|
on Business, Economic and Financial History |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new framework for studying the interplay between culture and institutions. We interpret culture as a repertoire, consisting of (cultural) attributes and allowing rich cultural responses to political changes. Combinations of attributes produce cultural configurations, which provide social meaning, coordination and political justification. Our framework has several distinctive features. First, it proposes a “systems approach" to culture: the meaning and function of attributes are determined within the whole configuration and political equilibrium. Second, it emphasizes discontinuous or “saltational" changes in culture – rather than gradual, evolutionary changes – as attributes are reconnected and acquire new meanings in response to evolving circumstances and as outcomes in ongoing "cultural struggles". Third, our framework puts the spotlight on how fluidly different cultures can respond to conditions, depending on the nature of their attributes and constraints on their connections. Finally, it enriches the study of the co-determination of political, institutional and cultural outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Attributes; Culture; Discontinuity; Fluidity; Institutions |
| JEL: | P16 P50 O10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19518 |
| By: | Machielsen, Bas; van Besouw, Bram |
| Abstract: | We study the fiscal and educational consequences of franchise extension using the administratively arbitrary sorting of Dutch municipalities into nine voter-eligibility classes by the 1896 Electoral Law. Larger suffrage expansions contracted municipal expenditure and revenue and cut education spending, the largest budget heading. Public-school fees fell sharply while public pupils, schools, and class size did not change, so a smaller budget was spread over unchanged public provision and the saving passed to parents. Administrative records for 1905--1907 show that private pupil and teacher stocks expanded and the private share of teaching staff rose, while public stocks stood still inside a growing system. Neither a rise in the appeal of confessional schooling nor a fall in public teachers per pupil accounts for this. Teacher vacancy advertisements show private schools raising salaries while public councils increasingly rested on the statutory minimum. Democratization reorganized primary education rather than enlarging or shrinking it. |
| Keywords: | democratization, political economy, education, public goods, public economics |
| JEL: | N43 H75 I22 D72 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:342692 |
| By: | Bellani, Luna; Hager, Anselm; Maurer, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Did Southern elites' economic losses from abolition translate into diminished political influence? Using novel census-linked data on state lawmakers across four slave-owning and two Northern states (1850-1880), we document a striking paradox: despite the massive wealth shock of emancipation, the political influence of former slave owners increased during Reconstruction and its aftermath. We show that former slave owners won office at similar rates as in the antebellum period and secured more committee assignments. Comparable patterns are not visible among wealthy legislators in Northern comparison states. This suggests that Southern elites responded to economic loss by tightening their grip on formal political institutions. Our findings point to formal political institutions as one channel through which defeated economic elites preserved influence during Reconstruction and its aftermath. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cexwps:342477 |
| By: | Eva Davoine (UC Berkeley - University of California [Berkeley] - UC - University of California); Joseph Enguehard (CERGIC - Center for Economic Research on Governance, Inequality and Conflict - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon, UNIBO - Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna = University of Bologna [Bologne], Departement des sciences statistiques "Paolo Fortunati" - UNIBO - Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna = University of Bologna [Bologne], ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon); Victor Gay (IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Igor Kolesnikov (UC Berkeley - University of California [Berkeley] - UC - University of California) |
| Abstract: | The gabelle salt tax system was a cornerstone of the fiscal apparatus of the early modern French state. This article introduces a novel historical geographic information system (GIS) of this institution's spatial organization as of the seventeenth century, drawing on an original 1665 manuscript map collection: Sanson's Atlas des gabelles. Beyond presenting the dataset and documenting its construction methodology, we provide a detailed account of the functioning of the gabelle, situate the French case in comparative perspective, and illustrate how the availability of this fine-grained dataset expands the possibilities of empirical research in economic history, historical demography, and historical political economy of early modern France. |
| Keywords: | Taxation, Gabelle, Administrative boundary, France, Historical geographic information systems, Ancien régime |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05501504 |
| By: | Lamoreaux, Naomi; Wallis, John |
| Abstract: | We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the incentives for those in power to manipulate the economy for political ends and thus often negatively affects economic growth. We argue that the key to getting beyond these pernicious effects—to reconciling democracy and capitalism—is to move to a governance structure based on impersonal rules that apply in the same way to everyone (or at least to broad categories of everyone). We lay out the theoretical basis for this argument and illustrate it with evidence about how the transformation worked (or not) in the case of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. |
| JEL: | N00 K00 P0 P1 P4 P48 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19446 |
| By: | Hatton, Tim |
