Selling to reluctant drinkers: the British wine market, 1860–1914

Attempts to stimulate wine drinking in Britain in the early 1860s succeeded in tripling wine imports, but this increase proved short lived, and per caput consumption was no greater in 1914 than it had been in 1815. Supply volatility, together with difficulties in establishing impersonal exchange mechanisms in place of those based on the personal reputation of economic agents, made it difficult to create a mass market. Not only did consumers receive insufficient information to identify quality prior to purchase, but the high price of some wines also encouraged cheap imitations, some of which were prejudicial to the health of the drinker.     

Tsarist Russia and the World Wheat Market

Russian grain trade, production, and consumption during the Tsarist period (1861–1914) is empirically evaluated. Russia was the world's largest wheat exporter during this period. Tsarist Russian agriculture is often characterized in the literature as having been “backward” and not well-integrated with international markets. In contrast to this view, this analysis finds that the Russian grain trade was significantly influenced by international prices and was well-integrated with the international commercial wheat trade. Our results indicate that after 1880 regional wheat markets in Russia were linked and that a strong connection had been established between Russian ports and cities at the center of the world wheat trade. Deviations from equilibrium price relationships were found to be eliminated more rapidly for trade between Odessa and England than for wheat trade between New York and England. In addition, grain trade is shown to have been positively influenced by the development of the rail system.     

An annual index of Irish industrial production, 1800–1913

We assemble the Irish industrial data currently available for the years 1800–1921, the period during which the entire island was in a political union with Great Britain, and construct an annual index of Irish industrial output for 1800–1913. We also construct a new industrial price index. Irish industrial output grew by an average of 1.3 per cent per annum between 1800 and the outbreak of the First World War. Industrial growth was slightly slower than previously thought, especially during the two decades immediately preceding the Great Famine. While Ireland did not experience absolute deindustrialisation either before the Famine or afterwards, its industrial growth was disappointing when considered in a comparative perspective.     

Consumer Prices and Expenditure Patterns in Australia 1850–1914

A consumer price index is estimated for Australia for the period 1850 to 1914. This required the derivation of expenditure weights, permitting in turn comparisons of changes in the composition of expenditure patterns both across time and with nineteenth-century United States evidence. Several variants of the price index were compiled to suit different uses as well as to assess the sensitivity of price movements to reasonable changes in estimation methods. No major differences in these variants were observed over the long run. In the 1890s and 1900s, however, significant short-run differences in price movements exist between variants of the CPI.     

Consumption and material culture in sixteenth‐century Ireland1

New evidence from a series of 11 Bristol customs accounts indicates that Irish consumption patterns underwent significant changes over the course of the sixteenth century. This article considers the use of the Bristol ‘particular’ accounts and port books as a source for Irish material culture and consumption studies and uses the customs data as a statistical framework on which to establish how, why, and to what extent patterns of consumption changed in Ireland. It considers who was consuming the increasing range of commodities that were imported into Ireland from Bristol towards the end of the century, and what changing consumption patterns may reveal about the nature of Ireland's economy, society, and culture during this critical period in Irish history.     

New Belgian Stock Market Returns: 1832–1914

The limited availability of high quality and computer readable data seriously impedes research in history and finance. We introduce a new monthly return series for Belgian owned equity based on Brussels Stock Market data for the period 1832–1914 as an improvement to the popular Drappier index. Over this period, our dataset includes 446,374 prices, 23,976 dividends, 371 stock and reverse splits (or other capital operations) on 2037 stocks of 1387 (foreign and Belgian) companies. Our dataset includes all shares and bonds but also high-quality information on prices, dividends, shares outstanding and market capitalization. In addition, company, country and sector information is available. We construct value weighted, price weighted and equally weighted indices as well as dividend yields. We find three important results. First, total nominal returns hover between 3.29% and 5.35% per annum, depending on how individual stocks are aggregated into the index. Second, dividend income constitutes the major part of total return and dividend distributions have a clear seasonal pattern. Third, the results highlight several drawbacks of the Drappier indices, especially an upward bias in expected equity performance.     

Variations in the price and quality of English grain, 1750–1914: Quantitative evidence and empirical implications

Interpretation of historic grain price data may be hazardous owing to systematic grain quality variation — both cross sectionally and over varying time horizons (intra-year, inter-year, long run). We use the English wheat market, 1750–1914, as an example to quantify this issue. First, we show that bushel weight approximates grain quality. Then we show that cross sectional and intra-year variation are substantial and problematic, generating erroneous inference regarding market integration. Long run variation is significant, due to sharply declining international quality differentials, and this impacts estimated cost of living changes. By contrast, inter-year variation is smaller and controlled for more easily.     

