|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Barbara Boelmann (University of Cologne & RWI Leibniz Instiute for Economic Research); Carola Stapper (Johannes Kepler University Linz) |
| Abstract: | Over the past century, women have gained formal political rights, yet remain under-represented in leadership—partly due to lower demand for representation among women themselves. In this paper, we shift the perspective from why men extended political rights to women toward what shaped women’s own demand for representation. Specifically, we study how male absence during World War I affected German women’s demand for the franchise, exploiting exogenous variation in drafting intensity across regions for identification. To make demand for political representation directly measurable, we construct a newly digitised panel dataset of the universe of German suffragette clubs—a revealed-preference measure of demand, given the considerable costs of maintaining a club, especially under wartime restrictions on political activism. Our results show that women were more likely to keep suffragette clubs open in counties with greater male absence. This effect is driven by regions where women publicly led war relief efforts, pointing to agency and specifically women’s experience in visible leadership roles as the central mechanism. We further show that this demand for representation persisted after the franchise was extended, with women more likely to run for parliament and to vote in counties with greater wartime male absence and a suffragette club. |
| Keywords: | Waomen's political representation, suffrage movement, agency |
| JEL: | J16 N44 D71 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:396 |
| By: | Georgios Tsiachtsiras (White Research SRL); Sergio Petralia (Utrecht University); Ernest Miguelez (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona); Rosina Moreno (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This article studies how anti-scientific sentiment can shape the direction of technological change, focusing on the tensions between the Catholic Church and the French Republic in late nineteenth-century France. We construct a novel geo-referenced database of French patents filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1838-1960) and combine it with historical measures of religiosity at the departmental level. We find that areas with higher shares of refractory clergy, those who refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary state, produced significantly fewer electrical patents between 1890 and 1914. Crucially, this negative relationship does not extend to other technological fields or to overall patenting activity. Neither education nor migration explains this pattern. We also show that early electrical patenting predicts later activity in computer and communication technologies, consistent with path-dependent technological development. These findings suggest that conservative institutional environments did not suppress innovation broadly, but selectively discouraged disruptive technologies that challenged established norms, with consequences that persisted for decades. |
| Keywords: | innovation, patent data, religion, path-dependence, technological change JEL classification: L92, N73, O31, O33, P25 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202602 |
| By: | Amanda Gregg (Middlebury College); Steven Nafziger (Williams College); ; |
| Keywords: | Russia, colonialism, economic history, imperialism |
| Date: | 2025–08–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_111 |
| By: | Erik Ortiz-Covarrubias (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether Germany’s historical confessional divides continue to influence contemporary political behavior by exploiting persistent geographic variation between historically Catholic and Protestant areas through a Geographic Regression Discontinuity Design. Integrating historical and geospatial data with modern electoral and census sources, I find that historically Catholic municipalities show systematically higher support for the center-right Union parties than their counterparts in every federal election from 1990 to 2025, while historically Protestant areas are more likely to support parties on the center-left and left of the political spectrum. Individual-level survey data covering all Federal Elections since 1953 and the German General Social Survey provide suggestive evidence that voting behavior is shaped by confessional affiliation. |
| Keywords: | Religion, voting behavior, Germany. |
| JEL: | O18 N33 D72 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2026_2604 |
| By: | Ethan Schmick; Allison Shertzer |
| Abstract: | Cities in the United States dramatically expanded spending on public education after World War I, with the average urban school district increasing per pupil expenditures by over 70 percent by 1924. We provide the first evaluation of these unprecedented investments in public education using a new dataset and plausibly exogenous growth in school spending generated by anti-German sentiment. We find that school resources significantly increased educational attainment and wages later in life, particularly for less advantaged children. Increases in expenditures can explain about 40 percent of the sizable increase in educational attainment of cohorts born between 1895 and 1913. |