| Abstract: | Sailing ships persisted on emigrant voyages to Australia until the late nineteenth century and passage durations decreased by three weeks from the late 1840s to the mid-1880s. The shortening of voyages by sail has been linked to improvements in navigation and in sailing ship technology but without quantitative estimates. Analysis of 311 voyages of emigrant ships that sailed directly from a UK port to Adelaide from 1848 to 1885 shows that the decline in voyage duration was associated with increases in tonnage, iron construction and, above all, clipper-style ship design. Advances in ship technology also enabled captains to take fuller advantage of sailing the so-called great circle route to Australia. Examining a unique dataset of the tracks of 290 voyages from Europe to Melbourne in 1854-62, I find that larger and clipper-style ships reduced voyage durations, both directly, because they were faster on a given track, and indirectly, because they could better exploit the great circle route. |
| JEL: | F22 N77 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19342 |
| By: | Tsiboe, Francis |
| Abstract: | Federal crop insurance has moved from a limited New Deal pilot to a central pillar of the U.S. farm safety net. This brief traces penetration of the Federal Crop Insurance Program from 1976 through 2025 using four measures, insured acres as a share of acres in farms, the insured share of selected commodity acreage, the aggregate coverage level, and liability as a share of crop production value, against fifty years of legislation. Growth was episodic rather than smooth, clustering around the 1980 Act, the 1994 reforms, and ARPA, and averaging 1.33 to 9.33 percent annually depending on the measure. By 2025 the program covered 93.0 percent of selected commodity acreage and 64.0 percent of acres in farms, with liability equal to 71.0 percent of crop production value. Preliminary projections under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act place the 2026 values at 99.8 and 76.0 percent, the former an upper bound by construction. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026–08–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:arpcbr:409051 |
| By: | Platt, Lucinda |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–08–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128086 |
| By: | Kelly, Morgan; O'Rourke, Kevin |
| Abstract: | We discuss the industrial policies pursued by leading nations, on or close to the technological frontier, before and during the first and second industrial revolutions. The discussion is thematic rather than chronological due to space constraints. Industrial policy was the rule rather than the exception historically, and was often motivated by supply chain and strategic considerations. It was sometimes effective, and sometimes not, with the supply of appropriate skilled labour being an important constraint in several cases. British success in the late 18th century owed a lot more to activist policy, undertaken in an era of constant warfare, and a lot less to stable property rights, than is sometimes thought. |
| Keywords: | Industrial policy |
| JEL: | F13 F52 L50 N40 N70 O20 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19372 |
| By: | Hu, Yan; Maurer, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Do minorities benefit from social networks? In this paper, we study this question using the historical example of China's first modern bureaucratic organization, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Drawing on newly digitized personnel records from 1876-1911, we first show that the Chinese clerks employed by the service were predominantly Cantonese. Using the plausibly exogenous transfers of clerks across stations, we then estimate that a non-Cantonese (minority) clerk benefited significantly from meeting at least one colleague from his same province and dialect. Such connections led to faster promotion and a 5.6% salary increase, with even stronger effects when meeting a clerk who was either senior or of high quality. |
| Keywords: | Chinese Maritime Customs Service, social connections, wages, promotion, minorities |
| JEL: | J15 J31 J45 N35 N75 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cexwps:342438 |
| By: | Melki, Mickael; Rapoport, Hillel; Spolaore, Enrico; Wacziarg, Romain |
| Abstract: | We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades - both in crossregion regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistently with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin. |
| Keywords: | Migration |
| JEL: | F22 J13 N3 O1 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19510 |
| By: | Jamilov, Rustam; König, Tobias; Müller, Karsten; Saidi, Farzad |
| Abstract: | Bank runs are a central concern for financial stability, yet systematic empirical evidence remains scarce. We construct a novel historical dataset of bank runs, covering 184 countries since 1800 by combining narrative evidence from 503 sources with statistical indicators of aggregate deposit contractions. We find that: (i) the unconditional likelihood of a bank run is 1.9%; (ii) systemic runs---those accompanied by aggregate deposit outflows---are associated with output losses of 9% over five years, more than after non-systemic runs or deposit contractions alone; (iii) these losses persist even when banks are well capitalized and there is no evidence of fundamental triggers, banking crises, or widespread bank failures; (iv) central banks and deposit insurance are linked to a lower probability of runs becoming systemic, while liability guarantees coincide with smaller output losses. Our findings highlight a key role of bank liability disruptions in economic fluctuations, over and above solvency issues. |
| Keywords: | Bank runs; Banking crises; Sunspots |
| JEL: | E44 G01 G20 G21 G28 N20 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19382 |
| By: | Jashari, Skender |