New series for agricultural prices in London, 1770–1914

New annual series for the prices of major agricultural commodities sold in London markets between 1770 and 1914 are presented. These series are based on bimonthly observations drawn from newspaper market reports. The products covered are wheat, barley (grinding and malting), oats, potatoes, hay, butter, beef, mutton, and pork. Annual prices are calculated for both calendar and production years. The new series are compared to existing series.     

Household consumption patterns and the consumer price index,England, 1260–1869

Existing long-run consumer price indices for England rely on a fixed consumption basket. Here we construct a methodologically improved, chained-Laspeyres price index for ordinary households based on their changing expenditure patterns between 1260 and 1869. Rather than offering a revisionist perspective on long-run costs, it confirms the broad accuracy of existing indices for the pre-industrial period. The dominant dependence of the key items of expenditure on agricultural, particularly arable, prices explains this finding. The industrial period introduced a new dynamic. The shift in household expenditure towards imported groceries and manufactured goods allowed for more substitution in response to relative price and income changes. Adding the current series to those chained-Laspeyres indices available for later periods provides a CPI for ordinary households in England over nearly eight centuries; from 1260 to the present day.     

居民消费价格指数变动趋势预测

一年来,居民消费价格指数(CPI)呈线性增长态势,形成通胀压力。经过建立数学模型测定,以及定性分析对定量分析结果的修正,可以预见,CPI增幅将会突破4%,且今后一段时期内,CPI仍会处在增幅3%以上的高位波动,通胀压力仍然存在,但CPI的上升空间有限。     

Testing the demand approach to reconstruct pre-industrial agricultural output

A common method to reconstruct historical national accounts is the demand approach, which calculates agricultural consumption from the development of wages and prices of agricultural and non-agricultural products assuming constant income, own price and cross price elasticities of demand. This study uses agricultural data for Sweden 1802–1950, which is more reliable than for other countries, to put the approach to test. Time series analysis shows that the demand approach could be modelled as a cointegrating relationship between per capita demand and the deflated wage. Income elasticity is estimated to +0.4. Using the estimated parameters to extrapolate Swedish agricultural consumption back to the Middle Ages accords quite well with other indicators. However, out-of-sampling shows that the 90% confidence interval is as large as ±0.15–0.25 natural logarithms.     

中国农村消费水平的实证分析

本文以如何提高我国农村居民的消费水平为研究目的建立计量经济模型,分析表明中国农村居民家庭人均年消费支出受到下面三个因素影响:农村居民家庭年人均纯收入、农村从业人员从事非农产业的人口比重和农产品生产价格指数。     

近期我国通货膨胀的原因及应对策略分析

通常情况下，通货通胀由经济过热引起，治理措施重点放在紧缩信贷、减缓经济增速方面。而我国货币发行量已经有所节制，经济增长幅度也在缩小，通胀却在攀升，2008年5月12日，国家统计局发表4月GPI指数上涨8．5％，比3月的83％，环比增长0．1％。此次我国发生的CPI指数上升与以往通胀不同，显然我们还有疏漏。原因是多方面的，本文主要从以下三个方面分析：一是涨价中有合理因素，如农产品涨价；二是进口型通胀；三是与世界经济接轨导致原来的价格体系转化，新的与世界密切联系的价格体系正在形成之中产生的价格波动、拉升，连带滋生出泡沫。在分析原因的基础上，给出一些应对性策略。     

辽宁省出口贸易的多因素分析

为了更好的发展辽宁省出口贸易,运用计量经济学的计量方法以及E-views软件,对辽宁省出口额、辽宁省地区生产总值、人民币汇率（人均年平均数,对美元）、居民消费价格指数、城镇新增固定资产进行回归分析,并且对模型的时间序列平稳性、多重共线性、异方差以及自相关进行检验。得出最终模型,分析表明居民消费价格指数、人民币汇率对产品出口具有很高的相关性,其次是地区生产总值,城镇新增固定资产也对辽宁出口贸易产生影响。     

Price expectations and consumption under deflation: evidence from Japanese household survey data

The Japanese economy has experienced price deflation since the mid-1990s. Despite the importance of overcoming deflation, there has been little recent research on price expectations in Japan. This paper takes advantage of an original and rich quarterly household-level data set from the “Kokumin Seikatsu Monitors” to estimate average price expectations, examine the factors that affect price expectations, and examine how changes in price expectations have affected household consumption. Our estimates indicate that average price expectations ranged from minus 0.2 to 0% in 2001 and 2002. However, there was an increase to 1% in the first quarter of 2003, followed by a decline to 0.2% in the second quarter, and a steady increase toward 0.8% by the first quarter of 2004. Price expectations depend on current price movements and lagged expectations. A series of quantitative easing monetary policies were not very effective in changing the price expectations, since the policy announcements caused revision of price expectations only for a small portion, i.e., 5–10% of people surveyed. The jump observed in the first quarter of 2003 was a reaction to the outbreak of the Iraq war. Our study also confirms that deflationary expectations discourage household consumption, mainly durable consumption, by delaying the timing of purchases, suggesting that the deflationary expectations should be upwardly revised to restore a vital Japanese economy.     

