New Economic History Research Articles

The Great Depression in the Eyes of Bulgaria's Inter-War Economists

This paper reconstructs the economic policy debates in Bulgaria during the Great Depression. The goal is twofold. First, it depicts the development of Bulgarian economic thought in the inter-war period and analyzes its intellectual relationships to the evolution of European (especially German-language) political economy. Second, due to significant analogies between the processes during the Great Depression and during the Great Recession, it tentatively derives recommendations from the economists' debates in the 1930s for handling the current crisis and for the post-crisis development of today's Bulgaria. The quantitative economic history of the 1930s is only of secondary interest to the paper: instead, its primary objective is to show in what ways history of economics as a discipline with its focus on past theoretical discourses can be inspiring for conducting economic policy today, so that hindsight on earlier economic thought in the context of its time presents both recommendations and warnings for crisis management today.

LA INVESTIGACIÓN ECONOMÉTRICA MEDIANTE PANELES DE DATOS: HISTORIA, MODELOS Y USOS EN MÉXICO

We show an introduction to the history of panel-data econometrics, the most common models and their uses in the Mexican context. In the first part, we show the evolution of panel-data econometrics from the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentyfirst one.In the second part, we describe the models with fixed, random and dynamic effects. In the subsequent parts, we show some trends regarding the studies that have used panel-data and regarding the use of the models in certain areas of knowledge (social sciences, macroeconomics, microeconomics, international economics, finance, public finance). We analyze these trends with the articles included in the REDALYC database for the period 2000-2013.

Studying Africa's Large Numbers

Morten Jerven's work offers a historical perspective on the techniques used by national administrations and international organizations to quantify and analyze the growth of African economies. In his view, the work of statisticians and economists has largely failed to account for national economic and social realities since the beginning of the structural adjustment period. The informalization of economies, the weakness of statistical institutions, and the lack of methodological rigor among international experts have led to the production of statistical fictions. Jerven's analysis calls into question the usual narratives produced by quantitative economic history, such as that of an African economic failure since 1960. It also opens a dialogue with the sociology of quantification, highlighting cases where growth calculations appear arbitrary. However, his methodology suffers from a number of weaknesses. While his earliest works were based on detailed national case studies, Jerven's recent analyses have focused on the critique of continent-wide discourses, in particular international comparisons and econometric studies of growth. His work has thus moved away from a careful ethnography of numbers toward a focus on the denunciation of global practices. This shift prevents the author from making precise reflections on the various roles of numbers in African societies, the multiple positions and modes of action that quantification engages, or the specific historical trajectories which calculations of African growth are supposed to represent.

Escaping from a human capital trap? Italy's regions and the move to centralized primary schooling, 1861–1936

The role played by public policy in the development of Italy's human capital in the late nineteenth century and the Interwar period has long remained unexplored by quantitative economic history. This article explores whether a system of decentralized primary education slowed down regional convergence in schooling, since poor and backward areas could not afford to invest a suitable amount of resources in education. It also investigates whether a more centralized system introduced in 1911 fostered the development of basic education and reduced the country's regional disparities. The analysis confirms the existence of such a human capital trap and shows that centralized primary education fostered the development of Italy's schooling in the Interwar period.

«Статистический эксперимент» А. А. Кауфмана: количественная экономическая история как прикладная экономика

«Статистический эксперимент» А. А. Кауфмана: количественная экономическая история как прикладная экономика

An Academic Parable: Robert W. Fogel's Raft

The book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman achieved great fame as a revolutionary interpretation of North American slavery, even though at the time it was criticized in detail by specialists in quantitative economic history. We believe that to quote it as a pioneering quantitative study of slavery has become an academic meme, which does not adequately reflect the severe criticism suffered by the book during the years following its publication. This text looks back to the book’s release and the subsequent debates in the ideological and methodological context of the time, also discussing its criticized flaws, with the aim of comparing the contribution of these authors with those of other scholars on slavery.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay

The empirical work in Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century is simply breathtaking, but his use of the terms capital and marketable wealth interchangeably leads us to consider the implications of distinguishing between them, and calls our attention to important issues that deserve further exploration. In the title of his 1968 review of early research in Cliometrics, Lance Davis opined that “it will never be literature.” One of Thomas Piketty’s many achievements in Capital in the Twenty First Century is to prove Davis wrong. Piketty’s book is both an exemplary work in quantitative economic history and economic literature in the finest sense, written with the Cartesian clarity we associate with the French scientific tradition. It is, moreover, quite remarkably, also about literature, in particular about the novels of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Honore de Balzac, and the nineteenth century wealth dynamics they brought to life.