| Keywords: | school spending; returns to educational resources |
| JEL: | H75 I22 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–03–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:102897 |
| By: | Guillaume Morel; Magali Jaoul-Grammare |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of plague outbreaks on nominal wages, real wages, and prices in pre-industrial France. We employ a cliometric approach, relying on a database spanning multiple centuries, drawn from Ridolfi (2019). To analyze the impact of plague outbreaks, we apply an outlier detection methodology to detect atypical points that influence the evolution of our time series. We tackle the following question: over the period 1280–1789, did plague significantly influence the evolution of real wages, nominal wages, and prices, and, if so, what was the nature of this impact? We find that plague outbreaks had differentiated impacts across variables, occupations, and periods. Real and nominal wages responded differently depending on contextual factors, while prices were influenced by both plagues and famines. |
| Keywords: | Cliometrics, Epidemics, Outliers, Plague, Prices, Wages |
| JEL: | C32 E32 N33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-06 |
| By: | Vitale, Tommaso Prof (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This short article reconstructs the influence of Jürgen Habermas on urban studies, demonstrating how communicative action theory has shaped communicative planning theory, public sphere debates, and the legal philosophy of urban governance across five decades of European and North American scholarship. His influence has operated largely underground: through the communicative planning tradition of John Forester, Patsy Healey, and Judith Innes; through the vocabulary of deliberation and legitimacy that now pervades urban theory; and through the concept of the colonisation of the lifeworld, which provides researchers the analytical language to name what happens when markets and bureaucracies dismantle the communicative fabric of neighbourhoods. Against the prevailing reception — which treats Habermas as an abstract philosopher requiring translation into urban language — this article argues that he was, at his roots, an empirical and historical thinker of the city. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) is a meticulous historical sociology of how European cities — their cafés, salons, reading clubs, and press — created the institutional conditions for democratic deliberation. The Theory of Communicative Action (1981–84) diagnoses the pathologies of urban modernity through the mechanism of colonisation of the lifeworld, tracing how instrumental rationality erodes the communicative infrastructure of urban life. Between Facts and Norms (1992) advances a constitutional theory of urban governance, specifying what conditions planning and land-use decisions must meet to achieve democratic legitimacy in late-modern democratic cities. The article concludes by examining Habermas's 2022 return to the public sphere in the age of digital platforms — a structural transformation of urban democracy as far-reaching as the one he analysed sixty years earlier — and argues that communicative action theory remains an indispensable analytical resource wherever deliberative urban governance and democratic legitimacy are at stake. |
| Date: | 2026–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9b3tj_v1 |
| By: | John B. Guerard, Jr.; Juan Chen |
| Abstract: | It is well known that America is celebrating its 250th birthday. The United States of America began with Mr. Jefferson writing its Declaration of Independence, in which the 13 colonies agreed to break away from England, their mother country, which was signed July 4th, 1776, in Philadelphia. The American Revolutionary War was fought to ensure the colonies’ independence, and won on the battlefield at Yorktown, Virginia. Independence was formally recognized with The Treaty of Paris in 1783. It is our contention that the many of the colonial leaders that signed the Declaration of Independence were successful merchants who had created an economic system in Europe that was brought to the Colonies, as reported in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) and enhanced by the colonists, acting in their own interest. Mr. Smith’s “invisible hand†was particularly effective in the South Carolina Lowcountry area, such that great wealth was achieved. Capitalism and its private property and American religious tolerance were the driving force of the Colonies’ wealth. In 2026, as we prepare for the great American birthday party, capitalism still reigns supreme, and the authors report that the US Russell 3000 stock index has for the January 2006 – November 2025 period. achieved a higher return-to-risk tradeoff than the World All Country World Investible (ACWI ) during the 2006 -2025 period. Capitalism has allowed the US to reign supreme in global stock indexes. However, as the authors reported in early-2026, the Russell 3000 stock universe can be enhanced by creating a more global portfolio irrespective of current global universes. True Markowitz diversification can be achieved in global stocks. For US and intelligent global investors, the best is yet to come! |
