses were qualitatively similar and approximately half as large. How did this affect their children? Despite high statistical power, we find almost no lasting effects on child outcomes, including welfare, employment, income, education, partnering and fertility. Direct estimates of causal intergenerational welfare elasticities are precise zeros, highlighting that welfare receipthttps://legacy.iza.org/en/webcontent/personnel/photos/personal_menu does not always spill over to the next generation. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, welfare dependency, veterans’ benefits, disability pensions, conscription, labour supply |
| JEL: | H53 H55 H56 I38 J22 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18876 |
| By: | Kerler, Philipp; Petrović, Valentina |
| Abstract: | Economic grievances are central in explaining the rise of right-wing illiberalism. Grievances allow challenger parties to rally around scapegoating outsider groups, such as ethnic minorities, immigrants, or foreigners. Some research argues that continuing decline allows illiberal parties to consolidate power by entrenching and polarizing around such cleavages. However, when illiberal parties are in power and economic decline continues, we argue that, absent cultural cleavages, retrospective economic voting prevails. Zooming in on the case of Trstenik, a Serbian town with a significant industrial legacy, strongly affected by deindustrialization, we leverage data from a novel survey and semi-structured interviews in a mixed-methods approach. We document clear patterns of existing grievances and blame on the government. However, positive, hopeful interpretations also exist among affected individuals. We show that support for the illiberal right-wing incumbent Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) is positively associated with positive interpretations and negatively associated with grievances. Our study contributes an important qualifying account to current debates about the economic roots of right-wing illiberalism by highlighting the importance of scope conditions. |
| Date: | 2026–08–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6rkx7_v2 |
| By: | Alejandro Puerta-Cuartas |
| Abstract: | Measuring the intergenerational transmission of lifetime economic status is complicated by researchers often only observing snapshots of income at specific ages. Consequently, standard practice estimates intergenerational mobility using income averages, introducing life-cycle bias that compromises reliability and comparability across studies, time, and place. I develop a missing data framework that exploits available income data and observable characteristics to eliminate life-cycle bias. This method combines nonparametric identification with Neyman-orthogonal moments to construct debiased machine learning estimators for intergenerational income mobility measures under plausible missing-at-random and testable independence assumptions. I apply this framework to estimate the intergenerational elasticity for the U.S. using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics across birth cohorts from 1954 to 1977 with rolling 10-year windows. While existing approaches estimate values between 0.41 and 0.54, the proposed method yields substantially higher estimates ranging from 0.6 to 0.7, averaging 0.64. These results align closely with recent evidence using long time averages over mid-career periods, reinforcing high U.S. intergenerational persistence. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.04994 |