Seminars

Economic History

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Upcoming events

• Wednesday 21 April 2021 09:30-16:30

  On Line

  GRANDI Elisa (PSE) : Virtual Paris FRESH meeting 2021 (Frontier Research in Economic and Social History): International Political Economy and International Economic Relations

  BONHOURE Emilie (PSE)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 21 April 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  FLORES ZENDEJAS Juan (Université de Genève) : Dans le cadre du FRESH Meeting , présentatin de leur ouvrage : Sovereign Debt Diplomacies: Rethinking sovereign debt from colonial empires to hegemony

  with Pierre Penet

• Wednesday 5 May 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  BENGTSSON Erik (U.Lund) : *

• Wednesday 12 May 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via zoom

  GOURGUES Guillaume (Triangle, université Lyon 2) : L’affaire Lip et l’économie politique du chômâge

• Wednesday 26 May 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  MARAZIAN Karine (UP1) : *

• Wednesday 2 June 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  ASSOUAD Lydia (PSE) : TBA

• Wednesday 9 June 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  TODD DAVID (Kings College de Londres) : Empire informel et capitalisme français au XIXe siècle

• Wednesday 16 June 2021 15:00-16:30

  Via Zoom

  TRIVELLATO Francesca (IAS Princeton) : 1751 and Thereabout: A Quantitative and Comparative Approach to Notarial Records

  LEMERCIER Claire (CNRS)

  Abstract

  This article asks a simple question that nevertheless has broad implications for historians of pre-modern Continental Europe: What did notaries do? It answers it by applying descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and clustering techniques to the typological distribution of deeds preserved in the notarial collections of six French and Italian cities – Paris, Toulouse, Mende, Turin, Florence, and Livorno – for the year 1751, as well as smaller sets of data for other dates and locations. The results of this analysis are surprising. In spite of a high degree of consistency in the notarial terminology (a trait that facilitated our comparisons), the notarial culture of each city varied greatly. Variations within a single state were sometimes greater than those across state borders. Both supply and demand of notarial services differed from city to city. Overall, our conclusions are as important as the methodology that we adopt to reach them. Our aim is to offer a replicable analysis that puts quantitative methods in the service not only of the study of a source (notarial records) that is widespread across late medieval and early modern continental Europe and its overseas empires, but also of a renewed comparative history that does not shy away from the heterogeneity of primary sources.

• Wednesday 23 June 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  BARTHI Nitin (PSE) : Human Capital Accumulation in China and India: 1900-2020

  with Li Yang

  Abstract

  Abstract: In this paper we study the evolution of modern education in China and India and compare several quantitative and qualitative educational outcomes in the last 100-120 years. The interesting patterns we highlight are: China’s bottom-up approach versus India’s top-down approach, China's broad-based vocational education whereas poorly developed vocational education system of India, China producing more engineering graduates versus India producing more humanities graduates. We conjecture that engineering and vocational graduates helped China in developing the manufacturing sector, whereas elitist education of India created a niche economic sector like IT. Further we show a high skill premium for higher education in India compared to China is fuelling more income inequality in India.

• Wednesday 30 June 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  GELDERBOM Oscar (Université d Utrecht) : TBA

Archives

• Wednesday 14 April 2021 16:00-17:30

  via Zoom

  PLATT BOUSTAN Leah (Princeton University) : Automation before robots: Machine tools and the US labor market

  with Jiwon Choi (Princeton), David Clingingsmith (Case Western)

  Abstract

  Successive innovations in manufacturing have enabled machines to perform an increasing number of tasks formerly performed by workers. We investigate how the diffusion of one of the most important of these innovations – numerically controlled (NC) machine tools – affected the skill mix of metal manufacturing industries from 1973 and 2009. NC was originally invented in the United States in the late 1950s, but its widespread diffusion in the 1970s was driven by cost-reducing innovations in Japan and Germany. The timing of diffusion varied by type of tool: for example, lathes shifted to NC early and mechanical presses did so later. We construct a measure of NC diffusion using detailed information on the mix of machine tool types used in seven metal industries and the NC share of each tool types by leading exporters. We find that exposure to our NC diffusion measure led to the polarization of skills and job tasks, with greater relative demand for high school dropouts and college graduates. The unionized sector had more muted responses. Affected workers responded by going back to two- and four-year colleges

• Wednesday 7 April 2021 12:30-14:00

  via Zoom

  WOKER Madeline (Columbia University) : Empire of inequality: the politics of taxation in the French colonial empire, 1900-1950s

  Abstract

  I will present an outline of my current book project, Empire of inequality: the politics of taxation in the French colonial empire, 1900-1950s, which provides a comparative and connected political history of taxation in the French colonial empire during the first half of the twentieth century. Based on multilingual research conducted in 11 archival repositories in France, Vietnam and Algeria, the book examines the ways in which colonial tax regimes were debated, resisted, reformed, and transformed. To do so, it draws upon the archives of the French metropolitan state, various French colonial states in Southeast Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, the writings of colonial theorists, the publications of imperial watchdog organisations, literary production as well as settler, reformist, and anticolonial press outlets. Using the lens of colonial taxpayers and imperial policymakers as they navigated the material and moral consequences of colonial fiscal segregation, the book seeks to offer both an unprecedented dynamic study of imperial fiscal hierarchies from 1900 to the 1950s and a new analysis of anti-colonial resistance as tax resistance.

• Wednesday 31 March 2021 12:30-14:00

  via Zoom

  KAMBAYASHI Ryo (Université Hitotsubashi) : Consequence of Hometown Regiment: Gender Imbalance and Industrial Structure in the Post-war Japan

  with Kentaro Asai (PSE)

  Abstract

  War sometimes made a huge gender imbalance in certain cohort and in certain areas. While such gender imbalance may have moved the trajectory of economic development, the controversy is still inconclusive, because the market economy has a strong restoring force. We intend to contribute to this literature by introducing the Japanese experience during the second world war. Japan lost more than 2 million soldiers eternally between 1938 and 1945. In addition, since the Japan Imperial Army organized its main force as hometown regiment, the loss of young male is concentrated in certain cohort of certain geographical areas. By exploiting the variation of changes in gender balance cohort-by-prefecture, we examined the loss of young male may affect the post-war industrial structure. What we found so far is that the reduction of gender ratio may have led to slower industrialization, though it is only to a limited degree in terms of quantity.

• Wednesday 24 March 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  PASSALACQUA Arnaud (Lab'URBA/LIED ) : Innovation et transports urbains : l'impossible défi ? Quelques réflexions à partir du cas parisien depuis le XIXe siècle

  Abstract

  L'agglomération parisienne est en train de se doter d'une rocade de métro, le Grand Paris Express, présentée comme novatrice et porteuse de grandes ambitions : report modal depuis l'automobile, réduction de la ségrégation socio-spatiale, meilleure connexion des lieux-clés de son fonctionnement économique et de ses structures de recherche, rénovation du visage de Paris dans le monde, etc. Le regard de l'histoire incite pourtant à interroger ces objectifs nombreux à l'aune de ce qu'ont pu apporter les projets antérieurs. L'histoire des transports est en effet un cimetière d'innovations, peuplé de multiples projets fantômes, inaboutis ou mis en échec. Ceux qui fonctionnent ont-ils d'ailleurs répondu aux objectifs qui ont présidé au choix de les réaliser ? La communication proposée à ce séminaire discutera donc de ce que peut signifier l'idée d'innovation dans l'histoire des transports urbains, à partir du cas de l'agglomération parisienne. Elle croisera des considérations sur les temporalités des projets, les imaginaires sociaux associés aux systèmes de transport, le désenchantement de l'exploitation quotidienne de systèmes pensés comme des solutions de papier idéales... Ce faisant, elle interrogera la capacité des politiques publiques à organiser les mobilités urbaines dans la ville industrielle depuis le XIXe siècle.

• Wednesday 10 March 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  MAITTE Corine : Autour du livre de Corine Maitte et Didier Terrier, Les Rythmes du labeur. Enquête sur le temps de travail en Europe occidentale, XIVe-XIXe siècles, Paris, La Dispute

  TERRIER Didier

  Abstract

  Le fil rouge de notre réflexion sur les Rythmes du labeur est constitué par une interrogation en forme d’évidence : comment peut-on parler d’une formidable augmentation du temps de travail dans les usines lors des débuts du processus d’industrialisation, puis de sa baisse lente et continue à l’issu du tournant des années 1840-1850 si l’on ignore tout, ou presque, des durées du travail antérieures et cela, en contournant l’intensité de l’effort productif ? Notre présentation insistera sur trois aspects de notre travail. Le premier concerne la méthode : saisir l’ampleur des possibles au plus près des individus, car l’intelligence de la diversité des situations exige une connaissance la plus fine possible de la manière dont le temps de travail de chacun est compté. Le second est l’analyse, si possible à hauteur d’homme, des différentes temporalités du travail, de la journée à l’année ; c’est de leur entrelacement que résulte en longue durée l’extrême bigarrure des emplois du temps. Le troisième porte sur le lien entre la durée et l’intensification du labeur car les tentatives pour lier temps, quantités de travail et formes de rémunérations sont mises en œuvre très tôt et cheminent dans la pratique tout autant que dans la théorie. Durée et contenu du travail sont inséparables.

• Wednesday 3 March 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  DELALANDE Nicolas (Sciences Po) : Un monde de dettes publiques: une histoire politique

  BARREYRE NICOLAS (EHESS)

  Abstract

  Les dettes publiques ont été une caractéristique essentielle de la construction des États modernes, un moteur de l’histoire du capitalisme, et un enjeu géopolitique puissant. Des crises révolutionnaires aux empires, dans l’essor puis la chute de l’ordre mondial d’après-guerre, la question des dettes publiques n’a ainsi jamais été du seul ressort des cercles économiques. Adoptant une perspective politique et historique, attentif à ses dimensions globales, ce livre propose des clés pour comprendre la centralité, toujours aujourd’hui, des dettes publiques, et pourquoi il est nécessaire de les prendre comme une question politique qui nécessite des réponses tout aussi politiques. La tendance souvent exprimée de nos jours de considérer la dette publique comme une source de fragilité ou d’inefficacité économique, en effet, manque le fait essentiel que, depuis le dix-huitième siècle, les dettes publiques ont souvent été des leviers pour les États pour affermir leur souveraineté et construire leurs institutions, notamment mais pas seulement en temps de guerre. Il est frappant de constater que certaines solutions utilisées dans le passé pour répondre à des crises de dettes publiques sont aujourd’hui tenues hors de toute considération – symptôme des changements des rapports de force entre créanciers, contribuables, retraités et salariés depuis quarante ans. Reconnectant l’histoire du capitalisme et l’histoire de la démocratie, cette histoire politique globale des dettes publiques est une contribution à ce débat.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 24 February 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  DE VICQ Amaury (PSE) : Exploring Modern Bank Penetration: Evidence from the Early 20th-Century Netherlands

  Abstract

  We analyze the estates of top Dutch wealth owners who died in 1921 for patterns in their financial behaviour to find that banks played a very marginal role. Payments for goods and services were either paid in cash or settled periodically with suppliers. Lending and borrowing was overwhelmingly done using peer-to-peer or notarized contracts, bank deposits and loans coming a distant third. Banks only possessed a clear competitive edge in savings accounts for small surpluses or current accounts for business people. Distance to the nearest bank office did not matter for these people, but wealthy urbanites were more inclined to use commercial banks than their counterparts living in small municipalities or in the countryside.

• Wednesday 17 February 2021 12:30-14:00

  via Zoom

  TSIACHTSIRAS Georgios (Univ. Barcelona School of Economics ) : Transportation Networks and the Rise of the Knowledge Economy in 19th Century France

  Abstract

  This paper exploits an episode of French history to study the relationship between the roll-out of railroads and the rise of the knowledge economy. Two substantial changes occurred during the second half of 19th century in France: the development of an extended rail network and the establishment of a new patent legislation. I take advantage of the exogenous variation in railway access arising from a time variant instrument, to document that access to rail network increases the innovation activity at the canton level. I explore three underlying mechanisms behind the main results. First, I introduce a market access framework to study how the reduction in transportation costs, due to expansion of rail and water canal network, affects the patent activity of a canton. Second, I combine the reduction in transportation costs with inventors’ data to study how potential interactions among inventors residing in different cantons shape the diffusion of knowledge within the mainland of France. Third, using text analysis techniques, I am able for the first time, to determine the class of each patent application in the historical database of INPI and to explore how connectivity with the global city of Paris is associated with the diffusion of novel technologies.

• Wednesday 10 February 2021 12:30-14:00

  via Zoom

  LEPETIT Michel (LIED) : Politique monétaire non conventionnelle et pétrole non conventionnel 2000-2019

  Abstract

  Au début des années 2000, la hausse du prix du pétrole brut qui de 10 USD le baril en 1999 atteint 140 USD à mi-2008 peut être interprétée comme la survenance du fameux pic mondial de production de pétrole brut. Si le pic du pétrole brut « conventionnel » advient bien à cette époque, le paysage énergétique planétaire est ensuite révolutionné par le « miracle » du pétrole de schiste aux Etats-Unis. La crise de 2008 a conduit la Fed, dans le cadre de son mandat, à mettre en œuvre une politique monétaire « non conventionnelle » (Quantitative easing) qui visait à stimuler l’activité économique, par une relance indifférenciée et massive de l’investissement. Au regard de la longue histoire de l’investissement dans le secteur pétrolier, il est possible d’estimer que la politique monétaire américaine a eu un impact disproportionné sur l’industrie du pétrole de schiste, avec un CAPEX cumulé de 750 Mrds USD pour 2009-2019 ; et par conséquent sur la production mondiale de pétrole brut. On est donc enclin à penser que la politique monétaire de la Fed a pu être – involontairement et paradoxalement- à la fois non neutre, et désinflationniste.

• Wednesday 3 February 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  GALVEZ-BEHAR Gabriel (Université de Lille) : La valeur de la science : l’appropriation de l’activité scientifique au temps du capitalisme industriel

  Abstract

  À qui appartiennent les profits économiques suscités par les avancées de la science ? Cette question, qui est au cœur des débats actuels sur la marchandisation des savoirs ou sur la valorisation de la recherche, trouve sa réponse dans le temps long. Dès le XIXe siècle, la contribution des savants au processus d'industrialisation entretient le lien entre science et capitalisme. Les résultats de la recherche créant de la valeur économique se pose alors la question du partage des bénéfices et du rapport que peuvent entretenir le milieu de la science et celui de l’industrie. On reviendra sur l’émergence et l’essor de la propriété scientifique, concept opératoire, proche mais distinct de la propriété intellectuelle, grâce auquel les savants et les institutions scientifiques tentent de contrôler les fruits de leurs découvertes. À travers une analyse comparative centrée sur la France, la Grande-Bretagne et les États-Unis, on analysera les évolutions de la fin du XIXe siècle à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, avant d'évoquer l’impact sur l’organisation de la recherche aujourd’hui.

• Wednesday 13 January 2021 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  LEROUXEL Francois (Univ. Paris-Sorbonne) : Le changement dans les économies antiques

  ZURBACH Julien (ENS)

  Abstract

  Le changement dans les économies anciennes, rassemble des contributions issues de plusieurs années de travail en groupe. Historiens, archéologues et environnementalistes ont travaillé ensemble sur quelques produits essentiels aux économies antiques. Ils ouvrent un nouveau type de dialogue interdisciplinaire, permettant de dépasser des oppositions anciennes (entre primitivistes et modernistes, partisans de la stagnation et de la croissance).

• Wednesday 16 December 2020 12:30-14:00

  via ZOOM

  BREDA Thomas (PSE) : Do unions have egalitarian wage policies for their own employees? Evidence from the US 1959-2016

  SANTINI Paolo

  Abstract

  While labor unions bargain for more equality among their members and in the general society, little is known about their own compensation practices. Using administrative earnings data on U.S. labor unions over the period 1959-2016, we show that unions do “as they preach”. They pay wages that are on average 30% higher than in comparable U.S. private firms, but much more equally distributed: Gini coefficients are 20% smaller among unions and the share of total earnings accruing to the top 1% of wage earners is twice smaller. We show, moreover, that inequality has remained roughly stable in the past 60 years, contrary to what happened in the rest of the economy. We argue that such a low level of inequality, especially at the top, is puzzling because union leaders do have some margin to set their own pay due to the absence of a strong control mechanism on the pay-setting in such non-profit organizations. We confront two possible explanations to explain our findings: On one hand, unions are constrained to pay low salaries by market forces, on the other hand, union are unwilling to pay higher salaries to their leaders because of ideology and reputation concerns. We test these two alternative explanations in several ways landing strong support for the second view. In addition to helping understand the pay practices in the labor movement and the non-profit sector in general, these findings shed new light on how pay norms and ideology can affect real pay, even in a declining sector where firms have strong incentives to perform well in order to survive.