| Keywords: | . |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwc:wpaper:2026-003 |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (University of Oxford); Panin, Amma (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium); Pfaff, Steven; Rubin, Jared |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the role of religion in economic development, both historically and today. Religion's influence varies globally, with high religiosity in countries like Pakistan and low rates in China. Despite declines in some Western countries, religion remains influential worldwide, with projected growth in Muslim populations due to higher fertility rates. Religion continues to shape societal norms and institutions, such as education and politics, even after its direct influence fades. The chapter explores how religious institutions and norms have impacted economic outcomes, focusing on both persistence and decline. It also examines cultural transmission, institutional entrenchment, networks, and religious competition as mechanisms sustaining religion's influence. We explore the relationship between religion and secularization, showing that economic development does not always reduce religiosity. Lastly, the chapter highlights gaps in the literature and suggests future research areas on the evolving role of religion in economic development. |
| Keywords: | Religion ; Economic Development ; Religiosity ; Cultural Transmission ; Secularization ; Historical Persistence ; Religious Competition ; Networks ; Social Norms |
| JEL: | D85 I25 J10 N30 O33 O43 P48 Z10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2025–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2025006 |
| By: | Taylor Jaworski; Erik O. Kimbrough |
| Abstract: | This paper recovers the cultural geography of the United States from first-name patterns in census data spanning 1850 to 1930. Using unsupervised clustering of county-level name distributions, we identify spatially coherent cultural regions that align with historically recognized settlement patterns and remain stable across eight decades of economic and institutional change. The deepest division separates North from South, but finer groupings (New England, the Mid-Atlantic, Appalachia, the Deep South) emerge as nested subregions. Formal tests confirm that the recovered clusters are spatially contiguous, temporally persistent, and robust to resampling. The findings bear on whether liberal institutions require cultural homogeneity, whether cultural pluralism is a source of resilience or fragility, and how the imprint of early settlement shapes the practice of self-governance. |
| JEL: | N9 R10 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34958 |
| By: | Véronique Pouillard (UiO - University of Oslo, EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School); Kristin Ranestad |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the diamond extraction and commerce in South Kasaï, a key diamond-producing region in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Focusing on the late colonial years through the post-independence militarization of the province in 1964, the article examines the role of the multinational firms Forminière and Bécéka in consolidating control over diamond resources. Drawing on archival materials from both firms, held in the Sibeka archives (after the postcolonial renaming of these operations), we analyze how these firms exploited Congo's extractive institutions, contributing to violence and state fragility. Shortly after the Congo gained independence on June 30, 1960, South Kasaï declared secession from the new republic and remained a semiautonomous entity until 1962. Despite the ban on artisanal mining by the multinationals present in the region and by the South Kasaï provincial authorities, clandestine mining increased and started fostering the cross-border trade in diamonds, creating alternative circuits of commerce outside the monopoly of the De Beers international cartel. Against this backdrop, our findings show a 'cycle of repression', in which multinational management employed corruption, local exploitation, and violent measures to suppress artisanal mining and maintain dominance. We argue that the transition to independence intensified legal pluralism and informal mining cultures, undermining state authority and reinforcing the 'resource curse' framework. The paper contributes to debates on natural resources, extractive institutions, and conflict, offering a microhistorical perspective on diamond mining and its implications for Congolese governance. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05521275 |
| By: | Shum, Tim Siu Ming |
