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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Moreno, Guadalupe |
| Abstract: | Money, capitalist market societies' paramount contract, relies on the belief in its enduring value. However, we still know surprisingly little about the social foundations that sustain that belief. How is our collective trust in the enduring value of money socially built, and what happens if people lose such trust? What if a society convinces itself that policymakers cannot guarantee that the value of money will persist over time? In this paper, I use Argentina as a monetary laboratory to study how almost eighty uninterrupted years of high inflation and successive currency crises led to a social trauma that crystalized in the emergence of a distrust narrative: a strong popular belief that neither the state nor the local financial system will be able to preserve the value of the national currency or the worth of savings over time. By analyzing the production and reproduction of this narrative and its longlasting effects on the Argentine economy, I show how rooted distrust in a currency fosters a myriad of practices aimed at protecting savings, which impose severe limits on monetary governance. I emphasize that when state authorities lose control of collective expectations and negative monetary imaginaries take off, a vicious cycle unfolds in which instability, inflation, and devaluation reinforce each other. |
| Abstract: | Geld als Fundament kapitalistischer Marktwirtschaften beruht auf dem Glauben an seinen dauerhaften Wert. Allerdings wissen wir immer noch erstaunlich wenig über die sozialen Grundlagen, die diesen Glauben stützen. Wie baut sich unser kollektives Vertrauen in den dauerhaften Wert des Geldes auf, und was passiert, wenn Menschen dieses Vertrauen verlieren? Was geschieht, wenn eine Gesellschaft zu dem Schluss kommt, dass die Politik nicht in der Lage ist, den bleibenden Wert des Geldes über die Zeit hinweg zu sichern? In diesem Discussion Paper nutze ich Argentinien als "monetäres Labor", um zu untersuchen, wie fast achtzig Jahre ununterbrochener hoher Inflation und aufeinanderfolgender Währungskrisen zu einem sozialen Trauma geführt haben. So bildete sich Misstrauensnarrativ heraus, eine starke Überzeugung in der Bevölkerung, dass weder der Staat noch das lokale Finanzsystem in der Lage sein werden, den Wert der nationalen Währung oder der Ersparnisse über die Zeit hinweg zu bewahren. Durch eine Analyse der Produktion und Reproduktion dieses Narrativs und seiner lang anhaltenden Auswirkungen auf die argentinische Wirtschaft zeige ich, wie tief verwurzeltes Misstrauen in eine Währung eine Vielzahl von Praktiken fördert, die auf den Schutz von Ersparnissen abzielen und die Geldpolitik stark einschränken. Wenn die Behörden die Kontrolle über die kollektiven Erwartungen verlieren und sich negative monetäre Vorstellungen in der Gesellschaft ausbreiten, entfaltet sich ein Teufelskreis, in dem sich Instabilität, Inflation und Abwertung gegenseitig verstärken. |
| Keywords: | central bank, civil society, financial crisis, governance, money, trust, Finanzkrise, Geld, Regierungsführung, Vertrauen, Zentralbank, Zivilgesellschaft |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:319606 |
| By: | Pereira, Thales Zamberlan (São Paulo School of Economics / FGV) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on 20, 000 monthly quotations, this study revises imperial Brazil's inflation and living standards estimates. The new price index eliminates the nineteenth-century ‘low-growth puzzle’: Brazil’s GDP per capita rose in line with the Latin-American average. Earlier series, which relied on baskets disproportionately weighted toward agricultural goods or whose composition varied over time, display continuous growth and overstate inflation by 57–270%. The revised index reveals a sharp rise in the 1850s and stability thereafter. New evidence on exchange and freight rates, terms of trade, regional commerce, and real wages shows that regional specialization in food production helped stabilize prices after the mid-century. |
| Date: | 2025–05–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:y5fnp_v1 |
| By: | Callais, Justin; Geloso, Vincent |
| Abstract: | Many argue that income mobility is declining. This applies to all types of income mobility (relative and absolute; intergenerational and intragenerational). As remedies, those who worry and others who want to improve mobility tend to propose expansions to welfare programmes. We argue that economic freedom (i.e., safer property rights, less regulated markets, lower taxation and open trade) is far more potent to improve income mobility than redistributive policies. There is a direct effect of economic freedom by removing legal hurdles to work. There is also an indirect effect by promoting economic growth in ways that are biased towards the poor. There is new international evidence suggesting that economic freedom promotes intergenerational absolute and relative income mobility. There is rich subnational data from Canada showing that economic freedom promotes intragenerational income mobility (relative and absolute). There is indirect evidence from economic history, economic geography and the economics of occupational licensing confirming the above results. The UK is a middling country in terms of both income mobility and occupational licensing laws. We highlight two main areas of reform to promote economic freedom to increase the UK's performance in mobility: deregulation in occupational licensing laws and housing restrictions. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility, Income distribution, Great Britain, Economic liberalism |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:314022 |
| By: | Warner, Neil |
