Economic History Commons^™

Checkerboard Of Interests: Native American Tribes And The Politics Of Land Tenure Reform, Anika Manuel

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

People have long disputed over the financial system constructed for indigenous communities and their resulting economic rights within U.S. native reservations. Indigenous tribes themselves remain split concerning the state of their tribal economies. Although scholars have extensively researched the historical component regarding the construction of the financial system we see in place today, very few have focused on the politics and rationale behind certain policy positions of relevant actors in modern-day society. In an attempt to fill this gap, this research paper will focus on answering two key questions: How has public policy shaped the economic and property rights of …

The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Elira Karaja, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We conduct trust games in three villages in a northeastern Romanian commune. From 1775–1919, these villages were arbitrarily assigned to opposite sides of the Austrian and Ottoman/Russian border despite being located seven kilometers apart. This plausibly exogenous border assignment affected local institutions and late-18th century migration in a manner that likely also affected trust. Conditional on trust norms being affected by these centuries-old historical circumstances, our experimental design tests the degree to which such norms are transmitted intergenerationally. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that participants on the Austrian side that also have family roots in the village are indeed …

Do Global Pandemics Matter For Stock Prices? Lessons From The 1918 Spanish Flu, Marco Del Angel, Caroline Fohlin, Marc D. Weidenmier

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. We use the death rate to control for the impact of the global pandemic and war news reported in the New York Times to capture the positive effects of the end of World War I on stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected NYSE stock price index, we show that there is a -.73 correlation between the aggregate stock market and the death rate. Furthermore, vector autoregressions demonstrate that the death rate can explain up to 24 percent of the forecast error variance in the aggregate …

Introduction To The Special Issue On The Economics Of Religion, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

"The economics and political science of religion have blossomed into full-fledged fields in the last decade and a half. What was once a field on the far outskirts of economics and political science now regularly publishes in its top journals (see Figure 1).¹ By 1998, the field was large enough for Iannaccone (1998) to write a survey of the shape of the field. The field was very much at its infancy at that time, and most of the best work was done by sociologists and/or published in sociology journals. This has changed significantly in the 22 years since Iannaccone's …

Review Of The Promise And Peril Of Credit: What A Forgotten Legend About Jews And Finance Tells Us About The Making Of European Commercial Society, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society, by Francesca Trivellato, published by Princeton University Press.

Review Of Creditworthy: A History Of Consumer Surveillance And Financial Identity In America, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A book review of Josh Lauer's Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America.

1st Place Contest Entry: Countering The Current: The Function Of Cinematic Waves In Communist Vs. Capitalist Societies, Maddie Gwinn

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Maddie Gwinn's submission for the 2019 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won first place. It contains her essay on using library resources, a three-page sample of her research project on how the Czech New Wave and New Hollywood cinema are defined by their agency in preserving and prescribing cultural meaning across their societies while being bound to their economic systems, and her works cited list.

Maddie is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in Film Production. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Carmichael Peters.

Counterparty Risk And The Establishment Of The New York Stock Exchange Clearinghouse, Asaf Bernstein, Eric Hughson, Marc Weidenmier

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We examine the effect of the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) clearinghouse in 1892 on counterparty risk using a novel historical experiment. During this period, the NYSE stocks were dual-listed on the Consolidated Stock Exchange (CSE), which already had a clearinghouse. Using identical securities on the CSE as a control, we find that the introduction of multilateral net settlement through a clearinghouse substantially reduced volatility of NYSE returns caused by settlement risk and increased asset values. Our results indicate that a clearinghouse can improve market stability and value through a reduction in network contagion and counterparty risk.

Humanomics: Moral Sentiments And The Wealth Of Nations For The Twenty-First Century, Vernon Smith, Bart J. Wilson

Economics Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Sometime in the last 250 years, economists lost sight of the full range of human feeling, thinking, and knowing in everyday life. Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century economics by undergirding it with sentiments, fellow feeling, and a sense of propriety - the stuff of which human relationships are built. Integrating insights from The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations into contemporary empirical analysis, this book shapes economic betterment as a science of human beings.

Spanish California Missions: An Economic Success, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Starting in 1769, the Spanish established missions in Alta California. A small band of soldiers, Franciscan priests and volunteers walked from Baja California to San Francisco Bay through semi-arid, scarcely populated land stopping occasionally to establish a location for a religious community. Usually two priests, a few soldiers and a few Indians from Baja California settled at the spot. Their only resources for starting an economy were themselves, a few animals and a nearby source of water. They attracted the local Indians to join the community and perform the work necessary to create a strong economy. After only a few …

Review Of Reading The Market: Genres Of Financial Capitalism In Gilded Age America, Lynne P. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Peter Knight's Reading the Market: Genres of Financial Capitalism in Gilded Age America.

Review Of Rulers, Religion, & Riches: Why The West Got Rich And The Middle East Did Not, Lynne P. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Jared Rubin's Rulers, Religion, & Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not.