| Abstract: | Why do institutional replacements historically exhibit structurally similar patterns of rise and decline? This article proposes the concept of the "Initial Dividend" as the core driving mechanism of institutional cycles and constructs a four-stage cyclical model dividend release, distributive ossification, dividend exhaustion, and legitimation crisis leading to substitution-to universally explain institutional replacement across differing historical contexts. This article argues that whenever a new institution replaces an old one, the structural transformation releases a one-time surplus of resources or efficiency gains, defined here as the "Initial Dividend." The temporal nature of this dividend is the fundamental cause of institutional cycles: when the dividend is exhausted and the vested interest structures surrounding it obstruct adaptive reform, the institution enters a legitimation crisis, creating conditions for the next round of replacement. Through four sets of comparative historical cases- -Chinese dynastic cycles, the European transition from feudalism to constitutionalism, post-war decolonization state-building, and the neoliberal turn since the 1980s-this article empirically tests the theoretical framework and clearly defines its scope, boundary conditions, and falsifiable propositions. |
| Date: | 2026–03–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:avfwc_v1 |
| By: | Nikos Benos (University of Ioannina); Stelios Karagiannis (European Training Foundation); Anastasia Litina (University of Macedonia); Sofia Tsitou (University of Macedonia) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the long-term impact of the 1920s forced displacement of Asia Minor refugees on contemporary health behaviors in Greece. Using regionally representative data from the 2019 Greek Health Survey and historical refugee settlement patterns, we find that individuals living in areas with higher historical shares of refugees are significantly more likely to engage in preventive health care, consult medical professionals, participate in physical activity, and maintain healthy dietary habits. These effects persist after controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic factors, and are robust to various specifications, including the exclusion of Attica, the main internal migration hub, and age-stratified analyses. To explain these findings, we discuss four plausible mechanisms: the relatively higher human capital and educational attainment of the refugee population, their early exposure to adverse health conditions, large-scale public infrastructure investments prompted by the resettlement effort, and the cultural diffusion of health-conscious norms and practices. Together, our results suggest that historical episodes of forced migration can have durable effects on public health behavior through intergenerational transmission of norms and institutional legacies, with implications for both migration policy and health inequality. |
| Keywords: | Forced migration, Refugees, Health behavior, Preventive care, Cultural persistence, Historical legacies, Human capital, Public health infrastructure, Intergenerational transmission, Greece, Asia Minor refugees |
| JEL: | C24 I20 I12 N34 N44 N64 N74 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2026_07 |
| By: | Skousen, Mark |
| Abstract: | * In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that individuals pursuing their own self-interest can promote the public good when channelled through his 'system of natural liberty.' * Smith's 'system of natural liberty' depends on three pillars - maximum individual liberty, tempered by justice (rule of law) and robust competition. * Competition acts as a moral regulator by disciplining greed and channelling self-interest into socially beneficial outcomes. * Smith strongly opposed mercantilism and governmentgranted monopolies, arguing that economic freedom and free trade generate greater prosperity. * Modern evidence, such as the Economic Freedom Index, supports Smith's prediction that societies with greater economic liberty achieve faster growth and higher living standards. * The Scottish philosopher's model achieves a hat trick: maximum liberty, individual improvement, and public benefit, all at the same time. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:338114 |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O.; Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding; Kok, Chun Chee (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a survey of the literature on gender differences in religiosity and the influence of religion on gender-related economic and social outcomes. Part I examines why women tend to be more religious than men, discussing central explanations. Part II explores how religion impacts various gender-related outcomes, such as gender norms and attitudes, education, labor market participation, fertility, health, legal institutions and reforms, and discrimination. Within each domain, we distinguish between effects driven by individual religiosity (intensity of religious practice or belief) and those driven by their religious denomination. We synthesize findings from numerous studies, highlighting data sources, measures of religion and gender outcomes, and empirical strategies. We focus on studies with credible causal identification—such as natural experiments, instrumental variable approaches, and policy changes—to uncover the impact of religion on outcomes. Correlational studies are also reviewed to provide context. Across studies, the evidence suggests that religious teachings and participation often reinforce traditional gender roles, affecting women’s education, labor force participation, and fertility choices, although there are important nuances and exceptions. We also document instances where secular reforms or religious movements have altered these outcomes. The survey concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and suggesting directions for future research. An important take-away from our review is that rigorous empirical studies are scarce, leaving room for novel causal studies in this field. |