| Abstract: | ‘Wage-earner funds’, an ultimately-defeated idea for union-controlled funds to develop stakes in Swedish companies, dominated Swedish politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are regularly cited as a prominent attempt to introduce economic democracy. However, factors behind the funds’ defeat are often under-analysed, with the sequencing of events particularly neglected. This article corrects for this. It seeks to explain the defeat of wage-earner funds by tracing decision-making processes in the Social Democratic Party. It argues that the funds were defeated due to asymmetries in mobilisation, which were connected to asymmetries in everyday experiences. While capital owners mobilised strongly against wage-earner funds as an existential threat, most Social Democratic leaders, voters and union members saw the issue as detached from their everyday concerns. This points to the importance that asymmetries in experience and mobilisation can have in policy contests, which provides an advantage to capital in contests over investment control. |
| Keywords: | employee ownership; policy resonance; Social Democratic parties; Sweden; trade unions; wage-earner funds |
| JEL: | R14 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–05–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127873 |
| By: | Emily Chung (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Spatial studies of British Victorian cities have been historically limited either in scope or specificity due to the unwieldiness of census data. However, recent developments in geographic information systems (GIS) and the digitization of historical source material have created new possibilities for the exploration of geodemographic patterns. For the case of Manchester, the ‘shock city’ of the British industrial revolution, these advancements are especially pertinent in order to settle long-standing debates as to the extent of segregation in the city. This article presents a method for the highly granular georeferencing of census data for the Manchester township for the second half of the nineteenth century by drawing on historical material including geographic and commercial surveys. In linking households to specific buildings, we present new possibilities for studies of heterogeneity and neighbourhood patterns at a range of scales. This approach ultimately lays the groundwork for future revisitations of nineteenth-century cities and the traditional claims which have been made around their urban dynamics. |
| JEL: | N93 R14 |
| Date: | 2025–04–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:45 |
| By: | Takahashi, Yuta (Hitotsubashi University); Takayama, Naoki (Hitotsubashi University) |
| Abstract: | In the last two decades, economic growth has slowed down across developed countries. This paper investigates the role of technology specific to durable consumption and equipment goods in this global slowdown. We present evidence that technological stagnation in these sectors has prevailed globally over the past two decades. Using an extended Ramsey growth model as an accounting device, we find that this global technology stagnation can substantially account for the economic slowdown across developed countries through the capital deepening effect, rather than TFP. |
| Date: | 2025–06–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ek5t6_v1 |
| By: | Forbes, Kristin; Ha, Jongrim; Kose, M. Ayhan |
| Abstract: | Central banks often face tradeoffs in how their monetary policy decisions impact economic activity (including employment), inflation and the price level. This paper assesses how these tradeoffs have evolved over time and varied across countries, with a focus on understanding the post-pandemic adjustment. To make these comparisons, we compile a cross-country, historical database of “rate cycles” (i.e., easing and tightening phases for monetary policy) for 24 advanced economies from 1970 through 2024. This allows us to quantify the characteristics of interest rate adjustments and corresponding macroeconomic outcomes and tradeoffs. We also calculate Sacrifice Ratios (output losses per inflation reduction) and document a historically low “sacrifice” during the post-pandemic tightening. This popular measure, however, ignores adjustments in the price level—which increased by more after the pandemic than over the past four decades. A series of regressions and simulations suggest monetary policy (and particularly the timing and aggressiveness of rate hikes) play a meaningful role in explaining these tradeoffs and how adjustments occur during tightening phases. Central bank credibility is the one measure we assess that corresponds to only positive outcomes and no difficult tradeoffs. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, interest rates, central bank, Sacrifice Ratio, business fluctuations, prices, employment |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E43 E52 E58 F33 F44 N10 |
| Date: | 2025–05–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124747 |
| By: | Keiti Kondi (Bureau Fédéral du Plan); Willem Sas (Hasselt University); Vincent Vandenberghe (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | In this empirical paper, we propose the following hypothesis: the fate of large metropolises – especially the dynamics of the inhabitants’ income disparity between their core and periphery – may still be significantly influenced by their industrial past. Starting from the first industrial revolution, we argue that the establishment of heavy and polluting industries in the centres of these metropolises has had lasting effects on income levels and the socio-economic landscape of these neighbourhoods, often persisting for decades after these industries close. In the absence of data on the location of past factories, this study proposes using the presence or absence of a canal close to the city centre as a proxy for a significant industrial legacy. We show that such a proxy predicts the concentration of inhabitants by income level in the core vs. periphery, as evidenced by OECD and US-BEA income-per-head data. One of the key results of this paper is that an industrial past (located around a canal) amounts to a potent negative urban amenity. |
| Keywords: | Canals, Industrial past, Metropolises, Core vs. Periphery, Suburbanisation, Cliometrics, Negative Amenity |