Rulers, Religion, And Riches: Why The West Got Rich And The Middle East Did Not, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Books and Book Chapters

For centuries following the spread of Islam, the Middle East was far ahead of Europe. Yet, the modern economy was born in Europe. Why was it not born in the Middle East? In this book Jared Rubin examines the role that Islam played in this reversal of fortunes. It argues that the religion itself is not to blame; the importance of religious legitimacy in Middle Eastern politics was the primary culprit. Muslim religious authorities were given an important seat at the political bargaining table, which they used to block important advancements such as the printing press and lending at interest. …

John Nash: A Personal Remembrance (Introduction To The John Forbes Nash Jr. Memorial Special Issue), Vernon Smith

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In January of 2011, three years after his 80th birthday, Games and Economic Behavior published a special issue to honor John Nash. In their introductory note, the editors, Avinash Dixit, Ehud Kalai and Stephen Morris wrote: “We are delighted to have the privilege of coordinating this expression of the whole profession's admiration and appreciation of John Nash and his work, and look forward to a repeat in ten or even twenty years' time.”

This wish was sadly interrupted by tragedy. On their way back from the ceremony awarding John the Abel Prize in mathematics, John and his wife Alicia were …

From Hard Money To Branch Banking California Banking In The Gold Rush Economy, Larry Schweikart, Lynne Pierson Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In Gold Rush–era California, banking and the financial sector evolved in often distinctive ways because of the Gold Rush economy. More importantly, the abundance of gold on the West Coast provided an interesting test case for some of the critical economic arguments of the day, especially for those deriving from the descending—but still powerful—positions of the “hard money” Jacksonians.

Fair And Impartial Spectators In Experimental Economic Behavior, Vernon L. Smith, Bart J. Wilson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Our primary purpose in this article is to draw upon the literature of classical liberal economy to show how it informs and is informed by the results from experimental economics. Adam Smith's first great book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, serves as our chief source of insights for understanding and interpreting modern laboratory research in terms of the conventions that govern human conduct in personal exchange.~ At the same time, we wish to demonstrate how today's economic experiments elucidate a reading of Adam Smith.

The Herodotus Paradox, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The Babylonian bridal auction, described by Herodotus, is regarded as one of the earliest uses of an auction in history. Yet, to our knowledge, the literature lacks a formal equilibrium analysis of this auction. We provide such an analysis for the two-player case with complete and incomplete information, and in so doing identify what we call the 'Herodotus paradox.'

Radio Spectrum And The Disruptive Clarity Of Ronald Coase, Thomas W. Hazlett, David P. Porter, Vernon L. Smith

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In the Federal Communications Commission, Ronald Coase exposed deep foundations via normative argument buttressed by astute historical observation. The government controlled scarce frequencies, issuing sharply limited use rights. Spillovers were said to be otherwise endemic. Coase saw that Government limited conflicts by restricting uses; property owners perform an analogous function via the “price system.” The government solution was inefficient unless the net benefits of the alternative property regime were lower. Coase augured that the price system would outperform. His spectrum auction proposal was mocked by communications policy experts, opposed by industry interests, and ridiculed by policy makers. Hence, it took …

Sweet Diversity: Colonial Goods And The Welfare Gains From Trade After 1492, Jonathan Hersh, Hans-Joachim Voth

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

When did overseas trade start to matter for living standards? Traditional real-wage indices suggest that living standards in Europe stagnated before 1800. In this paper, we argue that welfare rose substantially, but surreptitiously, because of an influx of new goods as a result of overseas trade. Colonial luxuries such as tea, coffee, and sugar transformed European diets after the discovery of America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These goods became household items in many countries by the end of the 18th century. We use three different methods to calculate welfare gains based on price data and …

Social Insurance, Commitment, And The Origin Of Law: Interest Bans In Early Christianity, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Despite the historical importance of ideology-based, economically inhibitive laws, we know little about the economic factors underlying their origin. This paper accounts for the historical emergence of one such law: the Christian ban on taking interest--a doctrine that shaped the evolution of numerous financial contracts and related organizational forms. A game-theoretic analysis and historical evidence suggest that the Church's commitment to providing social insurance for its poorest constituents encouraged risky borrowing, which the Church attempted to limit by banning interest. The analysis highlights the applicability of the rational choice framework to seemingly irrational actions and laws, the role of nonmonetary …

Review Of Frances Dinkelspiel's Towers Of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of "Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California."

Legacy Of The Clinton Bubble, Timothy Canova

Law Faculty News Articles, Editorials, and Blogs

This article looks at the economy following the Clinton administration period in the White House.

Effect Of Regulation On Banking: California 1879-1929, Lynne Doti, Richard Runyon

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

California had a virtually unregulated banking environment until the first comprehensive banking regulations were passed in 1905. These regulations, and subsequent changes in 1909, required reserves and paid-up capital. Several tests of commonly accepted measures of safety, such as bank reserves, paid-up capital, bank failures, and real estate loans that resulted in foreclosure, are compared for selected years before and after the regulations. Results do not clearly demonstrate that regulation enhanced the safety of individual banks, but do support the conclusion that regulation enhanced the safety of the banking system as a whole.

Banking In Orange County: Early Years, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This article explores the beginnings of banking in Orange County.

Banking In California: Some Evidence On Structure, 1878-1905, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Doti’s thesis explains the contribution of state banks to nineteenth century financial history in the United States.