| Date: | 2025–11–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2025020 |
| By: | Alfani, Guido |
| Abstract: | In recent years economic inequality has become a major research topic in economic history. However, much remains to be done to complete our knowledge of long-term distributive dynamics. This article highlights several promising avenues for future research, focusing on the preindustrial period. In particular, it identifies the main gaps that still need to be filled in reconstructions of wealth and income distributions; it argues for a closer interaction between scholars working on economic inequality and those working on historical GDP; and it highlights socio-economic mobility as a closely related, but much less explored, research area. Shifting the focus from inequality to mobility, and more generally considering how human agency helped shape the aggregate long-term dynamics we observe, requires examining individual actors and their specific motivations more closely. This is especially true for the socio-economic elites who, when faced with a perceived threat of status loss, could attempt to capture political institutions, thus securing their control over valuable public resources — while at the same time acting as "enemies of mobility." The article also highlights how this kind of research speaks directly to current societal concerns. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2026–03–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ezm7d_v1 |
| By: | Tetsuji OKAZAKI |
| Abstract: | Murai Bank was a middle-sized bank in prewar Japan, which was bankrupted under the financial crisis in 1927. In the literature, Murai Bank has been regarded as a typical organ bank, i.e. a bank which was founded by a certain business group as an instrument to supply fund to the firms within the group. However, because of the constraint of historical materials and data, the business of Murai Bank has not been well documented. Integrating the information from its business reports, the report of the Bank of Japan after its bankruptcy, and newly found document of the Murai family, this paper comprehensively describes the growth and bankruptcy of Murai Bank. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:26-003j |
| By: | Naudé, Wim (RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | The Hard Steps model is applied to argue that the Industrial Revolution (IR) heralded a terminal phase of human existence. Assuming six hard steps, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method is used to pinpoint the start of the IR to ≈ year 1700. Once these hard steps] were cleared, the global economy entered a growth spiral which, as in the multistage carcinogenesis model of cancer, will terminate once a lethal burden is reached. The Doomsday Argument suggests this happening within 900 years. Thermodynamic limits, however, indicate a limit in less than 400 years, and of about 26 years after invention an Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). The IR may be the Great Filter, explaining the Fermi Paradox. Alternatively, current human observers may be living in an ancestor simulation designed to study late-stage capitalism. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Revolution, capitalism, economic growth, collapse |
| JEL: | O40 N10 P10 J11 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18447 |
| By: | Gregory Clark (University of Southern Denmark, Danish Institute for Advanced Study, and LSE); Martin Hørlyk Kristensen (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | There is continued debate, with important social consequences, about how social status is transmitted between parents and children. In particular, how much does genetics as opposed to social causation matter? In an ingenious recent article, Collado et al. (2023), using an extended family lineage from Sweden and the outcome of years of education, claim that outcome correlations across relatives are inconsistent with genetic transmission. In contrast, Clark (2023) claims that a simple 3-parameter additive genetic model of social outcomes predicts well correlations as remote as 4th cousins in a stable way for England 1600-2022. In this paper we show that the genetic model of Clark (2023) fits the correlation in educational attainment for extended sets of relatives in modern Denmark and Sweden as well as the 20-parameter social causation model of Collado et al. Further, the parameter values in the genetic model for Denmark and Sweden are similar to those found for a variety of social outcomes in both pre-industrial and modern England. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, social mobility, assortative mating, genetic transmission |
| JEL: | J62 J12 D31 I24 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0299 |
| By: | Gerhardt, Klaus-Uwe |