| JEL: | N9 R1 |
| Date: | 2025–06–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2025008 |
| By: | M P Ram Mohan; Sidharth Sharma; Prem Vinod Parwani |
| Abstract: | Who is called an ‘advocate’ in India – and on what terms is a deeply contested question. This question is tightly regulated by the Bar Council and the Advocates Act 1961, which together reserve the ‘practice of law’ exclusively for those enrolled as ‘advocates.’ This paper interrogates the normative and legal assumptions underlying this exclusion. In doing so, it contrasts India’s framework for legal professionals across different professions, and with those in the UK and US. By tracing the colonial history of the Act alongside its judicial interpretations, we argue that the Act creates a rigid, exclusive regime that is ill-suited to the contemporary realities of the Indian legal profession. The paper concludes by proposing legislative and regulatory reforms to align Indian legal practice with contemporary realities and global best practices. |
| Date: | 2025–06–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:14726 |
| By: | Jonas Cekal (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic); Adam Gersl (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the effectiveness of crisis management measures used by national authorities to tackle a systemic banking crisis. Quarterly panel dataset of 69 countries over the time span 1970 to 2023 was created and a total of 54 crisis periods were examined based on the identification of various sources. The estimation employs two-way fixed effects model in difference-in-differences design to examine the effect of individual policies on the economy as represented by real GDP, house prices and credit. We find a significant effect of bank nationalizations and deposit freezes on the increases of real GDP growth and nominal house prices growth. On the contrary, we were not able to draw any conclusions from the analysis of the remaining measures such as liquidity support, bank recapitalizations or asset purchases. |
| Keywords: | State financial support, Bailout, Economic growth, Financial stability, Systemic banking crisis |
| JEL: | G01 G21 G28 E65 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2025_10 |
| By: | Witztum, Amos |
| Abstract: | There are two elements which make Smith’s ethics unique as well as more universal in nature. The first is that it is a positive theory of ethics in the sense that it is not about what is intrinsically good or just as it is about the way in which people form their opinion about it. The second is that it is embedded in social context in the sense that what lies behind the way in which people form their moral opinion is socially dependent as well as related to the way in which people behave. From an exegetic point of view, this also helps in explaining the dissonance that may exist between Smith’s own views about morals and what he observes as the contemporary prevailing view. Applying this to his economic analysis will yield surprising conclusions which may explain why the Wealth of Nations cannot be seen as a moral advocacy of natural liberty. |
| Keywords: | ethics; material inequality; social distance; sympathy; utility |
| JEL: | A12 A13 A31 B12 B31 |
| Date: | 2023–12–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128564 |
| By: | Davide Fiaschi; Paul Johnson |
| Abstract: | Using a panel of 102 countries from PWT 10.0 covering 1970-2019, we examine the veracity of the assumption that a time-homogeneous, first-order process describes the evolution of the cross-country distribution of per capita output, an assumption often made in studies of the convergence hypothesis employing the distribution dynamics approach pioneered by Quah (1993). To test homogeneity, we compare transition kernels estimated for different time periods and, for those periods exhibiting evidence of homogeneity, we test the first-order assumption using an implication of such a process's Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. Both tests require measurement of the distance between probability distributions which we do with several different metrics, employing bootstrap methods to assess the statistical significance of the observed distances. We find that the process was time-homogeneous and first-order in the 1970-1995 period during which the distribution dynamics imply a bimodal long-run distribution, consistent with convergence clubs. Following the apparent break in the process in the late 1990s, the 2000-2010 distribution dynamics imply a unimodal long-run distribution suggestive of a single convergence club, consistent with recent claims of short-term beta-convergence from the late 1990s and beyond made by Patel et al. (2021) and Kremer et al (2022). After 2010, there is some evidence of a return to non-convergent dynamics similar to those of the 1970-1995 period. |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2506.06755 |
| By: | Regina Grafe (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Economic Historians have long assumed that colonial Spanish American finance was poorly developed. 19th and 20th century fiscal and financial woes of Spanish American societies were read as part of a colonial legacy that weighed on former Spanish colonies from their moment of Independence (1808-20s). A sizeable theoretical literature has offered possible causal links between colonial rule and poorly developed financial intermediation pointing primarily to a lack of secure property rights. This paper seeks to propose an alternative explanatory path. It discusses the existence of a sui generis financial system that provided cheap and ubiquitous public and private credit. It analyses the subscriptions to one particularly large loan to the public purse in the 1770s to zoom in on the functioning of public credit, its link with private finance, the composition of the subscribers, and the role of the merchant corporation. The paper suggests that reading the evidence within a theoretical frame of financialisation may be more helpful than the traditional institutionalist political economy analysis. While the concept of financialisation is at present poorly theorised, it helps to ask important questions about the economic impact of easy credit in colonial Spanish America. |
