Explorations in Economic History最新文献

This paper analyzes the effects of kin availability and short-term economic stress on mortality among older adults in North Orkney, Scotland in the mid-19th through early 20th century. The mortality of those aged 60+ is associated with high oatmeal prices lagged by one year, a delayed effect that may suggest that buffering mechanisms are less effective in the longer term or that relative to younger groups, older adults are better able to cope with the immediate effects of stress. Associations between mortality risk and indicators of kin availability vary by individual sociodemographic characteristics, but they are limited to close kin in both the spatial and genealogical sense. Benefits of nearby, but not coresident kin accrue only to ever-married men during times of high food prices. Coresident and nearby kin are associated with complex patterns of mortality risk, suggesting that family relationships may represent a resource in some circumstances, but a liability in others. There is limited evidence for the effects of expansive kin support for aging adults and support flows do not always favor the older generation.

Using factory-level data from an official manufacturing census, I examine productivity among two forms of enterprise in the Russian Empire from around 1908. I find that despite having 60 times more financial capital, factories owned by corporations did not outperform those owned by ordinary and limited partnerships. Although corporations were more mechanized per worker, both enterprise forms attained equal capital and labor productivity and total factor productivity. Corporations attained higher labor productivity than partnerships only in the metals and machinery industry. These findings suggest that Russian factories used the corporate form's unique advantages in a rather limited way: to build larger factories and undertake larger projects, but not to enhance productivity beyond the level of the partnership form. I also find that there were fewer accidents per worker at partnership-owned factories than at corporations.

Using surnames from the universe of death and wealth-at-death records in England and Wales, from 1858 to 2018, I document the emergence of a modern ethnic wealth gradient. Historically, Non-British ethnicities have average wealth 2–5 times that of the English. However, this premium has decreased over the 20th century. By 1980, non-British ethnicities have no advantage over the British. However, this masks considerable heterogeneity within the non-British ethnicity group. Europeans typically die significantly richer than the English whereas the Pakistani and Swedish die significantly poorer. Some groups always have lower wealth. The Irish, have wealth around 50% of the average English throughout. Surprisingly, the most egalitarian measure of wealth is representation within the top 1%. Most ethnicities have an equal, or greater, representation in the top 1% than the English, 1980–1992. Despite large differences in average wealth between ethnicities, the vast majority of variation, 97.5% is between individuals.

This paper examines the effects of short-term economic stress, captured by general price volatility and a negative wealth shock on short-run fertility behavior in the rural pre-transitional society of the Cape Colony. First, we link complete birth histories of settler women from the South African Families database to consumer price index data to examine the effect of price volatility on conceptions. Next, we link the same birth histories to slave owner and slave emancipation data to examine the effect of a negative wealth shock on conception. Upon slave emancipation in 1834, former slave owners received on average only between 40 and 50 % of the market value of their slaves as compensation, resulting in a substantial reduction in their wealth. Relying on event history models that look simultaneously at stopping and spacing, we do not find strong evidence in support of fertility control in response to general price volatility. We do find greater variance in birth interval lengths for former slaveholding households during and immediately after emancipation, suggesting that a negative wealth shock is associated with increased fertility limitation through postponement in this context.

This article studies the short- and long-run economic consequences of the now-extinct Shanghai tramway. Tramway was the primary mode of transportation in Shanghai between 1908 and the 1930s, continuing to operate until 1975. With the geolocation of the tramway lines on both historical cadastral maps and current Google maps, the article finds that after the arrival of the tramway, land lots close to the tramway lines experienced a larger increase in land value relative to those far away from the tramway lines, and that the reduction in transportation costs led to a flattening land value gradient with respect to distance from the central business district (CBD). It also finds that the tramway still influences the current pattern of urban land value, even nearly fifty years after the removal of the last tramway track. Such persistent influence can be largely explained by the follow-on amenities near the tramway lines. The evidence found in this article suggests that the tramway in Shanghai promoted decentralization by enhancing accessibility to the CBD from distant locations in its heyday, and influences modern behaviors through the mutually reinforced private and public coordination of economic activities.

This paper studies the effects of various types of land reform on the voting of the rural poor in a developing, largely agrarian economy such as 1930s Spain. Using municipal-level electoral results in a region with intense but heterogeneous land-related interventions, we find that permanent transfers of land had the greatest positive impact on voting for leftist candidates, followed by temporary transfers of land aimed at alleviating the problem of seasonal unemployment. Poorly planned temporary transfers of land without adequate funding for beneficiaries made the landless more vulnerable to landowner control and had the opposite result. Our results show that the secret ballot might be insufficient to guarantee the free vote of economically dependent landless laborers. They also show that land reforms with poor support for beneficiaries might backfire.

During the Progressive Era (1900–29), economic growth was rapid but volatile. Boom and busts witnessed the formation and failure of tens of thousands of firms and thousands of banks. This essay uses new data and methods to identify causal links between failures of banks and bankruptcies of firms. Our analysis indicates that bank failures triggered bankruptcies of firms that depended upon banks for ongoing access to commercial credit. Firms that did not depend upon banks for credit did not fail in appreciably larger numbers after banks failed.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. immigration policy, effectively prohibiting Chinese immigration while institutionalizing discrimination against Asians within American society. This study investigates the repercussions of such institutional discrimination on the assimilation process of Asian immigrants, leveraging the timing of the enactment of the Act and the regional variation in the intensity of discrimination. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that discrimination posed significant obstacles to the labor market integration of Asian immigrants during the Exclusion Era (1882–1943), and Asian immigrants responded to discriminatory practices by investing in human capital, enhancing English proficiency, and adopting Americanized names. Furthermore, the triple-difference estimates reveal that these effects are more pronounced in regions characterized by heightened discrimination against Asians.