Revistas electrónicas

TÍTULO:

Explorations in Economic History

NÚMERO:

Vol.44 No.2 April 2007

DIRECCIÓN ELECTRONICA:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00144983

NOTAS:

Este vínculo es el único para entrar a la base de datos Science Direct. Para ver el número de revista al que se hace referencia en este boletín, selecciónelo en el menú del lado izquierdo.

En este sitio usted encontrará la versión íntegra de los artículos en formato Acrobat (PDF).

ABSTRACTS

Editorial Board
Page IFC

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Howard Bodenhorn.Usury ceilings and bank lending behavior: Evidence from nineteenth century New York

Few pieces of economic regulation are ubiquitous as usury limits. Similarly, few economic principles are as widely accepted as the belief that interference with freely contracted prices leads to market distortions, and many studies of financial markets find that usury limits negatively affect credit availability. This study shows that when no regulatory authority monitors and stands ready to punish violators of the usury limit when intermediaries and borrowers form long-term relationships, banks and borrowers regularly contract for interest rates in excess of the usury ceiling. Time-series analysis reveals limited effects on credit availability when market rates exceed the usury ceiling. Cross-sectional analysis of individual loan contracts also shows that the positive effect of a long-term relationship offsets the negative effect of the usury limit on credit availability.

Jochen Streb, Jacek Wallusch and Shuxi Yin.Knowledge spill-over from new to old industries: The case of German synthetic dyes and textiles (1878–1913)

We construct a data set of long-lived German patents of patent classes dyes (22) and dyeing (8) to measure the accumulation path of technological knowledge with respect to dyeing textiles. Using these data we show with a vector error correction model that in the German Empire inter-industry knowledge spill-over between the new chemical industry and the old textile industry created an upward circle of “endogenous growth.” The increasing demand for synthetic dyes of the prospering textile firms initiated further research and development projects of the chemical firms that led to new patents and via customer consulting and customer training to additional economic benefits of the textile industry.

Solomos Solomou and Masao Shimazaki.Japanese episodic long swings in economic growth

Prior to World War II Japanese economic growth was characterised by episodic ‘long swings,’ low frequency fluctuations in economic growth averaging about 20–25 years in duration. At the aggregate level, these inter-period growth variations dominated both shorter-term fluctuations and longer-term trend acceleration. The paper describes the long swings of the Japanese economy and re-evaluates conventional explanations.

William H. Phillips. Profitability and factory-based cotton gin production in the antebellum south

Before 1820 Northern mechanics started factory-based cotton gin manufacturing to compete with traditional Southern “ginwrights.” Later, cotton gin production in factories was transferred to the South. This paper estimates the profitability of cotton gin makers in the antebellum industrial census. The Southern sector was more profitable than that of the North, explaining the regional migration of machine production resources. Besides transport cost protection, Southern firms had a cost advantage in sales and service networks. Specific factor investments in gin making limited further resource flows from North to South after 1840. It also reduced the industry’s impact on Southern economic development.

Michael J. Greenwood.Modeling the age and age composition of late 19th century U.S. immigrants from Europe

Using panel data on 12 European source countries that are followed for 26 years (1873–1898), this paper studies age-specific emigration rates and the age composition of U.S. immigration. Two age groups are the focus of attention, 15–40 and over 40. Emigration-rate models and compositional models that satisfy adding-up conditions are estimated by the Hausman–Taylor Instrumental Variable approach. Younger migrants responded more strongly to job opportunities than to wage differentials, whereas older migrants responded more strongly to wage differentials. Both age groups tended to follow recent past migrants to the U.S. Relatively many younger (and relatively fewer older) migrants came from countries with higher percentages of their work forces in agriculture. Higher source-country birthrates discouraged younger migrants, presumably by raising the cost of family migration.

Daniel Gottlieb. Asymmetric information in late 19th century cooperative insurance societies

Between 1880 and 1930, cooperative insurance was the main source of illness, accident, and death insurance in the United States, Canada, and England. This paper tests for asymmetric information in cooperative insurance societies and examines how their pricing policies affected the profile of members. We find strong evidence that, unlike their modern substitutes, cooperative societies were able to overcome the asymmetry of information. Furthermore, as a consequence of non-actuarial pricing, our results suggest that workers deferred their membership until they were about 40 years old.