• Wednesday 9 December 2020 12:30-14:00

  via ZOOM

  GABBUTI Giacomo (Oxford) : Inheritance and Ideology in Italy, c. 1870-1925

  Abstract

  In this talk, I will discuss the reality and ‘ideology’ (in the sense of Piketty 2020) of inheritance in Italy between unification and fascism. First, drawing from a joint ongoing work with Salvatore Morelli, I will present new estimates of wealth inequality from 1870 to the outbreak of World War I – the so-called ‘Liberal Italy’, when the country experienced a relatively ‘benevolent’ industrial take-off within the broader first globalisation. An abrupt interruption in the series is represented not only by the war, but by the abolition of inheritance tax operated by Mussolini’s government in the summer 1923. The second part of the talk will deal with the historical reconstruction of the so-far largely neglected ‘adventures’ of inheritance tax in post-WWI Italy – from the sharp increases in rates in 1919-20, to the ignited debate over Rignano’s proposals, as well as the reaction by professional and banking associations, leading to its abrupt abolition in 1923 by Mussolini’s government.

• Wednesday 2 December 2020 12:30-14:00

  Via Zoom

  LEROUXEL Francois (Univ. Paris-Sorbonne) : Le changement dans les économies antiques

  ZURBACH Julien (ENS)

  Abstract

  Le changement dans les économies anciennes, rassemble des contributions issues de plusieurs années de travail en groupe. Historiens, archéologues et environnementalistes ont travaillé ensemble sur quelques produits essentiels aux économies antiques. Ils ouvrent un nouveau type de dialogue interdisciplinaire, permettant de dépasser des oppositions anciennes (entre primitivistes et modernistes, partisans de la stagnation et de la croissance).

• Wednesday 18 November 2020 12:30-14:00

  via ZOOM

  DUPRAZ Yannick (Université de Dublin) : Geographical representativeness of the executive and regional favoritism in France, 1800-2019

  Abstract

  How do political cleavages based on geographical considerations give way to political cleavages based on economic and social consideration? A large literature in economics and political science considers how governments can be captured by different interest groups. In Western democracies, these interest groups are typically defined by their economic characteristics (political cleavages are economic). In developing countries these interest groups are typically defined geographically or in ethnic terms (political cleavages are geographical). Recent papers study government ethnic composition and regional favoritism (when a leader favors their region of birth in the provision of public goods) in the contemporaneous period, but there is no systematic evidence on the prevalence of geographical cleavages and regional favoritism in European history. To fill in the gap, I collected biographical data on all government members of several European countries between 1800 and 2019. This presentation will show preliminary results for France, attempting to answer two questions: 1/ how did the geographical representativeness of the executive evolve in France in the last two centuries, 2/ is there evidence of widespread regional favoritism?

• Wednesday 4 November 2020 12:30-14:00

  On Line

  GREGG Amanda ( Middlebury College) : Financing Industrialization in Russia and Germany

  Caroline Fohlin from Emory University

  Abstract

  A large literature debates what system best promotes the accumulation and allocation of capital, especially in countries that industrialized relatively late and where capital market imperfections may be especially severe. Russia and Germany serve as the classic cases to argue that developing economies may successfully employ unusual strategies to promote industrialization, for example an outsized role for banks or state intervention. Law and finance analysis, moreover, attributes financial system differences to variation in legal system design. Such assertions, however, have relied largely on anecdotal evidence, country-level aggregates, or small collections of firms. New research into Germany and Russia has reshaped thinking about these two cases individually, but we still lack rigorous comparative analysis. We therefore present new evidence directly comparing Russian and German corporate performance and financial strategies based on firm-level microdata from Russian and German sources around turn of the twentieth century and compare key stipulations of corporate law and their implementation. Contrary to the standard “economic backwardness” and “law and finance” literatures we argue that corporations in both countries used similar strategies to finance operations and expansion but that tight entry restrictions fundamentally distorted patterns of corporate governance and finance in Russia.

• Wednesday 21 October 2020 12:30-14:00

  Zoom

  CADOREL Jean-Laurent (PSE) : An International Monetary Explanation of the 1929 Crash of the New York Stock Exchange

  Abstract

  The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 was a liquidity crisis caused by the sudden removal of brokers’ loans. Based on high-frequency data, this paper documents how the Bank of England’s unexpected September discount rate rise attracted short-term international capital flows. The rate rise had such exceptional effects because it caused a reallocation of gold reserves, attracting gold from the Americas to Europe, threatening some Latin American countries’ participation in the gold standard, thereby depreciating the value of their debts in New York, and reducing bondholders’ willingness to lend.

• Wednesday 14 October 2020 12:30-14:00

  VIA ZOOM

  GAYON Vincent (IRISSO- Univ. Dauphine) : L’organisation internationale de l’économie dans les années 1970-1980. Une sociologie politique

  Abstract

  Que savons-nous du fonctionnement pratique des organisations économiques internationales? Evoluent-elles dans un éther au-dessus des populations et des États? Sont-elles aussi influentes qu’on le prétend? Répondre à ces questions suppose de mener l’enquête sociologique dans ces espaces feutrés, réputés pour leur confidentialité, leur hermétisme, leur conformisme autant que pour l’anonymat de leur personnel et leur distance à l’égard des formes institutionnalisées de démocratie représentative et sociale. La réflexion s’ancrera sur l’OCDE et son projet de Welfare Society (1973-1985) qui ambitionnait de devenir le « nouveau rapport Beveridge », en intégrant le social et l’économique, voire l’écologique, et d’étendre ainsi le « Welfare State ». Ce projet a été enfoui par le « tournant néolibéral » et sa focalisation sur la « crise » de l’Etat social.

• Wednesday 7 October 2020 12:00-13:30

  Salle R2.21 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  SAINT-RAYMOND Léa (IHMC - ENS) : « La Bourse de l’art et du bric-à-brac » : une histoire économique des ventes aux enchères publiques parisiennes (1830-1939)

  Abstract

  En 1906, un article anonyme, intitulé « Sous le marteau du commissaire-priseur », désigna l’hôtel Drouot comme « la Bourse de l’art et du bric-à-brac ». Cette expression résume, à elle seule, la double conception de cet hôtel des ventes aux enchères publiques parisiennes, considéré à la fois comme un bazar et comme un temple de la spéculation. Néanmoins, la comparaison avec le marché financier est loin d’être évidente. Raymonde Moulin écrivait, en 1967, que « l’assimilation entre l’hôtel Drouot et la Bourse n’est pas légitime, bien que largement répandue ». Le but de cette présentation est d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur l’histoire des ventes aux enchères publiques à partir des archives des commissaires-priseurs parisiens. Celles-ci rendent possible l’analyse des différents segments – des tableaux, dessins et sculptures, en passant par les estampes, les objets d’art, les monnaies ou encore les bonsaïs et les silex – mais elles donnent également accès à des données plus macroéconomiques, permettant de mesurer la sensibilité du marché de l’art avec le marché financier.

• Wednesday 30 September 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2.21,Campus Jourdan - 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  PASQUINI Béline (UP1) : Dealing with extreme data scarcity: The challenge of measuring economic growth in ancient times. The case of Gaul between the 1st c. BC and the 7th c. AD.

  Abstract

  Between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD, Gaul went through tremendous social and economic transformations. Traditionally, most historians have followed Edward Gibbon in considering that the 2nd century AD was probably the most prosperous period of this long time span. But can we actually quantify this prosperity? Is it possible - given the very few written data we have - to reconstruct variations of economic growth? I suggest that some archaeological data, like trade flows, urbanisation, monatisation, or transport infrastructures can act as good proxies of growth. In this presentation, I will explain why and how we should use them to reconstruct ancient growth.

• Wednesday 23 September 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  CHANCEL Lucas : Global carbon inequality in the long run

  Abstract

  Building on a newly assembled set of carbon and energy accounts based on historical records, input-output tables and distributional statistics, this presentation focuses on the long term carbon footprint of nations since 1800. Among rich countries, we observe a diversity of historical energy transition pathways and resulting carbon footprints, suggesting a strong role played by political economy vs. purely endowment and efficiency factors. Focusing on the global inequality of emissions over the past fifty years, estimates point to a high level of concentration of pollution among top global emitters and to the importance of emissions embodied in asset ownership, suggesting that climate policies focusing on carbon investors, not only carbon consumers, could be key to accelerate decarbonization.

• Wednesday 24 June 2020 14:00-15:30

  ZOOM

  MO Zhexun (PSE) : Labor for Fighting and Fighting for Labor: An Empirical Study of Interwar Military Conscription in French West Africa

  Denis Cogneau (PSE)

• Wednesday 17 June 2020 12:30-14:00

  SEANCE ANNULEE

  MARAZYAN Karine (U. Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) : Marriage-related disputes arbitrated by Native Courts in colonial Senegal: prevalence and dynamic

  Abstract

  *

• Wednesday 10 June 2020 12:30-14:00

  SEANCE ANNULEE

  LEMERCIER Claire (CNRS) : 1751 and Thereabout: A Quantitative and Comparative Approach to Notarial Records

  Francesca Trivellato (Yale)

  Abstract

  *

• Wednesday 3 June 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R.1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GALVEZ-BEHAR Gabriel (Université de Lille) : Patents at War: the US Alien Property Custodian and the German Patents during WWII SEANCE ANNULEE

• Wednesday 27 May 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  BARTELS Charlotte (DIW Berlin) : The Long-Term Effects of Equal Sharing:Rvidence from Hitorical Inheritance Rules for Land : SEANCE ANNULEE

• Wednesday 20 May 2020 12:30-14:00

  FRESSOZ Jean-Baptiste (CRH/EHESS) : Une histoire des réflexivités environnementales

• Wednesday 20 May 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan - 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  HUBERMAN Michael (U. Montréal) : Politics is local: Social Housing in Red Vienna, 1923-1933 - Séance annulée

• Wednesday 13 May 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  AMRITH Sunil (Harvard) : Séance annulée

• Wednesday 6 May 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  BISHARA Fahad (University of Virginia) : Into the Bazaar: Indian Ocean Vernaculars in the Age of Global Capitalism - CANCELED

  Séance annulée

• Wednesday 29 April 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  HANNAH Leslie : The Largest UK Manufacturing Employers of 1881:determinants of whether they listed and their choices among 26 UK Stock Exchanges CANCELED

• Wednesday 22 April 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan - 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  BENGTSSON Erik (U.Lund) : Séance annulée

• Wednesday 15 April 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  VONYO Tamas (Université Bocconi) : Séance annulée et reportée

• Wednesday 1 April 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R109. Campus Jourdan, 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  FRESSOZ Jean-Baptiste (CRH/EHESS) : Additions énergétiques et de stocks de matières ANNULE ET REPORTE

  MOLTER MAGALHES Nelo (Ladyss - U. Paris Diderot)

• Wednesday 25 March 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  SUSSMAN Nathan (Graduate Institute Geneva) : Séance annulée et reportée

• Wednesday 18 March 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  SAINT-RAYMOND Léa (IHMC - ENS) : « La Bourse de l’art et du bric-à-brac » : une histoire économique des ventes aux enchères publiques parisiennes (1830-1939). ANNULE ET REPORTE

  Abstract

  En 1906, un article anonyme, intitulé « Sous le marteau du commissaire-priseur », désigna l’hôtel Drouot comme « la Bourse de l’art et du bric-à-brac ». Cette expression résume, à elle seule, la double conception de cet hôtel des ventes aux enchères publiques parisiennes, considéré à la fois comme un bazar et comme un temple de la spéculation. Néanmoins, la comparaison avec le marché financier est loin d’être évidente. Raymonde Moulin écrivait, en 1967, que « l’assimilation entre l’hôtel Drouot et la Bourse n’est pas légitime, bien que largement répandue ». Le but de cette présentation est d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur l’histoire des ventes aux enchères publiques à partir des archives des commissaires-priseurs parisiens. Celles-ci rendent possible l’analyse des différents segments – des tableaux, dessins et sculptures, en passant par les estampes, les objets d’art, les monnaies ou encore les bonsaïs et les silex – mais elles donnent également accès à des données plus macroéconomiques, permettant de mesurer la sensibilité du marché de l’art avec le marché financier.

• Wednesday 11 March 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GRANDI Elisa (Paris School of Economics) : Governance and networks: French Firms listed and traded at the Paris Bourse (1880-1939)

• Wednesday 26 February 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  BARSBAI Toman (U. Saint-Andrews) : Exit and Voice:Germany,1848-1933

  RAPOPORT Hillel (PSE)

  Abstract

  Albert Hirschman hypothesized that more exit leads to less voice. We test this conjecture in the context of Germany. In the five years that followed the failed revolutions of 1848, more than one million Germans emigrated to the United States. We explore the political consequences of this exodus. We show that differently from earlier and later emigration waves -- which were economically rather than politically motivated – the intensity of emigration during the revolutionary period significantly affected political outcomes within Germany over the course of eighty years, culminating in the rise to power of the Nazi Party. Specifically, a one-standard deviation in emigration rates between 1848 and 1854 is associated with an increase in the share of votes for the Nazi Party between 0.1 to 0.3 standard deviations. We show that both the emigration of ordinary citizens and of prominent political leaders mattered, and that selective entry and exit of local newspapers on ideological grounds as well as the presence and composition of social clubs are likely mechanisms behind our results. Overall, our results suggest that the well-documented contribution of the Forty-eighters to democracy building in the US (Dipple and Helblich, 2018) came at the price of less democracy in Germany.

• Wednesday 19 February 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GRASLIN-THOME Laetitia (Université de Lorraine) : La mise en place d'une économie monétaire : l'exemple de la Babylonie au VIe siècle av.J.-C / Silver in VIth century Babylonia.

  Abstract

  Située sur le territoire de l'actuel Irak, la Mésopotamie présente un cas d'école particulièrement intéressant pour l'étude des phénomènes économiques sur le très long terme. Avec une histoire de près de trois millénaires, documentée par des milliers de textes illustrant la pratique quotidienne des habitants de la région, elle permet d'apprécier le fonctionnement d'une économie antique et ses transformations sur très longue période. Après avoir évoqué certains problèmes méthodologiques propres à l'histoire économique des mondes anciens, nous nous intéresserons plus particulièrement à l'une de ces évolutions, qui concerne l'utilisation de l'argent pesé dans les échanges. L'argent est utilisé dès le troisième millénaire pour évaluer la valeur des biens. Il est ensuite régulièrement utilisé, parfois en concurrence avec l'or, comme unité de compte et comme moyen de paiement. Mais son usage semble devenir plus systématique qu'auparavant au VIe siècle av. J.-C. Cet usage plus répandu s'accompagne de comportements nouveaux : attention nouvelle portée à la qualité de l'argent, développement de nouvelles activités économiques... Quelles sont les raisons et les conséquences de cette évolution ? Peut-on parler, pour l'économie babylonienne, d'économie monétaire, avant l'introduction de la monnaie frappée empruntée aux Grecs ? --------------------------------------------------------------- Located on the territory of present-day Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia is particularly well-documented compared to other civilizations of antiquity. Clay tablets written by ancient mesopotamians make it possible to study economic phenomena over the very long term. With a history spanning nearly three millennia, documented by thousands of texts illustrating the daily practices of the region's inhabitants, it is possible to describe an ancient economy and its changes over a very long period. After discussing specific methodological problems related to the economic history of ancient worlds, we will take a closer look at one of the change faced by mesopotamian economy : the increasing use of silver as a mean of exchange. Silver has been used since the third millennium as a measure of value. It is then regularly used, sometimes in competition with gold, as a unit of account and as a means of payment. But its use seems to become more systematic during the sixth century BC. At the same time, new economic behaviours are emerging : new attention to the quality of money, development of new economic activities... Which are the causes and consequences of this “monetarization” of economy ? Can we speak, for the Babylonian economy, of a monetary economy, before the introduction of coined money by the Greeks?

• Wednesday 22 January 2020 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  KORCHMINA Elena (NYUAD) : Peer Pressure: The Puzzle of Tax Compliance in the Early Nineteenth-Century Russia

  Abstract

  How can developing countries successfully implement income taxes, which are generally desirable but costly to collect? This paper analyzes the income tax compliance of elites in a developing country with a low administrative capacity, drawing attention to the role of either voluntary or quasi-voluntary components of tax acquiescence. In 1812, the Russian government introduced the progressive income tax, with the highest tax rate of 10 per cent. After Britain, the Russian Empire became the second country to adopt this levy—under the threat of Napoleonic invasion. Unlike the widely known and deeply investigated British case, the history of the Russian income tax suffers from a lack of detailed research. I use a self-compiled unique dataset for estimating the level of tax compliance of the Russian noble elite at the individual level. The dataset is based on the self-reported tax returns of approximately 4,000 Russian aristocrats who had real estate in the Moscow region. Using narrative sources and crosschecking with official bank documents, I reveal not only that the Russian nobility declared reliable income information but also that the share of aristocratic evaders was relatively low (from 30 to 10 per cent). I argue that this surprisingly high level of tax compliance was achieved through a unique mechanism of tax collection involving the channels of social sanctioning and group identity, boosted by the national threat of Napoleonic invasion. This case could be considered as extremely important, insofar as the state could not achieve its fiscal aims due to coercive tools in the hands of bureaucracy but had to rely on consensus with elite.

• Wednesday 18 December 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  FOURIE Johan (Stellenbosch University) : Expropriation with partial compensation: slave emancipation and the longevity of slaveholders

• Wednesday 11 December 2019 12:30-14:00

  The session was canceled.