| Abstract: | Why did the abolition of wage supplements in 1834 lead to a durable reorganization of poor re-lief, even though subsequent research has questioned the empirical diagnosis on which the reform was based? Revisiting the Speenhamland allowance practices (1795–1834) and the New Poor Law, this paper argues that the significance of the reform lies less in correcting economic mal-function than in redefining the principles of entitlement. Drawing on revisionist economic history, the study shows that claims of systematic wage depres-sion, labor demoralization, and demographic distortion are not robustly supported by parish-level evidence. Allowances functioned primarily as locally administered forms of income smoothing under conditions of price volatility and labor-market strain. The reform of 1834 is interpreted as a reconfiguration of entitlement in which poverty was in-creasingly framed as a matter of conduct rather than subsistence risk. Through the codification of less eligibility and the workhouse test, access to relief became structured around deterrence and behavioral assessment. This institutional shift established a conditional entitlement logic whose structural features continue to shape modern welfare arrangements. |
| Date: | 2026–02–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nyqs7_v1 |
| By: | Boughabi, Houssam |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the interplay between distributive conflict, wage dynamics, and persistent unemployment within a Kaleckian framework, emphasizing the long-memory properties of wages. We develop a stochastic model in which wages adjust adaptively to cumulative historical discrepancies between prices and wages, reflecting backward-looking expectations, institutional rigidities, and distributive conflict. Applying this framework to Germany over the period 1990-2024, we provide empirical evidence that persistent price- wage divergences generate long-lasting effects on real wages and aggregate demand. Within a Kaleckian perspective in which investment and employment are demand-driven, these wage dynamics contribute to the persistence of unemployment by weakening consumption and effective demand over time. Our findings highlight that long-memory wage adjustment amplifies the macroeconomic consequences of distributive conflict and inflation, underscoring the importance of historical wage inertia in shaping employment outcomes. The results offer new insights into the structural origins of persistent unemployment in advanced economies. |
| Keywords: | Kaleckian economics, wage-price dynamics, long-memory, distributive conflict, persistent unemployment |
| JEL: | E12 E24 E32 C22 J30 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:338094 |
| By: | Paul Castañeda Dower (University of Wisconsin); Scott Gehlbach (University of Chicago); Dmitrii Kofanov; Steven Nafziger (Williams College) |
| Abstract: | ""Local violence often accompanies momentous political change, as feelings of political threat intersect with preexisting prejudices to endanger groups popularly associated with reform. We examine the relationship between such violence and settlement characteristics in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution, which triggered numerous anti-Jewish pogroms. Counter to an extensive literature that emphasizes the contribution to conflict of ethno-religious polarization, we show that the sharp increase in pogroms after October 1905, when publication of the October Manifesto and accompanying anti-Semitic propaganda increased feelings of political threat among many non-Jews, was smaller in settlements with relatively large Jewish populations. We demonstrate that this empirical pattern can be rationalized with an elaborated version of the Esteban-Ray (2008) model of diversity and conflict when, as with the October Manifesto, political reform systematically alters the distribution of benefits across groups."" |
| Keywords: | Russia, Economic History, Political Economy, Confict |
| Date: | 2025–08–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_110 |
| By: | Massimo Cervesato (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Property rights are central to studies of natural resource governance, as they shape both our understanding of resource use and our capacity to act upon it. A key issue lies in the coexistence of characteristics typically associated with the public sphere (non-excludability of the resource) and others associated with the private sphere (subtractability of the resource). Ostrom thus suggests that common property consists of “essentially share contracts.” This, however, raises a fundamental question: what distinguishes such a regime from a mere aggregation of individual property rights? To address this, we return to the foundations of Ostrom’s framework, which draw on the institutionalist theory of John R. Commons. While much of the literature has focused on the notion of ‘bundles of rights, ’ we argue that further insights can be gained from Commons’s conception of legal relations. Combined with Ostrom’s emphasis on language, common property can be understood as an emergent phenomenon arising from the complex relations that constitute the commons, rather than a formal aggregation of distinct private properties. This perspective ultimately highlights the central role of informality in such regimes, explaining their difficult incorporation into modern legal systems |
| Keywords: | Common Property Rights; Commons; Ostrom (Elinor); Complexity;Institutionalist Theory |