| Abstract: | The article examines Russia’s long‑standing pattern of expansionist warfare and argues that these historical dynamics, combined with modern geopolitical pressures, are pushing the Russian Federation toward an imminent breakup. Drawing on centuries of conflicts—from the Russo‑Turkish wars to Soviet‑era occupations—the author highlights how Russia has repeatedly used military force, ideological manipulation, and proxy groups to dominate neighboring regions. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the study argues that Vladimir Putin’s restoration strategy relies on tools such as Islamist networks, corruption, organized crime, energy coercion, propaganda, and nuclear intimidation. Russia’s wars in Georgia and Ukraine are presented as extensions of this strategy, with the 2022 invasion marking a turning point that exposes deep structural weaknesses inside the Russian state. The article emphasizes Russia’s extreme ethnic and linguistic fragmentation, noting over 150 languages, 193 ethnic groups, and numerous republics where ethnic Russians are not the majority. Based on these internal divisions, the author predicts that the Russian Federation could fragment into dozens of new states, similar to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The study concludes that a united Europe and Ukraine’s military resilience are accelerating Russia’s decline, framing the Russian Federation as the modern “Sick Man of Siberia.” The author argues that the collapse of Russia would also significantly weaken international terrorism, particularly Islamist networks historically supported by Soviet and Russian structures. |
| Keywords: | Russian expansionism Hybrid warfare Dissolution of the Russian Federation Ethnic fragmentation Soviet legacy Geopolitical instability Russian–Ukrainian war Balkan security International terrorism Putin’s restoration strategy Proxy warfare Post‑Soviet states Ethnolinguistic diversity Russian imperialism |
| JEL: | F5 N4 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:130026 |
| By: | Bellou, Andriana (University of Montreal); Cardia, Emanuela (University of Montreal) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the short- and long-run effects of the Great Depression on college attainment by gender in the United States for cohorts born 1906–1920. Using state-level variation in Depression severity, we find that harsher conditions in the early 1930s are associated with small increases in educational attainment by 1940, with similar responses for men and women. Following these cohorts to 1960, more severe Depression exposure is linked to modest increases in men’s college attainment at the one- and two-year margins, with little effect on four-year completion. Women’s responses are more heterogeneous and generally imprecisely estimated. We further show that these patterns are stronger in areas with greater WWII mobilization: male attainment rises more strongly in highly mobilized states, while women’s responses remain limited and mixed. Overall, the results suggest that early-life exposure to the Depression, combined with wartime opportunities, may have contributed to modest gender differences in college attainment in the mid-twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Great Depression, college gender gap, WWII mobilisation, GI Bill |
| JEL: | J1 N3 I0 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18846 |
| By: | Min, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This paper examined how artificial intelligence was used in tenant screening. Previous research focused on the quantitative and technological aspects of AI in housing, particularly bias and socioeconomic impact. However, no cross-temporal studies have been conducted to analyze similarities in the language used to justify decisions between these two eras. This left a gap in understanding how the continued use of the language itself may influence inequality. To address this, the study examined whether modern screening systems repeat patterns of “risk” justification through a cross-temporal, mixed content analysis, sampling phrases and rhetorics from 16 Home Owner’s Loan Corporation documents and 12 modern tenant-screening papers. By coding 140 lines of data into 5 main categories that best described how they function in the texts, the study identified how decisions, discriminatory or not, have been justified across time periods. The findings of this paper indicate that all main categories of justifications consistently appear in both historical and modern datasets, suggesting that modern systems were still influenced by historically discriminatory ideas. Ultimately, this study provided a new perspective on AI use in the modern era, showing that the logic of prejudice can manifest through qualitative language, even when quantitative outcomes or technical information contradict it. Keywords: Redlining, Risk Rhetoric, Algorithmic Bias |
| Date: | 2026–07–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:2pydx_v1 |
| By: | Depante, Lianne Angelico C.; Dedase, Kirsten Lianne Mae C. |
| Abstract: | Main argument: We argue that the contrasting fortunes of the Taiwan and Philippine semiconductor industries are best explained by the differences in how their respective states deployed industrial policies and institutions in shaping development outcomes, particularly across four key areas: public R&D institutions, industrial governance and strategy, industrial clustering and state-business-academia relations, and scientific and technical human capital policies. Policy landscape: Today, semiconductors are the leading exports for these two political economies. Both their industries started at a more or less similar footing, tracing their origins as assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) hubs back to the late 1960s. Their paths have since diverged: Taiwan was able to build a fully integrated ecosystem that spans design, fabrication, and advanced packaging and testing, while the Philippines remains largely confined to low-value ATP with no domestic fabrication capacity to date. Methods: The study compares Taiwan and the Philippines as cases that shared a relatively similar starting point in labor-intensive ATP in the late 1960s but diverged in outcomes. We examine the policies and institutional arrangements each deployed, particularly during the critical period from the 1970s to the 1990s, when the foundations of their respective industries were laid. Findings: Taiwan's ascent to global leadership in semiconductor manufacturing was neither haphazard nor simply the outcome of unfettered market forces, but the result of industrial vision combined with strategic orchestration of public R&D (most notably ITRI), industrial clustering in the Hsinchu Science Park, and an educational system tailored to the industry's needs - a purposeful symbiosis of the state, academia, and industry that produced a self-reinforcing ecosystem conducive to industrial upgrading. The Philippines' experience, by contrast, underscores the consequences of fragmented governance, risk-averse public R&D, and an educational system insufficiently oriented towards industrial priorities. Policy recommendations: We propose that developing countries (1) rethink the mandate of