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  HUMPHRIES Jane (University of Oxford) : In search of the real cost of living: Primary sources and respectable living standards

  Abstract

  Cost-of-living indexes measure changes over time in the amount that consumers need to spend to reach a certain standard of living. Economists measure the cost of living according to the cost of a basket of commodities with individual price changes weighted by expenditure shares. Economic historians focus on the changing cost of a fixed basket of commodities (a Laspeyres index) taken to represent historical expenditure patterns. Robert Allen has offered two such baskets: 1. a ‘respectable’ standard of living basket based on budgets observed by eighteenth and nineteenth century social commentators; and 2. a ‘bare-bones’ subsistence basket based on caloric requirements for survival. There are theoretical and methodological problems associated with both baskets and the approach more generally. The paper explores a different approach. It surveys the historical record for England, 1270-1860, building a data set of over 2500 observations of what people actually paid to secure a ‘respectable’ standard of living. This approach circumvents several standard problems for example that a Laspeyres index emphasises items which might be out of date and ignores changes in tastes or lifestyle over the years, crucial when comparing costs over long periods of time or during ‘consumer revolutions’. It also enables the domestic labour used to transform baskets of commodities into standards of living to be included in the analysis. Trends in the alternative index can be compared with the evolution of the cost of the standard Allen basket and with women’s wages. While the empirical evidence is drawn from English sources, the issues and research strategy have general relevance.

• Wednesday 4 December 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  COGNEAU Denis (PSE) : Autour du livre de Thomas Piketty, Capital et idéologie

  GRENIER Jean-Baptiste

  HAUTCOEUR Pierre-Cyrille (EHESS/PSE)

  LEMERCIER Claire (CNRS)

  STANZIANI Alessandro (EHESS)

  VEG Sebastian (EHESS)

• Wednesday 27 November 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  CHAMBRU Cedric (Dept. of Economics, University of Zürich) : Do it Right! Leaders, Weather Shocks and Social Conflicts in Pre-Industrial France (1661-1789)

  Abstract

  I use spatial and temporal variation in temperature shocks to examine the effect of adverse weather conditions on the onset of social conflicts in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. The paper’s contribution is threefold. First, I document the effect of temperature shocks on standards of living using cross-section and panel prices data. Second, I link high-resolution temperature data and a new database of 8,528 episodes of social conflicts in France between 1661 and 1789. I use a linear probability model with sub-regional and year fixed effects to establish a causal connection between temperature shocks and conflicts. A one standard deviation increase in temperature increased the probability of social conflicts by about 5.3 per cent. To the best of my knowledge, these results are the first to quantify the effect of temperature shocks on intergroup conflict in pre-industrial Europe. Finally, I investigate the role of local leaders- the intendants- in the mitigation of temperature shocks. I show that leaders with higher level of local experience were better able to cope with adverse weather conditions. I argue that years of local experience were a key determinant in the intendant's ability to administer efficiently his province. This interpretation is supported by historical evidence.

• Wednesday 20 November 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ALSAN Marcella (HARVARD Kennedy School) : The Rise and Fall of the Know Nothing Party

  Greg Niemesh and Katherine Eriksson

  Abstract

  The Know-Nothing Party was the first major nativist political party in U.S. History. It swept to power in the 1850s on a staunchly anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic platform. In this paper, we discuss the postulated factors that played a role in the rise of the Know-Nothings -including three factors closely related to the influx of low-skill Irish immigrants: (1) labor market competition (2) fiscal burden on the state and (3) the enfranchisement and voting behavior of foreigners with competing allegiances. We also examine the role of structural change in the economy and the shift to factory production. Evidence suggests that, while both sets of factors played a role, labor market competition and industrialization were of particular importance. Our research contributes to scholarship on the politics of populism and deepens our understanding of what fuels cycles of anti-immigrant behavior.

• Wednesday 13 November 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GARDNER Leigh (London School of Economics) : African institutions under colonial rule

  Jutta Bolt, Lund University and University of Groningen

  Abstract

  Colonial institutions in Africa are the subject of a substantial literature, but it neglects the local institutions which governed Africans in rural areas. This paper uses new data on local African governments, or “Native Authorities” in British Africa to present the first quantitative comparison of African institutions under indirect rule in the late colonial period. Using tax revenue as a measure of state capacity, the data show that the structure and capacity of Native Authorities varied between and within colonies, based not only on underlying economic inequalities but also on the relationships between African elites and colonial governments.

• Wednesday 6 November 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 BD Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MAGGOR Noam (Queen Mary University of London) : The United States as a Developing Nation: The Political Origins of Modern Capitalism in America.

  Dr. Stefan Link (Dartmouth)

  Abstract

  It has recently been suggested that the economic departure of the United States after the Civil War marked a “Second Great Divergence.” Compared to the “First,” the rise of Britain during the Industrial Revolution, this Second Great Divergence us curiously little understood: because the U.S. remains the template for modernization narratives, its trajectory is often accepted as preordained than interrogated as an unlikely historical outcome. How in fact did the U.S. redefine its position in the world economy, transforming from a cotton-exporting slave republic to a hegemonic industrial giant? The most promising avenue of inquiry, we suggest, lies in asking how American political institutions configured what should properly be called an American Developmental State. Such a perspective opens up a broad comparative research agenda that provincializes the United States from the perspective of development experiences elsewhere.

• Wednesday 30 October 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MC CANTS Anne (MIT) : Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and the Erosion of Trust

  Dan Seligson (MIT)

  Abstract

  Family systems shape social institutions, yet they are rarely considered in histories of economic development. In this paper, we show how market forces act through the dichotomy of polygamy and monogamy, mirroring them in a syndrome of social conventions such as age at marriage, bride price, sequestration, and discrimination and violence against women. We argue that this syndrome, which we call polygamos and which we quantify by two different methods, has demonstrable consequences for the development of economic and institutional well-being.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 23 October 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  POMPERMAIER Matteo (GRHis) : The ‘Handkerchief Economy’: Inns and Bastioni as Microcredit Institutions in Early Modern Venice (18th century).

  Abstract

  In early modern Venice, wine and money were intrinsically linked through the activity of the innkeepers and the bastioneri (the managers of the bastioni, warehouses where wine was sold), who offered their customers an innovative pawnbroking service. They assumed the double roles of suppliers of basic goods and creditors, thereby becoming central economic figures in Venice’s urban context – especially for the members of the poorest classes. One of the most innovative elements of this credit circuit lies in the way that interest on loans was collected: creditors benefited from the fact that one-third of the total value of the transaction was paid in wine. The low average value of the loans confirms that this service was mainly aimed at the lower classes of society, the main actors in what has been defined as ‘the handkerchief economy’. Those who benefited the most from this kind of credit arrangement were essentially poor – but not ‘too poor’ – people, who had only modest reserves of money, and were thus more vulnerable due to the paucity and irregularity of their income. This paper focuses on the pawnbroking activity of Venetian innkeepers and bastioneri, with a twofold main objective: (a) to describe his origins and mode of operation and (b) to highlight his social and economic impact on 18th century Venice.

• Wednesday 9 October 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  RIDOLFI Leonardo (Institute of Economics, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies,) : Six Centuries of Real Wages in France from Louis IX to Napoleon III: 1250–1860

  Abstract

  Evidence of an early modern “Little divergence” in real wages between northwestern Europe and the rest of the continent is mostly based on the comparative study of a sample of leading European cities. Focusing on France and England this study reassesses the debate from a country-level perspective. The findings challenge the notion of an early modern “Little divergence” showing no clear-cut trend of divergence until the second half of the eighteenth century. Results also suggest that the real wages of a significant share of the French male labor force were broadly on par with the levels prevailing in England before c.1750.

• Wednesday 2 October 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2.01, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014

  HOFFMAN Philip (Caltech) : Dark Matter Credit, The development of peer-to-peer lending and banking in France. Princeton University Press, 2019

  POSTEL-VINAY Gilles (INRA, PSE)

  ROSENTHAL Jean-Laurent (Caltech)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 25 September 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan 48 bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  CERRETANO Valerio (University of Glasgow) : Central banks, credit provision and industrial intervention: the cases of Britain, France and Italy, 1914-1980. A research agenda.

  Abstract

  Central banks have in the past been involved in the provision of long-term credit and have in some cases been important industrial players. The paper intends to establish a possible research agenda aimed at comparing the various European experiences, or the least those which have received most scholarly attention. Hence the choice of Britain, France and Italy, where sources can more easily be accessed and where central banks played an important role in what might be called industrial policy since at least the First World War. The perspective here is that of industrial history rather than that of financial or central banking history, although the history of central banks and central banking undeniably provides valuable help in the understanding of this phenomenon. What definition can we give to intervention, i.e. direct management of firms or indirect forms of financing? Can we distinguish different layers of intervention, i.e. the one devised along with the governments (treasuries) as a broader attempt at economic planning and the one carried out during periods of economic duress? Why have central banks become the chosen instrument of intervention during economic crises? Was intervention successful? These are some of the questions that the paper will be attempting. Research can take different turns and can be used in different ways. It can show that central banks were crucial actors in the industrialisation of the west, i.e. in the provision of long-term finance and in the selection of sectors to stimulate. But it could also be used as evidence that central banks should more actively be involved in industrial policy in developing countries (Epstein). These have become sensitive points in scholarly and public debate after 2008, but the question of the reverberations and possible uses of this type of research in contemporary debate falls, however, outside the scope of this paper.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 11 September 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MITCH David (University of Maryland Baltimore County) : Fear and Envy as Motives for the Pursuit of Economic Growth: Do Ideological Frameworks Matter?

  Abstract

  The pursuit of economic growth has come to be taken for granted as a policy goal with the motive commonly presumed to be improvement of human welfare. However,a historical perspective points to ulterior motives such as military upheaval threats as motives for governments to pursue economic expansion. .In societies as diverse as Qin and Han dynasty China, early modern Europe, Meiji era Japan, the Soviet Union in the early Stalinist years, and post-war U.S. and OEEC Europe, the desire to provide resources to support military activity was a central motive in setting economic expansion as an important policy goal. Nevertheless, it can hardly be claimed that militarization has always been the dominant motive for the pursuit of economic expansion. In the cases both post-independence India and post-war South Korea, the pursuit of industrial self-sufficiency for security purposes was balanced by populist motives of poverty alleviation. The cases of India and South Korea as well as that of early modern Europe illustrate Jacob Viner’s claim of a long-run harmony between the pursuit of wealth and power as ultimate ends of national policy.While civil wars and domestic violence were endemic in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century, the combination of a lack of interstate competition and of weak state legitimacy implied no attempt to pursue growth as a means of military mobilization. Instead growth as a policy goal was pursued in both regions from a perspective of backwardness and catch-up.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 26 June 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-15 - Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  BARREYRE Nicolas (EHESS) : The New History of Capitalism: what contribution ? what impact ? A debate

  HILT Eric (Wellesley College)

• Wednesday 19 June 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.15 Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MORADI Alexander (University of Sussex) : The Economics of Missionary Expansion: Evidence from Africa and Implications for Development

  Remi Jedwab and Felix Meier zu Selhausen

  Abstract

  How did Christianity expand in sub-Saharan Africa to become the continent’s dominant religion? Using annual panel data on all Christian missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana, as well as cross-sectional data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries in 1900 and 1924, we shed light on the spatial dynamics and determinants of this religious diffusion process. Missions expanded into healthier, safer, more accessible, and more developed areas, privileging these locations first. Results are confirmed for selected factors using various identification strategies. This pattern has implications for extensive literature using missions established during colonial times as a source of variation to study the long-term economic effects of religion, human capital and culture. Our results provide a less favorable account of the impact of Christian missions on modern African economic development. We also highlight the risks of omission and endogenous measurement error biases when using historical data and events for identification.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 12 June 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HILT Eric (Wellesley College) : Financial Asset Ownership and Political Partisanship: Liberty Bonds and Republican Electoral Success in the 1920s

  Abstract

  We analyze the effects of ownership of liberty bonds, which were marketed to American households during World War I, on election outcomes in the 1920s. We find that counties with higher liberty bond ownership rates turned against the Democratic Party in the presidential elections of 1920 and 1924. This was a reaction to the depreciation of the bonds prior to the 1920 election (when the Democrats held the presidency), and the appreciation of the bonds in the early 1920s (under a Republican president), as the Fed raised and then subsequently lowered interest rates. Our results suggest the liberty bond campaigns had unintended political consequences and illustrate the potential for financial asset ownership to increase the sensitivity of ordinary households to economic policy decisions.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 5 June 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ZALC Claire (CNRS/EHESS) : The Lubartworld project: methodological challenges of the reconstruction of 3000 persecution trajectories over the world 1920’s-1950’s.

  Abstract

  The paper will present the Lubartworld project which aims to reconstruct the trajectories of a group of Polish Jews from the 1920s to the early 1950s, comparing the life-histories of both those who remained and those who emigrated to different regions, and examining the connections between these two groups. By doing so, it will address some theoretical issues: the dynamics of social structures of a group of persecuted victims across time and place and the variability of discriminatory categorization in diverse national and political contexts. But it also addresses important methodological challenges linked to the application of the prosopographic method in a transnational way. What are the assets and difficulties of such quantitative approaches to persecution trajectories? This approach can explore the determining factors (social, gender-related, economic, political, family, and relational) in the trajectories of individuals. Who fled? When? To where? With whom? Who survived and who didn’t? What role did the socio-economic status, the gender, the size of the family, the degree of religiosity, or the political activity play in the diverse reactions to persecution? How is it possible to explain the migratory directions (internal or external) among the Lubartow Jews who fled? Who are those who migrated overseas and those who didn't? This paper aims to present the empirical means for reflecting on the effects interpersonal networks had on the behavior of the victims of persecution.

• Wednesday 29 May 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  PONTHIÈRE Grégory (PSE) : Human lifetime entropy in a historical perspective (1750-2014)

  Abstract

  Abstract This paper uses Shannon's entropy index to the base 2 to quantify the risk relative to the age at death in terms of bits (i.e. the amount of information revealed by tossing a fair coin). We first provide a simple decomposition of Shannon's lifetime entropy index that allows us to an- alyze the determinants of lifetime entropy (in particular its relation with Wiener's entropy of the event death at a particular age conditional on survival to that age) and to study how the risk about the duration of life is resolved as the individual becomes older. Then, using data on 37 countries from the Human Mortality Database, we show that, over the last two centuries, (period) lifetime entropy at birth has exhibited, in all countries, an inverted U shape pattern with a maximum in the ?rst half of the 20th century (at 6 bits), and reaches, in the early 21st century, 5.6 bits for men and 5.5 bits for women. It is also shown that the entropy age profile shifted from a non-monotonic profile (in the 18th and 19th centuries) to a strictly decreasing profile (in the 20th and 21st centuries). Keywords: mortality risk, longevity, age at death, entropy, measure- ment.

• Wednesday 22 May 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MC CARTIN Joseph A. (Georgetown University) : Bargaining with the Neo-Liberal State: Privatization, Taxation, Financialization, and Public-Sector Workers in the USA.

  Abstract

  This lecture will explain how the vibrant movement of U.S.public-sector unionism which emerged in the 1960s was increasingly tamed and marginalized by the early 21st century. It will describe how privatization, tax cuts, tax subsidies, and the growing influence of financial interests over the public sector undercut public-sector collective bargaining, which had been built on a foundation too narrow to respond to these developments. It will address how the erosion of public-sector worker bargaining power interacted with declining private-sector bargaining power and rising inequality. And it will conclude with thoughts on recent developments and the future.

• Wednesday 15 May 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HUBERMAN Michael (U. Montréal) : Against the Grain: Spanish Trade Policy in the Interwar Years

  Concha Betrán, University of Valencia

  Abstract

  We study the effects of changes in Spanish trade policy on the margins of trade in the context of economic and political shocks external and internal to Spain in the interwar period. We have assembled a new granular data set on imports, as well as detailed product-level information on tariffs, trade agreements, quantitative controls, and other discriminatory practices. The establishment of the Republic in 1931, which gave voice to the emerging middle class, was a turning point in trade policy. The Republic abandoned policy principally designed to protect agriculture and cotton textiles for a less retaliatory and more accommodating stance that promoted bilateral exchanges of Spanish exports for foreign imports. This gave rise to large extensive margin. But Spain was hardpressed to find countries willing to exchange market access. In an unfavorable international environment, the Spanish case offers a cautionary tale of the perils of going against the grain.

• Wednesday 10 April 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  KESZTENBAUM Lionel (PSE) : Wealth in the trenches. Social class and survival during the Great War - La richesse dans les tranchées. Origine sociale et probabilité de survie pendant la première guerre mondiale.

  Abstract

  We study a very unequal society faced with war on a massive scale, fought by a military organization relying on quantity more than quality and designed to be egalitarian. Within that framework, we aim at measuring the role of wealth and social status on mortality during the war by taking advantage of individual conscription data that allow us to follow the trajectories of soldiers who fought during the war. We show that socioeconomic background do make a difference for surviving the war but with opposite effects for rural and urban conscripts: in rural settings coming from a privileged (wealthy) background is a clear disadvantage while it’s the opposite in urban areas, as those coming from educated groups having the lowest mortality during the war. We discuss allocation mechanisms of soldiers in the army that might explain those results and show that there are reinforced when taking into account wounds.

