Economic History Commons^™

Antitrust Energy, D. Daniel Sokol, Barak Orbach

D. Daniel Sokol

Marking the centennial anniversary of Standard Oil Co. v. United States, we argue that much of the critique of antitrust enforcement and the skepticism about its social significance suffer from “Nirvana fallacy” — comparing existing and feasible policies to ideal normative policies, and concluding that the existing and feasible ones are inherently inefficient because of their imperfections. Antitrust law and policy have always been and will always be imperfect. However, they are alive and kicking. The antitrust discipline is vibrant, evolving, and global. This essay introduces a number of important innovations in scholarship related to Standard Oil and its modern …

Spanning The Globe: The Rise Of Global Communications Systems And The First Globalisation, Florian Ploeckl, Markus Lampe

Florian Ploeckl

After postulating the relevance of information for trade costs we outline the rise of international communication networks (mail, telegraph, telephone) during the first globalisation of the long nineteenth century. In this period, global communications systems for the first time in history provided universal access to affordable and reliable means of communication. Using a new set of internationally comparable data on global postal flows, we analyse basic determinants of international information exchange and conclude by outlining a research agenda that links these to international trade patterns and knowledge transfer between countries.

Movimientos Obreros Y Por Los Derechos Humanos En América Latina: Convergencia, Divergencia Y Consecuencias Para La Promoción De Los Derechos Económicos, Sociales Y Culturales [Labor Movements And Human Rights In Latin America: Convergence, Divergence, And The Implications For The Promotion Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights], Maria Lorena Cook

Maria Lorena Cook

[Excerpt] Los derechos propios del trabajo forman parte de los derechos humanos hace mucho tiempo y gozan del reconocimiento de pactos internacionales. La Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos, adoptada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, en 1948, enumera los derechos a condiciones de trabajo justas y favorables; a igual remuneración por trabajo de igual valor; a una remuneración equitativa y favorable, y a formar sindicatos y afiliarse a ellos. El Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos (PIDCP) incluye los derechos a la libertad de asociación y a formar sindicatos y afiliarse a ellos. El Pacto Internacional de Derechos …

Review Of "Rethinking Asia’S Economic Miracle: The Political Economy Of War, Prosperity And Crisis", Su-Mei Ooi

Su-Mei Ooi

The article reviews the book Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle: The Political Economy of War, Prosperity and Crisis by Richard Stubbs.

Economic Importance Of Keynesian And Neoclassical Economic Theories To Development, Prince Opoku Agyemang

Prince Opoku Agyemang

No abstract provided.

An Academic Parable: Robert W. Fogel's Raft, Heitor Moura Filho

Heitor Moura Filho

The book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman achieved great fame as a revolutionary interpretation of North American slavery, even though at the time it was criticized in detail by specialists in quantitative economic history. We believe that to quote it as a pioneering quantitative study of slavery has become an academic “meme”, which does not adequately reflect the severe criticism suffered by the book during the years following its publication. This text looks back to the book’s release and the subsequent debates in the ideological and methodological …

Ius Primae Noctis. Las Instituciones Como Causa De La Riqueza De Las Naciones, Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

El secreto mejor guardado por los economistas es su ignorancia sobre la verdadera causa de la riqueza de las naciones. Adam Smith sostuvo que la riqueza de las naciones era resultado de una organización industrial basada en la división del trabajo. Robert Solow afirma que el aumento de la producción es consecuencia de una variable misteriosa y caprichosa llamada "progreso técnico". Algunos economistas, por su parte, afirman que el progreso es consecuencia de una mayor acumulación de capital físico (maquinarias, edificios, vehículos de transporte, etc) y capital humano (aprendiza laboral y educación formal). Sin embargo, estudios recientes demuestran que todos …

Banks And The World's Major Banking Centers, 2010, Adrian E. Tschoegl, Sang Rim Choi, Daekun Park

Adrian E Tschoegl

We update three earlier articles on the determinants of interpenetration of financial centers by banks by adding the year 2010 to our analyses for 1970 and 1980, 1990, and 2000. In addition, we also re-estimate our model to include data for Beijing/Shanghai, and add those emerging centers for 2010. First, the number of banks in our data and the number of their offices in other centers has fallen by 46% and 24% since peaking in 1990. Second, even so our matrix saw less turbulence than in the prior two decades as density and number of presences in other centers per …

Government Economists As ‘Global Economists’”, Giulio M. Gallarotti

Giulio M Gallarotti

With the advent of globalization, economists that serve the U.S. government have had to become more sensitized to the greater internationalization of the challenges facing America's leaders. As this globalized world has turned domestic issues into international issues, the analysis of U.S. government economists has had to concomitantly become more internationalized. Only through such a broad analytical perspective can government economists best understand issues and solve problems in a globalized world.

A History Of Financial Regulation In The Usa From The Beginning Until Today: 1789 To 2011, Gary Richardson

Gary Richardson

No abstract provided.