| JEL: | N26 O16 |
| Date: | 2025–01–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:40 |
| By: | Chirinko, Robert S. |
| Abstract: | Interest in the United States in creating banks owned and operated by the state has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2023 or 2024, legislation was introduced in eight states to start a bank. In 2019, similar legislation was enacted in California for the creation of municipal banks. Chicago's new mayor is evaluating plans for a city bank. An important development in favor of a state bank is the long and impressive record of the only state bank in the United States, the Bank of North Dakota (BND). It has been in existence for over a century and has been very profitable in recent years. On the surface, these facts present a strong case for starting a state bank addressing the financing needs for infrastructure, education, and underserved communities. To gain a better understanding of BND's success and the possibilities for a successful state bank, this paper compares the financial performance of the BND to that of national commercial banks. Claims by the BND as to the sources of its success (low-cost deposits and lending acuity) are evaluated and rejected by the data. Instead, the BND's abnormal profitability is explained fully by the exceptional growth in the North Dakota economy (largely the fracking boom), its tax-free status, and shifting risk to the State of North Dakota. The former factor is not portable to other states; the latter two factors are merely taxpayer subsidies. There is no "secret sauce". The BND is a well-run bank that contributes to the North Dakota economy and, after suitable adjustments, earns normal profits. Its organization as a state bank does not create any unique efficiencies, and the BND does not provide support for a special role for a state bank. Absent efficiencies, a state bank might be interpreted as a quasi-fiscal authority that is outside the control of the legislature and avoids balanced budget restrictions operational in North Dakota and 48 other states. |
| Keywords: | state bank, public bank, local economic development, credit allocation |
| JEL: | G21 G28 H70 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfswop:319623 |
| By: | Kichanova, Vera |
| Abstract: | The Freeports strategy announced by the previous government attempted to address today's challenges with yesterday's recipes, lacked the necessary deregulatory framework and failed to address key issues such as the housing crisis. This paper proposes an alternative: a new generation of 'Hong Kong-style' self-governing cities with broad autonomy to experiment with diverse planning regimes, governance models and investment strategies. From the City of London to Canary Wharf, Britain is the cradle of urban self-governance. Across the globe, British institutions continue to create urban miracles - consider Hong Kong or the financial hubs in Dubai and Qatar, which adopted English common law and became magnets for investment. The paper explores historical and contemporary examples of such regions, from the Hanseatic League to emerging charter cities, demonstrating how these models contribute to prosperity and economic revitalisation. Self-governing regions are on the rise in emerging economies, where they often struggle with the very institutional instability they seek to overcome. The UK, with its strong institutions of democracy, property rights and rule of law, is well-positioned to lead a new era of self-governing urban development, potentially creating multiple new 'Hong Kongs' within its borders. Healthy competition between such cities would help identify the most effective solutions, which could then be scaled and replicated nationwide. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:314032 |
| By: | Nathan Lane |
| Abstract: | I study the impact of industrial policies on industrial development by considering an important episode during the East Asian miracle: South Korea's heavy and chemical industry (HCI) drive, 1973--1979. Based on newly assembled data, I use the introduction and termination of industrial policies to study their impacts during and after the intervention period. (1) I reveal that heavy-chemical industrial policies promoted the expansion and dynamic comparative advantage of directly targeted industries. (2) Using variation in exposure to policies through the input-output network, I demonstrate that the policy indirectly benefited downstream users of targeted intermediates. (3) The benefits of HCI persisted even after the policy ended, as some results were slower to appear. The findings suggest that the temporary drive shifted Korean manufacturing into more advanced markets and supported durable change. This study helps clarify the lessons drawn from the East Asian growth miracle. JEL Codes: L5, O14, O25, N6. Keywords: industrial policy, East Asian miracle, economic history, industrial development, Heavy-Chemical Industry Drive, Heavy and Chemical Industry Drive. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.20566 |
| By: | Mr. Irving Aw; Brendan Crowley; Mr. José M. Garrido |
| Abstract: | Countries differ in their approaches to the treatment of tax claims in insolvency. Historically, most countries have granted priority to tax claims. In the late 20th century, however, some countries abolished or reduced tax priorities at the same time that sweeping insolvency reforms were introduced. Since then, the debate over whether tax claims should be afforded priority in insolvency has continued. This paper reviews the various legal techniques used to protect tax claims in a wide range of countries, the arguments in favor and against tax priorities, and advocates for an empirical approach to analyzing this complex problem. |