• Wednesday 3 April 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2.01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MOHR Cathrin (University of Munich) : Carrots and Sticks: Targeting the Opposition in an Autocratic Regime

  Abstract

  Autocratic regimes can use carrots or sticks to ensure that they are not overthrown by their opposition in the population. Carrots increase popularity of the regime, but also the incentives to show discontent. Sticks decrease the incentives to engage in opposition, but lower popularity.This paper looks at the joint allocation of resources and repression by considering the unique case of construction activity and military presence in the German Democratic Republic. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I ?nd that after an uprising in 1953 residential construction in municipalities that engaged in protests increased, compared to construction in municipalities without protests. Protest municipalities receive more military troops and are more likely to have hidden objects of the Secret Police. Construction especially increases after new military units are assigned to municipalities. This paper thus provides the ?rst empirical evidence that autocratic regimes do target their opposition with carrots and sticks, and that carrots are to some extent used as a means to alleviate the negative effect of sticks.

• Wednesday 27 March 2019 12:30-14:00

  The session was canceled.

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CERRETANO Valerio (University of Glasgow) : *TBA

• Wednesday 20 March 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  GAY Victor (TSE) : Shocking Culture: World War I and Attitudes toward Gender Role throughout a Century

  Abstract

  World War I in France induced many women to enter the labor force after the war, a shock to female labor that persisted over the long run. I rely on this historical shock to women's working behaviors to explore mechanisms that underlie the process of cultural change. I attempt to build a measure of attitudes that is consistent across time and space by using legislative behaviors of French deputies on gender-issues bills throughout the twentieth century. Preliminary results indicate that the war had enduring implications for attitudes toward gender roles across society.

• Wednesday 13 March 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MONSON Andrew (New York University) : Constitutions, Credible Commitments, and Public Finance in Ancient Greece

  Abstract

  The ancient Greek city-states developed strikingly modern methods of taxation and public debt. The ability to tax property and trade effectively as well as borrow money gave democratic city-states advantages in interstate competition. Apart from the well-known case of Athens, the literary and epigraphical evidence suggests a convergence of political and fiscal institutions from the fourth to first centuries BC across the Greek world and beyond. This paper relates the high fiscal capacity in democratic Greek states to constitutional rules, enabling them to commit credibly to policies that benefited taxpayers and creditors, prevent arbitrary expropriation, and thereby increase compliance. The conclusions are strengthened by comparison with oligarchical and monarchical regimes that tried to implement similar fiscal institutions.

• Wednesday 6 March 2019 12:30-14:00

  R1.09 Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  WOLF NIKOLAUS (Humboldt Universität) : Was Marx Right? Market Concentration, Income Inequality, and Voting in late 19th Century Germany

  Abstract

  The recent debate on the causes and consequences of income inequality shows striking similarities to the debate in many parts of Europe before 1914. Today and back then the focus was on the role of capital share and market concentration as a cause for rising inequality. In this study we analyze the drivers and consequences of income inequality exploiting a newly constructed regional panel based on detailed income tax statistics for the German Empire, 1874-1913. Our data features large variation in terms of inequality across 30 Prussian districts (Regierungsbezirke) and dynamic changes over time, within the common institutional framework of the German Empire. Both, capital share and inequality are strongly associated with rising market concentration. Further, inequality had a strong effect on political polarization. However, in seeming contrast to modern results but in line with simple models of political economy, income inequality in 19th century Germany was mainly linked to support for the political left, while the relationship with the political right is much weaker.

• Wednesday 27 February 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  WULFERS Alexander (University of Oxford) : The Marriage of Iron and Rye Reunited? The Shift towards Protectionism in the Weimar Republic and the Political Economy of German Trade Policy”

  Abstract

  The interwar period was a time of rising protectionism, especially in Germany where a brief period of reconciliation with its neighbours and a moderately liberal trade policy in the 1920s was succeeded by a radical shift to high tariffs and, ultimately, a struggle for autarky under National Socialism. This shift stands at the end of a long struggle between different interest groups, most notably the protectionist agricultural lobby and more export-oriented new industrial sectors like electronics and chemicals. This paper investigates to what extent the clash at the lobbyists’ level is also reflected in voting behaviour. I examine, based on detailed county-level data on the economic structure of German industry and agriculture, whether a right-wing shift in electoral result corresponds to a stronger radicalisation of some groups relative to the overall population, both between sectors and within the agricultural sector between livestock and grain farmers.

• Wednesday 20 February 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ARNOUX Mathieu (EHESS) : Transitions énergétiques et systèmes renouvelables. Une approche de longue durée.

  Abstract

  La notion de transition énergétique s’est imposée en moins d’une décennie comme un thème fondamental en matière de politique et d’économie. Elle renvoie le plus souvent à la distinction, désormais familière elle aussi, entre énergies renouvelables et non renouvelables. Dans la littérature d’histoire économique, le processus de transition prend le plus souvent l'apparence d’une courbe de consommation per capita d’énergie finale, mesurée en quantité d’énergie. Ce mode de mesure, mis au point au début du XIXe siècle dans un contexte de mécanisation de l’industrie et de croissance de la consommation du charbon, ne permet pas de décrire adéquatement le fonctionnement et l’évolution des systèmes fondés sur les énergies renouvelables, caractéristiques des sociétés préindustrielles. L’intervention montrera qu’on peut analyser les systèmes renouvelables et apprécier leurs dimensions d'efficacité à partir d’une description qualitative en pas seulement quantitative des services énergétiques, par ailleurs plus satisfaisante d’un point de vue physique. Il s’agira en particulier de montrer comment, sans recourir, le plus souvent, aux stocks de combustibles fossiles, les usages mis en œuvre par les sociétés préindustrielles convertissent les flux d’énergie dérivant du rayonnement solaire, soit immédiatement, soit de façon différée en constituant des stocks d’énergie potentielle adaptées aux usages des consommateurs. La création et la gestion de ces potentiels, n’est pas seulement un problème technique, mais aussi institutionnel et économique. Une telle approche permet d’utiliser différemment les sources et instruments de l’histoire économique (comptabilités en particulier) et de l’histoire des techniques (processus d’innovation et matériaux critiques).

• Wednesday 13 February 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CARRE Guillaume (EHESS) : Le fabuleux métal : l'argent japonais en Asie orientale (16e -17e siècles)

  Abstract

  Du 16e au 17e siècles, les mines d'argent de l'archipel japonais déversèrent sur l'Asie orientale des quantités énormes de métaux précieux, mais ce n'est qu'assez récemment que l'histoire économique en Occident a pris pleinement en compte ce paramètre dans ses réflexions sur la première mondialisation. Il est désormais avéré en effet que c'est avant tout cet argent japonais, et non celui du Pérou, qui a nourri l'expansion économique de la fin des Ming, et celle du commerce maritime dont les Européens, Portugais, puis Anglais et Hollandais, cherchèrent eux aussi à tirer profit. L'argent japonais constitua en réalité un facteur essentiel dans la déstabilisation des équilibres qui régissaient l'Extrême-Orient durant le 15e siècle, car son afflux massif et continu pendant près de 150 ans, en bouleversant les économies de la région, influa aussi sur la recomposition des formes de gouvernements de ses empires et royaumes, et sur le jeu des puissances qui se la partageaient. Dans cette séminaire, j'examinerai trois aspects de cet âge de l'argent japonais : tout d'abord sa monétisation au Japon, et la place de ce processus dans la construction du système politique du shogounat d'Edo ; ensuite le rôle que joua l'argent japonais dans l'essor du commerce maritime en Asie et la fin du système de contrôle des échanges internationaux patronné par la Chine ; enfin, je m'intéresserai à l'attitude des gouvernements de la Corée face aux importations d'argent, et à son commerce aux confins septentrionaux de la péninsule et de la Chine.

• Wednesday 6 February 2019 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MAIFREDA Germano (U. of Milano) : Using the Past, Building Trust Ethnicity, the Risorgimento, and the Relationship Lending between the Weill-Schott Bankers and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi in Nineteenth-Century Italy

  Abstract

  This paper explores the relation between the Weill-Schott brothers’ private bank and Francesco Crispi (1818-1901), an architect of Italy’s unification in 1860 and one of the most important and controversial figures in modern Italian history. I mean to look into the modalities of building up, maintaining, and dissolving a fiduciary relationship which was, at once, private and professional; and illuminate some paths followed by the politician and his bankers in forming trustworthiness through a careful use of shared political experience (the Italian Risorgimento), Jewish 'ethnicity', and different layers of ‘familial' ties: biological, friendly, and Masonic.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 30 January 2019 10:00-12:00

  Salle R2.20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MOORE Lyndon (U. of Melbourne) : Railroad Bailouts in the Great Depression.

  Toby Daglish (Victoria University of Wellington)

  Abstract

  U.S. railroads received loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation starting in Febru- ary 1932, at below-market rates, primarily to meet interest and principal repayments on their debt. Almost all loan requests were approved. The rst loan approval that a railroad received was associated with a 55 basis point increase in the credit spreads of its bonds, even after condi- tioning on observable determinants of credit risk. The benet of receiving a loan at concessional interest rates was outweighed by the negative signal that the rm was unable to access credit through regular channels. Subsequent RFC loans are weakly associated with lower credit spreads for the railroad's bonds. Speculative grade railroad bonds are the most aected by news of a government loan, those bonds' spreads increase by over 260 basis points, whereas investment grade bonds' spreads are little changed. 

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 19 December 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09 Campus Jourdan - 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  DELALANDE Nicolas (Sciences Po) : La lutte et l'entraide. Les solidarités ouvrières face à la mondialisation du capital (1864-1914)

  Abstract

  La mondialisation du XIXe siècle a donné naissance à des formes inédites et multiples de solidarités internationales. Les ouvriers n’étaient pas les seuls à vouloir s’aider par-delà les frontières : les philanthropes, les missionnaires, les exilés politiques cherchaient aussi à établir des relations à longue distance pour porter secours à d’autres. Le projet internationaliste ouvrier, apparu au cours des années 1860, avait cependant de fortes spécificités. Il visait à rassembler les travailleurs, quels que soient leur pays, leur langue ou leur culture, pour les unir dans un même combat, tourné contre la mondialisation du capital et la domination des États bourgeois. Le but initial n’était pas de prendre le pouvoir ou de limiter les circulations, plutôt de proposer une solidarité internationale alternative. Ce projet s’inspirait d’une conception horizontale des liens économiques et sociaux, dans l’espoir que le partage et la circulation des richesses ouvrières puissent profiter à tous, plutôt que d’entretenir les concurrences et les rivalités. Le diagnostic posé par Marx et par les fondateurs de la Première Internationale était sans appel : sans solidarité universelle, les ouvriers seraient toujours les grands perdants de la mondialisation, participant, par leurs luttes sectorielles et leurs revendications particularistes, à leur propre asservissement.

• Wednesday 12 December 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  JOHNSON NOEL (George Mason University) : The impact of the redistribution of Church land during the Revolution on 19th c. agricultural investments and output

  Abstract

  This study exploits the confiscation and auctioning off of Church property that occurred during the French Revolution to assess the role played by transaction costs in delaying the reallocation of property rights in the aftermath of fundamental institutional reform. French districts with a greater proportion of land redistributed during the Revolution experienced higher levels of agricultural productivity in 1841 and 1852 as well as more investment in irrigation and more efficient land use. We trace these increases in productivity to an increase in land inequality associated with the Revolutionary auction process. We also show how the benefits associated with the head-start given to districts with more Church land initially, and thus greater land redistribution by auction during the Revolution, dissipated over the course of the nineteenth century as other districts gradually overcame the transaction costs associated with reallocating the property rights associated with the feudal system.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 5 December 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  YAMAMOTO Koji (U. of Tokyo) : Taming Capitalism before its Triumph: A Case of Early Modern England

• Wednesday 28 November 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SCHULARICK Moritz (Université de Bonn) : Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949-2016

  (with Moritz Kuhn and Ulrike Steins)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 21 November 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CONDORELLI Stefano (U. of Bern) : From Quincampoix to Ophir: a global history of the 1720 financial boom

  Abstract

  Scholars have long known that the Mississippi Bubble, the South Sea Bubble, and the Dutch “Windhandel” (1719-20) were connected and represented together the first international financial bubble (P.G.M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England, 1967; L. Neal, The rise of financial capitalism, 1990; etc.) However, no study had hitherto investigated the pan-European and global dimensions of the 1720 stock euphoria. Drawing on extensive archival research and a vast secondary literature, this presentation will highlight some key elements that seek to explain: a) why and how the stock euphoria became a pan-European phenomenon, spanning from Portugal to Russia and from Sicily to Sweden; b) why and how it came to have so many ramifications (some of them with far-reaching consequences) across the globe, from the Mississippi Valley to Africa, the Indian Ocean, China, and Oceania.

• Wednesday 14 November 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris

  ACCOMINOTTI Olivier (LSE) : The Origination and Distribution of Money Market Instruments: Sterling Bills of Exchange During the First Globalization

  Abstract

  This paper presents a detailed analysis of how liquid money market instruments – sterling bills of exchange - were originated during the First Globalization. We rely on a unique dataset constructed from a previously unexploited archival source reporting systematic information on all bills rediscounted by the Bank of England in the year 1906. Using network analysis, we reconstruct the complete network of linkages between agents involved in the origination of London bills. Sterling bills always involved a “drawer” (a borrower in a foreign country), an “acceptor” (a London firm who guaranteed the bill’s payment), and a “discounter” (a lender). Our analysis reveals that acceptors/guarantors played a crucial role in solving the informational problem between lenders and borrowers. This ensured that risky private debts could be transformed into highly liquid monetary instruments, a function that was crucial to the position of London as the world’s leading international financial center.

• Wednesday 7 November 2018 12:30-14:00

  S. R1.13 Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan - 75014 Paris

  COGNEAU Denis (PSE) : Recherche sur le colonialisme français au Centre Simiand

  Abstract

  Je tenterai de présenter de manière concise plusieurs travaux de recherche sur différents aspects du colonialisme français, à la fois passés et en cours, qui constituent un puzzle inachevé, soulève des questions non résolues et justifient de nouveaux projets. Ces travaux concernent : (i) la structure des Etats coloniaux et leur évolution : capacité fiscale et dualisme ; (ii) les comparaisons avec les colonies britanniques en termes de fiscalité et de dépenses, de politiques d’éducations et de politiques salariales ; (iii) la capacité fiscale et le dualisme dans les anciennes colonies françaises depuis leur indépendance (expériences socialistes, boom des matières premières exportées, ajustement structurel) ; (iv) la mesure du « coût » de l’Empire ; (v) inégalité en situation coloniale, répartition de la charge fiscale, conscription militaire (et « impôt du sang »), et conditions de vie des populations assujetties ; (vi) la sélection et l’action des élites administratives coloniales : le cas des gouverneurs ; (vii) flux de capitaux privés et entreprises coloniales ; (viii) politiques du colonialisme, lobbies coloniaux.

• Wednesday 24 October 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.14, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CARANTON Julien (Université de Grenoble) : Des ouvriers si imprévoyants ? La gestion des retraites au sein des associations mutualistes (Grenoble, seconde moitié du XIXe siècle)

  Abstract

  Au tournant des décennies 1840-1850, les élites libérales et saint-simoniennes françaises, inspirées par le modèle anglais des friendly societies, critiquent «l’empirisme» des mutualistes en matière de gestion des retraites ouvrières. Ces élites militent en faveur d’une organisation scientifique et rationnelle des sociétés de secours mutuels. Certaines de leurs prescriptions, ayant pour objectif de sensibiliser les mutualistes au coût de la prévoyance sociale, sont intégrées aux premiers textes venant réguler l’activité mutualiste (loi de 1850, décrets de 1852 et de 1856). À partir du cas grenoblois, cette communication souhaite présenter la manière dont les mutualistes ont intégré ces prescriptions afin de développer leur propre notion de coût de la prévoyance sociale.

• Wednesday 17 October 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CHEN Shuang (University of Iowa) : Entitlement, Property, and Social Stratification in Agrarian China: A Nineteenth-century. Case from Northeast China

  Abstract

  In her recent book, State-Sponsored Inequality: The Banner System and Social Stratification in Northeast China (Stanford University, 2017), Shuang CHEN provides a comprehensive view on how state policies, market forces, and demographic processes interacted with one another to produce inequality under state domination in nineteenth century rural northeast China. The Qing state (1644-1911) settled and classified immigrants there into distinct categories, each associated with different land entitlements. The resulting patterns of wealth stratification and social hierarchy were then simultaneously challenged and reinforced by these settlers and their descendants. Eventually the tension built into the unequal land entitlements shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted even after the institution of unequal state entitlements was removed. Drawing on the China Multi-Generational Panel Dataset-Shuangcheng (CMGPD-SC), which contains 1,346,826 annual observations of 107,890 individuals living between 1866 and 1913 and 37,187 plot inventories, and a large number of court cases, official correspondence, and memorials, Shuang CHEN shows how government policies and market forces may be responsible for social differentiation and social stratification in general, but the socioeconomic processes of inequality in any given society are closely associated with specific political and social institutions. In a power-based society such as China, such political entitlements constitute one of the most important factors of wealth stratification and social grouping.