public R&D institutions to allow calculated risk-taking and a tolerance for failure; (2) have the state co-invest with the private sector in capital-intensive, strategically important segments of the value chain, socializing not only the risks but also the rewards of public investment; (3) strengthen governance arrangements and expert advisory platforms to overcome information asymmetry and coordination failures; (4) place equal emphasis on building firms' absorptive capacities along with frontier R&D; (5) anchor human capital development explicitly in industrial strategy, including TVET reform and the mobilization of diaspora professionals through "brain circulation"; (6) pursue industrial clustering as a deliberate and coordinated strategy rather than a passive by-product of investment promotion; and (7) strategically leverage the evolving geopolitical landscape to extract developmental concessions, such as technology transfer. Conclusion: For the Philippines and similarly situated economies in the Global South, moving up the technological ladder will require a more proactive approach to industrial policy, institutional reconfiguration, and a fundamental rethinking of how development is understood and pursued. |
| Keywords: | semiconductor industry, Philippines, Taiwan, industrial policy, science and technology, industrial clustering, comparative perspective, public R&D, brain drain, brain circulation, Stanford Microsystems, Hsinchu Science Park, developmental state, comparative political economy, political economy of development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:342849 |
| By: | Marcel Schlepper; Timo Wochner |
| Abstract: | This paper provides causal evidence that the mere risk of war — absent actual conflict — imposes substantial economic costs. Our setting exploits NATO's Cold War defense line against a potential Soviet invasion, which created a geographic discontinuity in war risk within West Germany. A leak of classified defense plans in 1977 made this discontinuity salient to the public. We show that war risk distorted firm behavior on the exposed side of the defense line: firm entry declined, and incumbent firms reduced investment. These responses caused persistent regional divergence. Decades after the Cold War ended, incomes remain significantly lower in areas once exposed to higher war risk. |
| Keywords: | war risk, conflict, economic growth, firm decisions |
| JEL: | D74 R11 O12 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12915 |
| By: | Beck, Thorsten; Levine, Ross |
| Abstract: | This chapter reviews the finance and law literature, which focuses on the role of legal institutions in shaping financial development. Considerable research finds that (1) in legal systems that enforce private property rights, support private contractual arrangements, and protect investors’ legal rights, savers are more willing to finance firms, and financial markets more efficiently allocate capital, and (2) the different legal traditions that emerged in Europe over previous centuries and were spread internationally through conquest, colonization, and imitation help explain cross-economy differences in investor protection, the contracting environment, and financial development. We discuss alternative explanations of financial development and weigh the evidence. |
| Keywords: | Legal institutions; Legal origins; Corporate finance; legal adaptability; Political structure |
| JEL: | G1 G2 G3 K2 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19387 |
| By: | Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | Using surnames from the universe of death and wealth-at-death records in England and Wales, from 1858 to 2018, I document the emergence of a modern ethnic wealth gradient. Historically, Non-British ethnicities have average wealth 2-5 times that of the English. However, this premium has decreased over the 20th century. By 1980, non-British ethnicities have no advantage over the British. However, this masks considerable heterogeneity within the non-British ethnicity group. Europeans typically die significantly richer than the English whereas the Pakistani and Swedish die significantly poorer. Some groups always have lower wealth. The Irish, have wealth around 50% of the average English throughout. Surprisingly, the most egalitarian measure of wealth is representation within the top 1%. Most ethnicities have an equal, or greater, representation in the top 1% than the English, 1980-1992. Despite large differences in average wealth between ethnicities, the vast majority of variation, 97.5% is between individuals. |
| Keywords: | Wealth inequality; Racial inequality; Economic history |
| JEL: | N00 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19398 |
| By: | Khramov, Denis |
| Abstract: | The USSR did not collapse from any single trigger but from the interaction of two structural defects rooted in its founding choice — building socialism in one country by command rather than market. First, administrative pricing left the economy unable to measure its own internal flows: the question of who subsidized whom has no ruler-independent answer and flips sign between domestic and world prices. Second, the ethno-territorial design — fixed by the 1922 Union Treaty and the 1924 Constitution — embedded nations in bordered republics with the right to exit. Drawing on three independent transfer computations (world-price recalculation, budget transfers, long-run capital flows) and the recovered primary Goskomstat 1988 world-price recalculation, the paper shows the RSFSR was the net donor in world prices and in the budget yet roughly balanced in raw domestic prices — its apparent domestic deficit is entirely a foreign-trade artifact of underpriced energy exports that reverses sign under world pricing. The donor direction is robust; its magnitude is an artifact of non-market pricing, and the same measurement defect extends beyond Soviet borders. The dissolution is presented as a structural consequence of the founding choice — an explanatory model, not a theorem. Data and code are open. |
| Keywords: | распад СССР, командная экономика, централизованное планирование, спор о социалистическом расчёте, административные цены, искажения относительных цен, межреспубликанские трансферты, мировые цены, межотраслевой баланс, этнофедерализм, право выхода, энергетические субсидии, СЭВ, кто кого субсидировал, Госкомстат |
| JEL: | B53 F14 F54 H77 N14 N44 P21 P22 P51 |