Uma parábola acadêmica: a jangada de Robert W. Fogel

O livro Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, de Robert W. Fogel e Stanley L. Engerman, alcançou grande fama como revolucionária interpretação da escravidão norte-americana, embora, à época, tenha sido detalhadamente criticado por especialistas em história econômica quantitativa. Cremos que citá-lo por seu pioneirismo nos estudos quantitativos da escravidão tenha-se tornado um “meme” acadêmico que não espelha adequadamente as contundentes críticas sofridas pelo livro nos anos seguintes ao seu lançamento. Este texto relembra o lançamento do livro e os debates subsequentes, no contexto ideológico e metodológico da época, discutindo as críticas, com o objetivo de relativizar a contribuição desses autores emcomparação com a dos demais estudiosos da escravidão.

Trade, the Staple Theory of Growth, and Fluctuations in Colonial Singapore, 1900–39

Our paper enquires into the nexus between trade, growth, and fluctuations in the British colony of Singapore during the early twentieth century. Hitherto, little quantitative economic history has been written on this great entrepôt of Southeast Asia due to a lack of data. We overcome this limitation by utilising the gross domestic product series recently constructed for the pre‐war period by Sugimoto. This comprehensive data set enables us to explore the relevance and applicability of the staple theory of export‐led growth to colonial Singapore through cliometric analyses. The results suggest that foreign trade had acted both as an engine of growth and a source of economic instability.

The Spread of Human Capital in the Former Soviet Union Area in a Comparative Perspective: Exploring a New Dataset

To date, the rise and fall of the (former) USSR has triggered a lot of research much of which has focussed on the accumulation of physical capital, growth, and consumption. Recently, also the accumulation of human capital has increasingly been incorporated in this picture. However, few datasets exist that cover this crucial variable for this vast area. Therefore, our main objective is to make available a new dataset that contains human capital related time-series for the USSR (and the Newly Independent States (NIS) after its dissolution), constructed mostly on an annual basis. These data are drawn together from various primary sources, available datasets and secondary literature where our focus was on constructing a dataset as consistent as possible. It is our hope that, by supplying these data in electronic format, it will significantly advance quantitative economic history research on Russia and all over the former Soviet Union area (FSU) and will inspire further research in various new fields relating to intellectual production.The data presented in this paper follow after the discussion of the information value of the primary sources utilised, and the various problems that arose when linking and splicing the data from various sources. After constructing series of human capital indicators we perform a time-series and spatial analysis in order to identify the long-term trends of education penetration and of the human capital development in the FSU area with a strong emphasis on inequality issues between the NIS. Applying these results in a simple growth accounting framework provides us with some preliminary insights on the role of human capital in economic development in the FSU area.

Un análisis taxonómico de la banca en México, 1982-1993

The present essay is an exercise of quantitative economic history, in which the structure of the Mexican banking is analyzed over the period of nationalized banking and the subsequent re-privatization. To achieve such goal, it yields a taxonomic analysis, which provides statistical evidence to generate one model that explains the performance of the banking system over the period.

How Do We Ensure a Useful Future for Irish Cliometrics?

How Do We Ensure a Useful Future for Irish Cliometrics?

La nueva historia económica, la teoría de la regulación y el análisis histórico social: Notas para un debate

El propósito fundamental de este ensayo es demostrar si la nueva historia económica (NHE) es una variante de la historia social, o si la misma tiene un origen en la economía como tal. El artículo demuestra lo último, lo cual lo conduce a considerar el paradigma específico de su génesis, sus debilidades y fortalezas, y la importancia para el historiador económico y para el análisis social. Planteado lo anterior, se esboza una perspectiva alterna que posibilita superar algunas de las falencias de este paradigma, que se ha constituido en una metodología dominante para hacer historia económica. Esta renovada mirada a los fenómenos histórico económicos, recupera la esencia social que caracterizó en sus orígenes la historia económica.

The Phillips Curve from the Perspective of the History of Econometrics

This essay examines the history of econometrics through a case study of the Phillips curve, that is, econometric modeling of the trade-off between inflation and unemployment. It focuses on a number of questions: What econometric tools did modelers choose to use in modeling the Phillips curve? How did their choices shape the ways that they obtained, interpreted, and theorized the empirical evidence? How did the concerns and problems they encountered feed back into the development of econometrics? This study reveals that much of the interaction between econometrics and economics involved modelers making certain trade-offs between theory and data, and their different positions generated disputes, factions, and confusion. It also reveals that the history of econometric modeling of the Phillips curve mirrors the evolving process of how the Cowles structural modeling paradigm has become consolidated, challenged, reformed, or abandoned.

