Standards of Living
Does capitalism disfavor women? Evidence from life satisfaction
Niclas Berggren & Christian Bjørnskov
Southern Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is concern, especially in certain feminist circles, that capitalism disfavors women. This could take many forms, for example, lower wages for the same work, reduced career opportunities, disparities in ownership, and the upholding of traditional gender roles, and it could result in capitalism conferring more life satisfaction on men than on women. We test empirically whether this concern is justified. Using the epidemiological approach to rule out reverse causality, we first confirm previous findings that most areas of economic freedom (legal quality in particular, but also monetary stability, openness, and regulation) are beneficial for general life satisfaction. When looking at women and men separately, we find virtually no statistically significant differences, and in the cases we do, the estimates reveal a more beneficial outcome for women. Hence, we conclude that capitalism does not seem to favor men more than women in terms of life satisfaction.
The Export of Capital to Colonies and the Falling Rate of Profit in Economic Thought: 1776-1917
Adam Walke
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, forthcoming
Abstract:
Classical political economists developed several different explanations for what they saw as an inherent tendency for the rate of profit to decline over time. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, some British advocates of colonization developed a corollary to those theories, suggesting that exporting capital to colonies could help arrest and reverse the decline. That argument was championed by the English political economist and promoter of colonization projects Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and it was systematized by John Stuart Mill. Ironically, the view that capital export and colonization played crucial roles in sustaining the rate of profit in advanced economies was later adopted by some Marxist theorists. Parallels between Karl Marx and J. S. Mill may help explain the remarkable theoretical continuity on this topic between nineteenth-century British advocates of colonization and early twentieth-century Marxist critics of colonialism.
The expansion of basic education during ‘deskilling’ technological change in England and Wales, c. 1780–1830
Louis Henderson
Economic History Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The first country to industrialize -- England -- ostensibly did so without expanding investment in the basic education of its workforce. The empirical evidence underpinning this argument for England rests largely on signature rates at marriage. These are not a perfect indication of educational achievement, particularly as many children never learned to write. More problematically, I argue signatures are likely to have systematically underestimated human capital in industrial districts. In place of signature data, I propose age heaping, a measure widely understood as a proxy for numeracy but shown here to be closely related to both reading and writing abilities. In contrast to signatures, this measure suggests that ‘deskilling’ industrialization induced human capital accumulation. I argue that this occurred not because human capital was directly productive, but rather because schools provided a valuable signal. Sunday school attendance signalled low leisure-preference among child workers and were popularly attended in industrial districts. Further, such schools taught children to read but not write, which they considered inappropriate for the Sabbath, accounting for the discrepancy between these two measures of human capital.
Medication against conflict
Andrea Berlanda et al.
Journal of Development Economics, September 2024
Abstract:
Adverse health conditions and social conflict constitute major impediments for developing countries. The potential for reducing social conflict by successful public health interventions is largely unknown. This paper closes this gap by evaluating the effect of a major health intervention -- the successful expansion of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Combining exogenous time variation in access to ART with cross-sectional variation in the scope for treatment for identification, we find that the ART expansion significantly reduced the number of violent events in African countries and sub-national regions. The effect pertains to social conflict, not civil war. The evidence also shows that the effect is related to health improvements, greater approval of government policy, and increased trust in political institutions. Results of a counterfactual simulation reveal that the ART expansion reduced the number of social conflict events by about 10%.
American Indian Wealth in the Early Twentieth Century
Donn. Feir, Maggie Jones & Angela Redish
AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2024, Pages 210-214
Abstract:
We use data from the Bureau of Indian Affairs annual reports between 1912 and 1927 to examine the wealth of Indigenous nations in the contiguous United States during the early twentieth century. Our estimates reveal considerable heterogeneity in wealth holdings across Indigenous nations. In 1912, the average real per capita wealth of Indigenous nations was high relative to other groups, but it declined systematically throughout the period of our study. Given the available contemporary evidence, our estimates imply a dramatic widening of the wealth gap over the last century.
The Institutional Legacy of the Mexican Rancho System in California
Dean Lueck & Julio Ramos Pastrana
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2024, Pages 31–66
Abstract:
We analyze the effect of the inherited Mexican property institutions in California on the state’s early agricultural development, focusing on land demarcation and the implied water rights. In California large tracts of land, called ranchos, granted during Spanish and Mexican rule of California persisted once the region became part of the United States and became intertwined with the American system of rectangular demarcation. We exploit this natural experiment in property institutions and use farm- and county-level data to examine the effects of the rancho system on farms’ shapes and values. We document large losses in land values from the rancho system and provide evidence that the mechanism driving these differences in farms’ values is the development of irrigation within the American rectangular survey system.
Checkmate: What was a King's worth in nineteenth-century Latin America?
Daniel Sánchez-Piñol Yulee
Constitutional Political Economy, June 2024, Pages 174–199
Abstract:
I study the exogenous shock of Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1807. I argue that this event triggered different chains of events in Latin America. On the one hand, the Empire of Brazil remained under monarchical rule thanks to the exile of the royal court to Portugal's most significant colony. The continuity of the monarchical system provided legitimacy and political stability, thus minimizing violence in Brazil. On the other hand, Napoleon's capture and removal of the Spanish King created a vacuum of power resolved through violent secession and wars. I estimate the effects of removing the Spanish King using fatalities data from conflicts and applying difference-in-differences. I find that Continental Spanish America suffered 7.01 times more fatalities than its counterfactual. In addition, the Empire of Brazil was able to transfer the gains from relative peace to positive economic outcomes by outperforming Continental Spanish America in height, population growth, and income per capita.
The emergence of double entry bookkeeping
Alan Sangster
Economic History Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Double entry account books of medieval Italian merchants and bankers have been extensively used as primary sources by historians of several disciplines interested in business, trade, commodities, markets, sources, prices, interest rates, exchange rates, tariffs, taxes, wages, rents, agents, networks, and many other related topics. The reason for the emergence of such a detailed bookkeeping method is unknown. This paper presents a critical analysis of entries in a ledger of Florentine moneychanger-bankers from 1211. Comparison with later examples confirms that this ledger portrays a method of bookkeeping embracing double entries that transformed into entity-wide double entry bookkeeping by the end of the thirteenth century. Following consideration of the socio-political, economic, legal, and commercial environment of the period and place in which it was used in 1211, the origin of this bookkeeping method is attributed to northern Italian moneychanger-bankers in the twelfth century. Their bookkeeping method addressed the evidential demands of multiple legal systems relating to use of credit necessitated by a lack of sufficient quality coinage in circulation to support the growing and expanding regional markets of northern Italy.