• Wednesday 10 October 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  VAN DER BEEK Karine (Ben-Gurion U.) : Wheels of Change: Skill biased natural resources and industrialization in eighteenth century England

  Abstract

  This paper uses an extensive cross-section of England's historical and geographical characteristics, to examine the role played by geography in determining regions' specialization, mechanization, and extent of textile production in the mid-eighteenth century. It shows that the location of English textile centers practically persisted in the same regions (i.e. the Cotswolds, East Anglia, the middle Pennines in Lancashire, and the West-Riding ) since the fourteenth century, in locations that had grinding mills in earlier periods. Our hypothesis is that the regions' resources determine its relative advantage. In the case of the textile sector, regions that had both the proximity of a rivers and a potential for high wheat yields had more watermills and mechanical workers who were required in order to construct and maintain them. Ceteris paribus, when textile fulling mills were introduced in the fourteenth century, they were more likely to be adopted in textile centers located in places with an existing relative advantage in watermill technology. To identify the effect of the existence of mechanical workers on the extent of textile productions we use the location of grinding mills in the 11th century (from Domesday Book) as an IV for mechanical workers during the first half of the 18th century and find a significant and positive effect. Our findings may imply that the availability of coal and the production of cotton textiles rather than woolens, cannot explain the adoption of steam and industrialization in the North-West by themselves, without taking into account the initial determinants for the initial development a textile center in this area.

• Wednesday 3 October 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  BENGTSSON Erik (U.Lund) : Wealth and inequality in Sweden, c. 1650–1900

  Abstract

  Previous studies of wealth inequality in Sweden have used consistent measures back to 1873 (Roine and Waldenström), and less good data for one benchmark year in 1800 (Soltow). Roine and Waldenström’s important study built on tax data. Together with colleagues, I have created a database of 1200+ probate inventories for each of the years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. The Swedish probate inventories are completely encompassing which makes it possible to study all kinds of wealth and more or less all social groups. We have so far produced a general study of inequality and its drivers 1750–1900, and separate papers on the nobility and the farmers. We are now pushing the studies further backwards by focusing on the cities. The presentation will be a synthetic one, presenting the data that we have used and the conclusions drawn and arguments made in several papers. To summarize, we show and argue that (a) Sweden was as unequal as Britain, France and the US in 1900 – we concede the point to Piketty (2014) that ‘Sweden was not the structurally egalitarian country that we sometimes imagine’ [paper 1]. (b) The Kuznets Curve is not a good explanation of the increase in Swedish inequality in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Instead, between-class, within-sector growth of inequality is more important [1, 3]. (c) The nobility was very wealthy indeed – 61 times more wealthy than the average in 1750, and 19 times more in 1900 [1, 2]. (d) Swedish cities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were extremely unequal, with top decile shares of wealth around 90 per cent [6]. (e) Equality only came late in Sweden; in a single-authored paper I dismiss explanations of twentieth century Social Democratic egalitarianism as continuations of any old peasant farmer-based equality, and argue that it was popular mobilization after 1870 which made Sweden the most egalitarian economy in the world [4]. The presentation will be based on the following papers: [1] “Wealth Inequality in Sweden, 1750–1900”. The Economic History Review, 2018, vol. 71 no. 3, pp. 772-794. Co-authored with with Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson. [2] “Aristocratic Wealth and Inequality in a Changing Society: Sweden, 1750–1900”. Forthcoming in the Scandinavian Journal of History. Co-authored with Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson. [3] “The Wealth of the Swedish Peasant Farmer Class, 1750–1900: Composition and Distribution”. Submitted to Rural History. Co-authored with Patrick Svensson. [4] “The Swedish Sonderweg in Question: Democratization and Inequality in Comparative Perspective, c. 1750–1920”. Forthcoming in Past & Present. [5] “Unequal Poverty and Equal Industrialization: Finnish Wealth, 1750–1900”. Forthcoming in Scandinavian Economic History Review. Co-authored with Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Ilkka Nummela. [6] ”Wealth and Its Distribution in Swedish Cities 1650–1715”. Work in progress. Co-authored with Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson.

• Wednesday 26 September 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  RIDOLFI Leonardo (Institute of Economics, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies,) : Six centuries of real wages in France from Louis IX to Napoleon III: 1250-1860

  Abstract

  A notable feature of the evolution of real wages in the pre-industrial period is their tendency to diverge in the North Sea Area from the rest of Europe by the early modern period. However, while this evidence lies its empirical foundations in the study of a large sample of leading European cities, the development of real wages from a broader national perspective is still largely unexplored. Using a newly constructed dataset, I take a step in this direction presenting new series of real wages for male agricultural laborers and construction workers in France from 1250 to 1860. I show that the overall picture is more complex than a “Little divergence thesis” would suggest since cross-national comparisons of real wages point to the coexistence of both divergence and convergence phases before the late eighteenth century. I also find that regional and sectoral differences are key to understand the evolution of real wages and I identify the major stages of this process.

• Wednesday 19 September 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MONTIALOUX Claire (CREST) : Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality in the US (1938-1980)

  Ellora Derenoncourt (Harvard)

  Abstract

  Racial earnings gaps fell dramatically in the late 1960s. We study the contribution of the federal minimum wage to this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act introduced high federal minimum wages to sectors that were previously uncovered and where black workers were overrepresented. We show that this reform increased wages for workers in newly covered industries and that the impact was twice as large for black workers as for white. We find no effect of the reform on employment. The 1966 extension of the minimum wage can explain 25% of the reduction in the racial wage gap in the United States as a whole in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Our findings shed new light on the impacts of labor standards on racial inequality.

• Wednesday 12 September 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SAKALLI Seyhun Orcan (UNIL) : Mass Refugee Inflow and Long-run Prosperity: Lessons from the Greek Population Resettlement

  with Elie Murard

  Abstract

  This paper investigates the long-term consequences of mass refugee inflow on economic development by examining the effect of the first large-scale population resettlement in modern history. After the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922, 1.2 million Greek Orthodox were forcibly resettled from Turkey to Greece, increasing the Greek population by more than 20% within a few months. We build a novel geocoded dataset locating settlements of refugees across the universe of the more than four thousand Greek municipalities that existed in Greece in 1920. Exploiting the spatial variation in the resettlement location, we find that localities with more refugees in 1923 have today higher earnings, higher levels of household wealth, greater educational attainment, as well as larger financial and manufacturing sectors. These results holds when comparing spatially contiguous municipalities with identical geographical features and are not driven by pre-settlement differences in initial level of development across localities. The long-run beneficial effects appear to arise from agglomeration economies generated by the large increase in the workforce, as well as by new industrial know-hows brought by refugees, which fostered early industrialization and economic growth.

• Wednesday 4 July 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R6-60, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  NEAL Larry (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) : A case study of how modern finance emerged in the crucible of war, 1789-1815

• Wednesday 27 June 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  STANZIANI Alessandro (EHESS) : Labor on the fringes of Empires, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

• Wednesday 20 June 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-13, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  ROTHSCHILD Emma (Harvard) : An Endless History: Economic Life in Angoulême, 1713-1906

• Wednesday 13 June 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  O SULLIVAN Mary (Université de Genève) : No Capitalism Please, We’re Historians: The Elusive Rôle of Profit in the History of Economic Life

  Abstract

  If capitalism is to have a distinctive economic meaning, that meaning stems not from the mere existence of capital but from capital’s relationship to profit. That makes the study of the generation and appropriation and erosion of profit of crucial importance to an understanding of capitalism. However, historians of economic life – whether economic historians, the new historians of capitalism or business historians – are remarkably reluctant to grapple with the history of profit. One could illustrate the point using any major controversy in the history of capitalism but I will illustrate historians’ neglect of profits by drawing on the ongoing debate about capitalism and slavery. Then I will turn to an important exception to the rule by focussing on the substantial and heterogeneous literature on the history of accounting. That literature offers valuable guidance on the meaning and measurement of profit over time but that is not the same as a history of profit. Instead what we need are historical studies of the generation, erosion, appropriation and deployment of profits and I will draw on historical research on profit and capital in mercantile history to suggest that such studies can offer promising insights on the historical dynamics of capitalism.

• Wednesday 6 June 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HURET Romain (EHESS) : Rethinking the Death Tax's Origins: States, Federalism and Inheritance Tax in the United States (1826-1929)

• Wednesday 30 May 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  PIKETTY Thomas (EHESS/PSE) : Inégalité et conflit politico-idéologique. France, Royaume-Uni, Etats-Unis 1948-2017

  Abstract

  Le séminaire sera donné en français et s'appuiera sur une recherche disponible en ligne à l'adresse http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/conflict

• Wednesday 23 May 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SICSIC Michaël : L’apogée Pompidou: large firms and vocational training

  Abstract

  The general and broad view about the Trente Glorieuses hides quite different periods between 1946 and 1973. Up to the mid sixties the very quick growth in France was then seen as a catch up relative to its own trend before the thirties. Then the continuation along the same path came as a surprise. This paper is about this period from around 1965 to 1973. This short period (50 years ago) was new and different from the reconstruction because it was the beginning of a long process of reduction in work time, of reduction in wages inequality, while there was a renewed increase in industrial labor force. It was a time of concentration of large private firms with strong internal training within those firms, in a particularly favorable macro environment for France. The first section describes the impressive relative success of the French economy. The second section addresses the macro environment, with focuses on public finances more than on the 1969 devaluation, and the third section recall the evolving view of the best analysts from the mid sixties to the eighties about French growth. The fourth section deals with the concentration of firms which is not interpreted as the result of a dirigiste industrial policy but as private firms consolidating, helped by a legislative change in 1965 favorable to mergers and acquisitions. The fifth section attempts to shed some light on vocational continuing training.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 16 May 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-07, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  FELICE Emmanuele : The Roots of a Dual Equilibrium: GDP, Productivity and Structural Change in the Italian Regions in the Long-run (1871-2011)

  Abstract

  The article presents updated estimates of GDP per capita, productivity and employment for Italy’s regions, at the NUTS II level and at current borders, for the whole economy and its three branches (agriculture, industry, services): they span 140 years in ten-year benchmarks (1871-2011). Sigma and beta convergence are tested for GDP per capita, productivity and employment-to-population. Four phases in the history of Italy’s regional inequality are identified, roughly coinciding with the different political eras of the country: mild divergence (the liberal age), strong divergence (the interwar years), general convergence (the golden age) and the “two-Italies” tale (1971-2011). In the first two phases we observe the formation of three macro-areas; in the last decades, we record convergence within the Centre-North and an increasing North/South polarization, with differences in employment becoming more important than those in productivity. This result is in line with a socio-institutional interpretation of the North/South divide.

• Wednesday 9 May 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  PALA Giovanni (Oxford) : Innovation encouragement in pre-unification Italy: the case of patents and industrial fairs, 1815-1860

  Abstract

  The importance of patents of invention in influencing the direction of innovation and economic choices is increasingly supported in the literature, both theoretically and empirically. Their role as an instrument to deepen our understanding of specific industrial or macroeconomic dynamics is similarly well-established. The use of this tool applied to the nineteenth century European peripheral economies has been limited though, and in the Italian case discontinuous in either time or geographic scope. In fact, there are major geographic areas that are completely unexplored for the years of the Risorgimento (1815-1861). My research fills this gap and provides a new dataset that for the first time compares patent trends in the three kingdoms of Lombardy-Venetia, Sardinia and the Two Sicilies. Additionally, it proposes a study of the legislation and institutional debate in the Italian states using new archival sources. Three results emerge from the study. Firstly, evidence of an increasing confidence and final expansion in the use of patents to protect the traditional Risorgimento’s sectors of innovation. Secondly, that this expansion was fueled in a conspicuous way by foreign capital and foreign innovations, chiefly of French origin. Thirdly, that this was in part understood and tolerated by the administration and establishment of the time as part of a set of policies for the encouragement of inventiveness and growth in the peninsula, which included industrial fairs. These results confirm some of the received wisdom on the period and reassess the Italian dependency from and openness to foreign countries by placing its incipit firmly in the first half of the century. The results are particularly relevant for the debate on the nature and benefits of patenting, their use as tools for the acquisition of other countries’ knowledge, and the creation of incentives for foreign investments inflows. Further study of French investments in peripheral economies is warranted.

• Wednesday 2 May 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HUBERMAN Michael (U. Montréal) : Domestic Barriers to Internal and International Trade: New Evidence for Brazil, 1920-1940

• Wednesday 18 April 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MITCHENER Kris : Swords into Bank Shares: Finance, Conflict and Political Reform in Meiji Japan

• Wednesday 11 April 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  WHITE Eugene (Rutgers University) : Censored Success: How to Prevent a Banking Panic, the Barings Crisis of 1890 Revisited

  Abstract

  Financial histories have treated the Barings Crisis of 1890 as a minor or pseudo-crisis, presenting no threat to the systems of payment or settlement and readily managed by following Bagehot’s LOLR rule. New evidence reveals that Barings Brothers, a SIFI, was a deeply insolvent institution. Just as its true condition was revealed and a full-scale panic was about to ignite, the Bank of England stepped in; but it did not respond as Bagehot recommended. While lending freely at a high rate on good collateral to other institutions, the Bank organized a pre-emptive lifeboat operation. Barings was split into a good bank that was recapitalized and a bad bank that had a prolonged but orderly liquidation supported by credit from the Bank. A financial crisis was thereby avoided, while steps were taken to mitigate the effects of moral hazard from this discretionary intervention. Contrary to the historical consensus for the pre-1914 era, central banks did not follow a strict Bagehot rule but exercised discretion when faced with the failure of a giant financial institution. Their success has led to a reading of history that has censored lessons in effective approaches to halting incipient crises.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 4 April 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SOTURA Aurélie (BdF) : Spatial income inequalities in France: 1960-2014

  BONNET Florian (PSE)

  Abstract

  Abstract: Is there convergence between and within French départements? We shed new light on this question thanks to a new database on local distributions of income in France from 1960 to 2014. The main contribution of this paper is the creation of a database on French metropolitan départements income distribution, using around 4500 fiscal tabulations collected in the Archives of French Economic Ministry, a new demographic database by Bonnet(2018), and income distribution for France computed by Garbinti et al. (2016). With our database, we first show that, today, total inequality comes only from intra départements inequality (that is inequality within départements). This is the result of a beta-convergence that took place bewteen départments. Second, we do not find any impact of intra départements measures of inequality on départements income per capita growth.Third, we find that on the period 1960-2014, there has been a growing concentration of population, employment, and value added per départements, whereas income concentration has, if anything, stabilized. This comes partly from the relocation of retirees to non productive but attractive places.

• Wednesday 28 March 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  GRANDI Elisa (PSE) : Face-off in Bogota. Transnational networks and lending practices in World Bank early missions (Colombia 1949-1954)

• Wednesday 21 March 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MONTALBO Adrien (PSE) : Economic resources and primary schooling in the early nineteenth-century France

  Abstract

  The Guizot Law of 1833 was the first step undertaken in France towards the organization of primary schooling at a national level, making it mandatory for municipalities more than 500 inhabitants to open a primary school for boys. To this date, primary schooling was mostly managed by municipal authorities who could freely decide to subsidise schools or to let them be entirely funded through schooling fees paid by families. A national survey was conducted in 1833 to determine the location of the existing primary schools. Exploiting the data coming from this survey at the arrondissements (departmental districts) and municipal levels, I investigate the economic determinants of primary schooling spreading in France before the Guizot Law. I first show that economic resources and population dispersion were key in explaining primary schools’ presence, municipal grants and higher enrolment rates. The percentage of municipalities with schools along with the percentage of teachers provided with an accommodation, a classroom, a fixed salary or an occupation by municipalities were indeed higher in wealthier districts. Then, I show that the pattern of this investment was also depending on the population deciles municipalities were belonging to. Finally, I investigate the link between municipal grants and enrolment rates. Local authorities acted to lower the level of fees in the schools they subsidised, which reduced the costs of education borne by families and contributed to increase enrolment rates. Primary schooling thus developed mostly in areas where it was economically valuable, through the concomitant action of municipalities and families, which divided the burden of education costs.

• Wednesday 14 March 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SALISBURY Laura (York University) : Marrying for Money: Evidence from the First Wave of Married Women's Property Laws in the U.S.

  Abstract

  Marriage can substitute for formal business contracts, especially in environments that lack a well established system of contract or corporate law. In such settings, marriage can facilitate the efficient organization of labor and capital. In this paper, we explore the pooling of capital as an explicit motive for marriage. We measure the impact of a class of married women's property acts introduced in the American South during the 1840s on assortative matching in the marriage market. These laws did not grant married women autonomy over their separate estate; they merely shielded their property from seizure by their husbands' creditors. This had the dual effect of mitigating downside risk while restricting a husband's ability to borrow against his wife's property; it also preserved the bulk of the wife's assets as inheritance for the couple's children. Using a newly compiled database of linked marriage and census records, we show that these laws were associated with an overall increase in assortative mating, suggesting that the ability to pool capital importantly contributed to the gains from marriage. At the same time, there is considerable heterogeneity in the effect in different regions of the joint men's and women's wealth distribution. We provide an interpretation for these results.

