Explorations in Economic History最新文献

This article studies the long-term wage development in China between 1530 and 1840. In the long run, nominal wages moved in tandem with prices, but did not respond as quickly as the increase in prices. Real wages experienced two substantial falls between the 1620s-1650s and the 1740s-1760s, but remained relatively stable in the remainder of the period examined. Rural-urban wage disparities suggest that the agricultural sector, rather than urban industries, continued to absorb surplus labour. A comparison of wages in Lower Yangzi China and England suggests that the wage gap widens after 1700.

This paper analyzes incomes and income inequality in Stockholm from 1870 to 1970. The paper builds on a new dataset of 38,022 randomly sampled Stockholm residents 1870–1950, with information on income, occupation, age, gender, and household composition. This is complemented by the Census of 1930 and a Statistics Sweden sample for 1960 and 1970. Incomes were very unequally distributed between 1870 and 1920, with Gini coefficients of pre-tax income around sixty. After 1920 inequality fell quite steadily. A drop in capital incomes contributed, and when looking at post-tax incomes the growth of progressive taxation after 1930 also contributed, but most of the high inequality up to 1920 and equalization after this date depended on the distribution of labour income. In the early 1900s professional groups had huge income advantages over workers, but this advantage was drastically reduced after 1920 when working-class incomes grew rapidly. An important mechanism of income growth was the upgrading of the jobs structure, highlighting the importance of structural change, beyond the Kuznetsian binary of agriculture–manufacturing, for understanding long-run economic inequality.

This article presents the first complete 19^th-century reconstruction of the Mexican wealth distribution, from independence to the Mexican Revolution. It uses an often underutilized source in Mexican historiography: will inventories/protocols. In addition, the present article estimates the levels and trends of historical wealth inequality using five different methods, among them the application of the properties of two theoretical parametric distributions to the measurement of historical inequality. The dynamics of wealth inequality in 19^th century Mexico were dominated by the top 1% and the middle 40% of the wealth distribution; meanwhile, the top 10% and bottom 50% demonstrate remarkable stability. This article makes significant contributions through two primary avenues: firstly, the reconstruction of historical wealth inequality, and secondly, the analysis of historical developments in the context of their potential impact on the distribution of wealth within a dynamic political economy environment.

N36, D31, I32, H20.

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.