| Keywords: | Bankruptcy; Insolvency; Tax Policy; Credit |
| Date: | 2025–06–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2025/118 |
| By: | Irigoin, Alejandra; Kobayashi, Atsushi; Chilosi, David |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses a new large dataset of silver prices, as well as silver and merchandise trade flows in and out of China in the crucial decades of the mid-nineteenth century when the Empire was opened to world trade. Silver flows were associated with the interaction between heterogeneous monetary preferences and availability of specific coins. Before the 1850s, money markets became increasingly efficient, as reliance on bills of exchange allowed exports to grow in times when sound money was in short supply. When a new standard for silver eventually emerged, there was a new peak in China's silver imports. |
| Keywords: | China; silver; triangular trade |
| JEL: | E42 F33 N10 |
| Date: | 2025–05–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127999 |
| By: | Guillaume Proffit (University of Cambridge) |
| JEL: | C81 N93 |
| Date: | 2024–08–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:37 |
| By: | Fabio Gatti (University of Bern, Switzerland & Baffi Center, Bocconi University, Italy); Joel Huesler (University of Bern, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | The correspondence of historical personalities serves as a rich source of psychological, social, and economic information. Letters were indeed used as means of communication within the family circles but also a primary method for exchanging information with colleagues, subordinates, and employers. A quantitative analysis of such material enables scholars to reconstruct both the internal psychology and the relational networks of historical figures, ultimately providing deeper insights into the socio-economic systems in which they were embedded. In this study, we analyze the outgoing correspondence of Michelangelo Buonarroti, a prominent Renaissance artist, using a collection of 523 letters as the basis for a structured text analysis. Our methodological approach compares three distinct Natural Language Processing Methods: an Augmented Dictionary Approach, which relies on static lexicon analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modeling, a Supervised Machine Learning Approach that utilizes BERT-generated letter embeddings combined with a Random Forest classifier trained by the authors, and an Unsupervised Machine Learning Method. The comparison of these three methods, benchmarked to biographic knowledge, allows us to construct a robust understanding of Michelangelo’s emotional association to monetary, thematic, and social factors. Furthermore, it highlights how the Supervised Machine Learning method, by incorporating the authors’ domain knowledge and understanding of documents and background, can provide, in the context of Renaissance multi-themed letters, a more nuanced interpretation of contextual meanings, enabling the detection of subtle (positive or negative) sentimental variations due to a variety of factors that other methods can overlook. |
| Keywords: | Text Analysis, Natural Language Processing, Art History, Economic History |
| JEL: | N33 C55 Z11 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0279 |
| By: | Eric Schneider (London School of Economics); Romola Davenport (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses population smallpox mortality rates in eighteenth-century Sweden and the death toll from the 1707-9 smallpox epidemic in Iceland to estimate plausible ranges for the case fatality rate (CFR) of the deadly form of smallpox, Variola major, in both its endemic (Sweden) and epidemic (Iceland) form. We find that smallpox CFRs could be extremely high (40-53%) when smallpox was epidemic and attacked a population where both children and adults were susceptible as in Iceland. However, where smallpox was endemic and therefore a disease of childhood, as in Sweden, a better estimate of the CFR is 8-10%. This is far lower than the consensus CFR of 20% to 30%. Part of the differences between the CFRs studied here could be due to differences in the inherent virulence of smallpox in the two contexts. However, we argue that social factors are more likely to explain the differences. Where both adults and children were susceptible to smallpox, smallpox epidemics fundamentally disrupted household tasks such as fetching water and food preparation and prevented parents from nursing their sick children, dramatically increasing the CFR. Thus, when historians and epidemiologists give CFRs of smallpox, they should consider the population and context rather than relying on an implausible intrinsic CFR of 20% to 30%. |
| JEL: | J10 N30 |
| Date: | 2025–05–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:47 |
| By: | Laskaridis, Christina |
| Abstract: | While there has been no shortage of recent work that has tried to understand the power of economists and prevalence of economic mode of thinking, far less has been said about the instances where economists were unable to exert influence. While power struggles between economists have most often been the subject of investigation within the academe, the struggle for influence for different types of economic expertise within policy institutions is understudied. This paper examines the different understandings of debt repayment prospects that developed in the World Bank during its first twenty years of operation. The organisation’s internal structure reflected conflicts between different departments that left economists in the research department in the weaker position. Economists’ epistemic authority is intimately related to the organisation of expertise and the alignment to management’s objectives, as well as formality of economists’ tools. |
| Keywords: | World Bank; economic expertise; sovereign debt; role of economics; role of economists |
| JEL: | F3 G3 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–04–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127951 |