Giovanni Federico.Market integration and market efficiency: The case of 19th century Italy

This paper examines market integration in Italy in the 19th century, focusing on wheat. Wheat prices converged well before political Unification (1859–1861) but the process halted during the 1860s only to resume in the 1870s and 1880s. The first wave of integration was caused mainly by improvements in market efficiency while the second wave owed much to a reduction in transport costs.

Daniel K. Benjamin and Christopher Thornberg.Organization and incentives in the age of sail

The British Navy in the age of sail was the most successful bureaucracy of its time. Its organization and incentive structures differed importantly from contemporaneous private sailing ventures, but closely resembled those of today’s large corporations. To induce efficient effort, the navy used a hierarchical tournament, in which sailors competed for higher pay that came with promotions based on relative performance. Promotion probabilities, the option value of future promotions, and the higher effort required of men in higher ranks and on larger vessels, combined to yield a highly skewed pay structure.

David S. Jacks. Populists versus theorists: Futures markets and the volatility of prices

In this paper, the divergence between popular and professional opinion on speculation in general and futures markets in particular is explored. Along the way, a synopsis of prevailing popular attitudes on futures markets is presented, and an outline of a formal model of futures markets and its implications for commodity price volatility are sketched. The heart of the analysis is drawn from the historical record on the establishment and prohibition of futures markets. Briefly, the results presented in this paper strongly suggest that futures markets were associated with—and most likely caused—lower commodity price volatility. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential sources of popular antagonism against futures markets.

Alexander J. Field. Erratum to “The equipment hypothesis and US economic growth” [Explor. Econ. Hist. 44 (2007) 43–58]

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Table of Contents
Page OBC

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TÍTULO:

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance

NÚMERO:

Vo.47 No. 2 May 2007

DIRECCIÓN ELECTRONICA:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10629769

NOTAS:

Este vínculo es el único para entrar a la base de datos Science Direct. Para ver el número de revista al que se hace referencia en este boletín, selecciónelo en el menú del lado izquierdo.

En este sitio usted encontrará la versión íntegra de los artículos en formato Acrobat (PDF).

ABSTRACTS

Editorial Board
Page iii
PDF (22 K)

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A Letter from Editors
Pages 195-197
PDF (49 K)

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John C. Alexander, Scott W. Barnhart and Stuart Rosenstein. Do investor perceptions of corporate governance initiatives affect firm value: The case of TIAA-CREF

We examine the valuation effect of the announcement of TIAA-CREF's Corporate Governance Policy, an exogenous event fitting McConnell's [McConnell, J. J. (2003). Outside directors. Financial Review, 38, 25–31] description of a “controlled experiment”. This event avoids the negative connotation associated with announcements concerning specific firms. Abnormal returns are positively related to the number of large block holders and the number of institutional owners, indicating that the values of firms with weak governance structures declined or the values of firms with desirable governance structures increased. Also, the percentage of institutional ownership and the number of institutional owners have a low correlation, indicating that they are different dimensions of institutional ownership.

Subhash C. Sharma, Kevin Sylwester and Heru Margono.Decomposition of total factor productivity growth in U.S. states

This paper applies the stochastic frontier production model to the lower 48 U.S. states over the period 1977–2000 to decompose the sources of total factor productivity (TFP) growth into technological progress, changes in technical efficiency, and changes in economies of scale. We find that technological progress comprises the majority of TFP growth but that differences in efficiency change explain cross-state differences in TFP growth. TFP growth was greater towards the end of the time period.

Mohamed Ihsan Ajwad and Quentin Wodon. Do local Governments maximize access rates to public services across areas?: A test based on marginal benefit incidence analysis

This paper investigates whether the poor (or those who live in more densely populated areas) benefit more or less than the non-poor (or those who live in less densely populated areas) from an expansion in public services and whether this depends on the type of service provided. Using data from Bolivia, we analyze the allocation of education and basic infrastructure services across jurisdictions. Results indicate that the marginal benefit incidence is higher for the poor than for the non-poor in education, but lower in the case of access to infrastructure services. A model is proposed to suggest that the distribution of the observed marginal benefits from an expansion in the public provision of services is consistent with local Governments maximizing average access rates. This maximization appears to occur without policymakers placing varying distributional weights on the poor and rich in their implicit social welfare function.

