Inherited Trust and Growth Algan, Yann; Cahuc, Pierre
The American economic review,
12/2010, Letnik:
100, Številka:
5
Journal Article
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This paper develops a new method to uncover the causal effect of trust on economic growth by focusing on the inherited component of trust and its time variation. We show that inherited trust of ...descendants of US immigrants is significantly influenced by the country of origin and the timing of arrival of their forebears. We thus use the inherited trust of descendants of US immigrants as a time-varying measure of inherited trust in their country of origin. This strategy allows to identify the sizeable causal impact of inherited trust on worldwide growth during the twentieth century by controlling for country fixed effects.
RAILROADS AND AMERICAN ECONOMIC GROWTH Donaldson, Dave; Hornbeck, Richard
The Quarterly journal of economics,
05/2016, Letnik:
131, Številka:
2
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This article examines the historical impact of railroads on the U.S. economy, with a focus on quantifying the aggregate impact on the agricultural sector in 1890. Expansion of the railroad network ...may have affected all counties directly or indirectly—an econometric challenge that arises in many empirical settings. However, the total impact on each county is captured by changes in that county’s “market access,” a reduced-form expression derived from general equilibrium trade theory. We measure counties’ market access by constructing a network database of railroads and waterways and calculating lowest-cost county-to-county freight routes. We estimate that county agricultural land values increased substantially with increases in county market access, as the railroad network expanded from 1870 to 1890. Removing all railroads in 1890 is estimated to decrease the total value of U.S. agricultural land by 60%, with limited potential for mitigating these losses through feasible extensions to the canal network or improvements to country roads.
This paper combines panel data on monthly mortality rates of US states and daily temperature variables for over a century (1900-2004) to explore the regional evolution of the temperature-mortality ...relationship and documents two key findings. First, the impact of extreme heat on mortality is notably smaller in states that more frequently experience extreme heat. Second, the difference in the heat-mortality relationship between hot and cold states declined over 1900-2004, though it persisted through 2004. Continuing differences in the mortality consequences of hot days suggests that health motivated adaptation to climate change may be slow and costly around the world.
Using local administrative data from 1826 to 1936, we document the evolution of crime rates in nineteenth century France and we estimate the impact of a negative income shock on crime. Our ...identification strategy exploits the phylloxera crisis. Between 1863 and 1890, phylloxera destroyed about 40% of French vineyards. We use the geographical variation in the timing of this shock to identify its impact on property and violent crime rates, as well as minor offences. Our estimates suggest that the phylloxera crisis caused a substantial increase in property crime rates and a significant decrease in violent crimes.
We test the hypothesis that the extension of the voting franchise in Europe was related to the threat of revolution. We contend that international diffusion of regime contention and information about ...revolutionary events happening in neighboring countries generate the necessary variation in the perceived threat of revolution. Using two samples of European countries covering the period from 1820 to 1938, we find robust evidence which is consistent with the ‘threat of revolution hypothesis’. We also find some evidence that war triggered suffrage reform.
•Unique measure of threat of revolution.•New evidence on the link between threat of revolution and democratization.•Unique historical data•New theory of international diffusion of information about revolutions and suffrage reform.
Colonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional ...quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the long-run, exerting countervailing effects. We examine these in the context of the Dutch Cultivation System, the integrated industrial and agricultural system for producing sugar that formed the core of the Dutch colonial enterprise in 19th century Java. We show that areas close to where the Dutch established sugar factories in the mid-19th century are today more industrialized, have better infrastructure, are more educated, and are richer than nearby counterfactual locations that would have been similarly suitable for colonial sugar factories. We also show, using a spatial regression discontinuity design on the catchment areas around each factory, that villages forced to grow sugar cane have more village-owned land and also have more schools and substantially higher education levels, both historically and today. The results suggest that the economic structures implemented by colonizers to facilitate production can continue to promote economic activity in the long run, and we discuss the contexts where such effects are most likely to be important.
We document substantial increases in agricultural productivity, industrial output, and peasants’ nutrition in Imperial Russia as a result of the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Before the emancipation, ...provinces where serfs constituted the majority of agricultural laborers lagged behind provinces that primarily relied on free labor. The emancipation led to a significant but partial catch up. Better incentives of peasants resulting from the cessation of ratchet effect were a likely mechanism behind a relatively fast positive effect of reform on agricultural productivity. The land reform, which instituted communal land tenure after the emancipation, diminished growth in productivity in repartition communes.
Middleman Minorities and Ethnic Violence GROSFELD, IRENA; SAKALLI, SEYHUN ORCAN; ZHURAVSKAYA, EKATERINA
The Review of economic studies,
01/2020, Letnik:
87, Številka:
1 (312)
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Using detailed panel data from the Pale of Settlement area between 1800 and 1927, we document that anti-Jewish pogroms—mob violence against the Jewish minority—broke out when economic shocks ...coincided with political turmoil. When this happened, pogroms primarily occurred in places where Jews dominated middleman occupations, i.e., moneylending and grain trading. This evidence is inconsistent with the scapegoating hypothesis, according to which Jews were blamed for all misfortunes of the majority. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the politico-economic mechanism, in which Jewish middlemen served as providers of insurance against economic shocks to peasants and urban grain buyers in a relationship based on repeated interactions. When economic shocks occurred in times of political stability, rolling over or forgiving debts was an equilibrium outcome because both sides valued their future relationship. In contrast, during political turmoil, debtors could not commit to paying in the future, and consequently, moneylenders and grain traders had to demand immediate (re)payment. This led to ethnic violence, in which the break in the relationship between the majority and Jewish middlemen was the igniting factor.
With weak law-enforcement institutions, a positive shock to the value of natural resources may increase demand for private protection and opportunities for rent appropriation through extortion, ...favouring the emergence of mafia-type organisations. We test this hypothesis by investigating the emergence of the mafia in twentieth century Sicily, where a severe lack of state property-rights enforcement coincided with a steep rise in international demand for sulphur, Sicily's most valuable export commodity. Using historical data on the early incidence of mafia activity and on the distribution of sulphur reserves, we document that the mafia was more present in municipalities with greater sulphur availability.
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