| By: | Emma Diduch (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Complete birth histories which allow analysis of mother’s age at birth and birth intervals by parity are rare in historical data. Partial birth histories can be obtained from retrospective fertility surveys and census data which record the numbers of children ever born, children deceased, and the ages of surviving coresident children. Luther and Cho (1988) proposed a method for reconstructing complete birth histories by imputing ages for deceased and non-coresident children, and Hacker (2020) extended this method to historical census data with adjusted, group-specific inputs. This paper adapts the reconstruction method to a sample of the 1911 census of England and Wales and describes the contribution of record linking between censuses from 1881 onwards to reduce the number of missing observations in the partial birth histories. Record linking particularly addresses concerns about uncertainty in estimating age-specific fertility for women whose children were born more than fifteen years before the survey date. |
| JEL: | J13 N33 |
| Date: | 2025–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:46 |
| By: | Zachary Ward; Kasey Buckles; Joseph Price |
| Abstract: | Using data on 2.5 million great-grandchildren linked to their great-grandfathers in the US (1850–1940), we show that economic gaps persisted strongly across four generations despite major structural change. We find that one-third of the initial differences in economic status across white great-grandfathers remained in their great-grandchildren. When including both Black and white families, this persistence rises to about 50 percent, largely because the gap between Black and white families closed slowly over time. Grandparent and great-grandparent status matter beyond the father's status, indicating slower convergence to the mean than predicted by two-generational estimates. However, this excess persistence is largely driven by enduring racial inequality as grandparent effects are small within the white population. |
| JEL: | J62 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33923 |
| By: | Regina Grafe (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | Was intra-European competition the driving force of extra European expansion in the first globalisation? National(-ist) European historiographies since the 19th century and more recent works on the political economy of emulation among European early modern polities suggest this, as do most accounts of economic historians who see competition between Europe’s trading powers as the deus ex machina of European extra-European trade. Using the comparative history of the Spanish carrera de Indias and the English Navigation Laws as a prism, this paper challenges both the primacy of intra-European competition in the first globalisation and the methodologies that have underpinned the analysis. Section I offers a revisionist account of the historiography of the two most important regulatory systems in the Atlantic, the Spanish and the English. Section II seeks to offer a methodological alternative to those narrative accounts. It uses the notion of the “market for institutions†developed in Grafe (2015) to zoom in on the regulatory tools employed by each system. The result allows us to see the similarities and divergences in the two regulatory frameworks in a completely new way. Section III concludes. |
| JEL: | N73 N76 |
| Date: | 2025–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:42 |
| By: | Alexis Litvine (University of Cambridge); Stanley Hinton (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a subsectoral analysis of historical occupational data. The approach employs compositional data analysis and new metrics derived from properties of ternary plots, and it offers a more detailed and complex and dynamic image of the relationship between economic growth and structural change. As a result of this, it highlights a series of core sub-sectoral patterns, which were until now often overlooked by traditional sectoral analysis or invisible due to higher levels of data aggregation. We find that longer historical series confirm Rodrik’s pattern of ‘premature deindustrialisation’ (Rodrik 2016), including the rapid movement towards tertiary subsectors for later developers and the diminishing gender gaps in structural change. We develop a typology to identify which subsectors are most correlated to economic growth, and discuss what that may indicate in terms of theories of structural change. The empirical examination of economic development presented in this chapter will add historical depth to ongoing academic and policy-oriented discussions on the nature and contribution of structural changes to economic development. |
| JEL: | N33 O14 |
| Date: | 2024–07–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:36 |
| By: | Taylor Aucoin (University of Edinburgh); David Chilosi (King's College London); Justin Colson (Institute of Historical Research); Mark Hailwood (University of Bristol); Patrick Wallis (London School of Economics); Jane Whittle (University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | This article unites evidence of male occupations from probate records with a new dataset of work tasks from court depositions to re-estimate economic structural change in early modern England. Urbanization rates have long been used to measure the latter, while more recent research has tracked sectoral shares of the economy via occupational data. Both approaches suggest pronounced decline in agriculture and rise in industry, yet questions remain. By-employment may have muted sectoral change; urbanization did not necessarily signal non-agricultural activity. By factoring in the constituent tasks of occupations and locales into measures previously based on occupations alone, we reveal much higher levels of work in services, growing structural differences between town and countryside, and significant drops in primary sector participation |
| JEL: | N33 O14 |
| Date: | 2025–01–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:39 |
