Explorations in Economic History最新文献

From 1860 to 1913 the six colonies that became states of Australia strove to attract migrants from the UK with a variety of assisted passages. The colonies/states shared a common culture and sought migrants from a common source, the UK, but set policy independently of each other. This experience provides a unique opportunity to examine the formation of assisted immigration policies. Using a panel of colonies/states over the years 1862 to 1913 I investigate the association between measures of policy activism and a range of economic and political variables. Assisted migration policies were positively linked with government budget surpluses and local economic prosperity. They were also associated with political participation including the widening of the franchise and remuneration of members of parliament. While the reduction in travel time to Australia reduced the need for assisted migration, slumps in the UK increased the take-up of assisted passages.

This paper analyzes migrant self-selection from Portugal between 1885 and 1930 for both men and women. Leveraging newly digitized data on migrants’ characteristics across districts and literacy as a selection indicator, we document that self-selection was positive over the entire period but varied markedly across space and time. In some districts, migrants’ literacy was similar to the general population, while in others over three times as large. In line with models of household migration, selection was significantly lower among migrant women, who were more likely to be tied movers. Our econometric analyses show a large negative relationship between migrant flows and self-selection, notably among men. We also find that the vintage of networks mattered differently by gender: male self-selection was more responsive to recent flows, while female self-selection was mostly influenced by past flows.

An intractable domestic conflict between forces on the right and the left roiled the Second Spanish Republic. We claim that international trade shocks exacerbated political instability. Leveraging an exposure design and disaggregated trade and employment data, we study the effects of import and export exposure on vote shares of parties and coalitions in the Republic's three elections, 1931, 1933, and 1936. An increase in import exposure had a modest effect on election outcomes. The primary vector of change was the disruption in export markets caused by the world depression and discriminatory trade practices, most importantly the United Kingdom's adoption of imperial preference. Trade dislocation harmed the left and benefitted the right. If trade had remained at 1928 levels, our projections show that the Popular Front would have gained a clear and comfortable majority in the decisive 1936 election.

I study a sample of 482 English inland bills of exchange (where all parties to the bill were in England) during the period 1762-1850. Inland bills were used as a medium of exchange during the Industrial Revolution in the north of England. During this period, they circulated via indorsements, committing each indorser's personal wealth to back the bill. The number of endorsements is a measure of the liquidity/velocity of the bills. I ask what bill characteristics are associated with greater velocity. I also investigate whether bills backed by banks and others backed only by the joint liability of indorsers had different velocities. Bank-backed bills were more liquid than nonbank-backed bills, consistent with the Dang, Gorton, and Holmström (2018) (DGH) theory that the optimal design of private money is debt backed by debt.

What are the long-run economic impacts of the policy responses to control pandemics? We investigate this question by exploiting state-collected data spanning one of the most consequential global pandemics in centuries, the 1918 influenza pandemic. Specifically, we use a difference-in-differences framework to examine the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), ultimately finding no long-run impact of NPIs on employment, positive or negative. Employment trends prior to 1918 suggest that World War One is an important confounding factor in analyses of the pandemic, since cities with tighter NPIs grew rapidly between 1914 and 1918. We identify new control variables that account for war production and find that social distancing did not have long run employment impacts. The evidence underscores the importance of accounting for confounding economic and policy factors for understanding the impact of pandemics on economic outcomes.

This paper explores the politics of eminent domain, using a specific historical episode: the enactment of the new California constitution in 1879. It presents evidence that the failure of a constitutional provision that would have codified eminent domain powers for water development resulted from a complex interchange of economic interests among farmers, miners, and urban residents. This evidence was manifested in delegate behavior on the floor of the constitutional convention in 1878, including various roll-call votes, which are subjected to an econometric analysis. The results have implications for the interpretation of legislative eminent domain decisions, and the degree to which economic development processes are shaped by the institutional environment in which they occur.

I develop a theory to study the determination of land rights in precolonial Vietnam, in which the state uses restrictive land rights to tie landless peasants to their land, in order to collect head taxes and enforce unpaid labor services and military conscription. Using a unique national land registry in nineteenth-century Vietnam, I find suggestive evidence supporting a hypothesis that higher population density is associated with lower prevalence of private land rights. The experience of historical Vietnam stands in contrast to the standard prediction that private land rights should become more widespread when population density increases and land becomes more valuable. A comparison with the enclosure movement in premodern England provides useful lessons on the development of private land rights in an agricultural economy.

In contemporary settings, greater earnings among women are typically associated with reduced marriage rates and lower fertility. One way that women’s earnings may increase is via changes in educational attainment. To study whether educational attainment affects marriage and fertility choices in a historical setting, I rely on the variation in educational attainment among female WWII veterans created by the 1944 G.I. Bill. Using data from the long-form 1980 census, I first show that WWII veteran status is associated with reduced rates of marriage, increased age at first marriage, and lower fertility, which suggests that G.I. Bill-related education could have had an important effect for veteran women. I then use age at the time of the G.I. Bill announcement as an instrument to establish a causal effect of educational attainment on marriage and fertility outcomes among female veterans. My instrumental variable estimates suggest that each year of G.I. Bill-induced educational attainment is associated with an 8 percentage point decrease in the probability of ever getting married, a 4.7 year increase in age at first marriage, and a 0.67 reduction in the number of children. Using age at the time of the G.I. Bill announcement as an instrument is valid because the benefits could not have been easily anticipated, women had to be 21 to enlist, and the generosity of one’s G.I. Bill benefits depended on the number of years of WWII service.

The establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic in 1974 (Metapolitefsi) was characterized by an increased public demand for a less centralized political system. The main political parties that emerged responded by giving priority to the development of local and regional organizations and creating a wide network of grassroots movements. This led to a gradual introduction of more decentralized political institutions and a significant increase of expenses to prefectures and subsidies to municipalities. Building on two novel hand-collected datasets at the prefectural and municipal levels, our analysis provides empirical evidence of party favoritism in the spatial allocation of intergovernmental transfers during the first two decades of Metapolitefsi. We argue that governing parties diverted intergovernmental transfers towards their political strongholds and politically aligned mayors, as local authorities played the role of the focal points in the process of party building.

Economists have used historical heights as markers of health, living standards, and long-run development. Although possible selection bias has been debated, height measurement error is less studied. I analyze novel administrative data of male Indian indentured laborers with repeated measurements of adult height to answer an important underlying question of precision. Laborers were measured by British colonial officials on departure in India and again several years later when opting to return to India. I find no height differences for men who had attained full height in India. Younger men continued to grow even into their twenties. A caste subgroup analysis finds mostly similar results. This paper provides some of the first evidence showing height consistency in repeated measurements of adult heights.