Economic History eJournal最新文献

{"title":"The Role of Transaction Costs in Douglass North’s Understanding of the Process of Change in Economic History","authors":"Rosolino A. Candela","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3282751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3282751","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this chapter is an attempt to reconstruct the evolution of North’s approach to understanding economic history. Underlying this evolution has been an increasing recognition of the role that transaction costs play in explaining the economic performance of different societies through time. I argue that, as a by-product of North’s emphasis on transaction costs throughout his scholarship, he transitioned from a neoclassical to an Austrian understanding of the process of economic change. The implications of North’s growing emphasis on transactions costs throughout his career was a growing importance of other complementary features of economic theory, shared by Austrians, to explain processes of institutional change throughout economic history. These features of Austrian economic theory include: methodological subjectivism; competition and discovery under uncertainty; a dynamic conception of learning through time; and the role of ideology in structuring the patterns of meaning and purpose attached to human action.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"128 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133978119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Empirical History of the United States Postal Savings System","authors":"Steven Sprick Schuster, Matthew S. Jaremski, E. Perlman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3306033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3306033","url":null,"abstract":"Seeking to reach the unbanked, the United States Postal Savings System provided a federally insured savings alternative to traditional banks. Using novel datasets on postal deposits, demographic characteristics, and banks, we study how and by whom the System was used. We find the program was initially used by non-farming immigrant populations for short-term saving, then as a safe haven during the Great Depression, and finally as long-term investment for the wealthy during the 1940s. However, even during the earliest period, Postal Savings was only a partial substitute for traditional banks, as locations with banks often still heavily used postal savings.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121558270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Detecting Historical Inequality Patterns: A Replication of Thomas Piketty’s Wealth Concentration Estimates for the United Kingdom","authors":"Phillip W. Magness","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3272391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3272391","url":null,"abstract":"This article utilizes a replication exercise to evaluate the reliability of the historical time series for top income share concentrations in the United Kingdom, as presented in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century (2014). Piketty’s depiction of the top 1% and 10% wealth shares for 1910 to 2010 is compared against both his source data and subsequent improvements by other scholars. Piketty’s time series is shown to diverge substantially from each, and does not appear to be replicable. In particular, Piketty introduces a sizable post-1980 adjustment that suggests a substantially more rapid acceleration of wealth concentration than its source statistics reveal. Issues of reliability in the U.K. time series mirror similar problems with Piketty’s wealth estimates for the United States, although their implications for historical interpretation differ in light of subsequent data. These findings indicate that Piketty’s historical account of changing wealth concentrations in the United Kingdom in the 20th century is unreliable. An alternative interpretation of the source data is therefore offered, pointing to a century long L-shaped pattern in place of Piketty’s depicted U-curve.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133551119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Monetary Foundations of Britain’s Economy in the Early 19th Century","authors":"Carolyn Sissoko","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3263738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3263738","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the development of the practice of central banking in the early 19th century by engaging in a detailed analysis of the Bank of England’s changing policies with respect to its discounts and lending to the private sector. To set the scene, the practices that characterized the banks and money market of the era are described, establishing a close connection between the bill market and the banking system. This paper, then, finds that in the early years of the Restriction the operations of the Bank were completely transformed, and goes on to demonstrate that the Bullionist Controversy and the 1810 crisis led the Bank both to acknowledge privately its duties to the public, and also to restructure its discount policies with a view to promoting financial and monetary stability.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122988021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Comfortable, the Rich, and the Super-Rich. What Really Happened to Top British Incomes During the First Half of the Twentieth Century?","authors":"James T. Walker","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3263417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3263417","url":null,"abstract":"We examine shifts in British income inequality and their causes from 1911–1949. Using newly rediscovered Inland Revenue income distribution estimates, we show that Britain had an unusually high concentration of personal incomes in 1911 compared to other industrial nations. We also find that Britain’s substantial inequality reduction over the next four decades was largely driven by a collapse in top capital incomes. This parallels findings for France, the United States, and other western countries, that reduced inequality was mainly caused by declining top unearned incomes, owing to economic shocks, policy responses, and non-market mechanisms associated with the retreat from globalization.