|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Heltberg, Rasmus; Hossain, Naomi; Reva, Anna; Turk, Carolyn |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys qualitative crisis monitoring data from sites in 17 developing and transition countries to describe crisis impacts and analyze the responses and sources of support used by people to cope. These crises included shocks to export sectors as a result of the global financial crisis, as well as food and fuel price volatility, in the period from 2008 to early 2011. Respondents reported the crisis had resulted in significant hardships in the form of foregone meals, education, and health care, food insecurity, asset losses, stress, and worsening crime and community cohesion. Although the export-oriented formal sector was most exposed to the global economic downturn, the crises impacts were more damaging for informal sector workers, and some of the adverse impacts will be long-lasting and possibly irreversible. There were important gender and age differences in the distribution of impacts and coping responses, some of which diverged from what has been seen in previous crisis coping responses. The more common sources of assistance were family, friends, and community-based and religious organizations; formal social protection and finance were not widely cited as sources of support in most study countries. However, as the crisis deepened, the traditional informal safety nets of the poor became depleted because of the large and long-lasting shocks that ensued, pointing to the need for better formal social protection systems for coping with future shocks. |
| Date: | 2012–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5957&r=hme |
| By: | André van Stel; J. Cieslik Cieslik |
| Abstract: | After 1989, radical changes in the level of entrepreneurial activity have taken place in the Central and East European (CEE) region countries, transitioning from the communist to a market economy system. In this paper we explore these developments at the macro level of countries. In particular, we investigate developments in business ownership rates in four CEE transition economies (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic) in the period 1989-2008, and compare them with developments in other OECD countries. To this end we make use of EIM’s COMPENDIA data base, which contains harmonized data on the number of business owners in OECD countries. Data for the four CEE region countries under consideration have recently been added to COMPENDIA. Our analysis reveals that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, business ownership rates in the four CEE countries have been converging rapidly towards the levels of other OECD countries, and more specifically, Western European countries. This shows that the communist system did not have prolonged negative effects on the private business sector in these four countries. Instead, based on their institutional and cultural roots, or ‘civilization fundamentals’, these CEE countries were able to rebuild the entrepreneurial sector in a relatively short period of transition. Finally, in spite of the general trend of convergence towards Western European countries, we also find sizable differences among these four CEE countries in the level and development of business ownership since 1989. |
| Date: | 2012–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eim:papers:h201202&r=hme |
| By: | Brandt, Loren; Ma, Debin; Rawski, Thomas G. |
| Abstract: | China’s long-term economic dynamics pose a formidable challenge to economic historians. The Qing Empire (1644-1911), the world’s largest national economy prior to the 19th century, experienced a tripling of population during the 17th and 18th centuries with no signs of diminishing per capita income. In some regions, the standard of living may have matched levels recorded in advanced regions of Western Europe. However, with the Industrial Revolution a vast gap emerged between newly rich industrial nations and China’s lagging economy. Only with an unprecedented growth spurt beginning in the late 1970s has the gap separating China from the global leaders been substantially diminished, and China regained its former standing among the world’s largest economies. This essay develops an integrated framework for understanding this entire history, including both the long period of divergence and the more recent convergent trend. The analysis sets out to explain how deeply embedded political and economic institutions that had contributed to a long process of extensive growth subsequently prevented China from capturing the benefits associated with new technologies and information arising from the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, the gradual erosion of these historic constraints and of new obstacles created by socialist planning eventually opened the door to China’s current boom. Our analysis links China’s recent economic development to important elements of its past, while using the success of the last three decades to provide fresh perspectives on the critical obstacles undermining earlier modernization efforts, and their removal over the last century and a half. |
| JEL: | B1 O53 N0 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:41660&r=hme |
| By: | Elena Stancanelli (Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques); Arthur Van Soest (Tilburg University, Netspar) |
| Abstract: | Existing studies show that individuals who retire replace some private consumption by home production, but do not consider joint behaviour of couples. Here we analyze the causal effect of retirement of each partner on hours of home production of both partners in a couple. Our identification strategy exploits the earliest age retirement laws in France, enabling a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach. We find that own retirement significantly increases own hours of home production and the effect is larger for men than for women. Moreover, retirement of the female partner significantly reduces male hours of home production but not vice versa. |
| Keywords: | House work, Ageing,Retirement,Regression Discontinuity |
| JEL: | D13 J22 J14 C1 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1128&r=hme |
| By: | Hashino, Tomoko; Otsuka, Keijiro |
| Abstract: | This study finds that the development process of the Kiryu silk weaving district in Japan from 1895 to 1930 can be divided at least into the two phases, i.e., Smithian growth based on the inter-firm division of labor using hand looms and Schumpeterian development based on factory system using power looms. Weaving manufacturers-cum-contractors led Smithian growth by organizing sub-contracts with out-weavers in rural villages and grew faster than factory production systems. Newly emerged joint stock firms played a role of genuine entrepreneurs by realizing significant scale economies. During this new phase, weaving manufacturers-cum-contractors survived and also introduced new production system. |
| Keywords: | industrial district; production organizations; weaving industry; 20th century Japan; economic development |
| JEL: | B1 O53 N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:41659&r=hme |
| By: | Mauricio Olivera; Luis Alberto Zuleta; Tatiana L. Aguilar; Andrés F. Osorio |
| Abstract: | El sector de servicios petroleros provee los bienes, servicios y sistemas que permiten a las compañías del sector petrolero desarrollar las etapas de la cadena productiva, desde la exploración de reservas y construcción de pozos, producción, refinación y distribución de petróleo y gas. El sector se caracteriza por constituir una fuerza de trabajo y tecnología especializada, que permite a las operadoras responder a las necesidades cambiantes de la industria del petróleo, lo cual lo convierte en el eje central de la actividad petrolera. ¿Cuál es, entonces, su impacto sobre la economía colombiana y sobre la economía de las regiones bajo su influencia? Este estudio caracteriza el sector de servicios petroleros en Colombia y cuantifica los impactos socioeconómicos generados por la actividad del sector y por sus encadenamientos con otros sectores de la economía. Para esto, el estudio presenta los resultados de una serie de ejercicios que incluyen el cálculo del impacto del sector en la economía nacional con la ayuda de la matriz de contabilidad social elaborada por el DANE y el DNP. Adicionalmente, el estudio identifica y analiza el impacto y la contribución del sector en el desarrollo regional del país, en especial en sus principales áreas geográficas de influencia. |
| Date: | 2011–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000439:009269&r=hme |