| JEL: | D02 P48 B52 Q20 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:26005 |
| By: | Stanislas Kihm (ISTEC - Institut supérieur des Sciences, Techniques et Economie Commerciales - ISTEC, IDHES - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Économie et de la Société - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENS Paris Saclay - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay) |
| Abstract: | In the United States, political violence circulates as a floating signifier invoked to harden policing, to delegitimize protest, and to sustain an anxious public dramaturgy.Many film critics have framed One Battle After Another, released worldwide in September 2025, as a political film that meets the moment head-on. Yet its most generative move lies elsewhere. Freely adapting Thomas Pynchon's Vineland (1990), the film treats revolution less as a program than as memory-work: clandestinity replayed like a beloved record, in the shelter of safe houses and code words, while the present stubbornly mutates its surveillance, its rhetorics, and its enemies. Read through an organizational lens, the film becomes less a manifesto than an inquiry into how underground collectives persist in the rear-view mirror: how secrecy is maintained, how partial organizations cohere, and how violence is organized, sensed, and survived. If the film feels timely, it is also because it insists on being out of sync: its politics is filtered through the afterlives of older struggles. The underground it depicts does not merely hide from the present; it shelters inside a past that keeps replaying itself.One Battle After Another compresses, at first, the story of a militant couple inside a farleft faction called the "French 75". Pat Calhoun (an anagrammatic wink to the director's initials "PTA") is played by Leonardo DiCaprio; his lover and comrade, Perfidia Beverly Hills, is played by Teyana Taylor. |
| Keywords: | Discourse theory, Theoretical Perspectives Ethics, Theoretical Perspectives Organizational control, Partial organization, Power domination, Ethics, Power, Resistance |
| Date: | 2026–02–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05532731 |
| By: | Bagues, Manuel (University of Warwick); Villa, Carmen (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | Official Spanish birth registry data report sex ratios well above expected levels between 1975 and 2000, peaking at 109 boys per 100 girls in the early 1980s, the highest in the world at that time. Prior research has attributed these elevated ratios to factors such as maternal age, birth order, and differential prenatal care. We show that they instead reflect systematic coding errors by the Spanish Statistical Office. Census data reveal normal sex ratios for the same cohorts. The birth registry also exhibits implausible monthly volatility and asymmetrically distributed outliers, consistent with one-directional miscoding of females as males. Additional corroborating evidence comes from provisional birth statistics, which show significantly lower sex ratios than the finalised records, and from anomalous patterns in adjacent fields on the birth registration form. Our findings underscore the responsibility of statistical agencies to validate administrative records and cross-check them against alternative sources. |
| Keywords: | sex ratio at birth, birth registry, coding errors, missing women in Spain |
| JEL: | J16 J13 C18 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18436 |
| By: | Clara Schäper |
| Abstract: | Does increased legal infrastructure empower victims to leave abusive relationships? Structural barriers often prevent victims of intimate partner violence from seeking help, with two-thirds of female victims in Europe neither reporting incidents nor accessing support. I study Germany’s 2002 Act on Protection against Violence, which introduced residence bans in shared households and temporarily awarded victims sole use of the dwelling, summarized as “the aggressor goes, the victim stays”. Using divorce records (1998–2005), linked on the county-level to a hand-collected database of women’s shelter and counselling center openings (1970–2023), I estimate how divorce numbers changed in the period after the reform relative to the period before. I show that divorces rise markedly in the three years following the reform and decrease in the fourth. Trends are driven by female-initiated filings and are concentrated in West Germany, with increases appearing more persistent among non-German filers over time. To assess whether effects vary with support availability, I classify counties by pre-reform infrastructure of women’s shelters and counselling centers. Changes are muted where services already existed and strongest in areas lacking support infrastructure at the time of the legal change. These patterns are consistent with a two-stage model in which pre-existing support had already led abusive marriages to dissolve and/or deterred their formation, leaving a smaller stock of detectable abusive unions. |
| Keywords: | Domestic violence, gender, violence against women and girls (VAW) |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J18 K36 K42 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2159 |
| By: | Patrick Cohendet; Patrick Llerena |