| Date: | 2026–06–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129911 |
| By: | Kim, Minseong |
| Abstract: | Bayesian finite-mixture election-forensics models in the tradition of Mebane (2016) classify vote-counting units as clean or fraudulent from aggregate turnout and vote-share data alone, without independent evidence of manipulation. We evaluate the eforensics quasi-binomial-logistic (qbl) model against 20 years of Korean elections (2002-2025), fitting 228 separate model runs spanning general and presidential elections, two aggregation levels, up to five vote-counting channels, and, critically, two independently constructed fraud-free synthetic controls calibrated to match each real dataset's turnout and vote-share marginals without any fraud-generating mechanism. We find that the model reports substantial "fraud" (5-31% of units, up to 8.7 million "fraudulent" votes) on data that is fraud-free by construction; that real-data fraud-share estimates correlate at r=0.98 with their fraud-free null counterparts across 58 paired cells; that the model's largest real-data estimates fall on presidential elections held before Korea had early voting or any fraud allegations (2002-2012), exceeding what it reports for the actually contested 2020 election; and that recoding the model to test fraud in the opposite (conservative-favoring) direction reproduces the identical pathology, including assigning more false-positive fraud to the one pre-2014 election with a genuine historical manipulation allegation than to the allegation's own claimed direction. We conclude that the model's output depends on the shape of the (turnout, vote-share) distribution, not on fraud, and that this failure is not fixable by post-hoc recalibration, since recalibrating for validity would remove essentially all detected signal in the corpus. |
| Date: | 2026–07–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6ka47_v1 |
| By: | Keller, Wolfgang; Shiue, Carol; Yan, Sen |
| Abstract: | Primary historical sources are often by-passed for secondary sources due to high human costs of accessing and extracting primary information–especially in lower-resource settings. We propose a supervised machine-learning approach to the natural language processing of Chinese historical data. An application to identifying different forms of social unrest in the Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty shows that approach cuts dramatically down the cost of using primary source data at the same time when it is free from human bias, reproducible, and flexible enough to address particular questions. External evidence on triggers of unrest also suggests that the computer-based approach is no less successful in identifying social unrest than human researchers are. |
| Keywords: | Natural language processing |
| JEL: | N45 C8 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19517 |
| By: | Wasserziehr, Jan |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the idea that technical progress could free humanity from necessity and labour. Taking inspiration from a remark in Arendt's Human Condition, I consider a tension immanent to that idea: the possibility that its realisation requires social transformations that culminate in a world incommensurable with our own and to which our concepts of freedom no longer apply. Drawing on resources from social theory, the philosophy of technology and critical theory, I defend this incommensurability thesis in two steps. I argue, first, that technical progress entails a social dynamic which leads to continuous upward shifts in the level of automation required to free people from work, plausibly extending beyond the sphere of production; second, that this leads the idea of freedom from labour ad absurdum: the widespread automation of human life would render modern concepts of freedom unintelligible. |
| Keywords: | technical progress;technology;freedom;freedom from labour;automation;artificial intelligence |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2026–07–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140236 |
| By: | Long, Joe; Medici, Carlo; Qian, Nancy; Tabellini, Marco |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the economic consequences of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned immigration from China. The Act reduced the number of Chinese workers of all skill levels living in the United States. It also reduced the labor supply and the quality of jobs held by white and U.S.-born workers, the intended beneficiaries of the Act, and reduced manufacturing output. The results suggest that the Chinese Exclusion Act slowed economic growth in western states until at least 1940. |
| JEL: | J15 J21 N32 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19541 |
| By: | Yang, Dean (University of Michigan); Saia, Alessandro (University of Bologna); Kovvuri, Akhila (Stanford University); Ahmed, Resuf (Stanford University); Brimble, Paul (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | How does strengthened religious identity affect society and politics? We study the impact of "Ramayan, " the massively popular televised version of the Hindu epic. We conduct difference-in-differences analyses, measuring Ramayan exposure with TV signal strength in Indian localities at the time of airing in 1987. Localities with higher Ramayan exposure saw persistently strengthened Hindu religious identity, measured by the names given to newborns; increases in Hindu-Muslim communal violence during the Hindu-nationalist mobilization of the early 1990s; and longer-run increases in electoral success for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. A battery of tests indicates these effects reflect exposure to Ramayan specifically, rather than television generally. Areas with greater exposure also saw increased presence of Hindu religious schools, a potential channel behind the long-run persistence of effects. |
| Keywords: | political economy, religion, mass media, television, elections, violence, nationalism, culture, India |
| JEL: | D72 P16 Z12 |
| Date: | 2026–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idd:wpaper:2 |