• Wednesday 7 March 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  NELSON Scott (University of Georgia) : A Nitroglycerin Apocalypse

  Abstract

  This talk will explore the relationship between stabilized nitrates and states, from the formation of empires based on gunpowder in the fifteenth century to the role of nitroglycerin in destroying them after 1868. Topics will include new tunnels in the international network (Suez, Mt. Cenis, and the Appalachian mountains), how grain storage centers moved as transcontinental cables emerged, and suggest how stabilized nitroglycerin contributed to the international panic of 1873.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 21 February 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  VELDE François (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) : Lottery Loans in the Eighteenth

• Wednesday 14 February 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  RUEDA Valeria (Oxford) : Political unification and geographic economic disparities in Italy 1861-71

  Brian A’Hearn

• Wednesday 7 February 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  GOVIN Yajna (PSE) : Income Inequality: The case of Overseas Departments of France- Long Run Trends and Comparisons

• Wednesday 24 January 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SALEH Mohamed (University of Stanford) : Socioeconomic Inequality across Religious Groups in the Middle East

  Abstract

  This book project plans to study various questions related to the long-standing socioeconomic inequality across religious groups in the Middle East. It draws on novel primary data sources including medieval papyri, historical population censuses, and tax registers, in order to document the socioeconomic advantage of non-Muslim minorities in the region and how it evolved over time and varied across groups and territories. It then examines how inter-religion socioeconomic inequality was impacted by European influence and state-led development since 1800. Finally, it explores the historical roots of this inequality and the role of Islamic taxation in its emergence, and how the Islamic tax system itself evolved in response to it. Overall, the planned manuscript is part of a larger project that attempts to write a new evidence-based economic history of the region that draws on the digitization of various primary unexplored data sources at local and European archives and that combines the quantitative approaches of the social sciences with the large historical literature. In doing so, it builds on earlier work of pioneering economic historians of the region, while attempting to go beyond the conceptual and methodological divisions that separate economic historians from historians as well as those that separate nationalist from colonial narratives.

• Wednesday 17 January 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HILT Eric (Wellesley College) : Banks, Insider Connections, and Industrialization in New England: Evidence from the Panic of 1873.

  Abstract

  Using newly collected data from Massachusetts, this paper documents the extent of bank director representation non-financial firms’ boards, and investigates whether bank-affiliated companies fared better during the recession that followed the Panic of 1873. Around 59 percent of all non-financial corporations had at least one bank director on their boards. These firms survived the recession of the 1870s at higher rates, and among the surviving firms, those with bank affiliations saw their growth rates and credit ratings decline less than firms without bank affiliations. Consistent with banker-directors helping to resolve problems related to asymmetric information, these effects were strongest among younger firms, and those with lower shares of fixed assets on their balance sheets. In contrast, the presence of bank cashiers on firms’ boards, which created an association with a bank without significantly increasing the likelihood of a credit relationship, had no effect. These results imply that during New England’s industrialization, affiliations with commercial banks helped nonfinancial corporations survive economic downturns.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 10 January 2018 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  ADELMAN Jeremy (Princeton) : The Global Gilded Age: Integration, Inequality, and Fragility

  Abstract

  This is an initial draft of the second chapter of a book I am writing about debates about global interdependence from the nineteenth century to the present. This paper focuses on the period before 1914, the first “Great Convergence” – to show how integration created new wealth and opportunities – as well as new fissures and fragilities across societies. Interdependence locked societies together and drove them apart at the same time. Understanding those contradictory dynamics might help to illuminate our current tensions.

• Wednesday 13 December 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MICHELMORE Molly (Washington and Lee University) : As a Taxpayer and a Citizen: The History of Tax Politics in the 20th Century United States

• Tuesday 5 December 2017 12:30-13:30

  Salle R2-01 , Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  TAYLOR Alan (University of California Davis) : The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 29 November 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  FERNIHOUGH Alan (Queen's University) : Less is More? The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off in Early 20th Century England and Wales

  Abstract

  Less is More? The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off in Early 20th Century England and Wales Whilst the child quantity-quality (QQ) model is theoretically well-established, the empirical literature offers only partial support. Motivated by the limited causal empirical evidence in both historic and contemporary societies, this study examines the relationship connecting fertility and child quality for individual families in England and Wales at the start of the 20th century. Using data from the 1911 census returns, I estimate whether reductions in family size reduce the probability of leaving school. To account for the endogenous nature of fertility decisions, I use the sex composition of the first two births in families with at least two children as an instrumental variable (IV) for family size. Overall, I find evidence in support of a child QQ effect, as children in the 13--15 age cohort born into smaller families were more likely remain in school. Whilst the IV results are very similar to the non-IV ones, one drawback is that the IV estimates are quite imprecise.

• Wednesday 22 November 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-11, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  IRIGOIN Alejandra (London School Of Economics) : Standard Error: the problems for economic historians from (mis)taking Spanish American silver as commodity money, 1778?1820

  Abstract

  An important stream of recent scholarship on issues of global economic history has used silver grains to produce comparable estimates of living standards and market integration in the so called Great Divergence. Considering silver as commodity money they have standardised local prices and wages to the purchasing power of silver in each economy. However, as shown for the case of 1800s China and the US (Irigoin 2009, 2013), silver in the form of the Spanish American peso enjoyed a price in different markets which was relatively independent of its intrinsic value. In other words silver had also a monetary value.   Revisiting a high frequency series of the price of silver bullion and specie in Britain through the 18th and early 19th century, the paper first: estimates the premium – and its variation?  that specie had over bullion in the London market and secondly: discusses the implications of using of silver as commodity for comparative purposes.  Thirdly and more importantly it also qualifies established interpretations on the economic development of Latin America in the aftermath of its independence from Spain.  

• Wednesday 15 November 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  LEMERCIER Claire (CNRS) : Studying apprenticeship in 18th- and 19th-century Paris. Mixing the qualitative and the quantitative

  Clare Crowston (University of Illinois)

• Wednesday 8 November 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SCALONE Francesco (Université de Bologne) : Neonatal mortality, Cold Weather and Socio-Economic Status in two Northern Italian Rural Parishes from 1820 to 1900

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 25 October 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  HANLON Walker (NYU Stern School of Business) : A Century of Pollution and Mortality: London, 1866-1965

  Abstract

  Abstract: Relatively little is known about how the effects of pollution evolve as countries develop, due in part to the scarcity of historical pollution measures. This study improves our understanding of this process by estimating the acute effects of pollution in London across the century spanning 1866-1965 using detailed new weekly mortality data. To identify pollution effects I reviewed daily weather reports for over 31,000 days to identify fog events. I show that these events substantially increased pollution concentrations and that, because they depended on a complex set of climatic conditions, their week-to-week timing was as good as random after appropriate controls are included. This allows me to explore a variety of questions related to (1) the overall impact of acute pollution effects in London across the century, (2) how this impact evolved over time, (3) how pollution effects varied across age groups, (4) how pollution interacted with infectious diseases and (5) how the reduction in infectious diseases influenced the effects of pollution overall and for different age groups.

• Wednesday 18 October 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MCGAUGHEY Ewan (Kings College) : On the history of co-determination and power sharing/worker voting rights in company boards

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 11 October 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  BAILEY Marta (University of Michigan) : Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Term Effects of Head Start on Children

• Wednesday 4 October 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CHRISTIN Olivier (CEDRE) : Les vrais actionnaires de l'entreprise sociale (Sieyes) : compagnies par actions et théorie de la représentation à l'époque moderne

• Wednesday 27 September 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  ZHURAVSKAYA Ekaterina (PSE) : Middleman, Minorities and Ethnic Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Russian Empire

  Irena Grosfeld and Seyhun Orcan Sakalli

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 20 September 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  ASANTE Kofi (IAAST) : Fiscal Imperative and Colonial Power in the 19th Century Gold Coast

• Wednesday 13 September 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  MILHAUD Cyril (PSE) : Fragmentation of capital markets in early modern Spain? Composite monarchies and their jurisdictions

• Wednesday 21 June 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CAMPBELL Cameron (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) : Examination Qualifications and Civil Service Employment during the Qing (1644-1911): New Evidence From Big Data

  James LEE (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

• Wednesday 14 June 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CHAMLEY Christophe (PSE) : L’Etat fragmenté sous Philippe II de Castille: intermédiation financière et fiscale

  Abstract

  Through shocks that were to some extent exogenous, Spain became in the pre-modern period the dominant power of its period. Philip II (1556-1598) had to deal with large and fluctuating expenditures and revenues within the constraints of political, fiscal and financial decentralization. In this context, Genoese bankers played a critical role in the management of the “sinews of war”. Current research provides new insights on their actions, on the policy constraints and on the so-called bankruptcies of Philip II. The presentation will provide the elements of a synthesis from the works in http://www.chamley.net/castile/

• Wednesday 7 June 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  REUNION DU GROUPE

• Wednesday 31 May 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SPITZER Yannay (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : Pale in Comparison The Economic Ecology of the Jews as a Rural Service Minority

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 24 May 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  VON GLAHN Richard (UCLA) : Modalities of the fiscal state in imperial China in comparative perspective

• Wednesday 17 May 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  ALVAREDO Facundo (PSE) : Top wealth shares in the UK over more than a century

  Anthony B. Atkinson, and Salvatore Morelli

• Wednesday 3 May 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  RAFF Dan (Wharton) : The Book Trade in America: Some Business and Economic History of Twentieth-Century American Culture I. Preliminary Matters and Culture, Reading, and Books as a Business

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 26 April 2017 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan (nouveau bâitment) - Salle R2-01

  RIVA Angelo (European Business School and PSE) : Equipex Données financières historiques ? Questions et Méthodes

  Elisa GRANDI, Raphael HEKIMIAN, Emmanuel PRUNAUX et Stefano UNGARO - (Atelier Histoire Economique)

• Wednesday 19 April 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  SANCHEZ Samuel (Paris 1) : Fiscalité et construction du Royaume de Madagascar au XIXe siècle

  (Atelier Histoire Economique)

• Wednesday 29 March 2017 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan (nouveau bâtiment) Salle R2-20

  FERRIE Joseph (Northwestern) : Intergenerational Mobility in the US, 1850-2015 : Income and Educational attainment across six Generations

• Wednesday 22 March 2017 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan (nouveau bâtiment) R2-20

  LI Yang : Scar of Taiping : The Long-Term Development Impact of the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

• Wednesday 15 March 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R1-14 (Nouveau bâtiment), Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CAGE Julia (Sciences Po) : Payroll and inequality within the newsroom: evidence from France, 1936-2016

• Wednesday 8 March 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  LEVY John : The 'Capital' in Capitalism

  Abstract

  This talk surveys various approaches to the study of capitalism, exploring relative emphases upon the investment function. Drawing from Keynes’s writings on liquidity preference, the goal is explain why the history of capitalism since 1945 demands special attention to the investment function, what kinds of analyses such attention demands, and what insights about the economic past it might possibly yield.

• Wednesday 1 March 2017 12:30-14:00

  COGNEAU Denis (PSE) : Public Finance in the French Colonial Empire 1870-1970

  Yannick DUPRAZ and Sandrine MESPLE-SOMP - (Atelier Histoire Economique)

• Wednesday 22 February 2017 13:00-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  REUNION DE GROUPE

• Wednesday 1 February 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  CASARI Marco (University of Bologna) : Group size and collective action: learning from six centuries of management of the commons in the Italian Alps

  Marco Casari and Claudio Tagliapietra

  Abstract

  Cooperation is challenging in large groups. Here we study what is the group size that characterizes well-functioning social-ecological systems. We consider systems where groups harvest a common resource and govern it through collective deliberations. Through an in depth study of hundreds of communities over six centuries, we report a remarkable long term stability in group size at around 150. This figure is determined by social rather than ecological factors. To maintain a constant size in the presence of population growth, groups engaged in fissions. Moreover, social heterogeneity shaped both group size and institutional complexity. What limits group size seems to be a "Double Bound:" individual cognition constraints in keeping track of resource users as well as the need to reach coherent collective decisions.

• Wednesday 18 January 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  LEROUXEL Francois (Univ. Paris-Sorbonne) : Le changement dans l'antiquité

  ZURBACH Julien (ENS)

• Wednesday 11 January 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  TOUZERY Mireille (Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne) : Les inégalités fiscales en France en 1789. Territoires et groupes sociaux : les chiffres et les cartes

• Wednesday 4 January 2017 12:30-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  BROWNLEE Elliot (UC Santa Barbara) : The long-swings in American tax and fiscal policy from the colonial era to the present.

• Wednesday 14 December 2016 12:30-14:00

  Salle 8, RDC Bâtiment G, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

  JUHASZ Reka (Columbia University) : Temporary Protection and Technology Adoption: Evidence from the Napoleonic Blockade

• Wednesday 30 November 2016 12:30-14:00

  LYON-CAEN Nicolas : Dans la chaleur des enchères : marché et prix des immeubles en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

  (Atelier Histoire Economique) - BEGUIN Katia

• Wednesday 23 November 2016 12:30-14:00

  MONNET Eric (Banque de France) : Foreign Reserves and International Adjustments under the Bretton Woods System : A Reappraisal

  Vincent DUCHAUSSOY (Université de Normandie)

• Wednesday 16 November 2016 12:30-14:00

  REUNION DU GROUPE

• Wednesday 9 November 2016 12:30-14:00

  MILHAUD Cyril (PSE) : Public borrowing and crowding-out in Spain at the turn of the nineteenth century

  (Atelier Histoire Economique)

• Wednesday 19 October 2016 12:30-14:00

  REUNION DU GROUPE

• Wednesday 12 October 2016 12:30-14:00

  GELDERBLOM Oscar (Utrecht University) : Public Functions, Private Markets : Credit Registration by Aldermen and Notaries in the Low Countries, 1500-1800

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 28 September 2016 12:30-14:00

  CONDORELLI Stefano (U. of Bern) : Why did innovation in state finance spike during the 1719-20 equity boom? A pan-European perspective

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 8 June 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 10

  ALFANI Guido (Université de Bocconi) : Economic inequality in preindustrial Europe, 1300-1800

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 25 May 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  SCHULARICK Moritz : In Debt We Trust, U.S. Household Debt 1950-2013.

• Wednesday 18 May 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  MICHAEL Huberman (Université de Montréal) : International competition in cotton textiles before 1914

• Wednesday 13 April 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  TRACY DENNISON : The Political Economy of Pre-Soviet Russia

• Tuesday 5 April 2016 14:30-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 10

  Séance Exceptionnelle

  Abstract

  Séance Exceptionnelle
  
  4ème Après-midi de l'Atelier Simiand Doctorants en Histoire Economique
  Organisateur : Angelo Riva
  
  14h30 - Stefano UNGARO (PSE/EHESS/DFIH),
  An inquiry on determinants of risk: the French money market between 1880 and 1914
  Discutant : Clemence JOBST, Oesterreichische Nationalbank
  
  15h20 - Cyril MILHAUD (PSE/EHESS),
  Capital Market Integration in Early Modern Spain. A Reconsideration.
  Discutant : TBA
  
  16h10 - Pause
  
  16h40 - Raphael HEKIMIAN (Economix-Paris Ouest La Défense/DFIH),
  The French banking sector during the interwar: a view from the Paris Bourse
  Discutant: Stefano BATTILOSSI, Carlos III University-Madrid
  
  17h30 Elisa GRANDI (Université Paris Diderot / Università di Bologna/DFIH),
  International advising and economic development in Italy: The World Bank loans (1955-1960)
  Discutant : Francesco VERCELLI, Banca d’Italia

• Wednesday 23 March 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  GARCIA-PENALOSA Cecilia (GREQAM) : Protectionism and the Education Fertility Tradeoff in Late 19th century France

  Vincent Bignon

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 9 March 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  CARLO TAVIANI (University of Cape Town) : A Genealogy of the Global Corporations? The Casa di San Giorgio and the Fortune of its Model. *

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 17 February 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  YUN-CASALILLA Bartolomé (University Pablo de Olavide) : Fiscal states, composite monarchies and political economies. A view from the Spanish empire

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 27 January 2016 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ZORINA KHAN ( Bowdoin College ) : Related Investing: Corporate Ownership and the Dynamics of Capital Mobilization during Industrialization

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 13 January 2016 12:30-14:00

  GREEN Brett (WUSTL) : A very English institution? Foreign influences and the poor law.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 9 December 2015 12:30-14:00

  SALEH Mohamed (University of Stanford) : The Cotton Boom and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Rural Egypt

  Abstract

  The “staples thesis” argues that institutions in a given region could be explained by the nature of production of its prevailing staples, whereby slavery is likely to emerge in “slave-conducive” crops, such as cotton, rice, and sugarcane. This paper evaluates the thesis using a unique natural experiment from nineteenth-century rural Egypt, the cotton boom that occurred because of the American Civil War in 1861-1865. Historical evidence suggests that the cotton boom marked the emergence of the short-lived institution of large-scale agricultural slavery in Egypt’s Nile Delta, where all slaves were imported from East Africa, before the abolition of slavery in 1877. Employing the newly digitized Egyptian individual-level population census samples from 1848 and 1868, I find that cotton-favorable districts witnessed greater increases in household’s slaveholdings and the share of slave-owning households between 1848 and 1868 than less favorable districts. Those districts also witnessed greater increase in the population share of free local immigrants. I examine several potential mechanisms of these effects, namely, cross-district differences in the relative scarcity of free local labor and inter-crop differences in economies of scale and skill-intensity (results on mechanisms are not complete). *

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 25 November 2015 12:30-14:00

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  MONNET Eric : Monetary financing of public debt in France (1914-1993): accounting and political economy issues

• Wednesday 28 October 2015 12:30-14:00

  CHAPMAN Jonathan : The franchise, taxes and public goods: the political economy of sanitation infrastructure in nineteenth-century England

• Wednesday 14 October 2015 12:30-14:00

  WALDENSTOM Daniel : Inherited wealth over the path of development: Sweden, 1810–2010

• Wednesday 17 June 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  GAY Victor (University of Chicago, Department of Economics) : The Missing Men. World War I and female labor participation.