Ragnar Frisch and the Probability Approach

The title hints at the attention given to the lack of probability considerations in the econometric work of the recognized pioneer of econometrics, Ragnar Frisch. Clues to a better understanding of his position may be found in his comprehensive archive and correspondence. This essay gives a brief overview of Frisch's scientific archive and exhibits from his search for econometric methods. It also sets out a selection of letters exchanged between Frisch and other leading members of the Econometric Society. Our contention is that Frisch's role in the history of econometrics has not been fully appreciated owing to insufficient access to sources.

The Fellowship of Econometrics: Selection and Diverging Views in the Province of Mathematical Economics, from the 1930s to the 1950s

Two defining moments in the history of econometrics and in that of the Econometric Society are discussed in this essay. The first is the founding of the society and the initial skirmishes over the criteria for selecting its fellows, who were to represent the best practices of econometrics. The second was, twenty years later, the discussion about the nature of the mathematics adequate for the progress of econometrics. In both cases, some dissident views were presented, but whereas in the first period a pluralistic approach dominated, by the time of the second debate a more coherent and cohesive view was prevalent in econometric circles, to the discomfort of some of its founders.

Jadis et Naguère, la vision des crises financières dans l'histoire, selon Reinhart et Rogoff

Résumé Cet article analyse ce que l’histoire économique et la cliométrie peuvent apporter à notre compréhension des crises financières. Il s’appuie principalement sur les contributions de Reinhart et Rogoff, Bordo et Eichengreen. L’enseignement que l’on peut tirer des travaux récents de Reinhart et Rogoff est que, de jadis à aujourd’hui, les temps n’ont pas changé. Si différente que puisse paraître la crise la plus récente, elle présente des similitudes remarquables avec les expériences d’autres pays et d’autres époques. Cette idée s’oppose à la thèse défendue par Bordo et Eichengreen au début des années 2000 selon laquelle, après 1973, les crises sont devenues plus fréquentes et plus sévères. Cependant, cette divergence dans les conclusions ne doit pas nous conduire à ignorer l’histoire. Pour justifier cette thèse, nous illustrons, à partir de travaux de Flandreau et Zumer, que, depuis longtemps, les économistes et les praticiens ont cherché à comprendre le rôle de la dette et du risque de défaut dans le déclenchement des crises financières.

Minisymposium on the History of Econometrics: Introduction

The decade 1987 to 1997 was a great one for the history of econometrics. It began with Roy Epstein’s 1987 monograph. Mary Morgan’s classic history was published not long after (in 1990). Other important works soon followed: in addition to journal articles, witness Duo Qin’s 1993 study of the emergence of modern econometric practice, David Hendry and Morgan’s Foundations of Econometric Analysis (1995), which compiled original source materials, and Judy Klein’s 1997 history of time-series analysis. While work continued in the meantime, it was perhaps inevitable that, after such a strong beginning, work on the history of econometrics would go off the boil. By the middle of the fi rst decade of the new millennium, some of us had come to believe that it was time to turn up the heat and bring the history of econometrics back to the forefront of the fi eld. An opportunity arose when the North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society was scheduled to be held at Duke University in June 2007. Roy Weintraub suggested that we organize a session, and we put out a call for papers. The papers in this minisymposium are the fruit of that effort. The session was a great success in two respects. First, the papers were top-notch and represented valuable directions in the history of econometrics. John Aldrich’s paper investigated the place of econometrics in the history of statistics; Marcel Boumans’s paper connected Trygve Haavelmo’s early work in econometrics with its methodological context and

The Econometricians' Statisticians, 1895–1945

Histories of econometrics describe what econometricians did with the ideas of statisticians—correlation, regression, maximum likelihood, testing statistical hypotheses, etc. The transfer of these ideas was made possible by institutions, practices, and personal contacts between statisticians and econometricians. This essay complements the usual history of econometrics with an account of these transactions from the statisticians' side. I concentrate on four statisticians and their interactions with econometricians: Karl Pearson, whose influence was exercised in the years before the First World War; Ronald Fisher, who began to be influential in the late 1920s; Jerzy Neyman, who appeared in the late 1930s; and Abraham Wald in the early 1940s.

Solow and Growth Accounting: A Perspective from Quantitative Economic History

This paper examines the use of growth accounting by economic historians developed following Robert Solow's famous 1957 paper. Several general tendencies are identified, including a desire to account for Solow's residual and a reluctance to adopt the data-demanding methodological refinements of Dale Jorgenson, whose influence on the field was less than that of Edward Denison. Results from historical growth accounting studies are reviewed, and it is clear that the “crude residual” typically accounts for much less than the seven-eighths of labor productivity growth found by Solow and also that when TFP growth is rapid, improvements in efficiency are usually an important complement to technological progress. Nevertheless, growth accounting was important in undermining the “capital fundamentalism” of the 1950s and has been central to putting the contribution of technological progress in the Industrial Revolution into a clearer focus, free of the misleading “take-off” perspective advanced by Walt Rostow.