| By: | Le Rossignol, Etienne; Lowes, Sara; Montero, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | We study a fundamental institution in many societies: the structure of property rights over land. Across societies, communal land rights have been more common than private land rights. We test the hypothesis that longer fallow requirements – the time needed to leave land uncultivated to restore fertility – led to a higher prevalence of communal property rights. Longer fallow requirements generate higher protection costs and therefore make communal rights more beneficial. We construct an ecological measure of the optimal fallow length for the most suitable staple crop across grid cells based on soil type, temperature, and climate. We find that places where land needs to be fallowed for longer periods are more likely to have communal property rights both historically and presently. We then examine the implications for efforts to title land. We find that World Bank land titling interventions are less effective in places with longer fallow requirements, suggesting a mismatch between development policy and underlying institutions. Finally, we examine implications for income inequality and conflict. We find that longer fallow requirements are associated with less inequality, less conflict, and greater resilience to negative shocks. Our results highlight the origins of property rights structures and how communal property rights interact with development policies. |
| Keywords: | Property rights; Communal land; Titling reforms; Cultural institutions; Mismatch |
| JEL: | P14 Q15 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19366 |
| By: | Cahuc, Pierre |
| Abstract: | This article provides an overview of the economic literature on short-time work. It presents the main characteristics of short-time work since its emergence in Germany in the 1930s. It analyzes its effectiveness as a job preservation mechanism, drawing on theoretical models and empirical studies. It concludes by highlighting the areas that future research could explore to address the most significant gaps in our understanding of short-time work. |
| Keywords: | Short-time work |
| JEL: | J23 J41 J63 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19429 |
| By: | Glogowsky, Ulrich; Hansen, Emanuel; Sachs, Dominik; Lüthen, Holger |
| Abstract: | Using German administrative data from the 1960s onward, this paper (i) examines the long-term evolution of child-related gender inequality in earnings and (ii) assesses the impact of family policies on this inequality. We present three sets of ï¬ ndings. First, child penalties (i.e., the percentage of potential earnings lost due to children) have strongly increased over the last decades. Mothers who had their ï¬ rst child in the 1960s faced much smaller penalties than those who gave birth in the 2000s. Second, we decompose overall gender inequality into childrelated and child-unrelated components. Over our sample period, the fraction of overall inequality attributed to children rose from 14% to 64%. This trend not only resulted from the growing child penalties but also from rising potential earnings of mothers. Intuitively, in later decades, mothers had more income to lose from child-related career breaks. Third, we investigate the role of policy decisions in this rise in child penalties. Parental leave expansions between 1979 and 1992 ampliï¬ ed child penalties and contributed nearly one-third to the increase in child-related gender inequality. Instead, a parental beneï¬ t reform in 2007 mitigated further increases. While the third set of results highlights the role of family policies, the ï¬ rst two imply that sidelining mothers becomes increasingly costly over time. |
| JEL: | H31 H42 J08 J13 J16 J18 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19547 |
| By: | Heblich, Stephan; Redding, Stephen; Zylberberg, Yanos |
| Abstract: | We examine the distributional consequences of trade using the New World Grain Invasion that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. We use a newly-created dataset on population, employment by sector, property values, and poor law transfers for over 10, 000 parishes in England and Wales from 1801--1901. In response to this trade shock, we show that locations with high wheat suitability experience population decline, rural-urban migration, structural transformation away from agriculture, increases in welfare transfers, and declines in property values, relative to locations with low wheat suitability. We develop a quantitative spatial model to evaluate the income distributional consequences of this trade shock. Undertaking counterfactuals for the Grain Invasion, we show that geography is an important dimension along which these income distributional consequences occur. |
| JEL: | F14 F16 F66 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19522 |
| By: | Stephan Heblich; Marlon Seror; Hao Xu; Yanos Zylberberg |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of large, successful manufacturing plants on other local producers in China, focusing on "Million-Rouble Plants" built in the 1950s during a brief alliance with the U.S.S.R. The ephemeral geopolitical situation and the locations of allied and enemy airbases provide exogenous variation in plant siting. We find a boom-and-bust pattern: Counties hosting these plants were 80% more productive than control counties in 1982 but 20% less productive by 2010. This decline reflects the performance of local establishments, which exhibit low productivity, limited innovation, and high markup. Specialization hindered spillovers, preventing the emergence of new clusters and local entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Industrial policy; regional development; manufacturing agglomeration; knowledge spillovers; China; economic history |
| JEL: | R11 R53 J24 N95 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26188 |
| By: | Federico, Giovanni; Nuvolari, Alessandro; Ridolfi, Leonardo; Vasta, Michelangelo |
| Abstract: | We present new demand-side estimates of GDP per capita for Italy and its two macro-areas, Centre-North and South for the pre-industrial period (1328-1861), based on a novel dataset including almost 95, 000 observations from 169 different locations. Our estimates confirm the chronology of the “Little Divergence†relative to the Netherlands and England. Italy maintained its leading position relative to the other European countries and was overtaken by France and Germany only in the first half of the 19th century. GDP per capita trends differed between Centre-North and South determining a “slow-motion†divergence from the 15th century to the political unification. |
| Keywords: | Italy; Gdp per capita; demand side approach; regional divergence |
| JEL: | N13 E01 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19406 |