  Co-author : Jörn Boehnke

• Wednesday 3 June 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  LOESER Annie (PSE) : Regional Variations in the Severity of the Great Depression in France.

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 27 May 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  FEDERICO Giovanni (University of Pisa and Univesity Carlos III, Madrid) : A Tale of two Globalizations: World Trade and Openness 1800-2010

  Co-author : Antonio Tena-Junguito

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 6 May 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  FOCHESATO Mattia (SciencesPo) : Demographic shocks, labor institutions and wage divergence in early modern Europe

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 15 April 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ZHURAVSKAYA Ekaterina (PSE) : Economic results of abolition of serfdom in Russia

• Wednesday 8 April 2015 17:00-18:30

  The session was canceled.

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ZHURAVSKAYA Ekaterina (PSE) : Economic results of abolition of serfdom in Russia

• Wednesday 18 March 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  BITTNER Jasper (Oxford University) : Bankruptcy Laws and Standortpolitik –The Case of Hamburg 1850-1870.

• Wednesday 11 February 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  SOLAR Peter (Vesalius College) : British Shipping during the Industrial Revolution

• Wednesday 21 January 2015 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  DUPRAZ Yannick (PSE) : Long Term Persistence of Colonial Education? A Discontinuity Analysis at the Border between French and English Speaking Cameroon.

• Wednesday 17 December 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  SOHN Alexander (Université de Bielefeld) : In Chance We Trust - A critical reflection of a statistical study on the development of professorial salaries in Germany over the 20th century

• Wednesday 26 November 2014 16:00-17:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ONORATO Massimiliano (IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca) : Military Conflict and the Economic Rise of Urban Europe.

  Co-author : Mark Dincecco

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 5 November 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  WHITE Eugen (Rutgers University) : THE EVOLUTION OF BANK BOARDS OF DIRECTORS IN NEW YORK, 1840-1950

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 8 October 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  DELBOS Jean-Brieux (PSE) : Once in the elite, always in the elite? Changing wealth in a changing city (Paris, France, 1845-1859)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 25 June 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  AUSTIN Gareth (Graduate Institute Geneva) : Markets, slaves and states in West Africa, 1500 - present

• Wednesday 21 May 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  FURIO Antoni (Université de Valencia) : In the beginning of the public debt. War, State-building and towns in the late Middle Ages

• Wednesday 30 April 2014 14:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ATELIER SEMIAND

  14h00 – 14h45 Jérémy DUCROS (EHESS and PSE): The Lyon Stock Exchange: the Struggle for the Survival (1866-1914) Co-author: Angelo Riva 14h45 – 15h30 Stefano UNGARO (EHESS and PSE): Between macro and finance: The French reports market at the outbreak of WW1 15h30 – 16h15 Raphael HEKIMIAN (Economix – Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense and PSE): The 1929 NYSE crash: How did the French market react? Co-author: David Le Bris 17h - 18h30 OOSTERLINCK Kim (Université Libre de Bruxelles-Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management) Risk Aversion during World War II: Evidence from Belgian Lottery Bond Prices. Co-authors: Matthieu Gilson & Andrey Ukhov)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 26 March 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ARTHI Vellore (University of Oxford) : “THE DUST WAS LONG IN SETTLING”:HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE LASTING IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN DUST BOWL

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 5 March 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  GOÑI TRAFACH Marc (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) : Sorting and the Season: Elite Marriage Matching and Inequality in 19th Century Britain

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 29 January 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  BASSINO Jean-Pascal (ENS-Lyon) : An escape from poverty in medieval Japan; real wages in Kyoto and European cities (1250-1850)

  Co-author(s): K. Fukao et M. Takashima, Hitotsubashi University

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 8 January 2014 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  LEROUXEL François (Université Paris-Sorbonne) : Le marché du crédit en Egypte romaine

• Wednesday 11 December 2013 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  POSTEL-VINAY Natacha (LSE) : What Caused Chicago Bank Failures in the Great Depression? A Look at the 1920

• Wednesday 13 November 2013 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  BRUEGEL Martin (INRA) : Contrôle social de la consommation des pauvres

• Wednesday 9 October 2013 14:00-18:30

  14H-15h30 - Salle E101 1) Jinzhao Chen (PSE) « European Financial Market Integration, 1844-1870 Co-author(s): avec Vincent Bignon, Stefano Ugolini 2) Emmanuel Prunaux (PSE et BdF) « La classification des crédits à la banque de France au début du XIXe siècle » 15h30-17H - Salle E101 Carlos Álvarez-Nogal (Carlos III) et Christophe Chamley (PSE), "Public debt, private credit markets, fairs and the payment stop of Philip II in 1575” 16h30 - Coffe Break - room 8 17h-18h30 - Salle 8 Oscar Gelderblom, “Banks versus Markets: The Character of the Amsterdam Financial System during the Seventeenth-Century”, Co-author(s): Joost Jonker et Clemens Kool

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 18 September 2013 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  VELINOV Daniel (Post Doctorant à l'Université Lyon 2) : Intégration des marchés financiers et signification de l'écart entre des cours du change à échéances différentes : l'enseignement de la documentation du banquier anversois La Bistrate (1654-1674)

  Full text [pdf]

• Wednesday 11 September 2013 17:00-18:30

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, rez-de-chaussée, salle 8

  ZHURAVSKAYA Ekaterina (PSE-EHESS) : Radio and the rise of the Nazis in Pre-War Germany

  Co-author(s): M. Adena, R. Enikolopov, M. Petrova & V. Santarosa

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 27 May 2013 17:30-19:00

  The session was canceled.

  REYNAUD Bénédicte (CNRS-PSE) : Les usines en feu : industrialisation, risque et incendies au milieu du XIXe siècle (1830-1870).

• Monday 8 April 2013 17:30-19:00

  CONDORELLI Stefano (UNIGE) : La reconstruction de Catane après le tremblement de terre de 1693 : quel financement et quel impact sur l’économie citadine ?

• Friday 29 March 2013 14:00-18:00

  WONG R. BIN (UCLA) HOFFMAN Philip

  SEANCE EXCEPTIONNELLE JOINTE AVEC LE PROGAMME OSE 3 Etats et Empires Autour de : R. Bin WONG & Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, _Before and Beyond Divergence. The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe_, Harvard University Press 2011 Philip HOFFMAN, "Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World?", w.p., 2012 Alessandro Stanziani, _Bâtisseurs d'empires, Russie, Chine et Inde à la croisée des mondes, XVème-XIXème siècle_, Editions Raisons d'Agir, 2012

• Monday 18 March 2013 17:30-19:00

  DHERBECOURT Clément (PSE) : L’échec des héritiers

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 4 March 2013 17:30-19:00

  WHITE Eugen (Rutgers) : Can Moral Hazard Be Avoided? The Banque de France and the Crisis of 1889

• Monday 18 February 2013 17:30-19:00

  BEGUIN Katia (EHESS-CRH) : Dissimulation du coût des emprunts et insoutenabilité de la dette : une relecture de la course à l'abîme financier de la monarchie absolue (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle)

• Monday 7 January 2013 17:30-19:00

  ARNOUX Mathieu (Université de Paris 7 et EHESS) : Le temps des laboureurs - Travail, ordre social et croissance en Europe (XIe-XIVe siècle)

• Monday 17 December 2012 17:30-19:00

  CHATZIMPIROS Petros (Université de Paris VII) : Histoire agricole de l'approvisionnement de Paris (titre provisoire)

• Monday 3 December 2012 17:30-19:00

  FLANDREAU Marc (The Graduate Institute) : The Price of Media Capture and the Looting of Newspapers in Interwar France

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 November 2012 17:30-19:00

  LEOSER Annie (PSE) : Economic voting in interwar France: the impact of local economic conditions (1928-1936)

• Monday 5 November 2012 17:30-19:00

  GRAFE Regina (Northwestern) : Revisiting Spanish "backwardness" 1650-1800: Economists' mythical models

• Monday 29 October 2012 17:30-19:00

  SALEH Mohamed (TSE) : On the Road to Heaven: Poll tax, Religion, and Human Capital in Medieval and Modern Egypt

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 15 October 2012 17:30-19:00

  HUBERMAN Michael (Unige) : Commerce international et protection sociale

• Monday 1 October 2012 17:30-19:00

  STANZIANI Alessandro (CNRS et EHESS) : "Bâtisseurs d'Empires. Russie, Chine et Inde à la croisée des mondes, XVe-XIXe siècles"

• Monday 4 June 2012 17:30-19:00

  STASAVAGE David (New York University ) : Technology and the Era of thé Mass Army

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 21 May 2012 17:30-19:00

  HUMPHRIES Jane (Oxford University) : Childhood and child labour in the British industrial revolution

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 May 2012 17:30-19:00

  RIVA Angelo (European Business School) : Stock exchange industry regulation. The Paris Bourse, 1893 - 1898

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 2 April 2012 17:30-19:00

  BOSKER Marteen (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) : City seeds: geography and the origins of European cities

  Co-author(s) : Eltjo Buringh

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 March 2012 17:30-19:00

  PLOECKL Florian (Oxford University ) : Market Access and Information Technology Adoption : Historical Evidence from the Telephone in Bavaria

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 5 March 2012 17:30-19:00

  WALLIS Patrick (London School of Economics ) : Why did (pre - industrial) firms train? Premiums and apprenticeship contracts in 18th century England

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 20 February 2012 17:30-19:00

  HOFFMAN Philip (California Intitute of Technology) : Entry, Information, and Financial Development: A Century of Competition between French Banks and Notaries

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 30 January 2012 17:30-19:00

  DAUDIN Guillaume (Lille) : Fertility convergence through internal migration: the French case

  Co-author(s) : Raphael Franck, Bar Ilan U, Israel

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 16 January 2012 17:30-19:00

  FRANKEMA Ewout (Utrecht University) : Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880-1965

  Co-author(s):Marlous van Waijenburg, Northwestern University

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 5 December 2011 17:30-19:00

  BIGNON Vincent (Banque de France) : Stealing to Survive : Crime and Income Shocks in 19th Century France

  Co-author(s): Roberto Galbiati

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 21 November 2011 17:30-19:00

  ESTEVES Rui (Oxford University) : The First Global Emerging Markets Investor : Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust 1880-1913

  Joint paper with David Chambers

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 November 2011 17:30-19:00

  SAARITSA Sakari (Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF)) : La répartition des ressources à l'intérieur des ménages en Finlande au début du XXe siècle

• Monday 31 October 2011 17:30-19:00

  SANTACREU-VASUT Estafania (ESSEC) : A Novel Approach to the Study of Culture and Economics: Languages Grammatical Structures

  Joint paper with Amir Shoham

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 17 October 2011 17:30-19:00

  DHERBECOURT Clément (EHESS) : Les conséquences redistributrices de la courbe en J des taux de reproduction par classes sociales à Paris et en France de 1860 à 1950.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 6 June 2011 17:30-19:00

  ZHURAVSKAIA Ekaterina (PSE) : M-form hierarchy with poorly-diversified divisions: a case of Khrushchev’s reform in Soviet Russia

  Co-auteur(s) : Andrei Markevich

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 30 May 2011 17:30-19:00

  CANTONI Davide (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) : The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution

  Co-auteur(s) : Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 23 May 2011 17:30-19:00

  WHITE Eugene (Rutgers University) : To Establish a More Effective Supervision of Banking : How the Birth of the Fed Altered Bank Supervision

• Monday 16 May 2011 17:30-19:00

  The session was canceled.

  WHITE Eugene (Rutgers University) : To Establish a More Effective Supervision of Banking: How the Birth of the Fed Altered Bank Supervision

  Séance reporter le 23 mai

• Monday 2 May 2011 17:30-19:00

  DELBOS Jean Brieux (PSE) : La mobilité économique des Parisiens au XIXème siècle

• Saturday 30 April 2011 09:00-18:00

  EurHiStock Conference

  ATTENTION : LE 30/04/2011 EST UN SAMEDI

• Friday 29 April 2011 09:00-18:00

  EurHiStock Conference

  ATTENTION : LE 29/04/11 EST UN VENDREDI

• Monday 4 April 2011 17:30-19:00

  CHAMBERS David (University of Cambridge) : Is Regulation Essentiel to Stock Market Development ? Going Puplic in London and Berlin, 1900-1913

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 21 March 2011 17:30-19:00

  THOMAS Mark (University of Virginia) : Chamberlain, Tariff Reform and British Economic Performance before World War I

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 March 2011 17:30-19:00

  FENSKE James (LSE) : Ecology, trade and states in pre-Colonial Africa

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 February 2011 17:30-19:00

  HOFFMAN Philip T. (Caltech) : Causes and Consequences of World Conquest: An Economic Model

  Full text [pdf]

• Friday 21 January 2011 09:00-12:30

  Inheritance, wealth accumulation and growth in France, 1820-2050

  WORKSHOP Intervenants : Robert ALLEN, Anthony ATKINSON, Giovannin FEDERICO & Thomas PIKETTY ATTENTION : SEANCE EXCEPTIONNELLEMENT UN VENDREDI

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 3 January 2011 17:30-19:00

  CHAMLEY Christophe (PSE) : Fiscal Policy under constraints between Philip II, the Cortes and Genoese Bankers

  Co-auteur: Carlos Alvarez Nogal

  Abstract

  > Castile created in the 16th century the large nation-wide domestic public debt (half GDP). We present a new view of the fiscal system under Philip II. Given historical and institutional constraints, the feasibility of the debt depended on the funding through taxes administered by the towns that represented the realm in the Cortes. Short-term unfunded debt depended on the intermediation of commercial paper through Genoese bankers who managed international transfers. ``Debt crises'' were caused by protracted negotiations about domestic taxation in the Cortes. The most important one, 1573-1577, froze the commercial paper market, prevented the holdings of trade fairs, which induced the towns to eventually accept higher taxes to convert the bankers' loans into domestic debt.

• Monday 6 December 2010 17:30-19:00

  OLMSTEAD Alan (University of California) : Adapting to Climate: The Transformation of North American Wheat Production, 1839-2009

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 29 November 2010 17:30-19:00

  PUERTA Juan Manuel (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) : The Fewer, the Merrier: Compulsory Schooling Laws, Human Capital, and Fertility in the United States

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 15 November 2010 17:30-19:00

  RITSCHL Albrecht (LSE) : Crisis ? What Crisis ? Currency vs. Banking in the Financial Crisis of 1931

  Co-auteur(s) : Samad Sarferaz

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 18 October 2010 18:00-19:30

  MARKOVITS Claude (CNRS) : Le travail contraint en Asie et en Europe, 17e-20e siècles

  Editions de la MSH, Paris 2010

• Monday 4 October 2010 17:30-19:00

  GELDERBLOM Oscar (Utrecht University) : One Recipe, Seventeen Outcomes ?

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 27 September 2010 17:30-19:00

  YUNG Liu Shi (Academia Sinica) : Malaria Eradication in Colonial Taiwan: The Long-term Effect on Human Capital Formation

• Tuesday 21 September 2010 10:00-18:00

  JOURNEES DOCTORANTS

• Monday 13 September 2010 17:00-19:30

  Quelles normes pour l'entreprise ?

  Séance exceptionnelle Avec la participation de: Blanche Segrestin (Mines ParisTech) Hervé Joly (LARHRA-CNRS) Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (Caltech) Patrick Fridenson (CRH-EHESS)

• Monday 21 June 2010 17:30-19:00

  CHAUDHURY Pradipta (Delhi) : Political Economy of Caste in Northern India, 1901-1931

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 June 2010 17:00-18:30

  MORADI Alexander (Sussex : tba) : "Borders that divide: Ghana and its neighbors since colonial times"

• Monday 31 May 2010 14:00

  *

  SEANCE EXCEPTIONNELLE SUITE ARTICLES

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 31 May 2010 14:00-18:30

  GRANTHAM Georges (Université Mc Gill) : Histoire économique de la très longue durée

  Séance Exceptionnelle Autour de travaux de Georges Grantham Avec Olivier Buchsenschutz (CNRS) Katherine Gruel (CNRS) Frédéric Trément (Université de Clermont-Ferrand) Séance exceptionnelle Alain Villes (musée d'archéologie nationale)

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 17 May 2010 17:00-18:30

  The session was canceled.

