Economic History eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Adam Smith and Confucius on Virtue Ethics: Very Similar Conclusions","authors":"M. E. Brady, C. Tang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3362110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3362110","url":null,"abstract":"An analysis of Confucius and Smith demonstrates that both are presenting arguments that are extremely close in their conclusions.The Analects present a powerful case against utilitarian ethics in a manner which is very similar to Smith’s argument against utilitarianism. \u0000 \u0000Smith and Confucius analyze and apply virtue ethics in a manner that is consistent and coherent. A reader who understands Confucius will understand Smith, although Smith’s rationale for the practice of virtue ethics is more detailed and extensive than that of Confucius. On the other hand ,one can argue that Confucius reaches the same conclusions in a more simple and direct manner than Smith. Reading both reinforces the views expressed by the other.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131317600","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":"Trust and Cohesion in Europe: Lessons from the Delian League","authors":"Athanasios Orphanides","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3360547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3360547","url":null,"abstract":"The multiple crises observed in the European Union over the past decade have undermined trust and the foundations for cohesion in Europe. In the absence of a common government, confederations without strong common independent institutions are fragile and prone to collapse. Some of the observed weaknesses in Europe today have parallels to the Delian League, a confederation of states formed in Europe in the fifth century BCE. Though initially successful, the Delian League collapsed within a century of its formation, following its transformation from a confederation of equal member states to an empire governed by Athens. Deviations from best policy practice by European institutions and the adoption of policies that appear to favor stronger Member States over weaker Member States similarly risk undermining Europe today.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115181973","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":"Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism in Geoff Hodgson’s Work (Introduction)","authors":"F. Gagliardi, David Gindis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3423969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3423969","url":null,"abstract":"This article is the introductory chapter to a festschrift in honour of Geoff Hodgson. In work spanning four decades, Geoff Hodgson has made many path-breaking contributions to institutional economics, evolutionary economics, economic methodology, the history of economic thought and social theory more broadly. Hodgson’s reputation as a prolific and important writer, whose work transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, is matched by his credentials as an academic entrepreneur, whose involvement in the formation of two international scholarly societies and the foundation of the Journal of Institutional Economics has expanded the opportunities for constructive dialogue among social scientists. To celebrate Hodgon’s fantastic career, this volume brings together 19 original contributions by world-leading scholars in specific areas that have played a significant role in influencing Hodgson’s thinking or represent key debates to which he has contributed. The chapter introduces these contributions, and summarizes a conversation with Hodgson that is also included in the volume.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124581151","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":"A Century of Economics and Engineering at Stanford","authors":"Béatrice Cherrier, Aurélien W. Saïdi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3374621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3374621","url":null,"abstract":"This article documents the disciplinary exchanges between economists and engineers at Stanford throughout the twentieth century. We outline the role of key scholars such as Kenneth Arrow and Robert Wilson, as well as engineers turned administrators like Frederick Terman. We show that engineers drew upon economic theories of decision and allocation to improve practical industrial management decisions. Reciprocally, economists found in engineering the tools that they needed to rethink production and growth theory (including linear programming, optimal control theory, an epistemology of “application” that emphasized awareness to institutional details, trials and errors and experiments). By the 2000s, they had turned into economic engineers designing markets and other allocation mechanisms. These cross-disciplinary exchanges were mediated by Stanford’s own institutional culture, notably its use of joint appointments, the development of multidisciplinary “programs” for students, the ability to attract a variety of visitors every year, the entrepreneurial and contract-oriented vision of its administrators, and the close ties with the industrial milieu that came to be called the Silicon Valley.