房价与地价关系及上海的数据检验

文章运用房地产经济学的理论对房地产发展中房价和地价的关系进行分析论证,阐明了长期中房价对地价的影响更加显著的机制.并且针对上海房地产业发展的实际情况,通过时间序列分析,对以上观点加以检验,得出短期内房价与地价互相影响而长期中房价影响地价的结论.     

房价压力会刺激文化消费吗?

文章应用CFPS2010、2012、2014年的调查数据,以房价收入比指数作为"房价压力"的代理变量,探讨了房价压力对文化消费的影响机制。在我国房价收入比畸高的社会环境下,消费者同时受到"释放压力型"消费需求的驱使和可支配收入减少的预算约束,为了缓解生活压力,获得心理慰藉,增加了对相对廉价且非必需的文化消费品的需求,即口红效应成为房价压力影响文化消费的传导机制。研究发现：控制户主受教育水平、家庭其他生活压力、地区经济发展水平和文化消费氛围等因素,在城镇中仅拥有一套及以下住房资产的家庭中,高"房价压力"显著提升了居民文化消费需求。在影响机制研究中,首先,通过验证房价压力对总消费的抑制作用剥离了财富效应的影响,其次,通过验证房价压力对大额消费品和小额消费品影响的异质性,证实了房价压力对文化消费影响口红效应的存在性。进一步将研究样本按照消费文化类型、收入阶层和受教育阶层分组后发现：开放的消费文化下高"房价压力"对居民文化消费的促进作用更强,中等收入阶层在高"房价压力"下进行"释放压力型"文化消费的需求最强烈。高学历层次居民在面对"房价压力"时更倾向选择文化消费作为释放压力的渠道。     

Revising price history: consumer price index for Norway 1492–2018

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a new combined annual cost of living and consumer price index for Norway covering 1492–2018, indicating that Norwegian price history has to be revised. The new historical price index is constructed on a significantly richer data material, which also makes it cover a longer period of price history than the existing one. This is made possible by the compilation of quantitative data from numerous sources, mostly originating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with grain prices stretching back to 1492. The new combined cost of living and consumer price index is constructed by a Laspeyres approach with shifting baskets for commodities and expenditure groups.

The index makes it possible to follow annual inflation and deflation in Norway for a period of 526 years. When comparing to existing indices, the new series reveals that revisions are needed in Norwegian price history. These make the historical price development more in line with those of the neighbouring countries and more in line with the pattern of wholesale prices.     

Political risk and the international bond market between the 1848 revolution and the outbreak of the First World War1

This article uses price data and editorial commentaries from the contemporary financial press to measure the impact of political events on investors’ expectations from the middle of the nineteenth century until the First World War. The main question addressed is why political events appeared to affect the world's biggest financial market, the London bond market, much less between 1881 and 1914 than they had between 1843 and 1880. In particular, I ask why the outbreak of the First World War, an event traditionally seen as having been heralded by a series of international crises, was not apparently anticipated by investors. The article considers how far the declining sensitivity of the bond market to political events was a result of the spread of the gold standard, increased international financial integration, or changes in the fiscal policies of the great powers. I suggest that the increasing national separation of bond markets offers a better explanation. However, even this structural change cannot explain why the London market was so slow to appreciate the risk of war in 1914. To investors, the First World War truly came as a bolt from the blue.     

基于计量经济学模型的福建省旅游收入影响因素分析

旅游业收入在整个福建省国民经济收入中占据越来越重要的地位。基于计量经济学模型,收集了2007—2017年间福建省旅游相关数据,并以福建省国内旅游收入为因变量,选取福建省接待国内旅游人数、来自国内游客人均消费、福建省居民消费价格指数、福建省公路通车里程和A级景区个数作为相应解释变量进行多元线性回归,继而检验参数,并进行逐步回归修正,最后得出结论:福建省接待的国内旅游人数和国内人均消费以及福建省居民消费价格指数是影响福建省国内旅游收入最主要的因素,并基于此提出福建省提高旅游收入的建议措施。