La Economía Política De La Desigualdad De Ingreso En Chile, 1850-2009, Javier E. Rodríguez Weber

Javier E. Rodríguez Weber

This dissertation studies the relationship between income inequality and the development process, considered as the sum of economic, social and political changes produced over time. It does so using the case of Chile between 1850 and 2009. Its goals are to describe the tendencies in income distribution over time, and also to explain, signalling their causes and some of their consequences. In the empirical area, the main contributions of the dissertation are the estimates of historical series of salaries, wages, and different measures of income distribution –Gini index, Theil, labour share and the income of the top 1%. To make …

Microfoundations Of The Rule Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast

Gillian K Hadfield

Many social scientists rely on the rule of law in their accounts of political or economic development. Many however simply equate law with a stable government capable of enforcing the rules generated by a political authority. As two decades of largely failed efforts to build the rule of law in poor and transition countries and continuing struggles to build international legal order demonstrate, we still do not understand how legal order is produced, especially in places where it does not already exist. We here canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts. …

The Cobden-Chevalier Effect: Evaluating The Causal Effect Of The Most Favoured Nation Clause In Presence Of Network Interdependence, Luca De Benedictis, Silvia Nenci

Luca De Benedictis

Presentazione, Mario Pianta

Mario Pianta

Were Jews In Interwar Poland More Educated?, Ran Abramitzky, Hanna Halaburda

Hanna Halaburda

Research suggests that Jews have tended to be more educated than non-Jews. We confirm this finding for the case of interwar Poland, but show that it is driven by a composition effect. In particular, most Jews lived in cities and most non-Jews lived in rural areas, and people in cities were more educated than people in villages regardless of their religion. We find that while Jews were more educated than non-Jews in rural Poland, they were less educated than non-Jews in urban Poland.

¿Hasta Cuándo Las Ofensas?, Guillermo Arosemena

Guillermo Arosemena

No abstract provided.

Un Repaso. Desde La Mano Invisible A La Resurrección De Keynes, Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

La revolución industrial capitalista y la consolidación de la economía liberal, cambiaron el curso de la historia. Hoy por hoy, el desarrollo de la tecnología y la capacidad de la economía para interpretar estos avances han desplazado a la filosofía como fuente de transformación y cambio del sistema mundial. En las relaciones internacionales, por ejemplo, las doctrinas westfalianas de seguridad y soberanía han sido debilitadas por la globalización y la nterdependencia económica. En el campo social, los problemas de la pobreza, de la distribución de ingreso y de la falta de acceso a las oportunidades, son comprensibles a la luz …

Especialización Industrial Y Crecimiento Urbano En México, Isaac L. Sánchez-Juárez, Rosa M. García-Almada

Isaac Sánchez-Juárez

La temática abordada es la especialización industrial y el crecimiento urbano en México. Hacemos uso del análisis econométrico retrospectivo, esperando que el estudio del pasado ayude a entender lo que ocurre en el presente. Consideramos que la investigación que ponemos en sus manos puede ser de utilidad para aquellos investigadores ocupados en entender la reestructuración productiva del territorio mexicano, particularmente a partir de la operación del TLCAN.

Alza, Caída Y Resurgimiento De La Economía Japonesa-Lecciones, Guillermo Arosemena

Guillermo Arosemena

No abstract provided.

The Internal Impact Of A Customs Union; Baden And The Zollverein, Florian Ploeckl

Florian Ploeckl

Tariffs can affect the growth of states. But how do they affect regional growth within states? Using Baden's 1836 entry into the Zollverein, the customs union of German states, I investigate the internal impact of a change in tariffs. With a new data set of regional employment data I demonstrate that the Zollverein had a substantial positive effect. Two market access effects are shown, one follows the standard market access predictions and the second triggers the direct investment by Swiss entrepreneurs in German regions close to their home base. Furthermore occupational change within the crafts sector was shifting labour towards …

A Theory Without A Movement, A Hope Without A Name: The Future Of Marxism In A Post-Marxist World, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Just as Marx's insights into capitalism have been most strikingly vindicated by the rise of neoliberalism and the near-collapse of the world economy, Marxism as social movement has become bereft of support. Is there any point in people who find Marx's analysis useful in clinging to the term "Marxism" - which Marx himself rejected -- at time when self-identified Marxist organizations and societies have collapsed or renounced the identification, and Marxism own working class constituency rejects the term? I set aside bad reasons to give on "Marxism," such as that the theory is purportedly refuted, that its adoption leads necessarily …

Finanzkapital And Consumers: How Financialization Shaped Twentieth Century Marketing, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

Purpose – By tracing the history of the links of financialization to consumer behaviors and marketer actions in the twentieth century, this paper aims to show that consumer market phenomena are often shaped by the imperatives of finance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs selective historical overviews, mainly focusing on the USA, of four tranches of the past century: the run up to the Great Depression; from post-Depression to the Second World War; the post-Second World War Bretton Woods system and its collapse in the 1970s; and the increasingly risk-charged last three post-Bretton Woods decades of the twentieth century. Findings – …