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124039987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Margins of Trade: Market entry and Sector Spillovers, The Case of Italy (1862-1913)","authors":"Jacopo Timini","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3269145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3269145","url":null,"abstract":"Between its Unification and WWI, Italy faced a period of increasing participation in the international economy. The growth of Italian exports was gradual, and alternately promoted by its intensive and extensive margins. In this paper, using a disaggregated database at country-product level, I first construct the intensive (average export per product) and extensive (number of products) margins of trade (for Italian imports and exports) and, second, within a quasi-gravity model framework, I estimate the drivers of market entry for Italian exports (1862-1913), with particular attention to the presence of eventual sector spillover effects. I find that the presence of “similar�? exported products increased the probability of entry in the destination market (export spillovers), even if with diminishing marginal effects, potentially linked to a “saturation�?/“congestion�? of the market. Equally, I find that the higher the imports’ growth rate for a specific product, the more likely it was to be internationalised by Italian exporters (import spillovers).","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114623376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rational Expectations Has No Foundation in Any Coherent, Existing Theory of Probability","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3257245","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3257245","url":null,"abstract":"The theory of rational expectations has no foundation in any extant theory of probability. None of the five existing theories of probability (Logical, Subjective, Classical, Propensity, and Limiting (relative) Frequency) lend any support at all to the Muthian conjecture that the subjective probability distributions are distributed about an objective, true probability distribution. This statement is incoherent and incomprehensible because in all subjective theories of probability there are no objective theories of probability, while in all objective theories of probability there are no subjective probability distributions.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"20 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120990150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Was (English) Canada Poorer than the United States? Living Standards Circa 1830 to Circa 1845","authors":"Vincent J. Geloso, Gonzalo Macera","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3256294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3256294","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses the censuses of 1842 of Canada East (modern day Quebec) and Canada West (modern day Ontario) to help explain the historical differences in living standards between Canada and the United States. The argument made in this paper is that Canada East was substantially poorer than the rest of Canada. The wage and price data contained in the censuses suggest a gap of 42% between Canada East and Canada West. As it represented such a large of the total population (north of 35%) of Canada, that relative poverty weighed heavily in determining the extent of living standards differences between Canada and the United States. This changes the perspective on the roots of the differences between the two countries. It proposes that any research agenda trying to explain them should focus heavily on Quebec.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128474520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On L. Klein’s Erroneous Assessments of J M Keynes’s Views on Probability, Mathematics, and Statistics: Reviewing His 1951 Review of Harrod’s the Life of John Maynard Keynes","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3253471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3253471","url":null,"abstract":"Lawrence Klein was a follower of the Limiting Frequency Interpretation of probability. This concept of probability requires that probability must always be a precise, exact mathematical probability. This meant that additivity was always the case. His acceptance of Kolmogorov’s axiom of countable additivity meant that he had no idea whatsoever about the concept of interval valued probability espoused by Boole and Keynes using upper and lower probability bounds. Klein’s belief in the limiting frequency interpretation of probability meant that there can be no such things as imprecise and/or indeterminate probabilities. This view impacts Klein’s understanding of economic statistics and Econometrics. Klein builds his approach to economic statistics and Econometrics on the application of the Multivariate Normal probability distribution a la Tinbergen in 1939-40. There is no evidence that Klein was familiar with Mandelbrot’s demonstration, starting in the late 1950’s, that the Normal Distribution is not supported by any empirical evidence or Keynes’s point that it was impossible to use a Normal Distribution to account for changes in the demand (supply) of durable, physical capital goods, due to the impact of future technological change, innovation (obsolescence), and advance that impacted the expectations of those investing in such producer goods. However, Klein’s approach could be used to analyze the consumption function and inventory changes over time since these are stable, linear functions. Klein misunderstood Keynes’s comments about mathematical economics in the General Theory in the appendix to chapter 19 and chapter 21 of the General Theory. Keynes’s comments were a critique of Pigou’s use of Marshallian mathematics, based on ceteris paribus, partial equilibrium models that did not take into account the interdependencies and complex, complicated interactions between variables caused by the positive feedback effects emanating from, for one example, the interactions of the multiplier and accelerator. Klein also failed to recognize that Keynes was the creator, developer and innovator of the IS-LM (LP) model, which Keynes presented as a three equation system on pp. 298-299 of the General Theory in 1936. Hicks’s and Harrod’s versions of IS-LM were just inferior versions of Keynes’s original model that left out expectations and uncertainty considerations, which Keynes had incorporated in his supporting D-Z model of chapters 20 and 21 (there is no D-Z model in chapter 3 of the GT).","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121546069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ten Years after the Financial Crisis: A Conversation with Timothy Geithner","authors":"Timothy F. Geithner, Andrew Metrick","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3246017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3246017","url":null,"abstract":"Lehman Brothers’ failure and the vulnerabilities of the large investment banks and other nonbank financial institutions were a major part of the 2007-09 financial crisis. Ten years after the crisis, the Federal Reserve’s decisions about how to respond to the potential failures of these institutions remain among the most controversial it made during the crisis.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129784443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}