  BERGMANN Dirk (Yale) : Public Finances in cities and state: the Spanish Habsburg moment

  Participants : C. Nogual (Carlos III), M. Dincecco (Lucca IAS), M. Drelichmann (UBC), D. Fortea Perez (Cantabria), Organizers : Ch. Chamley and P.-C. Hautcoeur (PSE)

• Monday 3 May 2010 17:30-19:00

  VOLCKART Oliver (LSE tba) : Money, States and Empire: Financial Integration Cycles and Institutional Change in Central Europe, 1400-1520

  Co-auteur(s) : David Chilosi

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 29 March 2010 17:30-19:00

  MONNET Eric (PSE) : Credit controls did matter. An evaluation of monetary policy during France's Golden Age, 1945-1973

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 15 March 2010 17:30-19:00

  WHITE Eugene (Rutgers tba) : Lessons from the Great American Real Estate Boom and Bust of the 1920s

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 15 February 2010 17:30-19:00

  SUSSMAN Nathan (Hebrew tba) : Taxation Mechanisme and Growth, in Medieval Paris

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 1 February 2010 17:30-19:00

  PIKETTY Thomas (PSE) : On The Long-Run Evolution of Inheritance - France 1820-2050

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 18 January 2010 17:30-19:00

  CASSAN Guilhem (Phd Student - Paris School of Economics) : British law and caste identity manipulation in colonial India: the Punjab alienation of land act

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 4 January 2010 17:30-19:00

  HOFFMAN Philip (CalTech) : Why Was It that Europeans Conquered the World

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 14 December 2009 17:30-19:00

  O’SULLIVAN Mary (Wharton) : Merchants Go to Market: Securities Markets and the Development of the U.S. Retail Industry, 1885-1930

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 30 November 2009 17:30-19:00

  O'GRADA Cormac (University College Dublin) : harvest shortfalls, grain prices and famines in pre-industrial England

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 16 November 2009 17:30-19:00

  SOLAR Peter (Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) : The English cotton spinning industry, 1780-1840, as revealed in the columns of the London Gazette” (co-écrit avec John Lyon, Miami University

• Monday 2 November 2009 17:30-19:00

  BAZOT Guillaume (PSE) : Credit constraint in 19th France: the role of geographical access to the Bank of France (1882-1911

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 2 November 2009 17:30-19:00

  BAZOT Guillaume (PSE) : Credit constraint in 19th France: the role of geographical access to the Bank of France (1882-1911

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 October 2009 17:30-19:00

  KESZTENBAUM Lionel (INED) : The health cost of living in a city: The case of France at the end of the 19th century" (co-écrit avec L.-L. Rosenthal)

• Monday 19 October 2009 17:30-19:00

  KESZTENBAUM Lionel (INED) : The health cost of living in a city: The case of France at the end of the 19th century" (co-écrit avec L.-L. Rosenthal)

• Monday 18 May 2009 14:30-18:00

  Travail et conditions de vie en Afrique dans la longue durée

  14h30-16h00: Gareth Austin (LSE): "Coercion and markets: the political economy of slavery in West Africa, c.1450-1900" Issiaka Mandé (Université Paris-Diderot): "Législation du travail en Afrique occidentale française, de la fin XIXe siècle à 1956" 16h30-18h00: Alexander Moradi (University of Sussex): "Exploring the evolution of living standards in Ghana, 1880-2000: An anthropometric approach", with Gareth Austin and Joerg Baten Denis Cogneau (PSE et IRD): "Social mobility and colonial legacy" with T. Bossuroy

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 27 April 2009 17:30-19:00

  MURPHY Tommy (Bocconi univ.) : When Smaller Families Seem Contagious: A Spatial Look at the French Fertility Decline Using an Agent-Based Simulation Model

  Co-auteur : Sandra González-Bailón

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 16 March 2009 10:00-17:00

  Journée retraites et vieillissement

  Participants : Elise Feller, Georg Fertig, Chulhee Lee, Mathieu Leimgruber, Michel Oris, Susannah Ottaway, David Weir

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 2 February 2009 17:30-19:00

  FERRIE Joseph (Nortwestern univ.) : Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise'? The Link Between Conditions in Childhood and Physical, Economic, and Cognitive Outcomes After Age 65 in the U.S., 1895-2005

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 January 2009 17:30-19:00

  The session was canceled.

  FERRIE Joseph (Nortwestern univ.) : Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise'? The Link Between Conditions in Childhood and Physical, Economic, and Cognitive Outcomes After Age 65 in the U.S., 1895-2005

• Monday 1 December 2008 17:30-19:00

  DAUDIN Guillaume (Univ. de Lille) : Domestic Trade and Market size in Late Eighteenth century France

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 13 October 2008 17:30-19:00

  On the crest of price waves or steady as she goes ? Explaining the food purchases of the convent-school at Saint-Cyr 1703-1788

  Auteurs : Martin Bruegel, Jean-Michel Chevet, Sébastien Lecocq et Jean-Marc Robin - Discutante : Anne McCants

• Monday 2 June 2008 17:30-19:00

  DODMAN Thomas (PSE) : Acclimatizing to Alienation: Nostalgia in Colonial Algeria (1830-1871)

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 May 2008 17:30-19:00

  CUMMINS Neil (PSE) : Marital Fertility and Wealth in Transition Era France – a First Look

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 5 May 2008 17:30-19:00

  BATEN J. (Univ. de Tubingen) : Global Heights: anthropometric development in 165 countries, 1810-1980

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 7 April 2008 17:30-19:00

  SCHELTJENS Werner (PSE) : The impact of a new port on the organization of maritime shipping: an attempt to generalize the results of a case-study on the foundation of St. Petersburg and its influence on Dutch maritime shipping in the Gulf of Finland and Archangel (1703-1740)

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 31 March 2008 17:30-19:00

  RASS Christoph (Université d'Aix la Chapelle (RWTH)) : Did international labour treaties help to spread equal labour standards?

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• Monday 17 March 2008 17:30-19:00

  HANNAH Leslie (University of Tokyo) : Logistics, market size and plant size before 1914

  Abstract

  Around 1900, the businesses of developed Europe – transporting freight by a more advantageous mix of ships, trains and horses – encountered logistic barriers to trade lower than the tyranny of distance imposed on the sparsely populated United States. Highly urbanized, economically integrated and compact northwest Europe was a market space larger than, and - factoring in other determinants besides its (low) tariffs - not less open to inter-country trade than the contemporary American market was to interstate trade. By the early twentieth century, the First European Integration enabled mines and factories – in small, as well as large, countries – to match the size of United States plants, where factor endowments, consumer demand or scale economies required that.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 18 February 2008 17:30-19:00

  THISSE Jacques (CORE) : Inégalités spatiales de développement économique en France (1860-2000)

  Pierre-Philippe COMBES (GRECAM, Marseille) and Jean-Claude TOUTAIN

• Monday 4 February 2008 17:30-19:00

  SIMMONS D. (Univ. of Chicago) : Accounting for Life: the Sciences of Human Need

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 21 January 2008 17:30-19:00

  FERTIG Georg (Univ. of Muenster) : What did 19th century farmers need a savings bank for? The life cycle, saving, and its substitutes (a case study)

  Co-auteur : J. Bracht

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 3 December 2007 17:30-19:00

  BASSINO J.P. (Faculty of Mathematics and Social Sciences Paul Valéry University (Mon) : Market Integration and Famines in Early Modern Japan, 1717-1857

  Abstract

  While enjoying a long period of peace under the rule of the Tokugawa (1603-1867), associated with regional specialization and a relatively high degree of market integration, the Japanese population experienced severe famines that claimed several hundred thousands lives. The most dramatic episodes of the 18th and 19th century occurred in 1731-1733, 1783-1786, and 1833-1838. As agricultural practices, crop mix, and degree of commercialization and specialization varied across Japan, it is worth considering the possibility of regional differences of economic systems in response to exogenous shocks. This paper evaluates the degree of market integration and investigates how regional markets functioned during famines.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 19 November 2007 17:30-19:00

  VELDE F. (Federal reserve bank of Chicago) : Chronicle of a Deflation Unforetold

  Abstract

  Suppose the nominal money supply could be cut literally overnight by, say, 20%. What would happen to prices, wages, output? The answer can be found in 1720s France, where just such an experiment was carried out, repeatedly. Prices adjusted instantaneously and fully on one market only, that for foreign exchange. Prices on other markets (such as commodities) as well as prices of manufactured goods and industrial wages fell slowly, over many months, and not by the full amount of the nominal reduction. Coincidentally or not, the industrial sector (as represented by manufacturing of woolen cloths) experienced a contraction of 30%. When the government changed course and increased the nominal money supply overnight by 20%, prices responded much more, and the woolen industry rebounded.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 5 November 2007 16:00-17:30

  BOTTICINI M. (Univ. di Torino) : Matching in Marriage Markets: Theory and History

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• Monday 29 October 2007 17:30-19:00

  VOLODIN A. (Moscow state univ.) : Russian Factory Inspection (1882-1918): Cui Bono?

  Abstract

  Andrei VOLODIN (Historical Information Science Department, Moscow Lomonosov State University): Russian Factory Inspection (1882-1918): Cui Bono? This study deals with history of important state institution in late Russian Empire – factory inspection. Such aspects of institutional development as evolution of legislative regulations, staff growth, and diversity of functions (and particularly, mediation in labour conflicts) are scrutinized. This paper presents results on Russian experience of labour law implementation seeking to determine and evaluate the role and efficiency of Russian factory inspectors in conflicting triangle of relations among state, industrialists and workers.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 29 October 2007 14:00-17:30

  HAUTCOEUR P.C. (Paris School of Economics) : Young researchers' workshop in economic history

  Participants : Neil Cummings (Paris School of Economics and London School of Economics), Claudia Riani (European University Institute), Paul Lagneau (EHESS (CSE) and Paris School of Economics ) and Angelo Riva (U. di Milano, IDHE and Paris School of Economics), Paul Sharp (European University Institute and University of Copenhagen), Jacob Weisdorf (Paris School of Economics and University of Copenhagen)

  Abstract

  Journée d'étude de rentrée des doctorants et post-doctorants en histoire économique (October 29, 2007) 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm < location > The main aim of the workshop is to gather new researchers of economic history in a friendly and non-imposing environment where they can present their ongoing research and receive constructive criticism from their peers as well as from more experienced researchers. Non-presenters, including more experienced researchers, are encouraged to participate, in order to learn about the research interests of young researchers and discuss their papers. Organizers: Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur and Jacob Weisdorf

• Monday 22 October 2007 17:30-19:00

  NOGUAL C. (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid) : The Spanish Monarchy´s Credit: was really a bad strategy to borrow from foreing bankers?

• Monday 15 October 2007 17:30-19:00

  WEISDORF J. (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) : A Malthusian Model for all Seasons

  Paul Sharp (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

  Abstract

  It has become popular to argue (e.g. Clark 2007) that all societies were Malthusian until about 1800. At the same time, the phenomenon of surplus labour is well-documented for historical (as well as modern) pre-industrial societies. This study discusses the paradox of surplus labour in a Malthusian economy. Inspired by the work of Boserup (1965) and others, and in contrast to the Lewis (1954) approach, we suggest that the phenomenon of surplus labour is best understood through an acceptance of the importance of seasonality in agriculture. Boserup observed that the harvest season was invariably associated with labour shortages (the high-season bottleneck on production), although there might be labour surplus during the low season. We introduce the concept of seasonality into a Malthusian model, and endogenize the extent of agricultural labour input, which is then used to calculate labour surplus and the rate of labour productivity. We observe the effects of season-specific technological progress, and find that technological progress in the low-season increases labour surplus and labour productivity whilst, perhaps surprisingly, technological progress in the high-season, by relaxing the high-season bottleneck, leads to work intensification and a drop in labour surplus and labour productivity.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 18 June 2007 17:30-19:00

  CHAMLEY C. (PSE) : Contingent Government Liabilities against Private Expectations in England, 1743-49

  Abstract

  England financed its war of the Austrian succession (1743-48) mainly by issuing 3% bonds and 4% callable bonds which were indeed redeemed by Pelham in 1749 through an interest reduction. The implicit policy rules and constraints made the 4% bond a derivative asset of a 3% perpetual. The price data fit with a model of pricing of this derivative. The estimated model shows that the redemption terms were well anticipated, but government bond prices recovered after the war much sooner than expected. Callable bonds enabled the government to exploit that excess of pessimism in reducing its borrowing cost. Key words: Callable bonds, Derivative Asset Pricing, War Financing, Rational Expectations, Excess-pessimism. Classification: N23, N43, G14, G18.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 4 June 2007 17:30-19:00

  BORDO M. D. (Rutgers univ.) : Foreign Capital and Economic Growth in the First Era of Globalization

  Co-auteur (s) : C. M. Meissner

  Abstract

  The First Era of Globalization, 1870-1913, was marked by a degree of integration in goods and financial markets comparable to that which prevails today. It also exhibited a large number of financial crises that unfolded in ways very similar to those experienced since the 1970s. In light of skepticism about whether market-based finance is good for development, this paper will reexamine the impact of capital market integration on economic growth during this period. First we will explore whether there are growth benefits from participation in the international capital market. Second we will analyze the side effects of open international capital markets. Between 1880 and 1913 financial crises that accompanied sudden stops meant that any growth advantages to greater inflows of foreign capital were greatly diminished. We then look at several determinants of debt crises and financial crises including the currency composition of debt, debt intolerance and the role of political institutions. We argue that the set of countries that had the worst growth outcomes were those that had currency crises, original sin, poorly developed financial markets and presidential political systems. Those that avoided financial catastrophe generated credible commitments and sound fiscal and financial policies. Such countries succeeded in escaping major financial crises and grew relatively faster despite the potential of facing sudden stops of capital inflows, major current account reversals and currency speculation that accompanied international capital markets free of capital controls.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 30 April 2007 17:30-19:00

  OGILVIE S. C. (Univ. of Cambridge) : Can We Rehabilitate the Guilds? A Sceptical Re-Appraisal

• Monday 23 April 2007 17:30-19:00

  KLEIN A. (LSE) : All in the Family: Rural-Urban Migration in Bohemia at the End of the Nineteenth Century

  Abstract

  This paper analyzes the rural-urban migration of families in the Bohemian region of Pilsen in 1890–1900. Using a new 2000-family dataset from the 1900 population census I examine the human capital investment aspect of rural-urban migration. I find that families migrated to the city such that the educational attainment of their children would be maximized and adolescent children are systematically more present as apprentices than unskilled workers. The results strongly suggest that in addition to labor reallocation, rural-urban migration is also a mechanism of human capital investment.

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 2 April 2007 17:30-19:00

  DUFLO E. (MIT) : Long run impacts of income shocks: Wine and Phylloxera in 19th century France

  Co-auteur (s) : A. Banerjee, G.Postel-Vinay & T. Watts

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 26 March 2007 17:30-19:00

  EHESS, 54 bd Raspail, 2e étage, salle 215

  HARRIS R. (Tel Aviv univ.) : The Institutional Dynamics of Early Modern Eurasian Trade: The Corporation and the Commenda

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 5 February 2007 17:30-19:00

  SOLAR P. (Vesalius College) : Nominal Wage Rigidity in Pre-Industrial Labour Markets

• Monday 29 January 2007 17:30-19:00

  ORLEAN A. (PSE) : Croyances monétaires et pouvoir des banques centrales

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 15 January 2007 17:30-19:30

  ATKINSON A. (Nuffield College) : The Distribution of Individual Earnings in Historical Perspective

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 18 December 2006 17:30-19:00

  GELDERBLOM O. (Utrecht Univ.) : Exploring the market for Government bonds in the Dutch Republic (1600-1800)

  Co-auteur (s) : J. Jonker

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 20 November 2006 17:30-19:30

  FISHBACK P. V. (Univ. of Arizona) : The Effect of Internal Migration on Local Labor Markets: American Cities During the Great Depression

  Co-auteurs : L. Platt Boustan & S. E. Kantor

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 6 November 2006 17:30-19:00

  DI MARTINO P. (Univ. of Manchester) : Bankruptcy, insolvency, and the problem of re-starting business: the economic perspective

  Co-auteur (s) : M. Vasta

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 23 October 2006 17:30-19:00

  ROSENTHAL J.L. (California institute of technology) : Business organization in the long run : private limited companies rules

  Co-auteurs : T. Guinnane, R. Harris, N.R. Lamoreaux

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 9 October 2006 17:30-19:00

  GRANTHAM G. (Mc Gill univ.) : The prehistoric origins of european economic integration

  Full text [pdf]

• Monday 25 September 2006 17:30-19:00

  CERRETANO V. (Libera università di Bolzano) : Bank of England and british industry : from industrial decontrol to industrial intervention, 1920-1931

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• 0000 12:30-14:00

  Salle R.00, Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris

  MC CARTIN Joseph A. (Georgetown University) : TBA

• 0000

  Campus Jourdan, bâtiment G, 1er étage, salle de réunions

  Inherited wealth over the path of development: Sweden, 1810–2010