¿Quo Vadis Paraguay? ¿A Westfalia O Al Mercosur?, Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Las relaciones políticas y económicas entre países están estrechamente vinculadas entre sí. Para entender los cambios en la economía mundial, es necesario ahondar en los aspectos centrales de la política internacional, o en otras palabras, de las relaciones internacionales. El sistema actual de las relaciones internacionales se sustenta sobre pilares de los Tratados de Paz de Westfalia de 1648. Estos acuerdos se firmaron con el propósito de poner fin a la guerra de los treinta años, librada entre las potencias hegemónicas de la Europa del Siglo XVII. Los dos aportes más importantes de estos Tratados fueron la imposición del concepto …

Slavery And Information, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

This article shows how asymmetric information shaped slavery by determining the likelihood of manumission. A theoretical model explains the need to offer positive incentive to slaves working in occupations characterized by a high degree of asymmetric information. As a result, masters freed (and, more generally, rewarded) slaves who performed well. The model’s implications are then tested against the available evidence: both in Rome and in the Atlantic world, slaves with high-asymmetric-information tasks had greater chances of manumission. The analysis also sheds light on the master’s choices of carrots versus sticks and of labor versus slavery.

Local Convergence: Baden 1829-1847, Florian Ploeckl

Florian Ploeckl

This paper investigates whether internal institutional homogenisation during nation-state formation led to internal local convergence. We use the case of Baden with a new economic measure based on tax revenues derived from archival records. Our measure of local economic activity shows no evidence for convergence, unconditional or conditional, for the period 1829–1847. However, looking at sub-periods the six year interval after Baden's 1836 entry into the Zollverein customs union exhibits an adjustment effect resembling absolute convergence. Rejecting urbanisation as the reason behind this pattern we discuss alternative mechanisms in particular the reallocation of labour.

Alternative Estimators Of Cointegrating Parameters In Models With Non-Stationary Data: An Application To Us Export Demand, James Forest, Paul Turner

James J Forest

This paper presents Monte Carlo simulations which compare the empirical performance of two alternative single equation estimators of the equilibrium parameters in a dynamic relationship. The estimators considered are Stock and Watson’s dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimator and Bewley’s transformation of the general autoregressive distributed lag model. The results indicate that the Bewley transformation produces a lower mean-square error as well as superior serial correlation properties even with lower truncation lags for the lagged variables included in the estimation equation. An application is then provided which examines the nature of the equilibrium relationship between aggregate US exports, world trade …

Capitalist Class Agency And The New Deal Order: Against The Notion Of A Limited Capital-Labor Accord, Richard Mcintyre

RICHARD P MCINTYRE

Radical economists’ thinking continues to be influenced by the notion of a “limited postwar capital-labor accord.” But a careful accounting of historical scholarship since the 1980s shows the stylized thinking found in social structures of accumulation (SSA) literature and radical political economy generally to be inaccurate and misleading: inaccurate because it creates an image of a golden age that never was, and misleading in that it suggests a politics of social cooperation rather than worker militancy.

Struggling Recovery And Economic Policy Uncertainty: Testimony Before The Joint Revenue Hearing, House And Senate Ways And Means Committees, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Ma, Christian Weller

Christian Weller

The U.S. economy is in the fourth year of a recovery that started in June 2009. The fact that the economy is in recovery, even modestly, is something of a miracle given how stacked the deck is against it. This is absolutely unique in American economic history: There has never been a recovery without the housing market expanding substantially as well; There has never been a recovery with state and local governments shrinking for three years in a row; There has never been a recovery with households owing, on average, well more than 100 percent of their after-tax income in …

The Bank Of Tanzania (Bot) As The Custodian Of The Tanzanian Economy: Opportunities And Challenges, Conrad John Masabo Mr.

Conrad John Masabo Mr.

When Tanzania embarked on fundamental transformation of its economy almost two decades ago one of the top agenda in the economic reforms was the need to overhaul the financial system. And in view of pivotal role it plays in the country’s economy, the banking sector was the first to undergo reforms. Implementation of the reforms followed recommendations of the Presidential Commission on the need to modernize the banking sector dubbed the Nyirabu Commission. The BOT Act of 1995 was a landmark in Tanzania’s monetary history by adopting a single policy objective, i.e. price stability and moving away from multiple-policy objectives. …

Odd Couple: International Trade And Labor Standards In History. By Michael Huberman. New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 2012. Pp. Xii, 237. $65.00, Cloth., Joshua L. Rosenbloom

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

The years between 1870 and 1914 constituted a first episode of globalization, characterized by rising levels of international trade and robust economic growth. They were also, at least in Europe, the time when important elements of the welfare state—insurance against the risks of unemployment, sickness, industrial accidents, and old age—as well as labor protections—such as factory inspection and limits on the hours of work of women and children—were first introduced.