| By: | Till Gross (Department of Economics, Carleton University); Casey Pender (Department of Economics, Mount Allison University) |
| Abstract: | During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, government and church officials actively sought to suppress Indigenous potlatch ceremonies along the Pacific Northwest, dismissing them as wasteful, uneconomic, and irrational. We present a counternarrative by developing a decentralized exchange model inspired by the monetary search literature. In our framework, agents decide whether to invest in social memory through ceremony—song, dance, and storytelling that serve as informal recordkeeping. By helping to sustain gift-giving networks, social memory can facilitate the distribution of goods even in single-coincidence meetings, thus increasing the extent of the market and making specialization more attractive. Our findings, therefore, challenge historical Western perceptions by demonstrating that potlatch ceremonies can increase wealth and social welfare. Additionally, our model highlights how geographic and cultural proximity shape participation in gift-giving networks, with barter becoming more prevalent among distant communities. We support our theoretical results with qualitative evidence and analytic narrative. |
| Keywords: | Decentralized Exchange, Gift-Giving, Indigenous Institutions, Social Memory |
| JEL: | E42 D83 J15 N12 P40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–06–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:25-03 |
| By: | Coady, David |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the evolution of fiscal redistribution (FR) in the UK through social assistance transfers over the last four decades and the contribution of each of its determinants: budget effort (the share of national income devoted to redistributive transfers) and transfer progressivity (the extent to which these transfers are concentrated on lower-income households). Trends in FR have been driven by a combination of economic and political cycles. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the heavy reliance on means-tested transfers indexed to prices resulted in FR fluctuating over the ‘economic cycle’. Over recent decades, FR has been driven primarily by ‘political cycles’. Under a Labour government (1997–2010), a large expansion of coverage of in-work benefits resulted in an unprecedented, sustained increase in effort which, despite decreasing progressivity, was large enough to ensure a continuous rise in FR. This increase was reversed under a Conservative-led government from 2010 in the context of fiscal austerity, which decreased effort and increased progressivity as remaining transfers were concentrated more on lower-income households. A striking feature over the last four decades has been the sharp decline in FR to the poorest income decile under different political leadership as emphasis has shifted to reducing in-work rather than out-of-work poverty and ‘making work pay’. |
| Keywords: | poverty; redistribution; budget effort; social assistance; progressivity; inequality |
| JEL: | D31 D63 H23 I38 |
| Date: | 2025–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127747 |
| By: | Edward Nelson |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the place that a "look-through" approach to price shocks has acquired in inflation-targeting frameworks. The "look-through" approach reflects the fact that, in the event of a shock that is likely (on impact) to put a sizable share of consumer prices under upward pressure, one option available to the central bank is to accommodate the initial price rise. In doing so, it can also attempt to ensure that future inflation rates, and inflation expectations, are insulated from the shock. Although the policy of "looking through" has achieved considerable acceptance, its origins are not widely understood. The analysis provided here indicates that key aspects of the "look-through" approach were aired in U.S. public discourse in 1973−1974, when the appropriate response to the first oil shock was being considered. The approach was subsequently refined in the course of several countries' experiences of price shocks from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, with the specific "look through" terminology emerging at the end of this period. The connection between the "look-through" approach and the notion of inflation expectations being anchored by the central bank is also considered. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy strategy; Inflation targeting; Look-through approach |
| JEL: | E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2025–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-37 |
| By: | Jabko, Nicolas; Schmidt, Sebastian (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | Scholars regularly mobilise the concept of policy paradigm to characterise successive periods in which certain ideas appear to structure policymaking. While this concept proved useful to establish that ideas matter, it is time to start thinking about ideas in ways that better resonate with actors’ practices. This article introduces and empirically illustrates two conceptual alternatives. First, it looks at international monetary relations from 1944 through the early 1970s. Instead of simply labelling this period as ‘Keynesian, ’ it shows that the enduring centrality of gold was a pivotal practice among policy makers. Second, it considers the governance of the Eurozone in the run-up to the crisis of the 2010s. Rather than viewing this period as ‘neoliberal, ’ it highlights a new discursive repertoire of governance that produced both austerity and unconventional policies. In sum, practices and repertoires help to make sense of elements of continuity, ambiguity and contestation that are often obscured by ideational analysis. |
| Date: | 2025–06–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qk9np_v1 |
| By: | Gay, Victor |