| Abstract: | This chapter aims to address the paradoxical portrayal of entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian tradition. While entrepreneurs are portrayed as key players in economic development in Schumpeter's early works, they essentially disappear in neo-Schumpeterian literature, where their role is replaced by 'routines' as the primary operational component of organizations. This chapter re-establishes the entrepreneur as a producer of ideas, as well as an initiator and orchestrator of creative destruction, by reintegrating what we consider to be the primary “function of entrepreneurship”: generating and proposing new ideas and introducing novelty into the economic system. From this perspective, we argue that ideas, viewed primarily as processes, are the essence of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur’s role at the core of the 'entrepreneurial function', which orchestrates the ideation process by attracting, mobilizing and aligning allies around their vision. This entrepreneurial function takes different forms — from the 'heroic' entrepreneur of early capitalism, to a more 'depersonalized, routinised and automated' entity within large organizations, and, more recently, to an orchestrator within an innovative ecosystem. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter, Creativity, Ideas |
| JEL: | B15 L26 L21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-05 |
| By: | José Luis (Stanford University); Ernesto (School of Government and Public Transformation, Tecnológico de Monterrey); Stella (Orbit Ventures) |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo histórico reconstruye la formación del ecosistema emprendedor mexicano (1982-2023) a partir de entrevistas y fuentes documentales. Muestra cómo la apertura económica, NAFIN, BID/FOMIN y cambios regulatorios impulsaron el capital de riesgo y las startups tecnológicas; también examina límites, reconfiguraciones recientes y el papel persistente de la política pública en su evolución útil. |
| Keywords: | Ecosistema emprendedor, México, Capital de riesgo, Política pública, Startups tecnológicas, Apertura económica, Innovación, Financiamiento, Regulación, Emprendimiento tecnológico |
| JEL: | H83 K42 C38 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnt:wpaper:27 |
| By: | Ruopu Hu (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University); Junior Maith (Norges Bank); Shin-Ichi Nishiyama (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | We revisit U.S. trend inflation dynamics since the 1960s by estimating a nonlinear, nonstationary Markov-switching New Keynesian model in which trend inflation evolves as a latent Markov process. Our estimation (i) confirms the Volcker disinflation as a regime shift from high to mid-level trend inflation between 1980 and 1987; (ii) shows that trend inflation remained stable around 2.8% during the Great Moderation and beyond, despite major disruptions such as the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic; and (iii) identifies a persistent hawkish monetary policy regime after 1982, with temporary weakening during periods of policy rate reductions at the zero lower bound—while inflation expectations remained well anchored. |
| Keywords: | Trend Inflation, Markov-Switching DSGE, Volcker Disinflation, Great Moderation. |
| JEL: | E31 E52 C54 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koe:wpaper:2604 |
| By: | Berlemann, Michael; Luik, Marc-André |
| Abstract: | In this paper we employ the natural experiment of German Division and Reunification in order to study the effect of institutional reform on the decision to hold risky assets. We present empirical evidence indicating that even 16 years after German Reunification risky portfolios of East and West German bank customers differed systematically, even after controlling for wealth and other socio-demographic factors. While these differences are especially pronounced for bank customers with experiences in the former communist system, even the younger generation of East Germans still differs remarkably from their West German counterparts in terms of risky asset choice. Thus, informal institutions tend to have long-lasting effects on portfolio behavior. |
| Abstract: | In diesem Beitrag nutzen wir das natürliche Experiment der deutschen Teilung und Wiedervereinigung, um die Auswirkungen institutioneller Reformen auf die Entscheidung zum Halten risikoreicher Vermögenswerte zu untersuchen. Wir legen empirische Belege vor, die darauf hindeuten, dass sich die risikoreichen Portfolios ost- und westdeutscher Bankkunden selbst 16 Jahre nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung systematisch unterschieden, selbst nach Berücksichtigung des Vermögens und anderer soziodemografischer Faktoren. Während diese Unterschiede bei Bankkunden mit Erfahrungen im ehemaligen kommunistischen System besonders ausgeprägt sind, unterscheidet sich selbst die jüngere Generation der Ostdeutschen hinsichtlich der Wahl risikoreicher Anlagen nach wie vor deutlich von ihren westdeutschen Altersgenossen. Informelle Institutionen haben somit tendenziell lang anhaltende Auswirkungen auf das Portfolioverhalten. |
| Keywords: | Institutional reform, stockholding puzzle, portfolio choice, bank data, informal institutions |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hwwiwp:338126 |