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131590820","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 Origins of Creativity: The Case of the Arts in the United States Since 1850","authors":"K. Borowiecki","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3339873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3339873","url":null,"abstract":"This research illuminates the historical development of creative activity in the United States. Census data is used to identify creative occupations (i.e., artists, musicians, authors, actors) and data on prominent creatives, as listed in a comprehensive biographical compendium. The analysis first sheds light on the socio-economic background of creative people and how it has changed since 1850. The results indicate that the proportion of female creatives is relatively high, time constraints can be a hindrance for taking up a creative occupation, racial inequality is present and tends to change only slowly, and education plays a significant role for taking up a creative occupation. Second, the study systematically documents and quantifies the geography of creative clusters in the United States and explains how these have evolved over time and across creative domains. Third, it investigates the importance of outstanding talent in a discipline for the local growth of an artistic cluster.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122650708","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":"Adam Smith (Virtue Ethics) Against Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarian Ethics): Two Completely Different, Conflicting Types of Capitalism Result From Their Distinct Ethical and Economic Positions","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3333402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3333402","url":null,"abstract":"Adam Smith's ethical concerns and recommendations for behavior, based on a rock-solid foundation of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, leads to a completely different, conflicting type of capitalism then that advocated by Jeremy Bentham's egoistic, act utilitarianism, which forms the foundation for Benthamite Utilitarian ethics. \u0000 \u0000The ethical and economic divide separating Bentham and Smith is so wide that no compromise or synthesis is possible regarding their two systems. Both Bentham and Smith recognized this. Bentham's two 1787 books, Defence of Usury and The Principles of Morals and Legislation, represent a direct, but subtle, attack on Adam Smith. Smith responded to Bentham's attack on The Theory of Moral Sentiments by spending all of his energy over the last three years of his life strengthening and revising his The Theory of Moral Sentiments in order to strengthen Part 6 of that book in order to withstand, counter and repel Bentham's attack. Bentham, always the conniving, devious, cunning, sly, and tricky master of intrigue that resulted from his lifelong commitment and service to the British East India Company, on the surface would always compliment Adam Smith as one who was the \"the father of political economy,\" a \"great master,\" and a \"writer of consummate genius.\" \u0000 \u0000Bentham's attacks on Smith's foundation of virtue ethics, which was based on the impartial spectator and the role of sympathy, take place in chapter 2 on pp.8-25 of The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Bentham cleverly misrepresents Smith's emphasis on sympathy by criticizing all systems based on sentiments relating to sympathy and antipathy. Smith's system has nothing to do with antipathy. At the end of chapter 2 in The Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham makes it clear that no other concept except utility, can ever serve as the foundation for ethics. \u0000 \u0000Bentham's attack on the Wealth of Nations takes place in his Defence of Usury, where Bentham attempts to challenge Smith's demonstration that the major cause of macro instability, bubbles, deflation, and inflation is the economic power of some members of the upper-income class that Smith described as prodigals, projectors, and imprudent risk takers. The prodigals, projectors, and imprudent risk takers, such as John Law, the British East India Company, and Bentham himself, were able to obtain bank loans in order to carry out their speculative plans involving financial manipulation of land or real estate. \u0000 \u0000Smith's analysis of the Ayr bank collapse in 1772 showed how massive loans made by the bank directors to British East India Company connected individuals for land speculation led to a four-year depression in Scotland. Smith thus separated the prudent, \"sober\", middle class merchants and tradesmen, who produced and consumed physical goods and services, from the upper-class speculators and financial manipulators associated with the British East India Company, by far the most powerful economic force in the world i","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123090951","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 Assessment of Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller’s Assessment of J M Keynes’s a Treatise on Probability and Its Connection to the General Theory: Correct in General, but Incorrect on Specifics","authors":"M. E. Brady","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3331008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3331008","url":null,"abstract":"Probability (1921), as well as its connections to the later General Theory (1936), that is correct. However, practically all of the specifics listed by Shiller, used to support his generally correct conclusions, involve either errors of omission or commission. Shiller’s assessment is based on either a sound reading of Part I of the A Treatise on Probability (1921) alone or the literature on the A Treatise on Probability that has been written by economists since the late 1970’s dealing with Part I of the A Treatise on Probability (1921), but which overlooks the remaining four Parts of the A Treatise on Probability, especially Parts II and V. \u0000 \u0000An additional source that is generally overlooked by economists is the 1936-37-1938 correspondence between Hugh Townshend and J M Keynes. Only Townshend grasped the fundamental importance of chapter 20 of the General Theory, as well as the importance of Keynes’s “non-numerical” (interval valued) probabilities and Keynes’s concept of the weight of the evidence as being the main foundation upon which Keynes had erected his Liquidity Preference Theory of the rate of interest.