| By: | Lidström, Erik |
| Abstract: | In a new paper, academic Dr Erik Lidström argues that there is a fundamental mismatch between the world our brains evolved in to, and the society we operate in today. Human beings evolved over roughly two million years to live in small hunter-gatherer tribes of around 500 people. In that world, instincts around face-to-face exchange, equal sharing of collectively hunted resources, and wariness of outsiders were rational and adaptive. The extended order of modern capitalism - anonymous, spontaneous, governed by price signals involving millions of strangers - is, in evolutionary terms, a very recent and alien environment. No one has had time to adapt to it. Drawing on Hayek's concept of the "extended order", Lidström argues that large societies self-organise through voluntary exchange, property rights and contract - without anyone designing the outcome. Hunter-gatherer psychology struggles to process this: our minds handle direct, face-to-face interactions well, but not the second and third-order effects of interventions in complex, interconnected systems. Price controls, from Diocletian's in 301 AD to modern rent regulations, illustrate the pattern: each is an instinctively appealing direct intervention that produces the opposite of its intended effect. Government expenditure in major industrialised economies rose from around 10.7% of GDP in 1870 to 45.6% by 1996 - a trajectory the paper connects to the repeated human impulse to "do something", where each intervention tends to generate new problems requiring further intervention in turn. The paper concludes that allowing economies to flourish requires accepting what will always feel counterintuitive: that prosperity emerges from the self-organisation of markets, not from conscious direction. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ieadps:342487 |
| By: | Berger, Thor; Ostermeyer, Vinzent |
| Abstract: | This paper documents how the advent of the limited liability corporation contributed to the diffusion of steam technology during Sweden’s industrialization. Using longitudinal establishment-level data, we show that incorporation sharply raised the probability that industrial establishments adopted steam. Incorporation facilitated technology adoption partly by enabling smaller establishments to expand to a greater scale where the use of steam became feasible. These results highlight that low barriers to incorporation may be an important lever to facilitate the diffusion of new technologies. |
| Keywords: | Industrialization; Technology adoption; Steam engine |
| JEL: | O14 O33 D22 L25 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19530 |
| By: | Melissa Gentry |
| Abstract: | Disability status has been elicited systematically in United States surveys as far back as the 1970s and was included in the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey starting in 1981. Unfortunately, work-limiting disability status variables are only available in public and restricted data starting in 1988. This technical memo walks through the process of recovering those missing disability status variables as well as the process of linking them to the internal CPS data at the individual-level through a series of unique identifiers. |
| Keywords: | CPS-ASEC |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:tnotes:26-24 |
| By: | Karalis-Isaac, Alex; Miller, Marcus |
| Abstract: | Samuel Huntington viewed world history as the clash of civilizations - of cultures differing in several dimensions, including religion. In contrast, Gerard Roland has proposed a one-dimensional approach, where the critical distinction between countries is whether they have the statist economy of a collective society; or the market-oriented system of an individualistic society. It is claimed, moreover, that current societies reflect the type of their respective ‘founding civilizations’; and empirical evidence - based on historical data he has assembled – is offered in support of both claims. Adam Smith saw a role for ‘moral sentiments’ in human behaviour, however; and anthropologists have emphasized the role of religion in promoting cooperation and contributing to the growth of civilisations. Could taking this into account enhance Roland’s objectives of distinguishing between cultures and of tracking the effect of the past on present civilisations? We show that the ‘principal components’ extracted from Roland’s institutional data of founding civilisations help identify the historical conditions for the emergence of the key religious blocs of the modern world – offering, we suggest, a social/moral complement to the account of temporal authority that he has developed. |
| Keywords: | Individualism; Collectivism; Religion |
| JEL: | N00 P00 P50 Z1 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19509 |
| By: | Ager, Philipp; Hansen, Casper Worm; Karger, Ezra; Lønstrup, Lars |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 on religious participation. We find a sharp increase in church membership in flooded areas that persists into modern times. This increase is more pronounced in conservative churches that provided more social insurance to members and had larger social costs to join. Access to alternative forms of insurance reduced the flood's impact on the uptake of church membership, consistent with religious organizations acting as social insurance providers. The flood did not affect families' likelihood of choosing religious names for their children: a more costly measure of religious belief |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19565 |
| By: | Arroyo Abad, Leticia; Espin-Sanchez, Jose-Antonio; Maurer, Noel |
| Abstract: | The Philippine Islands experienced two radically different colonial regimes: the Spanish Empire and the United States. These two regimes, however, had two points in common. First, both occupied the Philippines due to the islands' strategic location, and both were sorely disappointed by that decision. Second, both nations solved the "imperial trilemma" -- the trade-off between settlement, control, and economic exploitation -- by jettisoning metropolitan settlement and exploitation. Despite those similarities, however, the effects of the two regimes on the Philippines were radically different. The Philippines as we know it would not exist without the Spanish empire, whereas the long-term impacts of the American period (other than the English language) is at best unclear. The Americans under-resourced their reform efforts and sabotaged many of their own accomplishments in a rush to decolonize after 1935, for reasons of domestic American politics, not Filipino nationalism. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19535 |