| Abstract: | This article introduces the Jean Nicolas Database, a comprehensive resource doc-umenting 8, 516 rebellions in France between 1661 and 1789. Based on a survey con-ducted by Jean Nicolas from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, the database records each event’s typology, chronology, location, participant characteristics, forms of con-frontation and violence, legal consequences, sources, and authorship. In addition to detailing the construction methodology of the database, the article critically evaluates its reliability by analyzing biases introduced during the original data collection pro-cess. It also provides methodological guidance to end users to mitigate the database’s limitations. |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:130598 |
| By: | Alban de Gmeline (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | What was the impact of rail development on electoral behaviour in France? This paper quantifies the impact of the opening of stations on voting in the 1902 election. It distinguishes the specific effect linked to the opening of a news agent in stations. The analysis is based on a new dataset from the archives of Hachette who had a monopoly on these news agents in French railway stations. These selling points account for 2.64% of the 42.46% of votes obtained by the left-wing alliance in 1902. A political bias of Hachette may partly explain this effect. These results underscore the importance of transport infrastructure and information access in shaping political behaviors. |
| JEL: | N73 D72 |
| Date: | 2025–03–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:41 |
| By: | Alexis Litvine (University of Cambridge); Thomas Thévenin (Université de Bourgogne); Arthur Starzec (University of Cambridge); Patrick Mille (Université de Bourgogne); Isabelle Séguy (INED); Guillaume Proffit (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This article introduces a methodology for the creation of historical road transport networks, focussing on France and the UK between 1910 and 1930. We construct the first road networks for both countries in the early twentieth century, the key take-off period of motoring. We differentiate roads according to quality, width, and surfacing. We offer significant methodological innovation in the creation of historical speed models. To achieve an accurate calibration of car speeds, we extracted historical vehicle performance and developed a slope-dependent speed model. Our empirical validation process compares the predicted travel times with a new data set of historical observed travel times. The model demonstrates a high degree of accuracy, significantly enhancing the reliability of historical travel-time modelling. This framework not only provides a solid foundation for analysing historical accessibility and market potential, but also offers a replicable and adaptable approach applicable to other historical contexts and regions. |
| JEL: | L92 N74 |
| Date: | 2025–03–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:44 |
| By: | Hart, Robert A. (University of Stirling); Roberts, J. Elizabeth (University of Stirling) |
| Abstract: | Based on payroll data of blue-collar male workers in the UK’s engineering and metal working industries between the mid-1920s and mid-1960s, this paper investigates piecework-timework pay differentials through time. The period covers several pre-Depression years, the Great Depression, the run up to WW2, the war itself, and the post war period. A major widening of the differentials occurred during the late 1920s and during the run-up to and the expansion of WW2 activities. In contrast, the Depression and the post-war years witnessed considerable narrowing of the differentials. Associated labour market topics include pieceworkers’ compensating pay differentials and the transaction costs of pricing piecework output. The surge in women’s employment in engineering and metal working in the early war years is shown to have contributed to changes in the male differentials. |
| Keywords: | piecework, timework pay differentials, output fluctuations, piecework pricing. |
| JEL: | J31 J33 N64 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17959 |
| By: | Chris Briggs (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This article investigates the degree to which England’s royal courts of common law were used by the masses (peasants, craftsmen, wage-earners) to prosecute lawsuits of small value. It argues that this issue is important for understanding the institutional framework that supported England’s developing market economy, and for investigating claims about state formation in this period. Using a case study of one particular provincial session of royal justice - the Derbyshire eyre of 1330-31 – the article presents quantitative evidence on the social status and subject matter of debt and trespass business heard before the king’s justices. It is argued that the Derbyshire evidence shows that there were limits to the social reach of the common law courts. If we wish to grasp the framework of civil justice we must aim at a more comprehensive analysis of medieval England’s multifarious jurisdictions (royal, communal, urban, seigniorial, and ecclesiastical). |
| JEL: | N43 K36 |
| Date: | 2025–01–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:38 |
| By: | Alban de Gmeline (University of Cambridge); Alexis Litvine (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the closures of railway lines in France between 1910 and 1938 when France experienced rapid network shrinkage. Multiple hypotheses have been put forward, ranging from the financial troubles of railway companies, the competition of automobiles and interurban coach services, and the rationalisation of the network leading to its nationalisation and the creation of the SNCF in 1938. We provide a quantitative assessment of these factors using newly assembled data on road and rail networks and the first historical metric for passenger traffic at the station level. Finally, we analyse the impact in terms of spatial inequality. |
| JEL: | L92 N74 |
| Date: | 2025–03–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmh:wpaper:43 |