Paul R. Zimmerman and Susan M.V. Flaherty.Location monopolies and prison phone rates

Prisoners incarcerated in state correctional facilities are often limited to making operator-assisted collect calls to their families and associates. Prison phone services are supplied by a single carrier who receives an exclusive service contract through a procurement auction conducted by the state's Department of Corrections (DOC). To win the auction, a firm must offer the highest “kickback” or “site commission” to the DOC, which in turn is passed-on to the recipients of prison collect calls – typically family members – in the form of higher rates. The recipients have little choice but to pay these inflated rates since there is no other alternative for maintaining contact with their incarcerated loved one. Some states have attempted to alleviate the burden of excessive prison collect call rates by changing the methodology used to asses site commissions. The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate the efficacy of these reforms. The empirical results suggest that the cost of receiving IntraLATA prison collect calls is approximately 41% higher in those states that impose site commissions based as a percentage of the carriers’ ex post revenues relative to those states that impose fixed commissions ex ante. The results are shown to be highly robust with respect to model specification, estimation technique, and control for outliers.

David Y. Chen.Effects of monetary policy on the twin deficits

This study uses a three-equation dynamic linear system to show the positive relationship between federal budget deficits and the 5-year Treasury bond rate and between the twin deficits in the U.S. during 1975:01 through 2004:12. An optimal efficient rule equation suggests that a one percentage point increase in bond rate explains a 22% budget deficit variations. A one index point change in nominal exchange rate correlates to a 78% variation in budget deficits. When real exchange rate is adopted in the system, the corresponding percentages become 14 and 86, respectively, showing the fading influence of T-bond rate and the increasing strength of exchange rate.

Information transmission and spillover in currency markets: A generalized variance decomposition analysis

The unique characteristics of newly public firms may motivate acquisitions and cause a unique market perception and performance following these acquisitions. For a sample of more than 400 acquisitions that were made within a year of the IPO, we find that newly public firms experience favorable valuation effects following announcements of their acquisitions. Firms are more likely to finance using stock and the valuation effects are less favorable during the Internet bubble and when venture capitalists are present. Finally, long-term performance following the acquisitions is not different than newly public firms that do not make acquisitions, suggesting that the expected benefits at the time of the announcement do not materialize.

Joan Wiggenhorn, Kimberly C. Gleason and Jeff Madura. Going public to pursue acquisitions

The unique characteristics of newly public firms may motivate acquisitions and cause a unique market perception and performance following these acquisitions. For a sample of more than 400 acquisitions that were made within a year of the IPO, we find that newly public firms experience favorable valuation effects following announcements of their acquisitions. Firms are more likely to finance using stock and the valuation effects are less favorable during the Internet bubble and when venture capitalists are present. Finally, long-term performance following the acquisitions is not different than newly public firms that do not make acquisitions, suggesting that the expected benefits at the time of the announcement do not materialize.

Hassan Shirvani and Barry Wilbratte. The permanent-transitory decomposition of the stock markets of the G7 countries: A multivariate approach

This paper tests for the presence of common stochastic trends and cycles in the stock prices of the G7 countries. It further uses the existing common trends and cycles to provide a parsimonious decomposition of the stock prices into their permanent and transitory components, using the method of (Proetti, T. (1997). Short-run dynamics in cointegrated systems. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 59, 405–422) and (Hecq, A., Palm, F.C., & Urbain, P. (2000). Permanent-transitory decomposition in VAR models with cointegration and common cycles. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 62.4, 511–532). Finally, we offer some tentative evidence on the determinants of the permanent and transitory components of the G7 stock prices. Our evidence explains the trends in terms of fundamentals and cycles in terms of psychological factors, with interesting possible implications for international portfolio management.

Chunrong Ai, Arjun Chatrath and Frank Song.A semiparametric estimation of the optimal hedge ratio

Standard static hedging models employing futures contracts yield poor results for most commodities, especially when compared with the evidence for financial instruments such as stock indexes and currencies. Moreover, the efforts in the dynamic hedging of commodity prices via GARCH models have found limited success. In this paper, we propose an alternate approach for constructing the ‘optimal’ hedge ratio. The approach differs from previous methods in two respects. First, we incorporate controls for seasonals, time to maturity, inventories, and futures term-structure in the construction of hedge ratio. Second, we adopt a partially linear functional form for the hedge ratio. Employing data from the U.S. markets for corn, cotton, and soybeans, we find that our method substantially outperforms the static, semi-dynamic, and GARCH models.