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126466927","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":"Real Wages, Labour Conditions and the Standard of Living in Denmark: 1500–1900","authors":"C. Radu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3329877","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3329877","url":null,"abstract":"It is well established that Denmark is one of the richest economies in the world nowadays with high living standards and wages. But what about earlier times? This paper makes three contributions: firstly, it creates and describes a new and rich data set on historical wage developments in Denmark, based on data gathered by the Danish Price History Project for the period 1660‐1800; secondly, it tests the traditional view of Denmark being very poor during that period by offering insight into eighteenth century Danish living standards; and thirdly, it tests whether the country followed the traditional story of the Little Divergence by constructing a long run real wage series for 1500‐1900. Comparing real wages across Europe, I find incomes in the countryside actually converged in the sixteenth century. In this context, Denmark moved from being poor, to an average income level, becoming rich only in the nineteenth century. An analysis of the eighteenth century shows that the value of the skill premium was higher than that of leading countries in Europe, but the gender wage gap tended to close towards the end. Married women in skilled occupations earned more than unmarried ones, but no difference was seen for unskilled occupations.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"2676 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116875319","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":"Always Egalitarian? Australian Earnings Inequality 1870-1910","authors":"Laura Panza, J. Williamson","doi":"10.3886/E138261V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3886/E138261V1","url":null,"abstract":"Trends in Australian inequality across the twentieth century are now well documented and they closely replicate trends in every other advanced economy: from WWI to the 1970s, inequality fell steeply everywhere, and from the 1970s to the present, it rose just as steeply. Despite following a similar trajectory, Australia remained more egalitarian throughout. Why has it been exceptional and what are its origins? Our previous work has found plenty of evidence documenting a steep fall in Australian income and earnings inequality from 1820 to 1870 (Panza and Williamson 2019a). This paper answers two additional questions. First, what was the level of inequality around 1870 after the fall? While we cannot speak to income inequality in 1870, we do find that earnings inequality was much lower in Australia than in the United States, the United Kingdom, and presumably the rest of Europe. Second, we find that there was no rise in Australian earnings inequality over the half century 1870-1910, but rather a modest fall. These findings rely on the use of an array of primary sources – especially the underutilized government Blue Books reporting annual earnings of an impressive range of white collar occupations – as well as better known secondary sources reporting the earnings of manual workers and farm labor. These occupational (average) earnings data are merged with occupational employment data taken from the censuses to construct social tables for Australia’s 1870 earnings distribution. We do the same for postfederation 1910 Australia. This exercise establishes that the source of modern Australia’s relative egalitarianism is the middle third of the colonial nineteenth century. We also apply Goldin-Katz (2008) analysis to the half century 1870-1910 thus to identify the sources of slow skill demand and fast skill supply growth. Australia missed a rise up some Kuznets Curve before World War I, a rise so common in Europe and most of its offshoots.","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130826905","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 Slope of the Term Structure and Recessions: Evidence from the UK, 1822-2016","authors":"Forrest H. Capie, C. Goodhart, T. Mills","doi":"10.17632/wjbc8cdkr6.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17632/wjbc8cdkr6.1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates whether the inversion of the yield spread, with short-term rates higher than the long-term rate, has been and remains an effective predictor of recessions in the U.K. using monthly data from 1822 to 2016. Indicators of recession are constructed in a variety of ways depending on the availability and properties of the data in the pre-World War 1, inter-war, and post-World War 2 periods. It is found that, using peak-to-trough recession indicators and a probit regression model, there is reasonably strong evidence to support the inverted yield spread being a predictor of recessions for lead times up to eighteen months in all three periods","PeriodicalId":176096,"journal":{"name":"Economic History eJournal","volume":"37 438 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116557084","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}