| By: | Bini, Lapo; Reichlin, Lucrezia; Ricco, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the business cycle dynamics of the U.S. economy since 1900 through a multivariate framework that imposes minimal economic restrictions. A key finding is the presence of a significant negative correlation between inflation and economic slack, at business cycle frequencies. This relationship remains robust across over a century of data, with stable coefficients in subsample periods. |
| Keywords: | Semi-structural models; Business cycle; Okun’s law |
| JEL: | E31 E32 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19552 |
| By: | Boehm, Johannes; Chaney, Thomas |
| Abstract: | What was the role of trade, and how did economic activity evolve at the End of Antiquity, when political power shifts away from the Mediterranean towards northern Europe and the Middle East? To answer those questions, we assemble a database of hundreds of thousands of ancient coins from the fourth to the tenth century, estimate a dynamic model of trade and money where coins gradually diffuse along trade routes, and recover granular regional trade and real consumption time series. Our estimates suggest that Mediterranean trade was disrupted by the newly formed border between Islam and Christianity; that economic activity shifts away from the Mediterranean starting in the fifth century; that real consumption peaks in the Middle East in the eighth century; and that by the end of the ninth century, Atlantic regions from Islamic Andalusia to Frankish northwestern Europe have become the wealthiest regions of the ancient western world. |
| JEL: | F1 O1 N73 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19459 |
| By: | Tarik Jellouli (USMBA - Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah); Hamza Ousi Moh (USMBA - Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah) |
| Abstract: | During the subprime crisis, rating agencies, once considered essential to financial transparency, were the subject of much criticism and scrutiny of their methods, along with other financial standards. In the banking sector, governance is strongly influenced by regulatory frameworks such as the Basel Committee's agreements on banking supervision (Basel II and, above all, Basel III), with a particular focus on risk management and compliance. This compliance-focused governance coexists with performance objectives, relying on both internal mechanisms (boards of directors, incentive mechanisms, etc.) and external controls (regulation, supervision, etc.) to guide and control management. Financial rating plays a central role in the financial system by assessing the creditworthiness of issuers. Carried out by agencies such as Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch Ratings, this process contributes to informed investment decisions and financial stability. Our scientific article offers a review of the theoretical literature analyzing the interactions between financial rating and bank governance. Drawing on contributions from information efficiency theory and neo-institutional theory, the study aims to understand how financial ratings can influence and reflect governance practices in the banking sector. |
| Abstract: | Durant la crise des subprimes, les agences de notation, autrefois considérées comme essentielles à la transparence financière, ont fait l'objet de nombreuses critiques et d'un examen minutieux de leurs méthodes, au même titre que d'autres normes financières. Dans le secteur bancaire, la gouvernance est fortement influencée par les cadres réglementaires tels que les accords de comité de bale sur le contrôle bancaire (Bâle II et surtout Bâle III), avec un accent particulier sur la gestion des risques et la conformité. Cette gouvernance axée sur la conformité coexiste avec des objectifs de performance, s'appuyant à la fois sur des mécanismes internes (conseils d'administration, mécanismes d'incitation, etc.) et des contrôles externes (réglementation, supervision, etc.) pour orienter et contrôler la gestion. La notation financière joue un rôle central dans le système financier en évaluant la solvabilité des émetteurs. Réalisé par des agences telles que Standard & Poor's, Moody's et Fitch Ratings, ce processus contribue à des décisions d'investissement éclairées et à la stabilité financière. Notre article scientifique propose une revue de la littérature théorique analysant les interactions entre la notation financière et la gouvernance bancaire. En mobilisant les apports de la théorie de l'efficience informationnelle et de la théorie néo-institutionnelle, l'étude vise à comprendre comment la notation financière peut influencer et refléter les pratiques de gouvernance dans le secteur bancaire. |
| Keywords: | The neo-institutional theory, The theory of the informational efficiency of the market, Rating agencies, Bank governance, Financial ratings, La gouvernance bancaire, La notation financière, La théorie néo-institutionnelle, La théorie de l'efficience informationnelle des marchés financiers, Les agences de notation |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05649266 |
| By: | Hansen, Casper Worm; Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | A strong regularity of human life is Gompertz's law, which predicts a near-perfect exponential increase in mortality with age. In this paper, we take into account that chronological age is not a cause of death and decompose Gompertz's law into two equally strong laws: (i) an exponential increase in health deficits as measured by the frailty index, and (ii) a power law association between the frailty index and the mortality rate. We show how the increase in the frailty index can be derived from the feature of self-productivity of health deficits. We explore the robustness of the Gompertz decomposition across countries, gender, and over time and show how information about mortality rates can be used to infer the state of health of an age-structured population. Finally, we use this method to infer the biological ages of past populations, such as Australian men in 1940 and Swedish men in 1770. |
| JEL: | O10 O50 J10 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19353 |